Chapter 4: The Mistake
Sarah, Chuck and Casey entered a large, open room that was partially furnished with some mismatched desks, chairs and a few pieces of office equipment. Workmen's tools were stacked in one corner; exposed wires and other evidence of an incomplete renovation were visible.
"What's this?" asked Chuck, turning his head this way and that to take it all in.
"War room," replied Casey as he put a plain cardboard box he had been carrying on top of one of the desks.
"Or it will be once it's finished," Sarah added.
"What's that?" Chuck inquired, pointing to the box.
"This?" said Casey, pointing as well. "This here? Just the most crucial piece of equipment in any government operation. Nothing would get done without this."
Chuck grew excited and rushed over to Casey's side. "What is it? A special decoder? A fingerprint identifier? A bioreader? What? What?"
Sarah laughed at Chuck's enthusiasm. She hadn't seen him this animated for quite a while. Even Casey was smiling now as he pried the box open and pulled out...
A coffee machine.
"Very funny, Mr. Secret Agent, very funny," said Chuck, lightly punching Casey on the upper arm.
Casey faked feeling pain from the punch and cowered. Chuck began to shadow box with the big man, jumping around him, smiling and spouting patter about butterflies and bees and Casey not being so tough now that he had met his match. Casey feinted in return, being careful to pull his punches, any one of which, Sarah knew, had they connected, would have knocked Chuck out cold.
"All right, you guys, let's get serious. We don't have a lot of time here."
Sarah hadn't wanted to put a damper on their playfulness. They had all been working so hard to bring the mission together, especially Sarah, and it was the first bit of real lightness she had felt for the past couple of weeks. She was also very glad to see Chuck returning to his old ways and was reluctant to be the heavy, but the job had to get done.
"Casey and I are going to be spending a lot of time here, Chuck," explained Sarah, hands on hips, turning to survey the room. "This is a secure building, and once everything is set up, we'll probably ask you to come in from time to time to help us out again."
"And bring the Intersect with you," grunted Casey. He indicated to Chuck that he needed help moving the desk with the coffee machine on it, and Chuck went around to the end opposite from Casey. They lifted it into the air and shuffled sideways to a spot at the side of the room near an electrical outlet where they put it down again.
"But why here, why now?" asked Chuck, spreading his arms out in front of himself to encompass the whole room.
Sarah, once again, didn't want to give too much away to Chuck about the actual mission so she tried to keep it simple. And, in case she needed reminding, out of the corner of her eye, she caught the warning look Casey shot her way.
"Because we've got too much stuff to keep track of at Casey's apartment and it's time to start field operations."
"Oh," was all Chuck said as his attention was captured by something at the far end of the room.
Running over to the beginnings of some reconstruction, he called out over his shoulder, "What's this?"
"Conference room," clarified Casey, "or it will be once the soundproof walls and communications equipment are installed there."
"Cool!" Chuck exclaimed.
"Yeah, well, it will be a lot cooler when it's actually finished," said Sarah impatiently. "I guess we should go and let the workmen back in. Their lunch break will be over by now."
"Do I get a code name?" Chuck asked Sarah eagerly, bounding back over to her side as she and Casey turned to go back to the elevator.
"Yeah," growled Casey. "Dostoyevsky."
Chuck stopped in his tracks, fixing Casey's back with a quizzical look. "Why Dostoyevsky?" he asked.
"He wrote The Idiot, didn't he?" was Casey's snide comeback as the elevator doors slid open.
The war room reconstruction was finished rapidly thanks to the teams of government builders that worked around the clock installing wiring and lighting and soundproofing the walls.
Inside the large glassed-in boardroom, Sarah was busy briefing her backup team. It was a little difficult when, every couple of minutes, her eye was caught by movement on the other side of the glass partition as she glanced up to see Chuck skateboarding among the empty worktables. Pausing briefly, she glared at Casey, who was standing at the back of the boardroom, arms folded over his chest, and indicated with a sharp nod of her head to the left that he should go out and do something about Chuck.
Casey nodded back in acknowledgement and left the room quietly. Sarah was once again thankful that most of the time the two of them could work well together, although she did hope that Casey would show some restraint and not give Chuck too hard a time.
She continued her briefing, going over maps of the warehouse district, pointing out areas of cover and areas of exposure around the target warehouse, which had now been located, and smiled briefly when Casey slipped silently back into his position holding Chuck's skateboard in his hand.
Sarah's backup team was made up of eight highly trained men and women: four sharpshooters and four small arms and close combat specialists, and they all listened attentively, none of them taking notes as they memorized what they needed to know.
When Sarah called a break a half hour later, Casey approached her, a familiar smirk on his face.
"Dare I ask?" Sarah inquired while slipping some papers back into a file folder.
With a straight face, Casey said, "I asked him if he wanted to play Houdini. He's trussed up in the utility closet. I figure another hour or so and I'll check on him."
"Casey!" Sarah returned in a very threatening tone of voice.
"Relax, Walker, the Intersect is okay. He's setting up some new computers that came in today. Might as well get him doing something useful. The Agency tech is happy to have the help. Says he'll be able to get home to the wife and kids at a reasonable time for a change," explained Casey.
Sarah rolled her eyes and shook her head. A sour, taciturn Casey was to be expected, but this one with all the jokes was starting to fray her nerves.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" she asked, not able to look him in the eye.
Casey noticed her hesitancy right away and became serious.
"It'll be all right, Walker. I'll have your back."
Sarah looked up at him again, grateful that he understood and wasn't going to make her explain and expose her doubts, especially after he had questioned her decisions earlier in the mission.
"Thank –" she began, but Casey cut her off with a raised palm.
"Not necessary. You're my partner. You want Bartowski in for the next session?" He waited for her response, eyebrows raised.
Sarah smiled. "Yes, Casey," she said, her confidence returning in a rush.
"All right, then," he replied, turning on a heel and leaving the boardroom.
"Isn't this a little snug?" asked Chuck, tugging on the crotch of the body armor that Casey had helped him to put on and squirming around uncomfortably.
"What, Bartowski, do you need a bigger size? Hey, Fong, you got a junior petite in there?" sneered Casey, not waiting for anyone else to appreciate his humor before letting out a loud bark of a laugh.
Casey reached out with both hands and tugged downwards on the tops of the leg openings just above Chuck's hips to adjust the suit. Now seemingly serious, he explained, "If you think this is uncomfortable, Bartowski, imagine how you would feel if it rode up and somebody got a shot off at your balls."
Stuttering slightly, Chuck replied, "Uh, yeah, that would be, um, very uncomfortable indeed, yes."
Chuck slid his eyes to the side to see Sarah's amused smile at the man's banter, which caused him to flush hotly as Chuck thought about the possibility of Sarah pondering the welfare of his boys, now safely tucked away behind the black Kevlar shield.
Sarah, still smiling as she strapped up her own armor, said mildly, "Just help him out, Casey. There'll be time for jokes after we've finished today."
Chuck looked around at the group suiting up in the secure underground parking area of the office building the CIA and NSA had procured as their center of operations. Expecting some kind of negative reaction because of the admonition, Chuck was surprised to note that nobody took offense; rather, they all went about the business of preparing for the upcoming recon mission with silent efficiency, their faces displaying their anticipation.
Chuck was excited as well, although his excitement was mixed with more than a little fear that he couldn't keep from showing on his face. When Sarah saw his brows draw together as he caught his lower lip between his teeth, she quickly finished putting on her helmet and came to his side to begin checking him over.
"You'll be fine, Chuck. Just do what we say when we say it as we rehearsed and we'll be back in no time," she said in a soothing voice guaranteed to calm Chuck down.
Chuck soon became absorbed in watching the team prepare their firearms and Sarah was pleased that he just watched quietly and let them get on with their work. She took the opportunity while Chuck's attention was directed elsewhere to study him and, more importantly, go over in her mind all the reasons he was here with them today about to be thrust into what potentially could be a dangerous situation.
Had she let her ambitions cloud her judgment? Sarah didn't think so. Part of being a leader was knowing when to take acceptable risks. The information that Chuck could glean on this mission might carve months, even years, off their intel gathering about The Brotherhood. Was the value of the Intersect too great to risk in a field operation like this? No again. This is what the Intersect was all about: analyzing data. Having a mobile Intersect certainly had its advantages. The old stationary computer couldn't be used on the ground, so to speak, and Team Bartowski had been able to get into and out of tight situations, once again enabling Sarah and Casey or other teams to mop up the bad guys much more quickly than ever before.
But the most difficult question of all remained: Had Sarah let personal feelings for Chuck, even romantic feelings, cause her to make incorrect decisions? In a way, because the Intersect was a living, breathing human being, it was easier for Sarah to protect him and want to keep him safe than if it were just a machine. The romantic part of the equation was tricky, though. Did Sarah have those kinds of feelings for Chuck? If she did, would they get in the way of her work?
Sarah glanced over at Chuck, whose helmet was slipping down as he bent over to get a closer look at something. At that moment, Casey decided to be helpful by jerking the errant headgear back into place from behind, startling Chuck, who yelped in surprise and spun around just in time for Casey to tug on the helmet's chin strap and bonk Chuck on the top of his head in a traditional good luck gesture that was repeated by the other team members. And when Casey allowed Chuck to bring his fist down hard on the top of the agent's helmet in return, Chuck's grin told Sarah that he truly was in nerd heaven.
Sarah smiled to herself as she watched Chuck scramble into the back of the van, so excited to be a part of something he had only read about in comic books or seen in movies and computer games. He certainly was like no man she had ever met before, and she was at the very least willing to be open-minded about the romance part of the equation. Maybe once the mission was over and The Brotherhood was no more, she would have the luxury of finding out.
Sarah held her Glock with one hand as she motioned with the other to Casey, who was behind her and out of sight of the warehouse around the corner. Sarah, as point man, was being very careful before making any move. After all, she was responsible for the lives of nine other agents and Chuck as well as the government's entire database of shared intel that he carried in his very vulnerable brain pan. No pressure.
She turned her head left and right to look up and down the alleyway between the warehouse buildings, shifting her eyes upwards and downwards as well to check for anything, like security cameras or optical trip alarms, that may not have been noted on their initial surveillance of the area. Seeing nothing new, Sarah motioned to her rear for Casey and Chuck to move up.
Casey, gun also drawn and alert, turned to find Chuck tugging at the chin strap of his helmet, which had slipped down over his eyes again. The big agent suppressed the urge to sigh mightily and contented himself with an eye roll as he temporarily holstered his gun and reached to help Chuck re-settle the helmet and adjust the strap. Warning Chuck to maintain silence with an admonitory finger in the air between them, Casey grabbed the younger man's upper arm and pulled him into position behind Sarah. He noted the look of mild impatience on her face at the delay and also noted that she cleared it away before Chuck had a chance to see it.
Pointing with her finger to Chuck's chest, as they had practiced in the war room, Sarah then turned and pointed to a grimy window about seven feet up from the alley floor. Chuck and Casey nodded their understanding of her direction as she raised a hand in the air, five fingers visible to the two pairs of snipers on the roofs in the area, who then relayed the signal to the two pairs of ground personnel hidden down other alleys. Dropping her fingers one by one, Sarah gave the countdown.
When the last finger folded into her palm, Casey and Chuck ran around Sarah towards the window where Casey boosted Chuck up to the sill by interlacing his fingers to make a step. The pigeons that had been sitting there flew away, all but one, which stayed in the farthest corner and watched Chuck carefully with its beady black eyes, head turning from side to side.
Chuck grabbed at the windowsill, which was covered in pigeon droppings, the gooey slick making his gloved hands slide back towards his chest. Casey rapidly adjusted his stance as Chuck tried to find a purchase and wobbled, and the glare that met Chuck's glance when he looked down was enough to make him try that much harder to hang on.
When Chuck's motion had stabilized, he peered at the glass, searching for a clear spot to look through into the warehouse floor below. There was only a tiny pinhole-sized gap in the gray accumulation, and Chuck closed one eye, bringing his open eye closer to see if he could make anything out through it. After deciding that it was impossible, he raised an arm to try to wipe a spot clean, but before Sarah could warn him via their interconnected helmet radios not to touch the windowpane, Chuck laid his forearm onto the glass surface.
The result of this misstep was immediate. A claxon alarm sounded from inside the building along with the distinctive thump of several pairs of feet running in unison and a voice shouting orders in an Eastern European language. Expecting from the direction of the noises that the threat would come from inside the warehouse, Sarah and her team were taken by surprise when shots rang out from a perimeter above and behind their position, and Sarah heard two grunts, one from her left and one from her right, as bullets connected with members of her team. She could only hope they hadn't been killshots.
As Casey began to lower Chuck from the window, a sniper shot slammed into the bricks an inch from the young man's head, and he jerked back in alarm at the impact, sending his helmet askew once again. When the bullet exploded, sharp shards of brick went flying in all directions, the largest piece imbedding itself in Chuck's exposed left temple, immediately rendering him unconscious. When Chuck's inert body slumped towards the ground as a dead weight, Casey managed to grab onto him and protect his head from further damage by falling backwards to the ground and cushioning the impact with his body. Unfortunately, the agent couldn't prevent Chuck's right foot from hitting the pavement at a bad angle, and Casey heard the cracks of the snapping bones among the cracks of sustained rifle fire.
Sarah rushed up to the pair who were, by this time, on the ground and helped Casey to his feet, still holding on to Chuck. He hoisted the insensate nerd up and over his shoulder, trying not to jar Chuck's head too much, and took him out by a pre-planned escape route that led to a waiting van. Sarah ducked back into the cover of the alley they had come out of, all the while issuing orders over her helmet radio.
"All units, abort, abort, pull back, pull back," she said in a controlled voice.
The rifle fire was dying down to a few random shots now and Sarah judged that these were just for show to keep the intruders away for good. She once again spoke into her radio.
"All units report. MacArthur, report."
"MacArthur, all out," came the reply.
"Patton, report."
"Patton, one down, all clear."
"Bradley, report."
"Bradley, one down, all out."
"Nimitz, report."
"Nimitz all out, Nimitz all out."
Sarah sighed with partial relief as she turned and left the area at a controlled jog, eyes darting around in search of unfriendlies. She cursed herself inwardly for the two casualties under her command. No, make that three casualties. Chuck had been hit as well. Although she didn't know for sure where he had been hit, she hadn't seen any blood, and Sarah guessed his flak jacket had taken care of the bullet and he had just passed out from the impact. Please, please, let that be what had happened.
Watching Chuck fall so abruptly had sent Sarah's heart into her throat, and as she had run towards him, the sounds of rifle fire and the ping-and-whine of ricocheting bullets all around her, she hadn't noticed something very strange about the scenario. The lone pigeon on the windowsill, instead of flying away at all the commotion, was still occupying his perch, head turning from side to side, beady eyes trained on Sarah's face.