A/N These Ring guys aren't very nice, are they?
"Home sweet home."
"Could've been worse."
"That's certainly incentive."
"It would be appropriate."
One fine Russian evening...
"So how was your day?" asked Frost. Alexei, concerned for the integrity of his computer system, had sent his two ladies to dinner without him, with the admonition to at least try to be civil to one another.
"It was fun," said Rebecca, putting on the coat that he'd gotten for her, and the hat. Fur-lined, of course, but not black. "Alexei took me out for ice cream."
Frost brushed a hand over the new outerwear, checking for bugs. "Before or after he took you to the murder museum?"
"After, of course. We had to work up an appetite."
Nothing squealed an alarm. "Do you have a heart engraved with 'Rebecca' on that bracelet?"
Sarah reached into one sleeve. "No. Why would you think that?"
"Just checking."
"My father used to take me out for ice cream after a successful job, and he was a con artist," said Sarah, sounding unhappy. "Probably still is, if he's not in prison somewhere. Don't worry about me, Frost. I'll be fine."
The Lofford School for Girls...
Mister Bob left the enrollment counselor in her office, not envying her the headache she was destined to feel when she tried to remember the last many minutes. The tour through the school had lasted longer than a twilight dart could erase, so he had to use a different mix. The subject could still remember memories linked to the trigger image, but the side effects of any such attempt ensured that they wouldn't want to. While he had her out he pulled all the files on their recent enrollee, photographing everything and putting it all back as if he'd never been there. She wouldn't be able to remember him, and with time and steady effort would eventually forget him entirely, to her own intense relief.
The Buy More, as if you couldn't tell...
"And that's the tour," said Jeff, winding up with the latest Buy More employee in the same place where they'd started. She wasn't much of a talker. During the entire tour he'd seen her eyes and head moving, scanning rooms, even ceilings, but she said nothing. She was even interested in that draft in storage closet two, although Jeff very much doubted that she smoked. "Any questions?"
"Yes, sir," she said. "What's the largest size tape measure this store carries?"
Jeff blinked. For a second he wondered if this was some sort of reverse pop-quiz, that this woman Greta was some sort of corporate plant, out to trip him up. Then he remembered that he actually knew what the largest tape measure they carried was, and as his panic faded he could tell that she was just waiting for an answer. No treachery involved, except for that scheme of Lester's where he found out how large the biggest tape measure was. "The largest is twenty-five feet, but we don't carry many of those. This is mostly a home-goods store."
She ignored everything after twenty-five, looking at the ceiling and scanning the store from side to side. "I need bigger." She turned and walked out the door, moving in the general direction of the Large Mart across the mall.
Lester sidled up close behind Jeff. "I see the new hire already fits right in."
"Looks that way, and about time, too," said Jeff. "She was acting pretty weird for a while there." He turned away and walked over to the Nerd Herd station, his home away from home until Chuck came in. Whenever that would be.
At an unnamed and recently discovered Ring lab...
"Everybody's dead. Should be safe enough." Casey pulled out his phone. "Okay, you can bring him in now." Once he got his confirmation he turned to Yellow One. "I'd like to thank you and your team for stepping up. Give my thanks to Miss Verbanski as well. At this point we're heading into seriously classified territory, so I'm releasing you from my service."
Yellow One knew who and this man was to his boss. "Are you sure about that, Colonel? We haven't swept the entire building..."
"And you're not going to," said Casey. "Your concern for my well-being is appreciated, but I have three of the best people I know coming in right now, and you have to be gone before they get here."
"Grimes and McHugh," said Yellow One, aware that they'd been given clearance to use the Colonel's own car to return the civilians to their home base. "Who's the third?"
"That's the seriously classified part. Safe travels, Lead."
"Yellow Team!" Everyone who wasn't dead saluted.
Casey returned it. "Gentlemen, it's been an honor serving with you, however briefly. You are a credit to your profession and your training, and I will so report to Miss Verbanski." Not one of them smiled. Excellent.
As Yellow team left the premises Casey saw a car, his car, with Grimes and Alex-He amended that to Private McHugh, mainly because the combination of 'Alex' and 'Grimes' in the same sentence made him ill. Behind them sat Chuck, properly masked for the circumstances, if not the environment. Yellow Team saw them too, and double-timed it out of there.
When the back of the truck had disappeared around the first corner, Alex drove the car up to the front door and they all piled out. Casey looked them over, but they seemed fit for duty. "Inside."
The inside of the building reeked, and Casey saw Grimes swallow hard. "Not like Call of Duty, is it, Grimes?"
"No, sir."
"McHugh?"
"Sir."
"On your first real action, you get one free pass," said Casey sternly, as Gertrude probably would have as well. He considered himself her agent in this regard. "Yellow Six booted, but he had better cause, so I don't want to hear about it."
Chuck raised his hand. "Uh, Casey...?"
"You're a civilian, Chuck, you're expected to puke."
"Not that. Can I take this hood off now?"
"Have you checked this place for bugs yet?"
"No."
"Well, there's your answer."
Chuck pulled out his phone and a tablet, and linked them up, running one of his custom programs. "Anything?" asked Casey.
"I see something in the upper corner, behind you and to your left."
Casey turned drew and fired in one motion, his pistol back in its holster before Chuck was even aware he'd drawn it. "Anything now?"
"Uh, nope. Nope, we're clear." Chuck dragged the hood off his head. "Getting all sweaty in this thing. I just hope my curls recover before Sarah gets back."
"Don't worry your delicate little self about it, Bartowski," said Casey. "Just go stick your head in a bucket of water for a ten-count, should fix you right up."
"Thanks, Casey. I know I can always count on you for concerned practical advice." Chuck looked around, at the mangled equipment and body parts. "I guess they didn't like this one."
"Must have been in a bit of a hurry," said Casey. "It wasn't even rigged to self-destruct with us inside it. That's what I would have done. Okay, sweepers are on the way. Alex, the usual drill for us, papers and portable intel. Grimes and Bartowski, the electronics. Let us know what can be done here and what needs a lab. And be careful. If anybody sets off any explosive devices accidentally I will be very annoyed and so will Gertrude, so don't do it."
Russia again...
"So what happened?" asked Sarah, as she and Frost toured the estate after dinner.
"It was my fault," said Frost. "I gave Alexei the idea to stagger the guard rotations. He came up with the idea of doing the same to his own office password. When your agent used the device I gave her last night it advanced the code."
"So Volkoff would know someone had gotten into his office." Sarah sighed. "It's not your fault. You got the idea from me, I got it from Chuck, and he got it from Morgan. I don't know where he got it from."
"Morgan Grimes beat me?"
Sarah kept her grin to a minimum. "What can I say, working for Verbanski has been good for him. If he thought of it, it's no surprise Volkoff did too." The smile faded. "We need to get Zondra away from here. Volkoff will go looking, and if he finds her he'll find me."
"All the sensors we placed in the lab were found and neutralized. One visual monitor was overlooked initially, but the unknown agent located it and Casey destroyed it."
"This unknown agent, was that Bartowski?"
"Unknown. Height suggests it is, but he was wearing a mask. In any event this opportunity caught us unprepared to exploit it. In that regard, Agent G has secured a position in the Burbank Buy More," said B. "She's beginning her reconnaissance of the building, already mapped the outside in fact, but her efforts inside are being hampered by the staff there. At least one of them is following her at all times. The store has a highly developed internal security system."
"None of our agents noticed such a thing, when they did their reconnaissance runs," said C.
"It's not electronic," said B. Their sensors wouldn't have picked it up. "It's a system of mirrors that allows anyone at the central position to see every corridor, every aisle. She was impressed."
"Can she-?" said E.
"No," said A, knowing what E was about to ask. "Eliminating any of the civilians is out of the question. Some of them could be agents under cover. Even one in place would ruin everything."
"At one point her manager took a break and tasked her with monitoring from the center position herself," said B, struggling to keep his report on a professional level. "She was told to keep an eye on a particular individual, one of her coworkers. He proved remarkably adept at evading her surveillance, but the manager praised her report when he returned, called her a natural."
"It was a trap," said E.
"A deep-cover agent of some kind?" asked C. The manager would be his handler, obviously.
"Unclear at this time, but unlikely," said B. "He claimed to be both Canadian, and a Hindu."
"Do we have anyone in the Canadian Intelligence Service who could verify?"
"We can certainly reach out in that direction if this interference persists," said A, "But for now let Agent G handle such matters as she needs to on site. She should be able to handle one Canadian agent, if that's what he is. Bring no more attention to herself than she has already."
"Sir." B's tone hinted at stacks of Buy More staff bodies stacked like cordwood in some closet.
"Now you're sounding like E," said A.
"If she kills them all," said C, "Every customer in the place would just come asking her for help, and she's too professional to break cover."
An agent trapped by her own professionalism into serving at a Buy More? "Understood. She will deal with it as best she can. No bodies."
"Moving on to the child," said A. "What's the status of that operation, C?"
"Initial contact has been made. Her address and other personal information has been obtained. Her school doesn't bus, so we have agents watching the pickup site as well as the house. Further actions will be taken as opportunities present themselves."
On the way back from the Ring lab...
"Okay, Bartowski," said Casey, now that his car was free of Morgan's and Alex' ears. "What's your take on that shit-show back there?"
"Is that what that smell was?" said Chuck grumpily. He'd gotten a bit of sleep in the back seat himself on the way up, but his body was still reminding him that this was its down-time. "And did you have to put all the bodies in the most important room in the building?"
"How were they supposed to know that?" asked Casey, defending his soldierly brethren, and himself, because it was his idea. "It was empty."
"Because whatever was in there was what the Ring wanted." Chuck let it go, in favor of tech. "Did you see that power supply? What could they have made that took that much power?"
"Nope, no power supply," said Casey. "I was too busy gathering up papers, disks, and diamonds."
Papers and disks Chuck could understand, but his mind tripped and fell over the last item on the list. "Real diamonds?" He'd never seen a real diamond, and that reminded him. He needed to get a proper engagement ring for Sarah.
"Nah, just glass. Mostly drilled into. Found a big box of them in the back."
"Why would they they destroy glass diamonds?"
"Why wouldn't they? The stupid part was keeping them around afterward. Some idiot must have thought they were pretty when they should have been buried in a landfill somewhere."
"Stranger things, Casey, stranger things." Chuck yawned. "They didn't destroy anything they should have, except the technicians. They killed all of them, and left the computers alone."
"Probably figured it's easier to get people to talk than computers."
"Not for me."
Casey thought about that a while. "That's true, isn't it?"
A/N2 I hope you'll tell me what you think because this is really hard and it's nice to hear.