Don't own Chuck

On the pirate boat, they retrieved the two zodiacs then left as quickly as they could. The Coast Guard cutter hailed them on the radio but they ignored all its attempts at contact choosing instead to head as quickly as they could to a nearby island. Luiz knew the Coast Guard would stop and give assistance to the Annabel Lee which would give them time to disappear into one of the hidden coves covered by the fog.

"Quickly, we'll lose them in the fog while they stop to put out the fires," yelled Luiz as he watched the Annabel Lee disappear from sight until only a glow could be seen. "Full speed, take us around the island then we can hide in our secret cove."

"Aye, aye skipper," answered the helmsman. Luiz looked back at him to see if he was trying to be funny then turned back. "Mom, I hope this was worth nearly getting caught," said Luiz as he took off his pirate garb tossing it aside. "This can't keep up. We nearly got caught and now everyone knows this Black Bart masquerade was a farce."

"We got what we needed to get and that's all that matters. We go back to Saint Thomas then round up our things. After that we go back home to Honduras where we start the revolution again and this time we will win."

"And you think the people will join in? I hate to tell you this but the age of revolutions is over. People just want to get by and make a better life for themselves."

"How dare you speak like that to your own mother," said Donna Rosenda as she slapped Luiz. "You get your head on straight. We do this for Pablito and for the people. This is our mission in life and don't forget it."

There was a sudden silence on the bridge as everyone became quiet. It was still dark so no one could see how red Luiz was. He was angry and if she's been anyone else she would've been swimming home. But he took it like he'd done his whole life. He clinched his teeth but did not dare make a fist for fear what he might do with them then gathered his composure.

"Mother, why don't you go down below and check on out prisoners while I try to keep us from being caught," he said through his teeth.

"I'll do that but remember what I told you," she said then she left the bridge. Luiz watched the hatch open and close with her she took the vacuum that had been sucking the air out of him.

"Get lookouts on the bow and have them keep a sharp watch for land. The last thing we need is to run aground now or rip the bottom out on some reef," barked Luiz. "I'm going to step out for a moment keep me advised.

Luiz went out on the bridge wing to brood for a bit and get some fresh air. His mother had been out of line slapping him like that in front of his men.

"One of these days we're going to have to have a talk," he said to the fog. "Mom, you can't keep on doing this… running my life. I'm not a little boy anymore… I'm a grown man," he said. But the more he rehearsed it the more ridiculous it sounded to him.

"You're pathetic Luiz," he said to himself. "You're pathetic to let your mother run and ruin your life. The girl you liked you let your mother use to trap that pig Fry with. You told her that your mother would like her more if she went along then your mother goes and shoots her. No, this has got to end just not now. Let Mom get her revenge for Pablito first then end it. Yes, put it off until then," he told himself.

[Meanwhile below deck]

Donna Rosenda made her way down to the aft cabin they were using as a holding cell for their prisoners. Outside stood an armed guard making sure they didn't escape. However, that was highly unlikely since they were still under the effects of the sedative.

"Give me the key then come in with me," she said as she held out her hand. The man took the chain off his neck with the key attached to it then handed it to her stepping aside. They went inside to find both Roan and the General still unconscious lying across the bed where they'd been tossed after being brought onboard.

Donna Rosenda was about to leave when Roan rolled over. He tried to make her out but his eyesight was still foggy and he was in a daze.

"Where am I? Do I know you? You seem familiar like I ought to but I just can't seem to place you," said Roan as he tried to fight through the effects of the sedative.

"We did meet a long time ago but you were much younger then Mr. Montgomery. We met again more recently but the other time you said that I was your first."

"You can't be Ms. Kindle, my kindergarten teacher. I heard she passed away. Don't tell me I'm dead? Is this the afterlife?"

"No, you're not dead… at least not yet and I'm not Ms. Whatever-her-name-is nor do I work for Amazon Prime. I'll give you another hint we met in a bar and you bought me a drink."

"That would cover about half the female population of China if you put them all in one country," said Roan as he yawned. "I'm going to need a little more help here."

"You gave me a flower as I sat at the bar drinking. You asked to sit down then ordered the same drink I was drinking."

"I've probably given out more roses then there are tulips in Holland and as far as drinking the same drink well I'm sorry that's just a standard line straight from my manual. Anything else you can tell me… I'm going to need some specifics," he said as he started to drift off again.

"We met recently again and you bought me a drink but you didn't remember we'd met before. We sat in a booth…"

"At the Waldron… yes, I remember you now. You know if you'd wanted to meet me again there are easier ways to hook up."

"Roan Montgomery. Did you ever think your sordid life as a spy would come to an end because

you picked up a girl in a bar?"

"Well, actually, yes. That's precisely how I thought I'd go," said Roan then he passed out again. Rosenda stood there looking at him. She didn't know what to think. Part of her wanted to put a bullet in his head right there and get it over with but another part of her wanted something different. Pablito had been dead for a long time and now she was having these strange feelings.

"No, I've got to do this," she said as she pulled her weapon from her belt. "No, this is for Pablito," she said as she pointed her barrel at his head.

"Pull the trigger and be done with it," she told herself but suddenly it became hard to do. "What's the matter with you?"

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The Major raced cross L.A. for LAX. He had a bad feeling about this but decided to keep it to himself. But there might be a silver lining to this cloud if he was right. If Marta had left a message in the bathroom and someone from the consulate had picked it up they'd find their man or woman. If they had diplomatic immunity and worse comes to worst they'd be on the next flight to Moscow but he had another idea in mind.

"Sir, airport security wants to know what's going on. The airport is normal closed at this hour and they want to know if this can't wait until morning when the terminal opens up."

"You radio ahead and tell them there had better be someone to meet us with keys when we show up or I'm going to drive this SUV straight through to the departure gate."

"Yes Sir," said Mitch as he looked back at his partner sitting with the Major in the back. They'd jumped into it this time with both feet.

When they pulled up out front of the airport there were two men waiting from TSA. The Major showed them his credentials then waved them out of the way.

"Okay, so which restroom did she use," said the Major letting Mitch and his partner lead the way with the two men from TSA opening closed off sections of the terminal until they arrived at the restroom they were looking for.

"This is it," said Mitch. "But I don't see how she could've left a message. She wasn't inside for very long... right?" Mitch's partner nodded back. "I don't think it was more than a few minutes."

"And you two didn't think that was odd? A woman says she needs to go then she only spends a few minutes in the restroom? I know when I go I'm in there for about a half hour and that's when it's nothing serious. I don't want to hear anything about prostates all right. Guys," yelled the Major to the two TSA agents. "Can we get some lights turned on here?"

"One second," said one. He was still smiling thinking about what the Major said when he walked over to a breaker box. He flipped a few switches and they had lights.

"Thanks," said the Major then they walked inside. "You have to think that Marta wanted to leave a message that the cleaner wouldn't accidently pitch so keep your eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary.

"Look at this and my girlfriend says women aren't like men. They write on the stall walls just like us. Read this if you want a good time call M then there's this number. Must be a blonde, there's too many numbers for a telephone."

"What'd you say," said the Major as he pushed his way in. "I think you must be the blond. Take a photo of all these walls then wake the people up in decryption and have them look at this. I want a copy sent to Agent Carmichael too."

"What is this," said the one TSA agent. "It's just some graffiti someone left while they were sitting on the throne."

"If you don't mind can you take your partner and post outside. You can wait for us there," said the Major then he turned back staring at the numbers. "Crap, I know I've see this code before." He knew Chuck would look at it then flash and that would be that but he wanted a crack at it, if nothing else for personal satisfaction.

"Wait a minute I've got it. It's a Fibonacci Sequence. Look zero plus one is one but then one plus one is two. Then two plus one is three and three plus two is five. The next number is found by adding up the two numbers before it."

"But that doesn't break the code," said Mitch as he looked at the numbers and found more around the stall.

"No, but we're closer than we were before. Now we need to assign letters to the numbers but we need to figure out if she was using the Roman alphabet or the Cyrillic. She was Russian after all. This needs to go to Chuck now," said the Major. But deep down inside he was happy that in some way he'd helped crack the code maybe not wide open but he made a crack in its armour. As he was standing there his phone rang.

"Yes, this is me," said the Major. "…look who else is going to answer my phone. … Okay, okay," he said as he gave the person on the other end his verification code. "Now can you explain to me what's going on. … Oh, facial came back with a hit. Who is it? … No, really. … Geez really, no we're not waiting and letting her set away. I want a team over at her house and throw her out of bed. Bring her straight to detention and she's not to be allowed to talk with anyone, not even her lawyer. I'm on my way."

"We're done here taking photos. What do you want us to do now," said Mitch. He was hoping to be able to go home and catch a few hours of sleep but judging from the Major's last phone conversation that didn't seem to be very likely.

"One of you needs to get cleaners over here and have then sanitize the walls and the other one needs to come with me. "Your screw up might've landed us a big fish. Facial recognition has the vice consulate, Natasha Fatale, coming out of here about an hour after Marta's plane departed."

Maybe she just needed to go," said Mitch. "I'm just playing the devil's advocate but it could be that simple."

"What? There aren't any restrooms in the consulate working? She drives all the way here to the airport to go passing up restaurants, filling stations and a number of trees. I have enough problems running from my office down the hall and again I don't want to hear anything about prostates."

"You know the Russians are going to make a stink and crap is going to hit the fan over this. She's number two in the consulate and you're having her hauled in."

"I know but I've got an ace up my sleeve. Come on Mitch, you just volunteered to come back to the office with me." Mitch just rolled his eyes and yawned.

"Who needs sleep anyway, sleep is overrated," he thought as he followed the Major back outside and into the SUV.

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The team had just landed in Saint Thomas and were deplaning when one of the agents there came over with a tablet. On it was the image of General Thomas and judging from his look he was not very happy. Mary looked over at Chuck but he was on his phone with someone else. She waved for Sarah to come over which was more strategic then practical.

"What? I just got Bunny in the SUV and now I need to get Sam buckled in," she said as Sam stood there half-asleep yawning. She leaned up against her leg to keep from falling over.

"Just a moment," said Mary. "Chucks on the horn with the Major and I've got General Thomas on the line. He won't be so obnoxious if he sees children around."

Sarah wanted to protest but before she could Mary had turned the tablet around so Tank could see them all in his monitor.

"What the heck are you doing in Saint Thomas? You know how long it took me to get in touch with you? Where's Beckman at I need to talk to her right away."

"The General is on a much-needed vacation and is out of pocket at the moment that's why she left me in charge. If there's anything you have to tell her you can tell me."

"Well, then try this on the Secretary of State was thrown out of bed this morning by the Russian Ambassador saying the vice consulate had been kidnapped from her home in Malibu. He tried to contact Beckman but found she was out of town and that you were left in charge. After not being able to reach you he contacted me…"

"He mustn't have tried very hard because I was in contact with my office and the Major. I'll contact him and have him coordinate with the local authorities."

"You don't have to. I just got off the phone with the NSA and had them pull up a satellite image of the vice consulates residence when the incident took place. Do you want to know what I discovered?" Tank was getting angry at what he thought was Mary stonewalling and had about all he could take when Chuck jumped in.

"General, my mother… I mean the Acting Director was unaware of the incident at the time it took place. I just got briefed and soon the incident will become clear. The Major took Ms. Fatale in custody when it was discovered she was the head of a Russian spy ring…"

"You can't hold her, she had diplomatic immunity. Do you want one of our people grabbed off the streets of Moscow? She needs to be released as soon as possible and for everyone's sake unharmed."

"As I said before the Acting Director was unaware of these developments but the Major had his reasons too. He felt he had to act because of an impending threat. You can assure the Secretary of State the Russians won't press this and they might even thank us."

"That will be the day," said Thomas as he seemed to relax. Chuck's reassurances made him seem to calm down and he had something to tell the powers to be. "Very well but keep me in the loop and Acting Director… Mary, just because you don't know something took place you're still accountable for the actions of your people. General Thomas out." The tablet went back to the home screen.

"What the…," she started to say but Chuck put his hands over Sam's ear. "Okay, very funny. What is the Major up to and why hasn't he kept me in the loop? He and I are going to have to have a nice long talk."

"Go easy on him. It's really not his fault things just unfolded in a hurry and he had to act quickly. He discovered Marta had left a coded message in a restroom in the air terminal. Can you believe he recognized it was written in Fibonacci Sequence? That's where the next number is found by adding up the two numbers before it. Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician from the Republic of Pisa, is considered by some to be the most talented Western mathematician of the Middle Ages. The name he is commonly called, Fibonacci is not his real name but was invented by the French historian Guillaume Libri in 1838 and is short for 'filius Bonacci' ('son of (the) Bonacci')."

"Charles, everyone is tired and we want to go to sleep so can we skip the history lesson and can you tell me what the message was and how this ties into the Vice Consul being taken in?"

"Well the number sequence is just one part of the code then we need to discover what letters or words the numbers represented. Which leads to another problem… what alphabet did they use… Roman or Cyrillic."

"I thought I was clear before. Did we decode the message?" said Mary as they got into the SUV to drive them into town.

"Yes, I broke it as soon as I saw it. It was a drop letter substitution…," Chuck started to explain but he saw the exasperated looks of everyone staring at him. "It said, 'John Casey aka Alex Coburn is on his way to Saint Thomas'."

"Then that's it the game is on," said Casey as he smiled looking out the window into the dark. "I can deal with this."

"I don't think they'll send anyone tonight and we still don't know if the message was transmitted here but John if they did remember we need one of them alive to tell us where Beckman and Roan are being held."

"Oh, they'll talk… they always do," said John as he cracked his knuckles. "Chuck is this what you were quiet about on the plane? You want to build a tiger trap? Don't worry I'm cool with this. But when the tiger comes he or she's going to find a lion waiting not the goat he or she'll be expecting."

"Well yeah… and while we're on the topic of traps. You're going to be staying in a bungalow down by the beach. One of us will stay with you but Mom, you and the girls will be staying in the Waldron. The rest of us will be staying in the two bungalows on each side of Casey. Did Agent Marley get the cameras up I requested?"

"Yes sir," said the driver. "We've got full surveillance up in and around the central bungalow with live feeds going to the Waldron. We'll be using that as our HQ so we don't scare off our targets."

"Good, I'll walk through it tomorrow. The last time I talked with Agent Marley he said they would be pulling in at dawn."

"Yes, I just got off the phone with him before you arrived and he wanted to let you know that the interviews are coming along. He should have them completed by the time they pull in."

"Chuck, I want you on the pier to meet them when they pull in," said Mary. "Sarah, you and I will be busy tomorrow morning then we'll catch up with you. John, I want you to visit a few coffee shops and bars."

"I could ask around about the boat's crew and talk to people but do you think whoever's behind this is going to buy off on that? I mean they have to know I'm not here on vacation."

"John's right. If he doesn't work they'll know we're on to them and do something we won't expect like plant an IED in town. We could get innocent people hurt that way. Why don't you let John come with me? That way they'll see him on the boat investigating and they'll be none the wiser."

"Morgan, you and Alex can do the bar combing looking for intel. Ask around about this Black Bart and his pirate band."

"Let's all just get some sleep and we can hash everything out in the morning and considering what time it is that won't be long away," said Chuck as Sarah reached over and took his hand then she leaned over resting her head on his shoulder. Sam found a quiet corner to curl up into and was sound asleep by the time they arrived at the hotel. She was so out of it that Chuck had to carry her in like a sack of potatoes.

"Colonel, one last thing," said Mary. "For the time being I want you wearing a vest at all times and don't make me repeat myself."

"Does that mean in the shower too?" said John but Mary wasn't laughing. She just gave him a look. "Ma'am, I appreciate the concern but that's really not my style."

"And what style would that be? Dead. I'll make it easy for you and tell you in a way you'll understand. Wear a vest and that's an order."