Posted 8 Feb 2019

In a Paris apartment

"So what do you think? Are you ready to be a spy?"

Part of Castle was about to explode. He had been wishing his entire life to be a spy. The excitement, the adventure, the women. Not that he needed the women anymore. He had the woman he wanted in Beckett. He had the adventure too, at the NYPD. Beckett could totally be a spy, though. They could be a spy team, together, like Brangelina. The thought of Kate in black, head-to-toe leather, holding a gun with a silencer. Oh boy. They'd be like Chuck and Sarah. Well, maybe not like them. He wouldn't disappear in the middle of a case—a mission—leaving an innocent young woman in the hands of some Russian arms dealer.

Leaving his daughter.

That squashed his yearning for adventure. This was serious. His dad was a real spy. Not him. Forget the dream of being a suave action hero. He was almost overwhelmed with fear. But as a father, that fear was not a problem. He would do anything for his daughter.

"Yes. I can do this," Castle told his long, lost father.

The other man, Jackson Hunt as he named himself, looked at Castle, judging. Castle hadn't felt that stare down since boarding school. Montgomery came close sometimes. Beckett often tried at work. Her look worked on others, like the boys, but there was too much electricity between them for it to work on him. This was the look from a father.

His father finally gave him a short nod. "Let's go over the plan again."

Castle jumped at a knock on the door. Glancing at his dad, Castle saw a gun was already drawn, his other hand was raised to his lips, telling Castle to be quiet.

"Castle, it's me."

Castle couldn't stay quiet. "That's Beckett."

"How'd she find us?" Hunt tried to grab his arm at the elbow, but Castle was already on his way to the door.

"I don't know, but I trust her. You can put the gun down." Hunt didn't deviate. The gun stayed level at the door.

Castle opened the door. Sometimes, when he first saw Kate after an absence, he still heard this noise. He wasn't corny enough to say it was angels singing, but the music in his head was undeniable. It was more of a hundred person choir, with no harps. It sometimes happened in the morning, when he woke to her presence in his bed. Ok, when the light was just right, his mental soundtrack had instrumentation, too. It also happened whenever he hadn't seen her in a while, when he really needed her at his side.

This was one of those times.

Beckett vaulted into his arms. It was one of those we-just-survived-a-bomb, full-body hugs. She whispered in his ear, "Don't ever leave me like that again."

Yeah, she had a point. He screwed up not telling her. Forget the part about leaving the country without telling his girlfriend. She's his partner. He should have invited her along. Alexis's kidnapping was making him not think straight. He needed his partner. He mumbled an apology into her coat. Maybe she could help with his dad's plan.

His dad.

Meeting Beckett.

She released him and saw the widened eyes. Her look immediately switched to one of concern, like she had overstepped. Castle needed to explain to her the full situation.

"Beckett, this is my—" His father was still pointing a gun at Beckett.

No. Not at Beckett.

At the door.

Where Chuck and Sarah walked into the increasingly crowded apartment.

In a replay of the farmhouse, Chuck had his arms bent at the elbows, hands raised by his face. Unlike the farmhouse, Sarah was not indifferent. She had her gun raised, pointed right back at his father.

Chuck spoke first, with a nervous chatter, "Why is everyone always pointing guns at us?"

After a couple tense minutes, culminating with assurances that there would be no gunfire, no stab wounds, nor any other causes of bleeding or bruising, Castle and Beckett retreated to the hall. Castle needed to find out what was going on. He was still surprised Carmichael Industries was on the case all along, even with their claims of being "the spies who care."

His dad had a plan for him to save Alexis, complete with blueprints. Sure, a few details seemed missing, but Castle knew he could do it for his daughter.

Carmichael Industries seemed to have other plans. Plans even thinner on details, or at least details they were willing to share. Somehow they had tracked Castle down at his father's safe house. Weren't safe houses supposed to be secret?

He didn't know who to trust: the father who abandoned him, or other ex-spy mercenaries who also disappeared without explanation.

Correction.

He knew who to trust. He trusted Beckett.

Unlike the Meredith Incident, he didn't miss "The Look" this time. She wanted to talk to him without all of the guns as distractions. The hall wasn't really that private, but he needed Beckett to tell him what to do.

Looking in her eyes, he saw so much compassion, his heart almost broke. Was this how he looked at her when she talked about her mother? No wonder she hated it when he stuck his nose into her mom's case. The difference was now they could do something about this problem. They had come half way around the planet to do something.

He cupped her face, a little awkwardly because she wouldn't let go of his left hand, a little like when they were cuffed together a few cases ago. Her free hand pressed flat against his chest, preventing him from devouring her like he wanted, but they kissed. The kiss was soft, conveying as much emotion as he could. After too brief a moment, she pushed back, despite her traitorous mouth lingering on his bottom lip. She still didn't release his left hand, grabbing the other hand as she looked in his eyes.

"I don't know who to trust more." She seemed to have expected the concern without his statement. His mistake in leaving her behind didn't ruin their mental connection.

How did you find us? he thought to her.

"Chuck did some computer trick to track the cloned cell phone."

I thought it was supposed to be secure.

"Not from them."

Where was Chuck?

"Moscow. The video feed back-traced through some data center they used to own."

They owned a data center in Russia?

"It doesn't make sense to me either. Something about it was only for a few months and was a wedding gift."

Where was Sarah?

"Sarah was getting a black-op approved up the chain of command, and using the opportunity to bitch slap the FBI because they deserved it."

How did you get to Paris?

"She stole a freaking plane.

What?!

"She left it with some arms dealers."

WHAT?! Beckett didn't repeat herself. Their almost telepathic link severed. Castle verbally said, "Tell me what happened. I think we have a few more minutes before the spies kill each other. Tell me everything."

Three hours earlier.

It was supposed to be a simple trade. Ok, not so simple, but it was supposed to be mutually beneficial to everyone. Walker and Beckett would get some weapons and a ride into the city. The arms dealers would get the plane and a promise to take out their competition.

First impressions were tense. Sarah and Kate exited the plane to be greeted by a platoon of armed mercenaries. Sarah didn't bother to raise her hands, so Kate followed suit. Despite the ex-CIA agent treating her like a rookie at times, Beckett knew how to sell a cover, even one as audacious as this one. She supposed she was a rookie in the spy world.

After they reached the cracked dirt of the landing strip, two of the guards tried to pass them to inspect the plane. Sarah wouldn't budge. When the first guard shoved her shoulder with the nozzle of his assault rifle, Kate saw a flash of anger in the ex-spy.

Two seconds later that guard was on his back. His partner was hunched over, holding his nether regions. One weapon had skidded across the ground, while Sarah was holding the other one.

The other guards clenched their weapons but fortunately had the discipline not to fire. Surprisingly, no one spoke.

Sarah slowly scanned the group with a look of disapproval. The guards and Sarah were waiting for something to happen. After a minute, a new man pushed his way through the crowd and sized up the women. He asked a question Beckett couldn't quite follow. His accent was very thick. Sarah responded in French slowly, likely for Kate's benefit, that they wanted to see the person in charge. They made another couple exchanges, all posturing. Beckett could follow most of it, so Sarah really didn't need to enunciate so deliberately. Beckett just wished she also had a gun; she was the only one without one. Though to be honest, at this range it likely didn't matter. They were outgunned thirteen to one, and Sarah's captured weapon wasn't even raised. Beckett did retrieve the weapon on the ground.

Finally, Sarah seemed to have made her point with an idiomatic version of "an offer you can't refuse." A couple of the less disciplined mercs actually laughed. The lieutenant pulled out his radio and called it in. Beckett was surprised, but didn't miss the tiny slip in the spy's exterior.

That wasn't French. A tonal language. Something Far Eastern.

Sarah's surprise was virtually unnoticeable, even to a master interrogator like Beckett, but she saw it. It didn't last though, as Sarah called out something in the same language. At least if the spy knew the language, they were less likely to be ambushed with another one or two dozen mercenaries, Beckett thought grimly.

Tactically, the Detective noted they were completely surrounded. Sarah has subtly worked them into the middle of the group, with Beckett guarding her right flank the entire time. While they no longer could escape to the plane, taking off would be impractical from a cold start under weapons fire. This way, any escalation would result in friendly crossfire from their captors. They were possibly safer, from a certain point of view.

After another couple minutes, the group parted for the next man up the chain of command.

That's when everything went sideways. Wasn't it already sideways? Maybe it flipped upside down.

Before Beckett knew what happened, two more people were on the ground, and the new man, a dwarf from somewhere in Southeast Asia, was screaming out in pain.

Back in the hall

"Wait," Castle interrupted. "Did you say dwarf? Like a midget."

"Yes, I think he was a dwarf, not a midget. He was from Thailand. Apparently the French arms dealer's organization was overtaken by a group out of Thailand. Or was about to be. That was never clear."

"Surrounded by mercenaries, out of nowhere, and for no reason, Sarah attacked a Thai midget."

"Dwarf. Yes, but she had a reason, I found out later."

"What does she have against little people?"

"It's not all little people, just this particular one. A couple years ago she was in some hand-to-hand pit fight in the Thailand jungle."

"She fought dwarfs in Thailand."

"No. It was the regional champion who had a tendency of killing the opposition. This dwarf was not in the fight. He was the right hand man of the organizer, and when Sarah was winning he threw the opposition a knife. She won anyway, but because of her memory issues, she didn't remember the specifics immediately and decided it was prudent to throw him a knife. Through his shoe."

"Of course. How else is one supposed to resolve an unknown grudge? I can't believe I missed it. I guess I'm lucky she remembers me on better terms. How did you escape?"

The next minute or so was filled with a lot yelling, both in French and Thai, but fortunately, no gunshots. While no one was helping the injured man, everyone's guns seemed to have lowered slightly. That might not last long, so Beckett took a gamble that the best way to de-escalate everyone else was to be the person to escalate even further. After all, Sarah told her to sell it.

She picked up a dropped rifle, pointed it skyward, fired a single shot, and yelled in English, "Enough!"

That shut everyone up. The gamble worked, as no one returned fire. The problem with this plan was everyone was now looking at her like she was in charge. She looked to Sarah and saw a slight upturn of the corner of her mouth. She approved. Not willing to fully cede control, she took advantage of the quiet. Well, quiet except for the wailing man with the impaled shoe. In English she said, "Get me Wairootaporn." As almost an afterthought, she added, "And somebody clean up this mess."

The two men she had taken out previously ran off, volunteering for the task that would get them away from the woman who had embarrassed them. No one helped the crying man on the ground.

A minute later, one of the men came back with two more henchmen, presumably from Thailand, to attend to the injured lieutenant. One pulled out the knife without much care, removed the shoe, and wrapped the foot in a towel, not that there was much blood. Sarah hit between the toes, Adventures in Babysitting-style. Most of the damage was from the victim's post-throw flailing. The medic grabbed his feet while the other extremely muscular man lifted under the shoulders. Sarah walked over to retrieve her knife. When the medic of the pair noticed her, he dropped the feet with a thud. The other man looked at her, and their patient's head went down to the ground hard. This second man pulled up into a boxing stance and started yelling at Sarah in Thai.

She sighed in response saying, "You really want a rematch? Do you realize I have the knife this time? You know I don't have time for this. Take this man away and send your boss. I recommend you not return until I'm gone. I might break more than your jaw this time."

Beckett remembered Sarah saying she had a bad history with the French arms dealers, but the history with the Thai contingent seemed just as bad. Resigned to a confrontation, Sarah gave her knife to Beckett, clearly indicating Sarah didn't need it. She then made a point of slowly pulling another knife from a sheath at her back. She was going for a third knife when three more men arrived: one from earlier and two more that weren't in mixed military fatigues. The first was European, likely French, and the other was Thai, over-bundled in a heavy parka. He didn't like the cold.

The latter spoke first. "If it isn't the Giant Blonde She-Male. Vulgar name, but they do still tell stories about the warrior woman who took no prisoners, leaving no one dead, just a lot of broken wrists, arms, legs, faces, and hearts in her wake. Still looking for your, who was it, Chuck?"

"Fortunately for you, my husband is not here. Be careful. You should remember I can be very defensive of him."

The man in the parka was clearly the salesman of this criminal organization. His hair was too greasy. His smile was too large. She later found out he was the person who ran the fighting matches in the jungles of Thailand. "Ah, so you crazy kids got together. Wonderful. Everyone stood down. Agent Walker—yes, I learned your name from my contact at the Thai consulate—Agent Walker, here is our guest. She won fair and square last time. Well, maybe not fair for her, but she did win, ending a perfect record. Be happy lives weren't lost. She also did us a great favor, eliminating the Belgian. Here to do us another favor?" The last question directed to Sarah.

"In fact, I am."

He clapped his hands. "Excellent. Which of my problems are you here to eliminate this time? Is someone holding a man for your friend?" He indicated Beckett.

Beckett was starting to get a picture of the history. A rival of this Thai arms dealer must have held Chuck, so Sarah had to defeat the muscular man to earn the right to go after the rival. Sure, there was a lot of supposition there, but she wasn't building a case so she didn't need hard facts. Hanging around Castle for over four years helped her fill in a plausible story, well, plausible when looking at it from a Castlesque point of view.

Before Sarah could elaborate that they were trying to rescue her man's daughter, something Beckett wasn't sure about sharing, the Frenchman jumped into the conversation. His scowl had not disappeared throughout the exchange. "I don't know who you think this is, but I would never forget Elana Truffaut. You killed four of my best men. This woman is CIA. You can't trust her!"

"I retired from the CIA. I'm working private security now."

The two men looked at Beckett. She just became the employer in their eyes. She wasn't sure about taking over negotiations. Sarah's Thai pit fighting mystique had seemed to keep this small army at bay. Beckett didn't think she could seriously pull off a cover that extreme, no matter how much she tried to sell it. With Sarah, it wasn't a cover. It's what she actually did. Half the men looked scared. No one was pointing a weapon directly at them anymore, in fear of poking the tiger.

Sarah continued, "Your assassins shouldn't have tried to kill me, at what should have been a very nice dinner. Your men took me on, and the best woman won. Ask your friend here. I'm not to be trifled with. However, if you do me a small favor, I have a proposition which could be very advantageous to you."

The salesman was open to the idea. "What do you have in mind?"

"A trade."

"Looking for another boyfriend on the side?"

Sarah sneered, actually sneered at the man who could order the men to open fire. "Of course not. I brought you this plane in exchange for a truck or van with enough gas to get us to Paris and enough munitions so we can do you a second favor."

The Frenchman said, "Why shouldn't we just kill you and take the plane? You probably have trackers on it anyway. Former CIA or not, you can't be tru—" The other man held up his hand to the Frenchman's chest, cutting him off. The power struggle was obvious, but the rest of the group didn't seem surprised or concerned. The two must be disagreeing a lot. They were probably the French and Thai leaders. They might shoot each other, although the odds of Walker and Beckett escaping without getting caught in crossfire were small.

"Hear the woman out. What is this favor you offer?" Wairootaporn asked.

Addressing the close-minded one first she said, "You'll find the black box in pieces on the front seat of the cabin. You'll have to quickly learn to trust me about additional trackers because our mission can't wait for you to bring in experts to disassemble the plane."

"This mission is why you need weapons? We supply militia. What could you possibly be doing that would need what we have?"

"We're going to take out Gregor Volkov," Sarah stated.

Negotiations proceeded quickly after the general murmur died down, and they moved to one of the larger sheds. The Frenchman maintained a steady glare, but both men seemed to know that if Sarah Walker wanted Volkov gone, it was at least worth the supplies to let her try.

"If the enemy of my enemy takes on my other enemy, at least one enemy will be gone." Castle said.

"I remember. From Unholy Storm."

Castle grinned.

"Shut it, babe. I'm telling my story." At least he didn't use the cliché about an enemy being a friend in his book.

Beckett had seen seized arms caches before, many larger than this one. These weapons were more exotic, though—not for street gangs. Walker seemed completely in her element. What surprised Beckett the most was the volume of weapons and ammunition they were taking: two RPG launchers with four rockets each, two MP5A2s with enough clips for a sustained pitch battle of several hours, ten flash bangs, three 98 Bravo sniper rifles, a Smith & Wesson 5906 for Sarah with half a dozen clips, and a Glock 19 for Beckett although she didn't want to carry quite that many extra clips. Sarah added the rest to their supply cases.

Sarah explained they were getting additional tactical support in the city. The Thai man presumed it would be Mr Casey and "the little man with the unloaded Desert Eagle," but Sarah didn't comment.

While they were making their selections, someone retrieved their supplies and the tranq pistols from the plane. Sarah wasn't too happy about it and made her point by completely inspecting the contents of the bags. Her undergarments got a rude comment from one of the men, which quickly earned a "you better shut up" rifle butt to the side of the head from another member of the platoon. Sarah had an admirer and defender of her honor, not that she paid the interchange any notice, even with an unconscious body on the ground. The fan was actually one of the men she had initially taken out. Fortunately, there was no sign of the two men with the biggest grudges.

After how everything had begun, it was going relatively smoothly. As they were finishing up, a man came running up and whispered into the Thai man's ear. His grin changed from smooth salesman to creepy. "Excellent, maybe we can have some fun after all."

The word "fun" caught Sarah's attention. Beckett didn't want to know what these men thought would be fun, either.

A moment later, two mercs entered pushing a third, taller man into the weapons shed. This man was none other than Chuck.

"Hi, honey," Chuck sheepishly said.

"Chuck, what are you doing here?" Sarah wasn't expecting him and wasn't happy he was there.

The Thai man interrupted, "My best fighter wants a rematch. Sure, last time he threw dirt in your face, had a knife and a table, but you had Mr. Casey backing you up. This time, it'll just be the two of you. If you win, you get your husband. If he wins… well, I do want you to take out Volkov, but if you don't win, I guess you won't be doing that. We'll just get a plane."

Sarah stared down the man for a moment, then she quietly turned her head to her husband and nodded once. Chuck made a weird cross-eyed face.

Beckett might have blinked. Before she knew what had happened, Chuck had taken out the two guys holding him. Sarah handsprung over the table, grabbing a gun as she went. She tossed the gun to Chuck as she grabbed another. He quickly shot three more men, with what turned out to be a tranq gun. Sarah's wasn't. She pistol whipped the Frenchman and held the gun directly at the forehead of the man who had turned the tables on her.

"Today is your lucky day, Wat. On a normal day, threatening my husband would call for a permanent response. You remember what I did in Thailand before I even found your compound. This would be worse. Today, however, our mission is to destroy a different organization, not yours. We don't need a plane anymore, so you get to keep that, and we are still going to take down Volkov."

With Beckett left covering the Thai bossman, Sarah turned to her husband, "Chuck, how did you get here?"

"Black SUV. I decided against the panel truck after we were outed as a spy team last time."

As if a black SUV didn't scream "government vehicle." Sure, they weren't government, but it's still not subtle, and Castle would back her on the assessment.

Sarah rolled her eyes and said, "Let's go. Please help me with the weapons, sweetie."

After a few chuckles from the non-tranquilized peanut gallery, Chuck whined softly, "What did I say about pet names in front of the arms dealers… Sweetie… Woman… Ok, I'll stop now."

With a sniper rifle over each shoulder, Sarah pecked him on the lips and sassed back, "I don't remember. Grab the M203." Looking like a chastised little boy, Chuck grabbed the RPG launcher and flash bangs.

A few minutes later, Sarah clocked the hostage they had taken and dumped his unconscious body along the side of the dirt road leading away from the compound. The rest of the hired help stood down, not wanting to incur the wrath of the Giant Blonde She Male and her mate.

"You seriously landed a stolen plane at an arms dealer's camp and drove off with their weapons? Did they just leave everything in a conspicuous black SUV downstairs?"

"Yes, but it's not that simple," Kate said, trying to temper the enthusiasm of her boyfriend.

"I had forgotten about how awesome they were on that security footage. We need to see if they will help with my father's plan."

"Castle, listen to me. They're reckless. They squabbled half the way to Paris. Sarah was mad that he infiltrated a Russian data center without her as backup. I guess they briefly owned the place, and he's been playing games over the Internet with someone there. That was his way in. She was even angrier that he showed up at the arms dealer's base. He was supposed to be watching you."

"Didn't she fly into the same arms dealer base? It was ok for her, but not for him? Sounds like 'wife logic' to me."

"He was mad at her for what she had done. He knew she had killed the Frenchman's hit squad in some mission several years ago, before the two of them had even met and thought this time she should have waited for him. They are both insanely protective. Then suddenly he quit arguing, kissed her on the cheek, and offered to drive so she could sleep after her flight and before they execute their plan tonight."

"They have a plan too? My father's plan has blueprints and a way in."

"They have a real-time thermal image of the compound." Castle's eyes widened in hope. "I have a feeling they are going to do whatever they want anyway. I'm not sure we can stop their crazy plan."

"What are you not telling me, Kate?"

"This isn't just about Alexis for them. They have a vendetta going with Volkov, and not just him."

"Who else is involved?"

"The plane they stole… It belonged to Bracken."

Castle didn't know what to say. Bracken was always a touchy subject, but Kate and he were in a good place about it now. She trusted him. The first time he touched that case, snooping into the police files about her mother's murder, he almost lost her forever. That's even after he found a lead, and more importantly, before they were together. With Carmichael Industries and her dad in the mix, he didn't know what she would do.

She did something unexpected, she smiled at him, raising her hand to cup his face. "I'm ok, Castle. They're shadow boxing with him right now and have some friend in the DEA investigating his illegal money and drug pipeline."

"DEA?"

"I guess he's a drug kingpin. It doesn't matter right now. He's half a world away. All that matters right now is rescuing Alexis. Bracken is for another time."

Oh how he loved this woman! She gave him a forceful but quick kiss on the lips, bouncing back before he could engage, leaving him a little dazed. He recovered to see the steel wall of determination fall across her face.

Castle asked, "What do we do? Do we trust them? It's my daughter, and my father's here. Alexis is only in danger because of him. I'm not thinking straight. The man I hired in Paris to help find her sold me out."

"I heard. Chuck was monitoring you for a while before he picked us up."

"He left me? Again? Aren't they supposed to be working for us?"

"Sarah wasn't happy about that either, but he said something about even a long lost father could be trusted to save his son so of course Hunt would put Alexis's interests first. She conceded the point."

"Which means I need to go with my father's plan?"

"I don't know. Carmichael Industries always seems to have unexpected resources, so maybe theirs is better. Let's see what their plan is. If it doesn't so—"

They were interrupted with a bang of the stairwell door down the hall. Over the last few minutes, they had been their own little bubble, but they really weren't anyplace private. They were just standing in the hall. Instinctively, Beckett stepped between Castle and the potential threat, her hand at the gun in the back of her waistband.

A tall, older man shuffled around the corner, looking a little lost. When he spotted them, a flash of relief crossed his face. "Ah, maybe you could help me. Do you speak English?" His accent was English with that polite softness that fit the British stereotype. His clothing was less refined: jeans and a plaid button down shirt layered under a cardigan sweater, complete with elbow patches. He didn't look like a threat.

Castle spoke up behind her, "Yes, we speak English."

"Oh, Americans. Wonderful! Maybe you could tell me if I'm the right place. I tried the floor below, but I forgot the first floor is the one above ground level in this country. I'm looking for room 201."

At the utterance of the room number of his father's apartment, Beckett pulled her weapon. The confused professor routine was an act. No one was supposed to know where they were. That was the room number of Jackson Hunt's safe house.

The new threat shot his hands straight in the air but continued to ramble, "Oh my! It looks like this is the right place, which must make you the parents. I'm looking for Chuck and Sarah Bartowski. I'm here to help."