Chapter 5: The Regrouping
Sarah sat by Chuck's hospital bed, a sad frown distorting her usually pretty face. If Chuck didn't wake up within the next half hour, she would have to leave and get back to the war room to begin picking up the pieces of their disaster of a recon mission.
When the half hour was almost up, Sarah stood and turned to grab her purse before leaving. From behind her, she heard a quiet, "Sarah?" from the bed. She quickly relaxed her face into a sunny smile and spun around, saying brightly, "Chuck, you're awake!"
"Am I?" Chuck slurred quietly. "I thought maybe you were an angel in my dreams."
Sarah was startled by the jolt to her middle this statement caused and was glad when Chuck's eyelid fluttered closed so he wouldn't see the slight flush creeping up her neck.
When she had composed herself again, Sarah reached out and gently laid a hand on Chuck's forehead, pushing his hair away from the eye patch and the large strip of gauze wound around his head. It held a bandage in place over his left temple that concealed a deep gash held together with four sutures. The CIA doctor had said that Chuck had been lucky. If the shard of brick had entered an inch farther back, it might have caused skull fragments to penetrate brain tissue and could have led to impaired memory retrieval, which would have meant an unreliable Intersect at best and a useless one at worst. And Sarah knew the agencies had a disturbing habit of disposing of unusable assets within a frighteningly short time frame.
As it was, Sarah didn't think Chuck would take much comfort from the knowledge that there was no discernable damage to the government's database. Instead, the bone at his temple had been depressed into the underlying tissue enough for it to impinge on an ocular nerve causing what was hoped to be a temporary visual impairment. They had fished out as many of the small pieces of brick as possible and were waiting for the swelling to go down to see if that cleared the visual problem. It was hoped that everything would re-align itself naturally and that Chuck wouldn't need a surgical repair. They also expected more bits of brick to surface from time to time.
Chuck's leg seemed to be the least of his worries, but the break combined with the vision problems were going to put the Intersect out of commission for at least the next two months.
Sarah pulled a chair up close to the side of the bed and took Chuck's hand when he raised it off of the surface of the bed. She could feel a large lump forming in her throat as she watched tears begin to slide out from under the closed lid of Chuck's undamaged eye.
"I'm sorry, Sarah," he whispered, barely moving his lips.
"What are you sorry for, Chuck?" asked Sarah, truly perplexed. "I should be apologizing to you for taking you in there."
"I didn't flash," Chuck explained. Obviously agitated, he squirmed around in an effort to get off of the bed. "I'll go and try again right now," he informed Sarah, who by this time was pushing his shoulders gently but firmly back onto the mattress.
"Shhh, Chuck, shhh. You relax now. You did fine. We'll just figure out another plan, and when you're well, you can help us again."
Chuck suddenly stopped moving as he realized that he couldn't go anywhere even if he wanted to. Sarah figured the drugs must be wearing off and Chuck was only now becoming aware of where he was and that he had bandages on his head and a plaster cast on his leg.
"I'm in the hospital, Sarah," Chuck said, a note of wonder in his voice. Apparently the drugs hadn't worn off completely yet.
"Yes, you are, Chuck," Sarah confirmed. "Your leg is broken and your eye is a bit hurt. It's going to take a little time for you to heal, so I want you to just rest and do what the doctors and nurses tell you."
At that moment, the door opened and Casey came in carrying a large vase of flowers, which he placed on a nearby table.
Chuck, whose cloudy brain had yet to fully absorb Sarah's information about his physical condition, looked at the flowers and then back at Casey, who loomed over the bed not so much with a look of sympathy as appraisal, as though he were trying to assess Chuck's usefulness. So far, he didn't look too impressed.
Both Sarah's and Casey's suspicions were confirmed when Chuck opened his mouth and whispered in a wistful tone, "You brought me flowers, John. Look, Sarah, flowers. From John."
When Chuck's visible eye had fluttered closed after this observation, Casey looked at Sarah and grunted, "The flowers aren't from me, for your information. They're from Ellie. I found her in emerg and told her that Chuck was injured while walking near a construction site. She's going to stop by as soon as she can. I'll go talk to the guys on guard in the hall and tell them to be a little less conspicuous."
Sarah nodded her assent and turned her head back to look at a drugged-up and sleeping Chuck. Before Casey could leave the room, however, Chuck's eye snapped open and became unfocused before rolling up into his skull. Then he suddenly began to tremble and jerk violently on the bed.
"He's having a seizure!" cried Sarah, reaching out to grasp Chuck's shoulders again.
"No, he's not," said Casey, "he's having a flash."
Casey pulled a small digital recorder from his pocket, and a few moments later, when Chuck's tremors had subsided and his vision had cleared, snapped the device on and held it close to Chuck, prompting him with a clipped, "Tell us what you just flashed."
Sarah whipped her head around to shoot an annoyed look at Casey but turned back to Chuck as he began to reel off a list of images triggered by what he had seen during their recon mission. He followed up with an analysis of the data, quickly linking the images together, arranging and re-arranging them in his mind like a jigsaw puzzle, trying to make sense of the information.
When he trailed off and fell again into a restless sleep, Sarah turned to Casey and said, "That's odd. Chuck said he didn't see anything. How could he flash?"
Casey clicked off the recorder, slipped it back into his pocket and said, "He must have seen something, even subconsciously. Maybe it's like a delayed reaction because of the injuries."
Casey stopped speaking and watched as Sarah tenderly laid a palm on Chuck's forehead for a moment before brushing his hair back and trailing her fingertips down the unbandaged side of his face.
When Sarah stood and turned towards him, the big agent gave no sign that he had seen the gesture before he added, "Well, I guess I'd better get that tape off to Headquarters," and he turned and left the room, Sarah reluctantly following him, looking back with a worried expression at Chuck as she closed the door behind them.
Sarah tossed fitfully in her bed that night. Is this what it was like to be in charge, always worrying about your people, always worrying about your plan, always with the specter of failure visible from the corner of your eye? If it was, Sarah wasn't sure she was cut out for leadership.
She finally gave up on trying to sleep and shrugged her arms into a cotton robe before padding into the kitchen and warming up a mug of milk in the microwave.
Sarah could still see Chuck as he lay in the hospital bed before he had come to, his face slack and pale against the pillow. What if there had been brain damage? What if he still loses his sight anyway? Even without thinking about Chuck personally, how was Sarah going to move the mission forwards without the Intersect?
Then she had a completely new thought. Sarah had been taking Chuck for granted, both Chuck the Intersect and Chuck the man. Like a computer they could just switch on when they needed to, she and Casey had dragged Chuck around, expecting him to perform his little caged monkey trick so they could save the day. And Sarah had even come to assume that Chuck would be there when she was feeling a little blue or unsure of herself with her favorite pizza or a joke or a warm smile and reassuring words. Well, he wasn't here now in either role and it was up to Sarah alone to figure out how to make things work and get the bad guys.
But, Sarah thought, I'm not quite alone. As much as he can be a pain in the butt sometimes – well, most of the time – I've still got my sarcastic, obnoxious, and very experienced partner.
Sarah smiled and finished the last of her milk, feeling like she had a direction again. She got back into bed and turned out the light. She couldn't get right to sleep, however, but instead of fretting about it, she thought of some of Chuck's stupider jokes, the ones that had made her laugh loudly from the bottom of her belly, and she giggled quietly in the dark until she fell into a deep and restful sleep.
The next morning, before Sarah was completely awake, she was sitting in the boardroom of the war room across from Casey. They were going over the transcription of Chuck's flash from his hospital bed. Between sips of coffee, she made notes on a pad of yellow legal paper and tried to stay focused on the task at hand. It was a losing battle. Despite her resolution of the night before, her mind kept wandering at shorter and shorter intervals to thoughts about Chuck and how badly he had been injured. The worst was when she thought again about how much more severe his injuries might have been or even that he could have been killed. And it was her fault.
Sarah was startled back to the present by the sound of Casey's loud, theatrical throat-clearing.
"Walker! Snap out of it!" he practically shouted into her face. "Bartowski is going to be okay. You're here with me now."
"I'm sorry, Casey, you're right," she admitted in a low voice.
Straightening her spine and draining the last of the coffee, Sarah punctuated her determination to stay focused by slamming the empty mug back down onto the surface of the table before she flipped her pad of notes around so Casey could read them.
"As far as I can make out," Sarah said tentatively, "The Brotherhood is a front for something much larger and much more dangerous than the general thought. I'm getting the impression that, with all these hits we're getting on it, there would have to be more than one Brotherhood."
"Well, according to what I'm seeing, that makes perfect sense," said Casey as he handed Sarah his notes. "Chuck's flash keeps referring to 'Brotherhood,' but it could mean something other than the Perogian secession faction."
"Let's get the general to run this idea through, that we're dealing with two different organizations, both called 'The Brotherhood', and see what comes up," Sarah proposed, beginning to feel excited.
"I'll get right on it," Casey said, spinning the nearby computer terminal to face him and beginning to type. He was already peering intently at the screen when he added, "You're a genius, Walker."
"This is inspired, Agent Walker, Major Casey. It would certainly explain a lot of things, including the severity and brutality of the attacks, their political distribution, and a potential source of funding," said General Beckman, clearly impressed. "I'm going to get our best analysts on this right away and I'll be back to you soonest."
When the general's face had disappeared from their computer screens, the two agents just looked at each other, slow smiles curling the outsides of their mouths up at the same time.
"Walker, I think you've done it," Casey said, his face now split in a large grin.
"Well, don't get all sentimental on me, Casey," joked Sarah, secretly preening under her partner's unaccustomed praise. "We still have a lot of work to do."
Before they had a chance to really celebrate, however, the computer screens flickered again with a picture of the general.
"Bad news, I'm afraid," she said solemnly. "It is big and getting bigger. We've just had reports of more captures in all sectors of not only military personnel but now also some upper-level politicians."
The uniformed woman paused to let this information sink in before continuing.
"Agent Walker, we think this sudden move may have been precipitated by your sloppy recon yesterday; that it's a retaliation of sorts and also an escalation of their operation."
Sarah gasped, her recent joy and enthusiasm at their successful analysis quickly extinguished at this sobering news.
"General, I –"
The general raised her hand into the air.
"No time for that now, Agent Walker," she said sternly. "We have to act just as fast as they are. We still need to get that disk. The newest intel I have is that it was moved last night from the warehouse to the Perogian Embassy in Los Angeles. There doesn't appear to be an obvious connection between the Brotherhood secession faction and the Perogian government, but with a second Brotherhood organization apparently involved somehow, at this point it would be dangerous to make assumptions without hard facts to back them up. So because of that, we can't just ask their government to hand the disk over."
Sarah and Casey nodded in agreement with the general's summary.
"We think they may be preparing to move the disk again, perhaps this time out of the Continental U.S., so you'll have to get in there and get it out right away."
Sarah and Casey glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes before looking back at the screen and nodding simultaneously.
"Good," the general said. "Compile a list of what you'll need and get it to me the moment it's finished. We'll have the items to you and get you underway by tonight, if you can do it that soon."
"Thank you, General," Sarah said. "There is one thing I can think of immediately. Is Nadia Petrovski still a Perogian sleeper agent?"
The General clicked on a keyboard in front of her, then nodded when the information came up on a band at the side of their screens.
"Yes, she is. Good thinking, Agent Walker. If anyone can get us into the Perogian Embassy, Nadia can. I'll wake her right away and get her in touch with you. Until then, Agents, get busy."
And when the general's image disappeared from the screen again, Sarah and Casey paused for a full minute to look at the other's face, as though they were drawing strength from each other, then simultaneously stood and walked out of the office, heading for the washrooms. They both knew from experience that the next few hours were going to be crucial to the entire operation and they may not even have much of a chance to breathe, let alone pee.
A short time later, Sarah and Casey spoke with Nadia on a secure video channel. The dark-haired beauty arched one carefully shaped eyebrow when she caught sight of Casey and then smiled – with a bit of a predatory air, Sarah thought – before assuming a more businesslike demeanor and outlining her plan.
The heir to the Perogian throne, Prince Wolodin – or "Willy" as he was affectionately known in the popular press – was in Los Angeles on an official state visit and scheduled to go to the opera the next night. Nadia, who was his social secretary, said she could arrange for Sarah to be his date for dinner at the embassy and for Casey to pose as a server in the dining room there. The prince wouldn't know they were part of a covert operation; he would just think he had a beautiful American woman on his arm for the evening.
"And since he's young and particularly good looking, especially in full uniform," Nadia added, a mischievous gleam in her eye, "it won't even be like work. You lucky girl."
Casey just rolled his eyes as the two women giggled.
After all the arrangements had been run by the general and the final decision was made to wait and infiltrate the Perogian Embassy the following evening, Sarah decided she had time to drop in to the hospital to visit Chuck.
After checking in with the two agents covering the door, she smiled brilliantly as she came into the room and was happy to see Chuck smiling back at her. It looked like the drugs that had been clouding his mind had finally worn off. Unfortunately, since they had also been keeping most of the pain in check, Chuck's smile caused him to wince a bit, which Sarah pretended not to see.
On an impulse, she leaned over at the side of the bed and kissed Chuck warmly on the lips, then stood back up again and said, "Hi."
He smiled again at the kiss, winced again, then said, "Hi to you too. What was that for?"
"Oh, you know, cover," Sarah said noncommittally, turning to pull a chair towards the side of the bed and to hide the pink glow on her cheeks from Chuck's probing eye.
"Well, it wasn't as good as the night nurse but certainly better than the day nurse," he said, a bit of a suspicious look on his face. "I think I'll have to do another comparison run."
Sarah laughed a bit at this, then looked at Chuck with a serious face.
"Chuck," she said, taking his hand, "Casey and I are going on another mission tomorrow night. I just wanted you to know in case..."
Sarah looked at the long, slim fingers tightening around hers for a moment, then began again as Chuck's alarm increased.
"Well, I just wanted you to know," she finished feebly, smiling once more and trying to make it look reassuring.
She had apparently failed, as Chuck became visibly agitated and grasped both her hands in his.
"Sarah," he asked, "you won't be in too much danger, will you?"
"I'll try not to be, but any mission has the potential to be dangerous, as you found out recently," she explained. "But we know where they moved the disk and we still have to get it. It should be a quick in-and-out, and Casey will be with me. I wanted you to know but I don't want you to worry."
"Well, it's a bit too late for that now," Chuck said indignantly, but he took the sting out of his words with another smile-and-wince combination as he pulled on Sarah's arms, and before she realized what was happening, she was in Chuck's embrace and he was whispering into her ear.
"You get that disk, Sarah, and save the world. Then you come back to me, you hear?"