Scene XVII – CIA Interrogation Facility, Main Interrogation Room

Agent Casey re-entered the main chamber holding a cup of tea, a bag of small pretzels captured between the thumb and forefinger of the same hand. His head was down as came into the room; he fished a couple of pretzels from the bag and tossed them into his mouth. When he looked up, he slowed, taking in the scene in front of him.

There was some serious tension in the room. Something had happened while he was gone.

Bartowski was lying on his stomach, his spine straight as an arrow, his face taut. He didn't seem to be doing anything other than waiting for the newly arrived printer to finish spitting out page after printed page. That seemed especially odd until Casey noticed the cord to the monitor was unplugged; there weren't enough outlets, so Bartowski needed to unplug the monitor in order to plug in the printer.

Casey grunted as he recognized Bartowski's problem: with their focus on the suspects, they hadn't really paid attention when Chuck had asked for the power strip. Chuck really needed to learn how to assert himself better when he needed something.

Still, that didn't explain the tension in the room.

Agent Walker sat in her chair with some papers in her lap, staring vacantly into space. Examining her posture, he noted that her shoulders sat higher than they should have, something that often happened when she was nervous or stressed. Casey frowned. The vacant stare could just have been about fatigue, but he doubted it. The part of him that that was an NSA agent and the part of him that was Sarah's partner agreed on the same course of action.

"Agent Walker," Casey said.

"What?"

"When was the last time you slept?"

At that, she shook herself out of her trance and started messing with the papers in her lap. "I grabbed a couple of hours last night. I'm fine."

He started walking over to the desk, fiddling with the monitoring equipment in between glances at Walker. "Actually, you're not. You worked 28 of the last 30 hours, and if memory serves, you and Bartowski have a dinner appointment at 1900."

She glanced at the clock on the wall; it read 2:43 pm. "That's right."

"Head home and grab some shut-eye; Bartowski and I will keep working. We've got one more day to make this work, and you need to be fresh tomorrow."

Walker looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn't. Wearily, she dropped the pages onto the table. She extracted herself from the chair and moved over to monitoring desk, right next to Casey. She pulled a set of keys and a few other things from one of the drawers, the jingling noise providing a counterpoint to the hum of the fluorescent lights and the repetitive clicking of the printer. Straightening her shoulders, she walked away without saying a word.

Casey turned around so he could watch both of them. Sarah's eyes fixed on the exit and never wavered as she crossed the room. Chuck resolutely kept his eyes on the blank monitor screen until just before Sarah left the room, when he stole the quickest of peeks. The two said nothing to each other.

That confirmed his instincts about the tension in the room. There was only one question left: what were Chuck and Sarah fighting about?

Whatever the reason, this could be made to work to his advantage.

His curiosity piqued, Casey wandered over towards Bartowski, deliberately assuming a casual stance. It was time to go fishing again. "Don't mind Agent Walker. She's tired and frustrated; we all get there. Whatever she said, she probably didn't mean."

Bartowski glanced suspiciously at Casey as he spoke. Casey knew he had to be careful; it wasn't like him to apologize for somebody, and even Bartowski would realize that.

Apparently, Bartowski couldn't come up with any reason to stay suspicious, because his expression relaxed. "Yeah, well, we're all frustrated. I was just trying to pitch in, and she shot me down before I could even make a suggestion." The printer stopped printing; he got up to swap the plugs in the wall outlet.

Casey was disappointed: he thought he may have caught the two having a lover's quarrel. Despite their protestations, he suspected that there were still feelings between them, even if both of them seemed to fight them every step of the way. But Bartowski wasn't a good enough liar to make up something like that so quickly, so Casey took it at face value.

The NSA agent noted that a fight over Bartowski's work could still prove useful. "What were you going to suggest?"

Once again, Bartowski looked a little suspicious. And once again, he was able to come up with no good reason to be suspicious. Walking back towards Casey, he said, "I have an idea about how to get Cushman to open up – if you'll let me talk to him."

Crap. Casey was more than a little skeptical. Despite getting Liniman to talk, Bartowski was hardly an impressive interrogator. "The guy's a lump right now. He's not responding to his name, let alone questioning."

"Walk me down to the cafeteria. I'll explain what I'm thinking along the way."

Casey was about to protest, but Chuck cut him off. "I know, I know: saracastic remark, cutting remark, blah blah blah. Why don't we cut to the part where you say, 'What have we got to lose?' to save us all some time."

Casey gave him a sardonic smile and a shoulder shrug. "What have we got to lose?"

Scene XVIII – Buy More

Morgan wandered through the Buy More, energetically greeting customers as he moved from section to section.

"Hi, welcome to Buy More!"

"Ma'am, that shade of magenta looks marvelous on you. You look positively radiant."

"Video cameras? That would be to the left of the big screen TV department. Tell them Morgan sent you."

He felt so good that he didn't even bother to try to avoid Big Mike as he strolled towards him.

"Hey, big man! Wait, did you lose weight?"

Big Mike actually smiled. "Actually, I'm down a pound and a half. Does it show?"

"Does it show? Those pants are practically falling off of you."

Big Mike's looked extraordinarily pleased as the two passed each other. He said, to himself, "I think I've earned myself a cinnamon bun." He kept walking right out the front door of the store.

Morgan continued towards the home theater room, where Anna was waiting for an afternoon gaming break. He tunelessly hummed a song as he almost danced the last dozen feet to the door.

Jeff and Lester were far enough back in the shadow of a Buy More sales banner that Morgan didn't see them until Lester spoke.

"Going somewhere, Mr. Grimes?" Lester asked. Lester and Jeff both leaned back against the wall, staring coldly at Morgan. Lester had changed into the monogrammed shirt Tang had given him; he calmly chewed on a toothpick.

Jeff slowly picked a Cheeto from the bag Morgan had bought for him, squinting his eyes as he deliberately bit the bright orange rod in half. The effect was more disconcerting than intimidating.

"Oh, hey, guys: gotta thank you. The gum? A lifesaver. Seriously."

"So glad to hear it. But I'm afraid the rules have changed."

Morgan looked back and forth between the pair. "Rules? What are you talking about?"

The duo started talking in turn, with Lester starting.

"Seems to me we have a couple of things you'll be needing."

"More of the gum."

"And the video game."

At the last, Morgan became confused. "Why would I need the video game?"

Lester stood up from the wall, switching the toothpick to the other side of his mouth with his tongue.

"Well, I have to wonder how the lovely Miss Wu would react when she finds out that you traded her Christmas gift for some gum. Jeff, how do you think she'd take that?"

"Badly," Jeff said. He plucked another Cheeto from the bag, shoving the entire length into his mouth with a crunch, leaving orange crumbs on his lips and fingers. He sucked the bright orange flecks off his fingertips; again, the effect was more than a little disconcerting. Morgan shook his head with disgust.

"We wouldn't want Miss Wu finding out, would we?" Lester asked, his tone full of innuendo.

"What, now you guys are blackmailing me?"

"'Blackmail' is such an ugly word. We are simply making you aware of what could happen if you don't perform certain favors for us."

"Unbelievable. You guys are unbelievable."

"What would be unbelievable would be a recitation of what Miss Wu wrote on the game liner. Shall I read it aloud? Maybe in the home theater room?"

Morgan looked nervously through the open window, where Anna was sitting on the couch. With a defeated expression, he said, "No, no, don't. What do you want?"

"Right now? A soft pretzel from the food court. Jeff?"

"A large Pepsi. None of that Coke crap." He delicately selected another Cheeto from the bag and shoved the length into his mouth.

Shoulders slumping, Morgan said, "I'll be right back."

Scene XIX – CIA Facility, Main Interrogation Room #3

Chuck walked up to the door to the interrogation room carrying a heavy brown bag, a notebook, and a file folder with papers. For the third time in three months, he prepared to interrogate a suspect. "This is too weird," he muttered to himself, stealing a peek at Cushman through the inset window. Taking a deep breath, he nodded to Casey, who opened the door. After he walked through, Casey closed and locked the door behind him.

Cushman didn't move as Chuck entered the room, his footsteps echoing in the small space. He walked over and deliberately dropped the file folder onto the table. Jeremy still didn't move. Chuck set the bag on the table and unrolled the top. Still nothing from Cushman. Chuck sat down in one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table from the suspect. Cushman never moved, not even when Chuck put his feet up on the table.

Chuck idly read through the pages of Jeremy's computer code, not saying a word, apparently content to sit there for the time being.

Outside, Casey flipped the audio onto the speakers and resumed staring through the window. "What the hell is he doing?" Casey grumbled. "Trying to bore him into submission?" It was one of Bartowski's greatest talents. If he brought in Grimes as well, he might violate the Geneva Convention. Casey chuckled to himself, wishing Walker were there so he could needle her with that remark.

Inside the room, Chuck flipped a page to the back of the stack, loudly and deliberately. Jeremy still didn't move.

Without looking up from the code, Chuck reached into the bag, and pulled out a can of Red Bull, setting it gently on the table. He popped the top with one hand.

Cushman's head shot up from the table.

Without looking up, Chuck took a drink. "Interesting. This a Markov model you used to probe a site's security?"

His eyes never leaving the can, Jeremy answered in a hoarse and pained voice, "No-o, it's a variable-order Bayesian network model."

Chuck grunted, taking a long swig from the can. With a slight catch in his voice, he said, "That's powerful stuff." It wasn't clear if he was talking about the algorithm or the beverage. "Helps the machine learn about the security features, I take it?"

Chuck looked up at the end of his question in time to see Jeremy nod, staring longingly at the can. He had his hands along the sides of his head as if in pain, elbows resting on the table.

Looking back at the code, Chuck emptied the can with a long pull, and threw it over his shoulder into the corner. The clanging sound echoed through the room, causing Jeremy to clutch his head tighter with his hands. He pulled another can from the bag and popped the top, staring at the papers in his lap. He stayed silent for a few minutes, occasionally making a notation or shifting a page to the back of the stack.

Cushman looked back and forth between the can and Chuck. Hesitantly, he asked, "Do you … Do you have an extra one of those?"

Chuck gave him a sad smile. "Unfortunately, I only have a few cans, and I'm going to have to slog through all this code," he said, holding up the sheaf of papers. "I'll need them all to make it through what's likely to be a long day."

Jeremy's face looked truly agonized. Chuck was quiet for a moment, staring at the top page with a puzzled expression on his face, voicelessly reading the code on the page.

He looked over at Jeremy as if he'd just had a thought. "Unless you could give me hand understanding what I'm looking at?"

Cushman's face became conflicted; he licked his lips.

In the outer room, Casey tilted his head to the side with a subtly impressed expression. He hadn't really expected Bartowski's buddy-with-a-six-pack routine to work, but he hadn't really believed that Cushman's withdrawal could be caused by Red Bull either. It was amazing what people did to their bodies.

Having watched Morgan go through a similar withdrawal, Bartowski thought Red Bull was the likely cause, especially given the pile of cans in the corner of Cushman's office. It was something the agents had missed; they were focused on the computers and the documents, not a recycling bin. Again, sloppy work on their part.

This success made today a home run as far as Casey was concerned. The mission at hand had advanced: getting Cushman to crack was a big deal, and might provide what they needed to get Davis talking as well.

On top of that, Bartowski was clearly looking for some on-the-job validation, and he, not Agent Walker, had given it to him. That would only serve to build Bartowski's trust in him, and that would serve him well when the time came.

The NSA agent in him was generally pleased. However, things weren't perfect.

Bartowski's success with Cushman would complicate things a little. Originally, he had planned to keep the interrogation a secret between Chuck and him, but now he would have to tell Sarah how Chuck ended up in the interrogation room instead of focusing on the computers as she had asked.

He wasn't prepared to amplify the friction between himself and Walker … yet. He would have to think about that.

Scene XX – Sarah's Hotel Room

Sarah tossed and turned in her bed, unable to sleep. She would lie still for a moment, but wouldn't be able to get comfortable and would inevitably shift to a different position.

It seemed impossible that she couldn't sleep given the previous two days, but there was just too much going on in her head. She finally kicked off the bright white comforter in frustration, her red Christmas pajamas highlighted against the spotless white sheets.

Sarah was frustrated on a number of levels. At the moment, she was staring at the ceiling as she agonized over her job. Her job was her identity, and Director Graham had made it clear how unhappy he was with their failure to capture the third suspect or make any progress via interrogation. Her mind revisited the different interrogation techniques they had tried on the surprisingly stubborn suspects. Davis had flat-out chosen not to believe them when they told him that they had hit a CIA server, and Cushman wasn't talking at all.

Maybe they would have to figure out what drug Cushman craved; it wasn't necessarily ethical, but at this point she was desperate to get the two suspects talking.

Again getting nowhere thinking about the detainees, Sarah fixated on the third suspect. They had been sloppy when they entered the offices, choosing not to do any advance surveillance and assuming that the two men from the briefing would be the only two in the office. She kicked herself for the umpteenth time. If Casey and Sarah had caught the third suspect at the scene, the last forty-eight hours would have gone so differently.

The mission would have been wrapped up in one night. Chuck wouldn't have been put in danger. She wouldn't be lying there, exhausted and miserable. And she never would have said what she had said to Chuck that afternoon.

The worst part about what she said was that there was a large kernel of truth in it. There were times when Chuck just needed to stay out of the action, both for his own safety and so the agents could focus on the mission at hand. Now, convincing Chuck of that without crushing his ego would be unbelievably difficult.

If they had caught the third suspect, Chuck would likely have gone out on their date, giving her a chance to talk to him. Instead, she doubted he even wanted to think about her right now.

Sarah rolled over to the edge of the bed, putting her feet on the floor and hunching over. Her head felt cloudy; every instinct told her to tumble back onto the bed. She looked over at the clock; it read 4:45. She had the alarm and a wake-up call set for just before 6:00; if she could fall asleep, it could still do her some good. She lay back down, pulling the comforter back up to her neck, burrowing into its warmth. Still, sleep wouldn't come.

She started thinking about the two suspects again, beginning her circle of thought again.

Scene XXI – CIA Facility, Main Interrogation Room

Two hours and six empty Red Bulls later, Chuck came out of the interrogation room carrying the bag of empty cans and a sheaf of papers, notes made all over them. He left behind a much more alert and happy Jeremy Cushman, who looked like a new man. After the door shut behind Chuck, he started shaking.

"Man, how do people do that?" he asked, looking at a suddenly smirking Casey.

"What, interrogate people?"

"No, down Red Bulls like they were water. My heart feels like it's going to fly out of my chest." He walked over to the table, dropping his notes into an open space. "Thank God he cracked after the first one; I only had to drink two of them."

"So, what've we got?" Casey asked.

Chuck looked surprised. "You weren't listening?"

"Please. My eyes glazed over after the first five minutes."

"OK, from what I can tell, the code is just a fairly sophisticated tool for trying to crack a server's security. The coding looks top-notch; it's well-designed, and probably is something he spent the better part of the last year putting together."

"So, there's nothing suspicious there?"

"Well, there is one thing. The latest modifications that Jeremy made were designed to try to install a program if they successfully broke into the server."

"And what was the program supposed to do?"

"That's the thing: there is no program in the code or on the computer. There's a place to set a path to the program installer, but that was to be provided by the client."

"He told you that?"

"I made a pretty good guess; the path pointed to what had to be an external drive. Once I figured out how that part of the code worked, he didn't see a problem telling me that the client was going to provide the program. Our missing suspect had the executable on a jump drive in his pocket."

Casey stared blankly at Chuck. Chuck clarified, "A jump drive? A thumb drive?" Casey's face was still blank.

"A small portable hard drive that plugs into a USB port? You sell them at Buy More?"

"Right, right."

Chuck looked back down at his notes. "Remind me to have Morgan give you some more training over in computer accessories."

Casey emitted a stony glare at Chuck. "Remind me to show you how we use thumb screws to interrogate suspects."

Chuck looked up with a suddenly nervous expression. Casey shrugged. "Hey, you threaten me, I threaten you."

Without commenting or dropping his eyes, Chuck continued, "Who knows what the program was designed to do. It could just be some type of verification that the server was compromised, but it could be something more, too."

"Like what?"

"Theoretically, the application could install a back door into the machine. That would provide a way for a hacker to sneak in whenever they wanted."

Casey whistled.

Chuck cautioned, "That's just speculation. For all I know, they could just be installing a graphics program that thumbs its nose at the systems administrator for leaving the system vulnerable. But if the code was set up to attack a CIA server…"

"What do you mean 'if'?"

"The IP address is just a single parameter in the code. Anyone who knew anything about the code could simply change the target and run it themselves. Jeremy wouldn't say which IP addresses he used or whether anyone else had access to the code; he was afraid of violating the nondisclosure agreements with their clients."

"Do you know the most recent targets?"

"On Jeremy's machine, the log files indicate a single IP address as the target. I can probably verify the owner of the site using WHOIS."

Casey gave him another blank stare; Chuck filled in the blanks. "An online utility that tells you who owns an IP address. Does that computer have Internet access?" he asked, pointing to the console over on the desk.

"I think so."

Chuck walked over and shifted the mouse, killing the screen saver. A login screen came up. He looked back and Casey. "A little help?"

"Sorry, Chuck, we don't know the password. IT was supposed to bring it."

"Dependable guys. I'll look it up later." Chuck walked back to the main table, scribbled the IP address onto a scrap of paper and shoved it into his back pocket.

A bit begrudgingly, Casey said, "Good work, Bartowski."

Chuck looked up with a surprised expression as he set down the pencil. "Thanks."

"Listen, I know you see Agent Walker tonight, but it's probably better that I explain how the interrogation went down.

Chuck's expression became conflicted. "But I was hoping…"

"Letting you do the interrogation was my call, so I owe her the explanation. Let me talk to her first."

That only seemed reasonable. "OK, Casey." He didn't really care who told Sarah; he just wanted her to find out.