Chapter 12: Red Light

When Casey and Rhea returned to Headquarters, Simon, Wang and Althea were at their posts monitoring Chuck's house. It was Thursday, after midnight, and Chuck was awake in bed staring dazed at the ceiling.

Simon greeted them with cups of coffee. "The big cheese is gone for the next few days, Rhea. He had conferences to attend up in Washington…so he says."

Casey grimaced and wondered if it were a conference with the NSA and Beckman.

"Anyway, we've been watching this guy Chuck for a while now and seriously, I thought I was a nerd with no life!" Simon laughed.

Casey unbuttoned his suit jacket and tossed it over the chair. He rolled up his shirtsleeves.

"That's an understatement, Simon. You'd be surprised with what Agent Walker and I put him through. It just happened to be slow last week."

"Everything's too slow." Althea said, tossing the remains of her lunch in the trash.

"I came in earlier and had to drag these two out of Agent Walker's apartment, we have priorities with this satellite…and I thought decency!" She scolded Wang and Simon.

"What? They were copping a peep at Agent Walker, huh?" Casey asked, not surprised. "Figures. Who wouldn't?"

"MAJOR! That's humiliating!"

"Oh come on, Althea! We were bored!"

"Oh yeah, just think of that next time you're in the shower, Wang, I wonder who could be watching you!"

"Unless they want to boil their eyeballs, I don't think they'd be watching Wang." Simon interrupted and Wang pounded the table.

"I resent that! I'm not…"

Casey heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes, he took his seat as the three stooges bantered back and forth about privacy and morality issues. Rhea excused herself to wash her face and the remnants of her tears. Casey stared after her, she was a great woman and he wondered about the future once the case was solved. Two widows with attitude. He felt his attraction stir every time he stared into her dark eyes. He was nearly compelled to kiss her in the car, but his good sense stopped him. Casey decided to let the romantic notions fly for now, they were brought together purely for this mission and the pain of his loss was still very fresh.

He focused on the screen again. Chuck was fully clothed in his Buy More uniform. He twitched his mouth side to side and twiddled his thumbs. The nerd's thoughts were always in another place, somewhere peaceful where he didn't have the fate of the world stored in his brain and Sarah, smiling and at peace, on his arm. Casey's heart pounded, Rhea's words on the drive back haunted him.

"Agent Costa went down days ago…He just doesn't know it yet."

Casey stared at the trio while they still argued and checked over statistics. If he were going to make his move, it would have to be now. He pulled a penlight from his pocket and pointed the red beam around Chuck's bedroom. The dot bounced off the screen, but didn't have an effect.

"No! It has to work, this is more than just a satellite. I know it!" Casey pointed again.

He focused the dot on Chuck's lampshade, shaking it up and down and flickering it like crazy. Suddenly, it happened. Chuck's gaze rolled to the right and Casey jumped up, knocking over his chair.

"Sunuva…!"

The light had penetrated the monitor; Chuck scrambled from his bed. He grabbed his cell phone and ran to his window.

"Who's there? Casey, you better not be messing with me! Who's watching me? Come out you coward!"

The lights in the Headquarters flickered with a huge surge of electricity and the monitor zapped off, along with lights across half the State of California. Simon dropped his paperwork and ran to the console with the others.

"What the hell just happened?" He demanded.

"That's what I want to know, dammit!" Casey bellowed in the darkness.

"Alright! Chill…chill, it's coming back on…okay, it's back! Costa paid a mint for his generators." Althea quickly checked the board, relieved there were no sizzling dials or buttons. "So is the rest of the state."

Rhea ran into the room. "We had a power surge, how did that…?" Her words trailed off when she saw Casey's outraged expression.

He stared them down, watching them fidget, and Wang sweat. Casey whipped around to look at the monitor. Chuck was on his cell phone.

"I…I don't know, Casey, I thought I saw it on my ceiling…and then my computer, but I wasn't sure. Then I saw it on my lamp bouncing like the follow the red ball sing alongs! No I'm not kidding, do I sound like I'm kidding…I…Oh, there you are!"

Chuck opened his blinds and Casey climbed in to inspect the room.

The John Casey inside Costa's Headquarters closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm his fragile nerves.

"Are you sure it's not Morgan playing with his toys? I already canvassed the courtyard… there's no one out there, Chuck." He said aloud, almost frightened.

The Casey on the monitor peeked out the window, then walked past Chuck's computer desk with folded arms and a wry grin.

"Are you sure it's not Morgan playing with his toys? I already canvassed the courtyard, there's no one out there, Chuck."

"Well if they wanted to kill me, they would've done it, instead of fooling around like a third grader…you know, with the pen-lights on the chalkboard and stuff…ahh…never mind. It's just…lately I've been getting this strange feeling that I'm being watched, I don't know. It comes and goes."

Casey stared blankly at the screen and his shoulders slumped. He flicked the pen light through his fingers absentmindedly and shook his head.

"Walker and I are on it, Chuck. I better get out before Ellie comes and thinks I'm in here for fun."

The Casey on the monitor lifted the blinds and climbed out the window.

"Walker and I are on it, Chuck. I better get out before Ellie comes and thinks I'm in here for fun…"

Casey backed away from the screen, his face aglow with disbelief as he recited from newly formed memories.

"Give me a holler if there's anything, Chuck…I mean it! I'll check the surveillance cameras."

The Casey at the window wagged his finger. "Give me a holler if there's anything, Chuck…I mean it! I'll check the surveillance cameras."

Casey hung his head. "I didn't find anything on the surveillance, no sights or sounds, no jerks passing by on foot or car, so we dropped it. Turn if off for now."

"But we can't, it's a live feed." Wang protested.

"Then turn it somewhere else!" Casey fumed.

Rhea sank into her chair and held her cheeks. The others couldn't look him in the eye and they fiddled with dials and papers to the point of distraction. It was time to tell Major John Casey the complete truth.