NoMoreNextTimes24

A/N: I'm going into the city tomorrow morning to spend some time with the lady doing wedding crap and I'll be there until Friday. I probably will be able to dump another chapter but who knows? APT

There were no more arguments. Sarah had agreed and now backed the original plan after reviewing all the possible alternatives.

"I withdraw my objections. I will support this with Beckman." Casey shook his head and Mako just grinned and held out her hand. Casey put a folded $20 bill in her hand and mumbled something about women and then was quiet. Thoughtful. Totally un-Casey-like.

Chuck and Mako took the chart for the island, Spanish Shoals, and started planning their route into the inlet at the northern end of the pork chop-shaped island. Casey walked over behind her and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"I know just how you feel, Sarah. Well, maybe not exactly, but close enough. Maureen's going into harm's way and I'm staying behind. Frustrating."

"Now we know how Chuck felt all those times. 'Stay in the car, Chuck'."

Casey gave a grunt that translated into 'yeah, but it's not the same'.

While the two watched, feeling left out, Chuck and Mako quietly discussed aspects of the infiltration and extraction.

"If we go in around 11pm local time the tide will help us and save us energy. If we can find a place to hole up until 5:45am," consulting a tidal chart and reexamining the chart, "and we can make our way down to the southern tip, we'll have the tides on the way out."

"Master Chief, that's 17 miles. We don't have a clue what transportation we might find or even whether we'll be able to make it that far." He grinned. "All that voluptuousness is very alluring but will make carrying you quite a task."

She popped him in the arm. "Asshole trainee".

Casey's cell chirping interrupted the easy banter that covered nerves.

He walked out to take the call and was gone a minute and then walked back into the Ops office.

"Pack it up, kiddies. The mission's been scrubbed. 'Her Majesty's representative' will not sign off on the op plan after all. Beckman wants us in DC for an 'alternative planning session' as soon as possible."

Sarah smiled and walked over and put her arm around his shoulder. "Sorry, baby. Maybe the alternative plan Beckman wants to discuss will have a higher probability of success."

"You mean less of a chance of failure, don't you, Sarah? You're getting pretty good at this bureaucratic bullshit. Damn Cole. The Ring must have gotten to him somehow. So much for Perfidious Albion."

"Um, Mako? Pack a light travel bag. Civvies only. No uniforms. Bring a dress if you have one. You're included in the 'alternate session'." Casey found it hard to imagine Maureen in a 'little black dress' and high heels. He had no problem imagining her straddling him while she rode him to ecstasy – twice the previous night. It was a memory he'd take to the grave.

"Colonel, I'm in a different chain of command and when your little Napoleon says 'jump', well, it's not going to happen. I have responsibilities here that don't include day trips to DC. And besides, I'm in command here and I've fought long and hard to get where I am. I'm not throwing it away for some spies."

John Casey had spent years learning one hard lesson: spies do not have emotional entanglements. But this little lady with her 'in your face' attitude had shattered his carefully constructed defenses by just being her normal abrasive self. He knew that no matter what he did, it would be wrong and his frustration sharpened his tongue.

"Master Chief, pack your bag, enough for two or three days. Your TraDoc CO will be in contact with you momentarily. You're not throwing anything away, Master Chief. I'm sure your little queendom will still be here when you return." He spun on his heel and stomped away, the old Casey fully and firmly in place once again.

Chuck saw the look on Mako's face and nudged her. "Casey's a hard ass, Mako. He doesn't know how to say 'please'. Don't take it personally. John Casey is stuck between the dog and the fire hydrant right now and responds the only way he knows how. Don't be too hard on him. He's adjusting pretty well to being a human being again. This is his last mission although I think he's hoping it's not. He's being moved to something bigger but out of the game."

"It's OK. I see his position. He just can't see mine. Nothing personal with that 'spies' comment, Drake. But I meant what I said. I'm not going without proper…" Her office phone range and it was her boss.

A helicopter landed and took three agents and one highly pissed-off Master Chief to Miami to catch a courier jet in Miami.

While Sarah dozed on the flight to Dulled International in Washington, Chuck opened his laptop and brought up his program that measured the degree of his regressive deterioration.

Cognitive score still hung up there at 96, still in the top 4% of the nation but his personal memory score was at 88. He's lost 2 points in a week. He felt incomplete again; empty, even though he knew it was just his imagination. Sighing, he closed the laptop and filled the time by watching his future wife sleep.

NSA HQ
FT Meade, MD

The driver opened the door of the pool car for Sarah and Maureen Madison. Chuck opened his own door and then went to the trunk and retrieved Casey's crutches and gave them to him.

"Thanks. Of course, if you'd just followed instructions or told me your intentions I wouldn't be walking around on four legs instead of two."

"I always wondered how many generations it'd been since your line of humanity walked upright. Must feel almost…normal for you. Especially since they snapped off your tail at birth."

"Grrrrr!"

"And they think I'm regressing. And John, ease up on Mako. She's just as professional as you, only when she kills something it usually is in the water or she uses a cannon."

"Mind your own business, Chuck. You have what you always wanted if don't blow it. Leave Maureen Madison out of any future conversations."

"Fine. Go ahead. Be the strong NSA agent and miss out on those bodacious tatas. You're a fool, Casey. And you're not getting any younger so that makes you an old fool."

"Leave it alone, Chuck. I mean it."

"Hey, no hitting the handicapped. It's bad form, Colonel." He dodged a head slap that wouldn't have landed any way. Casey just had to make the attempt for appearances sake. If he really were serious, he'd have brained him with one of his crutches.

"Agent Drake?" The driver was standing there, impatiently waiting for something.

"What? We're here, you're done. Scoot." Chuck was growing impatient. He was going to help Casey with his bag and now this 'driver'…

"You're destination is Medical, Agent. Please get back in the car. You're expected. And you're late."

"Go ahead, Chuck. I'll let them know where you've been taken, against your will. With any luck, many large-bore and very dull needles await." He knew of Chuck's aversion to needles. All the banter had been his way of dealing with his nervousness. And no one could possibly blame Chuck for being nervous. This examination could postpone or set the schedule for his death.

"Casey, tell her not to worry. I'm keeping my promise."

"Sure." Casey had the urge to hug his young protégé but manfully resisted. He knew Chuck was afraid of learning more about his 'disability' and couldn't blame him. Dying by degrees without actually dying, not pleasant at all. And his entire future was hanging on the efforts of a group of scientists who'd screwed up in the first place.

NSA Medical
FT Meade

The driver escorted Chuck into the facility and waited until a covey of doctors and nurses descended on him before leaving. His instructions had been very clear.

'The man is a Houdini. He doesn't want to be here, and he doesn't want the attention of the medical community so he'll try and run. Your job is to stop him, short of actually shooting him.'

The doctors and researchers each introduced themselves and their specialty and then the group, with Chuck having no means of escape, entered the operating theater.

NSA HQ

"While Agent Drake is being convinced to try the experimental implant, we have other things to discuss. The Ring is still unaware of our interest in Spanish Shoals. Agent Barker was able to convince the local officials to sever relations with their Ring counterparts but not to arouse suspicion. Two of the officials were persuaded to death but the others quickly came round. Apparently MI6 is not constrained in their treatment of traitors as is the US intelligence community."

"Why was the mission scrubbed, General?" Casey asked the question they all wanted answered.

"Not scrubbed, postponed. I want all of my Team Intersect agents", giving Casey a glare and Walker a sympathetic look, "in on this. It's too important to leave to one man and woman, no matter how gifted and talented they may be." She smiled at Master Chief Madison indicating the compliment was for her.

"General, I won't be released for duty for six weeks, can it wait that long or am I being replaced on the team?" Sarah was blunt, direct and demanding. She was not leaving her man. Not now, not ever.

"Agent Walker, your physicians used a traditional timeframe. You are 'good to go' as they say, in two weeks. Colonel Casey is another matter. Colonel, you have got to control your temper. Such a childish display of pique is not what I expect from a short-list full bull and my next Chief of Staff."

Casey had the good graces to look chagrined and stared at the floor for a moment before looking at the General in surprise. "Chief of Staff? General, I'm a field agent not a desk jockey."

"John, you're 41. Time to hang up the toys and get on with your career. Now, you have a choice. Take the promotion and appointment or retire effective immediately."

"What about the team? What about the mission?"

"It will be the last for both you and Agent Drake. So, what will it be, Colonel? Promotion or retirement?"

"I accept your appointment, General, effective upon completion of the mission to decimate the Ring. Acceptable to you?"

"Yes. Now, Agent Drake is being prepped for the surgery, Agent Walker. My aide will escort you to his room. He's nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, Sarah. Calm him down and stay with him until he's back on his feet. It's minimally invasive and he'll only be out a few minutes."

NSA Medical

The dead security guard at the elevator was the first indication that something had gone wrong. The aide, new to the NSA, had frozen at the sight of the body. Walker looked for a panic button but opted for a quicker route.

"Beckman, secure."

"Walker. Code black at the medical center. One guard down on the 4th floor. Proceeding to the operating theater."

Klaxons began sounding and the lights went from normal to red and all exits automatically locked and all elevators were taken out of service.

"You," Sarah nudged the frozen aide, "move back down to the elevator and take the guard's weapon and secure this floor. Shoot anyone who isn't me or my team if they get past me. Do not harm Agent Drake, understand?"

Sarah hugged the wall and moved as quickly as she could. The double door to the operating theater was closed and she could see the bodies around the nurses' station. Where the hell was security?

Sarah chanced a quick look through the window of one of the double doors. She cried out in anguish and shock.

All the doctors and researchers as well as the nursing assistants were dead.

Chuck was gone!

A/N: The devil made me do it.