A/N: Happy New Year, my friends. You know, not everyone talks about ownership of Chuck as much as we do. Something worth considering.
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Late afternoon, the prior day
The limo with the captive Barker hurried away from the curb and down the street.
"It's moving already...down the block...can you see them?" asked Amy.
"No, blocked by the building," said Casey.
"Chuck, do you have them?" asked Sarah.
"Got it," he said. "I see the limo. Coming towards me. California livery plate 2-A-A-A-Z-1-1-1. It's coming past me now, heading east...what..?"
Amy said, "Casey, were they alone? Anyone else here?"
"All I could see were the ones in the car. Nobody else seems to be reacting. We're pointed the wrong way to give chase. Chuck, see if you can get the car turned around."
Casey took out his phone and pulled up the tracking app. There was no signal for Barker. "No signal from Barker's tracker."
Amy said, "I'm going to get the license number to LAPD." She took out her phone and began a call to the liaison office for Intelligence Community matters.
Sarah said, "Chuck, did you see which way they turned?...Chuck?...CHUCK?!" Instantly Sarah was sprinting across the plaza, dodging pedestrians. Casey and Amy were running as well, but Sarah's speed outpaced them both by a good bit.
The Crown Vic was empty.
"They took him. They took him. Look, his phone is on the seat. They took him." She was breathing hard, having nothing whatsoever to do with her run across the plaza.
Casey looked at his phone and the tracking app. There was no signal for either Chuck or Barker. Sarah looked at him and he shook his head, no.
"Shit," she hissed. No, no, no, no. This could not be happening. This could not be happening. Losing him meant losing the only thing of any meaning in her life. Without him, she had no life at all. Nothing. She was nothing. Her life was nothing. She stared into the abyss of a life without him in it. The horror was unimaginable. Fear for his safety threatened to overwhelm her...for a moment. But only for a moment.
No.
She understood that Chuck didn't need Sarah, his fiancé. Chuck needed Walker, the CIA's best. She pushed the fear aside for later and focused like a laser on the task of getting him home safely.
Casey said, "We'll get on to Graham and Beckman. We'll get every agency looking for him."
"No," said Walker. "We don't know who is Fulcrum and who isn't. Until we know otherwise, we have to work off the assumption that Fulcrum doesn't know who they have. That they don't know he's Carmichael or the Intersect. That they don't know Barker is MI-6. Their best chances of staying alive are to keep under cover." Her face lacked any expression save concentration and her voice had taken on the clipped tone of emotionless command.
"But Chuck doesn't have a cover," said Amy, concern evident in her voice.
Casey said, "Leave that to him. Trust me, Amy, he can create one on the fly and sell it like a pro. The best thing to happen to Barker right now is that he's with Chuck. Chuck has the best shot at keeping them both alive."
"I heard him turn Demetrios in November, but this is different," she said.
"Doesn't matter. It's Chuck," said Casey firmly.
Walker continued, "We'll have to keep this smaller than calling in everyone. Casey, get Fitz and the guys on it, though. Amy, get on with the LAPD. Give them the description and tag number for the limo. Not to apprehend, but to locate and advise us. When you get the registration info, give it to me."
Casey and Amy began to dial. A couple of minutes later, Amy said to Sarah, "Hollywood Cab Company on Fountain Avenue."
"Fitz and the guys are standing by," said Casey.
"Send them to Castle. We'll get to them there," said Walker.
She found the number and called the cab company. In a few moments she was talking to the manager.
"Yes, a black stretch limo."
"No, Ma'am. We just have regular cabs. We ain't got nothing like what you're describing. You sure the plate number is right?"
"Positive," she said.
Next to her Amy said, "LAPD has an alert out."
Walker nodded to Amy. The manager said, "That's cab number 53. Well, Teddy's got that car out today. Let me call him. Just hold on a second." She held, somewhat impatiently, until the man returned. "Ma'am, somebody stole the plate. I'm sorry. I just learned. Teddy didn't even know til I called him and he got out of the car to look. Whoever is driving that limo is doing it with one of our plates they stole."
"Shit. Ok, we'll tell LAPD. Thanks for your help." She disconnected the call and said, "The limo had a stolen plate."
Amy told the LAPD contact she was talking to.
"Traffic cams," suggested Casey.
"Yeah. Amy, get down to wherever they collect the traffic cam footage. Pick the limo up from here and see if they can take you through the route. I doubt we'll be lucky enough to have footage of their ultimate destination, but maybe we can narrow it down."
"On my way," said Amy and ran off, leaving them standing by the Crown Vic.
"Casey, you and I head back to Castle. Odds are it's a rental limo. We start manning the phones to call those rental companies. There can't be more than a couple of dozen in the LA area."
They got into the Crown Vic and began the drive back to Castle. On the way Walker called Fitz in Castle and had him and his men start the calls to the rental car companies.
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It was several hours later. Agent Walker was sitting at a table in Castle on the phone with the manager of the First Class Limo Company from the Inglewood neighborhood. "Yes, Sir. I know you are closed for the evening, but this cannot wait. Is there a night manager? Sir, it is possible that one of your cars was involved in an abduction today and we are pressed for time. Half hour? Yes, it will, thank you, Sir. Call me at this number."
Casey put a sandwich from the studio commissary upstairs next to her as she began to enter the next number.
"Eat something," he said.
"No," she said without looking at him, entering the new number.
"You aren't doing him any good by not eating," Casey said, not unkindly.
She looked up. "Casey, if I eat anything at all I will puke it up immediately. I'm just saving us all that step," she said. Her face was expressionless, but Casey knew her the best of anyone else there. He could sense the gnawing horror that she was keeping at bay through an act of sheer willpower.
He recognized that he could not understand exactly what she was feeling. Like her, he feared for Chuck's safety, but he knew it was different for her. She was deeply in love with Chuck. The kind of love he would never know. They were intertwined souls and forever would be. If something happened to Chuck, he, Casey, would lose a close friend. He'd lost close friends before and no doubt would again. Sarah would lose a part of herself that would never be replaced. It was very different.
He also worried about the effects of whatever interrogation they might be putting Chuck and Barker through. The damage it might inflict. Physical damage for sure, but it was the risk of mental scarring that concerned him more. Casey had been the subject of what was now euphemistically called "enhanced interrogation"...torture...twice during his career. Even with all his training, there was no way to minimize the fear, the helplessness, the overwhelming despair that the experience left behind. He'd know strong, highly-trained men who were never the same afterward. He worried.
Casey nodded. "Understood."
Fitz, Leo, Billy, Marco, Amy, Walker and Casey were all working the phones to the limo rental companies. It was the only lead they had. The traffic cams had lost the limo near Los Cerritos. The alert with the LAPD hadn't turned up anything in the hours since Chuck and Barker's abduction. Working the phones for the location of rented limos was the best they could do at the moment.
Billy began to bang lightly on the table to get everyone's attention. He spoke a little louder. "Yes, Sir. Thank you. I'm going to put you on speaker now, so the rest of my team can hear you." Billy pushed a button and put his phone down on the table. "Sir, please repeat what you have just told me."
From the phone came a man's voice. "I checked with Rudy. He was managing yesterday, but not today. You see I took his shift today because his mother-in-law was coming to town. His wife made him stay home. Believe you me, he'd rather be at work..."
Walker said, "What did Rudy have to tell you, Sir?" Her tone of voice left no doubt that she wanted an answer soonest.
"Right, right. Rudy said a group came in yesterday. Suits. Sunglasses. Like scary looking. Claimed to be federal agents. Sort of intimidating, at least to Rudy. Based on what you've told me it sounds like the outfit you are looking for. They rented one of our bigger limos. Number four. It can hold up to …."
"Sir," Agent Walker interrupted, "can you locate number four with its GPS tracker?"
"Oh, yeah. I did that. Want me to send you the location?"
"Yes, please, Sir. Send it to the phone you are on with now."
"Ok. Here goes." There was a few second's pause and then Billy's phone dinged. He picked it up and said, "Got it. Thank you, Sir."
Agent Walker said, "Sir, I'm going to ask you to do us a favor. Keep watching the location for your car. If the car moves, call us on this number."
"Ok. I can do that."
"Thank you, Sir," she said.
Billy put the location of the limo from his phone onto the big screen. It was somewhere near Long Beach, no more than fifteen minutes or so south of Los Cerritos. Leo superimposed a satellite image onto the map. The location was a parking field behind an old industrial building.
Amy was back on with the traffic cam people she'd spent much of the early evening with. They heard her say, "Yes, feed it through to me."
She pressed a few buttons and one of the other screens came alive with the traffic cam footage from the street where the building was located in Long Beach. They ran it backwards until they saw the limo turning into the street. Amy froze the image and enlarged it. California livery plate 2-A-A-A-Z-1-1-1.
Agent Walker leapt to her feet. "Move, people. Move. Saddle up. We are out the door in three minutes. If you aren't ready, you're left behind." She was the first one in the armory. She took what weapons she wanted and a vest and headed out at a sprint. The vans they used carried an assortment of weapons, but not enough for the size of the team and, in any event, not necessarily the personal selection that each team member might want. She went out the exit from Castle that led directly to a garage filled with their operational vehicles. None of the regular studio personnel had access to it. On the other hand, if any of them were to observe the van leaving, they would attribute it to a movie shoot.
Two minutes and twenty seconds from when she made the announcement, she was in the back of the van. Fifteen seconds later, Marco was in the driver's seat and starting it up. Before the three minutes was up, the entire team was inside. Marco pushed a button to open the door to the garage. With a squeal of tires, the van pulled out while Fitz was still closing the rear door. Once outside the studio grounds, the lights and siren were activated and Marco put his foot down.
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Amy sat along the side with the others, pulling on her vest and rearranging the gear she had somewhat haphazardly thrown into her pockets. She was going to be ready for a gunfight.
Even without windows, she could tell by the vibrations of the van that they were traveling at a very high speed. Nevertheless, Agent Walker stuck her head up front and said to Marco, "If you can't push this thing any faster then move over and I'll fucking drive."
Marco gave her a yes-ma'am look and put his foot all the way down. The large unwieldy van was rocketing down the highway at a truly ridiculous rate of speed, which seemed to satisfy Agent Walker.
Twenty minutes later he turned off the siren. A few minutes after that, he pulled up a block or so away from the building. They could see lights burning inside through the cracked and dirty windows. Together with the parking lot the old, one-story building took up the entirety of a city block. Walker said, "Circle it once with the headlights off."
Marco did so while Walker, Casey and Fitz all observed the building through binoculars, speaking quietly among themselves. Amy heard them note two Fulcrum sentries, one at the door at the east side and one by the loading dock on the north side. There were no other entrances.
Walker said, "All open ground around those sentries. No way to approach." She took a rifle from the wall of the van and screwed a silencer to it, clipping in a magazine of ammunition. "Ok, Marco. Stop here." They were at a spot across the large parking lot from a corner of the building where both sentries were visible. She opened the door at the back of the van and stepped outside into the night. This close to the shore, Amy could smell the sea through the open door.
There was the cough of a silenced rifle shot and Fitz said, "Eastern guard down. Not moving."
Moments later a second cough. Walker handed the rifle to Leo. Casey said, "Other guard down. We are good..." Walker took off running to the building. "...to go," finished Casey.
Walker arrived at the door to the old building, vaulting over the body of the dead guard, lying on the dirty concrete in a pool of his own blood. The others arrived a few seconds later.
Leo held up a device which gave them an infrared image of what was on the other side of the thin metal door. He whispered, "Ten that I can see from here, but the range is only thirty feet and it's a huge building. No telling what's at thirty-one feet."
"Ok," Agent Walker said, "Pincer. Fitz, Marco, Leo and Billy, take the door on the loading dock. Let me know when you're ready to go in. We all enter at the same time on my signal."
"Right," said Fitz. He and the men left at a run, leaving her with Amy and Casey. Casey was fitting an explosive device onto the edge of the door with a small detonator. He nodded once to Walker.
Amy put her back to the wall and took deep breaths to steady her nerves. She gripped her weapon and checked the safety for the tenth time in a few minutes.
Through her ears she heard Fitz announce. "Ready."
Walker said, "On three...one...two...three." While she was counting, she pulled the pins on two flash-bang grenades and released the handles
Casey detonated the explosive and the door burst open. A second later there was a second explosion from the other side of the building. Walker threw the grenades in two directions. They detonated almost instantly.
Walker stepped through the door, Amy and Casey right behind her. Inside of four seconds Walker killed three men with head shots. Still expressionless, she sprinted across the floor to the boxes at the other end. A Fulcrum man popped up and tried to take aim. Amy swiveled to engage him, but Walker killed him firing one-handed while on the run. Without slowing down, she dropped the partially empty clip from her submachine gun and slammed in a fresh one.
Gesturing sharply with one hand, she directed Amy and Casey to the right, while she took the area in front of them. They could hear Fitz and his men advancing through the building from the other side and meeting no opposition.
A woman in a dark suit ran ahead, in front of them to the right, dodging behind some boxes. When she came back into view, Casey shouted, "STOP." She did. Amy saw Cole and Chuck behind the woman, Cole with a weapon in his hands aimed at the woman. The woman stopped, recognizing her situation as hopeless, and put her gun to her own head.
The woman paused dramatically and said, "Fulcrum wins."
With a short burst from his weapon, Casey blew off her right hand. The gun she'd been holding clattered to the ground behind her. Casey called, "Walker, here." Meanwhile, Amy stepped forward and slammed the butt of her weapon into the woman's head, while the woman was still looking in surprise at her arm where her hand used to be. The wounded woman went down like a puppet with its strings cut.
Walker rounded the corner, weapon at the ready. In a heartbeat, she took in the situation, including Chuck and Barker.
Agent Walker dropped her weapon to hang at her side by its sling.
Sarah walked to Chuck, suddenly with tears in her eyes.
Chuck dropped the chain he'd been holding and took Sarah in his arms and held her tightly. Her terror and anxiety burst through the mental dams Sarah had erected. She began to sob in his arms, crying harder and harder as he held her. He kept rubbing her back and murmuring into her hair, "I'm ok, Sweetie. I'm ok." For her part, she just kept saying his name over and over again, her head on his bare chest, her tears flowing freely between them.
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The Intelligence Community hospital in Los Angeles was contained in a segregated wing of the West Los Angeles Doctors and Nurses Hospital. The whole team stood and sat around one of the larger exam rooms once the doctors had finished examining Chuck and Cole. Sarah had refused to leave Chuck while he was examined and had had his wounds dressed. Luckily, both men's wounds were superficial. Both Chuck and Cole had had their forearms x-rayed, but as bad as the bruises were (and they would get worse), there were no fractures.
Ellie stood with them, having been introduced to Fitz and his men, properly this time. She had met them when she'd been under their protection during her poisoning by Payne and knew even then that they were spies like her brother and Sarah, but now understood them to be close friends. Ellie had been called by the hospital staff to examine the Fulcrum men Cole had hit. There weren't hundreds of neurologists in Los Angeles with her level of security clearance, so she was on a very short list. Two of the men had fractured skulls, but no evident brain damage. The rest seemed to have merely concussions. As she now considered them to be her patients, she would be informed of any change to their status.
Sarah was sitting on the exam bed next to Chuck, holding his hand. She had been badly shaken by the day and didn't want to let go of him, even for a minute. She smiled and said, "Sorry I was such a bitch today, guys."
"Well, shit, Sarah," said Fitz. "It's not like you didn't have reason. We're all with you on this. Every one of us understands what you were going through. Do not ever apologize for this. Not now and not ever. I'm serious. We were all worried about him. What you were going through..."
"Well, it's nothing as bad as what Chuck and Cole were having to deal with..." she said, with a gesture at the men.
Cole said, "Ah, honestly, not at all. I had Carmichael with me. The hardest part for me was just to try to keep up with him as he was spinning those arseholes in circles. Seriously. You can't believe what he was doing to them. I've never seen anything like it in my life. The woman knows we're government, right? She knows the NSA watches he had and you gave me...right? She knows we're government agents. That's it. We're dead. Dead and buried. Nothing we can do. Chuck tells her...no, I got them on E-Bay...and he's totally selling it." The others started laughing. Cole starts pantomiming using a smart phone, mugging a funny face. "...and one of her guys is like...hey, he's right...you can buy this stuff on E-Bay..." More laughter.
Chuck picked up the story, "Yeah, but for a guy who says he was just trying to keep up, you immediately said...you know Chuck, you didn't have to wrap them for Christmas..."
Cole said, "Yeah, and then you pointed out that I didn't buy you anything for Christmas and I was just feeling guilty." The others roared with laughter at that one. "Never before have I been taking a beating and trying like hell to keep a straight face." He paused, his demeanor becoming serious, "I have to tell you something, Chuck. I've been doing this a while now and met some really top-notch spies. Really at the top of the game. As God is my witness, you are the smartest, bravest, most talented operative I have ever had the pleasure to work with. Bar none. It's been my honor, matey. My honor. I have no doubt that without you, White would have killed me for sure. The Carmichael rep you carry around is, if anything, understated."
Silence reigned in the room for a few moments.
Started by Fitz, the others began to quietly applaud Chuck, who blushed and waved the applause away. But he was smiling happily. Ellie looked like she would burst from pride. Chuck leaned down and whispered something to Sarah, she smiled at him and nodded. He leaned down and whispered something further and she nodded again with the same happy smile.
Chuck said, "Thanks, guys. It's not an honor I deserve. You should have seen Cole...in his underpants and armed only with a bit of chain, take out five armed guys...or was it nine? I lost count. Now that was pretty impressive. But, as long as we are all here and you guys seem to be intent upon doing me an honor I don't deserve, maybe I can impose on you for another one.
"Sarah and I are getting married."
Billy made a 'whoo-hoo' noise, which made Sarah and Chuck smile.
"Casey has agreed to be my best man. Will you guys be my groomsmen?" he gestured at Fitz and his men.
The guys looked surprised and happy and honored. They sat silently for a moment or two.
With a shrug of humor at the other guys, Leo came over and said, "Yes, Chuck. Thank you. I'll be there." He came forward and shook Chuck's hand and hugged Sarah.
Billy came over to them. "I'd love to, dude. Now we have to start thinking about the bachelor party." He shook Chuck's hand and gave Sarah a hug.
Marco was next. "Count on it, Chuck." A handshake and a hug.
Fitz came over and Chuck and Sarah were surprised to see his wet cheeks and tears in his eyes. Silently, he ignored Chuck's extended hand and pulled him into a hug, then did the same for Sarah.
Marco said, "Are you crying, Fitz?"
Fitz took out a handkerchief to wipe his eyes and said, with a smile, "Go to hell, Marco."
Sarah said to Amy, "I was going to take you to lunch, but ...well, you know...will you be a bridesmaid, Amy?"
Smiling, Amy started to cry as well. "Damn right I will," she said. "Nothing could keep me away from that. Nothing." Amy gave Sarah and Chuck hugs.
Grinning, Ellie clapped her hands quietly in front of her face. "Wonderful. Wedding plans are coming together."
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Alexis White lay bound to her hospital bed and stared at the ceiling. If she could have figured out a method of taking her own life, she would have done so. She was handcuffed to the bed at both ankles and one wrist. With her right hand missing and only bandages where it used to be, the cuff on that side was placed at her elbow. A wide strip of leather secured her at her chest level. There was a saline drip coming into her left arm, positioned so she couldn't reach it, even with her teeth. She had considered ripping it out and trying to puncture an artery with the needle...but, it seems her captors had considered that she might think of that.
A blonde who seemed vaguely familiar walked into the room with a white-coated doctor. The woman sat in the visitor's chair and crossed her legs casually, seeming very relaxed. Meanwhile the doctor took a syringe of something red and added it to the saline drip that entered her left forearm.
White said to the doctor, "What is that?"
The doctor ignored the question. He finished what he was doing and nodded to the blonde. She nodded back and glanced quickly at her watch.
Then she seemed to settle down and look at White calmly, still without expression. After the two women stared at each other for a while, White said, "You're the one they call the Ice Queen. Walker."
"Yes"
"Are you here to frighten me? It won't work."
"Ok." Expressionless.
"So why are you here?" asked White.
"I thought you should know that Chuck is my fiancé."
White looked at her with surprise, mixed with a certain amount of newly discovered fear, and then she snorted in derision. Hostility won the day and White said, "I'm glad I hurt him. I wish I'd killed him... killed them both." She looked up at the ceiling.
"You should also know that he's … Carmichael."
White's eyes snapped down to meet Sarah's, her mouth opened in unfeigned shock. She considered the discussion with the man she knew only as Chuck. Knowing who he was, she now realized he had been playing with her the entire time. From the moment she had pulled the tape off his mouth, he had been in control of the conversation. He had been stalling for time until his team arrived and had fooled her totally. If the team hadn't arrived when it did to shoot up her men, she was on the verge of letting Carmichael and Kaplan down and taking them to their bank in the morning. She had bought his story one hundred percent. She shook her head at her own naiveite.
She felt like a fool, but not so much like a fool that she could ignore the professional admiration she had for his performance. She said, "I can see why you've been so successful."
"Yes," said Walker. "You were totally outmatched from the moment he woke up. You didn't stand a chance in hell." White merely grunted in response.
They sat in silence as more time passed.
After a while and a quick glance at her watch, Walker said, "What can you tell me about Perseus?"
"Go fuck yourself, Walker. That 'everyone talks' thing is a just an expression. Not everyone talks. When you are prepared to die for your cause, you don't. There's nothing you can do to me to get me to betray Fulcrum. Nothing. You are wasting your time. Go back to Carmichael and keep him company. Heal his wounds. Leave me the fuck alone. I can withstand whatever you think you can do to me."
Sarah didn't move or say a word. White lay in the bed in silence, sullen and angry. Sarah sat in patient silence on the other hand.
After about fifteen more minutes, White's eyes began to soften and cloud a little. The hard expression on her face eased. She said, in a more conversational tone, "What was the question again?"
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A/N2: Not all (or even many) rental car companies have GPS trackers on their cars, but for this chapter I adopted that trope.
A/N3: When I mentioned to my wife what I had in mind for Casey to stop White from killing herself, she reminded me that I am invariably dismissive of stories where the hero shoots the gun out of the bad guy's hand as totally unrealistic. That's true, I am. In defense of Casey's marksmanship here, though, White stopped moving long enough to make her stupid dramatic statement. That gave Casey more of a chance to get a decent burst of fire off at a stationary target. Anyway, that's my position and I'm sticking to it.
A/N4: What do you think? As always, I love to hear from you guys. Please be safe everybody. We're far from out of the woods, even if there's a vaccine on the way. Please stay safe. I need you guys to hang around.