A/N1 More of our mission. Check your seatbelts. Put on the Devo tune. "Oops, about to slip down..."

Thanks for reading and responding, gentle readers. I've enjoyed the reviews and PMs and resulting conversations. I'm indebted to you all.

Don't own Chuck.

Turned Tables

The His, Hers and Ours Mission

Saturday, January 10, 2008
Outside of Romney, West Virginia
4:40 pm

CHAPTER 10 Working in a Coal Mine

Parks drove her car cautiously along the old road to the abandoned mine. The road was pitted with holes. The undercarriage of the car threatened to drag when the tires settled into the often-deep ruts that counted as the road. The car emerged from the overhanging trees and brush. An old, rusted fence stretched off on each side of the road, swallowed by underbrush and coming darkness in both directions. There was a sign, leaning severely but still legible in the twilight: Top Hat Mine 1.

Chuck turned to Parks and smiled. "I guess I'm underdressed."

She smirked at him. "Time to get serious, Chuck."

Chuck scrunched his features, displeased. "You know what Sartre said about that, don't you?"

Parks inhaled sharply. "No, Chuck. But I am guessing you do, since you asked."

His scrunch smirked. "Sartre said…that anguish is opposed to the spirit of seriousness."

Parks turned to him, unenlightened. "And that means?"

Chuck shrugged slightly. "I guess it means that taking life seriously and silliness are not only compatible, they go together." He waited for Parks to react.

"Good to know." She said flatly, turning back to guide the car to a stop not far from what had been the mouth of the mine.

The dark panel truck was behind them. Steve, the tall, thin soldier driving it, pulled to the opposite side of the mouth. The other two soldiers got out. They opened the back of the truck and grabbed automatic rifles for themselves. One of them, Rick, small but broad, carried a holster with a pistol in it to Steve, who took it as he climbed out of the driver's seat. Dave, who seemed ubiquitously medium, height, hair color, weight, everything, settled in near one corner of the truck.

Chuck had watched all of this while still seated in the car with Parks. He got out and turned on the comms, checking the earwigs. "Sarah?"

"I hear you, Chuck. And I can see you." He could hear a twinge of untensing emotion in her voice, and he realized how tense he had been. He took a deep breath for the first time since he watched her drive away earlier. Everyone else checked in. All was in order. They were ready.

Chuck was wearing a pair of khaki slacks and a blue cashmere sweater under his leather jacket. Parks had supplied him with an IWC pilot's watch—part of the cover. He checked the expensive time. 5 pm. Coombs should be along soon. Parks had gotten out of the car and shut her door. She was leaning against it, looking over the roof toward the road. She threw him a small flashlight and pocketed one herself, in case Coombs demanded a better view of the weapons or the money.

Chuck's nerves pushed him into motion. He walked over to the mouth of the mine. Concrete had been poured around it, extending out on both sides. A heavy metal door was the only means of access, and it had a heavy padlock on it. Signs—No Trespass, Danger—hung from the door.

Old beer cans and cigarettes dotted the ground; the remains of high school parties, likely. There were a couple of holes with burnt logs and ashes in them where fires had been built. Chuck almost tripped as he avoided the remnants of an old condom.

"What was that, Chuck?" He realized Sarah was still watching him.

"Um, nothing. Nothing. You know me, two left feet."

Stars were becoming visible overhead. The sky had remained clear. But the temperature was plunging. Chuck could see his breath, and the breath of the soldiers near the truck.

Sarah's voice was in his ear, mission-toned. "Ok, everyone, I see lights. You should hear them soon. The militia is coming. Coombs is coming. One set of lights."

Everyone heard Sarah. Chuck made sure he could get to the tranq gun under his jacket. He heard weapons cocking around him. Showtime. He took a deep breath and plastered a smile on his face, becoming Roy Sauer. He shifted his posture to entitled prick. He heard an engine. Engines. Engines?

And then he heard Sarah, her now-urgent whisper more frightening than a yell. "Oh, Jesus. Two, three trucks. Their lights just went on. Goddamn, Chuck, they're coming in hot!"

The next moments were a terrifying mélange of roaring engines, headlights, weapons' fire and confused voices, yells. Coombs had arrived. The Free Live Free had arrived. In force.

}o{

Through her scope, Sarah saw the trailing trucks' headlights flip on just as the one in the front tore into the clearing surrounding the mine. That lead truck built its speed. Sarah saw that it had a blade—a snow blade—on the front. "Chuck, Chris! Move, goddamn it." Sarah had no chance to see what happened in detail. At high speed, the truck rammed Parks car, the sound of screaming, wrenching metal echoing up to Sarah's position as she lay on the tarp, under the blanket. She felt a scream rising inside her as she scanned the scene.

Then she saw Chuck and Parks. They were on the ground on the other side of the mangled car, struggling to get up. The scream fell. She whirled the barrel of her rifle and trained it on the silhouette of the driver of the truck. She snapped off a shot. The dark shape slumped. She could hear the engine of the truck racing. The driver had evidently gotten it into neutral before Sarah killed him. He had a dead foot was on the gas.

Another man leaped from the passenger side of the truck and Sarah dropped him before he'd lifted his gun. She whirled her rifle further. The second truck—an SUV, she now realized—had slipped off to the side and she saw four men climb out. She started to aim at one when her gut told her to check the third and final truck. It slid to a stop at an angle to the panel truck. It was another pickup, but a heavy gun was mounted in the bed. The man behind the gun opened fire on the soldiers. Sarah could not only hear the shots, she could feel them. Sarah made herself go slow. Slower than she wanted. Too important to be sloppy.

She exhaled and trained the sights on the man behind the gun. She squeezed the trigger as she finished her exhale. She saw his head snap back in a spray of red, and the gun's barrel sink down as his hands slipped off it.

"Chuck, four men are out of the truck. They've spread out…" Sarah was searching the site, but finding no one. She was about to scan the area again, when she heard a sound from behind her. She felt a sudden pinching sensation in her shoulder.

"Well, well, well…So, Meeks Lawton finally gets to meet the Ice Queen. In Romney, West Virginia. Now isn't that…fascinating."

"Chuck! Lawton'sss…hereee…" Sarah collapsed into black.

}o{

"Sarah!" Chuck yelled when he heard her words. He turned to start…where?...toward her. He'd climb the cliff face. He had to get to her. But he felt a hand grab his coat, pulling him back toward the door of the mine.

"No, Chuck. There're four men out there. They'll kill you before you get ten yards." Parks had her pistol out and she fired into the lock on the door. Behind them, Chuck heard a groan. One of the soldiers, Steve. He pulled himself around the end of their car. He'd been hit multiple times, and was bleeding out. "Go, I'm done," he said as Parks yanked the lock off the door. "I'll hold them off. Go!"

Parks grabbed Chuck and wheeled him around, pulled him through the door. She slammed the door. Parks took out her small flashlight and clicked it on. The beam was narrow but remarkably bright. She swept it ahead of them. They were on a small wooden platform. On one side was a set of metal shelves holding hard hats and other safety items. On the other side was a tall, narrow desk. Clipboards hung on the wall above it. Parks trained the light on each of them quickly. One had a map of the mine. She tore the sheet from the clipboard.

Chuck had been standing, watching her, in shock. Shots rang outside. Steve was holding the men off, as he said he would. Chuck finally came to himself.

"Sarah! Chris, I've got to get to her." He spun back toward the door. She grabbed his coat again, pulling his face to hers. She smacked him, hard. She smacked him again.

"No, Chuck. I understand. I do. Something got seriously screwed up. This was Coombs' trap for us, not ours for him. He knew, Chuck. He knew. Someone sold us out." She shook her head. "No time to think about that now.

"Believe Sarah is alive, Chuck. We didn't hear a shot over the comms. There's a chance. We have to stay alive if we are going to be of any use to Sarah, Chuck. C'mon."

Chuck felt his eyes fill with tears; his breathing was ragged. He'd faced danger in the past without panic, or without much—but the woman he loved was never the one threatened, maybe worse… And then he heard his mom's voice in his head, Frost's, the thing she'd say to him when he was a boy, she was home, and he was upset, emotional. "Channel emotion into action. Do something about how you feel, Chuck!"

Chuck looked at Parks, swallowing his terror and bile in one gulp.

"Ok. What do we do?"

"We move deeper into the mine. Maybe they won't chase us. Maybe there is a way out. Maybe we can turn the tables on them down in the dark. Is your phone working?" She pulled Chuck behind her and they stepped down off the platform onto the dusty earthen floor of the mine.

Chuck looked at this phone. No signal. Parks checked hers too. Same result. The mine was interfering. "No. Not here. Maybe back by the door?"

They heard another series of shots. A lone scream. Then multiple voices.

"No, we have to go." With Parks' flashlight guiding them, they went rushed deeper into the mine, moving as fast as they could over the uneven floor of the mine. The voices outside the door grew fainter. Chuck realized that the men were in no hurry to rush the door. They had no way of knowing where he and Parks were inside.

Parks continued to lead them deeper into the mine. The floor was now strewn with debris. Old tools, pieces of lumber, chunks of coal and chunks of earth. The tunnel they were in began to narrow and its walls were crudely hewn. After a few more minutes, they arrived at a fork in the tunnel. Parks stopped and checked her map. Chuck looked at it over her shoulder, making sure he saw it all, committing it to memory, so that he would know it if they lost the paper copy.

It was unclear whether there was any other exit from the mine. One path from the fork looked as though it led only to deeper, closed levels. The other went on for a while and then the map just stopped, as if it had the mine or the map or both had been left unfinished. Parks pointed to that path. "At least there's a possibility of getting out that way."

Chuck responded, "Ok, let's go."

As they took the left fork, they heard gunfire behind them. The men had finally rushed the door. They heard a voice echoing in the distance. "All clear. After them." Parks began to run and Chuck did too.

They ran until they reached another fork and this time they went to the right. The air in the mine was getting close, thin. They were both gasping. Parks slowed. Chuck realized that she was having to work hard to keep up with him. With his long legs, he was eating distance with each stride.

He needed to stop too, to catch his breath, but at least the running felt like he was doing something, kept him from screaming Sarah's name and running back toward the entrance to the mine, taking his chances, doing anything he could to reach her. His mom had warned him about Lawton. Damn it. How had Coombs and Lawton known?

How had his mom known where he was? How had she known about Lawton? Parks had said it: someone knew. His mom knew.

Chuck shook his head. It was too much. Too much. Sarah was all that mattered now. Staying alive so that he could find her.

Parks nodded at him. She was ready to go. They could hear noises from behind them, but the echoes make it impossible to gauge distance exactly. They needed to find a place from which to counter-attack, if they couldn't find an escape. Chuck pictured the map in his head. They were near the place where the map stopped. What would they find there?

They ran again, but slower, not only because they were tiring, but also because the mine was becoming more and more treacherous. The floor was now strewn with debris and was dangerously uneven. Stones and loose rock were everywhere. The ceiling was now high, now low—sometimes so low Chuck had to crouch to get through. It was clear that the reason the map played out was that the tunnel was more a first draft than anything finished. Chuck now began to fear that this was a dead end. They would be trapped. He looked at Parks running beside him; she was clearly thinking the same thing.

And then it happened. They rounded a corner to come face to face with solid earth, tunnel's end. Parks whirled around. "Maybe we can get back to the last fork before they do."

"No, you know we can't. We'll just have to head back and see if we can find some cover. There was that one rough section with the really low ceiling. The tunnel turned a bit there. We could catch them as there. Better than standing here with our backs to the wall, literally."

"Ok."

They ran back up the tunnel to the section Chuck mentioned. Chuck took the inner part of the turn of the turn, leaving Parks the outer. When she looked a question at him, he shrugged and whispered. "You're the better shot. They'd be on you immediately here. I will take the first one on this side."

They heard footfalls. Chuck pressed himself against the dirt wall. Parks kneeled next to the opposite wall. Chuck took off his leather coat and held it out in his hands. The footfalls were now unmistakably close, despite the echoes. Chuck fought to calm his breathing, to keep from thinking of Sarah.

The first man came around the corner, still crouched from passing beneath the low ceiling. Chuck leaped forward, draping his coat around the man's head. Holding it, he yanked the man's head downward violently while bringing his knee up as hard as he could. He kneed the man's face with tremendous force, and he felt the man crumple as he went down.

As Chuck looked up, pulling his jacket free from the prone form of the man he'd knocked out, he heard Parks' pistol fire, its sound filling the tunnel and his head, deafening and painful. The second man through went down.

Chuck launched himself at the next man, still under the low ceiling. Chuck half-crawled, half-rolled into man's bent legs as a gun went off behind the man. The fourth man had fired. Chuck knew he wasn't hit. He had no idea about Parks.

Chuck hit the third man's legs so hard he took the man's feet out from under him. The man pitched forward, landing on his hands, and losing both the pistol and the flashlight he'd been holding. Chuck heard another shot and felt dirt sprinkle on him. Just missed. The man he'd knocked down went scrambling for his pistol. Another shot and the man stopped crawling and sagged into the dirt. Chuck looked behind him and saw Parks, her pistol smoking, the echo of the shot still bouncing up the tunnel.

The fourth man was running. Parks got out of her crouch and began to run after the man. "That's Coombs! I got a glance at his face when the flashlight fell. We can't let him get away. He's the best chance to save Sarah." Parks was past him when she finished.

Chuck got to his feet and dashed after her. He passed her and began to gain on Coombs. Chuck was fast, very fast, when he needed to be. He'd survived the bullies of his childhood on quick wits and his foot speed.

Coombs stumbled ahead of Chuck, the flashlight Coombs was using sending its beam sweeping crazily to the floor and then to the ceiling before Coombs caught himself. Coombs' stumble decreased his lead. Chuck was close enough now to hear Coombs gasping breaths.

Another stride. Another. Another. Chuck reached out, stretched his long arm. He lunged. His hand twisted in the collar of Coombs' jacket. Chuck jerked Coombs back into him, and their legs tangled. They both fell hard on the floor, skidding into the dirt. Chuck landed atop Coombs, but Coombs twisted around to face Chuck.

Chuck punched Coombs in the face. And again. Coombs thrust upward and threw Chuck off him. As Coombs scrambled to get up, he found a piece of wood on the ground and picked it up. He got to his feet and swung the piece of wood at Chuck. Chuck caught it. The blow was powerful, fueled by muscle and desperation. Chuck felt for a moment as if his hands had shattered. Coombs tried to wrest the wood from Chuck, but Chuck managed to hold on, despite the numb shock spreading from his hands up his forearms and making his elbows ache. The wood was rough, and Chuck saw blood running between his fingers. Although the pain was vague, he could tell that his palms were shredded.

"Freeze, Coombs." Parks had caught up with them and had her pistol leveled at Coombs. Coombs slowly let go of the piece of wood. Chuck tossed it down the tunnel. Parks made Coombs get down on his knees and put his hands behind him. She had handed Chuck a zip tie restraint and he slipped it on Coombs' hands, blood from his Chuck's hands running onto the tie and onto Coombs' hands. Chuck hoisted Coombs on his feet. He and Parks marched Coombs out of the mine.

The scene outside was grisly. The three soldiers were all dead. Chuck checked them first. The pickup truck's engine was still racing. Chuck reached in past the driver's corpse to shut it off. The man who'd been firing the machine gun from the other pickup's bed was dead too. As was the driver of that pickup. Evidently, one of the soldiers, maybe Steve, had gotten him.

While Chuck swept the area, Parks made a phone call. A CIA cleaner team was on the way. Local law enforcement evidently knew nothing of the events. After she finished her call, Parks helped Chuck pull the body of the driver out of the first pickup. Chuck pulled off the man's camo coat and used it to mop up the blood inside the cab. Parks looked at Chuck's hands and told him she would drive. She handed Chuck her gun. They put Coombs between them. Parks started driving away from the mine as quickly as she could.

Chuck put Parks' pistol to Coombs' head.

"Where is Lawton?" Coombs turned to grin into Chuck's face. Coombs' flat face and oversized features made it look like he was wearing a mask.

"I ain't telling you shit, CIA. Not shit." The pickup truck left the dirt road and turned onto the blacktop. Parks increased speed.

Chuck sat there with the gun against Coombs' head for a few minutes. When Chuck finally spoke, his voice was sepulchral.

"Oh, Coombs, you are so going to tell me what I want to know." Chuck moved the pistol and jammed it against Coombs kneecap. "I will find Lawton. I will ruin you for life if it is necessary. I am going to shoot you in the kneecap. And that will only be the beginning of what I will do. I will shoot you in the other kneecap. You will never walk again Coombs. If you don't talk to me then, I will get my partner's knife," Chuck looked up at Parks who was listening in open-mouthed astonishment, "I will get her knife and I will take fingers. I won't start with the little ones, Coombs, no, I'll start with your thumbs and I will work toward the little ones. You will never pick up a coin again, or hold a fork, or give someone the finger." Chuck forced all his panic and fear into the threat, his horror of what might have happened or might still happen to Sarah. Coombs considered Chuck's eyes. He folded.

"I have a cabin, way up on the ridge. If she ain't dead, she's there. I was supposed to meet Lawton there in the morning. We were going to split the cash and there would be a buyer for the weapons. We'd be gone by tomorrow noon."

Parks pulled into the driveway of the Overcoming Life Church. When she got to the building, she parked in front. She got out and motioned for Coombs scoot to her side and to get out too. Chuck got out of the passenger side, careful to keep the pistol trained on Coombs. Chuck circled the front of the truck and handed Parks her pistol, dried blood from his hands caked on the handle. She led Coombs into the church. When he heard the door close, Chuck sank to his knees and vomited beneath the church's sign.

When he finished, he got up quickly but unsteadily, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and hurried inside. I will find you, Sarah, I will. Whatever it takes.

}o{

Sarah returned to consciousness enwrapped in Chuck's arms. His lips left a searing trail of kisses from her ear down her neck and…lower…Her desire for him was tidal—vast, natural and inexorable. "Now, Chuck, please, now…."

"…Now, she decides to wake up. Must've been a nice dream." The voice she had heard before. Before…before…Chuck! Oh, God, no. Fully awake in a moment, Sarah took in her surroundings. She was in a crude cabin. She was zip-tied to a heavy chair, arms and feet alike bound. There was a fire in the fireplace. A kerosene lantern provided the other illumination in the room. Standing before her, his narrow face gloating, was Meeks Lawton. He walked to the fire and stirred it with a poker. The poker's end glowed; it had been resting in the fire. Meeks provoked the fire for a moment, then seemed satisfied with it. He left the poker partly in the flames.

Lawton looked like his file picture. Skeletal but not weak. He moved with care, an obvious sense of himself and his placement in space. He had a forgettable face, thin and lined, but his features were otherwise regular. Nothing about the man was memorable. Sarah knew that was a reason he had been a successful contract killer. Being non-descript was like wearing camouflage.

Lawton crossed the room to a small table and picked up a chair. He stood it in front of Sarah and sat down. He crossed his legs, waving his foot in the air. It was a disconcerting posture. He looked like he was about to tell her some funny story, like they were friends, pals. Hanging out.

"Agent Sarah Walker, a.k.a. the Ice Queen, a.k.a. Langston's Graham's wildcard enforcer. Bryce Larkin's…bunkmate. You have no idea, really simply no idea, how thrilled I am to meet you. I've known about you for a long time, even studied you. You are gifted, gifted. I consider you one of the few killers whose body of work—whose body of work really simply, your oeuvre, in both quantity and quality—exceeds mine. A master, really simply, a master, that is what you are." Lawton finally slowed down for a moment to take a breath. He frowned. "I dare say, I do dare say that you lose points for not being self-employed. An artist who takes orders is, well, less free than she should be. Her creative powers are shackled. Really simply…."

Since Lawton seemed determined to go on like this, Sarah took a moment, while half-listening, to orient herself more fully. It was dark out—she could see that through the window. She saw that her watch, her knives and her phone were all laid out neatly on the small table. Beneath it was her cap and her jacket, her boots and her socks, neatly folded and carefully placed. The tranquilizer had played havoc with her sense of time, but she knew that she had not been in the chair long. Her muscles were not yet complaining about it. Neither her wrists nor her ankles felt raw from the zip ties. It was maybe a couple of hours at most since Lawton had taken her.

She felt her chest constrict, so tight it felt like her heart could not beat. Two hours. What had happened to Chuck, to Parks, in those two hours?

"…Now, that Sarah (may I call you Sarah?), that was a kill I admired." Lawton smiled at her as if expecting her to reciprocate, his foot bouncing up and down. Sarah just looked at him. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. As he did, Sarah saw scratches on his hands that looked like they continued up his arms. Lawton must've carried her to his car—to a car. He had to be considerably stronger than his size or his manner suggested.

"Are you really simply going to waste this opportunity for a collegial talk? How often, Sarah, do two people like us get to sit down together, really simply sit down and have a…fireside chat?" When Sarah did not respond, Lawton got up and walked to the fire. He extended his hands, palms facing the flames. He stood like that for several seconds, then he rubbed his hands together, and rubbed his hands up and down his arms. He walked over to the sink and filled a tea kettle with water from a water bottle. He walked back and hung the kettle on a stand that allowed him to suspend the kettle above the fire.

"Tea, Sarah?" She continued to look at him without speaking. He shrugged, evidently willing to keep the conversation going without her contributions.

"I have a question for you. I have spent many hours pondering it. Why do people like us do what we do?

"I recognize, intellectually, that it violates what people call 'the moral code'. But you and I know what it is like to live beyond good and evil. Categories like that are for people who have not seen life for what it truly is, who have not faced that it is utterly meaningless, top to bottom, front to back. Life is a long sojourn in a silent place, the only sounds are occasional screams, the only real warmth, fresh blood. When you or I kill, all we do is eliminate one sufferer of meaninglessness from the general meaninglessness. I'd say it was a public service—except that would suggest it had a meaning.

"You see, I think the answer is that we do what we do because we like to do it, really simply. Forget all the philosophical twaddle...

"There is no better moment than the one when you see someone dead by your own hand, while you remain gloriously alive, filled with triumph. That contrast—the target dead, you alive—tell me that not really simply the best moment there is…Every other moment you are only half alive." Lawton looked at her, his face filled with a hunger that chilled Sarah's heart. The tea kettle over the fire began to whine.

Lawton got a potholder from the kitchen and removed the kettle from the fireplace. He got a cup from the cabinet and pulled a teabag from a mason jar full of them.

Watching Lawton make tea so calmly, so normally, after that dark soliloquy made Sarah's head spin.

She thought about what Lawton had said. She knew the moment he was talking about—that moment when she was alive and the person she had terminated was, well, terminated. But that had never felt like a moment of triumph to her. In fact, it had always—Every. Single. Time.—felt like defeat, utter defeat. She was the loser. She felt more dead than the target, as if that were a coherent thought, as if death were gradable. She'd lost more of herself. She had always secretly harbored the fear, real and urgent but unuttered, that she was like Lawton, like someone of his sort. She had harbored the fear that she was a killer—not in the sense that she had killed—yes, she was a killer in that sense—but in the sense that killing was essential to her, that it was a primal need. But, no, she was not and she had never been a killer like that. She knew that. How had she not known that?

She killed under orders. Lawton did not. He killed because he loved to kill, and because he could make money doing what he loved. Lawton chose to kill, he desired it. He killed freely. Sarah did not. Lawton was right about that, and it was an important difference. True, no one pulled Sarah's trigger finger for her, or held a gun to her head as she aimed her rifle, but given her childhood, she'd been deprived of the chance to refuse to become what she had become. She had become a killer before she knew what that meant. She could have walked away once she knew what it meant, but she was too busy running from what she had become.

Graham kept her too busy to understand that there was an open door in her cage. But to walk, to walk through it, she would have to turn around, change. And she had had no conception of what she might become instead, of whether change was possible.

And now Chuck was in her cage with her, telling her, sometimes by word but mostly by deed, that there was an open door. He knew it. That is how he entered her cage. He knew the door was open. He knew where it was. He could help her turn, change. He was helping her.

He was. Wrong tense. He is. Her gut told her Chuck was out there, that he'd survived Coombs' trap. He would come for her. He'd always come for her. She wasn't alone. She just had to hang on. Hang on, Sarah.

Lawton took his seat again. He'd put his teacup on a chipped saucer and was slowly dipping his steeping teabag, considering her through the rising steam. He stopped dipping the teabag. He got up and threw the teabag into the fire, causing a sighing sound as it landed in the flames. The sound seemed to please Lawton and he sat back down. He continued to consider her as he sipped the tea. Sarah kept her face stone.

"I admit I did not go to this trouble just to gush over you like a fanboy," he confessed with a chilling grin, "I have other concerns. Bigger concerns. I need to know what the CIA knows about…me." He sipped his tea.

Sarah contemplated remaining silent. But interrogation was always a double-edged sword. It was hard to get others to reveal secrets without inadvertently revealing your own. "You are a Fulcrum agent. One of the last important ones. You were a contract killer. Those are the bullet points." Really, a pun, here, now? Oh, Chuck, what have you done to me? -Keep doing it, please.

Lawton smiled, the smile spreading slowly on his lips, like a poison. "Really simply? That is all? Agent Parks must be—must have been—slipping. Alas, I mourn her loss," he chuckled, pleased, "a little, a very little. She was good at her job. I never suspected her when I knew her in Europe."

"So how did you know about what was planned tonight?" Sarah tried to sound as vulnerable as she felt.

Lawton's smile spread further. "Now, now, Sarah. That is not information you need to know. We have our ways."

"We?"

Lawton narrowed his eyes. She saw a flash of displeasure. He'd said more than he intended. Just because it was a cliché did not mean it told Sarah nothing. Someone had told them, she was now sure of that. Coombs and Lawton did not figure this out on their own. That was not the we he had in mind. That we did not involve Coombs.

Lawton looked at the poker in the fire, making sure she saw him do so. "Can I believe you, Sarah? Or do I need to vet what you have said?" He got up and walked to the sink again. Putting down his cup and saucer, he opened the doors beneath it and took out a black leather bag, like a doctor's bag. He opened it and rummaged around for a minute. He grunted. He pulled a small vial from the bag and then he reached in again and pulled a hypodermic from it. He sat them on the sink, again making sure she saw what he had done.

Right now, she knew, this was all a show. It might take a grimmer turn soon, but Lawton was working in stages. Torture was unreliable. But the threat of torture—that sometimes worked. Fear had a different sort of effect on the mind than pain. Lawton was working to produce fear. And Sarah was afraid—of Lawton, of course, but more of what might have happened at the mine. That fear continued to compress her chest, squeeze her heart.

"Sarah, tonight has so far been a pleasure," he picked up his cup and saucer and sipped his tea again. "I see no reason why we need to veer in…another direction. So, let me ask again. Reassure me. What does the CIA know about me?" He sipped his tea as he walked toward her. He stopped beside her, putting his hand on her shoulder. The gesture might have been friendly if he was someone else, if she were someone else, if they were elsewhere. That made the gesture not just threatening, but appalling. She felt her stomach knot.

"You know," he started in a less demanding tone, "Larkin and I crossed paths once. I asked him about you. He was reluctant to talk about you. At first, I thought him gallant. Later, I was not sure." He shrugged, squeezing her shoulder. "Oh, well." His voice became demanding again. "What does the CIA know about me?"

"Exactly what I told you."

Lawton leaned down and put his face right in front of hers. "You have hard eyes to read, Agent Walker. I imagine that must aid you professionally. What does it do for you personally, I wonder? Really simply hard to read." He went quiet for a while.

The fire in the fireplace was beginning to die down. Sarah could feel the damp West Virginia cold entering the cabin. She shivered. Lawton noticed.

He walked to the sink, picked up the hypodermic and the vial. He filled the hypodermic, looking at her as he pushed the plunger slightly and clear liquid squirted from the needle. Satisfied, he walked to her. "Have you told me the truth, Sarah?" She nodded her head, her eyes on the needle. "Let's test that, shall we. This is a new truth serum developed by…Fulcrum. It has tremendous power. Its onset can be…difficult. But once it passes, you will be in a mood to share. No matter what sort of training you may have had."

He rolled up the sleeve of her flannel shirt. She shivered again as the needle went into her upper arm.

}o{

Sarah came to consciousness massively, suddenly, her body jolting. She gasped. The cabin was freezing. There were still embers in the fireplace, but they were no match for the cold. She looked over to the sink. Lawton was on the floor, blood pooled around him. He had still had a gun in his hand. She heard a low groan from behind her, and Chuck crawled into her peripheral vision. She turned to him. He slumped onto his side. A growing bloodstain was visible on his chest. No!

"Chuck!" Her vocal chords felt stretched, unresponsive. Her voice sounded…wrong. "Chuck! Cut me loose so I can help you."

He looked at her the way only he looked at her, the way that renewed her. Except now he was saying goodbye. She needed to touch him. He was so far away.

"Chuck, please, no. Chuck, I love you."

"I love you too, Sarah," he answered, his voice a plangent whisper in her ear, his breath warm against her skin.

A/N2 Yes, that last bit was deliberate. Are we having fun yet? Devo: "Lord, I am so tired...How long can this go on?"