A/N: Your ongoing kindness and support has been incredibly overwhelming…and I promise that I am doing my best to respond to each review, or PM as quickly and honestly as I can…..Thank you all.

Chapter 15 marks a shift in the story (no spoilers in the A/N, so you will need to read on….) as things become clearer for Team Bartowski. And as things become clearer, team Bartowski will gradually shift away from trying to understand the mystery that seems to be surrounding them to fighting against it and its plans. As we move towards more action, please keep in mind that the story has 37 chapters and an epilogue, with about 250k words, so there is a lot of stuff that is going to happen to our protagonist, his friends, and their enemies, including a few surprises and more than a few twists and turns. So please be patient and let the story unfold in front of you…..I really hope you like the complexity, humor and emotion the journey will try to deliver.

As always…..my endless thanks go to Nevr for his generous contribution as Pre/Beta reader. Please make sure you read the most recent updates to his works "ENDINGS," "MISSIONS" and "SHOT." All three are awesome reads!

Don't own chuck, and I don't make any money from writing this stuff, but please don't tell my wife….or she'll make me go back to work.

Chapter 15 – Battle Stations:

Wednesday, 22 February 2012 – 07:15 Eastern Standard Time
Fort Meade Maryland – NSA HQ

"Good morning Chuck," Beckman greeted Chuck in a business-like tone.

"Good morning Diane. What's happening here? Are we in imminent danger?" asked Chuck.

"I'm not certain, but I wanted to act with an abundance of caution. Before we get into that, I want to discuss reading in the rest of the team. I respect that you are an honest and transparent person, but right now, only 4 people in the world know that you are the Piranha…you, me, the President, and your partner out there. And only 3 people in the world know you do special projects for us. I now look at Walker, Miller, and Casey as your team and trust your judgment. I have also spoken with the President, and he is deferring to me to make the call, so I want to make sure you are sure you trust them completely. Because once you share this information, the risk of leakage goes up dramatically, with significant ramifications for national security." Beckman spoke calmly and clearly, but there was no mistaking the issue's importance.

Chuck did not hesitate. "Diane, you have asked these people to protect me with their lives, and where you see them as my team, I see them as my family. I will not allow them to risk potentially everything without a clear understanding of the risk I represent to them. I trust them with my life, not because you ordered them, but because I know they trust me and believe in me. I want an open book, Diane."

"Ok. Open book it is. I would like to start the discussion with the team to make sure they understand what they are being read into, and Morgan will need to sign the same non-disclosure documents you signed, but I will let you tell the story and let you decide how open book you want to be. I will back you up accordingly. After we read them in, I will share the intelligence we picked up to provide the proper context….Ok?" Beckman smiled softly at Chuck, who nodded affirmatively.

Beckman punched the intercom on her desk. "Mary, please have the rest of the team, including Mr. Grimes, come in. We are ready for them."

Chuck's office was perfectly quiet aside from the occasional sound of someone shifting in their seat. But that did not mean there was no communication. Morgan was staring at Carina quizzically, who was oddly staring back at him, without breaking away and with what almost appeared to be the slightest of smiles. Sarah was looking at Morgan, then at Carina, then back at Morgan, then at Casey, then back at Morgan and Carina….she was definitely going to need to speak to Carina. Casey looked briefly at the other three, then rolled his eyes skyward, praying silently that he would not be further exposed to lady feelings across all of his teammates…..then there was a knock on the door.

"The Director and Chuck are ready for you now. Please come this way." Mary turned and led them to Beckman's office, where she and Chuck were seated in the lounge area.

"Casey, Walker, Miller, good to see you all again, and Mr. Grimes, a pleasure to finally meet you. Before you make yourselves comfortable, you might want to grab a coffee or a tea. You are about to be read into a somewhat complicated story." Beckman pointed to the coffee and tea service on the conference table while Chuck looked down, deep in thought. Once the team retrieved their beverages and sat down, Beckman took the floor.

"Team, Chuck has asked me for permission to fully read all of you into the role Chuck plays, why he is so important, and the threats we are trying to deal with. Before Chuck explains, what you are about to learn is so classified, the only people on the planet that know the full story are Chuck, me, and the President of the United States." Beckman paused to let the gravity of the statement sink in, and everyone's eyes grew wide as saucers and shifted to Chuck, who was still looking down and thinking to himself. "I advised Chuck that reading all of you in was not advisable given the risk to national security. Chuck insisted that as his partners…no….he called you his family…..you all need to fully understand why he is so important and the risks associated with protecting him…or in your case Mr. Grimes, being his business partner." Beckman took a moment to look each member of Chuck's team in the eye to assess their readiness.

Casey had resolve in his eyes. He intuitively knew this was a big deal when Beckman moved him to cover the kid. He was already proud to be on this team, and what he was learning made him even more so.

Miller was looking at Beckman a little suspiciously. She had gotten to know Chuck and knew he was brilliant, but she could not really get what Chuck could be doing that was so vital beyond the cyber security work, which in fairness, was pretty crucial.

Grimes was utterly befuddled. He had known that Beckman knew he was Piranha, but what else? Chuck was being treated like he had the run of the place as Beckman's number two, and he did not have a clue what any of it meant.

Then she looked at Walker, who showed a mixture of pride and genuine deep affection for Chuck with no reservation or hesitation.

With no red warning light's detected, Beckman continued. "To be clear, what you are about to learn is so highly classified it does not even have an official designation, and there are no written records of it in our systems. This information must be protected at all costs until such time as the President himself or I advise otherwise. Failure to safeguard the information you are about to receive is treason, and if required, action will be taken beyond the scope of the legal frameworks afforded our citizens. Is this understood?" Beckman paused, waiting for confirmation.

Morgan raised his hand meekly.

"Mr. Grimes, you have a question?" Beckman looked at Chuck's bearded partner.

"Yes, ma'am….that last part, what does that even mean?" he asked.

"It means that if you spill, you get a bullet in the head, Grimes," Casey replied.

"Ok…that's what I thought that meant….Thank you, Casey." Morgan then turned to Chuck. "Chuck, what exactly have you gotten yourself and me….us into here?"

The room was quiet as Beckman sat back in her chair, and all eyes were on Chuck.

Chuck straightened up and looked at each member of his family. "There are several parts to the story. All of you know some of the parts, but none of you know all of them. As Director Beckman said, it's important to me that you all fully understand what is happening and why there are risks you may not fully perceive. In this context, I have had to be less than fully transparent with you, something I hated to do every day, knowing what you were asked to do for me, and as things escalated around us, I made it clear to the Director that I wanted you to all know what you were involved with." He paused for a moment.

"I am the Piranha…." Morgan smiled, Casey did not react, but Sarah and Carina's mouths dropped open.

"Son of a Bitch," the two women said in unison.

"We chased you around for 8 months, and you were here?" added Carina in disbelief.

"I knew it…we knew it…..we knew that Mossad story was bullshit," Sarah added.

Beckman said nothing.

"Yeah…Sorry about that, guys. I was sworn to secrecy as a part of a deal I made with Director Beckman when she was still the Deputy Director….let me explain….I hacked all major government agencies, which you guys already know. You also know that I did not steal or break anything. Rather I gave them concrete recommendations to better safeguard the information they needed to protect. I knew about the task force, and I knew it did not have a clue about who I was and, frankly, had very little chance of catching me."

Morgan started to laugh.

"Morgan, what is so funny?" asked Sarah.

"That day that you called to ask Chuck some questions was when we agreed to make a deal with Director Beckman. When you called, we were looking at the office space where Orion is now housed, but we were in the walk-in freezer when you called, so Chuck walked out to get better reception. And when you identified yourself, he freaked out and started running in and out of the freezer to disrupt the call and try to reschedule. It was hilarious….guess you had to be there." Morgan frowned slightly.

"That's all true, Sarah. I'm sorry I could not be honest with you about that," added Chuck as Sarah and Carina stared at each other with a smile.

"Oh, we would have caught you." Sarah smiled. "If I had the chance to interview you in person, I would have figured you out….but we were called off the hunt once the Piranha was pronounced dead."

"Yes, I know," he smiled lovingly at Sarah. "Please let me continue….As part of the deal I made, I received a full Presidential pardon, the NSA agreed to hire Orion to reinforce their cyber defenses, and we had to kill off the Piranha for good. As the Director said, the President agreed to this deal, and no one else was aware of my identity…except for Morgan. What Morgan did not know was that I also agreed to do special project work on a case-by-case basis. The only proviso was that I would have the right to say no if I objected to a project and that I would not be asked to participate in anything that directly injured or killed people. As part of the deal, I was asked to come here and prove that I could do things no one else could, and my first test was undermining the Iranian uranium enrichment program, which I did, and it worked better than expected. I cracked the databases where they kept all the data associated with their nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs without alerting them that we had access to their data. Since that day, we have done many other projects to safeguard our country and its citizens. That is why I'm out here so regularly, Morgan…. In any case, because of the success of the Orion system and some of the side-projects I helped with, we won contracts with many other agencies. It was going great until we ran into a roadblock with the CIA and a complete asshat by the name of Daniel Shaw, who apparently hired an unknown outfit by the name of Fulcrum. It struck me as odd that the CIA would hire a company unknown in our field of expertise, so I did some research and discovered that Fulcrum seemed to be a shell company owned by a bunch of other shell companies. Then one day, we get an alarm that the NSA, FIB, DEA, Justice, and Orion itself were being attacked by a hacker. Our system blocked the attack, and we discovered that all the attacks originated in a warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia. The warehouse was also owned by a bunch of shell companies."

"The warehouse my team and I investigated," added Casey.

"Exactly. Our system figured out that the hackers were looking for information on Orion's tech, our Heimdall system. Then Jill Roberts applied for a job, and on her resume as a previous employer was a company named Fulcrum," Continued Chuck.

"Ah…That's why you were freaked out when I told you we hired Jill..."

"That's right, Morgan, but it really came together when I was chatting with Carina, and she recalled hearing the words "Fulcrum project" from Augusto Milan when she was still with the DEA and was marking him in Miami. For those who don't know, Milan is the head man of the Culiacan Cartel in the U.S., and he spends his time traveling between Houston and Miami and works directly for Ramon Salazaar, the head of the Culiacan cartel. So I asked the Director to see if they could program Echelon to pick up any traffic related to Fulcrum. I am guessing that's why we were called in early under a heightened threat level," he paused for a moment, "but before I ask the Director to brief us on what she has learned, I want to apologize again for not being able to be more forthcoming. Trust, loyalty, and family are the three things I hold most dear, and I hope you all understand how much I value each of you in the context of those three things. Do you have any questions?" Chuck paused, looking each member of his family, in the eyes one by one.

No one spoke, but he could read their expressions. Morgan was starting to connect the dots and showed no signs of frustration or disappointment. He seemed to be thinking about how he could help more directly. Carina and Casey both grinned, wanting to get to the rest of the intelligence to move things forward. Sarah just beamed with love and pride, having made another stunning discovery about the depth of intellect, ability, and character her Chuck possessed. And Beckman marveled at how quickly Chuck could create a cohesive team that clearly saw him as their leader.

There were no questions, and Beckman took the floor once more. She then shared the outcome of the Echelon intelligence and the theory that Chuck had been discussing with her.

"As Chuck mentioned, back in December, he asked me to set up Echelon to scan for any traffic-related to Project Fulcrum or Fulcrum. Once implemented, we immediately got several hits that caused me concern and seemed to validate a theory Chuck has been developing.

"All the calls are between burner phones, and we have no idea who the individuals holding the burners. We also know that the burners seem to be used rarely. However, with Chuck's help, we could track the locations of the sending and receiving phones. We clustered them as follows:

"No less than 18 calls were originating from several numbers, all located in Culiacan, Mexico.

"All of those calls went to receiving phones in Washington DC, Langley Virginia, Alexandria Virginia, Miami Florida, Houston Texas, New York City, Boston Massachusetts, and one call went to a phone in Munich Germany.

"The phone that called Munich Germany also received calls from Langley and Alexandria, Virginia. This suggests this phone was based here but traveled one time to Culiacan, probably for a face-to-face meeting. That same phone was also used later in the day in Miami to make a call to Washington D.C.

"5 calls originated from a different phone in Miami to receiving phones in Langley, New York City, and Culiacan.

"I can keep going, but there is a clear pattern, circumstantial at this stage, but clear nonetheless with some common denominators.

"One…We assume that the calls between the phones in Culiacan, Miami, and Houston are communications between Ramon Salazaar, the head of the Culiacan Cartel, and his point person in the US, Augusto Milan, who splits his time between Miami and Houston.

"Two…As soon as Chuck notified me about Jill Roberts, we put a tail on her. She was spotted meeting with her handler in Los Angeles, a CIA agent named Bryce Larkin, who works directly for Special Agent Daniel Shaw, who blocked Orion's proposal to the CIA and hired an outfit called Fulcrum Security Services, the alleged former employer of Jill Roberts. Obviously, both Shaw and Larkin are Langley-based.

"Three…We can't link any calls with the word Fulcrum to Los Angeles, and given that Jill Roberts seems to be based in California, suggests she is either unaware or not important enough to be part of the planning, only execution of tasks.

"Four…Again, the common thread appears to be Daniel Shaw based in Langley.

"Five…the other locations were almost exclusively recipients of calls, except for one call made from downtown New York to Culiacan.

"So, let's ask ourselves a couple of questions. Suppose you were the head of one of the largest criminal organizations in the world and persecuted aggressively in the U.S., your largest market. What strategy could you deploy that uses U.S. Government resources to help your cause?" Beckman paused to let the team catch up.

"Holy shit…." Sarah said almost to herself reflectively.

"Agent Walker, you seem to have had an epiphany?…. Care to share with the class," asked Beckman.

"Ma'am, I was just thinking that….well…..the DEA and Justice have been going after Salazaar and his organization hyper aggressively and made tons of seizures and confiscations. And they must know that the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA all have a role to play domestically and internationally in providing intelligence to assist in the pursuit of the Cartel. If he could control them, no one could stop him from growing all his key businesses….arms, narcotics, human trafficking, the list goes on and on."

"Excellent, Walker. That is what Chuck and I concluded as well. The question, however, is that if you are playing such a big, bold game, you also need to have a large support base. We have no idea how many people Salazaar might have on the payroll, where they are hiding, and how senior they might be. And we have no hard evidence. So we need to go on the offensive to get something tangible to start unraveling this dangerous puzzle," Beckman added.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," Casey interrupted. "The conspiracy you outline is very compelling, but why did you raise the threat level this morning….particularly if Salazaar is playing the long game here?"

"An excellent question Casey….and the answer is the call from Culiacan to Munich, Germany, from a phone that seems to have spent much of its time in Langley and Alexandria, Virginia. Of particular interest is that the call only lasted 6 seconds. So let's consider that not too long ago, the directors of the CIA and the NSA both died within a week of each, and virtually immediately, Coroner's reports noted absolutely no concern for foul play. Well, I don't believe in coincidences, but a heart attack for a man who has mandated health checks and no pre-existing conditions is pretty rare, and the Director of the NSA died in a car accident when the man never drove himself anywhere. And both happening in the same week. And in the case of the CIA, the Director was replaced by Langston Graham, who has a murky background and has no interest in collaborating with us or any other entity that uses Orion, and I see a pattern," Beckman continued.

"I still don't see it," Carina said.

"If I wanted to hire a professional assassin with no links to anything or anyone here, who would make the top of the list, Sarah?" Beckman looked at Sarah intensely.

"Gruber?...You think they called Gruber? Gruber has been on the CIA's target list for a long time. We studied his methods at the farm, and the guy that gave the lectures was Langston Graham. It was Graham's special Operations team that was hunting him down. His team lead was a guy named Decker, I think…Yeah…I'm pretty sure of it…Clyde Decker. So you believe….stretching out your assumptions further here….that Graham always had a connection to Gruber through Decker for off the books wet-work, and they hired Gruber to kill someone for the Cartel? But the Cartel has its own hitmen, why….." and then Sarah connected the dots, "so nothing tracks back to Culiacan…..If they got fingered for the murder of the head of the CIA or the NSA, we would drop a bomb on Culiacan without even asking the Mexicans for permission….ok…that makes sense, but who are they targeting?"

"We are not sure. Could it be the President and his War on Drugs, could be me, or the directors of Justice, the DEA or the FBI, or….it could be Chuck, whose system is keeping our networks safe from unauthorized intrusions, like the attempt that led us to the empty warehouse. And as we don't know who or when, I want Chuck and Mr. Grimes here more thoroughly protected. In the meantime, I want Walker and Miller here to go find Mr. Larkin and very quietly and discreetly bring him here so we can sweat him a bit. I think he may be the weak link that gives us something we can use to squeeze up the chain and see where it leads us. Larkin is currently in D.C….go find the bastard. Chuck, you and Mr. Grimes will relocate to our secure guest area here in the building until we have a better view of things. We will get an additional desk for Mr. Grimes in your office so you can continue managing Orion, and Mary will get you the credentials you need. Oh, and Mary will also make sure all your things are collected from the hotel and that you are checked out." Beckman closed the meeting and dismissed the team, asking Chuck to hang back.

"Diane, thank you for your trust and faith in me. I won't let you down." Chuck gave a subdued smile.

"I know you won't, Chuck. If we get this right, we can really impact the violent crime these Culiacan bastards are driving. And for what it's worth, I think you made the right call reading the team in. They are committed, loyal, and already see you as their leader. I think together you and your team will do great things. I also wanted to tell you that I appreciated you and Sarah coming to me about your relationship. It's wonderful, and I am happy for you, but you both need to be very careful. And by the way, come by later, and I'll show you that security video I mentioned…I think you will get a kick out of it." Beckman smiled warmly back at him.

"Thanks, Diane….I will. Now let me go see how they are doing." As Chuck turned to leave Beckman's office, he thought about Star Trek Captain James T. Kirk commanding the USS Enterprise as it was about to breach the neutral zone with the Klingon Empire. 'Red alert! Battle stations! Shields up….!.'