A/N: Here we are, finally. The denouement. Well, at least the beginning of the end. 25 chapters after the very first one, all these strange and mysterious changes that took place immediately after Chuck uploads Intersect 2.0 are now getting their explanation, step by step. Once Sarah was taken away from Chuck in chapter 1, being summoned to Washington, and Carina sent there to replace her, people started scolding me. Whyyy? :)))

People want their favorite couple together and that's it.

Well, … I don't. I want Sarah reserved for me, exclusively. So, whoever is interested in Chuck, for whatever (legal) purposes, please PM me and I'll hook you up.

Seriously, let's see at least some of the pieces of the puzzle being finally placed where they are supposed to be.

Special thanks to my editor NickyR again, who took some really big scissors this time and started cutting large chunks out of this chapter. Kidding. She just delicately suggested it. Sneaky as I am, I decided to comply, for the moment of course ,and will plop it into a later chapter without telling her.

Chapter XIII

You Heard It Right, Sarah! Eliminate Chuck Bartowski!

One month later, A hotel suite somewhere in the Greater LA area, 1:30 pm

Sarah, her cousin Lisa, Chuck, and Carina had changed hotels several times in order to stay under the radar during the training. It was their last gathering now or at least that's how they felt. Next day Lisa was taking a commercial flight to Washington DC, from where she was supposed to get to Quantico for the first of several courses her new job required.

Chuck, Sarah and Carina were going to Washington DC as well, but on a military plane. There, they were to be joined by general Beckman, Agent 20, John Casey and Ziva David. Their next destination was nine thousand miles away down to the south of the Indian ocean. The USAF/Navy installations in Diego Garcia. There, they were supposed to be joined by the rest of the international team of agents, for their last two weeks of joint training before each of them was to go back to different places around the world. Each of them was supposed to acquire the identity of somebody who was just about to visit Iran for some reason.

Chuck for example, already with a very impressive German, was supposed to replace an Austrian professor in computer sciences from the Vienna University. He was invited by the Tehran university for a number of lectures there. His first task was to identify Iranian physicists with nuclear or any other WMD background. Then, Sarah would join him and they would disappear from the picture. Changing their appearance to people looking like native Iranians from a small village adjacent to Natanz, they would wait for the final part of their mission. They were to fly four UAV's at only 5 feet above the ground with RDX-i-13 tipped missiles along a carefully selected route before going up, launching their missiles and self destructing themselves in the air. That would guarantee the penetration of the Natanz underground bunkers where the centrifuges were still spinning, still enriching uranium.

Sarah was supposed to enter Iran as a flight attendant. The Iranian airlines were leasing airplanes from Eastern European airline companies with their entire crews to fly internally. She looked like a 100% Ukrainian of Polish origin anyway. Once in Tehran, she was supposed to get a bad case of flu on the second day and call in sick. And disappear from there. The contract was already signed. Once she finished her part of the mission she was supposed to go back and fly throughout Iran for the rest of the contract.

'Well,' Chuck raised his hand, holding a glass of red wine, 'To Lisa! We are all looking forward to seeing you back here joining our team. By the way, when, uh..., when is that supposed to happen?'

'I guess it'll be in about 3 months or so,' Carina announced. 'Cheers, everybody, to Lisa and her bright, bright future!'

Xxx

Next Day, Washington DC, Andrews AF base, 06:05 am

An USAF C-17, carrying Chuck, Sarah and Carina, had just landed and was taxiing.

Stepping down the ladder, Chuck looked ahead. He could see in the distance, 200 feet away from him, John Casey, cocking his head and staring back at them. Next to him, there stood the really tiny figure of general Beckman. Chuck waved at them. He was wondering how they would get along considering their history. He knew he wasn't exactly the military type, obeying orders the way Casey used to.

They had used the night to get to DC, and were now supposed to have breakfast with Casey, Beckman and Agent 20. Then, all back into the airplane for 9,000 more miles down to the Indian ocean atoll of Diego Garcia.

'There are marvelous beaches there, Chuck,' Sarah had told him. 'You're gonna love them.'

He remembered his last night's conversation with Ellie and Devon. Already aboard an air carrier somewhere in the Mediterranean, with her voice distorted by the thousands and thousands of miles and electronic transformations, Ellie made Chuck realize how their lives had changed now. Totally revamped. The choice his father had made decades ago, probably before they were born, had now brought them to a completely new reality, a reality that neither he nor his sister had ever imagined. Even Devon's 'awesome' exclamations sounded like coming from another universe.

Well, now he was about to get into a mission in an extremely hostile environment. He had no idea what their chances for success were but he was told that the Iranian security services were extremely effective and ruthless. But he would be there with Sarah, relying on each other and that was good enough for him.

He had reached Beckman and Casey.

'General,' he started offering her his hand, 'glad to see you again, face to face, uh, one on one, mano a …'

'Nice to see you again, Herr Bartowski,' Beckman said beaming. 'Stop blabbering. Let's get down to business.'

Now that she was fully briefed and assigned to run this ultra-secret op, together with this Agent 20, of course, her confidence was back after so many days of uncertainty and worries. She was to run the Team Bartowski part of the op. Agent 20 -- Carina, Ziva and the international part of the whole team.

They all entered a small diner there, to have a cup of coffee and wait for Agent 20 to join them.

'Nice to see you again Casey,' Carina flashed him a smile. 'Feeling good, … these days?'

'I'm fine, Carina.' Casey threw an inquisitive glance at her. 'I've been waiting for real action like this for what, two years, now? No offense, Chuck,' he had turned to the former nerd.

'None taken, Casey, feel free to express your true feelings to everybody. I never doubted that you're human after all,' Chuck retorted playfully. 'Well, almost never.'

'Hmm,' Casey grunted, narrowing his eyes at him.

Beckman was watching their exchange carefully.

'Agent Walker,' she started while turning to Sarah, 'those two are bickering that way all the time, right? The bits I managed to catch during our video conferences seem to be just the tip of the iceberg.'

'Not all the time general,' Sarah replied, smiling gently. 'Not all the time. But it's bad.'

'Well,' Beckman sighed, 'the important thing is that the team was successful, on so many occasions, and we hope it'll work out this time as well.'

Carina's telephone buzzed. 'Yeah, ...oh, right, got it … okay, … over.'

'It was Austin. Let's finish our coffees and get back to the plane..." She said.

'Who?' Chuck asked surprised. General Beckman had smirked and Casey was wondering why the hype over a name as typical as Austin.

'Austin Fitz-Hume, or Agent 20, as you knew him until now,' Carina went on. 'He won't be joining us here, he has already boarded the plane. Some misunderstanding, I guess the Andrews people screwed it.'

'Not a good sign,' Chuck thought to himself, 'not a good sign at all. Starting such a critical mission with such a childish lack in organization …Sheesh, now I understand why he hides behind this 'agent 20' nickname. Austin Fitz-Hume? It's as ridiculous as an Emmett Milbarge.'

He threw a quick glance at Sarah, who, noticing his worried face, smiled at him and put her right hand on his shoulder.

'Don't worry, Chuck, everything's gonna be fine.' She said with as much confidence as she was able to produce under the circumstances.

They all strode back to the plane and 10 minutes later the C-17 taxied back again and took position at the end of the longest runway.

A thousand yards away, a highly trained surveillance team monitored the C-17 takeoff through enhanced, military strength binoculars.

Once the large transportation plane disappeared in the clouds high in the sky, the head of the surveillance group pulled out a strangely looking cellphone and type a text message, comprising of one word only: "Airborne."

XXX

10 hours later, above the Indian Ocean

Chuck had just opened his eyes after a 3-hour sleep and moaned.

He looked at his watch. They still had at least about an hour before reaching their final destination. He smiled at Sarah who was sitting opposite him.

'Did you manage to sleep, agent?' He asked.

'I wasn't sleepy, Chuck ... I was reading something.'

They were talking in German. For many days now, Chuck and the people around him, those who knew the language, were ordered to talk only in German so Chuck could improve it even further.

'Hmm, mission-related?' he inquired.

'Of course, we need to stay focused.' She smiled at him again and then looked at her watch.

Something bothered Chuck. Did she look a bit nervous? Unusually nervous? He frowned but didn't say anything.

Carina, who had sat across the aisle for most of the flight but then disappeared, now came from somewhere and dropped on the seat next to Sarah.

'Well, how did you find my boss, Chuck, our boss, I mean?' She asked, obviously referring to Agent 20.

'Well, he's a great dude,' Chuck allowed generously, 'great dude. I-I think ... we hit it off, actually.' He said nodding.

The guy was a 100%-certified nerd, and Chuck still couldn't believe it how he could end up in the black op business, running action-filled rogue operations like this one.

They talked for about half hour and their conversation quickly turned to technology and computers. It turned out Agent 20 knew quite a bit about the topic. At the end of their conversation Agent 20 tapped Chuck on the shoulder and said calmly, 'Don't you worry Bartowski-junior, everything's gonna be fine. Our plan is very, very well thought out.'

'Bartowski-junior, huh, so, he tells me he knows about my father, … probably a lot.' Chuck thought to himself.

'And what do you think of my other friend?' Carina went on letting a microscopic trace of a smile on her face.' The one over there,' she pointed at Ziva, who was sitting two rows away of them.

'A very nice girl, very nice.' Chuck said beaming, 'Always cheerful, … smiling, friendly. How could you think, mmm … even for a second, that she could be a Mossad assassin? Never.'

'Was, Chuck, was,' Ziva yelled at him in order to overcome the noise that was coming from the jet-engines. She was cheerfully waving and smiling at him. 'Not anymooooore.'

Chuck frowned. How did she hear him? But at the very next moment he saw general Beckman coming. She and Agent 20 approached Sarah, Carina and Chuck.

'Well, how is the mood, Herr Bartowski,' Beckman smiled at Chuck, and then turned around at everybody. 'Please remember, you all need to speak only German from now on. Your Austrian accent is still fluctuating, Chuck,' she added.

'Yes, General,' Sarah replied on behalf of all. 'Nothing but German, from now on …'

She looked at her watch and it seemed to Chuck that she was a bit nervous, ... again. Has Sarah been a bit different, ever since she got back from Washington? He was playing with the thought ever since.

'How much?' he asked her.

'How much what?' she asked back.

'Time, I mean time till the landing.'

'Oh, about, umm … forty minutes, I guess, right, Carina?' Sarah looked at her inquisitively.

'Let me ask the pilots,' Carina suggested, 'after all they will know, sometimes they change speed, or may need to refuel, so … ' She jumped up and headed to the cockpit, passing by Beckman and Agent 20 who were still standing nearby and talking.

Three minutes later Carina came back with a wide smile on her face and said, 'That's it, people, good news. We have about 15 minutes, actually.'

Chuck wanted to express his satisfaction with the news but two things prevented him from doing that as he was sitting and just watching Carina right in front of him.

First, he started flashing as this was another half-lie of hers, and second, he somehow had the gut feeling that her words were specifically intended for Sarah. The following events proved him right.

They were all flying on one of those special DoD transportation planes, furnished and equipped for the top brass. Big, luxurious armchairs, large spaces between them. Ideal for what followed.

Sarah Walker stood up, made few steps toward General Beckman and stopped right in front of her.

'Diane Beckman, on behalf of the US government, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can …' Sarah started reading her Miranda rights while pulling out a paper from her inside pocket.

As shocked as Chuck was, he didn't say anything, just staring at Beckman, waiting for her reaction.

But the poor tiny woman didn't say anything. She just dropped dead on the floor, … or hopefully, just unconscious.

As Chuck found out a minute later, Carina, who was behind her, pierced her with one of those tranq darts.

'Sarah? What's going on here?' a totally astounded Chuck almost shouted.

But Sarah ignored him for the moment. She and Carina turned Beckman on her back and Carina checked her vitals. 'She's fine, thank God!'

Then she opened Beckman's mouth and pointed a small flashlight, checking on her teeth.

'Fifth, down left, … looks suspicious,' Carina said, 'but we'll soon know for sure.

'I'm just gonna sit down here and relax for a sec,' Sarah announced, gasping for air. She still had a terrible lump, stuck in her throat. She couldn't believe she was actually able to say all these words to Beckman so calmly. But she had insisted to be the one, making the arrest.

Ziva joined Carina and Agent 20 to help them put Beckman on a stretcher and took her away to another compartment of the plane.

Chuck jumped up from his chair and plunged himself next to Sarah.

'Sarah, what the hell is going on,' he asked terrified, 'because I'm kinda thunderstruck here … what's with Beckman?'

'She was a foreign spy, Chuck. She'll be charged with espionage and treason, well, hopefully not. The plan is to get her to cooperate. It's of utmost importance.' Sarah said with her eyes still closed. 'Just give me a minute to gather my thoughts, okay?'

'Sure, sure.' Chuck exhaled deeply. 'What the hell was going on here?'

Sarah put her head between her hands and released a deep breath. Her mind drifted back to her last meeting with Agent 20, there in the underground bunker at Langley.

---

Surprise, surprise, no international agents with their masks anymore there, she thought then. Instead, Agent 20 had offered her to sit in an armchair while he was still strolling back and forth.

'Well,' Sarah started, noticing the change, 'what's up … boss?'

'Mm-hmm,' Agent 20 cleared his throat. Then he pulled out a remote control out of his pocket and tossed it to Sarah.

She caught it of course. A glance at it. Typical remote for a TV system.

'You know how to use it,' Agent 20 started, 'dontcha?'

'I thought there was no electronics in this entire area,' a smile slid her face.

'You thought right. But now there's some. Arrow up please.'

Sarah pressed it. A large flat screen slid up right in front of the wall against her.

'I'm warning you, Agent Walker, you're not gonna like it. But there it is. Press on 'play', please.'

And so she did.

Casey's apartment, his living room popped up first, with the monitors there. The screen was divided into two equal parts, obviously from two different cameras.

'How did you …' she inquired, raising her brows.

'Just watch it, Walker, it's not the time for technicalities.'

There, on the left side there was John Casey, standing.

General Beckman had just appeared on the right one.

'I thought you might call.' Casey started.

"Major Casey,you understand the situation?' Beckman said. 'We can't have another intersect wandering around Los Angeles getting into trouble.'

'General, Chuck may be a novice spy, but the results speak for themselves.' Casey replied leaning over a table. 'Surely we can find another exit strategy.'

Then Sarah saw Beckman leaning forward to the camera, so her face took about a third of the entire monitor. The general looked sternly at it and snapped at Casey:

'You have your orders, major. Tomorrow night, eliminate Chuck Bartowski.'

'Pause, agent Walker, press pause, please.' Agent 20 insisted at this point.

Sarah remembered this moment so well. She wished she had eaten something that day so she could have an excuse, go to the bathroom and throw up. Everything that was inside her. But she couldn't reveal any weakness, lack of character.

'I can't believe that.' She uttered quietly.

'You heard it right, Sarah!' Agent 20 insisted. 'Eliminate Chuck Bartowski!

Sarah was staring at him, still in disbelief.

'Oh, you think we've doctored it?' Agent 20 went on, waving his hands. 'Wanna take a copy of this so you arrange for your independent expertise? The master tape, maybe? I can arrange that for ya.'

She tried to swallow. But there was a lump, a large lump there stuck in her throat.

'When did this happen?' she asked finally, gritting her teeth.

'Why don't you give it a try, huh?' He challenged her.'You were supposed to protect the asset after all.'

She was thinking. "... another intersect" Beckman had said. It must have been when they were going after the Cipher, building up the new intersect room. She shared her suspicions with Agent 20.

'Good thinking, Walker. Sandra told me you're an excellent agent.'

'Sandra?' Sarah furrowed. Carina had told her once that Sandra was her real name but she just hadn't bought it.

'Oh, that would be Carina.' Agent 20 added, waving his hand. 'Her real name is Sandra, I thought you knew that, … sorry. She works for me by the way.'

'Oh, I thought, …. and you are working for …?'

'We'll get to that … soon, let's finish with our video escapade first, shall we?'

'So, where were we? Beckman orders John Casey to kill Chuck, right?' Agent 20 reminded.

'Right,' Sarah hissed. She had now her blood boiling.

'Then what happens?' Agent 20 continued theatrically waving his hands. 'Ah, yes, somebody tricks Casey and steals the cipher from him, on behalf of one Mr. Colt, remember him?'

'Yeah, that's right,' she had remembered.

'Did you ever ask yourself how this Colt intercepted, and so quickly at that, Casey-Beckman's communications? So his man had the time to pick up the cipher from Casey, knowing the code phrase?'

Sarah tried to clear her throat to say something, but she simply couldn't.

'Did you ever ask yourself who this Mr. Colt worked for?'

'Didn't he say anything, during interrogation?' Sarah muttered somehow.

'No, my new boss doesn't torture, as you know, so …' Agent 20 raised his shoulders here.

'Your new boss?'

'My agency works under the president and only under him. He's the only one I'm responsible to. And the law, of course. We'll get to that later.'

'Oh, I see.' Sarah sighed deeply.

'So, Colt gets the cipher, but then, interestingly, he drops Chuck off a high building even though Chuck has 'the cipher' in his hand. Seems like Colt also has been ordered to kill Chuck, no matter what. Somebody, who knew Chuck's importance as the intersect must have ordered him to do that, don't you think? … You follow me?'

'Why would Beckman want to kill Chuck? I don't understand?' Sarah asked shaking her head. 'I'm gonna kill this b ….' she had thought to herself.

'Give it a try Walker. Just guess.' Agent 20 had interrupted her thought.

'Working for an hostile government?'

'Of course, what else. But let's see the rest of it first. Here is what happens after you arrest Colt and get back the cipher. Well, this time it is the pseudo-cipher, you remember what happened with this 'cipher', right? Press on 'play' again, please.'

Sarah could again see the screen divided into two parts. On the left, Casey was trimming his ridiculous bonsai tree.

'Major Casey.' Beckman interrupted, clearing her throat. 'Hope I'm not interrupting.'

'The new intersect ready?' Casey inquired in his typical, less than grammatical way.

'We're minutes away.' Beckman said.

'Which means...' Casey started asking.

'... your order remains the same.' Beckman was categorical again. 'Chuck Bartowski is to be eliminated.'

'Uhhh', Casey sighed really deep.

"What was that, Casey?' Beckman inquired, irritated.

'Nothing, general.' Casey hesitated so Beckman reached for her button to disconnect.

'It's just...' Casey gathered some courage here. 'Chuck's served his country with honor. Maybe he even has potential as an analyst for the organization.'

"I unders...' Beckman had allowed.

But then, … then, her CIA boss, her mentor, Graham interjected. 'Let me, general!'

Sarah couldn't believe that Graham was part of this … crime, because it was a crime after all. A conspiracy to commit murder.

'Major Casey, can you extract these secrets from Mr. Bartowski's head?' Graham went on. 'Can you guarantee him safety from kidnapping, from torture?'

'No.' Casey was forced to admit.

'Then it's clear.' Graham had the nerve to go on. "Chuck Bartowski has served his country with honor. Now he'll die with honor to protect it.'

'How noble, ... and considerate!' Sarah yelled to herself. 'Saving Chuck from kidnapping and torturing, … by killing him.'

She had jumped up from the armchair. 'I think I've seen and heard enough!' She almost shouted angrily.

'Sit down, Agent Walker!' Agent 20 barked at her.

'We're not finished yet.' He glared at her. 'Nowhere near, actually. Everybody is under investigation here, not just Beckman and Graham. Casey, you, everybody from the NSA and CIA support.'

'Obviously, you've been cleared,' he then said icily, 'otherwise, I wouldn't be having this conversation with you. But you're not off the hook, … yet.'

She had plopped back into the chair, of course.

'Press again 'play', please!' he ordered her.

Sarah pressed the button again and focused on the screen.

The picture was again divided in two. Right side – Chuck's kitchen. Left side – the Morgan door.

'Oh, God, they had installed cameras everywhere,' she thought.

Chuck was now there on the right side of the monitor, preparing some food in the kitchen.

On the left side of the screen, John Casey, sneaking in through the Morgan door, pulling his gun out. A gun with a silencer. Approaching Chuck in the kitchen ... training the gun at Chuck.

And then, Sarah felt like her heart shattered into hundreds of pieces. Chuck had started reciting his words, the words he planned to use, asking her to go with him on a trip to Europe. She knew nothing about this.

'So, Sarah, what do you,' he had started hesitantly, looking for words.' … what do you think of, um, what do you think of Europe? You, me, a couple of... eurorail passes? Just seeing the world. Seeing, seeing the world.' He obviously wondered if that would sound OK.

And while Chuck was doing that, Casey was wondering when to shoot, training his gun again at him.

"Was he really going to shoot Chuck,' Sarah wondered with her heart pounding. Even though she knew that Chuck was well and alive, this was so nerve-racking to watch. She could sense the shivers trickling down her spine. 'How could they!'

And then the doorbell. Chuck rushed to open and Casey backed down for a second. And then she, Sarah, appeared at the front door.

'Hey, Sarah.' Chuck greeted her.

Yeah she remembered it so well. She was so angry that the cipher was destroyed, her boss, everything was gone. And now, … now it seemed it saved his life. How stupid and ignorant she was!

'Chuck,' she saw herself, saying.

'What is it?' Chuck asked anxiously.

'We have to call off the date. The intersect was destroyed.'

She had felt so weird watching herself. Ironically, her coming right in time saved his life. She shook her head here. She still couldn't believe it. But it was a fact.

'What? But the cipher...' Chuck uttered angrily, still in disbelief.

'It was a trojan horse, a sabotage device.' She explained. 'The moment it came online, it exploded.'

'But that means...' Chuck muttered.

"You're still the only intersect. I'm sorry."

The video ended with Casey backing off and disappearing through the Morgan door.

Sarah realized that there were tears rolling down off her eyes.

'Is that all,' she asked while wiping them.

'No, we still have some issues to discuss. I'm sorry, Agent Walker, but I warned you that you wouldn't like this. However, we're entering the next phase of our op and you needed to see all this.' Agent 20 said. "May I have my remote back, now?'

---

Sarah rose up a bit and opened her eyes, now filled again with tears. She turned to Chuck.

'Sarah, what's going on? Why are you crying?'

'At the back of the plane, on the left, there is a door, number 101, go there, Chuck. Casey is waiting for you there.'

'Why, what's going on? I'm totally freaking out, you know.'

'He has something to tell you. Mano a mano, … just go.'

'Uh, ok, are you sure, … ok, ok, I'm going.'

'And, Chuck,' Sarah said, this time firmly, '… everything you could think of, punishing lieutenant Casey even further, don't hesitate.'

'Lieutenant, … lieutenant Casey?' Chuck exclaimed in disbelief.

'That's right Bartowski,' Agent 20 said approaching him. He obviously had heard the last part. 'And that's actually an order. He needs a lot of punishment.' He winked at him. 'Seriously, … punish him. Just make good use of your creativity in the process.'

'Mmm, okay, … boss, you're my new boss, right?' Chuck asked furrowing.

'For the time being. We're actually three co-directors of this agency. The second one is dealing with administrative affairs only, and the third one,' he smiled, 'believe me, you wouldn't be so ...um enthused to serve under him.'

'Whu-who might that be?'

'You'll find out soon, … upon landing.'

'Chuck looked at his watch. Which means any minute.'

'No, we still have about 3 hours to fly.' Agent 20 pointed out.

'What, … but Carina …' Chuck frowned again. Everything turned out NOT to be what it looked like.

'"15 minutes" was the code word for arresting, … the traitor. Go. Room 101. Punish him.' Agent 20 repeated firmly.

'How original!' Chuck shook his head. 'And who came up with the idea to call it "Room 101"?'

'Carina!' Sarah, Agent 20 and the approaching Ziva yelled simultaneously. 'Who else?'

'Yeah, … right.' he clamped his lips. 'Who else, indeed?'

'Make it unbearable, Chuck,' Ziva winked at him.

'But why, why?' Chuck wondered loud.

'He himself will tell you, Chuck,' Sarah said. 'It's part of his punishment.'

'Mmm, … okay, … there I go … room 101.' Chuck said totally perplexed and headed to lieutenant Casey's Room 101.

Once he entered the room, he saw there John Casey, with a remote control in his right hand, in front of a large plasma screen.

Casey was ordered to watch, together with Chuck, the same video clips Agent 20 and Sarah had gone through together. The lieutenant was ordered to comment, explain what he was thinking, feeling, was he indeed going to shoot Chuck. Open up a bit. That was part of his punishment.

Chuck, as we just learned, was ordered to punish him for not reporting the illegal order to the proper authorities.

Outside, Sarah, Carina, Ziva and Agent 20 were sitting in the armchairs and wondering what was going on in there.

'And where on earth, did you get that crazy idea, Carina?' Agent 20 let finally out. 'I can't believe the president agreed with that sort of unorthodox punishment for Casey.' he shook his head.

'You know me, boss, I've always been a little … mm, unorthodox-ish.' She smiled at him. 'And your boss. Hmm, as little as I agree politically with him, he has an excellent sense of humor. Those two will have some fun in there, in room 101.'

'For the record,' Sarah chimed in, 'as little as I agree with your methods, Carina, I second to that, … I mean the punishment. After all, it was me who had to listen to these two pinheads bickering, for what, over two years?'

'Yeah, yeah, it's perfect.' Agent 20 blurted out without realizing he was saying it loud. 'Casey's gonna mellow a bit and finally join the human race. And Chuck, once he decided to join the spy world, will finally man up a bit.' Then, realizing that he was saying all this loud, Agent 20 turned to Sarah.

'No offense, Walker.'

'None taken.' Sarah tried to sound as firm as she possibly could. 'And besides, I doubt this will change Chuck a bit.' She added proudly. 'Even this experience.'

'Yeah, yeah,' Carina sighed sadly. 'Once Chuck,' she started as didactically as she was able to, ' always a Chuck.'

'Yeah, yeah,' they were nodding and murmuring affirmatively at each other, 'true, ... true.'

Xxx