Zondra's story is nasty.
Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, it ain't real etc.
While the mission load for the Intersect Project was low at the moment, the workload was still big enough as they were following up on the intel from Chuck's flashes when he was processing what Aunt D sent through, and of course they had the CCE/LSS workloads and the even bigger workloads of their Special Projects Groups. Having Carina, Pete, Simon, Steve and Lucas come across and start working with them after the wedding helped, but they needed more people, specifically agents, at the moment.
Carina started to say something, but stopped, and then threw caution to the winds and faced off with Sarah. "You know as well as I do where we can get an agent who's better than just about anyone but you three (waving at Sarah, Casey and Chuck). She's like you, she's good enough to get out of seduction missions most of the time because of her other skills!"
Chuck see that Sarah knew where Carina was going with this, and she wasn't at all happy with it, but thought that Carina deserved a hearing so he asked "Who are you talking about Carina?"
It was Sarah that answered "She's talking about Zondra Rizzo Chuck, she was on the CAT Squad with us. Carina's right, she's damned good, but Carina seems to be forgetting the bit where she turned out to be traitor!"
Carina squared off with her "No! I remember that there was one piece of evidence that didn't make any sense at all that you kept waving around like the sword of truth or something and you wouldn't investigate the matter like you would have any time you were following procedure! You got all bent out of shape because you felt that you'd been betrayed by your best friend, someone you trusted, you cared about, and because of that you wouldn't look any further into it and you refused to listen to me whenever I tried to point out the holes in the story!"
Sarah stood there, unable to speak, because now that she'd been released from her fixation on the betrayal three years ago, she realised that Carina was right, she also remembered how many times Carina had told her all this back then and she'd refused to listen. She looked at Chuck with tears in her eyes as she acknowledged what she'd done. He pulled her into his arms as she cried. When she'd settled down, they sat and Chuck said "I think you need to tell me the story behind this."
Sarah and Carina swapped back and forth as they spent the next couple of hours recounting the events that led up to Sarah arresting her best friend in the aftermath of the massacre that wiped out most of their task force when they walked into an ambush because the other side had been tipped off and were waiting for them with a superior force, and the fallout after that which tore the CAT Squad apart. When they were done, Sarah shook her head "But even if I've accepted that I was wrong and want to make things right, there's no way of proving it, and she'll never forgive me for how I turned on her!"
Carina shook her head with a smile "You know Blondie, sometimes you're the dumbest smart person I know, we'll get the proof of what happened and you can explain it to Zondra, I'm sure she'll come around, after all she lost her best friend too!"
"How are we going to get proof of what's happening when we couldn't before? Pete and the others went through everything at the time and they couldn't find any proof! And what if Zondra doesn't WANT to sort things out?"
Pete piped up then "Well you had the CIA's best working on it then, but as I told you that time you had that other problem, there's someone FAR better than the CIA's best, and you have him at your beck and call now!"
Carina smiled at Pete and added "And you have something else that wasn't available back then too!" She tapped her temple, as not everyone in the room knew about the Intersect yet.
Chuck stepped in at that point "As for Zondra, I think if you told her about what your father and Graham did to you, she'd have an easier time understanding your issues about trusting people that you're close to."
The look she sent him at that was screaming 'NO! I can't tell her that!' but as she started to cry, she nodded in resignation and he pulled her into his arms again. The others could tell that there was something severely traumatic going on here, but only Chuck, Ellie, John and Carina had heard the details of that story.
When she'd composed herself a little, she looked up and said "OK, I'll concede that Chuck and the others are good enough get the proof of what really happened but how do we get her here to explain it to her?"
Carina grinned "That's easy, we throw you an engagement party!" When Sarah and the others stared at her she said "What? You never had one, or if you did you're in deep shit, seeing as I was your maid of honour and I didn't know about it, and even if she's still pissed at you, she won't be able to miss checking out the man who could tame the fuckin' Ice Queen, so if we invite her and the Bimbo to the engagement party, she'll turn up! Besides, I'm betting that when we dig up the proof of what happened, it'll point to the Bimbo, there's something wrong with that fuckin' bitch, NO-ONE's that fuckin' perky all the time!"
Sarah had to smile at that. She looked at Chuck, and seeing her more relaxed now, he asked "So we're doing this?" she nodded with another smile and he kissed her.
They had one advantage here, in that they already had a lot of the CATs' operational records in what had been removed from the DEA and CIA's records for Carina and Sarah. Aside from that, with Chuck and the Special Projects group's resources, they had little trouble getting everything else on record.
A week and a half into the investigation (it had to be fitted in around the rest of their workload), Chuck went to Sarah and Carina with a strange question "What are Zondra and Amy's shoe sizes?"
That got their attention, and they looked at each other. Sarah said "Size eight" Carina nodded "Anyway, they wore the same size, because Zondra was always bitching about Amy taking her best shoes and leaving them in some guy's place, why?"
As an explanation, Chuck brought up a pile of images on the screens. He first pointed to the image of the boots that they'd found the transmitter hidden in "Are they the boots which were the evidence against Zondra?" When Sarah nodded, he said "Well so are they!" and pointed to the rest of the images. When Sarah looked at the images, she could see he was right, they were exactly the same boots, and in every image, it was Amy wearing them!
Then Chuck brought up screens that showed bank records, accounts had been set up in Zondra's name and they'd had large deposits made to them, but they'd been cleared out and closed about a year after the incident that broke up the CATs, while other accounts were set up for Amy that had even bigger deposits made, and they were still there and growing. The fact the source of the funds for the accounts in Zondra's name, which the money had also gone back to, was the same as where the deposits in Amy's accounts told quite a story.
The others had to admit that it was a rather impressive feat when Sarah launched herself from her seat to land on Chuck, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him when she did, because this was the definitive proof they needed of Amy's guilt, and therefore Zondra's innocence.
Zondra proved Carina right, in that she couldn't resist seeing the man who could tame Sarah Walker, but they weren't sure at first whether Amy came to keep up appearances or for some other reason. Aside from them, the party was made up of people who'd been at the wedding, their core group and family of course, plus people from the special ops groups that they worked with, analysts that worked with their groups, Tiffany and the girls, Abigail, Bry's daughter Kim, John's daughter Alex and the like. Zondra recognised many of the people there from special ops groups, but she caught the subtle head shake from Carina and didn't say anything until they were off to the side where they wouldn't be overheard (they'd scrambled the audio for the courtyard at the apartments so that the surveillance system wouldn't pick it up).
Carina couldn't resist messing with Zondra at first, so she quietly told her who's daughters Abigail, Kim, Alex, Charlotte and Charlene were. Zondra looked at her at the start, but she managed to school her expression after that, even when Carina told her that they had proof of who the traitor was, because they'd reopened the investigation. Zondra just asked "How?"
"Chuckles' some sort of computer genius, he's far better than anyone the CIA ever had."
"So, how does he feel about Walker inviting her old bed buddies to their engagement party, you know as well as I do that most of these men are from special ops teams we've worked with."
"They were never Sarah's bed buddies, she's never had any, unless you count Chuck, most of them are here for Chuck actually, he's worked with them far more than any of us have!"
That got a reaction, Zondra's head whipped around as she spat out "Bullshit!"
"Keep it down! And no, it isn't, he's been in this game longer than we have, he's a second generation agent."
Zondra glanced at Chuck's father "HE was an agent?" "No, but his mother was!"
After checking out the mother, Zondra had to concede that she had the physique and stance of someone who knew how to handle herself, then Mary caught her gaze and Zondra nodded 'oh yeah, she was a agent alright!'
That made Zondra look over the guests again, and she realised that with the exception of Walker's mother, this Chuck's father, the younger girls (maybe) and a few of the analysts, everyone here obviously knew how to handle themselves, 'curiouser and curiouser cried Alice!'
Some of the guys spend the night plying Zondra and Amy with drinks and dancing with them (well, Amy anyway, Carina had clued up Zondra that the drinks she'd be getting would have minimal alcohol, while something extra would be slipped into Amy's. The idea was that they were both supposed to be too plastered to leave, to give them more time to discuss things in the morning) so they ended up sleeping on the living room floor.
In the early hours of the morning, Sarah came to quietly wake Zondra and lead her away from where she was sleeping next to Amy, when Chuck opened the door and she realised that she was only wearing skimpy lingerie and she was being taken into their bedroom she stopped and went to say "NO!" but he closed her lips with a kiss and the next thing she knew they were inside with an amused Sarah looking at her "So, what are you doing kissing my husband Zee?"
"He kissed me!…. What? What do you mean, husband?"
Sarah looked at Chuck "Chuck?" He nodded and brought up their wedding pictures on the screen as she continued "Sorry, we're already married Zee, it was Carina's idea to put on the engagement party that we missed out on before to get you here so I could try to straighten things out with you" Zondra nodded distractedly as she took a closer look at the uniforms in the wedding party, and the medals on those uniforms.
She ignored Chuck as she turned to Sarah, pointing at the screen "They can't be real!" Sarah nodded "They are, look at who was there, we couldn't fake it with them there." Chuck brought up an image taken from the front, which showed a lot of very recognisable political and military figures sitting behind the two couples. Zondra filed away the fact that John Casey was getting married to this man's sister at the same time for later, shaking her head about this whole thing.
Sarah nodded to Chuck and he brought up the images that he'd shown Sarah and Carina when he worked out what had happened, at that she started talking again. "THIS is what we wanted to get you here for, Chuck found the proof that Amy was wearing those boots whenever we were compromised, and that they'd set up a fake account to show that you were getting paid large amounts when that was going on, and I need to tell you why I expected to be betrayed by the people that I cared about."
That last made Zondra turn to look at her, and Chuck pushed her down into a chair before going to sit next to Sarah. She grabbed his hand and held on tight as she began the story of what her life had been like from four to sixteen with her father, and then what was done to her and what she was made to do for the past ten years for the CIA. Zondra was watching both of them, and was interested to see that his reaction to her telling what she'd done to and with other men was primarily sadness for her, his only anger was when her father, Graham or other men involved in making her do this were mentioned.
At the end of the story, Sarah looked at Zondra and asked "Can you ever forgive me Zee?"
Zondra looked at her for a while, then stood to come and kneel in front of her, wrapping her arms around her "Of course, you idiot, I've missed you!"
They relaxed and talked for the next few hours, going a long way towards making up for the past three years and having Zondra agree to join the team. As dawn grew close though, Zondra suddenly swore "What if that bitch woke up and saw that I was gone?" Sarah gave her an evil grin "Well we could convince her that the stories she kept telling everyone about the two of us working guys as a three way are true!"
"Yeah, like that will be believable when I come back all calm and relaxed!"
"Oh, we can make sure you look like you've been screwed senseless when you go back!" When Zondra gave her a disgusted and outraged look at that she said "WITHOUT any sex being involved! Look, Chuck used to make Carina look like a nun, and I can assure you that he's quite capable of making you climax multiple times without doing anything sexual to you, I've seen him working women when he had to and he's as good as any man I've ever seen."
Zondra looked rather dubious and worried, asking Chuck "What would you do?" he smiled at her "Nothing that you didn't want, if you're uncomfortable with anything, just say so and we'll stop, or of you don't like the idea, we won't do anything at all." "But what would you do to me?"
He took her hand and said "Just things like this", gently kissing the inside of her wrist and slowly moving up her arm with feathery kisses "Ooooooh, ookkkaaaayyyy, yeah, you can do that!" Chuck slowly covered her skin with feathery touches of his fingers, breath, lips, teeth and tongue, but when he started to kiss her stomach, Zondra arched her back, taking her bra off and throwing it on the floor, Chuck looked at Sarah with concern, but she nodded for him to continue with a smile, leaning in to kiss him. After about half an hour of this, Chuck retrieved Zondra's bra from the floor and went to help her back into it but she shook her head, not trusting herself to speak, taking it in her hand instead. Then he helped her back to the living room because her legs were a little wobbly, kissing her there before he headed back to the bedroom.
At breakfast, Zondra was having trouble looking at Chuck and Sarah. When she was getting some juice from the fridge and she and Sarah were the only ones in the kitchen though, Sarah came over, worried about her after Zondra had told them last night about how she came into this world, and asked quietly "Are you OK Zee?" she responded just as quietly "Now that I've had a shower and have fresh underwear, yeah, but I wouldn't call that nothing sexual Blondie! He may not have stuck anything into me or actually touched me down there, but that was the most intensely satisfying sexual experience I've ever had! It worked though, the bitch was pretending to be asleep when he took me back out there, and as wet and shaky as I was, I certainly looked and smelt believably screwed, especially after you jerked him off, I can't believe you did that! I heard her snickering so I'm sure she bought it." As she closed the fridge and stood up, Sarah gave her hug, laughing softly when Zondra quietly said in her ear "You need to tattoo a warning label onto that man of your's though Blondie, because he doesn't LOOK dangerous!".
When everyone had had breakfast and got ready, they all headed out, Sarah was supposedly giving Carina a lift, so Carina grabbed her Porsche's keys with a laugh and made a run for the car to claim the driver's seat, but when she hit the button on the remote to unlock it as she crossed the road, it went up. Luckily Carina was still outside of the primary blast zone, so while she was thrown back across the street, her worst injury was a broken ankle, though she DID get a large piece of shrapnel from the bomb embedded high up in her thigh, just missing an artery.
Zondra didn't miss how Chuck and Ellie left the rest of them way behind as they sprinted to Carina, reaching her before she'd stopped moving, but when she checked on Amy, she was grinning vapidly at the destruction of the Porsche, so she was pretty sure she had. It was amazing to watch how Chuck and Ellie worked together to check out and stabilise Carina faster than she'd ever seen it done before in the field.
Casey came running up with Ellie's medical bag, and when she nodded to say she was ready, Chuck plucked the large metal shard out of Carina's leg. Ellie immediately secured a dressing over it, and as he pulled Carina's skirt down to cover her, Zondra heard him say "Now aren't you glad you wore decent underwear today?" and Carina burst out laughing, swearing because the movement from that sent pain shooting up from her broken ankle, but laughed softly again as she swatted him, saying "Don't make me laugh you bastard, that hurt!"
Taking in the way he gently hugged her and kissed her on the forehead, saying "I'm glad you're OK Red, you had us worried!" and the way that Carina clung to him made Zondra think 'Blondie's really got herself something special here!' When Chuck stood up, he quietly said "She'll be OK!" to that other guy, Leslie, who'd stayed with Casey, but when HE got down on his knees beside her, holding her hands, that kiss he gave her wasn't a friend's kiss, what rabbit hole had they fallen down here?
When Chuck looked at the shard he'd pulled out of Carina's leg, he swore "Did you guys have anything to do with the Gentle Hand?" THAT got everyone's attention, even the Bimbo's, and Sarah said "Yes, that was who we were going after at the end of our time as the CAT Squad, why?" He held up the shard to show the lettering on it "Because this is part of one of their bombs!"
Forgetting for the moment that the traitorous Bimbo was right behind her, Zondra asked "How can you know that Chuck?" When Walker's eyes flashed, she realised what she'd done, but Walker covered it up well "Chuck's got an eidetic memory, he remembers everything he sees, so the identifying number on the piece that hit Carina told him where it came from." She'd read the apology in the look Zondra gave her, as her look said 'it's alright, don't worry about it!'
Once Ellie had dealt with Carina's cuts and abrasions and strapped a splint onto her broken ankle, they lifted her into the back seat of Casey's Crown Vic to take her to 'the ER' (the medical centre in the Dungeon of course) and Ellie went with them, with Leslie following in Ellie's car. Casey made sure he checked both cars out before he let anyone else get near them.
When the police and fire brigade arrived, Chuck explained that his sister, an ER doctor, had already taken the lady who was injured in the explosion to the ER with their next door neighbour, as her injuries were only the broken ankle and assorted cuts and abrasions. The cops asked who's car it was, and Sarah said it was her's, but when she played the ditzy valley girl and said that she had no idea why anyone would want to blow up her car, Amy started to say something, until Zondra hit her with a nerve strike that put her in too much pain to speak and walked her away as if they were just more gawkers.
Once they were around the corner and Amy recovered enough to scream "What the fuck did you do that for?" at her, Zondra looked at her in disbelief "What did I do that for? What the fuck's wrong with you? Walker was delivering her cover story to throw the cops off the trail and YOU started to contradict her? Are you fucking brain damaged or what?"
Amy suddenly remembered the story line that she was supposed to be sticking to then "Oh, I forgot about that." Inside she was praying that Augusto didn't have anyone there watching, because if they reported back what she'd almost done, he'd be so angry with her! Zondra turned and walked away from her before she have in to her need to beat the shit out of this stupid bitch, which wouldn't be a good idea with so many cops and observers nearby! She walked around the block in case any sharp eyed cops saw her coming back from where she'd just walked away and decided to ask questions, and to give herself time to calm down.
It was an hour before they were finished with the cops and they left, and Sarah grinned to herself as she had the remains of the Porsche hauled back to the CIA cover business that had supplied it, so hey, they were getting their car back after all! She was just glad that they'd habitually cleared just about everything sensitive out of the car every time they left it, so there'd been a couple of CIA issued backup pieces in the boot up front, along with some emergency shoes etc for when she needed a quick change for a mission, but nothing specifically relating to their real operation in the car, so she just cried and carried on like a valley girl losing her toy would be expected to.
Once the cops were gone, Sarah signalled to Zondra to play along with the act of them not trusting each other again, and brusquely told her to follow them, because they had to report this and that was better done from a secure facility, so after they'd checked over the bike and Chuck's mini van, they headed to the CCE office. None of them had missed the fact that Amy tried to argue this rather more than Zondra did when she was playing her part. Casey and Carina were waiting for them at the CCE office when they got there (Ellie and Leslie were in the Dungeon with Jeff and Anna, watching them over the surveillance cameras), and Casey said that he'd send the 'civilian' staff off on jobs, so they were clear to head down to the bunker. THAT certainly caught Zondra and Amy's attention, as did how impressive the operations centre in there was.
They smiled to each other as they saw Amy trying to surreptitiously trying to take pictures of everything, because they knew what was going happen when she tried to send them out to Gaez, or whoever she was working for. They didn't have to wait more than thirty seconds before she started screaming, because as soon as she tried to send those pictures out, the active defences of the bunker downloaded malware to her phone and wiped it out.
Sarah had trouble holding her laughter in and looking shocked that Amy would have tried to use her phone in here after she'd acknowledged that she'd read and understood the conditions posted on the entry door, because they'd stated quite clearly that attempting to use any phone that wasn't coded into the system down there would result in its being wiped out! "God, that was stupid Amy, look, give me the phone, I'll try to get Chuck to get what he can off this phone, if anyone can recover it for you it's him, because he created the system." Amy hesitated, and then handed the phone over, afraid of what might happen to her if Augusto didn't hear from her.
Chuck made a show of trying to recover what was on the phone as be ghosted the image onto the computer, it'd take less than a minute for him to wipe the malware from the image and decrypt everything, but he shook his head sadly as he handed it back to her, saying that the phone's build didn't have enough controls to protect the areas he needed to recover it. When he did that, she asked "Do you have a phone I can use then? I, I have to call my boss, I'm overdue to report in!" Behind her, the rest of them were looking at each other, could she really be this stupid? Not only trying to argue that she was overdue to report in when she was on leave (when saying that she had to report the incident would have actually worked), but using their phones to talk to whoever she was reporting to? That was presumably Gaez, so she'd be showing them a way to find him. Chuck just said "Sure, there's a phone in the meeting room over there" stepping to a keyboard to enable the phone (and make sure the system was set to trace and record the call, but someone next door had already done that).
As they couldn't do anything until the Bimbo made the call, Zondra turned to Carina and quietly asked "So Red, it looks like you're the next one who'll be walking down the aisle, what's with this Leslie guy?" They all turned to look at her, interested in this as well, as they hadn't known about them until Leslie came over with Chuck's parents for the engagement party. Carina went, well, red, but at that moment, the screen lit up to show Ellie with a mortified looking Leslie, Jeff and Anna. She only waited until they'd acknowledged her signal to 'CUT IT OUT!' and then the screen went dark again. Zondra pointed to the screen as she sent a questioning look at Sarah, and Sarah pointed at the rear wall of the bunker without a word. The others were still looking at Carina and she muttered "I'll tell you later, OK?", they nodded at that and Sarah hugged her and kissed her on the cheek as Amy came out of the meeting room.
When they had everyone there, Chuck disabled the phone in the meeting room and started a secure video conference with Aunt D, quickly explaining about the explosion and Agent 'Miller's injuries, and the fact that he'd IDed the bomb fragment as coming from the Gentle Hand, the organisation that the CAT Squad had been after when they were disbanded, so it appeared that the Gentle Hand had somehow been notified that the CAT Squad members were coming together, and were coming after them, or at least Agent Walker.
When she had the basic facts, Aunt D brought the Director of the FBI (as Zondra's boss) and the Acting DCIA (as Amy's boss) into the video conference. Zondra and Amy were surprised about the friendly terms she seemed to be on with 'Bob', and how he acknowledged Chuck, and they knew that Amy would be running off to make another phone call after the video conference, they were curious about who THAT call would be to (they knew that the last call was to Gaez in Rio).
As the discussion progressed, the Acting DCIA looked pissed off that the FBI Director had immediately assigned Zondra to work with the Intersect team to track down and deal with whoever was behind this, because that meant that he had to assign Amy to the exercise as well.
Everyone in the conference call was surprised (and most were suspicious) when Amy piped up to say that her supervisor had just told her that they had a location on Augusto Gaez, the leader of the Gentle Hand, at his club in Rio. Aunt D smiled grimly at that. "OK people, it looks like you're going to Rio, I know that you prefer to use the C-37s, but you'll need to take some support with you, so it will have to be a C-17 this time." Casey nodded, saying "Of course General!"
She asked the FBI Director whether their usual support team was ready to go, and he nodded "Yes General, they can be at Edwards by the time that the C-17 is ready to lift off!" "Major Casey, do we have the necessary Brazilian plates for your van and their's?" Casey piped up "Yes General!" She nodded thanks at that and said "I'm cutting orders for the C-17 to be prepped and cleared for Rio as we speak, so if you head straight out to Edwards, it should be ready to lift off by the time you get there, any questions?" "No, General!" She nodded "Well good luck, and hopefully we'll manage to get our hands on that bastard this time!" with that, she cut her link, and the other two along with it, as they were connected to her.
Casey took charge, assigning Carina to provide support from there (once Chuck supposedly gave her access and showed her where everything was), and the others to collect what they needed, they arranged to have suitable clothes ready for them when they landed in Rio and were out the door in under half an hour. Amy tried to say that she needed to call her supervisor and tell him what she was doing, but Casey shot her down, pointing out that the Acting DCIA was on the teleconference and knew what they were doing, he'd tell anyone who needed to know!
They headed straight to Edwards in the CCE Van, and those in the back of the van had no idea what authorisation Casey showed to get on the base, but they waved them through without checking the back of the van, which was VERY much against procedure. That made Zondra look at Sarah, to get a minimal shake of the head, so she stayed quiet.
They found that the support team was already on the plane, so Casey ran the van straight into the back of the plane behind the other TWO vans? On the conference call, it had sounded like a small support team, but this was two large vans full of serious looking strike teams. As soon as the van came to a stop, men jumped to to lock it down and the job was nearly done by the time they exited the van. Amy tried to say that she had to run into the hanger to find a ladies' before they took off, but Casey was getting tired of her crap, so he said that there was a toilet on the plane and grabbed her by the arm when she tried to leave, giving the order to close it up and get moving as he all but threw her into the plane.
When they were in the air, Sarah caught Zondra's eye and nodded back to their van, they quietly slipped back to it and into the back door, to find Chuck waiting for them. Zondra pointed at him, saying "And YOU can keep your distance! I'm still having trouble thinking straight after what you did to me this morning!" He looked upset "I'm sorry Zondra, I tried to make it pleasant for you, but obviously I failed, I'm so sorry!"
Zondra looked at Sarah "Is he for real?" Sarah nodded with a grin, so Zondra shot a 'Give me strength!' look at the ceiling of the van and made Sarah laugh as she spoke to him like a child "No Chuck, it was extremely pleasant, THAT's why I couldn't think straight, or walk for that matter, when you'd finished. Now as I presume we're here to talk about what we're supposed to be doing, I need to be able to be a professional rather than a schoolgirl quivering in ecstasy, hence the need for you to keep your distance!"
With that, she pushed Sarah into the central seat and they started talking. Chuck brought up some images, and they pointed out who the players were, they had Mike, Mei-Ling, Anna, Sydney, Rick, Alex and Vicky as part of the support team, these people were part of their core team, while the rest were their pretty much dedicated strike team that supported the team's operations. These were all picked NSA and FBI special operations people. Sarah went on to explain that Chuck, as their 'analyst', would be in the van with Anna, who was here as an FBI tech, Casey, as her partner and the other agent on her team, would be coming in with them.
She then told Zondra that when they left the plane, the rest of the team would be staying there, on the basis that they'd be laying low and only be called in if things got out of shape at the club. What would be happening, in fact, was that they'd leave as soon as their van was out of sight, and Mike, Rick, Alex and Vicky would also be in the club to provide backup, while the rest of them would be just outside in full gear, ready to breach.
At that point, Zondra asked shouldn't they be going back before the Bimbo noticed something, but Sarah shook her head "No, some of the guys have volunteered to keep her entertained, we told them not to come crying to us if their dicks drop off from something nasty if they didn't wear a condom if they chose to do what she wanted them to!" That image made Zondra snort AND look sick, because remembering what the Bimbo been like when they were in the CATs, that last part probably wasn't too far off.
With that, Sarah leaned back and handed over to Chuck, reaching out to take and hold his hand. "Even though we've stopped Amy contacting Gaez, the Acting DCIA is as bent as Graham was, so we have to expect that Gaez is going to be waiting for you. You, Sarah and Casey will have our tracking, camera and communications gear which should be able to get through any shielding that they try to deploy and she'll have the trackers and the bugs, but just so you know, it I lose contact with you or I hear something I don't like, we're coming in!"
Zondra tried to tell him that he had to follow protocol, not understanding the enigmatic smile on Sarah's face until Chuck responded, and she suddenly saw the man that Carina had been describing, shit, had it only been last night? "No! I don't! I'm not a spy, I don't do things by the rules made up by some old fool who's never put his life on the line in the face of the enemy, I'm a special operations and intelligence operative, and if any of my team is in danger, Sarah, you, Casey, Alex, Vicky, Mike, Rick or any of the others, I'm going in, if the target gets away because of that, then I'll track him down and deal with him tomorrow, AFTER I've made sure my team is OK."
There was a conviction on his face that said that this WOULD happen, so Zondra just nodded.
She still looked a little off her game, so Sarah said "Zee, do you feel up to telling us the rest of your story?" Zondra started to say "No", but then she realised what Sarah was up to and nodded. Talking about what made her join this life would very effectively wipe out the buzz she still had from last night and remind her about what she was here for.
"Yeah, OK, well, as I said, my father worked for the Gabaldi family in New York, and he was a fucking coward. My mother was beautiful, outside and in, so the family insisted on her going to all the parties because she lit up the room. My parents took me to some of the parties from when I was thirteen or fourteen, and by the time I was sixteen and growing to be more like my mother every day, they were insisting that I go to all the parties too. My mother tried to fight it but my gutless bastard of a father said that we had to do what the family wanted."
"When I was seventeen, I caught the eye of the heir to the throne of the Garibaldi family, who insisted that I have dinner with him, so my father arranged it without my mother's knowledge, on the way over, he told me that this was very important for him getting ahead in the family, so I needed to be nice to Mr Garibaldi, I'm pretty sure that the bastard had a good idea about what would happen, but he probably thought that he could make me stay quiet about it."
"When I got there, there was no dinner, he just grabbed me and started groping and kissing me, and when I tried to fight him off, he hit me hard enough to knock me out. I came to on a bed with my clothes torn off and him all over me, I tried to fight him off again but he just held me down and raped me. When he couldn't get it up any more he started using sex toys in me. After I stopped screaming and just laid there groaning in pain while he did this to me, he got bored and started insisting that I tell him how wonderful he was, but when I just told him what a sick, disgusting bastard he was he went off the deep end, beating me with whatever he could get his hands on."
"The sound of things breaking brought his guards in, you see their job was mainly to be there to limit the damage and clean up the mess, so they stopped him from killing me and dumped me back on our doorstep. I was more dead than alive, and the second my mother saw me she called nine one one. My father tried to stop her and was desperate enough to tell her that it was Garibaldi and that I couldn't go to hospital because if the Garibaldis found out, they'd kill us all. I was half conscious and I heard her call him a bastard and make the call, telling him that they'd all pay for doing this to her daughter. I must have passed out then because the next thing I knew I was in the recovery ward, and the doctor was telling me that my mother had been brutally raped and murdered when she went home to pack our things."
"A couple of days later a woman from the FBI's Organised Crime Division came to see me, she explained that they'd had a man inside the Garibaldi family, and he'd been there when my father went running to them to tell them that my mother was saying that she'd make sure that they all paid for what they did to me. Apparently the Don said 'Make it go away, but leave a message about what happens to anyone who tries to talk about us!' She said that their man had called it in as soon as he had the chance and they sent a team to the hospital to guard us, but my mother had gone home to pack our things when I was out of surgery. They stopped the men that the family sent to the hospital, but the men they sent to our house when they found out she wasn't there didn't get there in time to save her."
"She wanted me to testify against Garibaldi as charges against him would give them a chance to dig into the family's dealings. I wanted to get back at the bastard, but that wasn't enough, my father and the rest of them had to pay as well, so I told the FBI that I'd only testify if they'd guarantee that I'd be an agent within a year and I'd be working on bringing down the families. They didn't want to agree, but they were desperate to get something to stick against them, so I got a legal agreement to say that I'd get what I wanted. I testified, but they got him off because my father testified that I had a number of violent sex partners who'd done this sort of thing to me before, just not this bad. As well as the damage inside, Garibaldi had done so much damage to my face that I needed re-constructive surgery, so they changed my face enough that I wouldn't be recognisable as me any more and I started training. There was no way that I was going to keep that bastard's name, and I'd lost my mother's face when they changed me, so I made up Zondra from my mother's original name, Sondra Zappetti, and chose Rizzo because it was nothing like Trapoli."
"Even though we didn't get Garibaldi, they honoured their promise, and I was an FBI Special Agent in the Organised Crime Division when I was eighteen. At first the intel I was supplying was getting results, but when I convinced them to let me go into the field the results were good enough to ensure that they kept me there. There was an investigation when Garibaldi Junior was found dead by way of a sex toy attached to a big masonry drill, but there was plenty of solid evidence to show that I was elsewhere on an operation at the time, so even though some people were certain it was me, I was cleared of all charges and put back into the field. There was also suspicion when my father was killed in prison because his records had somehow been changed to show that he was a particularly nasty child molester, but I wasn't a computer hacker, so they gave up looking at me for that. And that's pretty much my story, I had a glitch on my record when I was accused of betraying the team when I was in Europe…."
Sarah's face crumpled at that, but Zondra reached out to her, telling her that she'd realised last night that she probably would have thought the same thing if the shoe had been on the other foot, because they both had issues with betrayal!
After they'd held each other for a while, Sarah looked her in the eye and asked "Are you OK?" Zondra nodded confidently, but whispered "Yeah, but I could do with a night of being held when we're done with this!" Sarah smiled and hugged her again, saying "Definitely!"
They rejoined the group and laid out the official plan of attack after that, and people added Brazilian graphics and license plates to the three vans. As soon as they landed at a small airfield in Rio, they took off to pick up the girls' and Casey's outfits for the club.
They did have an incident when the Bimbo started running her hand down Casey's abs when he was getting changed in the van, because she hadn't realised how ripped he was until he got undressed to get ready for the club and the taste she'd had on the plane had whetted her appetite. Casey froze and growled as her hand got too close to his boxers, but that wasn't enough to stop her, the slap that Sarah dealt her so that she spun and very painfully scraped her bare breasts across the rough wall of the van did though.
She was screaming and swearing that she needed to go to a hospital, so Sarah shrugged and said "Stay here then, we can probably do the job better without you anyway! But just remember one thing!" She stepped forward so that she was right in the Bimbo's face "Keep your hands to yourself Slut!"
Amy's blood ran cold at the idea of what Augusto would do to her to her if she didn't warn him that they were there, so she tried to bluster it through, telling Sarah she had no authority to order her off the mission! Sarah shrugged again "Stop trying to interfere with people who aren't interested and get ready then! If you aren't ready when we're leaving, we won't wait!"
"But I'm bleeding, I need first aid!" She only just managed to catch the first aid box before it hit her in the face and Zondra said "Do it yourself! No-one else in here wants to touch your skanky tits!" Some people were obviously too dumb to live though, because Amy called out "Chuck…." then, but she stopped when Sarah whirled to face her, she knew that face in front of her, people died when they saw that face! Chuck didn't bother answering, because the light curtain masking the back of the van did nothing to block sound, and he and Anna had heard everything as they sat up front.
When he heard a slide being pulled back, he saw Anna with her pistol in her hand, but he shook his head with a smile "No Anna, she isn't worth the paperwork!" "I'm not so sure about that!" The curtain was suddenly pulled back at that to show a grinning Sarah who kissed Anna on the cheek, and kissed Chuck more thoroughly, then she went back to finish getting ready, leaving the curtain open as she, Zondra and Casey were almost ready. Chuck glanced back and nudged Anna, nodding his head to the rear, when she looked back she burst out laughing, because Amy had stuck band aids all over her breasts.
Amy managed to get dressed in time to go with them, but she had to keep running a little every few steps because the other three kept striding away from her. When they were in the club, Amy split off and made a beeline for Gaez, as they knew she would, Chuck got Casey to disappear so she couldn't point him out, and he turned his reversible jacket inside out and put a blonde wig on while he was out of sight. Chuck didn't like what he was hearing from Gaez about his plans for the girls, so he made the "I'm coming in!" call.
He wasn't too impressed when it was Sarah who argued "No, Baby, please? Just hold off until we have an indication of how this is going to go, we have a better chance of getting something out of him if he thinks he has the upper hand. Look, how about you move in, but don't breach until we have something more solid. Chuck? Are you still there?"
"Yes, alright, but the second I hear something I don't like we breach, whether we have anything or not!"
"OK, I love you Honey!" "I love you too, that's the problem!"
Just then the team that Gaez sent to deal with the analysts in the van closed on the van. Chuck was pissed off, so he ordered the snipers to take them out, ordering the rest of the strike team to move in as soon as they were all down. They had people in the strike team, plus Chuck and Casey, who were the same size as each of the ones who'd been taken out, so they quickly swapped BDUs and took their primary weapons and headed into the building as the security team who'd just gone out. They met Casey and he quickly changed into the BDU they had for him so they could get moving.
As they were closing on the location where Gaez had the girls, Chuck heard tearing cloth and the girls gasping over the link and took off, leaving the rest in his wake. When he burst into the room, the laughter from Gaez and co cut off, he saw that Sarah and Zondra's dresses had been torn half off so they were bare to the waist, and the Bimbo was in front of Sarah with a knife in her hand, about to cut her, so Chuck's first shot removed the knife, and half of her hand, his second kneecapped Gaez, and then he took out the six guards as they went for their guns. A pistol grip to the face knocked out and shut up the screaming Bimbo, and another across the back of the head did the same for Gaez.
Casey burst in then and when he took in the state of Sarah and Zondra, he was looking around for someone to hurt! Chuck cut Sarah and Zondra free and pulled them into his arms. Casey turned up with relatively unstained shirts and jackets and the girls pulled them on before returning to Chuck's arms. Casey ordered the others to collect any weapons, IDs, keys, papers or whatever they could find and secured Gaez and the Bimbo, wrapping up her hand and his knee to stem the blood loss.
When Gaez started to come around, Casey sent a pleading look Chuck's way and at Chuck's grim nod, went to work on him, inside half an hour the crude but effective methods forced on him by the circumstances had pulled all the significant Gentle Hand locations around Rio out of him, and they hit them that night.
They worked to a standard process, once they'd squashed any resistance, they'd go through and transfer any information off the computers they found, taking any laptops, tablets, hard drives and the like and unleashing malware across anything bigger to wipe out any records left on them. Any valuables (except drugs) would be taken, any girls or other prisoners being held were released (unless the Intersect said anything about them), and Chuck went through any personnel left alive. If the intersect said that they had valuable information, they were taken back, if it said that they were rapists, murderers and the like without valuable intel, they were eliminated, if they were relatively innocent stooges, they were told to get out of the business because if they were caught again it would go VERY badly for them (this was usually done in the same room as the bodies), and they were released, to spread the word that this had just become a very unhealthy business. Once that was done, charges would be set to blow up everything else.
They ripped the heart out of the Gentle Hand that night, and left with nearly twenty prisoners, a pile of computer hardware, a few million on cash and valuables and a very interesting Porsche, it appeared to be a prototype of the next generation cabriolet that he'd heard rumours about, with a lighter, more solid construction and magnesium plates under the soft top cover. When Sarah sidled up to him and asked whether this was replacing the one that blew up, he smiled and kissed her, saying "Perhaps, when I finish doing what I want to it."
When they got back to the airfield, a sizable payment to the staff, plus the sight of more than a few bastards who'd been terrorising the people around there for many years, organised a decoy flight which enabled them to slip away without being seen. Once across Brazil's borders, they rendezvoused with an in-flight tanker to take on enough fuel to get back to the United States.
The return flight to Los Angeles was rather longer than the flight to Rio, because they first flew to Andrews to hand over the prisoners and computer hardware to the FBI. Chuck, Aunt D, Casey, Sarah and Zondra also had a meeting to agree Zondra's semi-permanent secondment to the Intersect Project while they were there, THEN they flew back to Edwards.
By the time they arrived at Edwards, there was a flatbed tow truck waiting to pick up the Porsche, and the three vans had been converted back to California plates and graphics, one of the CCE vans had to go via the FBI Field Office to drop off the strike team members who didn't fit into the FBI van, but they all got home at a reasonable time.
That first night back, Zondra stayed with Sarah and Chuck, as none of them wanted to postpone her night of being held. She found that she could appreciate the comfort of that almost as much, if in a very different way, as she did what she'd experienced the other night that she shared with them.
A/N: OK, I know that people will argue about Zondra being FBI, but to those people I post a challenge, show me ONE place in the show where it was ever actually definitively stated that she was CIA? Carina was supposedly DEA even then, so we had a clear indication that the CAT Squad was a multi agency group, why couldn't there be an FBI Agent in there as well?