Scene XXXIV – Outside the Buy More

The iPhone started vibrating in Chuck's shirt pocket just as he exited the Buy More. He quickly spotted the Porsche idling outside the entrance; Sarah was drumming her fingernails on the steering wheel as she pressed her phone to her ear. Seeing Chuck exit the store, she put her phone down. Chuck's phone stopped ringing.

He slid into the passenger's seat; as soon as his door was shut, Sarah took off. "You're late," was the only greeting he got.

Chuck quickly strapped himself in. "Sorry, I had to finish blackmailing Jeff and Lester." He thought the comment would be good for a start to a conversation, or at least for a laugh to break the ice after their earlier encounter. But while the corner of her mouth turned up for a second, it went back down just as quickly.

Realizing she wasn't going to respond, he turned his eyes forward. The pair remained quiet as Sarah wound her way out of the parking lot and out onto the main road.

Chuck thought he had gotten past their argument this morning, but her silence brought the tension back. He really didn't want to fight with Sarah any more, and not just because he was exhausted. Ultimately, Sarah had been largely right with her central point: there were certain occasions when he just needed to follow orders. He hadn't truly understood until Jeff and Lester unintentionally helped drive that point home.

He struggled to find a way to start the conversation. Looking over at Sarah, he thought he noticed a similar struggle going on inside of her. She looked over at him, her eyes snapping back to the road when she noticed him looking at her. As quick as she was, she hadn't been able to hide the slightest hint of sadness around the edges of her otherwise cold eyes. When she swallowed hard a moment later, his suspicions were confirmed.

One of them was going to have to play peacemaker; it might as well be him.

"Sarah?"

"What?" Sarah's eyes stayed locked on the road, her tone a little distant.

"What you said this morning about my following orders? You were right."

Sarah briefly looked over at him, her ice in her eyes melting slightly. Again, her eyes fled back to the road as she maneuvered through traffic. He suspected that was just a convenient excuse for her to look away.

Chuck continued, "Look, I stand by some of the other things I said. I can do more than haul around the Intersect and boot up computers. But you're right that we don't need three people involved in every decision, and some times I just need to follow orders."

Sarah processed what he said for a moment. She said, "Building a team takes communication and an understanding of each person's role; we could all do a better job of remembering that. We'll get there." After a long pause, she added, "But you were right about our needing to utilize all of your skills."

Chuck looked at her questioningly.

Glancing over as she could, she said, "I watched the recording of your interview with Cushman. That was well done, Chuck. Not only did you get the information we needed, but he really seems to trust you. That's not easy to do, even for a trained interrogator."

Chuck's expression clearly reflected his pride at the compliment. He didn't really know what to say. So, he looked over at her until a break in the traffic allowed her to look back at him. When their eyes met, he simply said, "Thank you, Sarah."

Her answering smile was like the sun coming up. Slightly embarrassed, she shyly hid from his gaze by glancing down at the center console, then reluctantly turning back to watch the road.

The pair stared forward through the windshield, enjoying a much different kind of silence. Both of them wore happy little smiles, and each looked as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Only the noise from the engine and occasional clicking of a turn signal disturbed the quiet ride. Chuck idly watched the storefronts and the traffic lights race by as they cruised through the Los Angeles streets, feeling as good as he had felt all day.

After a few minutes, Sarah said, "Speaking of trust, I never thanked you for your gift."

Chuck looked over and saw Sarah playing with the pendant on her necklace with one hand. "Ah, you figured out my riddle. Should've known an agent wouldn't have any trouble with that. I'll need to be a little more obscure next time."

"Next time?" Sarah asked with a grin.

Chuck raised an amused eyebrow. "If you're lucky. Seriously, I wanted the necklace to be more than just a part of our cover. I like my gifts to be something that people don't have or something they really need."

"Well, this one qualified on both counts. Thank you, Chuck."

Sarah's right hand slipped from the steering wheel and starting moving towards where Chuck's left hand rested on the center console between the seats. His heart raced.

At the last moment, her hand diverted to the gear shift, downshifting as she turned right. Chuck quickly looked at the road, trying to hide his disappointment. He really thought she was about to take his hand.

His mind floated back to the previous night, when Sarah had him alone in his room. Her hands tangled in his hair, her lips on his neck … even now, his eyes almost closed involuntarily at the memory. Chuck shivered.

Sarah looked over questioningly. "Are you cold? I can put the heat on."

It wasn't that cold a day, but Chuck didn't have any other escape. "I am a little cold."

Sarah reached down to flip the heater on. Her hand went back to the steering wheel.

For a long moment, Chuck considered whether to tell Sarah what happened in his room the previous night. In the end, he just couldn't. Something about the way she was interacting with him was more open, more honest, than usual. He was enjoying things too much, and he wasn't going to risk dispelling the fantasy that she was flirting with him. Besides, he had been there too often before, only to have his feelings cruelly doused with cold water.

No, he was going to do nothing that could sully this moment.

With a contented grin, Chuck leaned back in his seat. In his wearied state, the purring of the engine was lulling him to sleep. His eyes started to close; all he could see was Sarah, brushing back the bangs from his forehead as her mouth lingered near his…

Sarah broke the silence. "So, what was with you this morning?"

Chuck's eyes snapped open. He looked over at her quizzically. Sarah inquired, "'I don't have a problem with a woman on top?'"

Chuck became embarrassed; he had really hoped that particular miscue would have been forgotten. He started to marshal a response before he noticed the mischievous grin on her face. She was teasing him.

Well, two could play that game. "Oh, so that's how it's going to be? All right. What was up with you and Awesome's margaritas last night? My trash can - and my tooth brush - will never be the same."

Sarah's eyes lit up with amusement and mock indignation. "Aw, don't be like that, little lapdog. Come sit on my lap." She patted her thigh for emphasis.

He fished his iPhone out of his shirt pocket. "Well, if I did that, you couldn't do another one of your hat dances." He tapped the pad on the phone, playing the Mexican Hat Dance ringtone he had downloaded at the Buy More and gently turning the phone back and forth to the beat. He widened his eyes deliberately.

Sarah just laughed.

Scene XXXV – Outside the CIA Facility

Casey pulled the black Suburban up to the sidewalk leading to the front entrance of the CIA facility, with the passenger door facing the building. An agent wearing a black suit with a red tie escorted Davis onto the sidewalk; the pair walked towards the car. Davis was dressed in his clothes from the night of the raid, with his hands cuffed behind his back.

From behind the Suburban, a set of tires let out a shrill squeal as a high-powered engine raced. Casey looked in the driver's side mirror to see a plain black sedan swerve around the back of the Suburban and onto the grass.

The agent swung Davis back towards the door, throwing him to the ground. He tried to pull out his gun, but before he could remove the piece from its holster, the man in the passenger seat of the sedan fired off two quick rounds. The agent's right shoulder was thrown backwards; he slowly toppled to the ground, landing on his back with a dull thud.

Casey cursed; he had no angle to stop the men in the car from taking out Davis as well. Anticipating the car continuing around to the front of the truck, he pushed his door open. Instead, the sedan skidded to a halt between Davis and the truck.

Casey tried to find a safe position to take a shot at the driver of the car, but was quickly dissuaded as two quick gunshots shattered the passenger window and lodged in the roof of the Suburban. Ducking instinctively, Casey dove out the door, rolling around until he lay on his stomach, granting him a view under the Suburban. He positioned himself just in time to see both tires on the passenger side deflate as two more shots rang out.

Davis, hearing the car slide to a halt on the grass, rolled over onto his back. His eyes widened as a ski-mask clad man leapt out of the car and quickly covered the few feet between them. The man put a gun to Davis' head and roughly guided him over to the car.

Casey took a quick shot at each sedan tire, but each shot was repelled with a metallic ping of a protective shield. His face tightened in frustration; whoever these guys were, they were well-prepared.

"Get in!" the man in the ski mask demanded, brandishing the gun threateningly at Davis. A frightened Davis complied.

As soon as Davis got in the car, a shot rang out from Casey's gun, and Davis' captor let loose a string of expletives as he jumped into the car … off his one healthy foot. Casey had nailed the man in the other ankle.

His face took on a satisfied grin. He hadn't shot anyone in a while; it felt good.

"Get that S.O.B!" cried the injured man through his ski mask, slamming the car door shut. The engine roared to life as the driver complied, tires spinning on the grass.

Casey rotated his body on his stomach, trying to follow the car as it drove around the front of the Suburban, hoping to get a clean shot at the back of the rear tires as the car drove off. Unexpectedly, the car wheeled around the truck, the shields still denying Casey a shot at the tires.

Casey realized that he had miscalculated; the car was coming around for an attack on him! Lying parallel to the Suburban, he tried rolling underneath the car, but his positioning was bad. His shoulder hit the step plate, preventing him from getting under the vehicle. Even worse, his right arm was pinned by his body weight; he couldn't get his gun up to defend himself.

As Casey tried to free his right arm, the black sedan completed its turn and pulled up parallel to Casey. Another man clad in a ski mask pointed a gun out the driver's side window. Casey, knowing he had reached his end, did the only thing he could: he glared back at the bright green eyes of his killer.

From across the parking lot, a shot rang out. The sound of a racing Porsche engine grew louder as Walker, leaning out the driver's side window, emptied several more rounds into the sedan windshield. An uncertain-looking Bartowski held the steering wheel mostly straight as the car whipped across the parking lot. The car swerved just enough to keep Walker a little too off-balance to hit her target.

Still, the shots were close enough to force the driver to change his focus. Pulling his gun back into the car, he stepped on the gas, his car erupting forward. As the sedan gained speed, the two cars barreled directly at each other.

"Sarah!" Bartowski called out in a frightened voice.

"Keep it straight!" was all she said, trying to get a clean shot on the driver.

Neither car changed direction, with the sedan accelerating and the Porsche continuing on cruise control.

"Sarah!" Bartowski cried again.

Walker was about to take another shot when the Porsche hit a small pothole, jostling her aim. Muttering under her breath, she re-sighted.

The second man in the sedan recovered enough to sit up, intending to take a shot at Walker through the windshield. He quickly had second thoughts as a now-upright Casey fired his last rounds through the back window, forcing the man to duck. Ejecting the clip, Casey quickly reloaded.

Hearing Casey's shots pierce the back window, the driver of the sedan decided he had had enough. Tires squealing, he made a sharp right turn, slipping between a gap in the parked cars leading towards a lot exit.

Seeing this, Casey started sprinting across the parking lot on a parallel track, forced to dodge between parked cars at times. He made up a little ground as the sedan got up to speed, but soon the car greatly outpaced him. He knew it was hopeless, but he kept sprinting out of frustration.

Walker fired off two more rounds at the driver, but the speed of the Porsche and the cover provided by the parked cars made it an exceedingly difficult shot. She slid back into the driver's seat, knocking Bartowski's arms out the way. She tried to slow down to make the turn, but couldn't slow down quickly enough.

She let off the brakes and punched the accelerator; the car took off towards the far end of the parking lot. Sarah had to hope the driver would make a right when he hit the main road; otherwise, the sedan was as good as gone. However, she was again forced to slam on the brakes as an oncoming car made a wide turn into her path. She was barely able to swerve to avoid the car, quickly coming to a halt to avoid plowing into a row of parked cars. She slammed the steering wheel in disgust.

Casey quickly lost ground on the sedan as it crossed the rows of parked cars to get to the exit. The car took a sharp left, racing down one of the rows away from Casey, giving him no chance to take another shot. He watched helplessly as the sedan sped out of the parking lot and into the street.

Scene XXXVI – CIA Facility, Main Interrogation Room

"What the hell happened?"

Chuck had to admit he was a little gratified to see Sarah take that tone with somebody else for a change. He had been on the business end of her temper too often lately.

Of course, Casey handled things a little differently than Chuck might have. "I don't know; maybe you can explain what passes for security at a CIA facility. How does a car with two men wearing ski masks casually slip up to an entrance?"

"That doesn't make any sense. We've got security cameras all over the property, and every car that enters is tracked. Two men sitting in a car, masks or not, would have caused a security alert."

"Apparently not. These guys had a straight shot at me."

Sarah started pacing as she thought. "Well, what if they didn't sit in the lot waiting? What if they had some way of knowing when you started moving Davis?"

"Like what? A mole inside the facility? That doesn't make me feel any better about the security here."

"Possible, I suppose. But what about a long-range homing device?"

Casey shook his head. "No, we made them change out of all of their clothes for just that reason. Unless…"

Sarah and Casey had the same idea simultaneously, but Sarah finished the thought. "…it was embedded under their skin?"

Chuck looked back and forth between the pair. "Is that possible?"

Casey said, "Sure, it's possible. We scan people like Larkin for devices like that, but we didn't bother with these guys. Maybe that was a mistake."

Chuck said, "I hate to ask the question, but why haven't you guys done that with me?"

"Well, Chuck, let's just say the power source for these types of units isn't the best for your health. Think radiation."

Chuck's face showed some disgust at the idea.

Sarah continued, "Besides, anyone can pick up on the transmissions. To keep power requirements down, these devices only broadcast on a small number of frequencies, which means you could be located by the very people we want to hide you from. Using a watch or a piece of jewelry, we have a larger footprint and a battery that can be replaced, which gives us more options." Her face betrayed the slightest hint of emotion as she made the statement, but neither Casey nor Chuck picked up on it.

"So, what do we do?" Chuck asked.

"We bring a scanner down here to examine Cushman. And whether or not he has a device on him, we've got to tell him that his boss was just kidnapped. And, somehow, we have to convince him to believe us."

"Why wouldn't he believe us?"

"In his shoes, would you believe anyone who walked in and told you that your boss, your friend, was just abducted in front of a CIA facility? Or would you think we were just trying to make you talk?"

"I didn't think of it like that. So how are you going to convince him of that?"

Sarah shook her head. "We're not, Chuck. You are."

Chuck looked back at her with a distressed expression.

Scene XXXVII – Office

"What the hell happened?"

The third suspect continued to rant at the driver of the sedan. "I told you we needed Cushman, not Davis. Davis does nothing for us. He's worthless."

The driver stared back with cold green eyes. "You know as well as I how this needed had to happen. We had no way of telling which transponder was which; your idiot team set them to the same frequency. When one of them was moved outside the building, we had to take our shot without knowing which was which."

The suspect, looking a little less sure of himself, ran his hand along his slicked-back black hair. The frequency issue was an unfortunate oversight, and he couldn't deny that it made things more difficult. Still, that didn't change the outcome. "You couldn't get close enough to ID Davis?"

"At a CIA facility? It had to be a quick strike or security would have picked up on us. Then we would have been fighting a dozen agents. We barely got out of there as it was."

The man with the green eyes towered a good foot or more over his counterpart, but he had no interest in upsetting the other man. He forced himself to be patient as the shorter man worked through what had happened.

Changing gears, the boss asked, "How is Vazquez?"

The green-eyed man shook his head. "Bad. The shot shattered a bone in his ankle; the bullet is still in there. He's in a lot of pain."

"We may need to leave him behind."

"It's not exactly good for morale when something like a gunshot to the foot proves fatal."

"These guys knew the deal when they signed on. Still, we can mitigate that a little. Take both Davis and Vazquez to the new facility, and have Jones stabilize Vazquez for transport. Then we'll drop him in a hole somewhere."

The driver winced. "That doesn't feel right."

"What do you want to do? Take him to the hospital? We're on foreign turf here with limited resources."

"I know. Still."

"Have somebody question Davis. Maybe he knows a way to get Cushman's code. I'll supervise the clean-up here."

Scene XXXVIII – CIA Facility, Interrogation Room #3

Chuck walked into the interrogation room with two cans of Red Bull and a bottle of water. As tired as he was, a Red Bull actually held some appeal for Chuck at the moment, but he had decided that would be a bad idea. He really needed a good night's sleep tonight.

Cushman brightened noticeably as Chuck entered; whether it was because of Chuck or because of what he carried, Chuck couldn't say. Still, it was gratifying to see Jeremy cheer up; he seemed like a good guy caught in the wrong place. That sounded more than a little familiar to Chuck.

Chuck smiled. "Hey, Jeremy."

"Hey, Chuck. I hope one of those is for me."

"Actually, both are. But you should really try to cut back on these; you've been going through some pretty serious withdrawal." Chuck set the cans on the table where Jeremy could reach them.

Cushman looked around the room. "Now that you mention it, this does look kind of like a rehabilitation facility. Maybe that Casey guy was just a bad hallucination."

Knowing full well Casey was listening, Chuck said, "I have entire months where I wished that was the case."

Jeremy laughed, cracking a can open. "Now, the blonde … Sarah? That's a hallucination I could live with."

"You realize that she's probably listening right now, and she knows forty different ways to kill a man with her bare hands."

"Hey, I spent most of the past two days wondering if you guys were going to take me out, so if I'm going to go…"

Chuck took a drink from his bottle of water. Things were finally good again with Sarah after their conversation in the car, but he wasn't comfortable enough to make cracks at her in this setting. She had been a little unpredictable lately.

Setting his bottle down, Chuck gathered himself for a tougher part of the conversation. "Jeremy…" he started.

"Cush."

"What's that?"

"My friends call me Cush."

Chuck gave him a genuine smile. "OK, Cush. We need to check something out. We're going to bring a guy in here with a scanning device. It's my understanding that it doesn't hurt; we're just testing out a theory."

"What theory?"

"We think somebody may have planted a homing device on you."

Jeremy gave Chuck an even stare as he processed what Chuck was saying. "Wow. Suddenly you sound as nuts as the other two agents."

Chuck didn't bother to correct him on the 'agents' part; there was no point in distracting from the central issue. "Well, they assure me that it's possible. If we're wrong, we'll know in five minutes."

Cush's eyes wandered the room as he thought. Finally, he watched Chuck for a long moment, giving him an assessing look. After a long silence, he said, "OK, Chuck."

Nodding his thanks, Chuck gave a thumbs-up to the mirror. The door opened and a man in a white lab coat wheeled in a device on a stand. The door was carefully shut and locked behind the technician.

While the equipment was being set up to the right of the table, Chuck asked, "Have you had any recent doctor's appointments, insurance physicals, things of that nature?"

Cush, watching the technician with a fair amount of interest, shook his head. "Nope. Brent and I only have catastrophic policies; it's one of the down sides of working at a start-up."

Chuck frowned. "No trips to the emergency room, tetanus shots, anything?"

"No, nothing. Except … well, I did get a flu shot a couple months back. Hurt like hell, too."

"Really?"

"Yeah, some guy came through the building, compliments of the property owner. He was giving shots for 5 instead of the 20 they were charging at the supermarket. Brent and I both got one. But the way it hurt, we were second-guessing ourselves. Next time I'd pay the twenty bucks."

If we're right, you'll definitely pay the money next time, Chuck thought.

It had been simple enough to verify that somewhere in the building was the type of long-range transmitter they suspected. They had triangulated the transmitter to this room. But as Sarah and Casey carefully pointed out, the important thing was to make sure Cush believed that this wasn't some kind of set-up. They had to go through things deliberately and transparently so that Cush couldn't believe they were trying to trick him.

The technician finished his set-up, and looked at Chuck expectantly.

"Where did you get the flu shot?" Chuck asked.

"My right shoulder."

"Start with the right shoulder," Chuck ordered the technician.

The technician walked over and rolled up the right sleeve of the linen shirt. Reaching back, he grabbed the scanning wand and turned the unit on.

As soon as the switch was thrown, the scanner started making a relatively fast beeping noise. The technician started at Cush's elbow, and slid the scanner up to his shoulder. The beeping noise increased in frequency, maximizing in Cush's lower shoulder area. The agent gave Chuck a firm nod.

Cush looked at Chuck disbelievingly. "You're kidding me."

Chuck shook his head.

The programmer stared blankly off into space for a long moment, trying to get his head around what Chuck and the technician were telling him. Here comes the freak-out, Chuck thought. And he couldn't really blame the guy.

Cush's eyes lit up. "That is SO COOL!"

Chuck had to fight hard to keep his jaw from hitting the floor.