A/N: Anybody think that the real owners of Chuck would be annoyed at me for making Gaez and Amy siblings? They had a much more tropey explanation for her betrayal in canon.
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"The Carmichael team. Sent by the President of the United States to kill me. Welcome to the home of the Gentle Hand. Sorry to say you will not be exactly honored guests. But now it's time to end the charade, shall we? Come here, please, irmãzinha."
Her head bowed, Amy moved away from the rest of the team and walked towards Gaez.
"Irmãzinha? LITTLE SISTER?" said Sarah with shock. "What the hell?"
Chuck said, his voice tremulous with disbelief, "Amy, you mean we've been hunting your brother?"
Amy looked back at them, as miserable as they had ever seen her, tears streaming down both cheeks. She couldn't look any of them in the eye, but she nodded once, mutely.
"YOU FUCKING TRAITOROUS BITCH," screamed Zondra as she jumped forward to attack Amy's retreating back.
Amy flinched at the harsh words, but Gaez drew his pistol and shot the attacking Zondra in the middle. She collapsed to the dirt.
Amy, eyes wide, spun around and looked at Zondra with horror. "NO," she screamed and twisted back to look at Gaez. "NO." She leaped backwards and extended her arms and legs, making herself as large as possible, putting herself between her friends and her brother with the gun. "WHAT THE FUCK, GUS? STOP THAT. STOP." She screamed at him.
"She was attacking you," he said calmly, the gun unmoving.
"I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. STOP THAT," she screamed.
With a shrug, he holstered the pistol. His men were still all armed, but Amy ignored them.
Amy spun back to look at Zondra again. Chuck, Sarah and Casey had dropped to their knees next to her. The bullet had gone straight through the wounded woman and she was bleeding into the dust from both the entrance and exit wounds. Sarah and Casey tried to stem the bleeding by pressing the tails of Zondra's shirt onto the wounds.
Amy spun back to look at Gaez. She said, furiously but desperately, "Have your men get the trauma kit. With so many guns around, you have to have one. Get it. Now."
Gaez considered arguing with her for a moment but then looked to one of his men and gestured with his head. The man ran off.
Amy approached the others, her face still wet from tears. "I'm so sorry," she said, barely above a whisper.
"Carina?" asked Sarah from her knees, her face showing both shock and fury.
"I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know," Amy said, her voice shaky.
"Ms. Costa?" asked Chuck.
Once again, Amy started to sob quietly. "She was just supposed to be missing. Not home...not dead, just not ...there. If she was just missing...we'd...we'd go home. We'd all be home...in Los Angeles. Home. And everything would be ok again. Like it was. Nobody was supposed to die. Nobody was supposed to get hurt." Amy was still sobbing as she tried to explain.
The man ran back with the trauma kit. Amy dropped down beside it and opened it up, using the backs of her hands to wipe the tears from her eyes so she could see clearly. The first thing she found was the Celox applicator loaded with the granules. Luckily, there were a few of them on top, next to the tourniquets.
She handed one to Casey, on the other side of Zondra, and ripped open the package for the one she was holding, taking out the long syringe-like plastic tube she inserted the plunger into the top and removed the blue end cap from the bottom of the syringe. Zondra was gritting her teeth and breathing in short rapid breaths from the pain. Amy said, "Sorry. This is going to hurt, Z."
Zondra said, trying hard to speak and be understood through her gritted teeth, "Go to hell, bitch."
Amy whispered, more to herself than to anyone else, "Already there."
The bullet hole was dark against Zondra's olive skin, obscene and leaking red. Amy jammed the Celox tube into it as far as she could. The pain was too much and Zondra screamed loud and long, her clenched fists beating the ground beneath her. Amy depressed the plunger and wiggled the tube around a bit, spreading the granules into Zondra's abdominal cavity. The moment they hit the blood, they began to absorb moisture from the area and form a gel that plugged the bleeding. Hopefully plugged the bleeding. Moments later, Casey repeated the action with the exit wound. Zondra screamed again and passed out from the pain. They repeated the action with two more containers of Celox, until they could see the gel oozing out of the wounds. They applied pressure to the wounds to allow the clotting to take place, in addition to the gel.
That done, Amy, who was closest to the med kit, took out ampules of morphine and handed them to Casey. He gave Zondra two doses. Amy took out the bandages, but Casey growled at her, "I got this."
Amy looked into his eyes and saw his anger at her. That hit like a punch to the face and she flinched and looked away.
"Yeah. Here," she said, handing him the bandages without looking at him.
She stood up and turned back to her brother. "Gus, we have to get her to a hospital."
"You know that's not happening."
"Yes, it is. This..." she gestured at Zondra on the ground, "...is just a temporary solution. It won't last. She's going to need surgery and massive antibiotics and God knows what else."
"Amy, let's talk about this in private. In the meantime," he turned to his men, "put them into one of the rooms where the girls are. Throw two of the girls out and move them to another room with other girls."
"Their gear?" asked a man, gesturing at Team B's weapons and equipment.
"Weapons and ammo in the armory with the rest. I'll open it on the way inside. The rest of it I don't care about," said Gaez.
"They have explosives," said another.
Gaez said, "Ok. Put those in the outbuilding with our own stuff. Detonators go into the armory. Treat it just like our own gear."
From her knees next to Zondra, Sarah said to Gaez, "We can't move her without a stretcher." Sarah understood that with the wound Zondra had moving her too much would reopen one or more of the internal points of bleeding they may have managed to close with the Celox gel.
"Too bad," replied Gaez placidly. "We don't have one. Do your best."
"Gus..." said Amy.
Gaez looked over at her and said, spreading his arms, innocently, "We really don't have a stretcher. Seriously."
As he was just finishing wrapping Zondra's middle with a pressure dressing Casey said, "Walker, get two of those poles over there. From the old scaffolding. Bout ten feet long. Bartowski, take off your shirt and button it all the way up."
Sarah ran to the remnants of the scaffolding and began to disentangle some of the poles from the cordage that bound them together.
Chuck took off his shirt, revealing a black tee-shirt underneath, which said "Beam me up, Scottie. There's no intelligent life here." Casey did the same with his shirt, although his undershirt was a sleeveless plain black tank top. Casey said, demonstrating as he spoke, "Now put the sleeves on the inside, like this." Chuck moved the sleeves to the inside of the buttoned-up shirt.
Sarah was back with the poles, which they fed through the sleeves of Chuck's shirt and then the sleeves of Casey's shirt, creating a make-shift bed of the two shirts between the two poles. The watching men, who had been soldiers, appreciated the professionalism with which the team worked.
Carefully, so as not to put more pressure on Zondra's wound, Chuck and Casey moved her to the stretcher.
"This way," said one of the men. Casey and Chuck picked up Zondra and, with Sarah carrying the bag of medical supplies, followed the men towards one of the buildings. None of them looked at Amy.
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A short time later, Amy and Gaez were in his residence, a pretty stark apartment in the dormitory building.
"You want a drink, irmãzinha?"
"No, and stop calling me that. You know I hate it."
Gaez chuckled, poured himself a drink, and took a seat on his couch, crossing one leg over the other. With a pleasant smile he said, "You know I have to kill them."
"No. Not happening. They're my friends."
"Not anymore they're not," he said.
"Fair point, I guess. But you still aren't going to kill them. It won't do any good anyway. You've got to abandon this base and hide out. Spread your men out. Maybe go to Russia or something. The President of the United States wants you dead. Do you think he's going to change his mind? Do you think that killing my friends will take the heat off? That's insane, Gus. He'll just send another team after you and another after them and on and on. You'll never get to go back to Rio or your club or anything like that. You really shit the bed this time. Fuck, you tried to nuke Los Angeles for fuck's sake. What did you think was going to happen?"
"Oh, come on. I didn't try to nuke Los Angeles. I'm not crazy, you know," he said.
"You could have fooled me. The bombs were..."
"No, Amy, seriously. The guy at the computer was my man. Well, he was before your friends killed him. He was going to change the target to Houston and then Orlando. Hell, if it lasted that long he'd threaten the Canary Islands or something. All we wanted to do was get your guys to knock down the satellite. That's what I was paid for. Get you to launch an anti-satellite missile. The diplomatic fall out so soon after the last one would shut down the whole anti-satellite program."
"Who hired you? Russia?"
"Shit, I don't know. Probably. Could have been the Chinese, I guess. Fuck, it could have been the French. The money's green regardless. I wasn't going to blow anything up, for Christ's sake."
Amy stopped, "Blow something up? Did you blow up Sarah's car?"
"I did. When you told us your new team was going to be hunting me, Jackson was in Tijuana on a job. I sent him up over the border to plant the bomb."
"GUS, YOU MAIMED ONE OF MY FRIENDS. YOU COULD HAVE KILLED SARAH AND CHUCK. HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO ME? FUCK. FUCK."
"Amy, your team wants to kill me. That is your mission. You told me that yourself. Don't you think it's fair that I strike first at a group tasked with killing me? To me it seems pretty reasonable."
Amy was crying again, and screamed, "NO. THEY'RE MY FRIENDS. NOBODY WAS SUPPOSED TO GET HURT."
Gaez said, "Change in plans. I reduced your team by one. That's a pretty decent strike in my view."
"You could have killed me. I ride with Sarah sometimes," she said.
He looked startled for a moment and then said, "I'm very glad that didn't happen."
Sobbing now, Amy said, "Nobody got hurt last time. That was never a thing."
"I know. But the last time you were going to arrest me. This time you want to kill me. The rules have changed."
"NOT FOR ME."
"Amy, calm down," said Gaez, "This is all going to work out fine. You forget. We did the same thing a couple of years ago. When the CATS were broken up, we did fine. We got on with our lives to become better and better."
"No. Not all of us. Zondra suffered for that one."
"The woman I shot? I'm not sure her career disappointments are too important now. Look, Amy. It's the biggest weakness of America. We both know it. Americans, and that includes the government, have no long-term memory. After a couple of weeks, they forget and move on to the next concern. Some singer and who they are sleeping with...whatever. The CATS were looking for me. Biggest threat to the world. Nemesis. Blah, blah, blah. We evade them. The CATS break up. I'm forgotten for years. I go back to my club and my home. Nobody hassles me. Do my business. Who cares anymore? No one. Exactly the same thing now. In a month or two, you Americans will be on to the next emergency and I'll be back at my club and my business. Just watch. Business as usual."
"Your business? Your business? How happy would Mom be about your business? Think she'd be proud of you? Terrorist for hire?" asked Amy with a sneer.
"MY BUSINESS?" screamed Gaez, now upset himself at his sister's insulting tone. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "You want to know my business? Muslims pay me oil money to kill other Muslims. That's my business. You know they say that if you love what you do for a living you will never work a day in your life? Yeah. That's me. Let these fucking people kill each other off. I think it's wonderful. A service to humanity. And to make money from it too? It's like sprinkles on my ice cream."
"You're a bigot," said Amy.
"Yeah? Maybe, I am.. Well, I come by it honestly. I served with the Legion in Africa. Remember?"
"So, you are only responsible for Muslim deaths, huh? Is that what you are telling me? What about Carmela Costa? Huh? Why did you have her killed?"
For the first time, Gaez backed off. He hung his head and his voice lowered. "I have no idea what happened there. I really don't. I couldn't reach her. I called Farrar and told him to get her to a hotel before your team arrived. I have no idea how she ended up dead...how they both ended up dead." Gaez paused and seemed to be trying to get himself together, shaken by this part of the discussion. "I liked her, Amy. I don't think I loved her...I don't really know, I guess. But I liked her a lot and I'm going to miss her. Hell, Farrar was a good friend, too. I have no idea what happened. He wasn't supposed to kill her, for fuck's sake." He stood up from the couch and threw his empty glass across the room to shatter against the wall. "FUCK. I WISH I'D NEVER HAVE TAKEN THIS FUCKING SATELLITE JOB."
"You and me both, Gus. My life is over now. I'm completely destroyed. I can never go back now, and I really loved my life. I really did. I was the happiest I've ever been."
"We'll work it out, Amy. It will work out. A few days here as a guest and..."
Amy erupted. "A GUEST. YEAH, THAT'S ANOTHER THING. WHAT THE FUCK, GUS? HERE? YOU HAVE SEX SLAVES HERE? WHAT THE FUCK?"
"I don't have any sex slaves here. What the hell are you talking about?" he demanded angrily.
The way things were going, she had no intention of mentioning the men from the town who had helped them and Amy instantly realized her mistake. "Some of the men who took us. They mentioned the girls from the village."
"Sex slaves? No. No," he said. "That's not what they are. We have hostages from the town. But there's no rape or anything like that here. I wouldn't let my men do that. No."
"But you only have women as hostages," said Amy with a question in her tone.
"Well, yeah," he replied with a shrug. "Men hostages are always looking to be tough when they shouldn't be. And children as hostages are just a pain in the ass. So, women. Yeah. But not as rape bait. No. I wouldn't allow that. Sure, some of the women and some of my guys are getting it on. But it's consensual."
"They are prisoners, Gus. Get a fucking grip. Of course, it's not consensual."
"Amy, what did the people in town tell you? Is that how you learned about the girls? And where we were?"
Amy said, "There were no people in town. We didn't speak to anyone there. We figured you would have informers in town, so we avoided it. Just drove through and came up here. Stashed our cars in town and hiked up."
"Did Carmela tell you about the mining complex?" he asked.
Amy hesitated, recognizing that Carmela might not have known about the complex and Gus would catch her in a lie. "Oh, hell no. She told us the name of the village. Chuck figured out where you were from there from the cell phone records."
"No. The coverage here is only one tower. No way to triangulate. He couldn't have located us to this complex just by the cell signal from my burner." He looked at her with a suspicious frown.
Amy's look in response was one of amazement. After a moment or two she began to laugh long and hard. "Gus, you have no idea what he can do with computers or electronics. He is the tech-whisperer. Take the best tech guy you've ever met and multiply him by ten. And then you are getting close. But only close. He looked at your burner phone number, did something, and here we are."
"Superb," he said with a smile as he accepted the veracity of her answer. "The next team they send won't be as talented. We're good now."
"No, no, Gus. The next team won't have me around to fuck them up. The first you will know of the next team is when hellfire rains down on your head from the sky. Brother, you have to abandon this site with your men. Scatter them to the winds and head to someplace the US won't try to hit you. I said Russia before, but China would do. I'll go with you. Christ knows I have no place to go home to anymore. I'm completely destroyed at this point."
"I appreciate that, Amy, but we aren't going to leave."
"No, we have to, Gus. We have to get Zondra to a hospital immediately. She could die."
"Amy, she's going to die. They all are. It's the only way to protect ourselves."
"NO. NO, THEY ARE NOT. I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU KILL MY FRIENDS," she screamed at him.
Gaez got into her face, leaning forward into her personal space, "YES, WE ARE. IT'S THE ONLY WAY."
"NO, WE ARE NOT. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. THEY'RE LIKE FAMILY TO ME. I WON'T LET YOU KILL THEM." Tears were running down her cheeks again to soak her shirtfront.
Gaez continued to lean into her, his angry red face right up into hers, and screamed, "LIKE FAMILY? LIKE FAMILY? BUT NOT FAMILY. NOT FAMILY, AMY. WE BOTH KNOW IT. YOU AND I ARE FAMILY. RIGHT NOW, THE ONLY FAMILY EACH OF US WILL EVER HAVE. FAMILY IS ONLY FORMED BY BLOOD. ANYTHING ELSE IS JUST FRIENDSHIP. WE ARE FAMILY. THEY ARE NOT FAMILY. AND THAT'S IT. THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS."
Standing face to face with her brother, his spittle still wet on her face, Amy felt each of his words like the repeated blows from a sledgehammer straight to her soul.
And she realized what she had done.
It was as if she had fallen through the ice of a frozen lake. It felt like her heart had stopped and she was locked immobile from systemic shock. She couldn't get her lungs to work and her view slipped into tunnel vision of just her brother's face. Her hands began to shake and she was cold from her toes to her scalp.
She wanted to puke her guts out or throw herself on the ground in a ball and cry until she died.
But she couldn't.
She knew that she had more important things to do now. In fact, they were more important things she'd ever had to do in her entire life. And doing those tasks perfectly was the only thing that mattered anymore. The only thing.
Staring into her brother's eyes she shook herself visibly. Turning away from him, she walked to the side of the room and looked out the window and the vehicles parked on the hard packed earth, growing dim in the fading light of day. She took a series of deep breaths over and over again until her hands stopped shaking and she had stopped crying.
Finally, quietly, she said, "You're right, Gus. You're right, of course. I'm sorry." She let out a long sigh. "Thanks for that reminder. Mom would agree, of course. Family. My friends have to die. You're right. But, let's not do it until tomorrow, ok? I want to say goodbye to them, and I'm not in the mood tonight."
"Of course. No difference today or tomorrow. You can say goodbye tomorrow."
"Thanks, Gus."
"Would you like that drink now, maybe, Amy?" he asked.
She turned from the window and gave him a bright smile. "Shit. At this point I'll drink the whole fucking bottle."
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With Zondra on the stretcher and the stretcher on the bed, they were left with one of them sitting by her side and tending to her as best as they could. Honestly, that wasn't very much at all. They knew that she'd be dead without surgery soon and their captors weren't going to permit her to be taken to a hospital. They kept her well medicated with the morphine and hoped her pain was bearable. Her feet were raised and she was covered in a blanket to ward off shock. She'd asked for water, but they didn't want to give her any, given her wound.
They had no intention of letting Amy's brother just kill them without a fight. The room they were in had two beds and a bathroom. The only window had been nailed shut. Two girls from the village had been housed there and been evicted to make room for the four of them.
The bathroom had yielded some weapons. The shower rod had been taken down and the end sharpened into a spear. The towel rod had been taken off the wall and weighted with bits of lead they had ripped from the plumbing, to form a heavy club. The bathroom mirror had been broken and the pieces taped with the medical tape from the trauma kit to form knives. They put aside the morphine ampules to use on one or more of Gaez's men. An overdose was an effective, if slow, means of incapacitating someone.
They still had their watches and Chuck tried to make them into cell phones, but he lacked the tools and equipment to accomplish that.
Surprise was going to be essential, so they silently took the pins from the door hinges. Although the door was locked from the other side, that only interfered with opening one edge of the door. They could now open it from the other side. They could hear that there were two guards on the other side of the door, so the initial attack was going to be against those men.
The plan was to wait for the hour before dawn. By tradition and fact, it was the time when men's attention was most likely to be at its lowest. It was the time when attacks were initiated. They were prepared to pull the door open and kill the guards. Taking the guard's weapons would arm Sarah and Casey. With two of America's best assassins wandering around the compound with weapons, things were going to get pretty bad pretty quickly for Gaez's men. At least, that was the plan.
They were getting ready to open the door and kill the guards when they heard conversation from the other side of the door. Casey and Sarah paused, and looked at each other, confused. There was a thump, then a few moments later another.
The sound of the key in the lock put them all on the defensive. Chuck covered Zondra with his body as best as he could without putting pressure on her wounds. Sarah and Casey braced themselves to kill the next person through the door.
The door opened, and actually fell inward as the hinges gave way. Casey caught the door with one hand and lowered it to the ground. The sight that greeted them on the other side was not exactly what they had expected.
Amy stood silhouetted in the lighted hallway, the room key in her hand. On the floor next to her were the guards. One was twitching as his blood drained out onto the tiles from a slit throat. The other guard had the hilt of one of Sarah's knives protruding obscenely from one of his eyes, his body still writhing, dying hands clutching weakly at his impaled eye.
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A/N2: That's a real method of creating a makeshift stretcher and it is taught to the military.
A/N3: Ok. You know what I'm going to say by this point. Go for it, please.