Scene XI - Buy More
Chuck exited the stock room carrying a stack of Xbox games and started to navigate the aisles towards the gaming section. Making matters more difficult was the high volume of customers swamping the store. The day after Christmas was far, far better than the day after Thanksgiving, but it was still not a pretty day. Dodging a gaggle of kids fighting for a turn on the demo Wii station, Chuck wound his way to the Xbox section of shelves and started restocking the shelves.
Most of the shoppers fell into one of three categories. The first group looked to make exchanges, which meant complicated and boring entries into the registers. The second group scoured the store for post-Christmas markdowns, which meant long and boring questions from customers who weren't even sure what they were looking for. The final group had gift cards to spend, which meant confusing and boring conversations from customers who didn't know what they wanted. Topped off with phone calls from customers struggling to get their new toys and appliances working and it was hectic … but boring.
Making matters worse, all of Chuck's co-workers seemed to have hangovers. Of course, the type of hangover varied: Casey wasn't speaking to Chuck after his comments from the previous night, Morgan had stayed up most of the night trying out his new games, and Big Mike was just unhappy to be back in the store. Overall, it made for a testy working environment.
Chuck was thankful to at least be busy; it kept him from having to think about Sarah. The holiday was definitely over.
As he stocked the shelves, he idly wondered about Shawn Liniman and his flash. Three days of reconnaissance work had produced nothing except a grumpy Casey. While Chuck had trouble imagining what Casey would do with any type of vacation time, he still felt guilty at the thought that his flash might be somehow mistaken and leading the team on a wild-goose chase.
Then again, the way Casey treated Sarah and him last night … Chuck pushed that thought from his head. Two wrongs didn't make a right, and Casey obviously need the break as much as any of them.
Carefully dodging customers and offering rote greetings along the way, Chuck took the last of his games to a display rack near the other gaming consoles. Lester and Jeff approached Chuck from behind, the latter wearing an expression clearly displaying his variety of hangover. Jeff didn't so much look at Chuck as stare in his general direction.
Lester cleared his throat. Opening hands, he offered in a mock servile tone, "Chuck, a word, if we may?"
From the way Lester spoke, Chuck knew this wasn't going to be good. He took a deep breath, and then put a friendly expression on as he turned to face the pair. "Of course. What's going on, guys?"
"It's come to the attention of my compatriot and myself that Big Mike actually did duck out early for Christmas, as usual. There was no edict from Buy More corporate. There were no reports."
Chuck knew he was busted. "Yeah, about that…"
"No, no … well-played, Bartowski. Well-played." He gave a sarcastic golf clap to highlight his disdain.
"You caught me. I tricked you into doing your job, and put off Jeff's drinking binge until after he actually left work." On cue, both Chuck and Lester looked at Jeff, who continued to stare off into space with the blankest expression they had ever seen. "Not that it seemed to matter much in the end."
Lester lowered his voice. "Yeah, I'm starting to get a little worried about his drinking."
"You're starting to get worried?"
"The point is that swift and terrible revenge is coming."
Given the dire prediction of imminent doom, Chuck looked remarkably unconcerned. "And Jeff, how do you feel about that?"
Jeff's reaction was fairly predictable: he didn't move.
Big Mike walked up behind the Jeff and Lester. Lester turned around, a bit startled. Once again, Jeff didn't budge.
"Lester, Jeff: Chuck told me about all the work you did before Christmas." He looked at Chuck, "It's a Christmas miracle." He turned back to Lester before shooting an uncomfortable glance at Jeff. "Bang-up job. Keep up the good work, guys." He headed back towards his office.
Lester, shocked by the praise, stared after Big Mike. His expression became happy, and then slightly hopeful. "So, we're good about the whole Santa thing?"
"Don't push it!"
"Of course. No problem, big guy."
As Lester faced Chuck again, Chuck's face was a little smug.
Lester looked slightly awed. "What kind of power do you have over him?"
The smugness vanished; Chuck said, "Look, I'm sorry about the lie. But I told you if you got your work done, I'd pass it along to Big Mike. You got your work done."
"This is starting to feel a little too 'Hallmark after-school-special-ish.' But you're not off the hook, Bartowski: you still owe us for the lying. We'll come collecting. C'mon, Jeff."
He started to walk away. Jeff didn't move, unless one considers listing slightly to one side to be moving.
Chuck asked, "Is he all right?"
"Jeff, there's beer in the cage. Want one?"
Jeff instantly snapped out of his trance. "You know I do."
Lester shook his head. "Jeff. There is no beer."
Jeff started to slip back into his trance. Lester grabbed his arm. "No, Jeff, c'mon. We've got work to do." They walk away, Jeff leaning rather heavily on Lester.
Chuck muttered to himself. "And he's still going to exact his 'revenge'. I don't believe it." After a moment of thought, he changed his mind. "Of course I believe it."
Chuck checked the time. The watch that Sarah gave him read 10:10, but he didn't notice. All he saw was Sarah's smile from when she was in the car, leaving. He had to find a way to get out of that mindset; it would lead to nothing good.
Scene XII - Weinerlicious
Sarah was freezing cold. She had felt cold from the moment she woke up that morning, and no matter what she did, she could not seem to warm herself up.
The skimpy Weinerlicious outfit certainly did no favors in that regard. Sarah wore her grey sweater over the top, but there was nothing she could do for her legs. She felt like crawling into the deep fryer; at least she'd be warm for a minute. She sighed and continued the store-opening routine, carrying in cups, napkins, and other supplies from the stockroom.
It was a damp, cold Los Angeles morning, with overcast skies giving the day a dreary mood. Sarah had run out to the DCI Enterprises campus on her way into work to check in on their favorite employee, one Shawn Liniman, and to shift the Suburban to a parking spot on the other side of the lot.
When Sarah checked the feeds, Shawn's appearance gave the impression that he had been there for a while. Sarah flicked the switch that manually changed tapes for both the audio and video feeds; normally, the feeds automatically switched after six hours. Pulling the tapes out, she plugged the two into a portable playing device that synchronized the audio and video. After fussing with the controls to align the two feeds, she started skimming the recording from the beginning.
The tapes captured Shawn entering his office at 6:17; that seemed abnormally early, even for a workaholic. Sarah's hopes were raised; maybe Liniman was in early to finish off something before his co-workers started arriving. So far, reconnaissance had revealed absolutely nothing incriminating.
Sarah didn't have time to scan almost three hours of tape before work, but she couldn't resist studying the first fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, because the camera was mounted at an angle across the room, it was nearly impossible to tell what Liniman was doing on the monitor.
The original plan had been to mount the camera directly above the desk so that they could zoom in on documents, but the office lacked the typical suspended ceiling of most offices in favor of a popcorn ceiling that dated the office construction to the 70s. There was no way to install a camera to get an overhead view of the desk, so the next best option was to mount it across the room, and use the enhancement software back in her apartment to enlarge and rotate images of the documents on his desk. Right now, Sarah couldn't make out much besides Shawn's face.
However, that face wasn't revealing much, so Sarah packed up shop and came into the Weinerlicious. The good news was that she had a short shift. The bad news was that it was her turn to scour video and audio after work, so if Liniman spent all day in the office, she was in for a long night. Worst of all, it meant Sarah would only get to see Chuck on her lunch break.
Sarah gladly moved on to happier thoughts, finally felt a little warmer as she thought about Christmas day. The circular wiping motions she used to clean the counters slowed as she reminisced.
Chuck had asked her to relive her favorite moment, but in reality Sarah spent the remainder of her evening reliving most of the day: waking up to his smile, talking and laughing on the couch, ending the day with her head on his chest and his arm about his waist. It was ludicrous, but she felt safe in the arms of a man who probably would rely on her to save him should trouble come through the door. Sarah smiled at the thought, unconsciously slipping out of her sweater before mechanically taking up the wiping cloth again.
When Chuck asked her to pick her favorite moment, it was an easy choice. Her favorite moment, by far, was when Chuck took her hand. She smiled now thinking about the moment. So many things appealed to Sarah: how unexpected a gesture was, how natural it felt, how she never thought such a small thing could make her heart race.
Agents are often called upon to kiss (and do things far more intimate than kiss), but they are almost never called upon to hold hands. Sarah had held Chuck's hand a couple of times before, but she had always been the instigator and there had always been complications. Christmas day was different.
It had been all Sarah could do to keep her face straight; she couldn't very well show Ellie and the others how much Chuck taking her hand meant to her after she and Chuck supposedly had been dating for three months. But, oh, how her soul had sung when he intertwined his fingers with hers.
What made the moment all the more special was that she was convinced Chuck had realized that this wasn't about the cover for her any more. She spent the rest of the day as happy as she could remember being. Her cheeks still hurt from all the smiling she did. That is, up until the point she found out she was wrong.
In Chuck's bedroom, everything came crashing down with one innocent question from Chuck. She found herself reliving that moment as well. Sarah had wanted to scream at him, tear into him. How dare he. How could Chuck let her believe it was real when he thought it was all for the sake of the cover?
The obvious finally occurred to her: had that been how badly she had hurt Chuck, time and time again? The blood drained from her face, and she developed a sinking sensation in her belly. How many times had she shown Chuck pieces of the truth, only to yank then away and crush his hopes? How many times had she pushed Chuck away, hurting him like she hurt now?
And what would she give to have just one of those times back?
Of course Chuck thought yesterday was about the job: Sarah had finally convinced him. And the way she felt right now, she couldn't blame him if he finally had had enough.
It was suddenly very cold in the shop; Sarah pulled her sweater back on. She started counting the minutes until Chuck's lunch break; she needed him to give her hope that she hadn't blown it.
Scene XIII - Buy More
"Ma'am, I can assure you your new digital picture frame is just fine."
Chuck was stuck in The Hole, covering for Morgan as he and Anna snuck off for a make-out break. At least, he hoped it was a make-out break. He really preferred not to consider it too carefully. The silver lining was that he didn't have the opportunity.
The overbearing elderly woman in the flowered hat and heavy coat glared at Chuck. "Don't tell me there's nothing wrong with the frame. Yesterday, there were pictures flashing on it. Today, there was nothing. So what are you going to do about it?" Her shrill voice attracted glances from nearby customers, as well as the half-dozen people in line behind her.
"Well, ma'am, who set up your camera for you yesterday?"
"My grandson. He gave me the frame as a gift."
"How nice!" Chuck said, managing to sound interested. "Does he, by chance, have a digital camera?"
"Yes, he does."
"You see, this particular model has no internal hard drive. So it must have been running off a memory card from his digital camera, and he must have taken it out at some point. Does that make sense?"
The woman brightened. "Why yes, it does."
"Well, there you go."
Chuck was distracted by the sight of Morgan returning out of the break room door, fixing his hair and straightening his collar. Chuck took a look at his watch; it read 12:31. Morgan was overdue, which meant that he had missed his lunch break, and now couldn't head over to see Sarah. Yesterday had been as rough on her as on him. Actually, it probably was rougher on her, given what Casey told him about agents and holidays. At least Chuck had Ellie around for support; Chuck wanted to make sure she was OK.
Chuck noticed the woman was still there. They shared an uncomfortable silence for a moment. She patiently stood there, clearly waiting for something.
Chuck broke the silence. "Is there something else we can do for you today?"
The woman looked puzzled. "I'm sorry. What do I do now?"
Chuck battled the urge not to bury his face in his hands.
"By the way, what is a hard drive?"
Chuck lost the battle.
Scene XIV - Weinerlicious II
Sarah found that there were only so many ways to build structures out of drinking straws.
At first, she tried building a teepee, but she couldn't figure out how to get it started. It did OK one time when she managed to get four straws up at the same time, but it was almost impossible to add additional straws. At least, no way that she had discovered thus far. But by the end of her shift, she just might figure it out.
For the moment, she was building a more traditional "log cabin" style structure and pondering why the Weinerlicious was even open. Weinerlicious had a sum total of one customer on the day; he bought a Coke.
In the past, Sarah had tried to find ways to use the down times to stay sharp with her job skills. Unfortunately, since Scooter caught her and Chuck in the supply closet, Scooter made a habit of checking in on her unannounced. After Scooter nearly caught her hurling corn dog skewers with deadly accuracy the photo of him she had mounted on the Weinerlicious communication board, Sarah felt it was safer to keep her work lives separate.
Sarah looked at the clock on the wall: it read 12:14. That made the day all the worse: Chuck's lunch break only ran until 12:30, and that was all the time she'd have with him today. That was all the time she'd have to try to get things straightened out, or at least back on the right track. If there was even a way to make that happen.
Something didn't fit for Sarah: how could Chuck, who wore every emotion on his sleeve, suddenly put in such a commanding performance yesterday? She was certainly fooled. Her heart started aching again as she thought about it.
She started replaying the day in her head, as she often had to do on missions. It allowed her to slip into a bit more rational frame of mind.
When Sarah and Chuck woke up, the smile he gave her had to be genuine. There was no way he slipped into character that quickly. She lingered on the memory, savoring how his smile glowed in the dimly lit room. Reluctantly, she forced herself to focus.
After that, Morgan intruded. Amusing, one of the day's highlights, and completely irrelevant … other than it kept her from having the chance to talk with Chuck with little chance that Casey was listening. She felt a little irritation at the bad timing, but pushed it aside. She pressed on through her memories.
Sarah and Chuck had moved out to the couch. Chuck was telling Sarah the background on Morgan's ludicrous pajamas, and she was absolutely entranced. Sharing one of Chuck's memories in such a casual moment somehow drew her closer to him, plus something about the way he told the story made things very personal for her. But the way he told a story didn't mean anything … or did it? Unable to come to a firm conclusion, she categorized the moment as an 'unknown' and moved along.
There was an odd little moment towards the end of the story. Sarah doubted most people would have noticed, but a spy got used to noticing when a person's mood shifted, especially when they left the room for reasons that didn't feel quite natural. She analyzed the moment for a bit, and shook her head. There were too many simple explanations; heck, Chuck could have just had indigestion. Probably nothing there.
Sarah deconstructed the rest of Christmas day. At the end of the efforts, she had lumped the morning smile, the hand-holding, and Chuck chasing after her at the end of the night as maybe-positive signs. However, more telling, she thought, was the fact that Chuck tended to talk about things, so his words were more important than his actions. The only subjects he broached all day specifically referred to the day as shoring up their cover – and how the day hadn't been a picnic for him.
Those words had stung her most of all. The only thing Chuck could have been referring to was the effort to keep up the cover all day. Did he have to make spending the day with her sound like such a burden?
Such a burden. She thought about that for a minute. Why would the day be such a burden? She straightened up as a happy thought occurred to her: it could be a burden if Chuck was still trying to get over her. That would mean Chuck would have to pretend … or, more accurately, not pretend … that there was something there, while spending the day believing she didn't really share his feelings. She felt hope grow in her heart.
Her mind reeled; she tried to control herself. Was there any other reason for Chuck to consider the day a burden?
And then she came up with an obvious reason … Ellie. A cover would be a burden because he was lying to her. Sarah's hope faded. There was nothing clear-cut there.
Still, it was more encouragement than she had a few minutes before: what she had thought was the worst moment of the day might have a much better explanation.
Sarah checked the clock again; it read 12:33. Chuck wasn't stopping by. Her heart sank. She mentally chalked up another tally in the negative column.
Scene XV - DCI Enterprises Campus
The clock on Liniman's desk read 12:33. In reality, he had already finished his work for the day. Heck, his accounting records for the quarter were done, so he could check out for the year and not be missed. Still, he wanted the face time, so he tried to look busy in case any executives happened by. Sure enough, Jonathon Turley entered with only a perfunctory knock on his door.
Jonathon was the vice president of international operations, and Shawn was a director and chief accountant of his division. Most of the numbers on his books were base-level accounting, but for a defense contractor, international operations were a sensitive area. Shawn's talent was keeping the risk of audit to an absolute minimum. It was that talent that caused Turley to value him so highly.
Turley had recognized Liniman's potential early on. No matter the assignment, Turley knew he could count on Liniman to see it through. He had some questions about how legal some of the tasks were, but he trusted that if he took care of Turley, Turley would take care of him. And that had proven to be true through two promotions and three serious raises.
Shawn greeted Turley with a fawning smile. "Jon-ny, what can I do you for?"
Turley's face remained stony. "It's Jonathon, and you can keep me from needing to watch over your shoulder." Shawn's smile quickly vanished.
Jonathon handed Shawn a stack of three pieces of computer paper. "The line items on the second page were missing from the numbers you submitted." Shawn slid the cover page out of the way. There wasn't much detail on the second page; only a grid of financial figures, with the months from the current quarter across the top but no details indicating what each line represented. The third page was blank.
Studying the second page for a moment elicited a frown from Liniman. "I don't recognize these numbers."
"I'm sure you don't. If you did, they would have been included. Big oversight on your part."
Something about the logic bothered Liniman, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Not wanting to appear stupid in front of his sponsor, he quickly relented. "OK, so what do I do with these? There's no detail here."
A surprised look, Turley examined the printout. "What? Oh, I must have forgotten to un-hide those columns. You know how terrible I am with Excel."
"Yes, I do. You always seem to print extra pages like this." Shawn tried to hand the page back. "Why don't you send me the soft copy of the spreadsheet? I'll get the numbers in by tomorrow."
Turley refused to take the paper. "Can't. I'm spending the rest of the day with Minh; we're doing a year-end reckoning. And I need the new numbers on my desk by first thing in the morning."
"Hey, how is Andy?"
"The same as always: he's very serious, and likely to be very unhappy if I'm late. So, let's finish with the numbers so that doesn't happen. I'll take a minute to tell you what I think you should do with them."
Shawn grabbed a pen off his desk. "Shoot."
Turley walked around to the back of the desk to look over Shawn's shoulder, taking a couple of minutes to describe how he wanted the numbers handled. Shawn wrote some notes on the page next to the line items. Turley patted Liniman on the shoulder. He grabbed the two extra pages and dropped them in the recycling canister next to the desk, and was headed for the door when a thought occurred to him.
"Hey, there is one more thing you can do for Andy and me."
Shawn smiled. "Anything you need."
Scene XVI - Buy More III
Chuck found himself behind the Nerd Herd desk, answering questions from a reasonably intelligent guy about setting up a home network. On most days, he would have been thrilled to have a customer with a basic understanding of how a home network worked. Today, he just wanted a moment's peace.
He finished explaining how he would set up the network. "So, I would just pick up this $50 wireless router. It has four cable ports, and your wife's laptop should connect anywhere in the house using her built-in card. Just set up the router behind your monitor, and you can plug your desktop directly into one of the CAT5 ports."
The customer, a middle-aged gentleman wearing a UCLA Basketball cap and matching sweatshirt, smiled in understanding. "That makes sense." Chuck could sense another question building; he braced himself. "But what do I need to do about wireless security?"
Chuck felt relieved. He had put together a question-and-answer sheet on this router a month ago. "Good question. Let me grab this brochure for you …" Chuck looked under the desk and found the right folder. It was empty, likely from the "basketball game" the Buy More employees staged in the break room during lunch.
Buy More Basketball involved crumpling up paper into balls and taking shots into the hoop, formed by Jeff sticking his arms out in a large circle in front of him. The green shirts quickly discovered that the best way to make a shot was to bank it off Jeff's face. At the time, Jeff was too hung over to really care. Chuck made a mental note to re-stock brochures after the games. He knew he had no real power to cancel the games.
That didn't change the fact that Chuck now either needed to explain the ins and outs of wireless security or print up more brochures. He asked the customer, "If you can wait here just for a minute, I need to grab a fact sheet from the back."
The customer looked irritated. Chuck apologized, "I'm sorry, but we seem to be out up here. It will only take a minute."
"Never mind; I'll look it up online." The customer grabbed the router and walked away.
Chuck sighed. At least the line at the counter was empty. For the first time all day, his head was above water.
He took a quick look through the brochure folders, taking an inventory of which ones needed replenishing, then headed towards Big Mike's office to use the printer. He walked quickly, looking neither left nor right, hoping to make it to the back room without being stopped. He was about twenty feet away when Morgan intercepted him.
"Chuck! Chuck!" Before Chuck could even turn to face Morgan, out came the request. "I need you to cover for me for a few."
Chuck checked his watch; it read 4:14. Today had been ugly, but at least it was getting close to quitting time. "Morgan, didn't I just cover for you a couple of hours ago?"
"Yeah, but I need to steal a few more minutes with Anna."
"I covered for you two hours ago so you could spend Anna's lunch break - and mine - with her?"
"Chuck, man, I can't help myself. She's my cherry pie."
Chuck's face filled with disbelief. Morgan, not noticing, continued slowly, staring off into space, "She's a cool drink of water."
"OK, I'm not helping you on general principle. You're quoting Warrant lyrics, for God's sake."
Morgan didn't seem to notice, his look growing more pensive. "Such a sweet surprise…"
"I'm outta here."
Morgan snapped out of his trance. "No, Chuck, wait. C'mon, I'd cover for you so you could hang with Sarah. You know I would."
"Actually, Morgan, what you did at lunch was the opposite of that. I was supposed to go hang with Sarah on my lunch break, but you got back so late I couldn't.
"Dude, what are you talking about? You had plenty of time to go see her. Sure, I was a little late…"
"How was I supposed to see her? Travel back in time?"
"Why are you so upset about five minutes? It's not like she works across town."
"What do you mean, five minutes? You came back at 12:30."
"Gotta disagree with you there, bud. You were covering for me, but nobody was covering for Anna. She had to be back by 12:10. Maybe the clock you checked was wrong?"
Chuck checked his watch; it now read 4:20. He pulled out his iPhone, and checked its clock. It read 3:55. Chuck felt terrible. Not only had he falsely accused Morgan, but his new watch didn't work right and he could have had lunch with Sarah. He wasn't sure how many more hits he could take today.
"Sorry, Morgan. My new watch seems to be fast."
"So, does that mean you'll cover for me? Daddy's gotta have his candy."
"I think I liked it better when you were quoting Warrant lyrics. Yeah, I got you for ten."
Morgan backed away, pointing both his fingers at Chuck. "You're my hero." Morgan started to run off.
"Ten minutes. Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Chuck shouted after Morgan as he put away his iPhone.
"Well, that pretty much reduces his options to repairing computers, playing video games, and being generally useless when danger arises."
Chuck turned around to face an unhappy Casey. Chuck modified the thought: Casey was always unhappy, but he looked a little more unhappy than usual.
Chuck crossed his arms. "Good to see you're finally speaking to me. We haven't ever gone an entire shift at Buy More without you dropping an insult in my lap. Can I help you with something, or were you just looking to keep the streak intact."
"I wanted to give you a little friendly advice: stay the hell out of my head. It's not a pretty place."
Chuck had to process Casey's statement for a moment to figure out what he was talking about. He had expected Casey to be there about the mission. He finally figured out what Casey was talking about. "Hit a bit close to home last night, did I?"
Casey's eyes tightened. "Hardly. All the more reason you need to stop."
"That makes sense. Because you're never trying to get inside my head. Or listening to my conversations. Or judging me while doing your smirk-and-grunt routine."
"Trust me; nobody would be happier than I to stop. But it's my job to get inside your head."
"Well, thanks for the tip, Dr. Phil. One thing I have noticed: you seem pretty good at telling me what isn't part of my job. Just to change things up a little, why don't you tell me what is part of my job."
Casey took a step closer to Chuck. "'Job'? You don't have a 'job'. Your 'role' is to flash, let us know what you see and stay the hell out of our way. You're not an agent; you're an inconvenience. Don't forget that." He emphasized the last words by poking a finger in Chuck's chest.
Chuck's expression went from shocked to deeply hurt. He paused for a moment, unable to say anything. Casey just stood there glaring at him, clearly waiting for a retaliation.
Finally, Chuck spoke, very softly. "If you're finished giving me advice, Agent Casey, I have things to do. But I'll be sure to let you know if I flash on anything in the stock room." Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked towards Big Mike's office. The slightest tinge of regret showed on Casey's face, but not until Chuck was almost to the office door.
Chuck tried to leave Casey's words behind him as he entered the office. It wasn't easy to do, given how the day had gone and how useless he tended to feel on most missions. He comforted himself with Sarah's words from the Christmas party, hoping Sarah's compliment about him being good at his job wasn't just her way of being nice. He distracted himself by focusing on getting the brochures printed.
Big Mike's office was empty. Chuck swung around the back of the desk to use the computer. It was locked, but Chuck knew the password. He unlocked the computer to find a very graphic email describing in great detail what the author would like to do to the recipient ... in somewhat broken English. Chuck instinctively glanced at the "to" and "from" lines on the email; it was to Big Mike from Chuck was more than a little disgusted.
"Chuck!" Big Mike bellowed as he entered the room, causing Chuck to shoot upright. "What have I told you about using the computer?"
"Um, you told me to use it whenever I needed to, Big Mike."
Big Mike looked uncertain. He was obviously looking for a reason to nail Chuck to the wall for using the computer, but he had none. In classic Big Mike form, he decided the best defense was a good offense.
"Do you know how many complaints I've gotten about customer service today?"
"Probably about as many as you get every 26th of December. The employees are hung over and hate to be back at work, and the customers are crabby about the crowded store."
"Chuck, that's not the point. A good assistant manager strives for improvement."
Chuck was confused. "That might be a good point … if I were an assistant manager."
"In order to become assistant manager, you need to show me you can do the job."
"So, you're argument is that in order to get the job, I have to do the job first?"
Big Mike shrugged. "Of course."
"Sounds like a pretty good excuse for you to fill the role without paying for somebody to do the job."
"Well, you could have just shown up for the interview last time and beaten out Harry for the position. I went out on a limb for you, Bartowski, and you let me down."
Chuck knew he had a number of ways he could respond here. He could call Big Mike on giving the job to Tang because of his affair, but that would sell out Morgan in the process. He could also attack Big Mike based upon the email he just read, but that would escalate things to a level where Chuck wasn't prepared to go. Chuck could only come up with one other option. "I explained that to you. My girlfriend had an emergency, and I…"
Big Mike was having none of it. "I don't want excuses, Bartowski. Just get your job done for a change. Show me that you can whip these guys into shape; they're your responsibility now. Now get out of here!"
He looked pleased with himself as Chuck retreated, a broken man.
Chuck exited the office and checked his watch. He bit back a curse as he remembered the time was incorrect. Looking up, the store clock on the far wall read 4:17, which meant 43 more minutes before his shift was done. He didn't care. He spotted Morgan at the front of the store, and started heading his way.
As he crossed the floor, he spotted Casey across the way in major appliances. Casey looked away from him with a scowl.
A customer tried to get his attention near the MP3 players. Chuck said he couldn't help him right now, pointing instead to a nearby green shirt.
Jeff and Lester sat at the Nerd Herd desk. Jeff winked at Chuck, while Lester rubbed the fingers of one hand across the thumb, reminding Chuck that they intended to come collecting for the lie Chuck had told them.
Anna was working in the plasma TV section, but Chuck couldn't have gotten her attention if he wanted to. She was more interested in trying to get Morgan's attention, sending flirty looks across the store rather than helping the annoyed customer in front of her.
Another customer approached Chuck, this time about mobile phones. Chuck half-heartedly apologized and moved along.
Chuck finally got to Morgan, who just finished restocking a display of DVDs on sale. Without preamble, he said, "Morgan, I need you to cover for me. Punch me out after five." He immediately turned and walked towards the front door, not really caring if Morgan heard him, or what Morgan's reaction was.
Chuck walked out of the front of the store. He paused for a moment, staring at the Weinerlicious. Sarah wasn't there; she was across town collecting intel from the Suburban. He wondered whether he would have headed over there if she was working.
Chuck turned left and walked down the sidewalk in front of the store, eyes downcast. He had only gone a few dozen paces when a pair of dark brown dress shoes intruded upon his vision. He looked up to confront the person in his path.
"Liniman, I'm really not in the mood right now."
Scene XVII - Sarah's hotel room
Sarah was laying on her stomach on the bed, crisp white sheets pulled to the side. Her eyes focused on the computer monitor in front of her, reviewing that day's footage from Liniman's office. It was all she could do to avoid falling asleep.
Casey had essentially called Liniman only slightly less boring than Chuck and Morgan. At the time, she thought Casey was just taking one of his customary little digs at the pair. Only now, after reviewing a morning's reconnaissance, did she realize what a grave insult it truly had been. Either this guy had the best cover in history, or he led an unbearably dull life.
After scanning the last few minutes of Liniman's morning, she grabbed a screen capture of the document on the desk and ran it through the image enhancement software to try to figure out what Liniman was working on. Despite having used the software a few times in the past, she wasn't particularly proficient, but she was doing well enough to know that what he was doing wasn't important. Currently, it looked like he was working on a grocery list. Liniman's demeanor suggested he was ready to slide it under more official-looking documents should anyone else walk in.
When the time on the surveillance video passed noon, Sarah paused the playback and got up to stretch. "Six hours of nothing," she muttered to herself. She rubbed her neck to work out the tension, trying to clear her head.
Sarah wondered if they were on the wrong track. After all, Chuck hadn't directly flashed on Liniman. Unfortunately, they had to take the chance that Liniman was somehow involved, because otherwise they were grasping at straws. The analysts back in Washington had turned up nothing substantial. The team couldn't very well bug every office at DCI Enterprises, and they had no idea where Minh was.
She started pacing across the room, going back to Chuck's flash. Something was odd about the way Chuck described his flash this time. Rather than flashing on one item, it was triggered by a combination of the name "DCI Enterprises" and the presence of Andon Minh. As far as she knew, the flashes were normally triggered by just one thing: a face, a distinguishing mark, a name. Two triggers, but only a single encoded image retrieved.
So, was Chuck's flash triggered by DCI Enterprises or Minh? The fact that both were involved seemed to be too much of a coincidence.
Her iPhone rang, startling her out of her musings. She walked over to grab the phone off of the mirrored top of the nightstand. The monitor showed a rare picture of Casey smiling; she grinned. Sarah had only gotten Casey to pose for the picture by threatening to use the picture of Casey handcuffed to Carina's hotel bed in his cloverleaf boxer shorts if he refused. Not only did she get the picture of Casey smiling, she also got a great picture of an embarrassed Casey as she made the threat.
"Walker here."
"Walker. Casey. Are you with Chuck?" Casey sounded suspicious.
"No, I'm in my hotel room reviewing tape. I thought you were watching him tonight."
There was a pause. "Yes, I am."
Sarah grew alarmed. "You don't know where he is? You have an interesting way of 'watching' somebody. Casey, where…"
"Look, last time I saw him, he was at the Buy More. His shift ended at 5:00, just like mine." Sarah instinctively checked the clock Chuck gave her; it read 6:32.
He continued, "At 4:50, I checked the store top-to-bottom; he was nowhere to be found, and he wasn't out on a service call. His jacket is still there. The GPS device on his car led me right to it: it's still in the Buy More lot. He wasn't at the spy store, or any of his other hangouts in the Buy More plaza. I even checked Lou's.
"Chuck's not answering his phone. His room is dark, nobody is answering the door at the apartment, and there is no noise on any of my monitoring devices. Did you stick a GPS device in that watch you gave him?"
Sarah flushed. "No, I didn't."
"Damnit, Walker…"
"Casey, he was your assignment tonight. Don't you dare try to throw this back on me!"
"Just give him a call, then call me right back." Casey hung up.
Sarah cleared the phone of Casey's image, cursing under her breath. She pressed down the '2' to speed-dial Chuck. Up came a picture of Chuck; she held the phone to her ear. "C'mon, Chuck, pick up," she muttered impatiently.
Somewhere Chuck's phone rang, an eternity passing between each ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.
Chuck's voice mail picked up.
Sarah broke into a cold sweat. They had no idea where Chuck was.