A few changes.

Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale.

This meant that they were heading to Bob Hope Airport first thing in the morning on the day Sarah was meeting up with Carina and Zondra. Of course they had to explain to Sarah how they came to have their own hangar at Bob Hope, along with a C-37B, Propfan U-28, C-21A and modified MD 600 and Agusta A109. Once they were in the air Chuck explained.

"Post Nine Eleven, we were being sent all over the world much of the time, and getting military C Twenties and C Thirty Sevens assigned to us whenever we had a mission was attracting far too much attention. To get around that Auntie Di got a slightly fire damaged but sound C Thirty Seven A airframe at the AMARC written off and signed over to us in early Oh Two, and we paid Gulfstream to rebuild it to the latest specs..." That got him a look as Sarah had an idea of what a major rebuild of one of these would cost, so he explained. "Between the settlements I got from Stanford, the salaries of most of the fifty odd senior officers supposedly in the group back then, acquisitions from mission targets and good investments, we had over a hundred million available to us at the time..." That got him another incredulous look and he just shrugged, continuing. "And Uncle Roan managed to talk Gulfstream into rebuilding it as the upcoming G Five SP instead of a normal G Five by implying that that would help them with government sales, so we were flying it as a Gulfstream prototype for a while." Because he'd seen that she'd picked up on the fact that this was actually a C-37B, not A.

"The Twenty Eight came about because Auntie Di was bitching about all the time I was wasting, driving or riding down to see Viv in L A on weekends after we found her and brought her home in August Two Thousand, because it was taking over six hours each way at legal speeds. Her saying that getting to know my little sister who we'd just found was wasting time pissed me off, so I told her that if my time was that bloody valuable she should get me a Pilatus PC Twelve so I could fly down and save five hours each way, because the C Twenty One couldn't use the Palo Alto Airstrip and needed two pilots anyway... I just said that to shut her up... It was only my operational training and background that made me automatically specify the PC Twelve as the best match to the mission requirements... but she did. They picked up an early PC Twelve and took it to Pilatus to get it rebuilt and recertified. Uncle Roan talked Pilatus into adding all the improvements and special operations options they were working on like a glass cockpit, ISR system with the retractable surveillance and reconnaissance module, jump door incorporated into the cargo door and the like into the build by implying that this was for the CIA's SOG and it could lead to further sales, pretty much the same way he talked Gulfstream into building us the next generation Gulfstream G Five SP eighteen months later."

"After we got the Thirty Seven, we kept the Twenty Eight for the same reason it became SOCOM's special operations plane of choice, it's a handy single pilot plane with good speed, range and capacity that can use short dirt strips and it can be used as a reconnaissance and jump plane too, and most of the group are certified on it so they can use it if they need to go somewhere... It's a bit modified now because we upgraded the glass cockpit and added fly by wire systems and side stick controls, along with long range tanks, new carbon fibre wings and panels and a lot of improved titanium components to make it stronger and lighter, converted it to the more powerful and efficient propfan and added a few other improvements..."

John interrupted at that point, calling back from the cockpit. "I hear that boom operator's still looking for payback!"

Sarah just looked at Chuck so he knew he couldn't continue without explaining that. "One of the improvements on my Twenty Eight is a folding refuelling probe to get extra fuel if we need it on a fast cross country run, because sometimes it would take too long to get a jet allocated. The first time we had to use it, we were coming up behind the tanker flat stick and heard over the radio 'What the hell did you bastards put in my coffee?' The ones in the cockpit wanted to know what the hell he was talking about and he shouted back. 'It's not fucking possible for a single prop light plane to be coming up on us at over Four Hundred and Seventy knots, but that's exactly what I'm fucking seeing in front of me!' They started telling him to goofing off but I was pissed off because I just wanted to get this operation done with so I started shouting into the mic 'Unless you want to spend the the rest of your fucking life in a government black site, get that fucking refuelling boom extended now!' He did, and as soon as we'd taken on enough fuel to finish the flight we disengaged and took off again, but when the Air Force asked Auntie Di how the hell a single prop light plane was doing over four hundred and seventy knots she got pissed off and told them that that was CLASSIFIED, and there would be hell to pay for their idiot boom operator telling everyone about it over an open radio like that, as he'd just breached national security! He was officially reprimanded and grounded, putting paid to any hopes he may have had for any future advancement, and he decided that it was the plane operators' who were responsible for his plight rather than his own big mouth, so as John said he's looking for payback. But I'm not too worried about that..."

"Anyway... we had the Twenty Eight cleaned up and updated by Pilatus last year when they got the propfan modifications type certified. The fast cruise speed is up by over a hundred and fifty knots, the range is up by over twelve hundred nautical miles and as the Air Force reported, it can do over four hundred and seventy knots flat out. It's also quieter, so it's a far better plane to fly now. We managed to get Pilatus to include some of the other improvements they'd made since our Twelve was built for us as well as what they're currently working on for it in the update. They've bought the rights to build and sell copies of what our guys created and are getting our guys to supply the components they created to implement the propfans, which is bringing extra money in. They built a second one for Pilatus to use to get type certification with and we got it back last year when it was certified. As I said, that one's down in Dallas..."

"Wait... You guys are the ones who created the Pilatus P C Twelve Propfan?"

"Not me but our guys, yeah..."

He went on while Sarah was shaking her head in disbelief.

"And the C Twenty One is normally in Dallas too, but Auntie Charly and the others used it to fly up to help Auntie Pheobes get Thebes Security set up. We acquired it from an arms dealer we took down in Ninety Eight and I cleaned up the records then got it repainted and done up inside. We used it as part of our cover up until we got the C Thirty Seven, then it went down to Dallas so that they can make use of it. It'd be handier if it was single pilot rated but it's got the range and speed to get people around the country... The Stingray came from the same guy and we cleaned it and its records up to use it as part of our cover too because it looks the part for a nice executive helicopter, but it's also a nice helicopter to fly and faster than most, even more so now..."

The Stingray reference got him a questioning look so he explained. "We have them all registered as military aircraft in the Air Force's records so that we can take them onto military bases without problems. The Coast Guard adopted the A One Oh Nine E Power and gave it the MH Sixty Eight A Stingray designation in Two Thousand, so that's what we have it registered as, just as the Learjet is registered as a C Twenty One A." Sarah nodded, as that made sense, and he continued.

"The Loach was actually our very first aircraft, but it was mainly a bribe from Auntie Di to try and keep us working, because Ellie and I had started jacking up about the amount of work she was expecting us to do when I went to Stanford and Ellie was complaining that while I was getting to fly on my missions, she hardly ever got to fly anything... Anyway, in late Ninety Seven Auntie Di told us that she'd gotten us a helicopter, because that way it could be based just up the road from the house at the Chantry Flats Fire Station Heliport where we could get to it quickly... Which in Auntie Di speak meant not waste any more time than we absolutely had to..."

"Of course, being Auntie Di, she'd gotten us a variant of the MD Five Hundred because she'd gotten control of the new Stealth Helicopter Project by making that a condition when Hank, our aircraft expert, was requested for it. You see back in the early Seventies Hank had been a bright young man who'd been instrumental in getting those quiet Loaches working for the CIA. Auntie Di knew that between Hank, me and Dad, we had a better chance of making this work than anyone, so she told the Army that she'd only allow Hank to work on it if it was our project... So she'd get the credit when we came up with the solution of course. Anyway, the Army was mainly focussing on the Little Bird so she decided that she could use an MD Five Hundred to both placate Ellie and get a test machine for the project, but with Uncle Roan's help Hank talked her into getting the new eight man MD Six Hundred with two of the biggest auxiliary tanks for us instead of the Five Hundred. He argued that the Six Hundred could be used to carry a team on missions when necessary, but he really chose it because he knew that he could make it into something better for us than the smaller Five Hundred. The Six Hundred came with the cargo hook because the deal she made with the Fire Service to let us keep it up at the Fire Station was that they could use it if they needed an extra Helitack copter in emergencies."

"All that mattered to us though was that Ellie was getting to fly regularly again and it's a nice copter to fly. It had a bad vibration in transition at first but our people managed to fix that problem and they modified it a lot more, using it as the test bed for the stealth project, so it's quicker and more nimble than the Little Birds now. We call it the Loach because Hank was calling it that from the start and it seemed fitting, seeing as we were trying to pick up where the previous Stealth Loaches left off, and it's officially listed in the Air Force's records as a modified OH Six so we can take it onto military bases. It was mostly based up at Chantry Flats until they closed the Fire Station in Oh Five because the road was washed out, then we moved it down to the hangar, though it's spent a fair bit of time on the roof of El Castillo since we got the stealth rotor system fitted last year, because it's quiet enough to get in and out without most people noticing now, and we just pull the marquee over it."

"Auntie Di wasn't happy with me when I got us four F Five F Tiger Twos about nine months later when we were checking out that arms dealer though. I used the same argument she'd used for getting the Thirty Seven on her, that we'd attract less attention if she wasn't having to get flight orders for the Air Force and Navy's supersonic jets cut for us all the time to go back and forth across the country once she got the Tigers properly recorded in the system for us. It was a valid argument, but she wasn't buying it because she knew it was mainly to let Ellie and the rest of us to get supersonic flight time..."

He petered off because Sarah looked like she was going to blow, but he didn't have to wait too long to hear what she had to say. "You have a fucking F Five?"

Chuck nodded hesitantly. "Four actually, but yes."

"When were you planning to tell me this, and where the hell are they? I think I would have noticed a couple of F Fives sitting in the hangar!"

"We've had bigger issues to worry about since we found each again, with all that shit with Graham and the rest to deal with, but I was going to take you up to Raccoon City as soon as we have a chance... That's where they are, in our facility up at Plant Forty Two with one of the Lakotas, Bertha, Andre, the EuroMil and the Wagon..."

He didn't get a chance to stop this time. "You've got a Lakota too? And what are Bertha, Andre, the EuroMil and the Wagon?"

"Yes! The Lakotas came out of the Stealth Helicopter Project as well... That's the reason we have Raccoon City up there, the Stealth Helicopter Project. The Army rejected our proposal for the Stealth Little Bird when it was presented because they claimed it required too many modifications to the helicopter, even though it works quite well. The EC One Forty Five was selected to be the Army's new Light Utility Helicopter just after that though, and its manufacturer was already working on an updated variant of the One Forty Five which included most of the changes they made to the Six Hundred so it wouldn't need to be modified as much to use their stealth system. We thought that that would get us past the arguments from the panel so we bought a couple One Forty Fives, fitted the uprated turbines etc of the new variant and our guys converted them to use their stealth components. The Army still wouldn't consider their proposal though so the guys gave up, but we had proven that we could produce fully functional and capable stealth helicopters out of two completely different helicopter designs and we kept the helicopters... Four actually, because they made the Stingray and EuroMil into a full stealth helicopters as well but the Army doesn't know about them..."

"Okay... Bertha, Andre, the EuroMil and the Wagon ... I don't know how much you've looked into the big military transports, but I presume you know about the Antonov transports?"

Sarah nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Well Antonov were working on a new transport when the Soviet Union fell apart, the AN Seventy. Like many of their designs, it was quite innovative for the time... it still is for that matter... a composite STOL propfan transport that was three quarters the size and half the empty weight of a C Seventeen but had almost as much cargo volume and nearly two thirds the payload, and its cruising speed was only about forty knots slower than the C Seventeen's with more range, it's one hell of a plane. The problem was that it was being developed jointly with the Russians and a lot of politics were involved. As far as the world knew there were only two AN Seventy prototypes, the first one was destroyed in a crash in Ninety Five and they didn't get the second one flying until Ninety Seven, they crashed that one too in Two Thousand and One but managed to get it patched up and continued to use it for flight testing and development. But the Russians had reneged on their commitment to fund the development so it had just about stopped by then because Antonov didn't have the money to continue. The thing was, the Russians' plan was apparently to use Antonov to get the designs and then cut them out of the deal, because they had two other prototypes which must have been built in secret stashed away. I expect they were trying to make Antonov go bust and then have a Russian aircraft company release the Seventy as their own design after they went belly up... which makes me wonder about all the bad luck Antonov had with their prototypes... but Antonov was too well established to go under like that so they never got the chance..."

"Anyway... John, Ellie and I and the team with us found the two Russian AN Seventy prototypes tucked away in a hangar with another much bigger prototype, a dismantled transport helicopter prototype which turned out to be a variant of the new Mil MI Thirty Eight design and piles of parts on a remote military airfield in Russia when we were on a mission there in Two Thousand and Two. We confirmed that the prototypes were the original AN Seventy concept, the updated version of the AN One Twenty Two concept and the original concept for the MI Thirty Eight. The three of us had enough experience to fly the Antonovs so we... Well I suppose you could say that we liberated them. We loaded everything else into the Antonovs and flew them back here to stash them away in the Raccoon City building, which was actually the Air Force's C Five hangar at Plant Forty Two before we bought it..."

"Let me get this straight... You, Ellie and Casey stole three Russian strategic transport prototypes and a transport helicopter prototype from a military base in Russia, flew them all the way back to the States and hid them in your hangar that I'm only now hearing about now?"

"I hardly think that stole is the right word, after all they were the ones who stole the designs from Antonov, and it turned out we were right when we presumed that they stole the helicopter design too, we were just making sure that they didn't benefit from that theft. Anyway, we've updated all three of the Antonovs to glass cockpits with fly by wire control systems and side sticks in the time we've had them, and improved the propellers and engine controls as well so their cruising speed is up by around ten percent, the range is up about twenty percent and they can be flown quite easily by a crew of two, which makes them quite handy to have around. We called the Seventies Big Bertha and Big Boris because... well... they're big, and we call the One Twenty Two Andre the Giant because its enormous. We got paperwork from the Ukrainian government which let Auntie Di get them officially entered into the Air Force and civil records as official Antonov prototypes that we're operating to generate test data for them, which we are actually, so we don't have any more trouble using military facilities with them than we do with our other planes and helicopters..."

"Just what do you have Chuck? You seem to have forgotten to tell me about most of this!"

"I wanted to surprise you with the Tigers, okay? Fine! We normally have this Thirty Seven, our original Twenty Eight, the Loach and the Stingray at Bob Hope, the Tigers, one Lakota, Bertha, Andre, the EuroMil and the Wagon up at Plant Forty Two, and the other U Twenty Eight and Lakota, Boris and two stealth modified Little Birds down in Austin. That's it!"

She was laughing at him now, her expression was saying 'That's all is it?' but she just nodded and said. "Okay Chuck."

He sat down, took a deep breath to calm down and tried to explain. "Look, you probably won't understand this because your records say that you haven't had a break from missions in years, but most of the last sixteen or so years have been one big slog for Ellie and me, Anna and the others too but Ellie and I have been working eighteen to twenty hours a day for the majority of it and it wears you down. John and I are sent away on missions a fair bit, but Ellie's generally been stuck in LA trying to stay on top of the workload and keep her cover life going, so when John, Anna and I were getting into the organisation of a major arms dealer who was reportedly trying to sell off four F Five F fighters among other things on one of my missions, I bought them to get them off the market... That was enough to cement our cover actually, Everyone bought the story that I was the son of some Russian Mob boss who was striking out on my own with John and Anna there as my bodyguards..."

He caught the dubious look Sarah shot Anna at that, questioning her credibility as a bodyguard. "Oh I can assure you my pint sized pit bull is quite believable as a bodyguard once she's schooled a few of them! She wears a sexy little cosplay schoolgirl outfit and pretends to be my companion up until I release her to teach the ones who can't understand what 'Look but don't touch!' means... They learn soon enough then because Anna wins as often as John does when they go at it and she gives Ellie and I a good workout when we spar. She can match most special ops guys with most weapons too for that matter..."

He just answered the shocked and disbelieving look she gave him with a nod and continued...

"Anyway... Dropping about Eighteen Million like that on the F Fives, the composite prototype for our Mark Five SOC Boat and a shit load of high end guns and ammo cinched it, especially with the deal I screwed out of him. We hung onto everything we got from him and cleaned out everything he had when we took him down about a month later. We added bigger tanks and in flight refuelling probes to the Tigers for cross country trips, and we also managed to pick up some of the uprated J Eighty Fives that GE developed in the Nineties when some in the Navy were debating bringing back the F Fives to upgrade them. The uprated J Eighty Fives generate about five thousand pounds of thrust dry and over seven with the afterburners each, which is enough to push the Tigers up to about Mach two point one or two point two clean. They're not F Fifteens but in many ways they're more fun to fly because they're more agile and they'll do over Mach two with the new engines. You know what it's like to fly a jet fighter at supersonic speeds, so you can see why Ellie, well all of us really, love to fly them... and with four we can have dog fights with them..."

Anna nodded with a grin at that and Sarah thought to herself. 'Well that explains why they're all certified on F Fives anyway.'

"The Seventies and the One Twenty Two were just dropped into our laps and they were too good an opportunity to pass up, Antonov had a working flight test bed again by then for the Seventy and it would have raised too many questions if they suddenly had three, but I really wanted to derail the Russians' plans so we took them. Besides which, all these prototypes were a lot lighter than Antonov's because they're mainly made out of titanium and carbon fibre so they had better performance and range, and the Seventies had the AN Twenty Two's twin tails, a wider fuselage and a few other differences, while the One Twenty Two is a bigger version of the Twenty Two with composite construction, propfan engines, scaled up versions of the Seventy's wings and slightly wider fuselage to give it the same service ceiling and speed as the Seventies and expand its cargo capacity, so they wouldn't have given Antonov usable flight data anyway. I found out from Yuri... he's one of our engineers who was at Antonov up until he was made to transfer to Mil just before the Soviet Union fell, and then defected in Ninety Five because he was trapped in Russia... that the Russians had forced Antonov to change the Seventy design to a normal single tail and get rid of the wide fuselage just before they started building the first prototype, presumably to make it look like a different plane so they'd be able to use the more practical and efficient bigger capacity twin tail design after they forced Antonov to go under, and they also pushed for the updated One Twenty Two design to be developed and then canned it just before they started building the prototype too, so they were really planning to screw Antonov over. Once I'd collected all the information I gave it to Antonov and made a deal with them, that's how we got the official paperwork from the Ukrainian government to operate them. Anyway, the One Twenty Two has similar size, cargo volume and payload to the original AN One Twenty Four, but it's less than half the empty weight and has no trouble using unimproved air strips, while the Seventies are by far the smallest and lightest transports which have a tall enough cargo bay to take the copters. They can routinely operate out of unimproved forward support points meant for smaller planes so they're perfect for Hank and the guys' idea of getting the stealth helicopters into striking distance of their targets and their and the One Twenty Two's performance and range have been significantly improved by our guys... It was actually coming up with the improved props for them and the One Twenty Two that gave the guys the ideas they needed to make the stealth rotor work, and the Twenty Eight's propfan came from that too, because when they were working with the propfan manufacturer on their Seventy and One Twenty Two modifications they were shown a small aircraft version of the propfan that they'd come up with but no-one ever took up, so they got some of them to experiment with...

"Okay, the EuroMil and the Wagon, well the EuroMil prototype was built out of titanium and carbon fibre too. Very well actually, whoever built these prototypes for them was damned good. It turned out that the military hard liners in Russia who were trying to screw Antonov over also weren't happy that Mil was working with Eurocopter to develop their new flagship helicopter for the western market, so they stole the MI Thirty Eight designs, had a prototype built up in titanium and carbon fibre with the original retractable undercarriage and were planning to make it a better, more Russian version to show Mil how it should be done. Once again, the lighter weight and retractable undercarriage changed the flight characteristics so much that the flight data wouldn't match Mil's other MI Thirty Eight test beds, so we hung onto it because it's a great helicopter, the overall size and weight are about the same as a Black Hawk but it'll carry thirty people or over seven long tons of cargo inside or over eight long tons of cargo slung and cruise at a hundred and eighty knots now, more if necessary because with our improved and much stronger titanium transmissions and modified FADECs it can use the full power of both turbines. The guys decided to fill in time improving it and added a Fenestron tail rotor like the Loach's and the Stingray's, and after their proposals for the Stealth Little Bird and Stealth Lakota were both shot down, they turned it and the Stingray into full Stealth helicopters, just to prove they could. And like the others, the stealth rotors improved their performance and range in full transport mode..."

"And the Wagon is what happens when a group of leading aeronautical engineers like we put together at Raccoon City get bored. They picked up a few PC Twelve airframes to experiment on rather than hack up our main runabout when they were working on getting the scaled down propfans to work properly for it. They got it working fine but their calculations were saying that the propfan setup was putting out more pulling power than the plane was using, and they came to the conclusion that they'd reached the speed limitations of its single prop airframe design. I presume that they were drunk at the time, but they decided that they could make better use of that pulling power and started cutting up the damaged PC Twelve airframe that they'd used to get the propfan mounting points right. They added two and a half foot plugs to the fuselage fore and aft of the wings and then they did the same thing the Air Force did to make their C Twenty Three Super Sherpas out of the Short Three Sixties, cut the tail off and replaced it with twin tails and cargo doors like the Antonovs, but more like the AN Thirty Eight as they're about the same length, width and height... The tail was probably Yuri's idea but it improved the plane... They also lowered the floor and reshaped the fuselage to give about five inches more width and headroom in the cabin while they were reworking it to improve the streamlining and rebuilt it in titanium and carbon fibre. They made up bigger wings for it, then bolted in the propfan from the Twenty Eight and flew it. They proved their point, because the Wagon uses the same fuel at the same speed as the PC Twelve with the propfan setup and flies just as nice, if not better, but its take off and landing distances are less, the cabin volume is over two thirds bigger and anything that'll fit into the cabin can be loaded. We have a contract with Pilatus for the rights for that design too and they're working to get it type certified, using the PC Twenty Four designation that they were going to use for the jet concept they're looking into. We're flying it as a Pilatus prototype, and it's listed as a modified U Twenty Eight in the Air Force's systems. It's up at Raccoon City because they have more use for it, hauling parts and the like, but more to the point it's their baby and they don't want to let it out of their sight... It was hard enough getting them to release the second one they built for Pilatus to use to get it certified."

"For the rest of it, our friends down in Austin are busy so that's why they have the other U Twenty Eight and Lakota, the C Twenty One, Boris and the Stealth Little Birds. Once we had the stealth system working properly on the Loach we converted their Little Birds to prove the concept. The turbine in the Five Thirty F is almost as powerful as the Six Hundred's and it bolts straight in, so we used that to give them the power they needed."

Sarah just shook her head at him with a smile. "I do understand Chuck, it was just a surprise, you know? Not many people have their own F Five, let alone two and the rest of it. You've got to take me up in your Twenty Eight when we get back to LA so I can try it though, because while I've flown in Twenty Eights, I haven't flown them myself, and from what you've told me about your's I'll definitely be adding it to my aircraft certifications, along with this one. As you know I'm certified on the F Five... Which I will be flying soon! and the Learjet and Little Birds, but I also want to get certified to fly your other helicopters, and the Seventies, the One Twenty Two and the Wagon as well."

He just smiled and nodded. "Yes Dear."

Now that they'd cleared the air, Chuck hooked his laptop up to the big screen in the cabin and showed Sarah what he'd been talking about, including the outfit Anna wore when she was playing his sexy little Chinese plaything come bodyguard. That made Sarah blink, because she hadn't even seen Carina dressed that provocatively in those scenarios, it made the skimpy skirt and blouse she wore to distract Chuck Bartwoski look like an old maid's outfit. Seeing what their air fleet looked like, inside and out though, she was almost salivating at the thought of getting behind the controls of some of these. The F-Fives and the Thirty Seven of course, but she really wanted to fly the EuroMil, and their Propfan U Twenty Eight variants and their Loach, Lakota and Stingray designs too. For that matter she wanted to fly the Antonovs, particularly Andre the Giant, because the idea of flying something that big just boggled the mind... Hell, the idea of an aeroplane having that big a cargo hold was enough to do that, she'd travelled in a Galaxy's hold and thought that it was enormous, but Andre's cargo hold was notably bigger. Anna was watching her, amused, because they'd all had similar reactions when they first saw the planes and copters, but Sarah's reactions seemed more extreme because they were all being crammed into an hour or so.

Even though the C-37 was in civilian livery, the Air Force had it listed as a legitimate military C-37B so they had no trouble flying into Andrews AFB and saved time by driving straight to Fort Meade from there.

Graham's people weren't happy to see Chuck walk in with his handlers and the General's doctors, scientists and guards, especially when the General's people refused to let them take Chuck away for the testing. That ramped up to pissed off when they said that they had Director Graham's authorisation as if that overruled any objections, and they were told that Director Graham had no authority to authorise anything with regard to this member of General Beckman's team.

Things just kept getting worse for them after that, because the General's doctors forbid any physical examination or testing of Chuck (which they had been planning to use to cover up implanting devices to monitor and track him, and provide a kill switch as well), citing that that was irrelevant to the Intersect, and all they would allow them to do was monitor his brain activity while they were showing Chuck images intended to trigger Intersect flashes.

They were getting more and more frustrated because this wasn't telling them anything new, and when they realised that Chuck had suddenly started getting flashes telling him that some of them were agents rather than scientists, one of the agents suddenly announced that it was time to start the next tests, waving at the equipment on a trolley in the corner.

Chuck was punch drunk from continuous flashes he was getting hit with in the testing, and he was having trouble getting Sarah and John to understand what he was saying about the agents because whenever he tried to speak they flashed another image at him, but that and the tells from the agents planted in his team were enough to tip them off and they moved in. Sarah was demanding to know exactly what these 'next tests' were before anyone touched their charge so the agent started waffling about it being nothing more than applying mild electrical stimuli to various parts of the subject's brain and observing the results while the others were trying to apply the electrodes to Chuck.

John's alarm bells were going off, so he grabbed the electrodes that they were trying to fix to Chuck's head and slapped them onto the head of the one who was doing all the talking, barking. "Hit it!" (No-one else had noticed that Sarah had seen what he was doing and positioned herself near the machine.)

A few seconds later the 'scientist' was twitching uncontrollably on the floor and John was ripping the straps off Chuck as he bellowed. "This testing is OVER!"

Seeing what this 'test' equipment they'd been trying to use on Chuck was doing to the man on the floor, Sarah stopped anyone getting to the machine to turn the current off, so the 'scientist' was fried by the time John had released Chuck and carried him out of the room, because no-one was willing to risk touching the wires while they were live after seeing what it was doing to him, and she only turned it off as she turned to follow Casey out of the room.

Before they left, John barked to the NSA guards with them to take all of them into custody and get the full details of who they were and what their orders were out of them, and also to get NSA techs in to examine all of this equipment to find out exactly what it was intended to do.

They didn't have too many options for a safe house in DC, and even less for a trusted doctor, so Diane ordered Casey to take Chuck to Doctor Dreyfus. Sarah could see that Chuck was trying to argue against that but couldn't understand why, until Chuck's father worked out that she and Casey were agents, and he started ranting hysterically that agents couldn't be trusted until Doctor Dreyfus had to sedate him to shut him up.

Doctor Dreyfus gave Chuck a clean bill of health, and once she was sure that he was OK and Doctor Dreyfus had given him a mild sedative to make him rest, Sarah left him in Casey's care and slipped out to go to Aunt Jane's house to retrieve her CIA medals and the other pictures and papers she'd been keeping safe for her (Jane had been a good operative, so very few people would be able to find the safe that she had Sarah's things hidden in, and even fewer could break into it if they found it, but Sarah had everything she needed to get in and out quickly without being seen or detected). It was better this way, because her visiting Aunt Jane later that night to collect her things as they'd planned would have shown that they still had a connection and put Aunt Jane in Graham's cross hairs.

If he looked at the situation logically, Graham would accept that he needed Jane Bentley, because she had been the most effective Deputy Director of Operations in living memory for the CIA and she was no less effective as the Director of the National Clandestine Service, as the role had been known by since late Oh Five. After losing Sarah and any control of the Human Intersect, and what happened at the Intersect Facility today though…. none of them were willing to put money on the fact that Graham would be rational or logical. Having his plans fail so spectacularly at both the Human Intersect meeting and the Intersect facility would have him scrabbling to ensure that nothing could come back on him, and desperate to strike out at someone…. but while General Diane Beckman seemed untouchable at the moment, the Director of the National Clandestine Service might not be so safe.

Chuck had recovered enough to convince Sarah, with Doctor Dreyfus's help, that he would be fine to come to the meeting with Carina and Zondra, so they got ready at the Doctor's. He tersely turned down Doctor Dreyfus' offer to bring his father out of the sedative so that he could talk to him before he left, in fact he asked the Doctor to ensure that he stayed under until after they'd left as he'd had enough shit already that day, he didn't need his father making it any worse!

At the restaurant, Carina and Zondra took one look at Sarah's skirt suit and expression as she arrived and knew that this wasn't an 'I missed you, let's party!' visit, so she was greeted with. "What are you up to Blondie?"

"What, no 'Sarah, where have you been, we've missed you!' ?"

"Yeah, all of that, now tell us why you're dressed like that and why you arrived with Casey and that other guy!"

Sarah laughed, but there was little humour in it. "I love you too Zondra! I've missed this, well like a hole in the head, but I have missed the two of you!"

Carina leant in to kiss her on the cheek, whispering in her ear. "What about tall, dark and gruesome and the leggy bitches over there and those other agents? Are they with you or after you?" (Auntie Di had everyone she had in DC, on the books and off, in the restaurant in case Graham tried anything.)

Sarah's lips meeting hers was rather a surprise, as that had always been something that made Sarah uncomfortable before, but Sarah shrugged, murmuring. "Sorry Red, someone's lesbian best friends were part of the package deal I took with the new gig and some things are changing, but in answer to your question, they're with us, they're part of our... backup singers."

"OK, who are you and what have you done with Sarah Walker? I think I might keep you though, you're way more fun."

Sarah smiled mysteriously but sat forward and looked a little more serious. "So, are you two still generally stuck screwing drug lords and chasing nickel and dime gang bangers?"

They looked at her until Carina growled disgustedly. "You know we are! What's your point?"

"Would you like to change that?"

That got their attention. "What are you saying?"

"Just what I said Zee, do you want to get away from what you're doing now, or not?"

Carina and Zondra looked at each other and Zondra said. "Of course we do! What games are you playing Blondie?"

"No games, if you want out of your current lives, my new boss wants to talk to you."

They just looked at her as she stood up. "Well, come on! Do you want to talk to her or not?"

They scrambled to their feet and followed her to the private room that Casey and Chuck had gone into.

The two women noted the way the three at the table in the back and the other agents they'd identified around the room followed their every movement as they crossed the restaurant, without losing track of what else was going on in the restaurant… which said that the people in this new group of Sarah's were good. When they reached the room, Sarah knocked once and went straight in, closing the door behind them. There were three people in the room, only one of whom they knew, John Casey.

The younger man who'd come in with Sarah and Casey was sitting at the table, and Carina in particular noted the look that passed between him and Sarah as she entered, smirking to herself at the thought that she could have some fun here. She caught the look on Sarah's face when she headed for him though and abruptly changed direction to head for a seat across the table from him, because while winding up an angry Sarah was all part of the game, actually hurting her was something else altogether! Sarah actually looked vulnerable and defensive when she sat down next to the guy, and that was another first!

As Casey and Sarah's mystery man were 'he's, the last person in the room had to be this mysterious 'boss'. On the face of it, the little red headed woman in her fifties didn't look that impressive, but she had to be powerful if she'd managed to get both the best of the CIA and the best of the NSA on her team.

The woman had obviously caught what was going through Carina's mind at least, because she launched straight into it. "Agent Miller, Agent Rizzo, nice of you to join us. Please, have a seat."

Once everyone was seated, the woman went straight into it. "Thank you for coming ladies, I am Major General Diane Beckman, and as you will have by now worked out, Agent Walker, Major Casey and Mister Bartowski work for me. We are creating a new multi agency group, and we would like to invite you to join us."

Carina and Zondra exchanged a look. "What can you tell us about this group General?"

"Not a great deal until after you've joined I'm afraid, because just about everything to do with it is classified way above your current security clearances. We currently have high level CIA and NSA agents" (waving at Sarah and Casey) "working with a top level information specialist," (waving at Chuck) "and we've been cleared to add high level DEA and FBI agents as well. As I said, we'd like the two of you to be those agents."

She exchanged a look with Sarah and continued. "One thing I can promise you is that you will never be ordered, or requested, to sleep with anyone for a mission, or risk getting yourself killed going after some drugged up gang bangers who will be forgotten and replaced before the body's been taken away. We'll be dealing with serious targets and I plan for us to make a difference."

The two women shared a look again and Carina spoke up. "That sounds like a wonderful opportunity General, and I certainly hope that Agent Rizzo is able to take you up on your offer, but unfortunately I don't see any chance of the DEA releasing me, because I've proven to be too useful to them."

The General looked at her sympathetically. "Do you want to join us Agent Miller?"

"Sorry Ma'am, didn't I make that clear? Yes! I would love to join your group General."

The woman nodded at that, and looking down, picked up one of the documents and held it out it to her. "I don't really think that anyone will be able to stop you then, do you?"

Zondra was leaning forward to try and see what Carina had read that had shocked her so badly, but the General offered her the other document. When she'd looked at the document in her hands, she looked up with the same expression as Carina. "Is this real?"

Sarah answered her with a smile, the first time she'd looked cheerful since she got there. "Yes Zee, you should have seen Graham's face when the DNI forced him to accept mine."

Zondra turned to her, stunned, doing a double take when she saw that she was openly holding that guy's hand. She shook that off and said. "Just to be clear here Blondie, we're talking about the Director of National Intelligence of the United States, right?"

Sarah nodded. "Yep!"

Zondra shared a look with Carina then looked back at the General. "Well in that case General, it looks like you have your DEA and FBI agents…. so when do we get to find out about Lover Boy here?"

Diane looked confused until she saw their joined hands and frowned, but she saw a chance to move her grand plan along here, so she said. "You behaviour begs a question Mister Bartowski, what are your intentions towards Agent Walker?"

Chuck looked at Sarah and said softly… "Very long term if she'll have me!" (They should have known better than to ask Anna to keep the fact that they were getting her to confirm that the CIA's rules for married agents hadn't changed quiet from him.)

Sarah was pissed at Auntie Di for pulling this shit, but elated that Chuck apparently knew what she was doing and was saying just what she wanted to hear! "Oh, she'll have you alright! For ever and ever…. Amen!"

Carina and Zondra were staring at the now kissing couple across the table from them, utterly stunned, and Zondra blurted out. "What the fuck's going on here Blondie?"

When she'd released Chuck's lips, Sarah turned to her and said. "Most of it will have to wait for your clearance Zee, but the unclassified part is…." She pointed at Chuck "This is Charlie!" then Diane "And my Auntie Di."

Both women's heads whipped around at that. "Charlie? Your Charlie, the one you've been moping about since you were a kid?"

Sarah nodded happily and they shook their heads in wonder, but then they processed the second part of what she'd just revealed. "You talked about your Auntie Di Blondie, but you never mentioned that you were Old Ironpants'… Sorry General…. Niece!"

Diane shook her head with a smile to dismiss the apology, because to tell the truth she liked having that reputation. "Sammie didn't find that out until she started this assignment, as all she'd ever known me as as a little girl was her Auntie Di."

Carina glanced towards the door. "What about the backup singers then, can you tell us about them General?"

"Backup singers?"

Sarah said. "Marco and the others."

"Ah…. Yes. Some of them will be going to Los Angeles with you to be part of the security company that is Major Casey's cover job, and may be your's as well. They will also make up the support team for the core team that you'll be part of. These personnel are mostly off the books as far as any agency is concerned."

The General looked at her existing team and at their nods turned back to the two women. "This will be a permanent assignment unless you choose to go back to your agencies, and you may also resign at any time you like. You will not be under the authority of your agencies at all, you will only accept orders from me, and in turn I only report to the DNI and the President. You will be based in Los Angeles with the rest of the team. So…. For the record, do you, Agent Miller, and you, Agent Rizzo, choose to join our team?"

When they both nodded and eagerly said "Yes, Ma'am!" she nodded and said "Good! Now we've had a change of plans I'm afraid, I was going to have you meet us tomorrow to fly to California together once I'd had your transfers processed, but due to other matters which occurred today the team are now flying out tonight. Therefore you will be taken home to pack whatever you need in the interim, and then straight to Andrews to get on the plane" She handed over some paperwork. "Fill out and sign these please, and we'll have our people arrange for the agency removalists to ship the rest of your belongings to you in California."

She kept talking as they started filling out the paperwork she'd given them. "I will get my people working on getting your transfers, clearances and the rest processed tomorrow and bring them with me when I can follow you, but you'll be going back tonight with the team and the… what was it? Oh yes, backup singers. Are there any questions ladies?"

When they shook their heads she went on. "Well in that case I will see you when I get to Los Angeles, enjoy your flight." She collected the Presidential orders and the rest of her paperwork and Casey escorted her out to hand her over to her protective detail.

When she'd left, the two women turned to Sarah and Carina pretty much repeated Zondra's question. "What the fuck Blondie? What the hell's going on here?"

She beamed at her. "You've just joined a team that makes the CAT Squad look ordinary Red!"

Zondra jumped in because Carina still looked a little dazed "What…." She stopped in frustration as she realised that most of what she wanted to ask about was going to have to wait until her clearance had been upgraded, but as Sarah had already said there was one thing she could talk about, so she said "For a start, explain this!" as she waved at the two of them.

Sarah beamed again (OK, that was going to get old real quick!). "I was sent to California to recover something that Larkin had stolen and sent to a supposed accomplice…."

Carina broke in "Yeah, sorry about that Sarah, I heard that the two of you were together for a while…."

Sarah cut her off angrily "Larkin and I were never together Red! Casey did me a favour when he shot the bastard!" They whipped their heads around to stare at Casey, who'd just walked back in, at that "I don't know what you heard but I'll lay money that it was mainly Larkin's lies and stories. He was incompetent and he spent two years constantly trying to get into my pants even though…."

She stopped and glanced at Chuck before she turned to Carina. "Red, you're the expert on all things sexual, did you ever get a gay vibe from Larkin?"

Carina frowned as she thought about it. "Are you kidding? The Golden Boy, gay? Come on, he screwed more women than….." She was running every encounter she'd ever had with Bryce Larkin through her head, as she also had a photographic memory, and the brainless bimbo was just as much an act as enjoying being a sexbot had been. "No…. you're right! He was very convincing, but it was always the cute guys who caught his eye first, not the women."

She saw the 'told ya!' look on Chuck's face and her eyes widened, oh no, she finally gets him back and he's gay? But what about? Sarah read the looks crossing over her face. "Oh hell no! Larkin was Chuck's room mate at Stanford, so he had Larkin trying to come on to him, and Chuck's best friend had called it when she met him." That last made Carina send her a questioning look and she nodded, figures, her dream guy's best friend is a lesbian, curiouser and curiouser cried Alice.

With that out of the way, Sarah continued. "So I get to Los Angeles and engage the target, the woman who let me in calls for him and he comes out, totally engrossed in reading something as he's walking and then he looks up and it's Charlie! We were rambling on for a while, trying to catch up on the last eighteen years, but then I hear people running. I thought that he must have been keeping me occupied until reinforcements could arrive so I got ready to fight it out, then Mama ran in!"

"But, I thought you said that Graham had her under lock and key to keep you under control?"

She nodded grimly. "That was what the bastard always told me, but he never had her! So that's where we are, we've set up this new group in Los Angeles and you'll be working with us now."

Carina and Zondra were shaking their heads, but Carina turned to Chuck. "So Chuckie, how about you and Johnny giving us some time to catch up with our girl here?"

Her response came from Sarah. "Carina, no! We've only been back together for less than a week, we can have a girls' night to catch up once things have settled down, and we need to get out of here ASAP!"

That had them staring at her again, Zondra found her voice first. "All of this has happened in less than a week? How the fuck did that happen? And what's the big hurry to get out of D C, did you rob a bank or something?"

Sarah looked at Chuck and Casey before turning back to her. "How it happened this way is part of what you're not cleared to hear yet, but the need to get out of here in a hurry is because we've crossed Graham, twice in a week now... And he's pissed! That's why we have all the backup singers out there."

Carina and Zondra froze at that, because crossing Graham was tantamount to suicide. There were no further questions after that, they just grabbed their bags and got the hell out of there. It didn't take them long to pack what they'd need until the rest of their things could be shipped over and they handed the keys and the finalised paperwork for that to the ones who would be remaining in DC.

They did want to ask questions when they were just waved though at the gates for Andrews and hustled aboard a C-37B in civilian livery, but they waited until they were in the air and everybody had visibly relaxed for that. The question about the gate and the plane was answered by Casey saying that they'd been coming in and out of Andrews quite often over the last ten or twelve years so they and the plane were well known, and the General would have had orders sent through ahead of them to clear the way.

Everyone needed a drink by then so they broke out the food and drink and settled down for the flight back to LA, spending the time catching up. Carina got drunk and morose after a while and tried to clear the air with Casey. "Johnny, about that picture, it wasn't me who sent it to everyone, I promise you! I don't even know who it was."

Zondra grinned at that. "Why didn't you ask Red? I do! It was the Bimbo, she was pissed because Casey just turned her down flat, and then went home with you. She was crowing about how she'd shown him, because she sent it to everyone after you sent it to us."

She looked at Casey. "Sorry Casey, but I was pissed at you at the time for what you'd said to Red."

Carina looked at him hesitantly. "Are we good Johnny?"

He smiled as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. "Of course we are!"

Zondra looked on, mostly relieved for Carina but also feeling a little left out. Sarah picked that up and chuckled evilly. "Do you think Zee would be Jeff's type Charlie?"

Chuck spluttered into his drink at that, and Zondra worked out enough from that to give Sarah a 'You'll be paying for that bitch!' look, which just got a grin from her. "Hey, everyone else is taken, and you better stay the hell away from my stepfather!"

That of course led to questions and Chuck explained that Jeff was actually a great guy, but he'd probably be too tame for her, while Sarah's stepfather had been known to both of them as Uncle Bry their whole lives, and he'd married Sarah's mother a few years ago. He stopped and looked at her then and she nodded after she'd stopped to think, because the girls were more mellow like this. With that they launched into the story about how Sarah had a sixteen year old stepsister now, and a seventeen year old cousin. They stared at her at that, whispering. "Ironpants'?" and she nodded with a smile, but looked a question at Casey, and when he nodded she added. "Casey has an eighteen year old daughter too, and Chuck has a sixteen year old half sister as well as his older sister now."

When Sarah dropped the bombshell that Chuck had twin fourteen year old daughters though, they were so stunned that she grabbed her phone to get a picture of it. Zondra came out of it first and looked calculatingly at Chuck but Sarah shook her head. "No Zee, you heard me right when I told you about him, Charlie is only six months older than me, but he started young, real young! The girls' mother is actually one of Chuck's lesbian best friends, she wanted to experiment when her hormones were kicking in as she went into her teens and Charlie agreed because she meant, means, a lot to him but Lou got pregnant. Her father dragged her off to Israel as soon as he found out about it and she only came back with the girls in Christmas Oh One. Ellie says that this one almost fainted when Lou introduced the girls to him as his daughters…." she added "Ellie is Nora, Chuck's sister who I told you about, they had to have their names changed when they were kids" when she saw the question on their faces.

Carina was plastered by the time they landed at Bob Hope and ran the C-37 into their hangar, but not enough to stop her recognising the features that made the other planes in the hangar U-28As, though these ones were based on the new Propfans so she asked what the hell they were doing with two special ops planes and helicopter? Or the LC Twenty One and Agusta? (Carina and Zondra may not have been in Sarah's league but they were among the best of the rest, so they'd gone on plenty of special ops missions and the U-28s was a familiar sight to them, and the 600 was close enough to a Little Bird that it was bound to be used for the same things if they had U-28s, especially with the custom rotor and tail it had.)

Chuck shrugged. "We had the Twenty Eight built for us in Two Thousand and it's handy to have because it can go a lot of places our Thirty Seven can't, it's single pilot rated, just about everyone's certified on it and of course it's a hell of a lot cheaper to run. We've made a few improvements to it in the time we've had it and it's quite a good plane. We've made quite a few improvements to the Loach too over the last ten years or so, and it's quite handy too. We added the C Twenty One and One Oh Nine to the stable in Ninety Eight to maintain our cover on missions, as you can see the One Oh Nine has been improved and it's a good helicopter. The C Twenty One is relatively stock and it's normally down in Dallas."

They hadn't missed the inference there. "All these actually belong to you? They haven't just been allocated to you for the current assignment?"

Sarah grinned. "I told you we make the CATS look ordinary! Get him to tell you the story about how the Thirty Seven was cheap because they only had to pay to have it completely rebuilt as a G Five Fifty back in early Oh Two sometime."

Zondra pointed up to the C-37 with a questioning look (because she had an idea of what that would cost too, and what's more she knew that early 2002 was a year and a half before Gulfstream had released the G550. For that matter she'd also caught that he'd said that they'd had their first U-28 built for them in 2000, which was five years before the Air Force got its U-28As for SOCOM and those Propfans had only just come out) and she nodded. Zondra just shook her head at that, what the hell had they gotten themselves into? But Sarah wasn't finished.

"But that's just what they have here, they also have two modified Lakotas, two modified Little Birds, a Mil MI Thirty Eight, another U Twenty Eight like this as well as a stretched variant, two Antonov AN Seventies, an Antonov AN One Twenty Two and four F Fives!"

Zondra looked at Casey to see whether Sarah was joking, but he just nodded to confirm what she said with a smile.

A/N: Yes, I've taken a fair bit of artistic license with the aircraft industry in this alternate reality. ;^)

The Russian military hard liners believe that anything they do for the greater glory of Mother Russia is justified. So if those upstart Ukrainians or even worse, Russian companies, aren't honouring Mother Russia, whatever happens to them was their own fault.

As far as making serious modifications to the helicopters, PC-12s and Antonovs, they got eight seriously talented aeronautical engineers (nine including Hank) and four other aircraft experts together and set them up in a facility equipped to fabricate just about anything, so letting them loose with their toys like that is bound to result in some interesting inventions.

And as for Pilatus allocating its jet's designation to the seriously modified PC-12 design, the jet's still an idea, while the Wagon is an existing and quite impressive plane, so it makes sense for them to give the Wagon the PC-24 designation.