A/N: Can the General be saved? Will Chuck live to see the morning?
The Missionary
Could it be that we're alone
and the moon was full of gold
Your heart was filled with blood
and the sun was in your hands
The sun that burned you then,
Now warms your empty heart,
People come and go,
But you're the One
— Joy Zipper, 1
Chapter Four: To Be and Not To Be
Sarah kept the gun pointed against Bartowski's ribs, but pointlessly, her hand around it felt uncertain, indecisive.
Lost. She was lost.
Street lights glowed in front of black buildings, but all in motion. LA seemed to be in motion, the car stationary. LA was speeding, going impossibly fast.
Horns kept bleating, tires whining.
Bartowski was intent on the street, the cars. After telling Sarah to kill him later, he seemed to disregard her.
She could see him sweating; his hair was damp, matted, around his temples, his T-shirt stuck wetly to his chest, a sweat stain growing there. His lips worked, whispering to himself, but irregularly and mostly inaudibly.
They sailed through another intersection. She shot a glance along the intersecting street.
They had caught up with the motorcade and were passing it, block by block. Bartowski seemed aware of that although he did not look.
"C'mon! C'mon!" He hissed the words to himself and to the car. The car jolted forward, adding speed.
LA became a river of flux, flowing past, dark boulders and white water.
Sarah was processing what was happening while processing what had happened.
Bartowski had not faked whatever happened to him in the backseat. "I am the Intersect." What could that mean? The Intersect was a program, encoded data.
How could Bartowski know what he knew about her? About Stanfield?
Confusion and anxiety choked her.
That was new. She never got confused or anxious during missions. Between them, she did. She had no idea what to do with herself, no initiative. Between missions, everything was disordered. She was disordered. During missions, ordered. Without mission objectives, everything, she and her world, fell apart.
Incompetent in real life.
She finally unjammed her gun from Bartowski's ribs. He turned on her, a relieved grimace.
She tried to brave his expression. "What did you mean, you are the Intersect? Explain that."
"I have to think, Agent. Later. I'm your prisoner. Let me do this, then we can talk, Buy Moron to the assassin."
The poison lacing 'assassin' made her wince, but she tried to hide it.
Although she had the gun, his lightning strike against her in the backseat made her unsure if he was her prisoner, or if she was his.
Her question to herself earlier in the day, an eternity ago: Who's seducing who?
That was the craziest part of this: a moment before, unjamming the gun from Bartowski's ribs had caused Sarah a twinge of disappointment; the gun had been an extension of her hand.
Now they were out of contact.
She bit her lip hard enough to break the skin.
Refocus, dammit! You've had missions go sideways before. Regroup, refocus!
Missions had gone sideways before — but never gone science fiction.
Chuck stared at the street so intently his eyes watered, reacting to obstacles, changes in traffic, but his mind was a crowd of abstracted visions — architect's drawings, city documents, plane tickets, security plans, bomb schematics.
Somehow it all made sense to him. From the welter of visions, the mass of data, a pattern began to show itself. It wasn't deduction; it wasn't induction; it was like seeing the hidden face in a drawing, realizing the lines were not just lines, but representations.
A sideways look at Sarah showed chewing on her lip.
"Listen to me," Chuck began. "The bomb must be in the General's suite, that gives the highest probability of a kill. His reservation is weeks old; the terrorists must have found some way to sneak it in, probably today, after the arrival security sweep.
"We'll beat the motorcade to the hotel by a few minutes — six, more or less, assuming I don't kill us first. We can get upstairs much faster than he and his family. There'll be people in the lobby, expecting greetings or farewells. We should have time — ten to twelve minutes total, maybe.
"His security detail is almost all with him. One man is stationed upstairs, outside the room. You take care of him." He turned to her quickly, his teeth bared. "But don't kill him. Innocence means nothing to you, but it does to me. I need to get to the bomb, we can't dally trying to explain. I need to get to it, identify it, defuse it. — Good God! I can't believe I am doing this!"
He looked at her again, this time his eyes were begging. "Trust me. I'm the only trustworthy person in the car."
Sarah blinked.
She had to decide. What was happening was…impossible. But it was happening.
Her grandmother's voice, soft, weak, speaking to Sarah, came to her. Her grandmother was talking about faith, dying in a hospital room. Sometimes, sweetheart, sometimes you have to believe in order to understand.
Sarah decided to believe Bartowski.
"Okay, I'll follow your lead."
Bartowski nodded grimly. He cut the wheel; the car agonized, trembling around the corner, and then he hit the brakes. They skied to a stop. Sarah threw out her free hand to brace herself against the dashboard.
A moment later, she grabbed her purse from the back, dropping her gun inside.
Bartowski was already out of the car, running. She got out and caught up with him as he slowed.
They both tried to walk normally, but they were both panting, their breathing ragged.
They walked past the valet stand and into the huge doors of The Ritz-Carlton. Without thinking, she took his hand in hers. He gave her a look, then nodded, understanding. They walked into the lobby hand-in-hand. It was crowded but the crowd was not interested in them.
Bartowski headed for the elevator on the far side of the lobby. They got on. No one got on with them.
Bartowski pressed the button for the fifth floor.
When the doors closed, Sarah faced him. "For a minute, let me lead. When we get off the elevator, put your arm around me. Imagine you've picked me up. Feel me up. We're tipsy, eager to…you know. But on the wrong floor. Listen to what I say. Respond in character."
He stared at her. She knew he was thinking about the El Compadre.
"Okay."
The elevator opened, and she put her arms around him, kissed him, the two of them framed by the open doors.
She turned. A guard was standing in the hallway, three doors down. Chuck's lips felt mechanical against hers. She pulled back.
"Oh, Chucky, you weren't kidding. What a place! I can't wait to see the bed." She took his hand and, to his credit, he grinned at her, staring at her chest. She had forgotten; her blouse was still partially unbuttoned.
Good.
"Which room, Chucky? Hurry." She pulled him off the elevator and his arm went around her, his hand on her bottom, slipping it into one of her back pockets, cupping her. He bent and kissed her ear. "How do you like it?" he whispered. Gooseflesh was her answer but she hoped he could not tell that. "Wait, tiger! We can't give this fellow a show. Are you sure this is your floor?"
The guard was watching them, wary, but smiling to himself, his eyes on Sarah's visible cleavage.
"Did you say it was the last room? Are you sure this is your floor?" she asked, making sure her voice was breathy, full of promise.
"Yeah, let me find my keycard, the room number's on that little envelope…"
They reached the guard, passing him.
Sarah turned toward Bartowski — then kept turning, gaining speed. Her foot shot out and she brought her heel around, hammering the guard in the stomach. With a violent expulsion of breath, he doubled over.
She followed the kick with a heavy, fisted blow behind ear, and the man crumpled onto the floor.
Bartowski stood still, looking at the man, then at Sarah.
Shaking his head, Bartowski bent down, frisking the man.
"Got it!" He held up a keycard.
She snatched it from him and opened the door. The magnitude of what she was doing hit her as she did. If I'm wrong…
She swung the door open and stood aside. "We're in."
He ran past her. She dropped her purse, grabbed the guard's feet, and pulled him through the door. When she had him far enough inside, she retrieved her purse, shut the door and turned around. The room was shadowy, the only light coming through the windows.
She reached for the light switch.
"No!"
Bartowski was standing in the center of the palatial suite, his hand held up toward her, but turning slowly, examining the room, talking to himself beneath his breath. "No, don't turn on the light."
He stopped to glance at her. She felt stupid, off her game.
"Time?" he asked.
She looked at her watch. It was almost 11 pm. "10: 55." He nodded.
He started turning again, his eyes there and not there. Then he stopped.
An elegant, wheeled room service tray had been pushed against the wall. He crossed to it quickly. A bottle of champagne was on ice, the ice unmelted. The bucket was surrounded by plastic champagne flutes. A small card in a frame read: "Congratulations from the Ritz!" Her eyes had adjusted enough to read it.
Bartowski bent down, stuck his head under the tray. She heard a low whistle. "Jesus Christ, I was right…"
She crossed to the tray and squatted down, putting her purse on the floor. Bartowski had rolled over on his back and was staring up at the bottom of the tray. Sarah looked where he was looking.
She saw the bomb, a tangle of wires and explosives, a detonator, and an antenna. Small green lights glowed and blinked. "Holy shit."
Bartowski was still staring. He reached up, extending his arm, not touching the bomb but tracing out the paths of the wires, softly rattling off the colors, their positions
"Can you defuse it?" Bombs were far outside her wheelhouse.
He was still studying it, whispering to himself. "Um, yeah, theoretically. I repair electronics for my so-called living; I aced electrical engineering classes at Stanford. But, damn it, I fix things, I don't break them." He glanced at her and then back to the bomb. "I need to do this now. Someone's nearby, waiting for the General and his family, waiting for the lights to come on."
"Can you see well enough?"
"Yeah, yeah. There's more light than it seemed when we first came in. And the lights in the Buy More repair room flicker all the time. I'm used to squinting."
He laced his fingers together, turned his hands up toward the bomb, and cracked his knuckles. "Here goes nothing. — Time?"
"10: 58."
He paused. "You know I might kill us both. Save you some trouble, I guess. Last mission, but you'd retain your success rate," he said, glancing at her for a second, his eyes hard. He sounded like he was teasing but he wasn't. She nodded and could think of no response.
He touched the wires softly, studying them. She stood up, turned toward the ornate double doors leading out to the balcony.
She could see the blue moon hanging over the nearby city lights. Bartowski was talking to himself. "Red…right. White…right. Blue…right. Green…right. Okay, okay, okay, I know what to do." It sounded like he was persuading himself.
She bent back down, looked into his pale face, pale in the half-light or pale from fear. "How will we know it worked?"
He pursed his lips. "If we survive.."
He reached up, grabbed a green wire, exhaled slowly, then inhaled.
She expected him to pull the wire but he started humming The Killing Moon. At the moment she recognized the song, he yanked the wire.
"Huh, I'm still alive," he said needlessly but incredulously.
She dropped her face into her hands, letting her hips settle on her heels.
For a moment, the room was perfectly still.
And then Bartowski was up, standing. He was staring at the top of the tray, the card in the frame. "Do you see a pen, a pencil?"
Not fully understanding, Sarah stood, scanned the room. A pen rested on a Ritz-Carlton pad on the desk nearby. She pointed, "There!" In a moment, she had it in her hand and was back to him.
He picked up the frame and removed the card. He turned it around and reinserted it, then reached out for the pen. She handed it to him. He wrote, then scribbled for a second, and then placed the frame back on the tray. Sarah looked at it.
It read: "Bomb!" with a colored arrow pointing down.
"Time?"
"11 pm."
"C'mon!"
Bartowski ran toward the door. Sarah picked up her purse and followed him. He jumped the unconscious guard, then opened the door, peeking out.
"Clear. The stairs are on the opposite end from the elevator."
Sarah had seen that too as they approached the guard. They sprinted from the room and through the stairway door.
When they reached the first floor, a door led into the lobby, another led outside. Bartowski chose the one leading outside.
They emerged on the side of the building, ran across the street, then into the mouth of an alleyway. They both bent over, trying to catch their breath.
When Sarah's breathing was under control, she straightened up. She peered around the end of the alley, back toward the Ritz-Carlton. The motorcade was outside, the police motorcycles stopped, although their lights continued to flash. No one seemed to be exiting the limousines. Sarah assumed the General and his family were inside, on their way to the room, maybe already there. Safe.
We did it!
She turned, flushed with the danger, the exertion, their success. Bartowski stood close behind her, watching her, not looking at the hotel.
"It's later." His eyes smoldered with challenge.
It took her a second to understand.
"Explain what's going on."
They stared at each other.
"Bryce Larkin sent me a program, the Intersect. I don't know what it is, except to say that it must contain a massive cache of data, otherwise what just happened since you put a gun to my head could not have happened. I got the email — I thought it was for my birthday, yesterday was my birthday, happy birthday to me (he half-sang the phrase) — and I opened it. I told you all this.
"You put a gun to my head, Agent Walker. You were sent here to kill me and you were going to obey your orders. You seduced me. I hadn't realized spies were government prostitutes, but, you know," the poison was back, his words dripping it, "live and learn. You put your hands on me and it was a fucking lie.
"But here's the thing. If I were you, I'd be calling Langston Graham and asking for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Because, so help you God, you clearly weren't…read in…isn't that the term?
"Believe what I say, Agent. I can tell you anything you want to know from your CIA dossier as proof. — Do you want to hear a snippet from your latest psych evaluation? Let me call it up; I can read it to you."
"No!" Her voice echoed in the alleyway.
As it died away, an alarm began to sound. It was coming from inside the hotel. A moment later, sirens sounded in the distance. People on the street began hurrying toward the Ritz-Carlton, eager to see whatever they might see.
"You're right. I need to talk to Graham. We need to get out of here, now. Let's get back to the car."
She turned and started in the car's direction, hoping he would follow. She was in trackless territory now, unsure of anything about her mission, about Bartowski. But she believed him, even if she did not understand him.
They got away from the hotel.
Sarah was driving again. Chuck sat beside her, staring fixedly out the windshield.
After a brief heated exchange, they decided to go to his apartment. Ellie and Devon were away, taking advantage of UCLA's two-day Fall break.
They left LA around noon. Ellie had sent Chuck a text, but in all the madness of his day, he'd barely noticed it. It wasn't until Sarah suggested his apartment as a destination that he remembered Ellie and Devon were gone.
He knew Sarah wanted to go because she wanted to check his computer. But he already knew what they would find when she did: a hard drive absolutely and totally blank.
He knew because the code that accomplished it, a piece of coding so beautiful that it almost took his breath, came floating in front of his mind. His computer monitor had been black this morning because his computer was empty, zeroed out — a pencil that erased itself, sort of like that pencil at the end of Duck Amuck — was it Bugs Bunny's pencil?
How did that go?
My God, I can remember how to defuse a bomb I've never seen but can't remember a cartoon I love and watched over and over as a kid.
He felt punch drunk and more ancient than the pyramids. He looked at Agent Walker. He was in a car with a spy — a woman under orders to kill him who had a gun against his forehead, fully prepared to kill him.
But he knew this much. Knew it. He was now too valuable to kill. But what did it mean to be that valuable? He could feel the program inside him start on the answer, like bugs crawling in his head.
He forced himself to think about something else.
He thought about what he had just done, the bomb, the yanking of that wire, his bizarre conviction that he was right when it came time to do it — and his whole body trembled. He thought about the woman beside him and he seethed with rage.
The seduction was bad enough, violation and humiliation enough, but then there was the termination chaser, the little matter of a bullet to his brain. She was going to murder him.
He would find a way, it might take him weeks, months, or years, but he would find a way to even the score.
He was not a man who used the word 'hate' ever, well, except for anyone other than Bryce or Jill — and he wasn't entirely sure he actually hated either of them, despite his rich, layered, long-lived, and carefully curated anger toward them.
But Sarah Walker — now, he was sure about her. He hated her.
Just now, the hatred was overriding the fear, stamping it down, but he knew, deep down, he was terrified of her. He felt the gun against his head again, and saw her beautiful face become a death's head. He trembled.
The Intersect calculated probabilities and rendered a verdict: he was stuck with her, and her with him. For now. Shackled to each other.
He was living a twisted remake of The Defiant Ones.
Sarah looked at him from the side of her eyes, then clicked on the radio, adjusted the volume, and punched a button, scanning stations.
A station came on for a few seconds. Baby, don't fear the Reaper…
Sarah jumped, fumbled for the volume button when another station began. It was in the middle of a news report:
Breaking news. Police and firefighters have been called to the Ritz-Carlton, where alarms went off earlier in the evening. There does not seem to be a fire, and reports of what might have happened are sketchy, but some are suggesting it has something to do with an attack on General Stanfield, who is staying at the hotel, and who was honored earlier this evening…
She turned it off, looked at him sideways again. "News travels fast." She did not face him.
He nodded anyway. "Well, for once it's good news. I never imagined I'd play a role in any news, good or bad."
She glanced at him, then away from him, back to the street. "You did good tonight, Chuck. What you did was…impressive. You saved a man, an important man, his family."
Chuck looked out the passenger window, trying to ignore her use of his name.
The neighborhood was familiar; they were almost to his apartment. He did not want congratulations from her, he did not want her familiar with him.
They were not on a first-name basis, no matter where her hand had been.
He wanted her far from him, wanted worlds separating them, galaxies.
Chuck showed her where to park the car and they got out without further conversation. He led her to the door and opened it.
He knew he had been in the apartment that morning but when he entered, it seemed unfamiliar, smaller than it had when he and Morgan left it.
He clicked on the living room lamp, turned. She was still standing outside, waiting. "Like a vampire, you have to be invited to enter?"
"Just trying to be polite."
Chuck barked a harsh laugh. "Wow, could there be a better illustration of too little, too late? Come in Agent Darla."
She stepped inside, shutting the door. "Who's Darla?"
"You've never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the first episode?"
She shot him a mistrustful smirk. "Is that a real show, or are you just fucking with me?"
"With you, Agent, never. Besides, I'm under the impression that you have no sense of humor, that you're as funny as a grave, you know, as you, — whoever the hell you really are."
She did not say anything in response, she just looked around the room. But Chuck noticed her hands were shaking. She crossed her arms to hide it.
"Where's your computer? We should check it before I call Graham."
"Fine. It's in my room." He started down the hallway. He opened his bedroom door and went inside. Sarah followed. Chuck reached out to flick the light switch.
"No!" A deep voice spoke from the darkness of the room. "If it isn't the CIA skirt and the pussy. I've been waiting for one or both of you to show up. No particular surprise you are together. I have a gun on you and I'll shoot you both and then go and happily raid the refrigerator. This place smells like someone in it can cook."
Chuck slowly reached out and clicked the switch slowly. The light came on.
A hulking man chomping an unlit cigar sat squeezed in Chuck's desk chair. The hulk's suit fit him as if he'd stolen it from a smaller man, after beating the smaller man to death while the smaller man was still wearing it. Chuck's desk chair had been pulled all the way to the far side of the room. The hulk's huge hand held a huge gun. It looked like Jack Kirby had drawn it, and then it had been manufactured from leftover Panzer parts.
Chuck's head suddenly filled with visions, visions so soaked in blood and littered with body parts they seemed like stills from a B horror movie. The Intersect spit out a subtitle: The Punisher.
Chuck's stomach dropped as his hands went up.
"Casey," Chuck heard Sarah say, a razor's edge in her tone, and he turned his head to look at her. A terrible menace filled her eyes. Chuck gulped.
Casey chuckled. "Walker. Still spreading 'em wide in honor of Old Glory?"
A/N: More in a few days. Chapter Five: Frenemies. Drop me a line to keep me inspired? (Thanks to Smatterchoo and WvonB for passing eyes over chapters.)
