This chapter is a little shorter, mainly a setup before the big finale. Lots of references to other shows throughout this fanfic, including Kentucky Fried Movie, Welcome Back, Kotter, Caddyshack, Fletch (and Fletch Lives), Something Wild, even Sex and the City. (If you can find the SatC reference in the story, that is very scary. :-D )

As always, please leave feedback. I'm very curious to know if I should attempt to write another fanfic after this. The only way I know is by feedback, good, bad, or otherwise.

Enjoy!

Orange Orange
October 26, 2009
2:15 PM

Chuck and Jimmy pulled into the Buy More lot and parked next to Sarah's Porsche. They walked toward the yogurt shop. Chuck noticed something on the windows.

"I swear they cleaned the windows on these stores the other day."

Jimmy looked up and noticed as well. He frowned.

"It doesn't look like dust or residue from the grassy areas. It looks like…" Jimmy was suddenly panicking. "Chuck, give me the keys to the car, quick."

Chuck handed him the keys but continued to stare at him, wondering what was going on.

"Stay there," Jimmy told him. "Don't enter yet."

Jimmy returned to the car the NSA provided and opened the trunk. There was a strongbox bolted to the floor of the trunk. Another key on the ring opened it. He took out a gun and two clips. He loaded one clip and put the other in his pocket. He went to the entrance and motioned for Chuck to stand behind him. He slowly wedged his foot in the door and then kicked it the rest of the way open, pointing the gun as he entered. He motions for Chuck to stay quiet. He took only two steps in. Chuck looked around. He saw the two canisters on the ground and feared the worst.

"Jimmy, look." Chuck whispered and pointed at the two canisters.

Jimmy spots the canisters, and his eyes went wide. He turned around and smashed the surveillance camera above the door with the gun. Reaching for a napkin dispenser, he whipped it at the surveillance camera above the counter, knocking it out. He proceeded forward slowly, his left hand tensing on the gun. His voice was barely above a whisper but laced with fear.

"Chuck, get us into Castle."

The two moved slowly to the freezer. Jimmy grabbed the two canisters and handed Chuck one to carry. Chuck turned the storage light, revealing the access panel to Castle. He punched in his code, and the retinal scanner positively identified him. As the door slid open, Jimmy pointed the gun down the stairwell. He moved cautiously down the stairs with Chuck following close behind. They looked throughout Castle but saw nobody.

"What the hell is going on?" Chuck asked fearfully.

"I think The Ring have Sarah and Casey."

Chuck froze in his tracks. The dread and alarm overtook him. Jimmy walked to one of the computers.

"See if you can bring up the video surveillance. I'll try to ping their mobile phones and locate them that way."

Chuck was still frozen in place and unresponsive.

"Chuck?" Jimmy asked softly at first. "Chuck!"

Chuck shook his head trying to clear out his mind and refocus himself. "Yeah, OK."

Chuck went to a computer across the room. Jimmy typed away furiously at his computer, trying to locate the GPS signals in Sarah's and Casey's mobile phones.

"Dammit, nothing," Jimmy said in disgust. "How about you?"

Jimmy walked over to Chuck's computer, where Chuck was studying the surveillance feed from the shop's cameras. They saw both Sarah and Casey in the store, and then the canister was thrown in. A flash of light blinded the cameras.

"Nothing. But they are together."

"That must have been a flash grenade they threw in, kind of like the one Sarah handed us for the van." Jimmy checked the timestamp on the video. "This happened about 90 minutes ago."

Chuck changed the video to the outside camera and rolled back the footage. The video flashed before showing static.

"Run it again, slow replay." Jimmy looked carefully at the image as Chuck rolled the film forward again at one-quarter speed. Jimmy took note of something right before the footage cut out.

"They must have shot it out before getting in range. But I swear I saw a van roll into the shot before we lost it."

"Cargo van? Black?" Chuck confirmed what Jimmy saw.

"Just like the one they put us in the other day."

Chuck rose from the computer and grabbed the video remote control from the main table. He punched in a code, and General Beckman's image appeared on the monitor.

"General, The Ring have captured Sarah and Casey," he said in a rush. "We need to find them."

"What happened?"

Jimmy explained what they found. "As far as we can tell, The Ring threw a flash grenade into the shop to blind them and the cameras. The other canister we have appears to have some sort of residue on its outer casing, and that same residue was all over the windows and surfaces of the shop. Could have been a gas canister to knock them unconscious. The only other thing we saw was a black van similar to the one they transported us in when we were captured. But we didn't get a good shot of the plates. They've been gone for just over 90 minutes."

"I am ordering the two of you to stay in Castle and locked down. We are dispatching someone immediately. You two are on the next plane to Washington D.C. Do not leave under ANY circumstances."

Chuck was both confused and worried. "But General, what about Sarah and Casey?"

"I am sorry, Chuck. They are not our priority at this time. Securing the two of you is of paramount importance."

Jimmy was starting to grow aggravated. "You're not even going to dispatch personnel to find them?"

Beckman kept her voice in check, unaccustomed to her orders being questioned. "As I said, Mr. Slade, securing the two of you takes precedence. Wait for extraction. Do nothing…I repeat…nothing else."

The monitor went blank. Chuck continued to stare at the screen while Jimmy looked at it in disgust.

"Bureaucratic bitch." Jimmy turned on his heel and went back to the computer. He continued to study the surveillance video. After a moment, he looked back and saw Chuck still standing there.

"Chuck?" Jimmy prodded softly. Chuck turned slowly in Jimmy's direction.

"Hey, I don't work for Beckman." Jimmy's voice was brimming with defiance. "Are you officially on the payroll?"

A smile slowly spread across Chuck's face. "I just resigned."

Chuck walked over to the computer to study the surveillance video with Jimmy. He then looked over at the two canisters they brought downstairs.

"What about the canisters? Could there be something on them?"

Chuck and Jimmy walked over to the canisters. They picked them up and looked carefully for clues.

"I don't know. Maybe," Jimmy said. "A serial number, some kind of identifying logo. Maybe we can figure out the manufacturer of them and trace them back."

Chuck looked along the rim of the gas canister to find an 8-character serial number: MJC26559. He flashed, seeing a graduating class, a large library, and then a business card. He could not be more perplexed.

"McCarran, Jacobson, and Cole? Why the hell would I flash on a law firm? What does that have to do with anything?"

Jimmy heard the three names and had a flash of his own. He saw a South American jungle, a cache of weapons, and several people shot and killed during a money exchange. He closed his eyes and held his head from the pain.

"Not a law firm." Jimmy grunted as he tried to shake off the flash. "An accounting firm. One that was used to launder money from drugs going to the U.S. in order to purchase weapons back in the mid-80's. But why would they still be around?"

"I don't know." Chuck went to the computer to search several government databases on the names.

"According to FBI and IRS records, McCarran, Jacobson, and Cole is purely legit." Chuck scrolled through the information. "They do accounting services for mid-level companies, mainly in the $5 to $20 million dollar range. They have offices in New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and an office in Nebraska."

Jimmy was baffled. "Nebraska? That's odd. Why would you have an accounting office in Nebraska and not somewhere like, say, Charlotte or Atlanta, where the big corporations are?"

"No idea."

Jimmy was ready to pull the remaining hair on his head out. He paced back and forth.

"OK, gotta think like a bad guy. Think like a bad guy," he muttered to himself as he paced back and forth, wondering why all that hate and anger he accumulated over a lifetime wouldn't work to his advantage right now.

Suddenly he stopped. "Can you pull up an image of their Nebraska office?"

"Sure," Chuck replied and typed the necessary information into the computer. The location of the Nebraska office was about 15 miles west of Lincoln. The office looked like an old fast food restaurant.

Jimmy located something on the satellite image of the office. "Chuck, do those look like warehouses in the distance?" Jimmy pointed to the buildings a few miles away from the accounting office's location.

"It looks like they are. Why?"

Jimmy took a shot in the dark. "OK. Let's say I was trying to control vital sectors of this country. I would need to establish bases of operation in key locations. New York houses the world financial community; Chicago controls agriculture and is the country's transportation hub. D.C. keeps you within earshot of the government and the intelligence community, and Los Angeles is good for media and if you did a lot of trafficking of arms and other items with, say, China or North Korea."

Chuck's interest was piqued. "And Nebraska?"

"Well, if I had lots of armament, equipment, and high-tech gear, I would need lots of storage. Maybe I'd buy someone's farm for dirt cheap and place buildings on it. Fewer roads, easier to restrict access."

"OK, that makes sense. But would they take Sarah and Casey there? Or where would they take them?"

"I'm guessing no. They know they're going against the clock. It's only a matter of time before we're stuck underground, which means they have to find us before that happens. They'll do whatever it takes to get the info out of Sarah and Casey as quickly as they can. They're probably going to try and drug them into giving information."

Jimmy's face had an instant look of regret for the analytical way he just talked about Sarah and Casey. After a moment of surprise, Chuck spoke up, knowing what was going through Jimmy's mind.

"Hey, I know you didn't mean it like that. That's a lot of info you just gave us. It might be enough."

Chuck turned to the computer and looked up McCarran, Jacobson, and Cole in the Los Angeles area. "Hmm, this is weird. The location is just an office building near Pacific Palisades. It's a single building in a corporate park, 3 floors, but there are 6 other companies in the same building. Why move a private military organization so close to a bunch of other companies?"

"That's a good question." Jimmy went to another computer to do more research. He found something regarding the building. "McCarran, Jacobson, and Cole are the oldest tenants. They've been there since mid-2002. All of the other companies have moved in during the last 24 months."

Suddenly Jimmy froze. "Wait a minute. There were 9 other companies in the building, most of whom were there before the accounting firm. However, all of the leases expired, and they were never offered renewal, even though none of them missed a payment. That wouldn't make any sense unless…"

Chuck's eyes widened. He fell back in his chair at the realization. "…unless all of the other companies are merely fronts. The Ring controls the whole building. Sarah and Casey are in there somewhere."

The same cold wave overtaking Chuck was now felt by Jimmy. "And we can't get anybody to bring them out."

Pacific Palisades, CA
October 26, 2009
1:45 PM

Several agents dragged a handcuffed Casey into a windowless 8 x 10 room. They forced him down in the chair bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. They placed a handcuff on each wrist and then removed the ones he was already wearing. Each handcuff chain was bolted to the floor, restricting his movements. His ankles were also chained to the floor.

Emmanuel Murphy entered the room and motioned for the other agents to stand aside.

"Well, Colonel. I admit it took quite a bit of effort to bring you in. Clearly we erred in trying to turn you into a hostage. Rest assured, you will not be used in that capacity today."

Casey's voice was almost a growl. "It's going to be a long afternoon if you think you'll be able to beat any information out of me."

Murphy hit Casey with a vicious right cross. Casey shook off the pain.

"First of all, don't interrupt. Second of all, I never said we were planning to get any information out of you. You're our secondary source. We'll start with the woman. If she proves to be ineffective, then we may try some of the new medications the biochem group developed. They are curious to see if these new drugs work on you. Of course, it'll give the guys up here plenty of time to have a little…fun…with Agent Walker."

Casey became enraged and tried to lunge towards Murphy. The chains held him down. It took every fiber of self-discipline in Casey to calm down again. Inwardly, he knew he just committed a big mistake. Never show emotion. He was starting to hate what this two-year mission did to him. It made him part-human again.

"Really, Colonel?" Murphy's voice was condescending with shades of amusement. "Over 20 years in the military and the NSA, and you react like that? You have to work on your self-discipline a bit. Although if it's any consolation, I'm not exactly innocent on such things as leaving your emotions at the door. I have to admit a certain satisfaction to bringing some pain into your life."

"If you want pain, try looking in a mirror," Casey seethed, almost mocking the IT analyst and ex-Marine.

Murphy hit Casey again. Blood began to pour out of Casey's nose.

"Well, I guess you just want to make this a little more fun for me."

Murphy moved to within inches of Casey's face. He pulled out a long knife and twisted its blade in Casey's line of vision.

"You'll be in for a long day, Colonel. But I can tell you how this will end. This knife will be in your chest. The same place where you put it in my friend."

Two agents dragged a struggling Sarah into another 8 x 10 room. Unlike the room Casey was in, this room had the appearance of a doctor's examination room; at least, if there were wall posters and lots of glass jars full of cotton. Instead of an examination table, a chair similar to the one found in a dentist's office sat. There were straps on each armrest, and an IV stand was attached to the back. The agents placed Sarah in the chair, leaving her handcuffed. They walked out of the room and closed the door. She could hear the door lock.

Sarah was extremely worried with a borderline of fright. However, it had nothing to do with what she thought The Ring would do to her. She had been in this situation several times before. Thinking in their terms, she predicted they wouldn't try to physically beat any information out of her, and trying to torture her in front of Casey, or vice versa, wouldn't get them anyplace. Her concern was the use of drugs to force her to reveal what she knew about Chuck and Jimmy. Although she had been trained to withstand several types of truth drugs, there was no way to know for certain what kind of medications The Ring might attempt to use. This was not exactly an organization that waited for FDA approval on the medications they would use for torture.

It was the two people probably arriving at Castle right now that worried her the most. Chuck and Jimmy were smart enough to deduce Casey and she were kidnapped. Worse, they were undoubtedly smart enough to piece together the information and figure out whatever location they were at right now. They might attempt to contact General Beckman. However, if Beckman followed standard protocol, her only concern would be to secure them in an underground bunker. Their two handlers would not be a priority and would be expendable. If Chuck and Jimmy did the right thing, they would only worry about themselves and wait for extraction.

Unfortunately, Chuck and Jimmy were the last people you could rely on to worry only about themselves and not try something stupid and crazy like a rescue attempt.

Sarah may have only known Jimmy for two weeks, but he was clearly the type who wouldn't think twice…or even once…about risking his life to save someone else. In those situations, the guy was 100% heart and 0% brains. He didn't care one bit about what happened to him; only what happened to someone else. It was ironic she encouraged him to join the CIA when the first thing the Agency made sure its agents knew was being a hero only got you killed. Save the heroics for the military, cops, and firefighters.

A cold sense of terror permeated her body, making her shiver in fear. The one thing that made Sarah wake up in the middle of the night since admitting her love to Chuck was this exact scenario. She knew he would never think rationally about this. He would not care walking in here would be exactly what The Ring would want him to do. This was the very situation that got her in trouble several times. Only now, someone who didn't have the comprehensive training of a CIA agent would commit that potentially fatal error. A small part of her may have loved the fact Chuck would mount such an attempt, but the rest of her being feared the results. The possibility of losing Chuck, especially in this manner, was causing her feelings to reach the boiling point.

She exhaled slowly to take control of her emotions and shove them into a deep corner of her mind. She knew they would do her no good right now. Getting emotionally distraught over things out of her control was a cardinal sin in this business. She refocused on the things she could control. She moved her hand deep into her back pocket and slowly extracted a small, 3-sectioned case. There were raised markings on the top of each of the three compartments. Her fingers glided over those markings to find the specific one she needed. She opened that compartment and took the item inside of it out. She slid the case back into her pocket, minimizing her movements in case there were security cameras watching, and placed the object between the fingers in her right hand.

Alicia Grant entered the room. Her appearance was different from the day in Zork. This time, Grant was all business.

"Our medical people will be here in a few moments. I'm sure you would like to try out some of the psychological tactics the CIA teaches you on me, but that would just be insulting to the both of us. We're professionals. We're probably two of the only women in this world who would list The Art of War by Sun Tzu among our favorite books. So let's do each other the courtesy of not trying to make this any more personal than it is.

"I hope you are in a talking mood. I'd really hate to have to break out the hard medications on you."

Grant walked out of the room. Sarah was almost grateful to Grant for saying those things because she was now refocused on the task at hand. Sarah was all business as well.

Castle Underground Facility
October 26, 2009
2:30 PM

Chuck and Jimmy sat quietly by the computers for several moments. The prospect of rescuing Sarah and Casey from a Ring facility was hanging over their heads. They looked at each other. Both purposefully rose from their chairs. They did not say anything, but they walked to the weapons cabinet. Chuck pulled a bullet-proof vest from the closet and strapped it on himself. Jimmy located the one sent for him and put it on. He retrieved several automatic weapons, two pistols, and extra clips for all of them. He slung the automatic weapons on his shoulder, holstered the pistols, and placed the extra magazines in a small bag, which he clipped to his belt. He moved over to a locked cabinet with a digital keypad.

"Do you know the combination for this?" Jimmy asked.

"Only Casey knows. Maybe the combination is on his desk somewhere."

Chuck went to find the combination. Jimmy looked at the keypad for a second and tried a code. The cabinet opened, and Jimmy was very impressed at what he saw inside.

"Looking in here must give Casey an orgasm or something."

Jimmy grabbed a backpack and emptied the contents of the cabinet into it. He then placed it on his shoulder. Chuck returned from the desk, and his mouth dropped open when he saw the cabinet unlocked.

"How the hell did you do that?"

Jimmy gave a little smile. "Casey should be more original. The combo was Reagan's birthday."

Chuck was almost livid. "I don't believe him!"

"Well, he did switch the month and day around."

Chuck noticed the backpack Jimmy was carrying. "What's in there?"

Jimmy glanced at the backpack and turned to Chuck with a serious look on his face. "Fourth and long."

Jimmy looked at Chuck for a moment, assessing what Chuck might be thinking.

"Are you sure you want to do this? I don't mean to go all Gene Hackman on you, but this is as real as it gets. If we want Sarah and Casey back, we have to take them back. By force. On enemy turf. Add to that the fact we're walking into the backyard of the people trying to capture us, which must make us the two dumbest people on the planet. Maybe we are. Or maybe we're just a couple of former nerds who give enough of a damn to save the people we care about."

"I'm ready."

Jimmy nodded but looked straight into Chuck's eyes. "Are you sure?"

Never before in his life was Chuck's voice filled with so much resolve. "I'm willing to die for her."

Jimmy nodded. His voice softened in a caring, almost father-like fashion. "But are you willing to kill for her?"

The question stopped Chuck. It didn't escape Jimmy's attention Chuck never took a gun out of the locker. It was the thing that gave him pause about whether Chuck was truly ready for this. In a way, however, Jimmy was glad Chuck never grabbed a weapon. That might change Chuck into something people may not be ready to deal with, including Jimmy. But he did know weapons or not, it wouldn't stop Chuck from trying to rescue Sarah and Casey.

Sarah thought Jimmy could be a phenomenal CIA agent. To some extent, he was just given a de-facto promotion. Jimmy put his hand up before Chuck could reply to what Jimmy asked him. He had an understanding smile on his face.

"Well Frodo, that's why Sam is coming with you."

Chuck smiled. "Actually, I think you're supposed to be Aragorn in this situation."

Jimmy gave Chuck an even bigger smile. "Dude, there's no way I can pull off Viggo Mortensen. I mean, really."

The two of them headed upstairs to the Orange Orange.