A team of agents had reached the guard station and had Casey and Bryce pinned down by gunfire. They huddled behind the guard station for cover.
Casey removed Bryce's handcuffs and was trying to get the C-4 vest off of him. He fumbled with the clasps on the back of Bryce's vest. "Here," he said, handing Bryce the dead man's switch. "I can't do this one-handed."
Bryce carefully went to grab the dead man's switch out of Casey's hand, trying to keep the trigger depressed during the handover. Casey was shoving the switch towards Bryce, faster than Bryce was prepared for.
"Careful!" Bryce hissed. "You're going to vaporize both of us!" Casey paused for a moment, then smiled and handed the controller over more gently. Bryce took hold of it and saw his knuckles go white with how hard he was squeezing.
"You know," Casey said, smiling. "You got an opportunity here put your money where your mouth is."
Bryce stared at the switch, answering distractedly. "Yeah? What do you mean?"
A few more bullets whizzed by overhead. Casey popped up for a second, squeezed off three shots in the general direction of the shooters, and then dropped back down to his cover position.
"I mean, you were all set to sacrifice Walker to make sure Fulcrum went down permanent-like," Casey said. "Well, you're currently in possession of enough C-4 to turn every leader in their organization to dust. Only problem is, they'll be sweeping you up with a broom, too." Bryce saw a glint in Casey's eye. "You man enough to do the job?"
Bryce felt the weight of Casey's words drop on him. He took a breath to respond, but couldn't seem to push the words out. Casey nodded.
"I figured as much. Tell you what. You stay here, struggle with that little moral dilemma for a while. I'm going to find Bartowski and Walker." Without pausing, Casey turned and sprung out from his crouch into a roll towards the corridor.
"Casey!" Bryce shouted out after him. "You can't leave me here like--" He stopped when he realized Casey was already on his way. A hail of bullets followed him, but Bryce could see Casey make it to the opening. A moment later he was gone.
Bryce looked down at the switch in his hand.
--
The guards closed in on Chuck, Sarah, and Tommy.
"Tommy, do you know what time it is, exactly?" Chuck asked.
Tommy stared at Chuck in disbelief. "The time?"
"Yes." Chuck said, stiffly. "The time."
Tommy looked down at his watch. "It's eight o'clock."
"Exactly?" Chuck asked. "Exactly eight o'clock.? To the second?"
Tommy looked again. "It'll be exactly eight o'clock in ten seconds," he corrected.
"Ten seconds," Chuck said, thoughtfully. "That's fortunate."
"Why?" Sarah asked. "What happens at eight o'clock?"
--
At the firehouse entrance, resting on the passenger seat of Casey's Suburban, the laptop computer chirped to life as it ran Chuck's virus, uploading it into the Fulcrum network.
--
The guards stepped closer. Some of the more enthusiastic of the Fulcrum leaders joined them, eager to participate. Dillon spoke.
"Did you really think you were going to get out of here alive?" he asked smugly.
"Well," Chuck shrugged. "Anything's possible."
Suddenly, every light in the facility flickered. Static shot through the PA system. Alarms chirped and then went dead.
Dillon barked out orders. "Stay on them! Control, report!" A mechanized voice cracked through the speakers.
Please stand by. We are experiencing high call volumes. Your estimated wait time is… three… hours.
The lights went out completely. Chuck grabbed Sarah's hand. "That's our cue." They ran out the side door, a moment before the emergency lights flickered on. Dillon screamed at the top of his lungs.
"GET THEM!!"
The guards rushed towards the side door, and a second later the emergency lights extinguished. They collided into each other in their blind scramble to the door.
The PA system crackled to life with a pop song:
Do, do you got a first aid kit handy?
Do, do you know how to patch up a wound, tell me?
--
Chuck, Sarah, and Tommy sprinted down the darkened hallway leading to Casey and Bryce. Tommy led the way out of memory, with Chuck right behind and Sarah bringing up the rear. Sarah heard the song begin to play.
"Is… is that--"
"Damaged, by Danity Kane," Chuck answered. "It's the only MP3 Tommy had on his computer."
"It's a guilty pleasure," Tommy snapped. "Sue me."
"You took out their entire system?" Sarah asked.
"Virus in their network," Chuck replied. "They should be down for about twenty minutes."
"Did you get that from Independence Day?" Sarah asked.
"Hey, you were paying attention on movie night!"
"I have a thing for Jeff Goldblum."
"Okay, that's weird."
"You two want to pay attention to the matter at hand?" Tommy hissed. "We're coming up on the guard station."
--
In the darkness and confusion, a bead of sweat ran down Bryce's cheek as he felt the dead man's switch in his hand, bullets flying overhead. This was it. This was his chance.
Every major player in the Fulcrum hierarchy was within 100 yards of him, and he had enough explosives strapped to his chest to blow them all to hell. All he had to do was release his grip on the switch, and the greatest threat to democracy of the 21st century would be wiped off the face of the earth. All he had to do was relax his hand.
He had lived a pretty amazing life, even by an espionage agent's standards. He had single-handedly broken up a Czech terrorist cell by perfectly infiltrating their ranks, then waiting until they met with their poison gas supplier in a warehouse miles outside Prague. Bryce simply locked them inside and listened as they blamed each other for the betrayal. Bullets began flying soon after, and it wasn't long before the gas canisters were hit by the crossfire. He'd defused a bomb in the US Embassy in Shanghai with a letter opener. And then there had been that whole Oceanic affair.
He'd had his fair share of conquests when it came to women, as well. There was the daughter of the Columbian drug lord who helped him lure her father into a CIA-engineered sting, in exchange for immunity, who was all too eager to show her appreciation for his lenience. The wife of the Nigerian weapons trafficker he'd seduced to learn her husband's whereabouts, who smelled of jasmine and talked dirty in her native dialect the entire time they wrestled between the sheets. And, of course, there was that fellow agent of his, the one who was supposed to have been completely untouchable. He'd proven that particular rumor wrong, and gotten more than he'd bargained for in the process.
Sure, there were things he would have liked to have experienced in his life. He'd always dreamed of building his own house, with his bare hands. Maybe a little cabin in Maine, where he could watch the ocean crash against the shore while breathing in the salty air. He wanted to take a road trip, just him and a beat up old convertible, and see the country without the weight of a mission on his shoulders. Drive out to the Grand Canyon, park a few feet away from the edge, and just sit there watching the sun play across the multicolored landscape.
And yes, he would have liked to have had a nice girl tell him that she loved him. Someone untouched by this world of secrets and lies, someone who loved him because he was funny and strong and made her feel safe when he held her. But that probably wouldn't have happened, anyway. Not for a guy like him.
No, he thought. That's not what I was built for. Now come on, Larkin. Do your job.
Bryce slowly released the pressure on the switch in his hand, closing his eyes and bracing for his life to end. He knew it wouldn't hurt. He wouldn't feel a thing. His finger loosened, until finally, the switch clicked…
And nothing happened.
Bryce opened his eyes. He looked down at the switch, now completely released. He squeezed it again and let it go. Still nothing. Bryce let out the breath he'd been holding for what seemed like hours.
"I hate you, John Casey."
Suddenly the emergency lights flickered on. Several shots rang out, from the opposite side of the room than Bryce had been hearing. Was he surrounded, now? There was silence for a moment. Then Chuck's voice:
"Casey?"
Bryce stood up. He saw Tommy standing with his gun drawn on one side of the room, and the fallen agents on the other side. Chuck was behind Tommy, and Sarah was already moving to pick up the agents' guns. Bryce looked back at Tommy.
"You're shooting an awful lot of your own guys today," he said.
Tommy holstered his gun. "You gonna tell on me?"
Sarah slid a .45 into the waistband of her pants, and leveled another one at Tommy. "Get your hands in the air," she commanded. Tommy didn't move.
"Whoa! Whoa! Sarah, take it easy," Chuck said, stepping in front of Tommy. "We still need him."
Sarah looked at Chuck in disbelief. "You can't be serious," she said. "He's the reason we're in this mess. He's behind everything. I'm taking him out."
"They're going to be here any minute," Tommy warned.
"Sarah," Chuck said, his voice steady. "Please."
Sarah moved her eyes back and forth between Chuck and Tommy. Slowly she lowered the gun. "Okay, Chuck," she said. "I trust you." Chuck smiled as Sarah approached him. He held his hands out to embrace her.
Sarah sidestepped Chuck, then spun around and gave Tommy a vicious roundhouse kick to the head. Tommy dropped to the ground. Chuck blinked twice.
"Um, okay, when I said we needed him, I meant we needed him functional."
"He's functional," Sarah said as Tommy groaned and started to stand back up. "I could have hit him a lot harder."
Chuck shook his head and turned to Bryce. "Where's Casey?" Chuck asked.
"He went to help you," Bryce answered. "Cute trick, by the way," he said, holding up the dead man's switch.
Chuck smiled. "Keep it as a souvenir," he said. Bryce smirked and tucked the switch into his pocket. Chuck undid the latches on the vest and took it off Bryce.
"Okay," Chuck said, turning to Tommy. "We need you to get us to sub level C, the foundry room."
Tommy cocked his head. "That wasn't part of the deal."
Chuck smiled. "Sarah?" Sarah cocked her gun and aimed it at Tommy's head. Chuck took Tommy's gun out of his holster. "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further."
--
With the convention in chaos, Dillon slipped away from the crowd and retreated to his office. He had to make sure his personal files were safe from this virus that was plaguing the system. He closed and locked the door behind him, and went around to his desk. He punched his password into his computer and froze when he heard a sound from a darkened corner.
"You may as well come out," he said. "I know you're here."
Casey stepped out of the shadows, gun drawn on Dillon. "Not bad, Leonard. Still sharp after all these years."
"Captain John Casey," Dillon said with a snarl. "Been a long time."
"Since the Utopia Project," Casey replied. "And it's 'Major' now, if you don't mind."
"Congratulations."
The two men regarded each other for a long moment. Dillon broke the silence. "I have to tell you, that I've been hoping to run into you again. You're still the only man I've never beaten hand-to-hand."
Casey shrugged. "You might have, if we hadn't been interrupted by the MPs."
"Maybe, maybe not," Dillon replied. "Seems to me we were pretty evenly matched back then. And if you're anything like me, you've spent more than a few sleepless nights wondering who would have won that fight. So, now's your chance to find out."
Dillon slowly removed his gun, placed it on the floor in front of him, and assumed a fighting stance.
"Care to take another shot at it?"
Casey smiled. "Sure," he said, and shot Dillon in the chest. Dillon dropped to the ground. "What the hell, I'll take two." Casey shot him again, for good measure.
"Finally," he said sarcastically, "My sleepless nights are over." He looked down at Dillon's body. "Talking to a dead guy. I need a date."
Casey searched the office, pocketing anything he could find and bring with him in case the operation didn't work out the way they planned. He found a backup drive he figured Bartowski could make some sense out of, and a keycard. Satisfied, Casey moved to exit the way he entered, but stopped. He eyed the area behind Dillon's desk.
Something made Casey step closer to the wall, feeling around for an opening. He finally detected a seam in the wall, and pressed on it. The wall sunk back a few inches, then slid over completely, leaving a doorway. Casey drew his gun and stepped through, ready for anything. Well, anything but what he found in the room behind the door.
Sitting low and long in the center of a large hidden room, gleaming in deep black paint, was a 1955 Ford Crown Victoria - the very first year of the car's production. Casey caught his breath. He approached the car, ran a hand tentatively across the fender, and felt the distant echoes of his own lost love. He reached the driver's side door, looked inside, and grinned when he saw the keys sitting in the ignition.
"Best mission ever."
For anyone who doesn't know what a '55 Crown Vic looks like, do a search for a picture. They're pretty cool. And, as you can probably guess, the car's going to pop up again later...
