A/N: Feels weird not to have anything to yammer on about before I start a chapter.

Chapter 14:

"Oh, my god," Chuck groaned. "I never knew hot water could feel so good."

Sarah rolled her eyes and shifted in his arms to look up at him. It was a little awkward, and she had to move slowly so that she didn't slosh water out of the tub. "Seriously? We were only on the island for two days."

"Mmm," Chuck said, bending his head to plant his lips in the crevice formed by her neck and shoulder. "Except for the company, I don't think I'd have lasted that long."

Her shoulders shook briefly with laughter. "Somehow I doubt that. You did alright."

"Because I had you and your spear-gun there to supply me with fresh seafood," Chuck said.

"Okay, fair enough," she preened "I'm amazing. But still, the speargun wouldn't have gotten me off that island. It was your technical know-how that saved the day."

"Alright," Chuck said grudgingly. "We're both amazing. This bubble bath is amazing. I bet the mini-bar is amazing. Your attempts at stalling are amazing. We should probably talk about... us... at some point. Where we go from here."

Sarah scrunched down into the water a little bit, crossing her arms and looking up at him with a touch of grumpiness in her eyes. She turned in his arms, making him suddenly aware of her body slick against his once more. "Hey, cut it out. We can do that again later. Talking now."

She sighed and rested her cheek on his shoulder, her arms going around his back. "I know, it's just... I know you're only here for a few more days before you've got to fly back to LA. Even if we manage to track down and retrieve this 'Cypher' or whatever, that isn't going to change is it?"

"Well, I doubt I'm going to have a job tomorrow to go back to," he said. "Either the CEO will be in jail, or he'll be... let's go with 'miffed' at me."

She snorted, trying not to laugh at his choice of words. "Yes, miffed is a good term for it. So, what are you thinking?"

"Well, that kind of depends on you, and how you would feel about me sticking around for a while. We barely know each other, when it comes right down to it."

"If Roark fires you, can you afford not to go back and look for work?"

Chuck nodded against the top of her head. "Yeah," he said. "I've got some money socked away. I'd intended to use it to finance my startup. But, I can dip into my savings. I think we owe it to ourselves not to mess things up trying the long distance thing unless we have to."

"I have to admit I'm not to thrilled about that prospect myself," Sarah said. "Would it be too stalker-y of me to suggest I go back to LA with you?"

"No, but I can't ask you to just pack up your life and move to LA. It wouldn't be fair to you."

She smirked, but it faded quickly into something else. "What life? Dad's probably halfway to Rio by now. With 'Lisa's Revenge' at the bottom of the South China Sea, Walker Marine Salvage is out of commission. I've got an emergency stash of 'run' money, and there's got to be dive schools I could teach at in LA in the longer term"

Chuck stroked her back gently. "I'm sorry we had to sink your boat and doom the company. I don't remember if I said it at the time. I probably didn't."

"I don't remember either. We had more immediate concerns at the time, like pirates."

"Yeah," Chuck said, and they fell into an easy silence.

"What are you thinking about?"

"What it'd be like if you came back to LA with me. Isn't the Armenian mob still after you?" Chuck said. "It wouldn't be safe."

"They're after 'Jenny Burton' not Sarah Walker. But, it isn't any safer here," Sarah reminded him. "The Philippine mob isn't going to be thrilled I killed Garret. I think his dad is like the number two guy in the organization."

"Oh. Then how are we going to get them to meet with us so Bryce can try to steal back the Cypher?"

Sarah shrugged and lay her head on his shoulder again, lost in thought. Chuck rubbed little circles on her back absently, trying to distract himself a little from how she felt pressed against him.

"Cut that out," Sarah said after a few minutes. "You're distracting me. And I think I've got the beginnings of a plan."

"Mind sharing it with me?" Chuck said. "I'm back to the whole positive-thinking-meteor thing."

Sarah rolled her eyes and laid out her thoughts.

"Wow. That's... it actually could solve most if not all of our problems. But Bryce is going to hate it. I love it."

She shook her head. "Still can't let the Stanford thing go? It sounds like he thought he was protecting you."

"Maybe so, but he if he was, he was protecting me the way you protect a child, not a friend," Chuck said. "Not someone you're supposed to respect. Its just... insulting that he'd try to take the choice from me like that. Still, I can't stay that mad at him."

She quirked an eyebrow, "Why not?"

"If I'd joined the CIA with Bryce straight out of Stanford, we probably never would have met."

"Hmm," Sarah said thoughtfully. "Probably not. Maybe we owe him a gift basket or something. Let's talk about something else."

"Like what?"

Sarah pushed herself up with both hands on his chest, water cascading off her curves as she angled her torso up out of the water and straddled him.

"Oh," Chuck said. "Never let it be said you aren't a master of the segue."

Sarah gave him a long lingering kiss on the mouth, only to pull away far too soon at a knock on the door.

"Dammit. Great timing, room service guy," she grumbled with a roll of her eyes.

"When did you have time to order room service?" Chuck said a touch breathlessly. "You haven't been out of my sight in like three days."

"You were at the front desk getting me a key to your room, I flagged down a bellboy," Sarah said. The knock repeated itself, and Sarah started clambering out of the tub. "Come on."

"In a minute," Chuck said. The sight of Sarah dripping wet and sudsy from the bathwater had an inevitable effect on him, "I'll be out in a minute."

Sarah arched an eyebrow as she rubbed a towel over her body, glanced back and spotted the trouble right away. She grinned crookedly. Chuck sank lower in the water.

"Where's your expense card?"

"Wherever my shorts ended up," Chuck said. "Check the pile."

The wicked gleam in her eye should have warned him, but he was still shocked when she turned and bent to scoop up his discarded clothes, wagging her backside unnecessarily as she did so.

Chuck growled under his breath and splashed his way out of the tub. "You're in for it now," he said.

Sarah grinned and flipped the damp towel over his face, before ducking away laughing." By the time he recovered his balance and got the towel off his head, Sarah had slipped into one of the white cotton bathrobes the hotel had provided. She tied the sash with a flourish and tossed him the second robe, then slipped out of the bathroom. Chuck wrapped the towel around his waist and shrugged into the bathrobe. He came out of the bathroom and stopped dead.

His eyes widened when he saw what was waiting for him. there was a line of room service carts pouring into the room, four already, and more in a traffic jam behind them, trailing out into the corridor. He glared accusingly at her, "What did you do? Order one of everything?"

Sarah shrugged. No use denying it. "Yup," she said, and waved the little leather book with the check in it at one of the men. "Where does he sign?"

Chuck strode forward and signed the room service bill, ushering the gang of servers out and shutting the door. He breathed a sigh and leaned back against the door he shook his head at the spectacle. They could practically open a buffet out of his hotel room at this point. "Do we really need to keep racking up charges on my expense account like that?"

Sarah nodded, "Yes, in case Roark has goons keeping tabs on you. Hopefully the don't think it's odd you didn't buy anything for two days. Now sit on the bed, I want to lie on your chest and feed you grapes."

"I can't always tell if you're joking or not."

Her grin widened. "And I love that about you," Sarah said while she checked a couple of platters. "Now where's my lasagna, chicken-fried steak and apple pie?"

"Really?"

"Oh, fruit platter!" She said, popping a grape in her mouth. Chuck pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. A few seconds later, Sarah brought the fruit platter over and plopped herself down in his lap.

"I guess you weren't joking."

She grinned and stopped him from talking any more.

Sarah had only managed to feed him a handful of grapes and a single messy strawberry, which cleaning up had become a rather involved process, before the room phone rang on the bedside table. Chuck stretched and tried to reach it, but Sarah occupying his lap reduced his reach. "You mind getting up so I can answer that?"

"Yes, I do mind," Sarah said. "Best seat in the house, I'm not giving it up so easy." But after another couple of rings, she tried to stretched for the phone herself, letting her bathrobe fall half-open, and eliciting a groan from Chuck.

"You're doing that on purpose."

She shook her head and got up, took the two steps to the phone, picked the whole thing up, and resumed her perch in his lap before answering the phone. "Chuck's room," she said, and immediately held the receiver out at arms length. Even from that distance, he recognized Ellie's voice.

"Oh, crap," Chuck breathed. "Quick gimme the phone!"

He took the handset and grimaced. This wasn't going to go well. "Ellie, it's me. Ellie, calm down. Ellie!"

"Chuck! You're alive! Why aren't you answering your cellphone?"

Sarah's perch on his lap was close enough for Sarah to hear. "My fault, Ellie," she said, mouthing for Chuck to play along. "I dropped Chuck's phone off the boat so he'd stop taking work calls."

"I thought it was waterproof?"

"It is," Chuck said.

"But I dropped it in a hundred feet of water, and refused to get out the scuba tanks until we left."

"What?" Ellie said."Left what?"

"I took your advice, Ellie," Sarah explained.

"Advice?"

"Not to let the nerdity drive me off. We've been all but connected at the... hip for days."

Chuck blushed furiously and stole the phone back. "Sorry about that, I didn't-" He frowned at the handset. "Did she hang up?"

Sarah waved the base of the phone, where her finger was holding down the disconnect switch. "She knows I'm here, she'll figure the rest out."

"Rest of what?" Chuck said.

"Do I need to walk you through it again?"

She shifted around on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him into silence. When the phone rang again a few minutes later, neither of them was in a position to answer it.

Bryce hammered on the door to Chuck's hotel room, "Come on," he grumbled, "Answer the door!" It took another minute at least before the door swung open.

"Hey, Bryce," Chuck said, appearing in the cracked doorway looking distinctly... rumpled.

"Why didn't you answer the phone? I've got news."

"We were busy," Sarah said from deeper in the room.

Bryce smirked. "Well, keep it in your pants from now on, we need to get planning."

"Okay, let me put some pants on first," Chuck said, shutting the door in Larkin's face.

When Chuck let Bryce in a couple minutes later, he stared at the massive spread of food. "Did you open a buffet or something?"

"Its all on the Roark Instruments tab," Sarah explained airily. "Help yourself."

Bryce frowned at Sarah, still in her bathrobe. "Roark's plane landed twenty minutes ago, my contact in the company made the trip too. He's stopping by in a few mintues to give us the particulars, but it looks like the pirates- or are we calling them mobsters now that we're back on land- are meeting Roark to make the sale sometime tonight." He shook his head at Sarah's bathrobe. "Shouldn't you get dressed?"

Sarah took a bite of her steak with an odd viciousness, and Chuck cleared his throat. "Um, yeah. About that? All her clothes were on the boat that we had to sink. You know, to get away from the guys after your precious doo-dad? She's only got a bikini and the wetsuit that I had to cut the sleeves off so we could come rescue you back on the island. We're going to need to go shopping real quick."

"Why are you telling me this instead of her?"

"She blames you for destroying her entire wardrobe," Chuck said. Sarah gestured with her steak knife emphatically. "So, I'm acting as intermediary."

"She seemed fine a minute ago."

"I was trying to be civil, assface," Sarah growled while cutting another piece of steak a little more strenuously than strictly necessary. Chuck shrugged helplessly.

Bryce sighed and grabbed a carrot-stick from one of the platters of finger foods. "So," he said, crunching away briefly before going on, "You look like you've got a plan, Chuck."

"Actually..." Chuck said. "It's mostly Sarah's plan."

"It's... well I was going to say 'It's simple really,'" she said and put down her knife and fork. "But it's actually kind of complicated now that I think about it."

Bryce rolled his eyes and nodded for her to go on as he perused the food selection. Eventually he came away with a quesadilla platter.

"Well," she said. "It's like this. The local mob has stolen this cyber thing.

"Cypher."

"Potato potahto. Anyway," she went on. "They're going to have to try to sell it to somebody, but currently, it's still inside that special secure case. Chuck called it a Roark 600 or something?"

"Yes," Bryce said. "Unless they've got a guy on the payroll with genius IQ and a couple weeks, they won't be able to get into that thing without destroying the Cypher."

"Which would take care of your problem,"Chuck said. "Except that I kind of mentioned that to them when they were holding us hostage back on Sarah's boat, so we can't count on a bungled attempt to break into the case to keep the Cypher from falling into Roark's hands. And it's more like a couple of hours. Not weeks."

Sarah glared at Bryce pointedly for a moment before she went on. As far as she was concerned Bryce was at fault for this whole situation, so the boat was down to him as well. Even though it had been her idea. Chuck never claimed to understand women. "So, I figured they might try to sell it back to Roark. Now they don't know that what's in there is worth so much... how much is it worth anyway?"

"Three billion, give or take a few million."

Sarah let out a low whistle. "Okay, so Roark will have low-balled them with an offer of a couple million, you think?"

"We can call and tell them how much it's really worth," Chuck said. "And offer to open the case for them."

"But instead we steal it back."

"Oh, just like that. Steal it back," Bryce said. "You two do much stealing from the mob? It tends to go poorly."

"I happen to have a little experience in that regard. We can make this work. They haven't seen what's in the case. One circuit board's the same as the next as far as they're concerned. We open the case, and switch out the cypher with a phony. How big is the thing?

"Maybe a little bigger than a silver dollar."

"Perfect. So you pocket the Cypher, plant a phony circuit board. Then book it out of there before Roark shows up and figures out something is wrong."

"This is all sounding plausible. But, wait. What's this 'me' stuff. It was 'we' a second ago."

"Well, yeah. You're the bait in this scenario."

"You're kidding. You want to turn me over to the mob?"

"The case is keyed to your thumbprint and voice ID, right?"

"I never told you that..."

"It was the safe assumption. You were escorting the thing."

"But that doesn't mean I can open the case."

"Bryce," Chuck said. "Can you open the case?"

"Of course," he said. "But you still shouldn't have assumed it."

"Ugh," Sarah groaned. "You two are like children."

A knock came at the door followed by a gruff voice. "Larkin, you in there?"

Bryce shot to his feet and went to the door, gun in hand. Chuck blinked. When had he gotten a pistol? Maybe it was just one of those things they taught you at the CIA: how to magically find guns in a foreign country. "Code in," he said while peering through the peephole.

"Come on, the hallway's deserted, CIA," the voice said impatiently through the door. "And you know my face. You can see me giving you the two-finger salute through the peep-hole. Quit being a jerk and let me in."

"Code in."

"Merman."

"Okay," Bryce said, and opened the door.

"Christ on a crutch, Larkin. Why the hell are there a couple of civilians in here?"

"Wait, aren't you Roark's secre- executive assistant?"

He grunted acknowledgment. "Major John Casey, NSA."

"Huh. This is all starting to make a weird kind of sense," Chuck said. "You must have been under cover at Roark Instruments?"

"Still am," Casey said. "Which brings us back to the other thing. Larkin, what's Bartowski doing here?"

"I can speak for myself. We rescued him from some bad guys on a deserted island, after pirates stole the Cypher from us," Chuck said. "It's a whole thing."

"I've read them in, a little," Bryce said.

"Oh, perfect," Casey rolled his eyes. "And now, what, you're bringing them along on the OP?"

"Actually, we're helping to plan-"

Casey bristled and fixed Bryce with a glare. "Outside, Larkin. We need to talk."

Bryce followed Casey out and left Chuck and Sarah in a confused silence. "So, what's that about? You know this Casey guy?"

Chuck shrugged. "He's the guy who gave me the info about the plane in the first place, but he was undercover, I guess, as the CEO's secretary."

"He didn't look happy to see you."

"I think he's only got the one facial expression."

Bryce and Casey came back after a minute or so. "Okay, Bartowski, let's hear this plan."

"Do I need to start from the beginning again? This is getting ridiculous."

"Just talk, Bartowski."

"Fine. We turn Bryce over to the mob guys who stole the Cypher, he opens the case and switches it out for a fake we rig up. Then we stage some kind of distraction so he can get away."

"Oh," Casey said. "That's actually not a bad plan. To start from. They'll probably want to keep you around until after their meeting with Roark. From the way he's talking, I'm guessing it's set for some time tonight. We can take everybody down and take back the Cypher at the meeting tonight... Yeah, that could work..."

"Wait!" Bryce said. "You're going along with this?"

"My interest is piqued. How were you going to deal with their muscle when the... mobsters was it? When they inevitably double-cross you?"

"We've got a couple AKs in the closet," Chuck said weakly.

"Definitely won't be enough," Casey said and shook his head, but then a grin found its way onto his face. So he didn't have just the one expression after all.
"You'll need sniper support. Luckily, I know a guy," he grinned and headed toward the food. "You got any barbeque?"

"Third platter from the left," Chuck said.

Sarah made the call, which took a fair bit of time on it's own. The man they needed to talk to wasn't exactly in the yellow pages under 'mobster.' Further compounding the diffulties was the tendency of every person they got on the phone to deny any involvement with any illegal activity and promptly hang up. In any of three languages. Luckily Sarah's Spanish and Tagolog were up to the task.

It was Casey who eventually suggested she speak in an easily breakable code, and then things began falling into place. Sarah worked her way up the ladder of lower level mobsters whose names she could find in the phone book, until she had Garret's father on the phone. "Yes," the mob boss's voice came out of the speaker-phone in Chuck's room.

"This is the woman who killed your son," she said without any preamble. Bryce and Casey glared at her, but couldn't risk saying anything that their mark might hear. "Call me back at this number on a line you know is secure," she gave the man the number of a brand new pre-paid cell they'd sent Casey out for. While they waited for a return call, Casey and Bryce demanded answers.

"It's... complicated," Sarah said. "I know what I'm doing. Sort of."

The two experience intelligence officers didn't have time to alter the plan before Sarah's cellphone rang. She put him on speakerphone again.

"I didn't think you'd call back so quickly." The voice on the other end of the phone was slow in answering.

"He's dead, then. My men weren't willing to make that leap in logic. Claimed that you and the young man were quite dead however. I'd be interested in knowing how he died."

"You're awfully calm," Sarah said, feeling anything but calm herself.

"I've come to appreciate the value of good phone manners. And if the police do have my other phone tapped, you just confessed to murder."

"Self defense, Mr. Conway," she said. "No jury in the world would convict me."

"Well," the man said. "There is that. I assume there's a reason for this call, other than to inform me of the particulars of my son's death. There was no love lost between us, you should know. I'm sure he was going to try to have me killed some time soon."

"Garret's men took a case from my boat."

"And now you want it back? I don't think so."

"Hardly. They stole it fair and square. But we can still be of help to you. What's in that case is worth enough for both of us to get what we want."

"Of course, and what exactly is it that you want?"

"Get the Armenians off my dad's back. Don't come after me for Garret. And two million in US currency."

He laughed.

"It's less than one percent of what you stand to make on the deal," Sarah said. They could practically hear the man sitting up straighter in his chair.

"Explain."

"I have it on good authority that the contents of that case are worth upwards of three billion dollar. 'B' as in butt-load of money, Mr. Conway."

"I'm asking myself what you stand to gain by lying to me. And I can't really think of anything. The case can't be broken into for us to check. I already have a buyer lined up. He offered a million, I asked for two. Changing the terms now would be bad business."

"He'll pay at least two hundred fifty million, Mr. Conway. I can have the CIA agent who was escorting the case to collaborate all this."

Conway laughed again. "Truly. It would almost have to be. This story of yours. It is too crazy to be a lie. Alright. You have a deal. The meeting with the buyer is in four hours," he listed the address. "Be there in two hours. And if you are lying, we'll have another discussion." The way he said it sent a chill down Sarah's spine, even without an overt threat behind it.

"You killed his son?" Casey demanded. "You didn't think that was worth mentioning before you made the call?"

"You wouldn't have let me make the call otherwise."

Casey shook his head, fuming. "Did you know about this, Larkin?"

"No," Bryce said. "Of course not. I've been against this plan from the start. There's no way he'll go through with the deal."

"I know," Sarah said. "My dad had a saying: 'When all else fails, bluff your ass off.'"

"How'd that work out for him," Casey said sourly.

"Not great," Sarah admitted. "But he's smart enough to have skipped town after Garret and his boys roughed him up. While we're still here."

"You have a better plan?" Chuck asked.

Casey growled. "I wish to god I did."

"I still can't believe you're using me as bait," Bryce complained in the van Chuck had rented on his expense account. The way Roark was conspiring at his own downfall hadn't stopped being hilarious yet. "I want it on the record that I officially hate this plan."
"Noted," Casey said, before yanking the black hood down over Bryce's head.

"Cuffs aren't too tight I hope?" Sarah said, giving them a tweak just to be sure. Bryce grunted in discomfort, and Sarah grinned. She was still blaming Bryce for the loss of her wardrobe. Since they'd had to make her shopping trip exceedingly short, she had only managed to turn up a 'Where's the Beef' t-shirt and a pair of acid-wash jeans. Chuck's insistence that it was 'a good look for her' hadn't done much to improve her mood toward Bryce.

Bryce growled something indistinct under his hood.

"Okay," Casey said. "Enough tormenting Larkin." He held out a plastic case holding a pair of tiny earpieces. "Put these in, you two."

"Okay," Chuck said. He paused to inspect the tiny electronic gizmo until Casey growled softly. "Sorry, geez."

"Comm check," Casey said.

"Oh, wow," Chuck said. "What's the range on these things?"

"Couple blocks, that's it. And the battery only lasts about three hours. Matching watches. This button here, starts recording. This one shuts off the transmitter in case they sweep for bugs, it'll shut down the earpieces too. Then push again to turn them back on."

"Why would they sweep for bugs?"

Casey grunted. "I don't know. It's the smart thing to do? You don't get very far assuming your enemies are stupid. Spy rule number 1: Assume they're at least as smart as you."

"Oh," Chuck said, suitably chastised.

"Okay," Casey said. "I'll stay in radio contact while this goes down. If anything goes wrong, the code word is... I don't know, something innocuous."

"Pineapple?"

Casey rolled his eyes. "Sure, why not. Say 'pineapple,' and I start taking people out." He patted the bulky case holding his sniper rifle. "That'll be your cue to try and grab the Cypher and leg it out of there. Anyway, I'll have you in sight from my perch."

"Which is where, by the way?"

"Rafters of the warehouse," he explained. "Your meeting is in an hour and a half, Roark's is in three and a half. Which is why I'll be setting up right now."

"Oh. Assuming they're as smart as us, won't they have people watching the place already?"

"Yes. But I'm very sneaky."

"For a huge guy with a giant sniper rifle; what is that a .50 cal?"

"I'm sneaky for anybody," Casey said. "And yes. You've got a good eye for firearms. Might be hope for you yet."

"If we're going to be waiting in here for another hour and a half, why am I already wearing the damn hood," Bryce said. He had to over-enunciate everything to be understood and it gave an odd cadence to his words.

"That's in case Conway or his goons spot you lurking around in the van. The hood stays on."

"This is worse than the island," Bryce grumbled. Casey laughed and headed out into the late afternoon.

"How'd you know about the gun?" Sarah asked.

"Call of Duty. Don't tell Casey?"

"My lips are sealed."

Chuck and Sarah drove a block away and parked the van once more, listening to Casey's whispered status reports as he made his way to his sniper's nest. "Two armed guards in a sedan at the more inside the warehouse, so far. No problems." It was a very quiet, nerve wracking hour in the van. Chuck and Sarah were precluded from really talking by Bryce, even though he was hooded and cuffed. They listened to a local radio station until Casey told them to shut it off, as the sound was being fed through to him, and he wanted to stay radio silent as much as possible. Chuck didn't know enough about the earpieces to risk turning them off and back on later.

About thirty minutes before their scheduled meeting with the mobsters holding the Cypher, Casey's voice sounded in their ears. "Two SUV's just pulled up. Looks like this is it."

"You can see that from up there?"

"There's this new invention called a window, numbnuts? Eight men," Casey went on. "Looks like four with sub-machineguns, two with pump action shotguns. Last two, I can't tell, getting some glare from the sunset. Probably just pistols. Must be Conway and a second in command. Too many shadows in here, still can't make out any faces. Give it another twenty minutes before you roll in."

"Seriously?" Chuck said. He tried to keep the plaintive note out of his voice. "This is taking forever."

"All good things to those who wait, Bartowski."

The twenty minutes Casey demanded seemed to take days, until finally, Casey's voice came through again. "Okay, head on in."

Chuck shivered and glanced at Sarah. "You want to back out, there's still time. Rio is nice this time of year, or so I'm told."

Sarah shook her head. "It's my plan, more or less. I want to see this through as much as you do."

"Okay," he said, and put the van into gear.

The two outside guards waved them to a stop. One stood a ways back, covering the other in case Chuck or Sarah started shooting. Chuck rolled his window down. "We're here to see Conway."

"We'll need to search you for weapons before you go inside."

"No need," Chuck said. "We've got AKs. They'll be pretty obvious."

"What?" He took a handful of steps back, hand going to his hip.

Sarah shouted something in Tagalog, and the guard paused, then nodded. He pulled out a cellphone, and after a brief consultation with his boss, nodded again.

"Okay. But you move slow."

Chuck went in back and guided Bryce down out of the back, then followed, AK slung slanting down his chest, while Sarah kept hers out and trained at Bryce's back.

The two outside guards watched the procession carefully. They obviously didn't trust anyone with automatic weapons. It wasn't a bad policy, Chuck thought, just on general principles.

One of the mobsters turned away, reluctance obvious in the set of his shoulders, and opened the door.

He led them into the warehouse, through a relative labyrinth of shipping containers and pallets of miscellaneous, probably ill-gotten, goods. This was probably even their own warehouse. Chuck imagined them 'whacking' people and fitting them for their cement shoes in this very building and shivered, trying to halt his overactive imagination.

"Lose the hood," one of the men said. He was asian, older with gray-tinged sideburns and a calm voice Chuck remembered as belonging to Conway. He was vaguely confused for a moment, and then wondered if that was racist of him, expecting a white man. Garret hadn't been overtly asian-looking, and now he was becoming exceedingly worried about it, enough so that he almost said something. He thought better of making a potential faux-pas and remained silent. Bad way to start a covert meeting.

Sarah tugged the hood off Bryce's head.

"Had to rough him up a little?" Conway said. "I should pay you less for damaging the merchandise."

"He can still open the case. Then you can set your own price with your buyer. You did bring the case, didn't you?"

"Of course," Conway waved to one of his men, who produced the distinctive silver case. "I wasn't expecting the armament, however. Care to explain before we proceed?"

"Like I'm going to walk in here unarmed? What's to have stopped you from just killing us?"

"And you think your guns make you safe?"

"You're barely thirty feet away," Chuck said. "that's not exactly a difficult shot. But hopefully nobody came here for a blood bath. I know I didn't. Our friend here opens the case, you get your leverage, make a little phone call to LA, we get our money and walk. And he walks with us."

Conway frowned. "Why do you care what happens to him?"

"CIA pays good money for a 'rescued' agent."

"Ah, greed. Is that all that motivates you I wonder? I have a special guest of my own."

One of Conway's men pushed forward the second man Casey had spotted without an obvious weapon. He was wearing a hood very similar to Bryce's, and his hands were bound in front of him. Chuck felt a chill go down his spine. "Oh, crap," he breathed, just as the hood was pulled off to reveal the familiar features of Jack Walker.

"Sorry, kiddo," Jack said as the goon behind him pressed the shotgun into his back.

TO BE CONCLUDED...

A/N: Will try to get the final chapter out before Thanksgiving. Constructive criticism is welcome in the reviews as always. Perhaps moreso because I'm not too fond of how this chapter turned out myself. Of course positive reviews are welcome too. Don't feel pressured to badmouth me if you don't feel like it. That would be crazy-talk.