A/N: Are we going to talk about ownership of Chuck again? Really?
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The prior evening at Gaez's club seemed to be a bust. He wasn't around and none of the staff at the club knew or would share his whereabouts.
The five members of Team B gathered the next morning for a long run along the beach. They headed south along the beachside's famous promenade for about five kilometers; running past the Copacabana Fort and along Ipanema Beach before turning back to the hotel.
Breakfast was a relaxed affair in one of the hotel's many restaurants, flooded with sunlight and comfortable breezes from the open French doors. Chuck was once again impressed with the coffee he'd gotten to try in his travels. And the cheese puffs, called pao de quiejo in Portuguese, were every bit as delicious as Amy had promised.
They planned to visit the homes of Gaez and his men to see if there were any clues as to Gaez's whereabouts. To cover the job efficiently, they decided to split up.
But first, over breakfast, Sarah had shared the image of the picture she'd found the night before in Gaez's desk. The one showing an attractive darkhaired woman posing with Gaez. Although they might have qualified as the Intelligence Community's experts on Gaez and the Gentle Hand, none of them recognized the woman.
Chuck took the photo of the woman and wrote up a program to run a facial recognition search on the Conselho Nacional de Trânsito (the National Traffic Council) computers. Unlike what he was used to in United States, where every state had their own driver's licenses, the driver's licenses in Brazil were national with a single database. In the States, he'd have had to run fifty different searches, more if Puerto Rico and Guam were included. With enough time, he was confident that they would be able to find a match for the woman. Of course, she might not drive. Or she might not even be Brazilian. If she was a French girlfriend, for example, it was going to take them a lot longer to put a name to the face and his search program wouldn't help them in the slightest.
With the search program running, the team began to visit the homes of Gaez and his men. Most of the apartments were in and around the nicer neighborhoods of Ipanema, Copacabana and Leblon. Although one of the men lived in a small house in Santa Teresa. The alarms and security precautions differed from location to location, but none of them would prove too difficult for the team to circumvent.
Sarah and Chuck took Gaez's apartment. It was a neat penthouse in Copacabana overlooking the beach. Surprisingly, the apartment was decorated tastefully and comfortably. Chuck pondered why he was surprised that a man who made a living causing death and violence halfway around the world would have good taste in furnishings and artwork.
The space didn't show signs of recent habitation. No breakfast dishes in the drainboard. No mail on the table waiting for attention. The toothbrush in the bathroom was dry, as was the cake of soap in the shower. There was no milk in the fridge which might spoil over a long absence.
Once again, there was a desk with the hookups for a computer and no computer present. On a bookshelf in the bedroom was a framed photograph of a blonde woman who appeared to be in her early forties. Chuck snapped a picture of that photograph as well, planning to run it through the same program as the image of the brunette from Gaez's desk in his office.
On the way back to the hotel after the search of Gaez's apartment, they pulled up outside the nightclub from the night before. Chuck sent a radio signal which, in turn, triggered the device he'd left in Gaez's office to send a compressed burst transmission of what had been recorded since its installation. Chuck opened the file and decompressed it. It wasn't long. He listened to it and shrugged to Sarah, saying, "Cleaning lady, I think." She nodded.
A few hours later, in the early afternoon, the full team was reassembled in Chuck and Sarah's suite. They had all had lunch while out searching the homes of the known Gentle Hand men. Now they settled down to discuss what they had found and plan next steps. Each of them helped themselves to drinks from the suite's bar. Amy made herself a caipirinha, the famous Brazilian cocktail with cachaça, lime and sugar. The others stuck with beer and wine.
"Ok, guys," started Chuck. "How'd we do?"
Zondra said, "Casey and I struck out. The house was empty and we couldn't find anything to tell us where Borodin might be. Then we hit Usman's apartment. Same thing. No leads. Both places looked put together. Like the men had not left in a hurry. Like things were where they belonged."
"Newspapers? Mail?" asked Sarah.
"Nope," said Casey. "Must have been stopped or picked up by a neighbor or something."
"Computers?" asked Chuck.
"Gone," said Zondra.
"You knock on any doors?" asked Sarah.
"Yeah," said Zondra. "Either nobody home or nobody who knew anything useful."
"Damn," murmured Chuck. "How about you, Amy?"
"Same," she said. "I had Jackson's and Farrar's apartments. Nothing to find. Same playbook as the other two. Neat and tidy. Nothing to indicate where they were or when they'd be back. Computers AWOL."
"We didn't do too well either," said Chuck. "Since Gaez is the target we devoted twice as much time searching his place as you guys did on your jobs. Nothing. Another picture of a woman to run through the Brazilian DMV database, but nothing else."
"Let's see the picture," said Casey.
Chuck pulled it up on his phone and passed it to Casey. The older man looked at it and shrugged. He slid it to Amy, who looked at it for a moment or two and then passed it to Zondra. Zondra looked at it and passed it back to Chuck.
Amy downed her drink in a single long swallow and banged the glass on the table in frustration. "Anyone want another drink?" she asked and got up to head to the bar. With her back to them she said, her voice bitter, "We're all thinking it. It's happening all over again. He's a step ahead of us. The missing computers are the biggest clue. Whoever he has in the IC told him to go to ground with his men and take their computers with them. Carmichael's coming. Hide your women and computers." She gave a bitter snort, as she banged around the bar making herself another drink. "Or at least your computers. This is exactly why I didn't want this mission. This is the same shit all over again. Goddammit."
Drink in hand, she turned back around to face them, leaning her back against the bar, and said, "What now, Chuck? He's not here and we can't find any leads to where he may be. What makes the most sense is to head back to LA and put out a notice with the allied intelligence services. Hey, friends, alert us if he shows up in your country. Then we wait for him to make an appearance someplace and chase down that lead."
"Well, I know Malone doesn't want to put an alert out to the allies. Gaez's sudden death from natural causes during an American drone strike immediately after the alert was triggered would raise too many questions," said Chuck. "But you're not wrong. It's what you said to begin with. Sitting here in Rio, as lovely as it is, and waiting for him to put in an appearance is a waste of everybody's time."
"So, we head back to LA?" asked Zondra.
"Floor's open to suggestions," said Chuck with a shrug, leaning back on the couch. "We looked where he'd be here in Rio and he isn't here. I can put a program into the Brazilian immigration system to alert us if he passes through a point of entry here...either coming or going...but if he's hold-up at his country house or with a secret girlfriend or something that we don't know about, that's not too useful."
"Or if he's got a passport in another name," said Sarah. Chuck nodded his agreement and took a sip of beer.
"Yeah," growled Casey. "Maybe you could also put one of those in the French system and some of the other countries he's been known to frequent. It'll help if Malone sticks to his decision not to alert allies."
"That's a good idea," said Chuck. "I can work on it tonight."
"Ok," said Sarah. "We can head back to LA tomorrow if we don't get a hit from the DMV, or the Brazilian equivalent of the DMV I guess, with the women's pictures in the meantime. Makes more sense than sitting in our cars and looking at the outside of buildings Gaez isn't in."
Zondra said, "OK, that makes sense. We can regroup at Castle Studios and..."
"Castle," said Sarah.
"What?"
"We just call it Castle. Not Castle Studios."
Zondra made a face at Sarah and said, "Right. So once Chuck runs his program there's nothing else to do in Rio for the time being?"
"Yeah. Sounds about right," said Chuck.
"Ok. In that case..." Zondra smiled, "...want to go to the beach?"
"Sure," said Sarah, grinning reluctantly. She didn't want to enjoy Rio with Carina hurt, but she also understood that sitting inside a dark closet wouldn't make Carina not hurt.
"Count me out, CATS. I'm going to take a nap," said Amy, taking a big gulp of her drink.
"Sweetie?" asked Sarah, turning to Chuck.
"Wish I could, but I have to get the second picture running with the driver's license people and start to set up alerts on the immigration systems."
"Your loss," she said, rubbing his arm.
"Don't think I don't know that."
"Case?" Sarah asked.
Casey grunted. They thought it was a negative grunt, but no one was totally sure.
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Sarah and Zondra were on the beach. Amy was asleep. Casey was...wherever Casey was. Chuck spoke into all their ears. "Guys, wake up. We have a hit. The brunette from the picture last night. I know who she is and where she lives. Come on back to the suite. I'll fill you in."
"Anything on the blonde from today?" asked Sarah.
"Nope. That search just started. Way too early."
"Right. Z and I are coming now," she said.
Casey and Amy acknowledged the message.
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In the suite, with the whole team assembled, Chuck said, "Here we go. The lady in the picture that we found last night is Carmela Costa. She lives in the Lagoa neighborhood, between the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon to the south and the Parque Lage to the north. Nice tidy private house in the foothills."
"Christ looking over her shoulder for her every move," said Zondra, referring to the famous statue of Christ just up the mountain from Ms. Costa's home.
"Yeah, but she still posed for a picture with a guy who does not... at all...follow Christ's guidance." said Casey.
"Guess that's right," said Chuck.
"Ok," said Sarah, glancing at her watch. "Why don't we go pay her a visit?"
"Yeah," said Chuck. "Why not?"
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In two cars, the five members of Team B drove to the address on Ms. Costa's driver's license. The neighborhood was quiet and dark in the early winter evening. White houses with Spanish style tiled roofs and high walls, small tropical trees framing the scene, cobblestones on the road. The streets were lit with pools of lights under the occasional street lamp.
Speaking into their ears, Casey said, "There it is. On the left up the hill. Third house."
"Roger that," said Sarah. She and Chuck were in the second car, while Casey, Amy and Zondra were in the first. "Amy and I will go in." They spoke the best Portuguese and were the most logical choices to interrogate a woman.
As the two cars pulled up and Sarah and Amy got out, the gate of the house burst open and a woman ran out, turning to run up the hill. A heartbeat later, she was followed by a man. He had a gun in his hand pointing at the fleeing woman and was running in pursuit.
"That's her," said Sarah. Drawing her pistol, she and Amy began to run after the fleeing pair. Casey and Zondra bailed out of the car ahead and followed a few steps behind their partners.
The fleeing woman ran through the light of a street lamp and the man behind her fired, but missed.
Sarah shouted, "Pare, seu filho da puta" [Stop, you son of a bitch.] She hoped that having witnesses around would make him rethink his plans.
The running man looked over his shoulder for a second and redoubled his efforts to catch Ms. Costa. The next time she ran through the light, he fired again, more successfully than the first time. The woman was flung to the ground by the force of the bullet's impact high up between her shoulder blades.
The man spun and tried to fire at the four agents pursuing him, but couldn't handle the acrobatics of the move and his shot came nowhere close to them. He kept running, leaping over the prostrate form of the wounded woman, and putting another bullet into her as he went.
Casey said, barely breathing hard, "Stay with the woman. Z and I will follow this shooter."
Amy and Sarah stopped by the Costa woman as Casey and Zondra leaped past and continued to pursue the man. Only a moment later, Chuck, who had moved to the driver's seat of the car he was in, pulled up sideways across the road, putting the car between the fleeing shooter and his teammates tending to the downed woman.
The woman was gasping for breath and lying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. Sarah gently rolled her over and saw the exit wounds in her chest. Sarah and Amy shared a look with the grim knowledge that the wounds were most certainly fatal.
Costa was cursing weakly. "Foda-se. Foda-se. Sacana. Sacana." [Fuck. Fuck. Bastard. Bastard.]
Sarah said, gently but insistently, "Carmela. Carmela."
The other woman looked up at Sarah with fading eyes.
"Carmela, você sabe quem fez isso com você?" [Carmela, do you know who did this to you?]
"Augusto. Sacana," she breathed out.
"Carmela, você sabe onde ele está?" [Carmela, do you know where he is?]
The woman's eyes started to cloud over as life left her. She breathed out a word which both Amy and Sarah leaned closer to hear...and then she was gone.
Chuck said, "Did she answer you?"
"Yeah. I think so," said Sarah. "She said 'Pollario'."
"No," said Amy. "She said 'Pollatoro'. It's a city in the south."
"I...I don't think so, Amy. I think it was Pollario," said Sarah.
"Nope. It was definitely Pollatoro," said Amy with certainty.
Chuck said, "We can talk about it later. I think we'd better go before the Rio cops get here."
Sarah took the dead woman's phone from a pocket on the body and handed it to Chuck.
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Casey and Zondra continued to run after the man. He tried firing back at them over his shoulder, but wasn't too successful. After another block or two, he stopped and turned, bringing his weapon up to point at the American agents.
Both Zondra and Casey stopped themselves and fired first. Each put two rounds into the killer's center of mass before he could get a single shot off at them. The rounds blew him backwards onto the pavement. Walking up to the body, Casey used his foot to kick the gun from the man's hand.
He was dead, of course. Zondra used the light from her phone to illuminate his face. They recognized the Iraqi. "Farrar," she said. "So, Gaez ordered the hit."
"Yeah. Tonight," said Casey. He sounded very grim. He took the dead man's phone and began to walk downhill to the cars, not looking at Zondra.
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Back in the hotel suite the team reassembled.
Casey said, "The only people in the world who knew we were going to talk to that woman tonight are in this room." He was very pissed off and made no attempt to hide it.
"NO," Sarah said with vehemence. "No. I'm not going down this road again. This is exactly what broke up the CATS. I'm not doing it again. No. I refuse to accept that one of us is a traitor. What if Gaez had a camera recording his office and saw us get the picture from his desk? What if Chuck's program for the CNT was found and Gaez learned of the search? He clearly knew we were coming to Rio...what if he has had us under observation and we missed it? Had trackers on our cars? I don't know. But I'm not heading down the road I did before. I'm not."
Zondra said, almost sounding weary, "He was always a step ahead of us the last time too. And here we are playing in his sandbox. It's not a surprise that we are behind again. Fuck, guys, he had Farrar hanging around town but not staying at his own place. Gaez had this all planned."
"Well," said Amy. "It's not going to last. We have a solid lead this time. We should fly to Pollatoro in the morning."
"I really think it was Pollario, Ames," said Sarah.
"No. Sorry, Sarah, it was..."
Chuck interrupted and said, hands raised in a placating gesture, "Guys, I'm going to look at the phones. Both of those are towns in Brazil. One is to the south. One is way out west. Maybe the phones can give a clue. If not, we'll visit both and try to figure it out on the ground."
"Good idea, Bartowski. With our own plane, we can pick either place," said Casey.
"Exactly, Case. Just give me a few hours with the phones. See what I can come up with."
"Yeah, go for it" the older man said.
"Ok, Sweetie," said Sarah, giving him a kiss.
Amy said, quietly, with tears in her eyes, "That poor woman."
"Yeah," said Zondra.
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A/N2: Phew. I don't like the way things are going. What do you guys think?