Hello there. I apologize for being a week late, but I spent last week out of town babysitting my friend's kids and it got interesting a couple of times. It took a bit out of me, but I did try to get some writing done while I was out there and got the rest of the chapter in the past two days. I tried my best with it and I hope you like the results. Also I was caught up in some baseball thing going on, but I guess it's because of where I live. :-D
I'm trying my best to keep everyone involved and try to keep up the comedy where I can. Of course, we're going into some serious plotlines right now, and I am also trying my best to balance out the different chapters so all the characters get involved. Not sure if I'm pulling that off, but I'm certainly trying. The bad news is, with Chuck no longer on Netflix, it's hard to go back and review episodes. My Chuck DVDs are in storage. I'll try to see how many of them are on my old laptop and get them from there, but I'm not optimistic.
Also, I've been trying to read other stories, and I must say some of them keep me inspired to write this one. I've almost caught up on The Trapped Assassin by SarahsSupplyCloset and I'm also waiting for the next chapter of Chuck vs the Island by Sir Chucky. I even asked Sir Chucky how he gets so many reviews, but he didn't have a good answer. Obviously he's a great writer, so that's a big reason why.
As always, the parts that aren't mine belong to NBC and Fake Empire Productions. Please make sure to leave reviews.
Thanks, and GO CUBS!
Venice, Italy
June 2, 2016
2:00 PM CEST
An image showed on a screen he didn't know was there. "It can't be," he whispered in shock.
This had to be a joke. The image was of actress Sarah Walker.
"Whoever you are, this is not funny," Daniel Shaw spat.
"This is no joke," the voice replied. "Sarah Walker murdered your wife."
"You're telling me someone who plays a spy on television murdered my wife." Shaw shook his head and laughed. "Yeah, thanks for trying to make me laugh by picking the worst way possible."
The screen then changed to surveillance footage of Sarah taking on a group of four agents by herself with a dazzling display of punches and kicks.
"This isn't from the show?" Shaw asked, a little stunned.
"No. And neither is this."
The footage changed to Sarah's team fighting their way out of an enemy stronghold freeing a dozen hostages…and quite successfully.
"Whoever you are, you have a sick sense of humor," Shaw said as his anger increased. "You're trying to tell me all four of those actors are actual spies? Sarah, John Casey, Carina Miller, Jimmy Slade…they're all real agents?"
Shaw got silence in return. The video image then changed to something that shook Shaw to his core.
"Happy birthday, sweetie."
Shaw witnessed the video he took of his wife, Evelyn, who had just given him a video camera for his birthday over a dozen years ago. "How did you find this?" he whispered in shock.
He got no reply, but the video changed to surveillance footage on a darkened Prague street. Evelyn walked down the pathway looking back and forth as if she was expecting someone. She quickly turned but fell to the ground from being shot. The image replayed from a wider angle showing the person who shot her as she turned around.
The video replayed a third time. This time, the image zoomed in on the person who fired the shot.
"NOOOOOO!" Shaw screamed as he saw the face of Sarah Walker in the surveillance. He dropped to his knees, unable to keep himself together.
A dart whistled out of the darkness and struck Shaw in the neck. He passed out.
Tangerine Hotel – Burbank, CA
June 2, 2016
6:00 AM PDT
The team rushed into the conference room when they received the call from General Beckman. The news could not have been good if she was calling at this hour.
"We have a situation," Beckman replied, which the team knew meant something nasty had hit the fan…hard. "One of our IT people was found shot to death last night in the DNI. They were preparing the Intersect data to transfer to Mr. Bartowski. We have to assume the Ring now has a copy of it."
"Someone in the DNI did this?" Sarah asked in shock. "Any guesses as to whom?"
Beckman shook her head. "There's no way to know. The video surveillance in the computer lab was disabled before the perpetrator went in. Every ID registered in the building at the time wouldn't have had access to that lab in the first place."
"Whoever shot them must have had the ability to erase their info from the databases that register ID card swipes at the security gates," Casey said. "It has to be someone on the top level. Someone with access."
"We're going through every personnel file we have right now, but that still leaves us too many suspects. And getting the data back is our first priority."
"Is the original data still on our servers?" Carina asked.
"Yes, it is. And it's encoded, so whoever stole it will need to break through Mr. Bartowski's encryption first. We can continue as planned, but clearly we do not know who we can trust. I want Agents Walker and Casey to accompany Chuck to the DNI. The three of you will download a new copy yourselves and deliver it to Stephen Bartowski personally."
"Okay," Chuck replied. He was nervous given the sudden turn of events, but Sarah gently squeezing his hand out of sight of everybody certainly eased his discomfiture.
"Agents Miller, Slade, and Forrest, get that stolen data back," Beckman continued. "By any means necessary."
"Got it," Forrest replied.
"We also have to increase our presence at the Buy More to protect Mr. Bartowski and Dr. Woodcomb. Agents Barker and Trinchina, bring in people who are completely from the outside and have no direct link to any agency. Only people you know and trust. Make sure they blend in. And they are not to know who or what they are guarding, only that they are to provide you support. You two are in charge over there. Keep Mr. Tucker and Mr. Grimes in the loop on this so they can help you."
"We'll get to work on that," Cole replied.
"Move fast, people," Beckman commanded. "The Ring is playing hardball, and you're our heavy bats."
She terminated the link.
"We'll ready the jet to fly to D.C.," Sarah said. "But we need leads and we need them right now."
"We still have the files from Basta's mansion," Jimmy replied. "Maybe we can pour over those with Chuck's dad. He encrypted the data for Beckman; he should recognize where they may have put the code. Hopefully time is on our side with this."
"But why just steal the code?" Ilsa asked. "Why didn't whoever did this wipe the CIA's servers? That would be the easy way out for them."
"There's two possibilities. Either they couldn't or they didn't care that we kept it."
"Or both," Alex replied. Everyone turned to her. "This was a smash-and-grab job. Otherwise I would have forced the tech to wipe the files off the servers before shooting them. Whoever did this had the ability to wipe their digital fingerprints but no time for anything else. They were on a clock to deliver the data to someone."
Everyone looked at each other. The Ring went through everyone's minds. "The Ring is still trying to build an Intersect of their own," Chuck said nervously, which sent a chill through the entire room.
"Makes sense," Casey said. "They can't get to you or your father, so they're going to do this themselves. Stealing the data is the easy way rather than what they tried before at the drive-in."
"Then assuming it was an inside job, you can't just walk in and download a new copy," Jimmy said to Chuck, Sarah, and Casey. "Otherwise the Ring gets tipped off. You have to sneak in and erase any evidence you were there, just like this person did. Nobody can know about this, not even Beckman's own people."
Casey gave a grunt of disappointment and switched out his Sig Sauers for a pair of tranq guns. "Hate tranqing people. Just not as fun."
"Casey, you have to play nice with the other kids," Jimmy admonished with a smile. "We'll handle things here. You three get going."
Chuck, Sarah, and Casey gathered their gear and headed out of the hotel. Chuck gave a quiet laugh.
"Wow, Jimmy really is different these days," he said. "I can't believe all it took was Alex being attracted to him."
"Could have saved us three years of aggravation if you just shtupped him when we met," Casey growled quietly to Sarah.
"Oh, knock it off," she snapped back. "I would never do something like that, especially not with a partner." Both Chuck and Casey gave her a weird look. "Anymore," she added with a snarl.
Casey gave a little grunt of amusement while Chuck tried his best not to laugh as the three got to their car to head to the jet.
Buy More – Burbank, CA
June 2, 2016
10:30 AM PDT
Stephen Bartowski sat with Ellie, Carina, Jimmy, and Alex at one of the computers going over the information they obtained from Victor Basta's mansion, looking for any sort of link to the current whereabouts of the Ring.
"There's a lot of information here," Stephen said. "Nothing that can link me to the data so far."
"Can they break through your encryption?" Carina asked.
"Given enough time and talent, they could. And we have to assume they have the talent."
"What about looking for where they could house the Intersect room?" Ellie said. "They'd have to keep that a secret, wouldn't they?"
Stephen nodded. "I'll do a search for any property they have using enough electricity and bandwith to house one."
Stephen modified the search he was performing on Basta's files. After a few moments, a list of possibilities came up.
"That narrowed things down, but we still have twelve possibles," he said. "And you can't check all twelve because they'll set off the alarms if they spot you."
"We have to get it right on the first try," Alex said in agreement.
"Coffee, anyone?"
Everyone turned to see Morgan with a large carafe of coffee and several coffee cups.
"Morgan, you really shouldn't be back here," Jimmy said tiredly. "Your job is out in the store."
"Everything's cool," he replied. "There's only a couple of customers. Cole and Ilsa said they have four people coming in the next two hours. They'll talk to them."
He put the carafe down and started pouring cups. "What are you doing right now?"
"Trying to find where the Ring might have the Intersect data," Stephen replied. "We have to get it back before they're able to decrypt it."
Stephen accessed satellite recon and ground surveillance to start scanning the twelve possible locations as the others sipped on the coffee Morgan provided.
"Nothing looks out of the ordinary on any of these," Carina replied.
"Wait, what was that?" Morgan asked.
Stephen went back to the previous surveillance camera overlooking a warehouse area. "It's a construction site," he told Morgan. "There are several of those in the area."
Morgan pointed to the monitor. "What about those construction workers? I mean, there's four of them and they're all walking around looking busy. What happened to one guy doing all the work and the other three just standing there?"
Stephen frowned and accessed a different surveillance camera in the area. He zoomed in on one of the workers. They watched the worker turn towards the others.
"Glock 17," Alex said quickly, pointing at the monitor. "Hidden under his construction vest. We found them."
"Nice catch again, Morgan," Jimmy said before turning to Carina and Alex. "Let's move."
The three quickly left the office and went out the back of the Buy More.
Hospital de Santa Maria – Lisbon, Portugal
June 2, 2016
6:00 PM WEST
Daniel Shaw slowly awakened to find himself in what looked like a hospital room. He shook his head clear and attempted to get up, only to find himself handcuffed to the bed. He quickly looked around the room.
"Looking for something with which to pick your handcuffs? Surely you realize this is real life and not a movie with plot conveniences around every corner."
Shaw turned to see a man in a sharp suit enter the room. "Who are you?" he asked the man.
"Who I am is not relevant," the man replied. "But how we can help each other is."
"What do you mean?"
"I can only imagine the pain you've been through over the last decade, Daniel. Your need for closure. Your need for revenge."
Shaw sat there in silence. "Tell me you don't desire revenge," the man said to him. "The woman who took away the love of your life? Who murdered her and became one of the most beloved people in the world? Where is the justice in that?"
"What do you want from me?" Shaw said quietly.
"Let's discuss what I'll give you. After all, Sarah Walker is no ordinary agent. She's the best in the CIA. And the people she works with are just as good. But you have the motivation. We have the resources and manpower you'll need, which we will provide you in order to eliminate her and her friends. And after it's done, we'll provide a nice quiet life for you wherever you wish. You may live out your days in peace and comfort."
"And what do you want in return?"
The man held up a tablet computer. "We want this man. And we want him alive."
Shaw looked at the picture. "That's Walker's boyfriend. Charles Carmichael."
"Chuck Bartowski, actually. Our organization has a…vested interest in him. You bring him to us, and you make sure Agent Walker and her friends are dead. Give it some thought."
The man pulled out a tranq gun and shot Shaw, who fell back on the bed again.
Office of the Director of National Intelligence – McLean, VA
June 2, 2016
11:00 PM EDT
Casey entered the van situated just outside of the gate leading into the building.
"Are we up and running?" he asked Chuck.
"We're good," Chuck replied. "We're tapped into the DNI's security system. I just need to access the right distribution point and overlay the video for the surveillance."
Casey sat in the chair next to Chuck as Sarah readied her tranq guns. "OK, we're there," Chuck said. You have control, Case." Chuck moved away from the computer and put on a flak jacket similar to the one Sarah was wearing.
"Remember, I can get you into the building, but you're on your own after that," Casey said. "You'll have to get through the second and third-level security systems."
"Got it," Sarah replied. She opened the back of the van. "Let's go, Chuck."
The two exited the van and ran quickly to the back of the DNI, Casey having disabled the ground motion sensors. "I'm surprised," Chuck said to her.
"About what?" Sarah asked.
"You spent so much of the last eight months telling me to stay in the van and out of danger and look at what we're doing now. I'm surprised you're so calm about it right now."
"That's because I'm not calm about it. I'm scared to death right now."
Chuck was taken aback. "Then you hide it very well."
Sarah exhaled. "I'm putting the man I love right in the line of fire. I don't care how good of a person you are or how much the Intersect did for you, I'm still going to be afraid of you getting hurt. My only comfort is I have the best people in the world helping me through this."
Chuck gave her a warm smile. "That you do have." He gave her a little kiss. "And we have the best spy in the world leading us."
Sarah looked at him and drew solace from that smile, that look of confidence he was giving her. All the apprehension, the doubt he used to feel was gone. And that gave her an even greater feeling of peace. She reached over and returned his kiss.
"Can we get back to work?" Casey growled in impatience. "You two are making me sick."
Chuck rolled his eyes. "God, Case. When you saw Armageddon, were you rooting for the asteroid?"
Sarah shook her head and smiled as she readied her piton gun. Chuck looked at his and began to flash, getting the techniques he would need to use it. He winced as he fired at the top of the building. Sarah did the same, and both activated their motorized winches. Unlike his night at Roark's mansion, Chuck easily ascended the wall with Sarah, eventually making it up to the roof.
They ducked behind an air vent. "We're on the roof, Case," Sarah said quietly.
"Disabling the cameras," he replied. "Clear to the door."
Chuck and Sarah immediately ran to the door for roof access. Sarah took a long metal strip and jimmied the door open. Chuck placed a sensor on the door's alarm to keep it from going off as they pulled the door open. They entered the top floor of the DNI and quickly went to the elevators. Chuck placed a specialized plastic sheet against the handprint scanning pad to call for the elevator. After a moment, the doors opened.
"OK, they don't skimp on security in this place," Chuck said. "I'm guessing that's not simply a numbered keypad and you can hit 1-2-3-4-5 to move this thing."
Sarah pressed a button on the security pad to activate it. "A hexadecimal keypad combined with an RGB. We have to get the right numbers, letters, and colors. That's a billion combinations."
She started to look for a way to override it. "Sarah, I can do this in two seconds if it's in the Intersect," Chuck said.
"I don't want you flashing," she replied. "You heard your father, the damage your Intersect can cause. Scaling a building is easy; this would be hard."
"But if we get the data back, then I won't have this in me very long. It'll be fine, I promise."
Sarah looked at him for a moment before giving a long exhale. "OK, fine. But I'm taking you out of here if it gets too hard for your mind to handle."
She stepped to the side and Chuck studied the keypad. He began to flash, seeing specs of the system and the correct combination to punch in."
He growled as the pain hit. "Chuck!" Sarah exclaimed, grabbing him.
"It's OK, it's OK," he reassured her as he punched in the correct combination. "It's like the next morning after Morgan's infamous death punch at our Halloween party."
The elevator began to descend to the basement. "The hard part is over," Chuck said. He got out the USB device Jimmy and he modified. "We could make so much money with one of these if we sold them in the Buy More."
"Are you sure nobody will find that?" Sarah asked.
"Not unless they took the entire room apart and knew to look for it. It'll search for any code with my father's encryption and transfer it out to Casey. Once it's done, it'll disable itself and nobody will ever know it was there."
The elevator opened on the basement level. A long hallway stood between them and the door to the server room.
"Looks good. Let's go," Chuck said.
Sarah grabbed his arm. "Wait," she whispered. She then took a coin from her pocket and threw it down the hallway. Darts whistled out of the walls as the coin passed by.
"Whoah, that's impressive," Chuck said.
"The panel next to the door will disable it," Sarah said. "Of course, we'd have to get past all of the darts to do it."
Sarah looked at the ceiling to see if she could go across above the darts but there was not enough room. Chuck concentrated on the hallway and began to flash, various gymnastics instructions going through his mind. He winced in pain again but shook his head clear. He took two steps back and sprinted. He dove forward and pushed off his hands, twisting in the air as the darts started to whistle past. He quickly backflipped over and over, the darts just missing him every time, until he landed next to the keypad to disable them.
Sarah stared in shock as she walked down the hallway to him. "OK, will you EVER listen to me about not flashing?"
"I'm fine, Sarah. I promise." He turned and used his electronic keycard to get the door to the server room open. The two went inside. Sarah kept watch while Chuck used a screwdriver to open one of the server panels.
"And no flashing!" Sarah hissed at him.
"OK, the leaping, kicking, fighting stuff you do so well, I need to flash. But this is my wheelhouse here. I'm good to go."
Chuck reached inside and attached the USB transfer device to the server. He nodded to Sarah and began to put the panels back.
"Begin the search, Case," Sarah whispered.
Casey moved over to the other computer in the van and created a link with the USB device, activating the search program. After a moment, data began to download into the computer.
"It'll take about twenty minutes to download everything," Casey said.
"That's a lot of time," Sarah replied.
"But that's several of terabytes of information," Chuck said. "It'd normally take hours. I'm just glad Jimmy's as good at this stuff as I am."
"Let's get going."
They went to the door and it slid open…revealing a trio of guards.
Chuck's eyes widened, but the guards were in equal shock at seeing Sarah.
"Jen Burton?!" one of them exclaimed.
Sarah quick-drew her tranq guns and shot all three, sending them to the ground. "Come on, Chuck!" she yelled, pulling at his arm. He followed her, jumping over the unconscious guards as they ran down the hallway.
"What the hell!" Chuck was in a full panic. "They know who you are now!"
"I used the twilight darts on them," Sarah said quickly as they got to the elevator. They won't remember us, but they'll be up in minutes. We have to go now!"
They got in the elevator, and it began to ascend. Unfortunately, it stopped five floors short of the roof, and red emergency lights began to flash.
"They locked us in," Chuck said. "What do we do?"
"Give me a hand," Sarah said quickly. She moved Chuck to the middle of the elevator and put her foot up. Chuck caught on and gave her a foothold, lifting her up so she could push away the elevator's ceiling tiles. She dropped back down and grabbed Chuck's piton gun, aiming up the elevator shaft and firing. Chuck attached the line to his belt and Sarah wrapped herself around him, holding on tightly as he activated the winch. They were propelled to the roof and quickly exited out the door they came in. They went to the edge of the roof.
"OK, how to do this," Sarah said, looking over the edge.
Chuck looked at his piton gun and flashed. "Sorry," he said as he winced again in pain. "Couldn't help myself."
He took her hand and pulled her back ten steps. He then reloaded the gun. "Ready?" Sarah nodded. "Go!"
The two ran at the edge of the roof and stepped off. Sarah put her arms around Chuck's neck as he twisted around and fired at the building as the two fell. It caught and Chuck hit the belaying clamps on the winch, slowing their descent. The winch stopped them just before they hit the ground, but Chuck flipped upside-down as a result. Sarah got herself down from Chuck and went to unhook him.
"Wait," he said, still upside-down.
"What?" she asked.
"No Spider-Man kiss?"
Sarah growled in annoyance and unhooked Chuck's belt. He landed inelegantly on the ground. The two went back to the van to wait for the download to finish.
W Hotel – Los Angeles, CA
June 3, 2016
8:30 AM PDT
Daniel Shaw once again woke up and shook off the effects of the tranq dart. This time, however, the television was on and he saw the broadcast of a local news program in Los Angeles. Clearly whoever made the offer was confident he'd take it and placed him where Walker and her team would likely be right now.
On the table next to the bed, a laptop sat in screensaver mode. Shaw woke the laptop and looked at a small Post-It note attached to it.
Hit play.
Shaw moved the mouse and clicked the play button on the video. Once again, he saw the birthday video of Evelyn, telling him she was already regretting giving him the videocamera. He saw her smile, her beautiful green eyes. And that smile…equal parts playful and devilish…that had been imprinted into his mind since that Friday in Iowa City.
The video then switched to the street scene in Prague. Shaw froze once again as he saw Evelyn's murder. The image then changed to footage of Sarah Walker. He saw clip after clip of her on the TV show, performing missions for the CIA, walking the red carpet, doing interviews, thousands of fans screaming her name. Shaw could feel the rage, the hared broiling to the surface.
Finally, the video flashed back and forth between Sarah shooting Evelyn and being almost worshipped by the entire country. Shaw gave a primal scream and sent his fist through the mirror in the room, shattering it.
He stopped, looking at his blood-soaked fist with a deranged fascination. He casually walked to the bathroom and rinsed his hand in the sink. He then wrapped a towel around it and returned to the laptop. Closing the video, he found several folders on the desktop, each of which bore the name of a cast member. Each folder contained various images, video files, and documents. There was also a folder with Chuck Bartowski's name on it, but there were fewer files inside.
Shaw sat back in his chair. He knew there was only one way to restore his sanity. He knew there was only one way to bring peace to himself.
He began to study.
Wilmington Industrial Park – Los Angeles, CA
June 2, 2016
2:00 PM PDT
Carina, Jimmy, and Alex pulled up behind a warehouse two away from the one Morgan spotted. Carina and Alex readied their weapons while Jimmy booted his laptop and prepared a similar storage drive to the one Chuck and he worked on to get the data from the DNI servers.
"Any trouble?" he asked as he handed his tablet computer to Alex. They slowly moved forward.
"Nothing so far," she replied, looking at the link to satellite recon that Stephen had set up for them. Fortunately, tasking one of the NSA's best satellites took little time now that he had the full cooperation of the government. "Based on their movements, they're just patrolling the area."
Carina kept watch with her gun drawn while Jimmy took a laser device to cut a hole into the outer wall of the warehouse where the Ring was keeping their computer servers.
"How long will this take?" Carina asked.
"I don't know," Jimmy replied. "It depends on how long it takes me to find Mr. Bartowski's encrypted files. And whether they were able to crack through any of it. We have to leave the cupboard bare."
Jimmy finished cutting the hole. He pulled the section loose and quietly placed it to the side. The three entered the warehouse with their weapons at the ready.
Carina set her smartphone to scan. "I'm picking up heat sources at the other end of the warehouse. Temperatures above 110 degrees taking up half of that room," she said as she pointed at an office in the same direction.
Jimmy looked at the display. "Either we've hit paydirt or we found a very large person with a really bad fever," he quipped as the three started moving in that direction. Jimmy got to the door and checked to make sure Carina and Alex were ready. He threw open the door and the two women entered with guns pointed in opposite directions to cover the room.
"Clear," Alex said as Jimmy entered. He went straight to the keyboard and monitor set up at a desk at one end of the room.
"Can you get in?" Carina asked.
Jimmy started to access the computer. "It'll take a few minutes. These guys don't exactly buy their security software on eBay."
He continued to access the Ring's systems as Carina and Alex went outside the door to keep watch.
"OK, so how was he?" Carina asked.
"What?" Alex was surprised.
"Come on. I have to know."
Alex glared at her. "You always begin conversations this way?"
"More often than you think," Carina replied with a grin.
"I am under no obligation to discuss that with you. You don't need to know how amazing Jimmy was in bed," Alex said with a knowing raise of her eyebrow.
"Dammit," Carina cursed. "I knew I should have been more aggressive with him when he first arrived."
"You could have been MORE aggressive?" Alex gave her a weird look. "I've seen porn films that are more chaste than you."
"Funny," Carina said in disgust. "Jimmy was a total mess when we started working with him, but he improved thanks mostly to Sarah. Consider yourself lucky you got the current version. I don't think you could have tolerated the old version."
"But you still had plenty of chances."
Carina exhaled. "Yeah, but when you work with someone long enough, it's hard to think of them in those terms. But he's a really good guy. So is Case. I actually talked to Chuck about this."
Alex looked at her oddly. "You were talking about personal things? Doesn't sound like your style."
Carina shrugged. "That's Chuck for you. He gets you to open up whether you want to or not. The guy is borderline obsessed with helping us…and not just on missions. I mean, how many genuinely good people do we run across in this business?"
"Few to none," Alex said in agreement.
"It's so obvious how Sarah could fall in love with him. He's that good of a guy. Even Casey can tolerate him. And that was before Ilsa calmed his ass down."
Alex smiled at that. "And I can see how you'd like Cole. Brash, gorgeous, that accent is totally hot."
"It's funny. He accuses me of taming him and I've accused him of doing the same to me. Détente, I guess. But you did pretty well for yourself."
"That I did," Alex replied with a smile.
Jimmy walked up to them. "I found it."
The three walked back to the computer and Jimmy showed the code he discovered. "These folders were added within the last twelve hours. They tried to fake the timestamps, but whoever did this was a bit slipshod doing it. Maybe they were concentrating on breaking Mr. Bartowski's encryption."
"Can you delete the data?" Carina asked.
"Sure, but we need to make sure we find the original drive they took from the DNI. Otherwise we've wasted our time."
Carina and Alex began to look around. Alex noticed a file cabinet not lined up against the wall. She pulled it forward to reveal a safe behind it.
"Jackpot, I hope," she said. She went back to Jimmy's bag to get his safecracking tools.
"Hold it."
Carina, Jimmy, and Alex turned to see a half-dozen Ring agents in front of them.
"Drop your guns," the lead agent said. The three put their guns on the ground and two of the Ring agents retrieved them.
"At the risk of making a bad pun, the show is over," the agent said with a grin.
"You have to keep deleting those files, Jimmy," Carina whispered.
"Uh, I'd like to, but there's six of them and three of us," he whispered back.
"Yeah, it just doesn't seem fair. The Silicon Valley ep, Jimmy?"
"That's the one."
Alex looked at the two in confusion. Jimmy then turned back to the computer and bent over. Carina leaped and rolled across Jimmy's back to get the man to their right. Alex caught on quickly and slid down out of Carina's way, leaping up to throw a palm strike at the man to their left. Jimmy stayed down programming the computer to purge the hard drives as Carina pushed off of him again to nail a third agent. Alex pulled two telescoping batons out of her sleeves and went to town, swinging away like she was entered in a home-run contest. She knocked two of the agents unconscious as the first two tried to get up. Jimmy held onto the table and mule-kicked those two agents in the face as six more came in to attack. Carina landed a flying kick at one of them, sending the agent into two others and knocking them down. Alex swung one baton to trip up one agent and nailed him in the face with the other.
Jimmy activated the purge program for the computer and ran for the safe, attaching an electronic device to quickly scan for the correct combination. One of the agents tried to grab Alex, but he whirled around and nailed the man in the side of the head with his elbow. As Carina sent a hard cross into another agent, Jimmy grabbed Alex and swung her. She connected with two other agents and sent them to the ground. Behind Carina, the last agent pulled out a gun and prepared to fire. Alex took her baton and threw it at the man. The shot missed Carina but hit the computer, shorting it out. Jimmy finished him off with a vicious roundhouse.
The device on the safe beeped, and Carina ran over, opening it and grabbing the data drive out of it. Alex took a look at the monitor.
"The computer's had it," she said quickly. "Any idea if the purge went through?"
"It ran for about thirty seconds," Jimmy replied. "That probably got a lot, but there's no way to know without grabbing all the hard drives."
"There's no time," Carina replied, showing them the tablet computer's surveillance image. "They've got the building surrounded."
The three quickly left the office and found a ladder leading up to the roof. They climbed up looked around. They found a walking bridge between one building and another near a group of electric transformers. They started to go in that direction when gunfire erupted. They ducked down, narrowly avoiding being hit. They turned and fired back. The man they fired at tried to get out of the way but stumbled into the transformers. He was electrocuted instantly, but one of the transformers was knocked out of place, touching and electrifying the bridge.
"Shit, now what?" Alex cursed.
"We don't have a lot of time," Carina said. "The rest of those idiots will be up here any second."
Jimmy looked across to the other building. He spotted the junction box. "OK, I'll leap over and turn off the power."
He took five steps back. "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN…" Alex yelled as Jimmy ran at the edge of the roof and leaped off. "…MIND!"
He fell a few inches short and almost fell to the ground. He struggled to get a handhold to pull himself up.
Carina and Alex looked at each other. "Should I…" Carina started calmly.
"Nah, I got it."
Alex pulled out a knife and threw it at the junction box, hitting the power switch and cutting off the current going through the transformers. The two walked casually over the bridge while Jimmy continued to struggle to pull himself up on the ledge.
"So, you're from Philadelphia, right?" Carina casually asked Alex as they waited for Jimmy to pull himself up.
"Yes," Alex replied.
"Big Eagles fan?"
"My father used to work the players' tunnel at the old Veteran's Stadium. What about you? You prefer college or pro?"
"College, but I'm not a huge fan. I went to Alabama, so I attended a lot of Crimson Tide games."
"They've got a really good team there."
"They are, yeah. Casey and I were at the Iron Bowl game a few Thanksgivings ago. Naturally, he chose to root for Auburn."
"Sounds like he'd do that."
Jimmy finally managed to pull himself up and was surprised to see Carina and Alex standing there. "How did you…"
Alex waved her knife with a big grin. Jimmy looked at the junction box and across to where they previously were. "Oh, sure. Do it the easy way," he grumbled.
"Seriously, Jimmy, I haven't seen you do anything this embarrassing since that photo-op at the First Lady's physical fitness for kids event," Carina said as they found a ladder at the opposite end of the roof and went down it.
"I thought we weren't going to talk about that anymore," he growled.
"Oh, I remember that," Alex said. "They took that picture of you and Dwayne Johnson together." Alex started to laugh. "The guy's half a foot taller than you."
"What did TMZ call Jimmy for a week?" Carina asked. "I'm trying to…"
"Mini-Rock!" Alex exclaimed, which got Carina laughing hysterically.
"And yet, we're still talking about it." Jimmy's slow burn was quickly picking up speed.
"Hey, at least now I know why Kiefer Sutherland never smiles," Alex said.
Jimmy shook his head in aggravation as they got away from the warehouse.
W Hotel – Los Angeles, CA
June 4, 2016
9:00 AM PDT
Daniel Shaw spent the last twenty-four hours studying the contents of the laptop. He read the bios on Sarah, Casey, Carina, and Jimmy. He saw their training records, their service, how the team had been formed, and each person's areas of expertise. The Ring wasn't lying when they said these were the best agents in the government.
He used to be like this. So was Evelyn. They had made quite a few waves just out of training at The Farm. Both of them excelled in their chosen majors at Iowa and were well on their way to being two of the best spies in the government.
This could have been Evelyn and him. This should have been Evelyn and him. They should have been the CIA's top team and in this cover. But his wife was dead, murdered by the woman whose career skyrocketed a few years later. It wasn't right. This was not justice.
He looked at the file on Chuck Bartowski. He had the greatest desire to take away from Sarah what she took away from him; the person she loved. But that was not part of the deal; Chuck was to be handed over to this organization. That was made quite clear. Still, it didn't mean he couldn't inflict some damage on him first. Make Chuck feel the pain he has felt for over a decade. And make Sarah watch just before he took her life as well.
He opened a document on the laptop that merely showed a telephone number to call. He went to the phone in the room and dialed it.
"I'm ready," he said. "Let's take them out."