Thelaststraw5s2 T/N: sorry for the error. Not my thing. I hate airlines and earthquakes and do-gooders. enjoy, selfish and happy nags. You should be out on a date not reading this crap. Nicole
Northbound Interstate
Chuck was overtaking another Suburban and pulled out to pass it but it pulled over into his lane and maintained a constant speed. He changed lanes again, planning on passing it on the right when it pulled over in front of him and slowed down. This must be the lead vehicle of the snatch team.
Chuck had 3 options. The first was the status quo and he vetoed that since he knew the other two would be fast coming up on him with the intention of boxing his Mustang in and forcing him to the side of the road.
The second option was to pass the Suburban somehow and accelerate until he was well ahead of it but that would just put them in his rear.
The third option was to break the box while eliminating one of the vehicles. Thanks to some of Duarte's 'enhancements', he had a plan and a weapon.
He changed lanes as if trying to pass the lead vehicle to give the others time to catch up. The leader slowed to 60 then 55mph. The second vehicle, a Suburban, pulled up beside him and maintained position while the van pulled up and trailed by a car length. Chuck sped up and tapped the Suburban's bumper while reaching down between his legs and pulling up sharply on a D-ring that hung from a wire.
Duarte was a history buff and one of his fascinations was Rome and its Legions. One thing he always wondered about was the lack of cavalry until the 5th century. The answer lay in Caltrops – metal constructs consisting of 5 lengths of wrought iron sharpened on both ends and joined at the center like a modern-day child's set of jax. No matter how they dropped, they always ended up with the sharp end up, perfect for piecing the hoof and frog of a horse and Romans always seeded the battlefield with them since they pierced barbarian feet just as easily.
Advance 16 centuries, substitute cars for horses and tires for hooves and voila, the modern stainless steel caltrop.
And there were 100 of them in an aluminum box strapped to the underside of the Mustang. The D-ring pulled on a wire that opened the box and spilled the caltrops across a roadway. Instant blown tires.
The van driver saw something shiny on the road surface but was too slow to react before three of his tires blew out and sent the van first into the guard rail on the right and then, as he over corrected, across two lanes into the drainage swale that formed the greensward between the sets of lanes where it flipped over in the grass.
Chuck stood on the brakes and the big Mustang slowed and he drove across a maintenance cross-over and turned south down the interstate toward Los Angeles.
He accelerated through 60, then 70 and settled in at 80mph. He still had two vehicles in pursuit but had broken the box trap.
"Unit 3 is out of the running. Unit 2, run him off the road. The gloves are off. Smash him against the guard rail and hold him until we catch up."
The Suburban raced after the Mustang pulling within 4 or 5 car lengths when Chuck topped a hill and saw the cobalt blue flashing lights of a California Highway Patrol vehicle with an 18-wheeler hauling a flatbed pulled over to the side a few hundred yards ahead. He smiled and pressed his foot down on the gas pedal and pulled the 2nd D-ring Duarte had shown him.
A long container began emptying itself onto the road surface. It contained 'Graham spray oil lubricant' easily the most 'slippery' lubricant known and used commercially to cool high speed drill bits – very high speed – where water boiled off before cooling the bit, and on ultra-high speed bearings. It was incredibly 'frictionless' as the company's adverts went due to a high silicone content.
NSA Helicopter
Casey motioned for Walker and Fisher to put on their headsets and listen to the pilot and for updates from NSA or Beckman. They were 15 minutes flight time from Chuck's last known location. They didn't realize that Chuck had been driving south halving the distance between them as he fled from his assailants.
The local police had provided a description of Chuck's vehicle from security camera records of the parking lot and issued a BOLO. They all wondered how he'd found the time to get a car and the money to pay for it. No sales of vehicles to Bartowski were on record in the DMV files.
Witnesses had reported that a vehicle matching Chuck's had been involved in a multi-car 'incident' in which several vehicles had unsuccessfully tried to run Chuck off the road. One van had flipped over in the median killing the single occupant. The blue Mustang had eluded the other two Suburbans and crossed over and was last reported heading south down the interstate.
The co-pilot spotted Chuck's Mustang just as it passed the Highway Patrol vehicle and alerted Casey and the other two agents. His eye had been drawn to the flashing lights of the cruiser. He banked the chopper around and dropped down to 300 feet and paralleled the roadway in pursuit. They all had a front-row seat to Phase II of 'Bartowski's Revenge'.
Southbound Interstate
The pursuing Suburban might have survived the trap except for physics and stupidity. Instead of taking his foot off the gas and allowing the big SUV to simply coast through the oil spill, the driver slammed on his brakes when he felt the loss of traction and control. The intermittent spray pattern had missed sections of the roadway and when the big rig hit a 'dry' patch with its left front wheel, physics took over. The vehicle 'pivoted' on its wheel and the SUV began slowly turning sideways to its path. Then came momentum and the Laws of Thermodynamics: objects in motion tend to stay in motion.
The SUV slammed into the highway patrol car broadside and pushed it into the rear of the 18-wheeler flatbed that was carrying cages full of live chickens, 8,000 of them, to a processing plant. The mess would take hours to clean up and the road was closed. The SUV driver and passenger were killed by the impact. The highway patrolman and the truck driver escaped injury. No one knew how many chickens had survived and escaped from their own version of Auschwitz.
Chuck laughed hysterically at the chain of events and increased his speed to well over 100mph and realized that this was the most fun he'd had in years.
NSA Helicopter
"Jesus wept," said the co-pilot. "Did you see that?"
Sarah looked at Casey who was grinning like an idiot (again). "Your boytoy is sure kicking some ass, Walker. He must have borrowed the car from James fucking Bond! I have got to get my hands on that Mustang!"
Karen punched Casey in the ribs, hard. "Watch your mouth, Casey. He's no boytoy. He's all man…" She looked at Walker and winked. Sarah just turned back to the window and watched the Mustang streak down the almost-deserted interstate.
She clamped down hard on the urge to smack Karen in the mouth. They'd have to have a long talk about her history with Chuck and how it was just that…history. She'd made her claim known and she didn't need to hear any more tales about 'Karen & Chuck'.
There wouldn't have been any tales if she'd just been honest with herself from the start. She'd been compromised within the first 90 days. Ok, 30 days. Well, certainly since the kiss at the bomb. No earlier. Her professional rep had to be maintained. She should have told him then, figured out how to be with him without 'being with him' where Casey would catch on. She should have pushed for a move-in and better security. Damn it! She should have…done a lot of things she hadn't done.
She grabbed her cell and called him. Such impulsiveness was not her style but she wanted to touch him somehow, let him know she was there and that everything would be all right. They'd be Chuck & Sarah, Bodyguard & Companion, as soon as he calmed down and listened to reason.
He was riding a wave of drug-induced euphoria. He was invincible. He'd just taken out 2/3 of the NSA retrieval team and he'd bet even money that the last vehicle was receiving instructions to terminate him rather than retrieve him. It was only logical. If he slipped away from them, it would take a massive search operation to catch up with him.
His cell rang and he looked at the ID. Might as well get it over with. Funny, every girl or woman he'd gotten involved with had either cheated on him or played him. Walker and Fisher were pros.
"Yeah, Agent Walker, what's on your mind?" He was in a great mood. A fantastic mood. He had nothing to worry about. No one could touch him. He started to laugh.
"What are you doing, Chuck? Where are you going? You know you can't run forever. And why are you running? We can be together, Chuck. I'm your new 'companion'. Karen and Casey are being paired as the brawn and you're the brains and I'm the beauty. Your beauty. Isn't that what you wanted, sweetheart? Us together?"
"I'm just taking a drive, Agent Walker. I'm going where ever this road goes. Running? Yeah, I am. Running away from the hole in the ground. You know that sweet thing Karen? Well, she was Beckman's Dog, Sarah just like you were Graham's. You two will get along just fine. She lied from the beginning, Sarah, just like you lied. You professionals all seem to forget that I know all about you. Everything. Well, OK, not everything. I don't know who you are, really, Agent Walker. But that doesn't matter."
Sarah keyed her mike. "Casey, there's something wrong with him. It's like he's high or something. Find out about those damned drugs Montrose prescribed."
"Chuck, listen carefully, sweetheart. Elaine Bonner. I love you, Chuck Bartowski. Elaine Bonner." She hung up the phone, waiting and hoping.
She knew the exact moment he flashed. The Mustang swerved across the lanes and almost went down into the swale that formed the median dividing the north/south lanes before he got the big car back under control. The car slowed and finally pulled over onto the shoulder of the interstate.
She keyed her mike again. "Pilot, land this helicopter near the Mustang. I'm getting out. Casey, I told him my name, it's going to be OK. I'm getting out here. Going for a drive with my boy friend. I'll call you with an assessment. He might need to be back in the hospital, I won't know until I see him. He's still sick and I won't risk his health for anything."
Chuck sat in his idling car reviewing the flash dump he'd gotten from the intersect. Elaine Marie Bonner. He saw her recruitment file, her picture. A tough looking brunette of 16 or 17 with braces and acne. He reviewed her missions, her successes and failures, and her psych profile. He saw everything. He saw Casey's report on her relationship with the 'asset' and how she was compromised. He'd requested a 49B assessment.
It was Beckman who'd orchestrated the 49B debacle. She wanted the compromise to secure the efforts of the asset for the foreseeable future.
So, either they were really desperate to capture him or…
He leaned back in his seat. He was suddenly tired. Weary. He watched as the helicopter landed in the highway 20 yards away and the side passenger door slid back and a 30-something blonde hopped out, took a bag from Casey and bent down and ran over to the Mustang. He popped the locks automatically. He was running on instinct and empty. His Beast was asleep and he would be soon.
The helicopter took off and headed south leaving Sarah Walker alone on the highway. She walked over to the passenger side and opened the door, surprised it was unlocked.
She ran a quick assessment on her asset. Obviously exhausted, running on pure adrenalin and getting ready to crash. She pulled out her cell phone and made a call. "Casey, change of plans. Get that chopper back on the ground here and you and the She Devil can drive his car back. He's getting ready to crash and he needs the hospital." She hung up and reached over and turned off the ignition.
"Chuck, we're going for a helicopter ride back the NSA facility in L.A. You shouldn't be out and about yet. You're running on empty and you need to sleep. I'll be with you every moment, Chuck, I won't leave you. And I won't betray you. I meant everything I said to you, baby, every damned word. I'm just sorry that it took losing you to give me the courage to tell you that. You were right. I was more concerned for my job than anything. But that's all ancient history because my personal mission priorities have changed."
He looked at her blankly. He was trying to process the big words in her speech. He was so tired…