Chapter 30: The French Connection Part 2

California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 4th, 2008

Chuck saw a body - another government assassination. No, a murder! That was Dubois's superior. File after file went past his field of vision. An internal investigation. Suspicion of corruption. Of Dubois. Another body - the investigator of the case. Both killed with a bullet to the head. Dubois's style. Who was listed as "missing in action" in the French files. As was...

He shook his head, blinking. "Dubois's gone rogue," he blurted out. "And she's working with Besson."

Sarah calmly nodded, but Chuck noticed how her lips had thinned - she wasn't happy.

"So the question is: Who are they working for?" Chuck went on. "The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure was suspecting drug cartel interference with some of their Caribbean operations, but that doesn't tell us much, does it?"

"She could be working for Gonzàlez, investigating a business partner - or prospective business partner - of his. If Fankhauser is laundering Gonzàlez's money, then that would be a good reason to keep an assassin near the banker," she said.

"Unless she was framed and trying to bring him down," Chuck said.

Sarah didn't look convinced. "If she's working with Besson, then they could have killed Gonzalez easily."

"Unless they want proof to bring him down."

Well, she didn't laugh out loud, but she looked even more sceptical. "She's an assassin. Why would she bother with that?"

"To clear her name?" Chuck shrugged a little.

"You've seen the files. Do you think she's innocent and was framed?" Sarah asked.

"Well…" If she had been, then someone had made a lot of effort to frame her. The files did look very convincing.

"It probably would've been easier to kill her, instead of framing her and letting her live to get revenge if that were the case," she commented. "And people like Gonzàlez aren't in the habit of letting enemies live - or witnesses."

Chuck winced a little at the reminder that their jovial neighbour was a cold-blooded killer and drug lord. "So, it's more likely that she's working for Gonzàlez?"

"Yes. And that is a problem," Sarah told him. "If he's taken her into confidence, then she'll be aware that he wasn't interested in you. And that will point directly at you."

That would be a very bad thing. "But would she know about our cover story?" he asked. "The CIA would squash the story, wouldn't it?" The agency wouldn't want anyone to take a closer look at their Intersect, including the police.

"It should," Sarah admitted. "But the CIA isn't perfect. And we will have to leave enough evidence to fool the agency - which means that if Dubois investigates herself, she might get ahold of some clues. At least, if she's quick enough."

"Ah." He winced again as he understood what she was talking about. "That kind of problem." The sort of problem Casey liked to solve with violence. He took a deep breath. "But if she's a framed spy herself…"

"We don't know that. As I said, it's unlikely if she's working with Besson," Sarah replied.

"But what if she is, and being a double-agent for herself? Using Besson to get close to Gonzàlez?" Chuck pointed out. They couldn't kill someone who might be innocent just to be safe, could they? Well, relatively innocent - Dubois had killed a number of people for the DGSE, after all.

Sarah hesitated a moment, and Chuck held his breath. Was she about to suggest...

"I think we need to discuss it with your father," she said.

"Oh." He blinked. "Uh, sure."

The smart thing - the spy thing - would be to simply get rid of Dubois. And Besson, of course. Either would make a good scapegoat - whether they were spies, double-agents or criminals, a shootout that left Gonzàlez dead and them missing would fit almost every possibility. Undercover missions, especially long-term ones, did carry the risk of a spy turning coat. Sarah was glad she had never undertaken such a mission. Which was probably because of her background - she knew some people, likely including the general, were suspicious of her loyalty due to her past.

That, ironically, hadn't influenced her plans to quit the agency and join the Council at all, though no one would believe that.

She shook her head as she set a pot of water on the stove. They'd have pasta for dinner, with a nice cheese sauce. Parmigiano e mascarpone.

She sighed. Yes, the spy thing would be to kill Dubois. But it wouldn't be the Chuck thing. Or the Council thing. They would have to investigate the French woman and find out what she was doing in Los Angeles, and for whom.

At least the mess would force Orion to show his true colours - how far was he willing to go to return to his family?

Sarah was curious to find out. And dreaded the effect on Chuck if the answer to her question would be 'too far'.

But they, especially Chuck, had to know.

Dad arrived shortly before midnight. He must be staying in the city, then, Chuck concluded. Or at least in the suburbs. Traffic wouldn't have been bad at this time, so that widened the potential distance he could have covered, but if he delayed his arrival deliberately… Chuck blinked. Was he actually expecting his Dad to take such steps to fool them? Well, Dad hadn't told them where he was staying so they couldn't be forced to reveal his location, and he was hunted by the CIA and NSA, but still… Chuck shook his head as the doorbell rang.

"Having second thoughts about asking Daddy?" Casey, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, asked.

Chuck rolled his eyes. The NSA agent had made his opinion of how this problem should be dealt with clear. Very clear. "Just a thought," he said as he went to open the door.

Casey grunted something Chuck didn't manage to understand. Not that he cared. Not really.

He checked the cameras covering the door - both the one that had come with the apartment and the one they had installed afterwards. That was Dad, and he was alone.

"Chuck. We need to stop meeting like this." Dad flashed him a wry smile.

"Like this?" Chuck cocked his head.

"In the middle of the night. I'm sure you've got better things to do."

"Uh, yes," Chuck managed to say. "We're in the living room," he added - pointlessly since it was obvious.

"Good evening, everyone."

"Hello."

"Evening."

Chuck followed his Dad in and took his seat on the couch, next to Sarah.

"So… I ran a few searches on the way here," Dad began as soon as he had taken a seat as well. "Unfortunately, they were inconclusive. My available sources didn't know anything about Dubois or Besson that Chuck didn't cover already. That leaves us with a problem."

"And an easy solution," Casey spat from his spot at the wall.

Dad winced at that. "I would rather not have an innocent life on my conscience."

"She's a spy - she's hardly innocent," Casey retorted. "She's murdered people before."

"Everyone here did, I think," Chuck pointed out. "She is, or was, a government spy."

"A French spy," Casey said with a sneer. "Running an operation on American soil. If she's still working for the DGSE, she would've known the risk." He nodded at Sarah. "Walker's killed a few of their spies before."

Chuck winced even as Sarah cooly replied: "That was part of my mission."

"And this is our mission. Sucks to be a Frenchie."

Chuck wondered - not out loud, of course - if Casey had issues with the French. "But that doesn't mean we have to kill them."

"Exactly," Dad agreed - although, perhaps, a little late. "But it does mean we need to find out what they are doing in Los Angeles."

"Even if they're here because they're also after Gonzàlez, they are a threat to our mission. We don't know what they know, and so we can't anticipate their reaction to our plan." Casey scoffed. "And if we make them tell us, they'll know too much. Better just neutralise them."

"That would have to happen at the same time as our mission, though," Sarah pointed out, "or either Dubois or Gonzàlez will be alerted."

"A small challenge with the right preparations," Casey replied.

"Uh, guys," Chuck spoke up. "Can we take, like, a step back and go over whether or not we have to kill them again before we start sorting out the logistics? Because I don't think we agreed on killing them." He didn't wince at Casey's glare and didn't look at Sarah as he spoke.

"Well, even if we manage to hack into the French servers," Dad said, "there might not be any information if this is a black op."

"If this is a black op, then we've got grounds to kill them for running a hostile operation on our soil," Casey replied.

"Whoa, whoa!" Chuck shook his head. "We've been pulling stuff like that."

"And if we get caught, we can expect a bullet to the back," Casey said, baring his teeth. "Afraid, Bartowski?"

"No," Chuck replied out of reflex. It wasn't a lie - he hadn't considered this before, so he hadn't known to be afraid. And once they were working for the Council, it would be different anyway. "Just mentioning that, well…" He shrugged. "It doesn't feel right killing what might be people planning to do the same we do."

"So we need to find out what they are planning," Dad said. "Preferably without asking our prospective employers for help, I think."

"Won't impress them if we can't handle a simple problem," Casey said.

"It won't impress the Council if we kill innocents, either," Chuck retorted.

"They're not innocents," the NSA agent repeated.

"It seems we're stuck, then," Dad commented.

Chuck wet his lips. They couldn't just kill the French. But they couldn't just call Willow for help, either. That would… well, they were supposed to solve spy problems for the Council, weren't they? Not create more spy problems. He blinked, "Guys! I have an idea!"

California, Los Angeles, Hollywood, February 5th, 2008

Chuck adjusted the baseball cap proclaiming him to be an employee of Comcast so it would hide his face from the security camera and approached the desk. The fake moustache itched almost as badly as the slightly too much starched overall he was wearing, but both served to disguise him further, so he had to bear it. I had been his idea, anyway, and he was the one with the skills to pull this off. Well, apart from Dad, who was a little too old to play a cable guy.

Although, in hindsight, Chuck had to admit, his idea wasn't anything special. But, at least, 'let's put Dubois under surveillance and find out what she's planning' had been acceptable enough as a solution for everyone. The least common denominator. Or, perhaps more accurate, the least evil from everyone's point of view.

"Hello," he greeted the clerk at the desk, banishing the idle thoughts. He was on a mission now. "I was told you had trouble with your Internet connection?"

"Oh, yes!" The woman nodded, seemingly relieved. "An entire floor has technical troubles."

She must have been swamped with complaints - the kind of people leasing high-end condos such as these weren't the kind of people to take any outages lightly or to understand that it wasn't the fault of the person manning the desk in the lobby. Chuck felt a little guilty; Dad had hacked Comcast to arrange this.

"Ah, yes. Looks like a local problem. Probably a faulty wire. You don't have a rat or mouse problem, do you? The little critters love to chew on wires." Chuck did his best to sound almost-bored.

"What? No!" She shook her head rather emphatically.

"Well, we'll see." He shrugged. "Can you show me to the routers?"

"Yes. Please follow me. They're in the basement."

"Where else would they be?" He chuckled at his not-joke as he followed the woman to the staircase. A little later, he was wondering why the building wasn't suffering service outages far more often - the electronics were in an appalling state!

He gladly told the woman so, and she quickly claimed that she had to return to the desk, leaving him alone. And without a camera covering him, as he confirmed. Perfect.

He ignored the 'faulty box' handling the affected floor - it was working perfectly fine after all; Dad had cut the service at the main hub and could easily restore it once Chuck gave the word. Instead, Chuck focused on the box handling the intercom.

Dubois was an experienced spy, but he doubted that she was regularly checking the building's electronic hubs to avoid her intercom's microphone being turned into a surveillance device. Without even being near her apartment, too. It seemed that sometimes, the penny-pinching of various firms by using substandard and not perfectly safe components and systems came in very handy for a spy,

Between Dad's hacking of the lines at Comcast and this little trick, they should soon know what Dubois was planning.

California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 6th, 2008

Another mission during a mission. And barely two days after the game night incident, which should count as a separate mission by itself, in Sarah's opinion. Chuck had managed to settle the dispute about how to deal with Dubois - and mostly in his favour - but it certainly made for more work.

At least her own part was rather simple - she'd done that kind of job before. And as usual, the waiting was the hard part. And the most dangerous - she couldn't just wait in the car. That would look suspicious to even the most cursory investigation. Which meant she needed an early warning system, as Chuck would have called it, so she could get the timing right.

Of course, Orion had been happy to help, handling the electronic surveillance of Fankhauser's office. So she could sit in the latest Starbucks and fake texting as a cover for checking the alert from Orion while she waited. And trying to ignore the inserts inside her mouth that made her face look rounder while she drank her overpriced latte macchiato. Just another tourist, slightly pudgy, going for the familiar brand rather than trying something local.

Just how much overtime was Fankhauser planning to pull today? How much more than usual, to be exact - thanks to Orion, they knew his working hours for the last six months.

Finally, the expected alert appeared on her phone. Fankhauser had logged out and was on the move. She put a smile on her face, quickly finished her coffee, and left the café.

Sarah reached the rented car before Fankhauser appeared in the parking lot. Just as planned. By the time he was walking towards his sports car, she was already moving in her SUV. Now to sell the act… She pulled her phone out as she took the corner and came up behind the walking banker and lined up her car.

Then she 'slipped' and pushed the gas. Fankhauser had time to turn so she saw his shocked face the moment before she hit him, sending him to the ground with at least a broken leg.

She stopped, stared at him with a fake gasp, phone still pressed against her ear, then drove away.

Just a tourist using a phone while driving, hitting a pedestrian and panicking. She doubted that the LAPD would even bother trying to track her fake ID in Brazil. Dubois would, probably - but they were prepared for that.

As Casey and Orion were prepared to track Fankhauser to the hospital.

California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 6th, 2008

"Any change?"

Chuck looked up from his laptop and bit back the 'I'd have told you already' remark. Casey wasn't the most easy-going guy on a good day, and during a mission, he was worse. "No. Dubois hasn't contacted anyone yet." As far as Chuck could tell. "But she was informed about Fankhauser's accident."

"No checks, either?" Sarah had finished her shower and returned to the living room as well.

"None," Chuck replied.

"She's probably waiting until she knows how bad his wounds are." Sarah disappeared into the bedroom.

"Should've just killed the crook," Casey grumbled. "That'd either push her to action or make her pull out, depending on what her goal was."

Chuck had to refrain from commenting once more. Casey was as bloodthirsty as a Slayer, sometimes. Often, actually - no wonder Caridad was still carrying a torch for him. Or something. "Uh, so… its phase two," he said instead. Which was a nice, clean way for saying 'let's put the guy into a coma'.

"Should've just kidnapped him. He should know a lot about various groups thanks to his money laundering business," Casey said.

He really seemed to have some issues with Chuck's 'don't just kill or vanish people to be safe' plan. "Him slipping into a coma that appears to be long term should be enough to get a reaction out of Dubois," Chuck defended his plan. Even though that part hadn't been his idea, actually, nor the whole 'hurt Fankhauser to force a reaction' - but everyone else had agreed that they couldn't just wait for Dubois to slip up.

"Let's hope so," Casey told him with a sneer. "And let's hope there's a mistake, and the coma really becomes irreversible."

"Uh… I can't help noticing a certain amount of hostility here," Chuck said.

"No shit, Sherlock." The man sneered at him. "Without scum like him laundering money, criminals, terrorists and corrupt officials would have a much harder time with finances."

"Ah." That made sense. Some. Casey still appeared rather bloodthirsty, to Chuck at least.

"So, let's go. Fankhauser won't be putting himself into a coma." The agent stood up.

"Well, he made a good effort at the Superbowl party," Chuck pointed out, "he must have drunk an entire bottle of Gonzàlez's finest himself."

"Not everyone's a lightweight, Bartowski. Some people can hold their liquor."

Chuck's comeback - which he would have thought of any second - was interrupted by Sarah returning to the living room. "Let's go. We need to have this done before Fankhauser wakes up after surgery."

"Alright. I'll be here, checking Dubois's communications," Chuck told the two spies as they left.

"You do that, Bartowski."

"I'm headed to the nurse station."

That was Sarah disguised as a nurse. A real nurse, not a sexy Halloween costume. She still looked sexy, of course.

"I've got eyes on Dubois. She's still in the waiting room."

And Casey. So, Fankhauser was still recovering from his surgery, and a mere girlfriend wasn't allowed to visit yet. Things were proceeding according to plan, then, judging by what Chuck heard over the radio.

Chuck checked the feeds from the cameras covering Gonzàlez's apartment - no change there - and Dubois's communication before he leaned back and sighed. He didn't like to be mission control, overwatch or whatever you called the guys who stayed safely at home while other spies risked their lives. Especially if it was his plan, so his responsibility. Or something.

But someone had to do it, apparently. And Chuck had drawn the short straw. Or been picked by Casey and Sarah.

He closed his eyes and sighed again - after checking that the microphone was off. Wouldn't do to repeat that mistake; it had been embarrassing enough when he had done it in that HALO match...

A beep interrupted his thoughts. A Skype call? On this computer? Who would… Oh. No identity. Of course. He accepted the call, without using the camera, of course. "Hi."

"Hi." It was his Dad, as expected. At least Chuck's father hadn't just turned the camera on made him accept the call - Chuck really needed to step up his IT game. So to speak. "Are you busy?"

Dad knew what they were doing, so why would he ask? Ah. "Just staring at a screen," Chuck said. And being bored, he didn't say.

"Mind a visit?"

Chuck sat straighter. Something had to come up, then. Dad hadn't used any code words to indicate he was under duress, but that didn't have to mean everything was fine. "Sure, if you're in the area."

"Alright."

The call ended, and a minute later, the doorbell rang.

Chuck went through the usual checks before opening the door, of course, but it was Dad.

"What's up, Dad?" he asked once they were back in the living room.

"I thought I'd visit," his father answered. "I know it's not easy watching a computer while others risk their lives on your orders."

"Oh?" Chuck blinked.

His father chuckled in response. "I've needed help on occasion, to keep ahead of the CIA. Hired help, and I've never met them face to face, but I know the feeling."

"Ah." Chuck nodded. That made sense. "And so you came to give me a pep talk?" That was both nice and kind of annoying.

"I can give you one if you want one." Dad took a deep breath. "But I came to talk about something else. Us."

Oh. "Us." Chuck sat down again - he had to keep an eye on the computer, and the radio, didn't he? They were on a mission. Anything could go wrong.

"Yes, us," Dad said, taking a seat on the couch. "You, me, Ellie. My future son-in-law, probably too."

"Captain Awesome."

Dad had a brief chuckle at that. "He seems to be an impressive young man."

Chuck didn't frown. He wasn't jealous. He might not be a surgeon, top athlete and perfect boyfriend, but he was a high-level CIA asset. Currently running a mission to fool the CIA, but that was a technicality. And he had helped save the world, or at least a city, on several occasions. Really.

"You're an impressive young man as well, Son," Dad went on.

"Thanks," Chuck replied in a flat voice, checking the feeds on his laptop. Everything seemed to be going well, though - Sarah was on the way to Fankhauser's room, and Dubois hadn't moved from the lobby, yet.

"I mean it, Chuck."

"I know." But the way Dad said it… it grated. He kept his eyes on the screen. That was what a professional spy would do, right?

"I'm sorry about leaving you and Ellie."

Chuck almost said 'I know' again. "You had your reasons."

"I might have found another way to protect you, instead of leaving you on a Hellmouth."

"You didn't know about that." Chuck held up a hand before Dad could reply, grabbing the headphones with the other.

"I'm on the stairs," Sarah reported.

"Dubois is still not moving," Casey added.

Chuck hit a few keys, switching the cameras covering Fankhauser's room and the hallway leading to it to pre-recorded loops so Sarah wouldn't appear on them. Just in case there would be an investigation. A click had the real feed appear in separate windows on his screen. He really needed a bigger laptop for such missions.

There was Sarah, walking at a brisk but not overly hurried pace towards the target's room. Dubois was still staying put.

"She knows what she is doing," Dad said,

Chuck ignored him. Sarah was a veteran spy, but something could still go wrong. He wet his lips as she entered the room, closed the door and approached the still unconscious banker in the bed. He checked the other cameras when she pulled the syringe out - just in case trouble was brewing.

"Done," Sarah reported.

As soon as she had left the room, Chuck switched the loop off. Same for the hallway once she was on the stairs. A few minutes later, she was at the backdoor, her nurse clothes hidden under a long coat - just when Fankhauser's medical monitors were going off.

"I've left the building," she reported.

Chuck sighed. Mission accomplished.

"She's good," Dad said.

Chuck looked at him. "You don't have to praise us to talk to me."

Dad chuckled again, but it sounded a little forced. Well, Chuck had let some of his anger at having been left seep into his tone. "I've got over a decade to make up for."

"Don't try too hard," Chuck replied, turning to face him after Casey had withdrawn. "I'm not a teenager any more. And neither is Ellie."

Dad sighed again. "Ellie…"

So that was what this was about. "She won't be happy with you."

His father winced. "I know that. She was always a rather headstrong girl."

"Yes. And having to raise me didn't help," Chuck pointed out. He felt satisfaction at seeing his father wincing again, followed by shame. He should be better than that. "She didn't like that I kept my CIA career a secret from her."

"But did she understand?"

Chuck sighed. "She accepted it. But she doesn't like our plans to work for the Council. She wants to keep me safe."

"I can understand that." Dad smiled, though more wistfully.

"Well, I'm not a kid any more," Chuck retorted before realising that that made him sound like a teenager. "I like to keep her safe, and that means stepping up when a demon wants to destroy the world or the city."

Dad nodded. "She's like her mother."

Now it was Chuck's turn to wince. "Mom…" He sighed. "She didn't go underground like you."

"No, she didn't. I would have known."

Chuck sighed again.

"Do you think Ellie will forgive me?"

"Yes. Eventually."

"Before or after the wedding?"

"Probably before the wedding. You'll be expected to do your part," Chuck told him. Like with her Christmas party, Ellie liked for things to go according to plan.

"I haven't even met her fiancé yet."

"You will," Chuck told him. Although whether that would be after or while Ellie spent a few hours telling Dad off, Chuck couldn't say.

"Can you… sound her out?"

"You mean putting in a good word for you?" Chuck asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes."

His Dad had no shame. Chuck sighed. "I'll do my best."

He could hardly do less for his family. Even if this was, mostly, Dad's own fault.

Mostly.

Sarah was smiling when she approached their temporary home. Her nurse uniform wasn't a 'sexy costume' but it certainly did look well enough for some sexy roleplay, or at least heavy flirting. Chuck's imagination would do the rest, and he would likely be charmingly flustered… With Casey on the way back to Echo Park, they would have ample time, too.

Then she opened the door, and her fantasy died.

"Hello, Sarah."

"Uh, hi!"

She was getting really tired of unexpectedly meeting Chuck's father. "Hello," she greeted them with a nod, then narrowed her eyes at Chuck when she walked past him to the bedroom. He cringed, and with good reason. He should have warned her.

Once in the bedroom, she quickly changed out of her nurse uniform and slipped into a shirt and jeans, then rejoined the Bartowskis in the living room. "Any reaction by Dubois?" she asked, not expecting a positive answer - it was too soon.

"Nothing yet," Chuck told her. "But she's still at the hospital."

"Playing her role," Sarah said, nodding. "And Besson will be informed through Gonzàlez." The drug lord was a friend of Fankhauser, after all.

"And we'll observe his reaction - if there's any," Orion agreed.

But they'd have to tail the man for that if he used a dead drop or otherwise avoided electronic communication. And with Casey running interference at home, that left Sarah - neither Orion nor Chuck were experienced enough to tail a trained spy. Not without getting spotted.

She looked over Chuck's shoulder at the laptop's screen. No change so far - Dubois had left the lounge and was now in some sort of waiting area.

"The computers won't report the substance you injected him with," Orion told her, unnecessarily - she was well aware of that. Otherwise, the whole mission wouldn't have made any sense.

She leaned forward a little, pointing at the screen while putting her free hand on Chuck's shoulder, and could feel him take a surprised, deeper breath. "Can you switch to Fankhauser's room?"

"Uh, sure."

"Thank you." The doctors inside the room didn't look too concerned. They were merely watching the readouts and files, or so it seemed. Waiting for the blood analysis, Sarah thought. Dubois wouldn't do anything until she knew the diagnosis. "I'll take a nap so I can relieve you later," she told Chuck, nodded at Orion, and went back to the bedroom.

Chuck watched Sarah disappear in the bedroom and winced again. She wasn't happy about Dad's presence. Well, that wasn't his fault - he couldn't very well kick his father out, could he? Especially not on a mission run by him.

But he probably should've notified her in advance. Sighing, he looked back at the screen. No change so far with either Dubois or Besson.

"It'll take a while for the doctors to diagnose what we did," Dad told him.

"I know." That didn't make it any easier to wait, though. It was getting late, too.

"Also, I'm sorry for, ah, interrupting your private time once more," Dad added.

Oh. "We're on a mission," Chuck told him. And hoped that he wasn't blushing too much.

"Of course."

Nope, he hadn't managed it. Chuck pressed his lips together. He was very glad that Dad was back - and working on staying with them for good - but Chuck could do without feeling like a flustered teenager. Time to change the subject. "So, what exploit did you use to hack the hospital's analysis machines?" Those were generally very well protected to prevent the exact thing they had just done.

"Oh, I have a backdoor into the firm that produces and maintains them," Dad replied. "I installed it years ago. It's very helpful to arrange some MRI time, too."

That made sense. "And how did you get that?"

"I used a CIA virus to hack their remote-update system. It was quite simple, actually, once you did..."

California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 7th, 2008

"...and that's how I bypassed the phone's password," Chuck finished.

"I see." Dad sounded impressed. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

"Well, you don't deal every day with people locking themselves out of their phones or breaking them," Chuck replied. He was very familiar with the hardware in any phone, as a result. Hm. Could he bill his Nerd Herd time as training to the CIA? That would…

An alert on his laptop interrupted his thoughts. Besson was awake and looking at his phone. Not his regular phone, either. And he was texting back.

"Burner phone," Dad told him. "I'm checking the cell tower."

A few minutes later, they had the messages. Two burner phones, '63' and '304'.

"It's a code," Dad said. "Hard to crack. Probably…"

But Chuck was flashing. Besson. In uniform. The French Foreign Legion. A ceremony. A wooden hand. And a date.

He gasped. "63 and 304. April 30th, 1863. The Battle of Camerone. The most famous battle of the French Foreign Legion." Against the Mexicans, too. He looked at Dad. "She told him to continue with the mission no matter what."

"...and she still hasn't called Gonzàlez, which she would've done if she were working for him to keep an eye on Fankhauser. So we know Dubois is calling the shots, but we still don't know if they're working for the French government, sanctioned or not, or if this is a private, uh, mission," Chuck finished explaining what they had found out to Sarah. "Or what their mission actually is."

"If this were DGSE mission, I doubt that they would use such obvious codes, she replied. "Dubois would know better - but if Besson isn't a trained spy, but a mercenary, it might've been the best that she could trust him to remember."

That wasn't a very favourable view of the former legionnaire, in Chuck's opinion. He had never had trouble remembering codes or code names - without any help from the Intersect.

"There's also the fact that Dubois's an assassin," Dad pointed out. "And this doesn't look like an assassination mission." Left unsaid was that Gonzàlez was the obvious target, and Dubois and Besson would've had ample opportunities to get him. "While I don't doubt that she can do other missions, I don't think she was the only spy available to the French. And if she was framed, they could have cleared her without sending her on this mission."

Sarah nodded. "It looks like she's on her own. And it's not just some revenge for getting framed."

"She could still be trying to find proof of her innocence, couldn't she?" Chuck asked. "Relative innocence, I mean." The woman was an assassin, after all.

Both Sarah and Dad looked at him as if he had said something stupid.

"If she went through Fankhauser, she probably wants the money," Dad said.

Sarah nodded in apparent agreement.

"So we're going to kill them on a suspicion?" Chuck asked.

After a way too long moment, Dad said: "We'll investigate further."

California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 7th, 2008

Chuck suppressed a yawn as he clicked his way through more financial records. He had stayed up far too late last night. If Big Mike decided to check if Chuck actually was sick, he would be convinced without trouble. Of course, Big Mike didn't do home visits, and if he did, he'd visit Chuck's currently empty apartment in Echo Park. Which would be all kinds of bad.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. With Sarah at the Wienerlicious - they couldn't let Bane grow suspicious - and Casey at the Buy More for the same reason, holding down the fort fell to Chuck and Dad, and Dad was currently sleeping. On the couch, of course - Chuck didn't want to make Sarah madder than she already was by having Dad sleep in their bed. She'd been annoyed enough at Dad's presence in the first place.

But that couldn't be helped. They needed more information, and Dad was - Chuck had to admit - the best hacker they knew. And needed - they couldn't just kill two spies without knowing whether or not they were enemies. Well, they could, but they shouldn't.

Chuck had been telling himself that a lot lately. But it was true, no matter how tiring - exhausting - it turned out to be to do the right thing. Or boring - sifting through financial records was mind-numbing. How could accountants stand this? If he had to read through another column of micro-transactions - did Fankhauser ever pay anything in cash? - he'd…

Oh. That was Dubois's car that had just entered the garage. She was visiting Gonzàlez? Chuck blinked. That was… "Dad! Get up!" he yelled.

"Huh? What?"

"Dad! Dubois's here. In the building, I mean - not in the apartment. She must be visiting Gonzàlez!"

That finally made his father get up from the couch and join him at the table, just in time to catch her on the cameras covering the garage as she left her car and walked towards the lift.

"You're right. She probably feels now is a good time to tell Gonzàlez about Fankhauser's accident," he said after a moment. "If she had called him right away, it would have looked suspicious, but now… perhaps she'll attempt to play the near-widow for sympathy."

"Ah." Chuck should've thought of that himself. After all, if Fankhauser was her link to Gonzàlez, she wouldn't be able to easily visit the drug lord with the banker in a coma. Playing the distressed girlfriend in need of some support might get her an in, here. Although she'd have to work hard to keep that going - unless Gonzàlez counted her as family of a friend. Didn't drug lords have some social obligations for their minions' families? Like the mob? That was how the cartels kept the loyalty of their members.

He nodded. That made sense - Dubois was continuing the mission, as she had announced to Besson.

"That's not Gonzàlez's floor," Dad interrupted his thoughts. "That's our floor."

Chuck gasped. Dad was correct - the French assassin stepping out of the lift wasn't headed towards Gonzàlez.

She was headed towards their apartment.