What do we do now…go on waiting

This story is the follow-on to the Chuck vs the Plan Series

Still don't own Chuck. Normal disclaimers apply. Characters and events are fictitious.

"Sometimes it helps to know that you got something to lose."

-Agent Walker, Episode 3.4

Chapter 12—Missed it by…

U.S. Embassy Bogota, Columbia

Chuck had an office that Zondra had arranged for him. It was not much, just wooden desk and chair. There was an Internet connection and phone. Chuck was in heaven. He had his laptop connected through an encryption device and the same with his phone. His model was running all of the photos that Zondra had given him. It was also doing a routine on Lindo, trying to find connections. Chuck was on the phone with Sarah. She was in her hotel room.

"Huh, she's fine. I haven't had any problems. Something I need to know?"

"So what do you know?" Sarah responded looking out her window at the Eiffel tower.

"Well, I was able to put together the CAT Squad with you, Carina, Zondra and now that I think about it, why did you get separated. Those reports were really good. You did a lot. You should be proud." He paused not hearing a response, "Okay, what am I missing?"

"That's it! They missed it. Chuck you're wonderful. Call you back." The line went dead.

Chuck stared at the phone. He still wasn't sure what he had done. 'What did I miss?' He took a sip of the coffee, then he knew. Walking out of the office he saw Zondra. "Can we go back to the warehouse?"

"Sure, what for?" Zondra motioned to Greg. He nodded and got on the phone.

Chuck rubbed the back of his neck, "I think I missed something. I need to look at the coffee again."

Streets of Bogota

In the SUV again sitting next to Zondra, He knew he should have been prepared, but…

Zondra turned looking at him, like she was trying to size something up for a kill. She looked at his eyes and then remembered Walker was always a sucker for dark brown eyes. "So, what was it? Carina said Walker was hooked."

"Well, it's Bartowski now." Chuck held up his ring finger, "I'd say we are more than just hooked."

"That's still amazing. We used to say, 'love them, then leave them or shoot them.'"

Chuck let out a laugh, "Then I guess we're together permanently. She shot me." He pointed at his shoulder.

"What?"

"Oh, we were in a hostage situation. I was the hostage. Maitland, that was his name, had a gun on me and was telling Sarah and Casey to put their weapons down. Sarah didn't. She shot me here. It distracted him, and she took him out."

"So, what now? You think, you're going to live happily ever?"

Chuck smiled, "Of course, just going to take a little."

Zondra wondered what that really meant.

Chuck was wondering too, "So what happened with the CAT Squad?"

"Well, we were doing fine. As I'm sure you have read in all of our reports. But at the end some of our missions were going bad. Sarah did a sweep and found a transmitter in my boot. Now I didn't put it there. And had to take a lie detector test to prove I didn't. Sarah still didn't believe me. Carina sided with Sarah. And Amy, well, she just took off."

Fortunately Chuck was looking out the window, just this flash hit hard. Every one of the previous reports on Sarah, Carina and Zondra were amplified with reports on Amy. It took a while. In the back of his mind he knew he still could intervene and stop this, but he wanted to see all the matches and see what else came up. Then it finally hit. "So that's why you're down here?"

Zondra knew instantly that he had figured it out. "When I found out that Gaez was operating from here, I wanted a chance to get him."

"And you haven't because?"

"He's got too much protection from the moles in the government and judiciary. Every time we go after him, we wind up taking down a mole and not getting to him."

"Hum, oh here we are."

"So, what are you looking for?" Zondra asked as she got out of the car.

"Well, if I'm right you're going to kick yourself for not seeing it." He motioned for her to follow him.

Going into the warehouse he went to one of the pallets. It had a shipment of coffee on it and a paper identifying the tare weight and final weight.

"First and we should have thought it odd before. This coffee is put into barrels. Most coffee beans are shipped in sacks." He saw her nod. "The old burlap sack. Second, there are ten barrels on this pallet. Each of them according to the side holds one hundred pounds of coffee, or one thousand pounds of coffee here. But the final weight minus tare is eleven hundred pounds."

Chuck took a crowbar to the top of one of the coffee barrels. After pulling off the top and pushing a top layer of coffee to the side, the clear plastic bags of white cocaine were obvious.

"The good Senator was importing a little more than coffee. Let's head back and see what information we can get from a few friends."

U.S. Embassy Bogota

Chuck was on a conference call with the Honorable John H. Wabash, Carlos and Philip Ramirez, and Kelly Robins. The screen was divided in four quadrants with the video of each in one of the quadrants. Chuck continued, "So, Lindo coffee was used to smuggle cocaine in the coffee containers. Carlos was kind enough to get us the files from the Texas Rangers. Those combined in the model show that the Senator's trucking company distributed the product. Also, I was able to cross correlate the files from Kelly and determine some accounts down here and at off-shore that the Senator used to hide some of the money." Chuck took a sip of water, "This operation had been going on for some time. The Senator had been skimming money off the transactions and put over six hundred million dollars into these accounts.

"The best we can put together," Chuck paused to infer the Intersect did it, "Augusto Gaez found the discrepancy and used his connection with MS to arrange the Senator's accident. They just weren't able to cover it as well as they hoped." Zondra had shown him the report from the locals that investigated the crash site. Their report was a cover up. It showed without a doubt that it was a pilot error and the crash was the result.

The Honorable John H. Wabash ended the call with, "Chuck, we'll take it from here. There may be a few more calls, but this is sufficient. Thank you." The call ended in a dial tone with a blank screen.

Chuck stared at the screen for only a second. He knew that Sarah and her team would still be in bed. He had gotten a text that she was calling it a night and would explain what they found in the morning. They had a couple more things to check.

He decided to check in with the teams that were operating in Columbia. Elton Devers and Vera Townsman had teams in place. He became by reviewing their reports.

Eldie and his team were operating near the Gaez estate in west Columbia. They were monitoring the traffic to Gaez's and the his coffee plant near by. Gaez was spending half his time at the plant. They were passing off the reports of visitors.

Chuck was letting his dad and the model take care of any findings. Since he had seen the stack of pictures from Zondra and put them into the model, he would now only get notices if there was someone new.

Most of the anomalies were other members of the family. One did catch his eye. Simon Perez had some connections to MS. He was involved in at least three kidnappings where the hostage was turned over to MS.

Chuck got on the communications system he had connected to the computer to get to Eldie, "Hey, how's things going?"

"Fine boss. There hasn't been anything new today. Gaez is at home watching his kids. No new visitors."

"Okay," Chuck thought about it once more, "When you can get pictures of those at his compound and see if we have them all. I just want to make sure we have them all."

"Sure we'll get right on it. Anything else?"

"No, everything is fine. Thanks."

Vera had her team monitoring the other family heads. They were in other cities and Vera was shuttling back and forth between them in an old helicopter. She found it at one of the outlying airports. With a little help from the embassy staff, former mechanics wanting something real to do, she got it in the air fairly quickly.

Her reports included some intercepts, which had been sent back to Steven and Sarah's analysts. While some was in the clear, most of it was scrambled. Chuck and Mr. Wiggins thought that odd and deemed it significant enough to do further analysis. So far there had been no matches and the analysis continued. Chuck felt a little uncertain, almost anxious about the signal. It did not seem right for down here in Columbia.

"Hey Vera, can you hear me?"

"Five by"

"Have you gotten anything new?"

"Some more signals. There was some background noise that sounded like gun shots and an explosion." Vera answered.

Chuck wondered, "Go ahead and send it in for analysis." He'd check in with the DNI about this next time they talked.

"Copy"

"Anything else?'

"No, we're good."

"Okay, thanks."

Imperial House, Bogota

Chuck got up the next morning and sent Sarah a text to call when she could. He had already read her morning report and saw that she and her team had found another possible target in the morning of the shooting. Apparently, there was an art smuggler at the same corner. The early information on him was that he may have cut Sion out of a big heist and traded the piece for over four million Euros. Sarah and her team were trying to locate him.

The other puzzling piece was that he may have been involved in one or more theft with Agent Shaw.

A/N A little more background . Hope you enjoy.