A/N Just as an observation, I do a bit more writing of Charah stuff now that I have Charah fans like Tut1971 and Molotov making regular comments about the Charah I write. Similarly, I do a bit more scene setting ever since resaw started mentioning how much my increased scene-setting improved his experience of the story. I'm sensing a theme here.
pizza: She uploaded the Intersect because the producers wanted her to. Purely manipulative story-telling. Obviously Casey would have shot Quinn first, in any real showdown. I could see it all coming from a mile away when he didn't. Real story logic doesn't let you lie.
I am once again filling in some empty space left at the end of last episode, in between Chuck's kidnapping and the attempted rescue. In canon this space was left empty, but I have other interested parties who need to be heard from. The canon attack on the Buy More by Quinn has been split into two parts. The first part we saw last chapter, with an attack on Team B in the hotel. The second part is Quinn's attack, in this case on Morgan, mostly offscreen.
"What's your angle?"
"We only want Carmichael."
"Let me talk to your boss."
"Where's Chuck?"
Dinnertime in DC…
Ellie settled herself into the cushioned seat of honor, with a sigh of relief and only a slight hitch of pain.
Naturally Devon noticed. "You okay, babe?"
"Yes, Devon, I'm fine," said Ellie, trying to keep still below the waist. "Just a little sore."
"We can always do this another night–"
So considerate, and so wrong. "No, Devon, we can't. A United States General cannot just clear her schedule anytime she pleases. I need to find out what's happening with Chuck and Sarah, and I will sit on a block of stone if I have to, to do that."
"Not in my restaurant, you won't, Eleanor Faye Bartowski Woodcombe," said Morgan grandly.
"Hey," said Devon. "Watch it with the name-dropping, will you buddy? That's not always safe in this town."
"Doctor and Mrs. Woodcombe, you can relax," said General Beckman, oddly matched height-wise with her escort. Morgan pulled out her chair and she settled primly. "The reason I had to do this dinner tonight is because the secure booth here is so sought after all other nights. We can talk in peace."
Post-dinnertime, in Colorado…
Sarah forced her fists to unclench, her stance to relax. "Why are you here?"
"Where's Alex?" said Alex' dad. The FBI did kidnappings. Not committing them, resolving them.
Mary approached slowly, putting her weapons away as she shifted her gaze from one to the next of her strange family. "'Hi, mom.' 'Good shooting.' 'Thank you, Agent Frost.' Let me know when I get close."
The non-Chuck members of Team B shared a glance. "Hi, mom," said Casey, straining at some variety of falsetto. It didn't sound like Sarah.
"Good shooting," said Carina, her voice as low as she could get it, which wasn't far. The grin spoiled it. She didn't sound like Casey.
Sarah shook her head, but dutifully chimed in with, "Thanks, Agent Frost."
Mary smiled, almost laughed, but twenty years in service, controlling a psychotic criminal genius still came to her aid from time to time. "She did say there'd be days…"
"Beckman?" asked Carina.
"Who else? She didn't say anything about the nights, though." She looked at Casey. "Alex is babysitting for Ellie."
"You're our backup?"
Her retirement hadn't been exactly voluntary, so her reinstatement wasn't exactly official. "Not exactly…"
Dinnertime, in DC…
Oh, thank God! And thank Alex, for getting to Florida in time! "So Sarah's coming back?"
"I'm afraid not, Ellie," said Diane. "She's still a potential target for the Norseman. She's actually safer in the field."
Ellie thought about all the unsafe things out in the field, but merely said, "I hope so."
Just then one of the waiters tapped politely on the panel by the entrance. "Excuse me, General, but the maitre D' tells me you might want to close the privacy door for a little while. It could get a little loud out here."
Beckman nodded as she wiped her mouth. "An excellent suggestion. Please, see to it."
The waiter nodded and withdrew, and the little sounds from without went with him. The silence killed their conversation inside as well.
Suddenly a low rumbling noise forced its way into their space. Men yelling, and popping sounds.
"Hmm, that reminds me," said Diane, fishing out her phone. "My apologies, but duty calls."
"What is that, champagne?" asked Ellie. "Sounds like a pretty wild party."
Or a war zone. "I expect we'll find out eventually," said Diane. "Mr. Clark, inform Jumper the mission is a go. Very good." She put the phone away. "So tell me, how are you adjusting to the baby in your lives?"
At the construction site…
"That was quick," said Casey.
Mary–Jumper–shrugged. "Chuck saw it coming somehow, gave everybody lots of time to prepare, even me. They got suckered right in. Just like these guys suckered you." She scowled fiercely at Sarah. "You are the mother of my second grandchild! Get your head in the game, or I swear I will ground you for a month. You're protecting for two, now."
So far the only version of Mary Bartowski that Sarah knew was the subtly manipulative Frost, using the influence she did have to get her way without overt displays of a power she didn't have. Mama B was a lot more direct. Now I know where Ellie gets it from! "Yes, ma'am."
"Good." Frost looked at the pile of bodies surrounding her daughter-in-law. "What do you have, that they wanted so badly?"
Sarah reached into her coat, and pulled out a pair of sunglasses.
"No," said Mary. "They could have just killed you all and taken that." She scanned the surroundings, noted all the bullet holes. "This bunch wanted you personally, it's the only reason to come down at all." She nodded her head toward the object in Sarah's hand. "What is that?"
"It's the…thing your husband made," said Sarah, aware of how exposed they were. Anyone with the right equipment could hear them. She unfolded them so they'd look like glasses. "Part two, not part one. Chuck has that."
Frost regarded the glasses like she would any dangerous weapon. Those would kill anyone who put them on, except the man they were meant for and the woman currently holding them. "Wherever Chuck is."
"Yes, ma'am." Sarah put the glasses away. "We have to get him back quickly. Whoever took him knew all about these glasses, he has to know about the…thing."
"Is he one of these?" Frost tipped one thug over with a toe.
Sarah pushed some of the others, so she could get out of the space she was in. Climbing over the pile was just too much work. "I don't know. Only one of them ever spoke and I don't know what he said."
Frost looked at Casey. He shook his head. "I couldn't make it out, either. 'Shan fa' is what it sounded like, but they were shooting at us so I could be wrong. He was facing them, though."
"'Pu shan fa'," said Carina. "No language I know."
"Is that what you heard?" Mary asked Sarah.
Sarah dithered, but eventually shook her head.
"What did you hear him say?"
Sarah looked…guilty.
"You didn't hear him at all, did you?"
Sarah shook her head again.
Oh boy, as Stephen would say. "Agent Bartowski, you are relieved."
"Thank you so much for setting my mind at rest, Diane," said Ellie as they were preparing to leave the restaurant. "Much as I hate knowing what's happening, I think being kept in the dark is much worse. I know my parents haven't been taking it well."
"I'm surprised they weren't here tonight."
"They had business back in California, Dad's rebuilding RI, only without the evil. They're probably over Colorado by now. I'll catch them up later. Thanks again."
General Beckman nodded. "Glad I'm able to keep you all in the loop. Good night."
At that moment, somewhere far to the west of Colorado…
Some days, destiny needed more help than others. "What do you mean, they vanished? An entire strike team doesn't just vanish!"
No! "You don't have that authority."
"I'm your mother-in-law, I have all the authority I need," said Mary. Then her tone softened, "No one knows better than I do, how you feel right now." She sighed. "Unfortunately that includes you. So I'm sending Sarah Bartowski off the field before she gets Agent Walker killed."
"I can control it."
"She did in Hawaii," said Carina.
"Was Chuck in danger in Hawaii? Had she been poisoned by the Atroxium in Hawaii?" asked Mary, and the silence was eloquent. She turned to Sarah. "Not to mention you can barely stand right now anyway. You broke a building the first time, and a country the second. I was there to save you in Thailand but I almost wasn't tonight, and until you learn to aim it and fire on command, you're worse than useless. Do you really want me to call your General and make it official?"
What Sarah really wanted was to go after her husband, but Mary was right, after the fight she just had, she was done. If Beckman ordered her off the case that would be pretty final. If she recused herself…"No, ma'am."
"Colonel Casey, Agent Miller, do you concur?"
Sarah watched her two partners nod, unhappily.
"Good," said Frost. "That's settled. Sarah, you can't go back to DC, obviously, so we'll take you to a safe house elsewhere, once we finish cleaning the site." They all looked around at the bodies. Lots of bodies. Most of them in a pile where Sarah had been. For some reason they all gathered to excavate that first. "We need a story." Something to explain a lot of dead bodies to the people who would be discovering this mess in just a few hours.
"Gang war?" asked Casey, grabbing an arm and a leg. Always a popular choice.
"Doesn't look it," said Carina, pulling someone else away. "These guys are all dressed the same."
"Except for the masks," said Sarah.
Carina looked at the guy she was hauling away. "What masks?"
"The guy who yelled in my face had a mask on, like these guys here at the bottom."
"Take them off," said Mary. "Those would be the ones closest to you right at the start, and if they're shouting in foreign languages, I'm guessing they aren't Americans."
Casey pulled. "You win. Looks Oriental. Not Yakuza, no tattoos."
Frost looked him over. Yakuza tattoos tended to be flamboyant, but lots of syndicates tattooed their members. She checked in the usual spots. "Here." She pointed to a couple of characters inked on the back of his neck. "These guys are Guan Yi."
Guillermo Chan sat in his office, reviewing security reports. Time was running out. The robbery of his bank by that accursed Carmichael had brought the wrath of the Guan Yi down upon his own head. If he didn't 'acquire' Carmichael soon, it would be his own painful sacrifice that appeased their wounded honor.
He looked at the image taken just hours before, in the United States. Carmichael, still without that ridiculous mustache, and the blonde. He'd originally wanted to 'acquire' her too, selling her would have made up for the money lost in the robbery itself, but extracting her from America would have been too difficult, so he settled for her death instead. Then that man Quinn had called, Carmichael in hand, and offered him in exchange for her.
All Chan had to do was get her. He pulled up the hated video of the robbery, for yet another review. He could afford no more errors. The team he'd dispatched to receive Carmichael from the locally-hired mercenaries would instead become the team to acquire the blonde directly. Carmichael's team would come to recover him, and die at their hands, except for the blonde. The redhead would be a useful prize too, but he had no idea where she was, and anyway extracting one live prisoner from America would be hard enough.
The phone rang, and he was quick to answer it. His façade of calm dropped away, like that of a condemned prisoner, feeling the noose tighten around his neck. "What do you mean, we have lost contact?"
Agent Walker had the conn. "Well, at least now we know what they want Chuck for," she said calmly.
"I told him not to say 'game-set-match' like that," said Carina.
"No you didn't," said Casey.
"I was going to, but he said it too soon."
"Enough," said Mary. "They're going to make an example of him, that gives us time and opportunity." She looked at Sarah, trying to inspire some hope, but all she saw were spy eyes looking back at her. "Maybe more than one. You two they were happy to just execute before, but now it seems like they want Sarah alive. Something's changed."
Casey grunted a negative. "The only thing that's changed is that now instead of staging a gang war with lots of guns, no blood, and everybody beaten to death, now we're staging an international mob war with lots of guns, no blood, and everybody beaten to death. In Colorado."
Carina grimaced. "I think even a Janitor would have trouble with this one."
"Hey, it's a Buy More." Casey looked around, but that perfectly valid explanation simply wasn't going to fly in that headwind. "I don't hear you guys coming up with any ideas."
"Fine," said Carina. "Uh, the white guys had the guns, the Chinese all knew kung-fu and dodged the bullets, so the home team picked up whatever was laying around and they killed each other off?"
"You're not even trying to think of a cover story, are you, Miller?"
Hours later, leaving a carefully-constructed crime scene behind…
Fortunately Mary had access to plenty of money, renting airplanes for one-way flights isn't the cheapest thing to do at the last minute. The new Orion Industries credit card even kept their names under wraps.
"I wish I knew where you were going," said Sarah, their pilot, once they were in the air.
"So do I," said Mary, sitting next to her. She laughed. "And here I was, wishing just the other day that I was more in the loop."
"Oh, so it's your fault." 'Last mission' demons had nothing on the 'I just wish' demons.
No. Yes. "Sorry about that."
"Bring him back to me."
"I will."
"I know you will. I was in Thailand with you."
Stephen Bartowski met them at the airport in California, taking Sarah in charge while her teammates checked over the latest intel. A larger and faster plane awaited them. "Where are they going?" asked Sarah as Stephen guided her to his car. She was stumbling with weariness, her body less and less willing to move.
"The flight plan says Japan," he answered, as he made sure she was buckled up. He closed the door and went around to his side. "Last I heard, Hannah and Manoosh were trading some pretty wild theories why that–um…"
Sarah was sound asleep. She didn't move as her father-in-law drove back to his safe house. With an even safer basement.
A day later (maybe two, crossing the Date Line sort of mucks up details like that)…
The city of Tokyo, Japan is bustling, day and night. Hordes of people, as far as the eye could see, and since Chuck was taller than almost all of them, he could see pretty far. He would have been happier without the manacles under his coat, or the explosives against his chest, but at least he had that.
"Hurry it up, Bartowski," said Quinn, as they entered the train station, and the crowds, under pressure, became thicker and denser. "You wouldn't want us to get separated, would you?"
Chuck didn't bother answering that, he simply moved faster, unintentionally and unavoidably rude in places where he had no choice. Quinn excelled at finding those, and Chuck left a line of people behind him thinking evil thoughts about 'gaijin' as he kept pace with Quinn's reverse proximity trigger.
Quinn had a private cabin on the world's fastest and busiest train. He sat, reading a brochure, leaving Chuck to stand or sit as he would.
"Where are we going?" asked Chuck. "I've always wanted to see Osaka myself, big Shogun fan…"
"They like to give you a lot of crap about how it's not about the destination, so much as the journey," said Quinn. "But in your case it really is about the destination." He smiled. "I like that word, 'destination'. Sounds like destiny."
Destiny implies someone cares. "You believe in destiny? I'm more of a Fate kind of guy." Fate screws everyone regardless.
"I have a destiny, Agent Charles, and so do you."
"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like mine?"
"Because your destiny is to die, so that my destiny can be fulfilled."
"We seem to be operating at cross-purposes," said Chuck. "And here I was hoping we could be friends."
Quinn put his brochure down, and stood. "Not cross purposes, Charles. Your life and mine have never intersected in any way." He pushed Chuck into a seat. "You have something that belongs to me, thanks to Bryce Larkin. But once I get Sarah Walker in my corner, I'll get it all back."
"Sarah will never fight for you."
Quinn dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "She's a woman, and women gravitate toward men with power. Female agents are no different." Quinn smirked in his victim's face. "We both know why she's with you, Charles. You really think you'd get a girl like her without the Intersect? Maybe you would, but when I get the Intersect she'll be mine. The rest of your team? Dead. Headlines in yesterday's paper. No one's coming to rescue you, Charles."
Back in yesterday (or perhaps today, Date Line problems again)…
Vivian noticed the folded up paper as they entered the terminal. "Don't tell me you actually read that scandal rag."
"There's nothing funnier than what passes for journalism in America," said Decker. "But I have to say, today is special."
"How so?"
Decker unfolded the paper and held it up, displaying a picture of an urban development project, under a lurid headline. "Bunch of Chinese Mafia get into a turf war with some local yokels and they kill each other off. Nobody wins." He folded the paper again and stuck it under his arm, chuckling. "Only at a Buy More."
A/N2 Surprise. I thought the idea that the Guan Yi would just let somebody rob their bank without even an attempt at retribution was pretty lame, but that was yet another thing that just dropped out of canon.
