Sarah vs the 80s Medley

Chuck raised his hand. "I have a technical question."

Sarah frowned. "Okay? What is it?"

"If you make the Winnebago into a fuel-air explosive, how do we then drive it to the intercept point? Won't it explode and flatten Sheriff Turner's house-not to mention, you know, us- when we try to start the engine?"

"Uh." Sarah said. "Well. Huh. I wouldn't think the spark from starting an engine would be enough to set it off. Still. Not really something you want to just make assumptions about. I guess to be safe, we'd have to drive it out and then make the final preparations once it's in place. But then we'd have to have a good idea of what route they're taking back in with the shipment ahead of time, 'cause it'd probably take at least ten minutes to prep and get the fuel mix right. Maybe fifteen."

Chuck nodded slowly. "It's an idea worth thinking about, but I'm not sure we'll have enough lead time to get everything into position." He slid over his laptop to pull up some maps so he could figure out the distances.

"You're probably right. The FAE aspect might have to go. But I'm pretty sure we could do something pretty spectacular with all the explosives I mixed up this morning and piling in cans of diesel if we've got time. It'd be less prep time overall, and then we can just park it and use a burner cell to set it off, if we even have to. The threat might be enough to get them to surrender."

"And if not?"

"The smaller device won't wipe them all out unless we manage to suck them in a lot closer than I think we'll be able to. They've been burned once on that kind of thing, and the word's bound to get out. But we've got enough explosives that they're bound to underestimate the blast radius, we'll get at least some of them and the survivors will be slowed down-even if we don't get any, their transportation will probably be crippled-which'd be enough of a delay for us to finish the rescue op before they get back to their production facility. And after the way I talked to the FBI, HRT should be in the area pretty soon after that to track down the stragglers."

"So, hang on," Turner said, "That sounds like you want to split up, tackle the objectives simultaneously."

"Yeah, what's wrong with that? If something goes wrong at either end we can try and regroup with time to spare before they can kill the hostages."

"But if something goes wrong at either end, we're splitting up our firepower and lowering the odds either group could fight their way clear. And if we took out the mobile group first, we could use the rig they're bringing the coke in on as a transport to evacuate the hostages in case there's any bad guys left upright when its time to pull out."

"Communications might be an issue in that scenario," Sarah said. "If we don't hit them simultaneously, they could call and alert whoever we left for second."

"Aaaactually..." Chuck chimed in, typing away merrily, "I'm already in the phone company system from tracking all these guys' cell phones, right? It's like three lines of code and defining a couple stacks, and I can blacklist all their cells."

"What do you mean?"

"LIke I said. I'm in the phone company database. I can cut them off from making or receiving any calls not from a whitelist. If we need to talk to them, I can whitelist our burners so we can call them, but they can't call anybody."

"They're gonna know something's up as soon as you hit that button."

"So I'll wait until we're ready to rock'n'roll," Chuck said. "Now you two just need to decide if we divide our forces or not."

"Surprise is a pretty big force multiplier, but I'm kind of leaning toward Turner's plan, now that we've really talked it out," Sarah said. "If we can get our hands on that big-rig we can get out of dodge quicker. The cartel might be trying to bring in more goons for all we know."

"And, it's been 24 hours since the diner incident. If they had guys on standby, they could have flown in more troops and driven down from Salt Lake by now," Chuck felt duty bound to mention.

"Shit, I didn't even think of that," Turner groused. "If they did bring in more muscle, they might be with the coke shipment."

"Or already at the processing plant to guard the hostages. We don't have their cell phone numbers to cut off with Chuck's idea."

"Weeelllll..." Chuck said. "I can shut down the cell tower completely, if you want. Just blacklist everybody except our burner cells."

"Still leaves us not knowing how many people are in the processing facility."

"You're forgetting the prisoner," Sarah said. "He'd have chimed in about extra bodies moving around. I think our initial estimate on manpower is still good." Chuck still had his head buried in his laptop screen. "Anything else you can tell us?"

"Give me a second. I'm cross-referencing the property records to see if I can't-ha!"

Turner frowned. "What now?"

"Their security system is pretty great. Their security on their security system is not that great."

"Huh?"

"The head guy probably likes to be able to check the security cameras from his house or apartment or whatever," Chuck said, continuing to type. "They're using internet cameras. Which go through the local telecom company. Whose database is, not to put too fine a point on it, kind of my bitch." One final flurry of typing, and Chuck grinned. "Boom goes the dynamite," he said, and spun the laptop so Sarah and Turner could see. On the screen, was a video window showing a long table with several sets of scales and a mound of boxes, probably the tiny ziploc bags the hostages were going to be required to sift the drugs into later. An armed guard paced in the background.

"You..." Turner's mouth dropped open in shock and he seemed unable to form any more words.

Sarah looked only marginally less shocked. "You hacked into their security?"

"You act like this is a surprise. This kind of thing was... kind of my thing back when we worked for the government."

"Yeah," Sarah said softly. "I know. Just, been a while, and this is pretty impressive."

Chuck grinned.

"Okay, then. We've still got a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it. We got a consensus on whether we split up or not?" Turner wanted to know.

"All for one, one for all," Chuck said.

Chuck knuckled his back and staggered down the steps from the Winnebago's side door, after toting another fifty pounds of Sarah's improvised explosives up to the pile. That was the last of it, thankfully. 'All for one, one for all' had turned out not to include anyone else lugging explosives around. "Nice," Sarah said. "It'll take me a couple minutes to get the wiring done, you want to help or?"

"Actually, I got an idea. From your whole talk about psyops earlier," He said, reaching for his laptop bag.

Sarah shrugged. "Kay," she said and retrieved a pair of pliers from Turner's toolbox.

Once she was done setting up the bomb, she came back. "How's your psyops plan coming..." Sarah frowned over his shoulder. "And what do 80s love songs have to do with psyops..."

"Buh-buh-buh-" Chuck chided, closed the laptop and half-turned in his chair. "I know what I'm doing."

Sarah rolled her eyes.

"And besides have you ever really stopped and listened to the words to 'Every Breath You Take?' It's like super super creepy. And in this context it'll be even weirder when it starts playing over the PA system."

"You're going to serenade them with The Police?"

"And some Hall & Oates," Chuck said. "Look just trust me, it's gonna be hilarious."

"I think you're confusing practical jokes with psyops."

"Well, in point of fact, I left my whoopie cushion at home, so I'll have to make due with creepy lyrics about being watched."

"Okay, fair enough," Sarah said, and pushed herself back upright with a hand to Chuck's shoulder, which was rock hard. "Wow, tense much? Are you always this stressed out before a mission?"

Chuck shrugged uncomfortably. "Probably," he said.

Sarah grinned. "Hmm... I can think of a couple ways we might... ease the tension."

"What do you mean," Chuck blinked and then took in the gleam in her eye as she came around in front of him. "Oh."

Her grin widened and she reached down to undo his jeans when there was a rap on the door. "Ugh... to be continued," Sarah said, pushing herself back upright with both hands on his knees, then raised her voice. "You need something sheriff?"

"Well, I was thinking," Turner said, once Sarah had opened the door. "You mentioned this thing," a flick of his wrist took in the bago. "Was... drawing attention. I figured you might want to leave it in the barn here for a while, until you could clear up... whatever it is you're runnin' from."

"Thanks for the offer, but I don't think the Gremlin is gonna be up for a cross-country road trip."

"Well," he said. "As far as that goes... you could borrow my car."

"You want to drive the Gremlin around?"

"Oh, no. I'd keep my truck. I said you'd take my car." He waved for them to follow. "C'mon."

The garage which held Turner's gunsmith workshop was new territory for Chuck and Sarah. They'd never felt a need to set foot inside, and it felt a little odd. Right up until the moment Turner strode over to the shape of a dust-cloth draped vehicle and ripped the cover off with a flourish. All other thought vanished from Sarah's mind and her jaw dropped. It was black and sleek and perfect. And it had a yellow racing stripe down the hood. "Um, wow," she heard Chuck say. Her mind was still busy eyeing the 1967 Shelby GT500, and the custom supercharger that protruded aggressively from the hood. Her gas-pedal foot suddenly itched. "It's too much, though." Chuck said. "We couldn't possibly-ow!" Sarah retracted her foot from where she'd instinctively stomped Chuck's instep. "Sarah, are you... drooling?"

She wiped her lip and glared at him. "We'll gladly accept your offer. And I promise we'll bring your car back without a scratch."

"It could be dangerous for you, though," Chuck said. "The woman after us already sent one team of would-be assassins after the Winnebago. It's probably best if we just park it somewhere and obviously abandon it."

Sarah frowned. He had a point, but... "Do you mind giving us a couple minutes to talk it over, before we head out to intercept that shipment?"

Turner glanced at his watch. "Nah, we just want to make sure we head out before nine."

It was a little past eight thirty. Plenty of time for what Sarah had in mind. She nodded and led Chuck back to the barn into the Winnebago.

When the door shut behind him Chuck leaned back against it. "Look, I don't want to fight about this," he said.

Sarah turned and cocked an eyebrow. "Good to hear. So we'll take the car."

"That's not what I said."

"I know, but look. We've already warned him there would be danger involved in leaving the Winnie here in his barn. He's a grown man and perfectly capable of making his own decisions. Is any of that in dispute?"

"No, but-"

"No buts," she said. Chuck sighed and finally nodded. "Good. I was afraid I'd have to use ...alternate means of persuasion. Instead, we can get back to relieving that tension. Now..." she said, one hand wriggling its way into the waist of his jeans. "Where was I?"

She had his pants down and was just bending to take him in her mouth, when there was another rap on the door. "God, now what," Sarah said, then made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat and sighed, bonging her forehead against Chuck's bare hip. "Yeah, sheriff?"

"Just another thought. What if they got walkie talkies?"

Sarah heaved a sighed. "Shit," she said. Sarah flicked her hair out of her face. "To be continued, again..."

Once Chuck had himself tucked back in, Sarah let the sheriff in for some last minute revisions to the plan. Leaving waitress and cook to guard their prisoner was a risk, not that they'd let him loose on purpose, but rather that he might get loose from his current location cuffed to a radiator. Chuck mentioned an episode with Casey which flickered across her memory without quite spurring a full recollection. The simplest solution was to tie him up inside the winnebago and wire the doors to set off the bomb, when they got it in place. But, of course, since he was 'cooperating' with them, Turner and Chuck poo-pooed the idea, and bound him hand and foot as well, before locking the door and driving a wedge under it. Wouldn't do to blow their prisoner up with his former associates if it came to that. Sarah hoped it wouldn't. She'd seen all too much bloodshed in her time with the CIA, and from what Chuck had let slip, the five years that were still hazy and full of all too many entirely blank stretches hadn't been noted for a lack of gunfights. Despite the front she put up, and her willingness to do whatever was necessary to get the job done, she didn't relish killing, even the drug dealing scum who'd taken over the small town of Erewhon, Utah.

Turner used a street map to mark the route that Chuck had the GPS logs for the outgoing SUVs that had gone off to link up with the shipment. It made sense that, given their knowledge of enemy presence in the area, they would alter the route coming back. But there weren't enough streets for that, really. They had to take one of two routes, and it really narrowed to one before it got to their central processing facility. That was where the potential for walkie-talkies made things a little hairy. Chuck was busy scrutinizing the security feed from the facility trying to spot any on the men on guard duty. The portable radios, if they had them, and if they were high-end models, would have enough range that the bad guys could potentially get a signal out alerting the processing facility to the threat, depending how far out they could make the intercept. The route narrowed down to one road better than two miles from the facility, but some portable radios on the private sector market were good to twice that. Building a powerful enough jammer to stop the signal entirely was out of the question though, on such short notice.

"It won't stop us putting the arm on the boys with the shipment," Turner said, "But it might make the ones left at the processing plant antsy enough to kill the hostages."

Sarah nodded and grimaced at the map, trying to calculate distances, and lines of fire and a dozen other things that were only half-formed as yet. "You're right. If they've got radios, we'll have to abort the second half of the op or go back to simultaneous assaults," she finally said. "Anything on the video?"

"Still looking," Chuck said. "When you say abort..."

"I mean grab a walkie talkie and explain the FBI is going to come in with both boots on if they don't have live hostages to bargain with. And then just wait on HRT," Sarah explained. "Best we can do if word leaks back to the facility before we can sweep in and make our try."

"Of course, if they don't have radios and have made the transition entirely to burner phones," Chuck said with a shrug, "we should be okay. Still don't see any hand-helds by the way. And if they've got a dedicated radio room in that place, it doesn't have any security cameras. Actually, the more I think about it, the less I think they'd have bothered with radio. They're too confident of themselves. Communications discipline-wise, they're okay with cell phones. Probably don't discuss anything overtly illegal on the phones, and they're fine. Police agencies would need warrants for the wiretaps. And they've got the whole town running scared basically, right?"

Turner nodded grudgingly. "And they own my old sheriff's department. So FBI and DEA would be all they're really worried about. And maybe not even that. Cartels have got a long history of counter-intelligence ops against the big Fed boys."

"And the two 'deputies' weren't using radios," Sarah chimed in. "When we rolled them at the diner, their car didn't have a radio in it."

"Probably just not too worried about encryption, which would be standard to the expensive walkie-talkies they'd need to have the range to warn the facility when we hit the shipment," Chuck paused at a chime from his laptop. "And they're on the way back. So we need to get on the road."

They convoyed, with Turner in his pickup out front, and Chuck and Sarah following in the winnebago-shaped IED. Sarah turned to Chuck. "Are you okay?"

Chuck looked up from his laptop, where he was running tracks on the cartel's cell phones, to make sure they kept coming the way they'd been coming. "Why wouldn't I be?"

She shrugged. "Well, we kept getting interrupted when..."

"Oh, that," he waggled his eyebrows. "The way I remember it, you seem to prefer your tension relief after missions anyway."

Sarah blushed and shrugged self consciously.

"What brought on that blush, I wonder," he said, grin widening. "I was talking about foot rubs."

Sarah rolled her eyes and the rest of the trip went in companionable silence, until it was time to set up the ambush, and the Sheriff pulled over onto the shoulder. Chuck poked his head out the side door.

"Here look good?" The older man called. Chuck glanced in at Sarah who nodded.

"The trees off a hundred yards to the right give us some good cover if they give us trouble or the bomb won't go off."

Chuck stuck his head back out. "Yeah," he called.

Sarah swung the winnebago in a long arc, covering the two-lane road and the shoulder going both ways. Unless the cartel thugs wanted to drive a big-rig through a ditch to get around them, they'd have to send somebody in close to move the winnebago. Or they could just try to ram it. Which would be the last mistake they ever made.

Turner had another surprise for them as they hiked off to the nearby copse Sarah had spotted. "What is that?" Chuck said, pointing at the huge can affixed to the ex-sheriff's deer rifle.

"Oil filter," he said. "In a pinch it makes a hell of a suppressor. After what you said about wanting everybody to have a silent option, I used my lathe to turn out an adapter. Now it threads right on. Highly illegal, but I trust you two not to tell the FBI when they come to town."

Chuck gave a boy scout salute and Sarah merely shrugged. Turner had brought a pair of tarps along, one of which acted a pretty good light shield so that Chuck's laptop-glow wouldn't give them away.

Matteo wasn't in the best frame of mind. None of them were, after their tame idiot deputies stirred up some hornet's nest of crazy bitches with explosives. So, when the red lights on the rig came on in front of him and the huge tractor trailer full of drugs skidded to a stop, he was out the door a second after his trailing SUV came to a halt. "What the fuck's the hold up, man?" He jogged up to the cab, and glared up at the driver, then he spotted the RV parked across the street. "What the shit is this?"

And then his phone rang. He grumbled under his breath and fished his cell out, not even bothering to look at the caller ID. "Yeah, what'd'you want?"

"My demands are simple," a woman's voice came back. "You and all your friends out there throw your guns in a pile, and kneel down in the middle of the road."

"Who the-" and then it hit him. Crazy blonde bitch. "Oh, shit."

"The RV is full of explosives," the woman explained calmly. "If anyone tries to run, or if any vehicle tries to turn around or drive off, I blow the RV. You, right now, are standing within the lethal overpressure radius. That means that you die no matter what, when the bomb goes off. Shrapnel doesn't even have to hit you, like your friends in the SUVs. A couple of whom might actually survive. Their vehicle will protect them a little."

"Hey, man," the driver said. "What's goin on?"

He shook his head. "Do you know who I work for?"

"Um. Yeah. A drug cartel," she said. "That much is obvious. If you want to explain in more detail for my recording device, feel free."

"Shit," he said.

"Dude, what's going on?" The driver demanded.

"Tell him," The voice on his cell phone said.

The one she'd called finally got over the shock of the moment, and with coaching from Sarah, and a single well-placed round from Sheriff Turner's suppressed deer rifle, convinced the others to see things her way. Sheriff Turner had a wealth of leftover bindings, to the point that Chuck had been a little bit alarmed. The man had a whole duffel-bag full of handcuffs and zipties up on a shelf in his closet. He claimed there'd been a mixup with the order, and the department had ordered 100 sets instead of 10. It still didn't explain why the ex-sheriff still had them. But Chuck had decided not to think too much about it. Maybe he'd just been too fed up to hand them over to his Cartel-bought replacement.

Using most of the metal cuffs from the duffel, the cartel thugs cuffed themselves into an awkward circle, right hand to right hand, like they were in a pre-game huddle. Hands-in everybody. It made it nigh impossible to mount effective resistance, even if one of them had had the nerve to retain any weaponry, which a quick search by Chuck with Turner and Sarah standing by with long guns locked on target, determined they had not.

The haul was excellent in that regard. Each man had at least a pistol or a sawed off, or a machine pistol, and three had fully automatic rifles. H&K G3s, older, but perfectly serviceable, with folding stocks and decent optics, as well as a spare magazine each. They un-cuffed the captured goons from their circle briefly, into a long line, and then forced them to re-form it around the thickest, tallest tree in the area. Only a foot or so around, but it was enough that there was little slack in the chains. Strictly speaking, it wasn't all that secure, but Sarah figured the odds on them being desperate or committed enough to break their thumbs to escape were low. In any event, she had Chuck zip-tie their feet as well, left ankle to left ankle, all the way around the tree. It would probably hold long enough for the FBI to come scoop them up in the morning.

Chuck drove the big rig while Turner brought up the rear with his pickup. Sarah rode with the shipment of drugs in the back of the big rig. Since the cartel didn't employee any blonde women, her presence in the cab of the big truck would only give the game away before they got past the outer gate. The compound had a ten foot chain-link fence surrounding it about fifty yards out in every direction, which hadn't been of much concern when the plan was a straight-up ninja-style infiltration. Their current plan was a little different, but probably less risky in the long run. Chuck had in a bluetooth headset and they had a phone circuit open. "What's wrong," he said in her ear, through her own bluetooth.

"What do you mean?"

"You sighed."

"No I didn't."

"Okay. Then what-hang on. Gotta cut the banter short, we're here. Outer perimeter security is two guys with rifles. They've got them slung over their shoulders, body language is good." If everything was going according to plan, Turner was hanging back with the headlights on his truck off.

Another voice came through the headset, faraway sounding, just bleed-through as the guard's natural suspicions were raised.

"Hey, where's the rest of the guys? I left my thermos in the Bronco."

Chuck grunted. "All our cells went dead. The rest a the guys went to make sure the crazy bitch didn't try to blow up the cell tower or something."

"Watch it, Bartowski," Sarah murmured.

Chuck cleared his throat. "Hey man, check yours to make sure it's not just us." His voice was gruff as he put on his cartel gun-thug act. "Where you want me to park?"

"Loading dock, man you know the drill."

"Let me know about the phones okay?"

"Yeah."

Once they were away, Chuck's voice came over the bluetooth again. "How do you want to handle this? I don't see any other guards outside, and no windows looking out."

"Pretend you've got a flat," Sarah said. "When he comes alongside to help you check it out, stun him. I'll take the other one."

Chuck nodded to himself. "Will do. Hang on to something," he said, and hit the brake and clutch together, squealing the brakes and swinging the wheel a little bit so that it looked like he nearly lost control. Thanks to the intersect, of course, Chuck had the equivalent of years driving heavy machinery, and his touch on the pedals and shifter was expert. He let out a loud bellowing curse and threw the door open. He jumped down and went around the front of the cab to the front passenger wheel well.

"What happened?" the same guard from before said, raising his voice across the distance.

"Got a damn flat," he shouted back, "Come give me a hand, will you?" Chuck risked poking his head around the side of the engine compartment and waved him on.

The guard jogged over, and Chuck's brief glimpse told him all he needed. "Second guard's coming up the passenger side. He's past the back door."

After that, he stopped worrying about the second man. Sarah had his back, so he had no worries about his flank. Chuck crouched down by the bumper and waited, listening for the crunch of gravel under the man's shoes. He jumped up at the last moment, left hand darting across to fend off the man's weapon if necessary. It wasn't. He still had his rifle slung over his shoulder. Instead, Chuck turned the movement into a quick jab to the solar plexus and then poked him in the side of the neck with the stunner-flashlight. The man wheezed all his breath out in a rush from the unexpected strike and then collapsed twitching. Chuck bent over him and fished a pair of zip cuffs out of a pocket. "Hey, what's going on?" a voice called from the far side of the rig, and Chuck grimaced. His takedown had been too loud. Should have caught the man as he fell.

A moment later, there was a quick tha-tha-thack noise from Sarah's Uzi, and then the sound of a body collapsing.

A few seconds after that, Sarah poked her head around the corner, and shrugged. "Two down," she said, though he could tell she wasn't happy about it. Even a silenced weapon made noise, and automatic weapons fire was difficult to mistake for anything else in the world. So far at least, it didn't look like any alarm had gone out. Of course that could change at any moment.

Chuck put on a brave face and helped her drag the dead guard around and hoist him up into the back of the big rig. Then they went back for the merely unconscious guard, and signaled Turner to come on in. Once Sarah and Turner were keeping watch for anyone else coming out of the compound, Chuck hopped back up into the cab and fired up his laptop, double checking the positions of the remaining gunmen with his GPS readings and the interior cameras.

There were a few exterior cameras as well, but Chuck had long since put them under his own control, and looped them before they had rolled up.

"So?" Sarah said. "Point of entry Alpha?"

"Yeah," Chuck said. "Just two in the loading dock. Though... actually. I've got a few extras in there."

"Extras?" Turner said, tense.

"Among the hostages," Chuck said as he typed, switching quickly between camera feeds. "They're not armed. Oh, but one of them's in sheriff's uniform. Must be their bought and paid-for town government. They're in with the prisoners now, gonna tie up all their loose ends at once."

Turner grimaced. "So, we go in the loading dock."

"Then two more guarding the hostages, probably?" Sarah asked. Chuck nodded. "Then best case, if we don't raise an alarm by then, we exfil the way we came," Sarah said, "and let HRT come in and clean out the rest when they finally show up."

Getting into the loading dock was easier said than done. But Chuck had the plans for the building, and a mischievous grin. "Uh-oh," Sarah said. "I think I know that grin."

Craig scooped up his phone on the second ring. He didn't recognize the number, but after a moment's hesitation, flicked it open and answered. "Yeah?"

Music came back at him, and he furrowed his brow, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Then the chorus hit.

Private eyes

They're watching you

They see your every move

Private eyes

They're watching you

Private eyes

They're watching you watching you watching you watching you

Craig pulled his phone away from his ear, thumbed the end button and stared at his phone. Billy frowned. "What's wrong man?"

Billy's phone rang. "Don't answer that," Craig said. He answered it, almost entirely out of spite.

Private eyes

They're watching you watching you watching you watching you private eyes!

"The fuck?" Billy muttered, staring at his phone. And then it came in on the loading dock PA system too. A split-second later, the side door blew in with a magnesium flare, thermite burning through the thin metal with ease. They spun, weapons drawn, toward the door. Just as the big rolling loading-dock door shifted up half a foot, and a pair of muzzles carrying suppressors poked in while they were facing the wrong way. Tha-tha-thack. Darkness.

Chuck was looking a little green at this point, and Sarah drew him off behind a stack of crates in the loading dock. "You okay?"

"I'll be fine once this is over. I know there's no other way. Don't worry about it. Just kick ass," Chuck said. He hefted his laptop. "I'll keep an eye on them for you."

Turner wasn't exactly the greatest at small unit tactics. He was a little slow, but then, Sarah was spoiled on that front. When the CIA sent people on paramilitary missions, they went with the best. His police training was far in the past, and he let her take point without complaint.

Sarah keyed her bluetooth, "You got an idea how to distract these two?"

"Well, they're playing cards and- crap," Chuck said. "More coming down a side corridor at your six o'clock. You've got ten seconds. Get in there and fort up. I'll work on distracting the rest of them." That was when everything started going wrong.

Turner kicked the door open. That part of his training still worked. The doorframe was flimsy and it gave at the first kick. He pitched himself to the ground and Sarah peeped around the doorframe, Uzi up and tracking through the red-dot sight. She ripped off a pair of quick bursts and just that fast, both gunmen were down. Only one of them had time to even start reaching for his gun.

A dozen screams of terror came back at her. "Calm down!" Sarah had to shout over the terrified hostages huddled in the back of the room. They weren't even tied up, just kind of penned off in the back half of the big chamber in a hastily built set of barred cells. The doors weren't even locked it looked like, but Sarah spotted a bell atop the main single door. Enough warning for the two guards to hose the hostages with bullets if it became necessary. "We're here to help. Stay down there's more coming!"

She rushed over to the table the gunmen had been playing cards at and flipped it on it's side, lugging it over to wedge in the doorway with Turner's help. "Go loud, sheriff," Sarah said, and turned back to the hostages. She pointed. "You, you, you. Stand up," she dug in her pack and tossed them sets of zip ties. "Consider yourselves under citizens' arrest. Get any ideas, you can join your friends." Punctuated with a head bob at the two bodies. The three corrupt county officials meekly put on their zip ties and sat back down under the smoking barrel of Sarah's Uzi. She scanned the other hostages. A couple of men in their forties, mostly women and a few kids. It made a kind of sense; men were more likely to make trouble, try to escape. Look brave in front of the women and children. None of these men went in for macho bullshit, it seemed, still it was worth checking. "Anybody ever fire a gun?" All the men and most of the women raised their hands. She nodded toward the fallen weapons, and shrugged her G3 off her shoulder. "Help yourselves. And try not to shoot any of the good guys."

They looked stunned for a moment. Volume of fire was more important than accuracy, as long as they could avoid shooting themselves or her. They had a good field of fire down that corridor, and the heavy concrete brick construction ought to give them decent cover, if Chuck's distraction worked out.

The PA system blared suddenly. "Good Evening Cartel jerkbags!" Chuck's voice came through clear and booming. "This is DJ Carmichael spinning the tunes you didn't know you wanted to hear. First up tonight, is a little treasure from Twisted Sister.

Glam metal began to blare, and a few moments later, over the booming chatter of Turner firing down the corridor, came the classic anthem.

Oh we're not gonna take it!

Hell no, we ain't gonna take it!

Oh, we're not gonna take it, anymore!

Chuck's voice came through her bluetooth. "I'm piping it through the whole complex. They're freaking out a little. Looks like three-no four- are heading for the security office. Another half dozen are heading for the main corridor leading to the hostage pens. And I got a bead on a guy, looks like the head honcho. He's with the thugs headed your way, waving a gold Desert Eagle around like a maniac. In my experience the leaders like the ostentatious guns."

Sarah did the math quickly. "That's all of them?"

"Yeah," Chuck said. "GPS is pretty useless though now. I'm just using their security system now. Unless he's in the can. No cameras in there."

"You gonna be safe in the loading dock?"

"Oh, but I'm not in the loading dock," Chuck said. "I'm in the ducts. And there's a false ceiling you can use to get around behind them, while Turner and your new recruits hold them off. I'll take the ones going for the security office."

"Be careful."

"Hey. It's me!"

Sarah's expression went blank for a moment, before she got the reference. "Doofus. Hey, somebody help me up," she said.

After a leg up, into the false ceiling, with guidance from Chuck, she crawled along in the false ceiling, being careful with every shift and movement, until she was past the cartel thugs position. "Okay, I gotta go radio silent," she said, easing the styrofoam square under her out of the way..

"Me too," Chuck said.

Sarah nodded and tightened her grip on the Uzi. This was the tricky part. They were mostly looking the other way, but one was scanning their back quarter. She hadn't expected them to be following any kind of actual tactical plan. But all it meant was that he died first. They were bunched up enough she hardly even needed to aim. Sarah rolled over the edge and dropped easily to her feet. The clump of her boots was lost in the mechanistic clatter of her uzi. The first man was down immediately, but she was close enough to the second that it was easier to club him with the butt of her submachine gun than to shoot him. After that, two more started turning, but Turner and some of the ex-hostages opened up right on cue. "Drop the guns," Sarah heard herself shout, and wonder of wonders, they did. But- she counted again. Only five of them. No gold Desert Eagle in evidence. "Shit," she said. "Chuck keep your head on a swivel, the leader's in the wind."

They burst into the security office, guns ready to chop the bastard in two. He had to be there, to be accessing the PA and playing that stupid song. The song hiccuped for a moment. "Strike one boys. Guess again. I swear I'm not in the supply closet."

The gunmen thundered out, predictably, guns pointing everywhere. Chuck eased himself out of the duct into the security office once they were safely away. Guns pointing everywhere except the room they'd just cleared. Chuck hefted his stun-light, and peeked out into the corridor. The two on the right were closest, and his memorized set of plans told him that there was a little dogleg in the corridor that would hide him. These were also the two who were splitting off to check out the supply closet he'd mentioned.

They kicked in the door, and Chuck rounded the corner behind them. He jabbed one in the spine with his stun-gun and caught the second's gun as he spun in surprise. Chuck shifted his grip slightly, dropped the flashlight and yanked up, smashing the butt of the gunman's own rifle across his chin. The man staggered back a step and Chuck recovered, speared the gunbutt into the man's chest just below the sternum, spun and crashed his elbow down on the back of the man's neck as he did. Two down, two to go. He scooped up his dropped light, pulled out his iPhone and checked the cameras back down the way he'd come, at the same time judging the positions of the two remaining thugs, then he went back into the security office. Instead of getting back into his duct, Chuck hopped up on the desk and flicked a ceiling tile aside, clambering up into the false ceiling. The two remaining thugs were well and truly terrified by this point, as their calls to the other two went unanswered. They went past the security office and spotted their fallen comrades, cursed and started forward. Chuck weighed just a little bit more than Sarah, and he put an elbow down wrong and plunged through the ceiling in a cloud of dust and broken ceiling tile, landing with a thump that drove the air out of his lungs flat on his back. The gunmen turned, eyes widening and guns tracking around. Chuck threw his flashlight at one of them, buying himself a split second to roll aside as the flash came.

Their first rounds crashed into the concrete floor where he'd been just a moment before, and Chuck darted back the opposite direction. They over-corrected and sprayed the wall with wild rounds. Chuck's little .22 pistol came out and he squeezed off a round into the farther gunman's ankle. The man staggered into his friend and threw off both their aim. More rounds went wild to Chuck's left. Chuck was back on his feet a moment later, leading with a charging kick that knocked one gunman's rifle away to clatter across the floor. He recovered and spun, kicking the flashlight back up off the floor into his hand and smashed it across the disarmed thug's face as he completed the movement. The gunshot thug tried to raise his rifle, but Chuck shot him a second time in the elbow and the gun tumbled away. For good measure Chuck zapped him in the throat with his stungun.

He realized he was panting for breath. Whew. That had been closer than he really liked. Sarah stood at the far end of the corridor, Uzi at the ready, staring at him. He shrugged and tapped his temple. Sarah raised her Uzi and fired. Chuck was diving for the floor before her finger even hit the trigger, despite his shock. "What the hell, Sarah?"

"Where's your bluetooth? I tried to warn you earlier."

The man with the gold Desert Eagle lay sprawled behind him in a pool of blood. Chuck clapped a hand to his ear. Must have dropped it somewhere. "Your end?"

"Taken care of," she said. "Just need to cuff the rest of the survivors. How many did you have to kill?"

"Got lucky," Chuck said. "One is slightly wrinkled. But he'll live."

After that it was all over but the bureaucracy. FBI would be there shortly, Turner had the surviving Cartel thugs and the corrupt officials all cuffed in a line, with former prisoners watching them alertly with automatic weapons. Chuck's laptop chimed. "You've got mail," and he frowned at it. Then he tugged the computer out of his case. He held it awkwardly as he opened the clamshell one handed. 1 new email, from an anonymous email address, without a single line of text. There was a warning that pictures had been blocked. He clicked on it, and a picture bloomed. Ellie and Awesome out for a jog with Clara in her stroller. There were cross-hairs drawn in around all three heads.

Chuck's face went ashen, and Sarah peeked over his shoulder. "Where do you keep the keys for that monster in the garage?"

"I'm old fashioned," Turner said, crowding in himself to take a look. "Under the driver's side sun visor." He handed over the keys to his pickup. "Make my tall tale for the FBI a little more believable if I didn't somehow manage to drive here in two vehicles. Go."

TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N: Raised the stakes just a little this chapter, to the point I got this emoticon out of my beta reader: ლ(ಠ益ಠლ). So I'm a little proud of that.