Author's note: If you want to know the music that I use to write the chapter with let me know. Also it is much appreciate for any reviews you wish to provide. Please be constructive with any criticism or praise.
BTW, most of the Chuck fanfic authors are at: Fanfiction:/forum/TWoPKickedUsOutButWeStillLoveChuck/49974/
Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck. All of the characters belong to whomever. I own the plot and theme in this story though. Thanks to Bill for the beta. Sorry GCG, I was a bit too tired to wait. ^(All remaining errors are mine.
BTW, Reviews help convince us to keep writing these stories. Enjoy it if you can or not. ^)
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recap:
Pulling out a card, it was one of the same as they had seen earlier at the bombed out drug den.
Turning the card over, Sarah read the back.
"I know what evil lurks in their hearts, even Bryce's. I'm not as dumb as I look, so don't worry about me. I will see you at Ellie's wedding, TRUST ME! Your loving nerd spy."
"What's that?" Casey asked.
"Just one of the cards from earlier. Nothing we haven't gone over before." Sarah replied as she stuck the card back into her pocket.
Now was not the time to bring up Chuck and the card. She would, only if it was necessary. They still had time to save Chuck, maybe.
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Sarah had been quiet for most of the ride back to the airport. It was getting way too close to their deadline. She worried that things were bound to escalate to a dangerous level within the next day or two.
Casey glanced over at Sarah, noting her somber mood. It was hard not to notice her demeanor: especially when Sarah normally was quite stoic in nature. Of course, Casey was starting to worry as much as her.
There was still a standing order to terminate the Intersect if they didn't captured him soon. But Casey did not want to think about that or its aftermath. He knew it would kill Sarah and it wouldn't sit well with him either. Casey grimaced and tried to focus on his driving and tried his best to ignore the growing tension in the car.
As the duo got close to the airport, Casey pulled into a back alley and they got out of the car. As Sarah waited, Casey opened the hood of the car and cut the gas-line dumping a fair amount of petrol into the engine compartment.
Casey walked to the side of the car and stooped down to riffle into a bag of items that he had placed upon the ground. The bag was full of items he had purchased at a market on their way to the airport. Casey took out a pack of cigarettes, tissue paper, two sticks, a ball of string and a sheet of paper.
Removing a cigarette from the pack, Casey proceeded to loosely wrap some tissue paper around the cigarette about halfway along its length. He then placed the two sticks on the outside of the three items and secured it with a string. Creating a cone shape with the large sheet of paper, Casey placed the cone shape piece of paper around these items and secured it to the base of the sticks.
This gave the cigarette an unobstructed area for it to burn. Then he placed the contraption into the engine compartment and closed the hood. This allowed the cigarette to burn without touching anything.
The agents quickly left the alley and began to walking the rest of the way to the airport. A few minutes later, a cloud of smoke arose from the direction of the car they had left behind.
Casey smiled knowing that the smoke was from their abandoned car that had started on fire when, the cigarette his self made contraption had ignited the petrol (gas) that he had let flow into engine compartment from the cut gas line.
His training in Fort Meade, Maryland, had taught him that burning the care was the best way to destroy all evidence that they had been in the care. With a satisfied sigh, Casey smiled in appreciation on the poor mans timer that he had build. It was simple but effective.
No one would suspect them since they were already gone and more importantly, there was no reason to worry about collateral damage. The car wouldn't blow up. Unlike the movies, Casey knew from past experience, that it would take more than just the gas in the tank to cause an explosion.
IN contrast, Sarah barely registered the black smoke that marred the sky was caused by Casey's handy work. She was lost in deep thought as they walked to the airport. She needed to figure out what to do. As she pondered their mission she suddenly realized that she had forgotten to turn on her cell phone.
Both Casey and Sarah had turned their phones off to keep them from identifying their location. They had been on a stakeout and any hint of their location could have been fatal to them.
It was not until Casey started checking in that she remembered to turn her phone on. As he booted up, she hit the power button and immediately heard her phone beep as five text messages appeared on her phone.
Four of the messages were from Crystal and the last was from an unknown number.
Selecting the first text message, it simply said, "Call me, Crystal". It repeated itself with a few exclamation marks included. The fourth message was much different. It read, "Game over, mutual friend in danger. No time to lose. I am heading your way now. Call me at 555-1234 in eight hours for update. I do feel the Reaper is close. How is your Portuguese?"
Sarah immediately called the number but it went to a call is not available message. According to the message, Crystal would be out of contact for another four hours.
Alarmed, Sarah selected the last message. It simply read, "Time flies when you're having fun, not! Meet me at the sweet bread alone in two days."
There was only one place where Sarah would need to know Portuguese and there was a reference to sweet bread. That would be Rio in Brazil at Pão de Açúcar . It was located in Rio De Janerio and was known by most as Sugarloaf Mountain.
Sugarloaf Mountain would make it easy to spot anyone following and easy to defend or escape from.
Broken from her thoughts by a noise, Sarah realized that Casey had been talking to her.
"Walker to Earth. Anybody still in there?" asked Casey.
"Sorry Casey, I was just reading my messages. What were you saying?"
"I asked you if you had any idea where to go to next, Walker."
"Looks like we are heading to Brazil. I hope you have some kind of tan under that suit of yours. Otherwise your going to stick out like a sore thumb in Rio," Sarah said with a smile.
Two days would be close, but still doable. No sense in worrying about what Crystal had to say. She could not reach her for another four hours anyway.
It took Casey and Sarah another hour to get the necessary items ready to take with them to Rio.
Finally on-board of their flight, Sarah and Casey settled in to catch some shuteye. Neither knew when the next time they would have time to sleep.
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Chuck had been pretty quiet for most of the trip. Bryce had assumed that it was due to Sarah, but the real reason was that Chuck was lightheaded for some reason.
The pounding in Chuck's head had gone from a dull thumping to a loud pounding.
As Chuck was sleeping, memories from before his adventure kept playing through his head. They seemed to focus in and out like bad reception on a TV.
Just entering the outskirts of Rio, Bryce continued to their safe house on the outskirts of the city. He pulled their Mustang GT into the garage and closed it before attempting to wake Chuck.
They had been on the road driving straight through for the better part of two days. They had only stopped for gas and food.
It had taken a toll on both of them. Not wanting to spend any more time than necessary in the car, Bryce shook Chuck awake abrasively.
"Hey, wake up! We're here. I'm going to bed. So grab your stuff and pick a room. I am going to sleep for the next 12 hours, so don't even think about bothering me," stated Bryce as he climbed out of the car.
Trying to stretch out his long legs inside the confines of the care, Chuck replied sleepily, "No problem. I will be up in a second, but I need to stretch first."
Not waiting, Bryce turned and headed into the house leaving Chuck to himself. The CIA agent found the master bedroom, tossed his bag into the corner and collapsed onto the bed. Within minutes Bryce was fast asleep.
As Chuck was finally able to stretch his legs as he stepped out of the car, his legs started to wobble. Chalking it up to the cramped space he had been resting in, he ignored it and grabbed his bag from the back of the car.
He went to the kitchen and got a glass of water. Pulling a bottle of Advil out of his bag, Chuck took three for his headache.
Still wobbly, he managed to find a vacant bedroom without incident. He placed his bag next to the bed and looked at his clock. He still had time for a quick nap.
Chuck pulled out a clean pair of faded jeans, boxers with Grumpy on them and a black dress shirt. Placing them on the bed, he then grabbed a towel and headed to the bathroom to take a shower.
Feeling a bit refreshed from the shower, Chuck still felt that a nap was still in order. He knew there was no sense in being tired and doing something stupid at this point in the game.
He put on his Grumpy boxers and laid the jeans and shirt across the back of a chair. He climbed into the bed and quickly drifted off to sleep.
As Chuck lay there sleeping, he was tossing and turning to the images in his head. His family, friends, the Buy More, Crystal, Casey and finally Sarah.
Golden strands of hair gently were flowing over her face. Her firm perfectly formed lips were glistening and were matched by the deep blue eyes as deep as the ocean.
Just the sight of her slight smile sent shivers down Chuck's body, in his dream. The elegant form of her body curved in all the right places and it called to him like a siren's song. Everything about Sarah flowed with class and style all the way down to her hands.
Something made Chuck's eye's stop to examined her hands, that they were the hands of a fighter. They did actual work, which left the knuckles ruff as well as the fingers.
Realization of the hard work she does for her government and for him washed over him. Chuck's body tensed at the clarity that she was in constant danger because of him. It was too much. He felt physical pain deep within his chest causing Chuck to let out an agonized moan in his sleep.
The heartache caused almost more pain than the pounding ache in his head. The now sharp throbbing pain in his head seemed to be burning images into a storage area somewhere deep in his mind.
With each wave of pain, a previous image would compress and then filed away. Like a nightmare in an old time Alfred Hitchcock movie, his greatest memories were being archived away to a place that Chuck could no longer access.
Stored with the memories were the emotions that went with them. Chuck felt a desperate need to try and catch the ebbing memories before they were spirited away.
Chuck grabbed for each one that passed by. Each bringing him closer and closer to a dark image that he could not quite make out yet.
The last image was of Sarah and Chuck's one real night together. As he dove for it, he plummeted into the dark image. As he was falling into the darkness, it opened its eye.
The eye had a spiritual feel to the center with intertwining circles like an atomic label. At each of the four intersecting lines were the four elements leading to the center.
As he passed through the eye, he awoke knowing that he had changed yet again. That one of his persona had just been locked away, at least for now. Maybe it was for good, but Chuck didn't know yet.
What he did know was that things would never be the same for him again. He accepted that he was not normal nor had he ever really been normal. That a new person had been forged from the baptism by fire he had been enduring.
He realized that he had just relinquished one fate for another. Both sides of the coin falling where it may, just like Two Face in Batman.
Smiling as the coin had fallen on tails, Agent Carmichael was the one in control for now.
Fear was not an option any more. Death was but a state of mind and his mind was made up. Agent Carmichael was going to live, to protect his loved ones and was no longer going to play the proverbial fool.
Pulling out his laptop, Chuck started logging into multiple anonymous servers to cover his tracks. Pulling the data from the many worm programs that he had been implanting along the way.
He began gathering together all the data that would give him complete access to cover any needs he would ever face in the future. Data of names, safe houses, bank accounts, access codes, clandestine cells through the world; were just to name a few of the data items.
It would take hours to sift through all of the data and he was running on almost no sleep. But his private time was limited and he could sleep later.
After all, he would sleep enough when he was dead. And if he didn't do this now, his death would be very real possibility quite soon.
With a start, Chuck laughed almost manically. Actually, he decided that death may need to make an appearance.....
Taking a chance, Chuck used an old access code to login to Casey's computer. Pulling up his worm program on Casey's system, he began downloading the data that he had been secretly been recording on the NSA agent's laptop.
"Boy, Casey is going to be pissed when he finds out", was all Chuck could think about as he continued on his personal mission. Operation Houdini was now in effect. It was showtime!