Chuck vs. the Seventh Day, Chapter 8
CAST (in order of appearance):
Chuck Bartowski - Zachary Levi
Lt. Colonel John Casey - Adam Baldwin
Sarah Walker Bartowski - Yvonne Strahovski
Sen. Langston Graham - Tony Todd
Gunnery Sgt. Mitchell Tucker - Terry Crews
General Diane Beckman - Bonita Fredericy
Laszlo Mahnovski - Jonathan Sadowski
12:03 AM Pacific Standard Time
February 16th, 2012
La Jolla, California
"I think I can do it," Chuck said, looking at the disassembled telephone in front of him.
It was an old touch tone phone, probably from the 1980s, but its bulkiness would definitely work for their purposes. "I just need… a lot of electronic stuff," Chuck continued. "Stuff that I don't have."
Casey looked at him. "How much of it could we get from a Buy More?"
"All of it," Chuck replied, "but how are we gonna do that, Casey? You spent all your cash on those phones. Between the rest of us, we have maybe two hundred bucks, which we need for food. We can't use a credit card, can't use a debit card, can't go to an ATM. The NSA will be all over us."
Casey smiled and shook his head. "I have wanted to say this to you for so long… you're not thinking outside the box, Bartowski."
Chuck frowned. "What exactly do you mean?"
Casey's smile got bigger. "Lemme show you."
He picked up his newly acquired, clean cell phone, and dialed. He held the phone to his hear. "Hi… Maya? Hey, it's John. Hey, I didn't wake you up, did I?"
He was quiet for a moment. "Good… hey, listen, I'm sorry I didn't call you yesterday… I just got caught up with some work stuff…"
"Never has a classic blowoff line been more true," Sarah remarked from across the room. She looked exhausted, and with good reason. She'd spent the last two hours trying to get John and Lisa to fall asleep in an unfamiliar bed, and that after the craziness of the day.
"I need you to do me a favor," Casey continued. "It's gonna sound crazy, but I promise you I'll explain later."
He waited a moment, then, "Okay. I need you to go to the Buy More website. I have a list of things that I need to buy for 'at store pickup'."
Casey waved frantically at Chuck, who handed him the list. "Okay, are you ready? Alright. I need a Sony Vaio UX computer…"
He read off the list of about four thousand dollars worth of items. "Now, here's the kicker," Casey finished. "And I swear to God I'm good to pay you back on this. I need you to put it on your credit card."
Casey listened a moment. "No, you can trust me… really…"
He put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and made a face at Sarah and Chuck. Then he jerked his head, with a "get the hell out" motion.
They looked at each other, smiled, and looked back at Casey. Chuck shook his head.
"Maya, listen. I… think you're great. I really like you, and… uh… I'd like to explore this going somewhere. That's how you can be sure I'm gonna be good for this debt, because I don't want to blow this."
He had turned bright red. Chuck, feeling a little silly from exhaustion, had gone over next to Sarah, got down on his knees, and was mime-begging her, mouthing Casey's words as he did so. She was literally biting her hand to keep from laughing.
"Okay," Casey said, keeping his voice calm, while looking like he was about to explode. "I need you to put that for pickup at 5151 Mission Center Road, in San Diego. Put it for pickup in the name of Charles Carmichael."
Chuck's head jerked up and he looked over at Casey. He furrowed his brow, shrugged his shoulders, and spread his hands.
Casey mouthed "TRUST ME" and pointed at his desk. Chuck stood up, crossed to the desk, and opened the top drawer. Sure enough, there was a gallon Ziploc bag in there with a passport and a California driver's license in the name of Charles Carmichael. There was also one for an Elisabeth Carmichael – that was a smart piece of work, Chuck though – and one for Casey Johnson.
"Okay, Maya," Casey said. "Yeah, I'll call you tomorrow. I miss you too. Bye."
He pressed the "End" button on his phone, and looked at Chuck and Sarah. "I will end you both," he growled.
"Oh, get over it, Casey. Go to bed. Get some sleep. I need to start writing code, anyway. For this to work, I'm gonna have to have some crazy custom code."
Casey and Sarah left the den as Chuck opened up Morgan's laptop and opened up a new Notepad document. "Alright," Chuck muttered, as Sarah headed toward the bedroom where the kids were, and Casey got comfortable on the couch. "Let's write some software."
8:42 AM
Chuck's head jerked up from the table as Sarah touched his shoulder. "Good morning, sunshine," she said softly.
"Morning," he slurred, looking at the computer screen.
Program successfully compiled, the screen said. 8:29 AM.
Chuck thrust his fists in the air. "It finally worked!" he shouted. "YEAAAHH!"
And with that scream, everybody in the house was awake. Casey stumbled into the den. "What the hell is going on?" he asked. "Do I smell coffee?"
"I started a pot," Sarah said. "I figured everybody could use some."
"Yeah, that would be me," Chuck said. "I told the program to compile at 8:15 AM, so I've only had twenty-seven minutes of sleep."
Sarah turned to him, a worried look on her face. "You were up all night coding?"
"Every time I tried to compile, it had an error of some sort," Chuck replied. "But it'll work now!"
"Buy More will be open in fifteen minutes," Casey grumbled. "Grab a cup of coffee, let me brush my teeth, and we'll head on over there."
"I'm going with you," Sarah said.
"No you're not!" both men said, turning to face her.
"Excuse me?"
"You need to stay here and take care of Devin and Ellie and Morgan and the kids," Casey told her. "We can't have both of the trained agents running off to Buy More and leaving the civilians alone."
Sarah blew out her breath in frustration. Casey was right, but she really didn't want to let Chuck out of her sight. However, it didn't look like she had much of a choice.
"Fine," she said. "But be safe, okay?"
"We'll be fine, Walker," Casey insisted. Then he headed to the bathroom.
It took him a moment, but shortly thereafter, he and Chuck were walking out the front door of the house. Sarah stopped them just before they walked out.
"Chuck, take this," she instructed, putting her Colt 1911 in Chuck's hand.
"Sarah," Chuck replied, "I can barely shoot a gun. What good do you think this will do me?"
"Please, Chuck," she pleaded. "It'll make me feel better."
Casey, strangely enough, agreed with her. "Take it, Bartowski, you never know when you might need it. Besides that, if I'm not mistaken, that's Walker's favorite piece."
Chuck looked at it. As far as he was concerned, a gun was a gun. But Sarah nodded. "He's right," she said. "I got it from one of my trainers when I was certified as a deep-cover operative. It's the first one I ever had as a CIA agent."
As much as Chuck disliked guns, knowing how much the weapon meant to Sarah really touched him – the fact that she trusted him with it – it was as if she was sending a little piece of herself along with him to keep him safe. "Thank you," he said. "I just hope I don't have to use it."
Sarah smiled, but she didn't look happy. Chuck wordlessly stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug. When they broke, he leaned down and gently kissed her – a total reversal of the "kiss of death" the previous afternoon in the garage.
"We'll be back in a little while," Chuck promised, tucking the gun into the waistband in the back of his jeans.
1:13 PM, Eastern Standard Time
Rayburn Senate Office Building, Washington, DC
Senator Langston Graham was not a happy man. The Select Committee for Intelligence was going in the toilet. Lou DeBlasio was running roughshod over them, and nobody was putting up a fight. He felt as if he and Sam Tyler were the only people left in the government who understood what the hell was going on.
His cell phone chirped. He had just received a text message. Graham picked up the phone and read the message.
"John 14:27a NRSV" was all the message said.
"What the hell is that?"
10:27 AM, Pacific Standard Time
La Jolla
"Alright," Chuck said, clicking on the "OK" button on the computer screen. "The encryption's in place. Give it a shot."
1:28 PM Eastern Standard Time
The STU-8 on Graham's desk rang. He frowned, looking at the secure telephone. What was that all about? Nobody ever called him on the secure phone at his office. Nonetheless, he picked it up.
An odd warbling tone greeted him – the tone of an encrypted phone call that the key hadn't been entered for. "What the hell," he said.
Then a thought hit him. He looked at his phone again. Then turning to the bookshelf behind his desk, he searched for…
"There you are," he muttered, pulling the New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible off the shelf. Blowing a thick layer of dust off of it, he turned to the Gospel of John, the fourteenth chapter. "Verse twenty-seven A," he said quietly.
There it was. He pulled the small keyboard attached to the STU-8 to him, and typed in, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you," and hit enter.
Immediately, the warbling sound stopped. "This is Graham, secure."
10:29 AM Pacific Standard Time
Sarah's fist shot up in the air. "Walker, secure," she replied, barely able to keep the jubilation out of her voice.
"Sarah, what warrants a call on the STU with a one-time pad?" Graham asked in confusion.
"Well, we've got some serious problems, sir," she replied. "Fulcrum has compromised a number of high-ranking officials. They plan to launch a coup d'état next Monday."
Sarah heard a thud in the background. She assumed it was Graham's chair falling over as he stood up quickly – she'd seen it happen a number of times.
"Holy shit," he said. "Who?"
"General Powers, General Kellerman, Admiral McConnell, Secretary Foster, Secretary O'Hare, Justice Noble, Senator DeBlasio, and General Beckman."
In Washington, Langston Graham went very still. If he could've gone pale, he would have. "Did you just say General Beckman?"
"Yes, sir," Sarah replied. "Yesterday afternoon, she ordered a hit on me and the Intersect. Fortunately, Colonel Casey was able to intercept and neutralize the threat. We are currently in an undisclosed location."
"Where did you get an STU?" he asked, still amazed at what he'd just heard.
"My husband," Sarah said, and Graham was quite certain he detected a note of pride in her voice. "He figured out how to build one using a thirty year old touch tone phone and parts that he picked up at Buy More."
Graham sighed. "I knew we should've recruited him ten years ago. But never mind. So why are you calling me?"
"You're the only person we can trust," Sarah replied. "We can't call Director Tyler – there's too many Fulcrum around him. We need your help, and we need the help of the one member of the JCS who isn't compromised – General Stanfield."
Graham shook his head. "Exactly what do you need us to do?"
"Okay," Sarah said. "I need flight clearance for an unarmed military aircraft into Brasilia, Brazil; Belfast, Northern Ireland; Kiev, Ukraine; and Belgrade, Serbia. I also need mid-air refueling between those locations frequent enough so as to allow a ferry-configured F/A-18 to get from San Diego to Brasilia to Belfast to Kiev to Belgrade."
Graham's eyes had gone wide. "You need – what the hell, Walker?"
"I'm gonna call in international support from some very powerful people who owe me favors, sir," Sarah replied. "I figure that between you and General Stanfield, you should know enough people in high places to make it happen."
Graham nodded weakly. "Okay," he said.
11:35 AM, Mountain Standard Time
Grand County Airport, Moab, Utah
Gunnery Sergeant Mitch Tucker (USMC Reserve) was sitting at his desk. Six years as the manager of this hole. He wasn't quite sure why he still did it, except that one couldn't beat living fifteen minutes from Arches National Park.
His cell phone rang. Unexpectedly. He looked down at it like it was a snake. The thing never rang.
He looked at the display. The area code said 562. He recognized that as being the southern part of the metro Los Angeles area.
"Hello?"
"Gunnery Sergeant Tucker, this is Lieutenant Colonel John Casey, United States Air Force. You remember me?"
Tucker snapped upwards in his chair. "Of course I do, sir!" he replied. "Except you were a major when we last spoke."
"Got promoted about a year and a half ago," was the response. "Now listen up, Marine. What I'm about to tell you is, no joke, classified Top Secret. If you share it with anybody cleared below that, you will go to jail. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir!" Tucker barked into the phone.
"Good. There is a terrorist faction with well placed people in the United States government. That includes my commanding General, Mel Powers, and yours, Bob Kellerman. They intend to overthrow the President next Monday."
"Next Monday," Tucker said quietly. "Wait a second, next Monday's this ECOMCON exercise that I'm supposed to go to Yuma for!"
"ECOMCON is the overthrow plan," Casey replied solemnly.
"Jesus Christ!" Tucker exploded. "They're going to use us against our commander in chief?"
Casey took a moment to let that sink in. "JESUS CHRIST!" Tucker shouted again. "Okay, I'll do anything. What can I do to help?"
"Who do you know at MCAS Miramar?"
1:38 PM, Eastern Standard Time
Fort Meade, Maryland
"What do you have?" Beckman asked the young man standing in front of her.
"Senator Graham's secure telephone received an incoming call about ten minutes ago, ma'am," the young man replied. "It was encrypted with a key we do not have, and therefore, we were unable to listen in."
"Dammit," she muttered, closing her eyes.
"However," the young man continued, "we were able to trace the location of the call to a house in La Jolla, California, just off of Torrey Pines Boulevard."
Beckman's eyes flew open again. "Excellent," she said. "Deploy a strike team to that location immediately."
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Is there anything else?"
"No, that'll be all, Lazslo. You're dismissed."