Nine is definitely do-able. Well, it used to be, anyway. Maybe not anymore. Casey was pretty sure he didn't want to test it out, not with the way things had been going lately.

He must be getting old. Or maybe everybody else was getting younger. Look at Bartowski. Not quite thirty yet. A kid. And Walker, a couple of years younger than that. Even Cole Barker made him feel a little long in the tooth.

That guy sure could take it. Not that Casey hadn't suffered and survived his share of torture, bullets, poison, what have you. All in a day's work for a truly active spy. But what Barker had just been through looked like it had been pretty rough, judging from the wounds he was carrying when he broke into Castle. Add to that two more bullets and you had a pretty impressive tally for one mission. Walker could while away a couple of hours playing connect-the-dots using Barker's bullet holes if she'd let her hair down.

Casey chuckled as he remembered having that game played on him by a rather talented and imaginative redheaded Norwegian agent in – Bucharest, was it? Ah, good times.

Anyway, that was then, a long time ago, and this was now. And it looked like "special" agent Chuck Bartowski was getting in on the action. Maybe Casey should have told Barker in advance that giving a nerd a real gun was a mistake. It was just lucky that stray bullet had hit Busgang and not either of his handlers. Casey wanted to retire, not be retired. And especially not by his asset.

Pausing for a moment, Casey recalled what the general had said. That there might actually be a way to get the Intersect out of Chuck's head. If that happened, this mission would be over, one way or another. Maybe Casey would be asked to clean up, like he had done on so many other missions. He had almost forgotten about that part. If so, he'd be the one putting a bullet into Chuck. He'd have to make sure and do it so that the boy didn't know it was coming. Clean kill. No pain.

Well, at least that was something Casey didn't have to deal with right away. Busgang was dead, the Intersect was still firmly inside Bartowski's head, and Sarah... Well, Sarah was having a hard time holding it together. Casey would have to keep an eye on her, help her out where he could without making it seem like he was interfering.

Because fooling around with another agent was one thing; fooling around with your asset who happened to be crazy in love and was tempting you to fall in love with them was another. And Casey knew from his long years of experience that, in the spy business, some things just were not do-able.