A/N: Thanks to daywalkr82 for the beta read. Only a week until Season 4 starts. I should probably go find my TV at some point...

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck, or any of the main characters, subsidiary characters, situations, settings, hamsters, bean-bag chairs, etc.

Chapter 21:

Sarah wanted to stop and reassure him, but they couldn't risk parking the shot-up SUV on the street where it could be spotted and reported to the police, and they still didn't know if the SUV was bugged. That and the fact that she had to watch their six because she wasn't sure the maybe-Russians weren't trying to pick up their trail had her in a less than reassuring frame of mind. "Please, Chuck. Calm down," she said, but she didn't really think just telling him to do it would work. If that worked, her life would be so much simpler, but he wouldn't be Chuck if he just blindly followed everything she said. Sarah didn't want a lapdog; she wanted her Chuck, panic freak-outs and Call of Duty marathons and all. Swerving around a mid-size sedan, she turned the problem over in her head. She had to think fast, because it looked like Chuck was about to start hyperventilating.

One hand darted into her purse and felt around. Her fingers flew over the grips of her S&W, the little magnetic canister with the intel that was probably useless now after the contact hadn't shown, and there it was. Sarah pulled her portable bug scanner and tossed it into Chuck's lap.

He blinked and looked at her questioningly, but he didn't say anything. That was a bad sign, in Sarah's experience. A brooding Chuck was invariably a second-thoughts-having Chuck, and neither of them could afford that right now. Sarah pointed at her eyes and then at the gadget she'd passed him.

Chuck frowned and peered at the black plastic casing. His eyes flickered under his eyelids in what Sarah knew was a flash. He brightened noticeably and switched the detector on, sweeping it around the inside of the SUV's passenger compartment happily. They hadn't turned on the radio, so it wouldn't interfere with the readings, and she kept her eyes on the road. His long arms helped him reach into the back seat. No beeps at all so far. Once he finished up, then maybe they could talk—What the hell! "Chuck!" Sarah shouted and grabbed his wrist. "What did we say," she hissed in his ear. "About stealing third?"

"Wh-what! I wasn't— I mean," Chuck babbled. He held up the bug sweeper, in his defense. "I just... I thought there could be a bug under your seat, gutter mind!"

Sarah blushed, and tossed her head to get her hair over her ears, which were suddenly burning. "Give me that," she said, bristling as she finished the sweep under her legs herself. "Okay, we're clear. You remember the plan?"

"Yeah," Chuck said. "But my phone doesn't have that cool GPS app thing."

"I call it my ChuckDar," Sarah said and shoved her purse into his hands.

"Nerd," Chuck said. Sarah stuck her tongue out at him. "Real mature, Agent Walker."

Sarah shrugged and adjusted the rearview mirror, her eyes widened in shock and she glanced over her shoulder. "Hang on."

"What's wrong?"

"Hang on to something," she said with more force as her hands glided along the steering wheel. She spun the wheel and the SUV swerved into oncoming traffic.

"What the hell is going on?" Chuck shouted, clinging for dear life.

"Don't yell at me!" Sarah shot back. "The team that attacked us is still back there. I thought I lost them, but the cracks in the windshields masked the pursuit. We're going to have to go to plan B."

"I don't remem—car! Car!" Chuck pointed, and Sarah rolled her eyes and somehow managed to slide the SUV between two oncoming cars before she downshifted, punched the gas and slewed the behemoth back into the proper lane. Their horns doppler shifted comically behind them as the SUV rocketed through traffic.

"Stop freaking out and let me drive," Sarah said. "Get out my phone out and see where the FBI is."

Chuck rooted through Sarah's purse. "I don't see your phone," Chuck said.

"It's in there. I don't know what to tell you," Sarah said. The SUV squealed around a turn and Sarah grit her teeth, leaned into the turn and checked their pursuers again in the rearview. "Look harder."

"I really don't think it's in here," Chuck said as he pulled things out of her purse, holding them awkwardly out of the way with both hands. "We got, your gun, the data, throwing-knife-wrist-scabbard, wallet, travel size-Kleenex," Chuck said, barely able to hang on to everything as he continued his litany. "Spare mags, lipstick, make-up thingy."

"Compact," Sarah said absently, taking another corner.

"Right, what you said... and, uh... tampons?" He held one up gingerly between his fingers, as if he thought it might bite him.

"Oh my God!" Sarah blushed and tried one-handed to snatch her purse back, but she only managed to knock it out of his hand. Her phone fell out.

"Found it," Chuck chimed in, trying to swipe the unlock. It made a harsh beeping sound. Access Denied. "Um, Sarah?" He held it out and Sarah pressed her thumb to the built in scanner. "Thanks, you said ChuckDar? I don't see the shortcut for, oh. DIA GPS Tracking Algorithm 2.3. I see why you call it ChuckDar. CIA really doesn't pick names for brand recognition do they?"

"Honey, I'm trying to concentrate," Sarah said. "How far is the FBI away from their hotel? The timing on this is going to be tricky, now that we've got the trigger-happy brothers on our tail back there. You need to put it on the Aux. setting. There should be a button that-"

"Oh, I see that now," Chuck frowned and fiddled with the settings. "There's two blips."

"What?" Sarah said. "What do you mean?"

"I'm picking up..." Chuck thought about it. "Wait, do you have any more of those GPS things in your purse?"

"No, why?"

"One of the blips..." Chuck squinted through the web of cracks across his window as they shot through an intersection. That was the right street sign. "Yeah, one of the blips is in the car with us."

"The Russians must have tossed a sticky-dot on us before we got out of their trap," Sarah punched the steering wheel. "Damn it."

"Wait. A what? That's like a GPS you throw and it sticks to stuff?"

"Yeah, why are you grinning about it?" Sarah demanded. "Now we can't lose them."

"It's a Spider-tracer," Chuck said, awestruck. Sarah stared at him blankly for a moment, before turning her eyes back to the road. Chuck rolled his eyes. "You really need to read more of my comics collection."

"How far back is the FBI?"

"A mile, mile and a half?" Chuck said.

"Great. Really just perfect," Sarah muttered. "Hang on, we're there."

"Sarah, shouldn't you be slowing down instead of speeding up?" Chuck asked as he saw the bulk of the FBI's hotel growing near.

Sarah grinned. "I said hang on."

The SUV was still going at least fifty miles per hour, when she made the turn. Sarah misjudged it, just slightly, and as the SUV whipped around in a quick one-eighty, one of the rear tires hit the curb and the vehicle jumped up and squealed sideways. Chuck let out a high-pitched yell, and while it wasn't quite the girlish scream he used to let out, it was still distracting. Luckily the extra couple of thousand pounds in armor the SUV was carrying kept them from flipping, and the high-performance shocks handled the sudden and extreme maneuver fairly well. The axle didn't crack, but the transmission rods weren't so lucky. A fan of sparks flew up ahead and behind of them as the SUV backed down into the parking garage, leaving a slick of transmission fluid and antifreeze behind like a snail. Sarah slammed on the brakes, and brought the lumbering behemoth to a screeching, shuddering halt right in front of a horrified-speechless Valet Parking attendant.

She popped open the center console and hauled out the disguise kit. A black wig for her, and a fake Magnum P.I. mustache for Chuck were all they could afford to use at the moment, time being such a factor. Chuck squirmed when Sarah applied the sticky facial hair to his lip. "Quit fidgeting," she growled. "You need to look the part."

"It tickles," Chuck protested with a shrug.

Sarah sighed and grabbed his hair to steady him as she pressed the mustache in with more force than strictly necessary. "Let's move," Sarah said. She had to force the door open with a kick, since the massive volume of fire had damaged the latch mechanism, which didn't help her mood. She hopped out and tossed the keys to the valet. "You're probably going to want to get this thing out of sight before our friends get here. Apparently we owe them money." As far as on-the-fly covers go, it wasn't half bad. It also wasn't half good, but beggars can't be choosers.

Then, Chuck finally managed to get his door open and over-balanced, falling out almost on his head. Sarah cringed and put her hands to her face in worry, then went up on tiptoes to see him over the hood of the mostly crippled SUV. "You okay, honey?"

He didn't answer, merely popping to his feet with a thumbs up. He jumped and tried to slide across the hood, but his pants got caught on a bullet-hole and he ended up rolling out of control and falling again. Once again, he popped right back up. Sarah took her purse from him with a look of concern. "Keep this up, and I'll start making you wear a helmet," Sarah said, with just a faint worried smile, and smoothed his fake mustache back into place.

Sarah ran for the lobby with Chuck trailing a step behind her. The hapless valet surveyed the battle-scarred and wrecked SUV. He hit the button to unlock the doors on the key-fob out of morbid curiosity. The tires took that opportunity to blow out, all at once, and the vehicle settled down onto the rims of its wheels. Steam billowed up from under the hood as radiator fluid started streaming out behind the grill.

"You remember the plan?" Sarah whispered. Chuck nodded, still rubbing his head where he'd fallen. That helmet idea certainly had merit. "Where's your FBI badge?"

Chuck patted his pockets, panicking a little until he found the stolen credentials. He fumbled them out and nearly dropped them. Sarah fought down a smirk. "Alright," he said, when he finally had his composure back. "I've got this."

Wrapping himself up in his Charles Carmichael persona helped a little; it was familiar and comforting, with all the shifting covers he'd been dealing with lately. He just had to remember to say the right name. Chuck walked straight up to the desk and flipped open the leather wallet that held Sean Walsh's FBI badge and id. "Special Agent Sean Walsh," Chuck said. "FBI. I... this is kind of embarrassing. I lost my keycard, for the room. Could you make me another one?"

The front-desk clerk arched an eyebrow, and tugged the credentials closer, peering intently at the identification picture. Chuck swallowed. A stop at a photo booth the day before, while playing tourist with Sarah, and then some fancy work with an Exact-o knife had been all it took to work the transformation. "Huh," the clerk said.

"Is something wrong?"

"What? Oh, no. Nothing, I just never saw an FBI badge before."

Chuck grinned and nodded. "Actually, we call them credentials," he said, putting a hand up to shield his mouth from prying ears conspiratorially.

"Hey thanks," the woman said and smiled back at him. "Let me just grab a blank keycard and I'll get you set up. Walsh, you said? Oh, here it is. FBI has a block of rooms." She swept the card through the scanner, and slid it into his hand. "Here you go, Agent Walsh."

Chuck grinned and arched an eyebrow. "Special Agent."

"Mm-hmm. Special is right," she said. Chuck laughed good-naturedly and started walking over to Sarah by the bank of elevators. She was tapping her foot impatiently and glaring at him with her arms crossed over her chest. Chuck blinked. What had he done now?

"What did I do now?" Chuck asked. It was worth voicing the thought aloud. Sarah sniffed and got on the elevator without saying a word. The doors were still open when the valet darted into the lobby, finally recovered from Chuck and Sarah's traumatic arrival. The young man went right over to the front-desk clerk who had made Chuck-as-FBI a new keycard. She was a fairly pretty brunette, Chuck realized. Finally. "Oh, fu—" the closing doors cut off the rest.

"Hang on," O'Bannon said. "Shut up Casey, I'm trying to listen."

—Gun battle perpetrators heading north on Everett toward—

"Son of a bitch!" Casey said. "They're heading for our hotel."

"How can you tell?" Walsh wanted to know.

Casey grinned. "Because they're following the Pensovs."

"What?" O'Bannon turned to look at Casey in the back seat. He'd lost the rock paper scissors battle with her to determine who rode shotgun in the FBI suburban. "You're sure? How?"

Casey's grin never changed a whit. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Oh, screw you, NSA!" she huffed and turned back, keeping her eyes ahead. Oh yes, she was definitely digging the Casey.

"I'm being serious," Casey protested. He showed her the subtly altered screen of his phone's usual Chuck GPS readout. "I paid off the room service guy to slip a GPS into her purse this morning."

"You what!" O'Bannon said shrilly. "That's..."

Casey grinned. "Smart?"

O'Bannon blushed and turned back again. "I was going to say illegal."

"Patriot Act," Casey said. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Walsh rolled his eyes. "Anybody want to hazard a guess why our suspects are waiting for us at our hotel? It can't be for anything good."

Casey grunted. He'd like to ask them that himself. They were completely off-script now and hadn't even bothered to call in. That bothered him, and not in the normal way Bartowski usually bothered him. Bartowski acted like a moron, and Casey made fun of him for it. If Bartowski got offended, Casey made fun of him for being thin-skinned. If he tried to act tough, Casey found a way to make fun of him for that, too. It was their thing. This was different, however; Casey was worried. Mostly about Walker. No, really.

"Where are they!" one of the masked men shouted. "We have their vehicle; now someone tell me where they went, or I start making the corpses, yes?"

"W-we don't know who you're talking about," the front-desk clerk stammered, before adding a belated. "Sir."

He put the barrel of his GSh-18 right in the woman's face. "They will have been the last people to come through door before us? This you understand?"

"You mean those two FBI agents?"

"FBI! Bozhe moi," one of the others said, grabbing the ringleader's leather coat. "You never said they were FBI!"

The ringleader's eyes could be seen rolling, even with the ski-mask, and he ignored his flunky. "A man and a woman. Both tall, good looking?"

She shivered and gave a frightened nod. "Y-yeah."

"What room?"

"616," she managed before bursting into tears.

"You two," he said, pointing out the two closest to the doors. "Stay here and watch the doors. Keep the people back. Everyone else, with me."

Three other men, all with AKs held at the ready, piled into the elevators with their leader. "You never said anything about the FBI," the same man as before said.

"It's a ruse, doorak!" the ringleader said in disgust. "Russian arms dealers suddenly are FBI agents? Even Americans are not so crazy as that! Relax, it is not the plan, but we will be fine. Real FBI is probably miles away."

Walsh pulled the FBI suburban up to the curb in a screech of tires. "How do you want to do this? We go in heavy?" he leaned over for the door handle and Casey clamped a hand onto each FBI agent's shoulder, fixing them in place.

"Not so fast you two," he leaned forward between the seats, pointed, and visible through the glass doors and front picture window were two masked men with classic AK-47 assault rifles. They were in the process of putting down the blinds, so they weren't completely hopeless. "Drive the 'burban into the lobby."

"What!" O'Bannon shouted. "You're crazy."

"So they say," Casey admitted. He patted Walsh on the shoulder in encouragement. "C'mon, it'll be fun. I promise to cover for you with your potentially-crooked boss."

"Aw, screw it," Walsh muttered, and spun the wheel.

"Hey alright, FBI," Casey said, turning in his seat to haul the cased shotgun out of the way-backseat. "I knew there was hope for you!"

Walsh did a three point turn into traffic, blocking the oncoming lane. The backed up drivers started blaring on their horns.

Inside the hotel, one of the gunmen frowned. "What is that? You hear? Yuri, check the doors; make sure they are locked up tight."

The gunman named Yuri turned to the door and his eyes went wide as pie-plates. He didn't even have time to curse his luck. The Suburban plowed through, sending the twisted doorframe and a wave of shattered glass before it. The glass was light enough and his unseasonable leather coat and body armor thick enough that the storm of glass shards didn't kill him outright, though he would have plenty of slashes along his front where his body armor gapped. The doorframe bowled him over, but didn't take him out of the fight completely.

"Andrey!" he shouted to his compatriot and opened up on rock-and-roll, the full-auto setting of his assault rifle, spraying wildly. Most of his bullets ended up in the prettied-up-concrete ceiling. A split-second later Andrey opened up as well, and the two gunmen stitched lines of splintering cobwebs across the windshield of the armored FBI vehicle.

"I hate this town!" Andrey shouted over the roar of his assault rifle. "All the cars are bulletproof!"

Walsh and O'Bannon opened their doors and stepped out, using the bullet-proofing in the window and side-panels for cover. "FBI! Drop the guns!"It wasn't the smartest move, but the two gunmen weren't exactly great tacticians either. They both scrambled for cover, and it looked like Walsh managed to graze one of them, but that was about it. Casey worked the action of the shotgun and checked to see what the FBI was loading these days. Slug rounds, perfect. He didn't have to worry about errant pellets injuring civilians, and the heavy projectile would defeat just about any personal body armor at close to medium range. He leaned over the center console and found the controls for the sunroof while the Feebs were exchanging mostly useless—and dangerous with so many potential hostages—gunfire. He popped up out of the sunroof, and used the height advantage that his perch and his 6'5" frame combined to give him, and lined up his shot. The penetrating power of a 12 gauge 3" deer-slug is what is known in some circles, as overkill. In other circles, it's just called 'scary.'

The gunmen had body armor, as Casey had half-expected from their weapons and clothing, but his first slug went through the counter-top behind which his target was hiding, blasted through his light tactical Kevlar, completely through his chest, out the back of what couldn't properly be called a 'bullet-proof' vest anymore, and embedded itself in the heavy concrete load-bearing wall behind him with a cloud of dust. It gouged a two inch crater in the cement, even after all of that. Casey worked the action to load another round and paused. The remaining gunman had seen his friend's demise, and thought better of continuing.

"My give up!" he shouted, tossing down his Kalashnikov and putting his hands on top of his head without being prompted. Casey kept the shotgun trained on the man while Walsh and O'Bannon went about dealing with all the bruised lady-feelings and taking care of things like Miranda rights.

"My name is Special Agent Walsh, and this is Special Agent O'Bannon, I'd like everyone to remain calm. This situation is under control."

The front desk clerk raised a hand. "Um... are you any relation to the other Special Agent Walsh?"

"What other Walsh?" he said, perturbed. "What are you talking about?"

"The one who just went upstairs," she said. "All the guys with guns are after them."

O'Bannon glared at him from where she was busy cuffing their prisoner. "Walsh, where's your badge?"

Walsh patted the coat pocket where he always kept his... "Crap," he said. "She must have snatched it at the coffee shop yesterday."

"And you didn't notice it until now!"

"She left my gun, so I didn't think to check, and then I slept in my clothes because of the stakeout!" Walsh protested. "I haven't had to flash my damn badge once since we got here."

The front-desk clerk raised her hand again, clearing her throat. "Um, I think they're called credentials now?"

Casey grunted, amused by the byplay. "Can we move on, please? I think you said something about more guys with guns, Ma'am?"

The brunette from the front-desk nodded vigorously. "Yeah, they're all heading up to the sixth floor. Room 616."

"That's our surveillance post," O'Bannon said. "Walsh, you stay in the lobby and babysit Boris here until our backup arrives."

"Why always Boris?" he sighed. "My name is Andrey," the former gunman started to protest. O'Bannon cuffed him in the back of the head.

"What part of 'right to remain silent' did you find confusing, asshat?"

"This is police brutality, yes?"

Casey grinned and tossed O'Bannon the shotgun. He ducked down and jumped out, cracking his knuckles over his head. "You think that's bad? wait'll you see NSA brutality."

Chuck popped the door open with the key the nice brunette lady had made for him, which he figured he would now never hear the end of, and stepped in with a sweeping motion. "So this is where the magic happens," he waggled his eyebrows. "You think we have time for a private screening?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Ick, Chuck. Normal people never look good in a sex-tape."

"Hate to break it to you sweetie, but that body of yours ain't exactly normal," Chuck said.

She pursed her lips. "I wasn't talking about me."

Chuck's mouth fell open for a moment, and then he grinned. "Nice burn, baby. But next time if you really want to sell it you need to put more menace into it."

"Just find the damn tape already," she growled.

Chuck darted over to a pair of computer monitors and sat heavily. "Now see, that's more the level of menace I was talking about," he said softly to himself, as his fingers found the keyboard.

"Can you hack their passwords?"

Chuck shrugged. "Sure, if I have to. But FBI guys are usually pretty silly about things like—There see? JEdgarinaHoover. I'm in."

"Who?"

"Feminization of Edgar," Chuck explained. Sarah stared at him blankly. "Famous cross-dressing founder of the FBI? No? Really?"

Sarah shook her head, watching him work over his shoulder. "Your brain astonishes me."

"Thanks, Sarah."

She snorted. "It wasn't exactly a compliment, sweetie," Sarah said, but she put her hands on his shoulders and kissed the top of his head to soften the blow. "Hurry up, …I was going to call you by a famous hacker's name in a sarcastic manner, but I don't know any famous hackers."

"Mark Abene, aka Phiber Optik," Chuck said absently. "They wrote a book about him."

"Huh," Sarah said. "What—"

"Done," Chuck said.

"Really?" Sarah said, a little puzzled. "I wasn't distracting you?"

"Wasn't really that complicated. They had the video files sorted by date and time, in a folder right on the desktop named 'Surveillance Video'," Chuck said. "I even checked their internet logs to make sure they didn't send it anywhere yet. Then I ran a DOD-secure delete. Randomly rewrites the memory locations seven times. Incriminating video equals dead. We're good, unless you wanted a copy?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "No, thank you. I'll just be a second," she went over to the night stand and picked up the notepad, very similar to the one in their hotel room across the street. She wrote quickly: Nice working with you.

EP.

Check your shoes, FBI.

She took only a moment to study her work, when she heard Chuck on the phone. "Yes, room service please?"

"Chuck what are you doing?" she hissed. He put a hand to the receiver to block out the brief exchange.

"I'm on the phone!" he whispered right back, and put the phone back to his ear. "Yes, I'd like to order two pitchers of lemonade and a plate of fresh lemons. Lemon halves are fine. Room 616. Yes. Thank you."

"Alright," Sarah said, once he'd hung up. "Do you want to explain yourself now?"

"It's just... you know... when life gives you lemons? It's a joke."

"Do you really think we should be taunting the FBI like that?"

"Its in character, isn't it?" Chuck complained. "And you're doing it too, leaving a note isn't taunting the FBI?"

Sarah heaved a sigh. "Alright, point to Chuck," Sarah dug in her purse, and came out with a tiny little gadget.

"What's that thing do?" Chuck asked, leaning forward. Sarah slapped his hand gently away, pushed in the button and dropped it on the coffee table near the surveillance gear.

"Portable de-gaussing charge," Sarah said. "It's got maybe a twenty foot range. Wipes all magnetic drives inside that arc. We need to move quick or it'll wipe our phones as well when it goes. It's not that I don't trust you, sweetie. I just like to be thorough."

Chuck opened the door and a man in a ski-mask put a pistol to his head. "Hands up," the man said. Sarah darted to the side out of line of sight. "It's been ages, old friend. You never call; you never write. I'm starting to think you don't like me, Nikolai."

"I think you have me confused with someone else," Chuck said. He paused for a moment, thinking of how to go on from there, but the man with the gun shushed him with a finger to his lip. If that wasn't creepy enough, three men with AK-47s filled the hallway behind him.

"Niko, Niko, Niko," he said, patting Chuck on the cheek, just shy of a slap. "It's good. Your plastic surgeon, he is very good. The new face, I like it. But when I find him," the ringleader shrugged. "He sell you out in blink of the eye, yes? You should have just kill him. But you always were soft. Like pudding."

Chuck's eyebrows went up in shock. "Harry?" That couldn't be right. Harry Tang was decidedly not-Russian.

"Who? No!" The ringleader yanked his ski-mask off. "It is Kasimir! Kasimir Fyorodenko! You leave me for dead in North Sea with empty cargo ship and the bodies of all my men you kill?" The man sounded vaguely hurt. "You don't remember me?"

"Oh, right... that," Chuck said, and tugged at his collar to loosen it before he realized he was wearing a t-shirt.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N:Next Chapter: Things get really crazy.

School is back, and thesis defense is looming, so I won't be doing a lot of work on this story for a while. That said, there is another chapter in Beta right now. And 90% of the chapter after that and about half of the chapter after that are both sitting on my hard drive giving me sad eyes. I'm not going to say 'hiatus' with regard to this story, because I need something to work on when I get thesis-writer's-block, but expect the more relaxed 'every couple of weeks or whatever schedule' to be in force until I finish writing 90 pages or so of interconnected short-stories for my thesis. And 15-20 pages worth of literary criticism of myself in regard to same 90 pages. Ugh. Brain already hurts.

Maybe some nice relaxing reviews will cheer me up? It's worth a shot anyway.