A/N1: Ownership of Chuck is in a crowded department store looking for its mommy.
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CIA undercover vehicle, Los Angeles
Ellie and Billy settled down into the car. Engine on. Doors locked. AC blasting. They sat there silently. Billy staring straight ahead. Ellie looking at her hands.
"Thirty or forty deaths,' said Billy finally.
"And even if half of those are unrelated..," said Ellie.
"Yeah. It's still a fucking bloodbath. SHIT," he exclaimed, slamming his fist on the steering wheel.
"It is," said Ellie. "These bastards are preying on our most vulnerable. People who can't even defend themselves. Society's castoffs. Poor souls." She took a couple of deep breaths to steady herself. "Billy, before we go to look at the Greene Center, there's something we have to do. We have to get the police to protect these people. To stop these assholes from taking them and killing them. That's the emergency. That's the bit that can't wait while we investigate."
"I agree. But how do we do that, El? How do we get the police involved when we can't even tell them Bagg was murdered? Much less any of the rest of them? For chrissakes, we can't even tell them the cause of death," he said, shaking his head.
Ellie shifted her gaze to look out the windshield at the faded paint of the homeless center in front of the car. She said, quietly, "I have an idea. What if we can give them a cause of death? What if we can make it a homicide?"
"But the autopsy's been inconclusive," he said.
"So, let's get another one," she said. She looked at him with a small smile.
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West Los Angeles Doctors and Nurses Hospital, Los Angeles
It had taken almost the entirety of the afternoon, mostly with paperwork. Being an Intelligence Community hospital certainly eased the wheels of the bureaucracy on the one end. The other end, though, LA County Hospital, was somewhat more difficult. Eventually, though, the pieces had come together.
Billy went with the mortuary men to collect Bagg's body and transfer it over to Doctors and Nurses. He made sure to collect all the blood and tissue samples they had taken and bring them along as well.
Ellie wrote the entire toxicology report herself and got it into the hospital's system. By dinner time, the stage was set. She signed the death certificate. Bagg had been poisoned by thaddium di-oxate. (Ellie had made that substance up from thin air, but she and Billy thought it sure sounded pretty bad.)
An immediate call to the police followed. Bagg had been murdered.
Billy and Ellie sat at a bar across the street from the hospital and clicked their glasses together, satisfied with the day's work.
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Street in front of Luke Booker's apartment building, Los Angeles
Detective Alan Chen leaned against the hood of his car with crossed arms as he waited for his partner, Detective Luke Booker. He was a little early, which was normal for him. His dad had told him that five minutes early every time was, in fact, on time. And he knew Luke would be down shortly. The man was never late.
Soon enough, Luke came skipping down the stairs from the building as if he didn't have a care in the world. Big grin on his brown face, suit and tie straight up and tidy. Shoes shined. Everything to be expected from the man.
"Yo," said Chen, giving his friend a fist bump.
"Yo," said Booker, opening the door and getting into the passenger seat of Chen's car.
Chen took the driver's seat, started up the Chevy Malibu, and pulled away from the curb.
"Where is it?" asked Booker.
"Ah, where is what?" asked Chen, glancing behind him to change lanes.
"The apple," explained Booker. "For your first day."
"For the teacher?"
"Yeah. You always struck me as a suck up," said Booker with a grin while looking out the window.
"Ok," said Chen, grinning at his best friend, "First off, I've done a ton of good for us by sucking up over all the years and I can only recommend it to you a bit. Some well placed sucking up by you might do us some good. Second, you want to bring an apple to Mauser because it's our first day in his division, I have a feeling you will find out what a Macintosh enema feels like."
Booker began to laugh and said, "Yikes, dude. Bad image. And apple seeds have cyanide. Hey, you ever heard the joke where..."
"Yeah, you told me that one before," said Chen.
"I hate you," he said with a grin. The men had been best friends since training in the police academy. By good luck or smart management, once their rookie stints were over, they had been assigned together as partners. First on the street as patrolmen and afterwards as new detectives in the Gangs and Narcotics Division. This was to be their first day under Lt. Frank Mauser in Robbery Homicide. Mauser was a hard ass, but highly decorated and respected by the men. They were looking forward to it.
"Number 42," said Chen.
Booker began to laugh.
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LAPD Southeast Community Police Station, Los Angeles
Mauser sat his desk and said to Chen and Booker, sitting across from him, "Awright, guys. That's the lay of the land. Where to pee and park. Any questions?"
"No, Sir," said Booker.
"No, Lieutenant," said Chen.
"Well, you'll have questions as time goes on. Any one of the guys or gals here will help you out. We've been short staffed for six months, so everyone is happy to see you."
"Thank you, Sir," said Booker.
"Ok. You ready for your first case?" asked Mauser.
"Yes, Sir," both men said.
"Here." He slid an almost empty file folder across the table to the men. "Came in last night. Doc over at West LA Doctors and Nurses says a homeless guy was iced by poison. She's freaking out that the homeless are at risk for more of the same and wants increased uniforms around their encampments."
"We going to do it?" asked Chen.
"Maybe. Above my paygrade. In the meantime, see what you can figure out. Talk to the doctor. See why she's got her panties in a twist."
"Yes, Sir. Will do," said Booker, getting up from his chair.
"And guys," both men turned back to Mauser now standing behind his desk holding out his hand to them with a smile. "Welcome aboard." Even being nice, he looked incredibly tough.
They shook his hand and said, "Thank you."
Sitting down at their newly assigned adjoining desks in the squad room, it took them only a couple of minutes to create a list of people to talk to and computer searches to run. They got started on the phones and computers.
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Courtyard, Echo Park apartment complex, Los Angeles
That evening, the sun had set and the air was cooling but still warm as Ellie came home from the hospital. It had been a tiring day.
Sitting on the edge of the fountain were two men in suits and ties, one African American and the other seeming to be Chinese American. They were a bit younger than Ellie. Around Chuck's age, she guessed. Slim and fit looking. She wasn't nervous at the appearance of the unexpected visitors, knowing that the top spies in the world were living on either side of the fountain.
"Doctor Bartowski?" asked the Chinese looking man while standing, very polite.
"Yes," she said.
"My name is Detective Chen. This is my partner, Detective Booker. We spoke earlier today," he said.
"Of course. Glad to see you're taking this seriously," she said. She was, in fact, glad to see the detectives. The more action she could generate for Bagg's death the better her chances of protecting more of the homeless.
"Very much so, Doctor," said Booker. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to tell you what we have found so far."
"Ok. Have you gotten the protection for the homeless, though? That's of utmost importance."
"I understand. You said that this morning when we spoke. I understand your sense of urgency," he said.
"And I notice you didn't answer the question," she said.
"No, I didn't," said Booker. "Not yet, anyway."
"Before we go further, Doctor, we'd like to ask your brother to join us, please," said Chen.
"My brother?" said Ellie, a bit confused by the direction of the conversation.
"Yes, please," he said. Raising his voice slightly, he said, "Mr. Bartowski, if you could please step out here? I think you should participate in this conversation."
Only moments later, the door to Chuck and Sarah's apartment opened and they stepped out a few steps to stand near the others.
"Evening. I'm Chuck Bartowski and this is my fiancé, Sarah Walker," Chuck said.
As they shook hands, the detectives said, "Detective Chen and Detective Booker."
Chen looked an extra moment or two at Sarah and, frowning, began to do something with his cell phone.
Chuck said, "How did you know we could hear you?"
Booker pointed to three spots in the courtyard. "Cameras. Unless I'm mistaken, at least one covers the infrared spectrum." He pointed to two more areas and said, "In addition, there are mics. Pretty sensitive, I think. This courtyard is wired to hear, and see, a fly fart. Someone had to be on the other side of that tech. You were the logical choice, Mr. Bartowski. Unless it's Colonel Casey, over there," Chen gestured towards Casey's apartment.
At the mention of his name, Casey came out to stand with the others with his arms crossed, looking grim and tough.
"Evening, Colonel," said Booker.
Casey grunted.
"Thank you for speaking with us. Here's what we know about the death of Mr. Bagg. He was brought to LA County by EMTs more than a week ago. He died there and the autopsy was inconclusive. Dr. Bradshaw reached out to you," he gestured toward Ellie, "because he didn't understand a test result. The next morning, you asked the Medical Examiner how many unexplained homeless deaths there were and he told you there weren't any."
"He's a tool," said Ellie mostly under her breath.
With a small smile, Chen said, "No comment...at the moment. In any event, you spoke to Prang and left him your card. He sent you to one of the charities helping those people. Sam Ingram, the manager there, told you, among other things, that there was an uptick in the number of dead homeless in the last month or so. Thirty or forty extra deaths he guessed. How are we doing so far?"
Ellie, her arms crossed tightly against her chest, nodded and said, "Keep going, but all you've done so far is to go over the same ground I did. Waste of time."
He kept going. "We know. The more interesting stuff is coming up now. Although your day job is at Westside, you have privileges at West LA Doctors and Nurses. Yesterday, after your conversation with Ingram, where he told you about dozens of extra deaths, Bagg's body was transferred to West LA where a new toxicology report found death by a poison called thaddium di-oxate. With the poisoning, it became a homicide. You signed the death certificate with a cause of death and alerted the LAPD. You, Dr. Bartowski, when we spoke to you this morning, emphasized the need to protect the city's homeless population from whatever predator or predators were out there killing them."
"Yes. I did," she said firmly. "I still do."
"Here's the thing, Doctor," said Booker. "The tox report that found the poison? It was unsigned. There's no technician's name on it."
"Ok. Normal screw up," she said. "Happens sometimes."
"And then we talked to a senior professor of chemistry at UCLA. He tells us that there's no such thing as thaddium di-oxate. Sounds good, but just doesn't exist," said Booker. "If Bagg was poisoned, it wasn't by that."
"What are you saying?" Ellie asked, her voice hardening.
"Not saying anything yet, doctor." Booker made a please-wait gesture with his hands. "But I want to talk to you... all of you...about some gossip and rumors that have been circulating in the police department for the last year or so. You know, among cops, we gossip like old ladies to tell the truth. I know that stuff should be ignored as unreliable, but after a while, it adds up.
"So, a year ago, the feds stopped a bombing at Union Station. Real heroic stuff. Caught that bastard Andric who bombed the hotel. They say some computer guy...some computer guy with the feds, disabled the trigger mechanism and saved everyone in the station. No one knows who the guy was...but later...months later really... the name Carmichael began to be whispered near the water cooler or over beers among cops late at night. Like some kind of secret superspy ghost or something leading an elite team of spies."
Chen, who seemed to have finished what he was doing on his phone, picked up where Booker had left off. "A few months later, the big shoot out at the docks. Huge. Whole bunch of dead terrorists. The Coast Guard sank a fucking...excuse my French...Al Qaeda ship off the LA coast. Actual naval battle, if you can even believe it. Crazy big deal. Rumors had it that the Carmichael team was involved. Months after that, the grounding of the Golden Voyage. There was a fed team there too. Didn't make the papers, but we know it was there. Precipitated the decimation of the White Dragon Triad. Want to guess which team?"
Booker said, "Later, this murderer Payne was picked up. Killed four people. Couple of EMTs among them..."
"You, yourself," said Chen, "were poisoned by him, Doctor."
"I remember," Ellie said, deadpan.
"Carmichael team again," said Booker with a hint of a smile. "Small world, huh?"
"The craziest rumor we heard from a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy in Bakersfield. That hostage thing up there over the summer? Yeah. It actually involved multiple nuclear missiles inbound to cream Los Angeles. Want to guess who was the computer genius that stopped them? How about the same dude from Union Station a year ago? He and his team took out a building full of armed terrorists and saved everybody in Los Angeles," said Booker, looking directly at Chuck. Chuck stared back stone faced.
"Carmichael," said Chen. "And, just recently, just the other day, there was an assassination attempt in DC. You don't even know this one, Luke," he said to his partner. "The press managed to get some pretty cool photos of the Federal officers...everybody credits the Secret Service, hustling the President out of a building before it blew up. Here's a picture." Chen showed the phone to Booker.
"Hmmm. Doesn't do her justice, in my opinion," Booker said with a sudden grin.
Chen showed the photo on his phone to the members of Team B standing with them in the courtyard. It was a shot of very serious looking Sarah and Mei-Ling, guns drawn and pointed straight up with both Presidents behind. The ladies were clearly moving with determination through the frame of the shot.
Chen said, "I'm now thinking it wasn't the Secret Service, to be honest. Maybe another team, huh? I didn't make that particular connection until I saw you just now, Ms. Walker. Mr. Bartowski, you and your partners own a computer security company and have established a charitable foundation, is that right? Your company helps companies stop hackers and protect themselves. You must know a bit about computers."
"I think you know that already," Chuck said.
"And what are those two entities called?" asked Booker.
"Carmichael Industries and The Carmichael Foundation," said Sarah with a small sigh.
"Wow. A name that's been used a lot tonight," said Chen, smiling, but with feigned surprise. "To be honest, we sort of thought you'd be harder to find. No offense. It's actually what sent us down this track. When we looked into Dr. Bartowski, who had clearly lied to us for some totally inexplicable reason, your name and affiliations came up in the same search. It's why we came to talk to you this evening in person here on your home ground. Respect. Let's be honest, you guys are fucking legends. Fucking legends." His eyes a bit shiny, it seemed for a moment that his voice had caught in his throat.
With a glance at his partner, Booker said, "So here's what we think, Doctor. Can't prove any of it, but here goes. We think you found something in the test results that Bradshaw couldn't. We think you can't talk about it for some reason because you're part of Carmichael's team. Whatever it is, the ME is missing it too. We think the uptick in homeless deaths is being ignored by the ME because he's a tool and he's just closing cases on his desk rather than admitting he doesn't know what the fuck is happening. We think that, when Ingram told you of the uptick yesterday morning, a lot of dead people after all, you freaked out and decided to create a cause of death for Bagg just to get some uniforms on the homeless."
Chen said, "That's what we think. How'd we do?"
Ellie turned and looked at Chuck, who was looking at the detectives calmly. It was obvious to everyone in the courtyard that Chuck was the person being addressed by the detectives. The person making the decisions.
Booker implored, directly to Chuck at this point, "Without telling us any secret shit that will get you guys in trouble, can you please just tell us what the hell is going on? Neither of us wants to go all fanboy on you guys, but we really, really want to help. It's damn near impossible to do that when you lie to us."
Chuck looked around at his team and, getting their silent approval, said to the detectives, "You guys eat dinner yet? We were just about to order some pizza."
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A/N2: A joke. Two prisoners are in the cell and a new third prisoner is brought in. After a while, one of the older prisoners says to the other, "42." The older prisoner cracks up laughing. The new prisoner says, "What's so funny?" One of the older prisoners says, "We've been in here so long together we know each other's jokes. We don't have to tell them anymore. We numbered them and just say the number and remember what that joke is." After a moment's thought, the new prisoner says "39" and he is met with silence. Now there are actually two different punchlines for this joke. First one: One old prisoner turns to the other and says, "Some people just can't tell a joke." Second one: Both old prisoners stare at him and one says, "Haven't heard that one." Anyway, that's the joke Luke was referring to in his back and forth with Alan.
A/N3: Um? What do you guys think? Holiday time. I'm a grinch. Sorry.