A/N: I am caving to peer pressure and posting this without letting my beta reader finish. So if there are noticeable errors and such, don't blame daywalkr82, blame your anonymous fellow reader on my blog. And also me.

Chapter 38:

"Crap," Chuck said under his breath and attempted to just fade into the wallpaper like the guy from Garden State. He blinked the extraneous thought away, and slipped out his burner, and tapped a quick warning text to Sarah, watching the redhead through the mirror behind the bar. She was alone, and heading back toward the bar, all of which screamed set-up, to Chuck. Sarah's paranoia from the other night had infected him.

He traced a hypothetical path for the General and Casey to have recruited Carina into the plot to catch rogue-agents Chuck and Sarah, and after a few steps it became needlessly convoluted. As impossible as it seemed, maybe she was working some big DEA case in Cincinnati? It was more plausible than the conspiracy theory he had been brewing up to explain things. Chuck stuffed his phone away and hunched forward at the bar, scrunching his shoulders up to change his profile. The hat and the beard were decent disguises, but only if someone was looking for him from his old Stanford ID. Sarah had explained to him the night before that Secret Service had special software to put different beards and hairstyles on high threat individuals in case they had attempted to change their appearance, much as Chuck had. Carina sauntered over to the bar, glanced at him and seemed to dismiss him after a moment.

But he didn't really know if that were an act or not, he could feel beads of sweat forming along the edge of his ballcap, and knew it was just a matter of time before he gave himself away. Carina signalled the bartender and turned, leaning back against the bar six feet to Chuck's left. To stop his hands from shaking, he hauled his 7-up over and took a long draw from the straw.

Carina sighed. "Married. Figures."

Chuck ignored her as hard as he could, shifting slightly to watch the TV over the barman's head, and away from Carina. He flicked his eyes to the mirror; she was still inspecting him, was that just standard spy-situational awareness, or was she... checking him out...?

"You a guitar player?" she started to say, then, Carina did a double take.

"Wait, that's not a guitar—"

"Shh, Carina, wait," Chuck whispered with a shake of his head. "It's me, Chuck."

"Chuckles?" Carina said incredulously and squinted until she really recognized him through the beard. "What are you doing here?" She lowered her voice. "Why do you have a gun case?"

"It's complicated," Chuck said. Carina's green eyed gaze took that about as well as he deserved.

She frowned and leaned closer, doing a new inspection of him. "Something's different about you." Carina said. "Why are you in the nasty 'Natti?"

"The what?" Chuck said, trying to stall.

Carina snorted and flipped her hair out of her face. "Don't deflect," she said, and poked him in the chest with every word. "Why. Are. You. Here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Sarah said, appearing out of nowhere and taking a stool on Chuck's other side. Chuck breathed a sigh of relief and unconsciously looped an arm around her waist. Sarah rested her head on his shoulder for all of a second, before she remembered they had an audience of one.

Carina grinned. "Ah..." she said. "That's what's different. I thought I detected the swagger of a man getting regular sex."

Chuck's ears turned red and Sarah shot a glare her friend's way around Chuck's form. "Would you just lay off for five minutes, Carina?" Sarah brushed her wig's bangs out of her eyes absently.

Carina squealed and her hand lashed out in front and across Chuck, seizing her friend's wrist, tilting Sarah's engagement ring back and forth skeptically. And then her eyes widened further, when she spotted the second band on that finger and made the connection to Chuck's wedding band. "Is this a cover or... hang on." she thought about it for a moment. "I heard some chatter about... oh my God!" Carina glanced around the bar to make sure no one was close enough to hear the outburst. "You two went AWOL, didn't you? Are you crazy?" She shook her head and waved for the bartender. "We need drinks over here! And keep 'em coming!"

Sarah shook her head. "Ginger ale for me,"

Carina glared at her friend as if she'd never seen her before. "No, seriously."

Sarah arched an eyebrow and nodded vehemently at the bartender. "Ginger ale."

Carina closed her mouth, and then grinned. "What? Seriously, Walker? Ginger Ale? What's wrong, are you pregnant—" Carina's head cocked as she spoke, and her mouth fell open again. It took her several seconds to remember how to operate her jaw and stop staring slack-jawed at them. The bartender slid a pair of shots in front of Carina and Chuck. The redhead slammed back both of them in quick succession, and then let her head fall forward into cupped hands. "Oh my God, I'm not nearly drunk enough to deal with this. Bartender!"

Sarah shook her head surreptitiously to forestall more liquor so early in the morning. "What are you doing here?" she said. "You never answered me."

"I asked Chuckles first," Carina pointed out. "He still hasn't answered me. Oh, Lord, are those wedding rings for real?"

Sarah nodded minutely, fighting a smile.

Carina glanced out the corner of her eye at Chuck, "Kind of a wimpy engagement ring."

"Hey," Sarah said sharply. "Family heirloom, Carina, lay off."

"God, you're no fun when you're knocked up," Carina muttered. "Were you always this mellow?"

A slow grin spread across Sarah's face. "Remember what you said about regular sex? Works both ways."

"Interesting..." Carina mused. "Maybe I should get a nerd of my own..."

Chuck blushed and tried to pull his Bengals cap further down over his eyes. "Could you please remember I'm in the room, ladies?"

Carina made a dismissive gesture. "Whatevs Chuckles. Why are you here?"

"It's complicated," Sarah said.

Carina threw up her hands. "That's what he said. That's it, I've had it. I want a straight answer out of you two or I'm turning you in. Friend or no friend."

"Don't even joke about that," Sarah said. "I'll explain. But what are you doing here? Did Beckman send you?"

"What? No," Carina shrugged. "They pulled me out of undercover work after I kicked some skeevy ambassador in the chicken McNuggets for getting handsy," she shuddered. "Old guy hands."

"Ambassador for who?" Sarah said.

"Oh, it was one of ours," she volunteered. "They've got me riding a desk, now, and if that isn't a waste of my riding skills, I don't know what is."

Chuck shook his head and took a sip of his 7-up.

"I still can't believe you let him knock you up, Walker," Carina said.

"Still right here," Chuck said.

"Want to let me in on why?" Carina said, still digging.

"Somebody's going to try to off the President," Sarah said.

"And you know this how?" Carina glowered.

"It's complicated," Sarah said, "And you don't need to know."

"I think I do," The redhead shot right back. "Considering, strictly speaking, I'm consorting with wanted fugitives or rogue operatives... or something."

"I'm on vacation," Sarah growled. "And what happened to your desk duty? Shouldn't you be at the local DEA office being bored?"

Carina shrugged. "I took an early lunch. I still think I'm owed an explanation."

Sarah blew a heavy sigh and caught Chuck's gaze. "You want the long version, or the short."

"I've got nothing but time," Carina said.

"Come on," Sarah said and glanced at her watch. There wasn't a lot of time left before the speech started. "We'll walk and talk."

Sarah led the way, one arm looped through Chuck's, but leaving her gun-hand free. Carina shot a glance at them every so often, and sighed and shook her head, fighting back the urge to gag at the syrupy sweetness of them.

Carina shook her head. "He has a what in his brain!" she said in a harsh whisper, even though no one was close enough on the street to overhear.

"It also taught me Kung-Fu," Chuck put in helpfully.

"I think I need to lie down," Carina said. "This is a lot to take in."

"No time," Sarah shrugged, "The President's speech is in..." she glanced at her watch. "Forty five minutes, and I didn't make any surveillance other than standard. I spotted the usual array of Secret Service, riflemen and the Stinger crew in case anybody gets really ambitious, but no NSA cleaner teams. I can spot them a mile away. Either Beckman didn't get our email, or..."

"Any way we can check that out?"

"I need an internet connection," Chuck said. "Sarah how much coverage, like on security cameras do they have; do you know?"

Sarah thought about it. "I don't really know. They had two months prep time for this speech, so that's enough time they could have networked all the cameras at least within the security perimeter. If they ran facial recognition on those, Berentz' ID should get tossed out."

"Except he's supposed to be dead, right?" Chuck said. "Does their algorithm automatically check KIA files?"

"Jesus," Carina said. "This is really happening isn't it.

"Not on our watch," Chuck said. "That's the whole point, right?"

"So, internet cafe?" Sarah pointed surreptitiously and hitched the gun case up on her back more securely.

"Hotel," Chuck suggested. "After all, Carina needs to lie down."

"God, when did you become a smartass?"

"Oh, I've always been a smartass," Chuck said. "You just always breezed into town when I was having a weird month."

Sarah snorted. "When aren't we having a weird month? There at the corner of the block," she said, digging in her purse. You go in, get a room, text me the room number, we'll come in and we'll brainstorm."

"Credit cards?" Chuck said. "Can't they trace these?"

"Yeah, but it's a throwaway card, and a throwaway ID," Sarah said, and nudged him toward the door. "Take the case too, it'll look suspicious if you don't have some luggage."

Chuck nodded and went inside and checked in under his one-time-use identity of Buzz Fielding. On the way to the elevators he spotted a sign for the hotel 'Business Center,' which was basically a small computer lab, and deserted. "Jackpot," he breathed, and turned back for the lobby.

The clerk looked up from whatever she was doing behind the counter. "Yes, Mr. Fielding? Is something the matter with your room?"

Chuck shook his head. "No, no... but I forgot my laptop, and I noticed the business center. Do you need to give me a password or..."

"Just swipe your room keycard to get it," she said.

"Thank you," Chuck said, trying not to let the cringe show. Keycard swipe meant electronic records, but he shrugged and grabbed his phone to text Sarah and Carina.

The hotel's business center PC was on the same network as the hotel computers, for simplicity's sake, but to an experienced hacker of Chuck's caliber, it was a huge security gap. It took Sarah and Carina just a few minutes to join him in the computer room, but he was already through their firewalls and granting himself administrator privileges when he had to get up and open the door for the two spies.

"So, I know you're a computer nerd, Chuck," Carina said, walking through while Chuck held the door. "But usually when somebody gets a room at a hotel, they ask for one with a bed and a little mini-fridge and a TV, not a bunch of computers."

"Har-de-har," Chuck said, and plopped himself back down. "This shouldn't take me too long, just need to log into the secure NSA servers and that should give me access to—"

"Do what?" Sarah asked, blinking. "You still have access?"

Chuck shrugged and typed frantically. "No... but Casey does. I just have to access one of my old email accounts, to pull up the password..."

"How do you have Casey's password," Carina wanted to know, hands on hips, completely mystified.

Chuck glanced at her and grinned. "They used to leave me alone in the secret base for hours. You know how easy it is to put a key-logger on somebody's computer, rig it to send you a simple alphanumeric passcode every time it changes? Physical access security wasn't something they really worried about at Castle, at least for me."

"Chuck!" Sarah said, mildly affronted. "You..." She blinked at the screen. "Gmail? You sent his NSA mainframe password to an unsecure Gmail account?"

"Yes. But I encrypted it," Chuck said, pointing to a huge string of ones and zeros. "You know the old saying. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't." He kept typing.

Carina frowned. "That's only two."

Sarah groaned and rolled her eyes. "His point exactly. Nerd humor."

This elicited a raised eyebrow from the redhead. "And how do you know that, Walker?"

She shrugged. "I guess he's rubbing off on me."

"Ba-zing!" Chuck said.

Carina wrinkled her nose in confusion for a moment and then rolled her eyes. "Oh, gross."

"Okay, I'm in," Chuck said, "you were right, Sarah, they've got all the cameras inside the cordon feeding into a government FTP site for logging, and Casey's cleared higher than God, so... Yahtzee."

A grid of windows came up on the screen, 4 by 4, over the small DOS window chuck had been doing his hacking in. Tiny people moved by on the streets in a jerky fashion that reminded of old movies, as they sped by faster than normal.

Carina blinked. "How can you even see what's going on?" she protested.

"There," Chuck stabbed his finger at the screen, and fiddled with the keyboard, blowing up the window to fill the whole screen. "That's him isn't it?"

Sarah nodded. "Nice catch," she said. "Can you tell what building that is, Carina? You've been living here, right?"

The redhead shook her hair out of her eyes and crossed her arms defensively. "I don't memorize architecture as a rule, Blondie."

"It's fine," Chuck said. "There should be an identifier attached if I can just access... there it is. eight, maybe ten blocks back the way we came."

Sarah did the math in her head, and let out a low whistle. "Better than a mile," she said. "What's the building?"

"The Hilton," Chuck said. "It's on our list of buildings with sight-lines to the plaza, but the range is a little long, isn't it? Google maps says 1.9 kilometers."

"His record is twenty-six hundred meters or something," Sarah said. "We need to move, what buildings are around the area, so I can set up to counter-snipe him?"

"Office park across the street, but it only goes seven stories up..."

"I'm no slouch, remember," Sarah said. "Couple hundred yards is fine."

"Here," Chuck said. "Faster if I just text you the address where you need to set up. How will we know which room he's in if he doesn't just head for the roof?"

Sarah reached into her purse and tossed him a leather wallet. He opened it to reveal his Stanford ID photo, but in a new context. "Huh," Carina said, reading the badge over his shoulder. "Agent Carmichael of the Secret Service? You got one in there for me?"

"I'm printing out the best shot of Berentz we've got on the tape," Chuck said. "And I've erased our arrival from the hotel security tapes."

"Can you do that at the Raddison, too?" Sarah asked. "We need to give you some plausible deniability here, Carina. You're sticking your neck out pretty far on this one."

"Hmmm..." Chuck said. "Yeah, this Secret Service ID should get me into the security booth..."

"Be careful, Chuck," Sarah said. "That thing is good enough to fool a hotel clerk, but if they call it in, you're going to be up to your neck in actual Service agents." She cracked open the gun case and fished out a smaller leather case that Chuck hadn't seen before. He mused idly about it being a gun case of Holding, but given the company he was currently keeping, didn't voice the idea. Sarah unzipped the small case and tossed a familiar looking tactical radio his direction. "In case you need to split up, we can stay in communication. Probably won't have time to text each other."

"Raided Castle before you left, I see..." Carina smirked, and stuffed her radio into her purse. "You just happened to have three?"

Sarah shook her head. "I have six. Two sets of spares for me and Chuck."

Carina and Chuck both blinked in shock. "What," Sarah said. "You both know I sometimes over-plan."

Chuck grinned. "C'mere," he said and pulled her into a one-armed hug. That was about all they had time for. He turned back to his computer and wrote a brief script to stop the security cameras on the first floor from dumping the recording to disk for the next five minutes, so they could get moving again without leaving any traces. After a moment, he accessed the hotel's scanned copy of the phony ID he'd used to check in, and swapped the picture out with one of Gerald Ford off of Wikipedia.

They caught a cab, and crammed awkwardly into the backseat. Sarah slipped out at their first stop a block-and-a-half before the Raddison, to go up and find herself a position facing the side of the building Berentz would have to shoot from. Which left a couple of minutes of awkward silence in the back of the taxi for Chuck and Carina. "If you hurt her, I'll staple your eyelids to your forehead and make you watch Smurfs on Ice over and over again," Carina said finally, breaking the silence as the cab pulled up to the lobby of the Raddison, where the would be assassin had had a head start in finding a shooting platform.

Chuck frowned. "That's... good to know... I guess?" he said and stuffed a fifty through the window, waving off any attempt by the cabbie to make change. "It wasn't in the original plan anyway, but now I've got even more motivation to be the best husband and father in the world."

"Ugh," Carina said. "I still can't believe Walker let you knock her up."

Chuck grinned and grabbed the door. "Technically speaking, she's not knocked up."

"Oh, enlighten me," Carina said.

"She's only nine weeks pregnant, and we've been married since Comic-con, at the end of July. So, child conceived in wedlock, therefore not 'knocked up'."

"Oh my god," Carina said, rolling her eyes. "You made her get married at Comic-con? Lord, did you make her dress up like princess Leia too?"

Chuck's grin widened. "Actually, that was all her idea."

"What are you doing to my friend, Chuckles!"

"Simmer down, red," Chuck fished his Secret Service ID out of his pocket and made his way toward the front desk.

"Hello, Can I help you?" the man at the counter said.

"Carmichael, Secret Service," Chuck said displaying his phony credentials. "This is my partner, Agent Smith." Carina flashed her DEA credentials fast enough and with a practiced enough movement, that the clerk couldn't have seen more than the flash of metal of her badge, despite the giant red block caps of her agency's initials. "We've had a tip, probably nothing, but I need access to your security cameras."

"You have a warrant?"

Carina arched an eyebrow. "No. No we don't, but that's not going to be a problem, because even though this is probably a nothing tip, if it isn't nothing and you jerked us around about a warrant, you don't want to go down in history as the hotel desk clerk who helped kill a president. Or do you?"

The man blanched visibly and waved them around the desk. "Security room is through there. Stan is on duty."

Chuck nodded and walked with an arrogance in his step that did nothing to stop his palms from sweating. He glanced at his watch. Twelve minutes until the President's speech started. God, but they were cutting this one close. The security room was dimly lit, mostly by the glow of all the monitors. Chuck had seen more than his fair share of security monitoring booths and the like. This one was nicer than most. He noticed the huge bulk of the tape backup unit right away. They were serious about logging everything here, it seemed. Still it was worth a shot.

"You Stan?" Chuck asked. The man nodded. "Beat it. Secret Service."

"Does the manager know you're—"

Carina cracked her knuckles loudly. "You heard the man." Stan scowled and stood to leave. "Smoke 'em if you've got 'em." Once the security monitoring specialist had left the room, Carina shook her head. "Note to self, never give Chuckles a badge for real. The power goes straight to his head.

Chuck didn't bother with a reply, falling into the recently vacated seat and fiddling with the computer system attached to the huge bank of monitors. He remembered after a moment to put in the earpiece from his tactical radio set. The range was much better than the tiny earbuds they usually used, but the encrypted tactical comms were much bulkier, with a spiral cord running down from his ear to the microphone nestled at his throat. "Sarah, we're in security now. I'm running through the video from earlier, to see if I can spot Berentz coming in the lobby, follow him on the tapes to his room."

"We could have just asked the clerk at the desk," Carina pointed out.

"We can also see if the police or the actual Secret Service start showing up on these monitors," Chuck shot back, and the DEA agent nodded reluctantly. "Okay, I see him... let me just fast forward... I lost him. Carina, did you see where...?"

"Twentieth floor," she said, pointing Berentz out one of the monitors on which Chuck was replaying footage. Chuck found the controls he was looking for with the mouse and zoomed in. The picture didn't get any better, but Chuck didn't have time to spare figuring out the Raddison security zoom-and-enhance functionality. He could read the room number, at least. 2022. "Sarah, did you copy that?"

"Yeah. Two zero two-two. But could you tell me which window I'm looking for?"

"Hang on one second," Chuck said. They had the blueprints on the computer in a PDF file, which a quick search found. He flicked through the pages and counted windows, until he got to the twentieth-floor-page. "Twenty six floors total, so six down, fourth from the right."

"My right or your right?" Sarah said.

Chuck blinked, staring at the plans for a moment while he did the mental gymnastics of orienting himself, the side of the building Sarah was looking at, and the odd angle in regard to the compass needle the blueprints were using. "Your right," he finally said.

"Damn it," Sarah growled over the encrypted radio. "His blinds are still shut, I don't have a shot. And my weapon's a bolt action hunting rifle, not a SAW. I've only got twenty rounds over here total. One of you is going to have to go up there and stop him in person.

"I'll go," Chuck and Carina said at the same time. "Jinx," Chuck said. "I'll go."

"No way, Chuckles," she said. "If you get killed, Walker will be impossible to live with."

"If things go bad, you need an out more than me or Sarah. We're already rogue in the eyes of the NSA."

"And with a baby on the way," Carina said. "No dice, Chuck. I'm going."

"Rock, paper, scissors," Chuck said.

"Oh would one of you just go already," Sarah's voice said testily over the radio. Carina arched an eyebrow. And threw paper. Chuck's scissors won the day. "Best of three?"

"No time," Chuck said.

"At least take my sidearm," Carina demanded, tugging the weapon out of her purse.

"No," he said. "You know I don't like guns."

Carina rolled her eyes. "Take my stun-gun then."

"Fine," Chuck said, extending his hand. He half expected Carina to shock him and go herself, but she just slapped the stun-gun in his palm and sprawled in the now free chair.

He made his way back into the lobby to the bank of elevators. Chuck glared at his watch briefly, during the wait for an elevator to arrive. He shook his head and slipped in and jabbed the button for 20. He found himself humming along to the Muzak unconsciously until Carina's voice came through the radio headset and scolded him for it.

"Still no movement on the blinds," Sarah said as Chuck watched the numbers climb into the teens. "I've got no clear shot. When you get up there, if you can bring down the curtains, or whatever, I can help you out."

The elevator binged, signalling Chuck's arrival at the twentieth floor. "Crap!" Carina said. "Two guys just entered the lobby, big guys, all in black. Black sunglasses. The whole thing. Like movie Secret Service."

"Okay, give us a timeframe, Carina," Sarah said. "Then get the hell out of there. If they spot you, you're going down for aiding a fugitive, plus a bunch of whatever crap Beckman can cook up."

"Hang on, they're heading straight for the elevators, that's weird. They didn't even let the desk clerk know they're government. They know what they're after, these two."

"What?" Chuck said. "That doesn't make any sense, how could they just know he's here," he shifted to whispering. "I'm outside his room." He glanced at his watch. "President goes on in four minutes. Don't know how I'm getting back out past the Secret Service."

Sarah's voice crackled in his ears. "There's a window-washing gondola maybe ten feet below the window," she said. "As a last resort, you might be able to jump down to that. Absolutely last resort, Chuck, understand?"

"Affirmative, ma'am," Chuck said, and then fell silent. Very briefly, he considered knocking and replying in his horrible falseto 'housekeeping' voice if challenged. The flash shivered into his brain with hobnailed boots. Which was a little on the nose, as the flash gave him the structural knowledge necessary to kick the door down. He shrugged. Waste not, want not.

Chuck took two steps back and the threw himself forward putting all his weight behind his foot as he drove it into the door just to the left of the knob. The frame splintered and the door popped open all of six inches. The chain was on, and managed to hold.

Cursing under his breath, Chuck wound himself up again and smashed the door open as fast as he could with a second kick.

Berentz spun from his position near the far window, and fired from the hip. The bullet whizzed by Chuck's head with a sound like the largest bee ever, cracking what was left of the frame. Chuck would have breathed thanks to whatever god was watching over him today, that the bad guy didn't have a semi-automatic rifle, but he didn't have the time to spare. While Berentz fumbled with the bolt action of his rifle, Chuck launched himself into the room and leaped over the coffee table at the would-be assassin.

Berentz realized a split-second too late, that he should have dropped the rifle instead of trying to chamber a second round. He reached around into the small of his back for his sidearm, but Chuck had closed the distance, and managed to grab the wrist of Berentz' gun-hand, keeping the barrel pointed away in a safe direction. "Who the hell are you!" Berentz grunted, trying to break free.

"Santa Claus, come early," Chuck said. "You've been a very naughty boy." He jammed Carina's Stun-gun into Berentz armpit.

It was a mistake. The shock passed through Chuck as easily as Berentz on its path to the ground, and Chuck's muscles spasmed uncontrollably. So did the would-be assassin's, and he squeezed a round off into the ceiling.

The stun-gun slipped from numbing fingers and Chuck and Gus Berentz staggered toward the window. The surprise of getting shocked himself, had made Chuck drop the weapon, and ensured neither man had gotten a full dose of the miniaturized cattle-prod Carina kept in her purse. Chuck retained the presence of mind to karate chop Berentz gun hand at the wrist, sending the pistol flying, and then he was wrestling himself out of the tangle he'd made of the blinds.

He ended up tearing the fitting right out of the wall and baring the room to Sarah's sniper scope. When he finished his conquest of the blinds, Chuck spotted Berentz crawling after his lost weapon, and he dove, landing on the assassin's back with one knee and snatching the pistol just before the other man got to it.

Chuck shoved himself up to his feet, gun pointed down at his opponent's back. "Stay down, clasp your hands behind your head, interlacing your fingers." He was so distracted by the fight with Berentz, and the fact that he was somehow channeling every cop out of every TV show ever, that the two armed agents burst in on him with his back turned.

"Hands in the air, drop your weapon," one of the men said.

"Crap. I'm CIA," Chuck tried. "There on the floor, that's your man."

"I said drop the gun," the same agent growled.

"Of course," Chuck said reasonably, pointing the barrel up at the ceiling. "No problem," he ejected the magazine and racked the slide back to eject the last round, before tossing the pistol aside. "Just relax."

"I want you to turn nice and slow," the other agent said.

"This doesn't make any sense... why are there two of them?" The first said. "It looks like they had a falling out. You with the Bengals cap, turn around, slowly."

Chuck nodded. "Don't shoot me, you do not want all the paperwork..." His eyes rolled in their sockets and information blazed through his synapses as he flashed on Agent Theodore Newton. Chuck blinked away the flash. Jesus, the Ring had a guy on the Secret Service? Or were they even the ring anymore? Beckman's theory had claimed somebody new was taking over. Irrelevant at the moment.

"I'm calling for backup," The first agent said. "Detail lead can sort all this out later."

"I can't let you do that, Kenneth," The Ring mole in Secret Service said, turning smoothly and putting a bullet in his partner's throat. Kenneth clapped a hand to his wound, but didn't topple right away, somehow managing to half turn, his gun wavering into a sight picture on the traitor.

Chuck heard the distinctive snick of a gun being reloaded and glanced down at Berentz, who was just turning in Chuck's direction. "Crap!" Chuck shouted and dove over the sofa. Gunfire erupted, and Chuck pushed himself up into a three point stance half-remembered from running track that one semester back at Stanford. "Sarah? How far down is that gondola?"

"Chuck, don't you dare jump out a window in the middle of a firefight!"

"Banzai!" He shouted, and ran for it. The Ring agent and Berentz were trading shots, but now bullets where buzzing by him again, sending cobwebs of cracks through the glass window Chuck was quickly approaching. Chuck shielded his face with both hands as he hit the weakening barrier.

He blasted through onto a tiny balcony, and the railing hit him in the upper thighs, tipping him upside down in a jarring tumble out into 20 stories of empty space.

Chuck managed to tuck his legs in somehow and landed on the window-washing gondola with a crash that blew the breath out of his lungs. He coughed air back into his lungs for the much deserved victory sigh, but the ominous twang of cables coming undone froze him in place for a moment before the gondola tilted crazily. The end at Chuck's feet lurched and suddenly fell free. Chuck managed to wrap his forearm around one of the lengths of wire strung between the railing and the metal mesh of the floor of the gondola. The cable bit into his arm and he spun out, dangling over the enormous drop, legs flailing helplessly. His Bengals cap popped free of his head and tumbled away on the breeze. He shifted, trying to get a better grip, but the cable started slicing through his skin and blood trickled down, turning any grip he had tenuous at best. "Crapcrapcrap..." Chuck said. The gunfire above trailed off, and Chuck glanced upward involuntarily to find the victor of the shoot-out.

Berentz stood leaning over the railing to look at him, bleeding from a wound in the meat of his arm, but making up for it in sheer rage.

Chuck tried to work enough moisture into his mouth to swallow nervously. "Uh... truce?" he said. The assassin shifted his pistol to his non-wounded arm and grinned.

TO BE CONCLUDED...

A/N: Everybody notice the shift from continued to concluded? Good. Working through weird phone-computer lash-up to post this chapter. I'll try to get the final chapter + epilogue out before the end of the month.