Chapter 2
A/N Thanks for the reviews.
+ 4 Hours
Sarah slowly drifted back into the realm of the conscious. She recognized that she was down on the floor, which was never a good thing for an Agent, but it took her a moment to realize just how bad the situation was; she bolted upright the moment she realized someone had taken Chuck. She felt a quick battle being fought inside her. To freak out and be the crazy jealous girlfriend or be the emotionless in control agent? The agent one and she picked up her phone and dialed Casey as she looked around the hotel room for some hint, clue, or lead of any kind that would indicate where Chuck might have been taken or who had taken him.
When Casey's phone went to voicemail she called Beckman, "General I understand it's early, but Chuck appears to have been kidnapped."
When she had first picked up the phone the general's tiredness had been evident, but when Chuck and kidnapped appeared in the same sentence all traces of fatigue disappeared. "What do you mean appears to have been? Either he was or he wasn't which is it?"
"Someone breached our room and hit me with a tranquilizer dart, they had made their intention to capture Chuck clear, but I cannot confirm that he has been kidnapped as I would have been down at the time."
"Agent Casey should have been monitoring the situation."
"They indicated that Casey had already been neutralized and he didn't return my call."
"I'm sending in a new team, they'll be under your responsibility until Casey wakes up at which point I want you both to fully brief me on what happened."
"Yes ma'am." She knew she had to go check on Casey and make sure that he wasn't dead and then review the security footage, but before she attempted any of that she was going to give herself five minutes, just five and then she'd be good. She dragged herself to the bathroom as she felt the tears start form, entering the dark room she kept the lights off; she opened the medicine cabinet and took out the bottle of aspirin. She downed them without bothering with water and then looked up at her reflection in the mirror. She noticed the tears silently streaming down her face. She didn't do anything to stop them.
Five minutes later she emerged from the bathroom in full agent mode; her asset was gone and it was her job to recover him, anyone between her and her asset was going to be in a world of hurt soon enough.
She kicked open Casey's door hoping that the display of physical anger would make her feel a little better. It didn't.
"Casey get up," her voice was ice, but he didn't react. She reached down and felt for a pulse, it was steady, satisfied that he wasn't dead she stepped over his slumped body and moved over to his array of surveillance equipment. She checked the cameras outside the room--she'd taken the ones inside offline in the event she ended up really comprised—she scrolled forward and saw her and Chuck hastily enter the room. A few hours later she saw someone begin to approach the room down the hallway, but then the screen went blank. She cursed; clearly whoever took Chuck had someone else to shut down the cameras. She rewound the tape to the point just before the camera died. The man, Echo! That's what he'd been called over the radio, she remembered and filed it away for possible use later. His weapons were still concealed and he wasn't obviously nervous. She pulled up the feed from the elevator cameras and checked for the presence of the man.
She stopped and the blood drained out of her face when she saw who had just entered the elevator. She checked the time stamp, "Shit!" she swore. She recognized the two men who had just gotten into the elevator; Chuck had made them at the conference they were Fulcrum. She continued watching hoping they'd do something that'd give away what they were going to do. The elevator doors began to close when someone stuck his arm into the door and slipped in. He stood in front of the two Fulcrum agents and pushed the button for the sixteenth floor.
She noticed that he was standing strangely; he had both his hands tucked inside his jacket it looked almost like he was hugging himself. The Fulcrum agents hit their floor and stepped out; the third man took a step back. Before Fulcrum even managed to fully exit the elevator the man had spun into action. The reason for his strange behavior, specifically where his hands were, became evident; he pulled out two silenced pistols and leveled them at the back of the Fulcrum agent's head. He pulled each trigger once and the two men dropped dead. She whistled, whoever that was he was definitely a pro. He quickly pulled the bodies back into the elevator and policed them for weapons. She saw him hit the button for the roof and midway to the fifteenth floor the camera cut out.
She flipped to the rooftop camera but judging by the time stamp that was the first one they took out. She heard Casey groan from behind her as he began to wake up, "it's about time."
"Walker, what are you—Where's Chuck?" Despite his grogginess she could hear clear alarm in his voice.
"No idea, he's gone."
"Do we know any Fulcrum sites here?"
"It wasn't Fulcrum."
"What? How do you know? Who is it?"
"I don't know who, but here look at the feed from the elevator camera." He sat down in the chair and tried to focus on the computer monitor. She pulled up the feed of the two Fulcrum agents. They entered the elevator, "Chuck had identified they earlier today they definitely Fulcrum." He nodded slightly confused as to why it wasn't Fulcrum if she just confirmed Fulcrum was in the building. She continued playing the video and he took note of the way the strange man was standing. "What the hell!" Casey said as he saw the two Fulcrum agents get executed. "Ok so if it wasn't Fulcrum who kidnapped Chuck, who the hell was it?"
"I told you I don't know!" Casey looked at her. She'd obviously been crying a little while ago, he grunted they handled the situation in different ways but he understood what she was going through. It was the first time she'd failed a job, first time she'd been failed to protect the asset, first time she'd failed Chuck. "I'm going to check the roof, see if they left the Fulcrum agent's here." Her voice sounded defeated, it was obvious that she wasn't taking this well, not that he could blame her he wasn't exactly taking it all that well and he wasn't in love with the asset.
"Reinforcements?"
"En route, Beckman is sending her best people." She opened the door and stepped through the doorway.
"Walker." She paused for a moment waiting to hear what he was going to say, "We'll get him back."
"Yeah Casey, we will." Her delivery was icy cold, he knew that whatever her feelings towards Chuck they were now secondary to completing her mission.
***
She exited the rooftop elevator intent on finding a clue to where they'd gone, or something anything to focus on. Hell she'd was ready to run the dissection of the bodies if it got her mind off Chuck for a few minutes. Walking up to the helicopter pad she saw some footprints heading up to the helicopter pad. Reaching the top she saw three wheel marks the prints promptly disappeared. He was definitely gone.
Walking back into the elevator she was reminded of the start contrast between the cold desolation she now felt, and vibrant, full, happiness she had felt the week before back at her hotel.
***
They stumbled into the elevator together, Chuck from his injuries and Sarah from the alcohol she'd ingested at the party earlier. He'd been released earlier that day and they'd gone to his apartment for a party that Ellie had planned to celebrate his release. As the party had worn on she'd ended up having way too much to drink; everyone had simply expected her to stay with Chuck, but she'd managed to convince him to take her back to her hotel. Entering the elevator she punched the button for the rooftop. "Sarah your room isn't on the roof."
"I'm not ready to go into my room yet."
As they exited the elevator she took him over to "her" spot. "Sarah what are we doing here?"
"Well Chuck I wanted to," she giggled and pulled him down. "Show. You. My. Favorite. Spot." She punctuated each word with a kiss. Finished she turned away from him and looked out at the skyline. "I…I like the view."
"It is pretty amazing isn't it?" He said as she sunk into him. He just smiled at her, he didn't really know why but this spot seemed to have some significance to her although why was beyond him.
She smiled at herself, he might not know why but she felt good to be able to share this little bit of herself with him.
***
She caught site of a drag pattern. Any normal person would never have noticed it or would immediately dismiss it, but after operating in Russia for a few winters Sarah had become accustomed to the tell tale signs of a dead body being dragged through the snow. Strange that whoever had done it had been careful enough to remove any traces of blood or brains but didn't think to disguise where they had dragged the bodies.
They were hidden behind wall, not very well either. Whoever was doing this clearly was not used to hiding bodies, which meant either they had their own cleaner team or they didn't care who knew they were around.
Sarah moved back inside to check if her team was on site yet. Walking back into Casey's surveillance suite she saw that they had. She pointed at two of the agents near the door, "Two bodies on the roof deal with them."
"Yes ma'am," they responded in unison before disappearing out the door.
"They used a helicopter for their egress see if you can narrow down which one, that should tell us something about them," She indicated the agent standing next to Casey for that task.
She turned to the remaining four agents, "I want you to get me CCTV footage, you to check FAA flight plans, you to check NYPD, FBI, and any other agency to see if they flew a helicopter or saw one in the city tonight." She turned to the final agent, "and you go back through all the hotel surveillance and check to see when and where these people showed up."
Casey sat there silent. He turned to her as soon as the last agent exited, "Walker you ok?"
"Yeah I'm fine. I assume you gave a few of them assignments before I came back?"
"Yeah I've got them guarding the outside and I sent a request to Echelon to feed us everything that they find on the Intersect."
"Good, I think we might need to bring Director Graham's replacement in on this though."
"I know your upset about your boyfriend being gone and all but give it a day before you brief someone on the Intersect, you know we never told him for a reason. He could be Fulcrum."
"I also sent some to process the elevator and your room."
"That why the elevator took so long?"
"Yeah."
"Pull your team off the room I'll do that myself."
She's either got something to hide there, or she's wants to go over and go through everything she could have done differently and drive herself crazy. "Walker," he warned. He'd have to be dead not to notice the change in her; she was speaking in a shorter, harsher, more direct manner and everything about her screamed professionalism. He figured she had about seventy two hours before she cracked and broke down; the façade of professionalism and detachment would only keep her safe for so long at which point he figured she'd be useless for anything.
"I'll be fine Casey." She exited the room and headed down to her hotel room.
***
+ 4 Hours
"Hello Mr. Intersect." Chuck tried to open his eyes but the light forced him to shut them. The voice was strangely cheerful as if she was happy he was awake.
Chuck groaned at the unfamiliar voice. He heard whoever it was walk away and a moment later he felt the room get darker. "Thanks," he ground out slowly opening his eyes again.
"No problem anything else you need? Drink? Hungry?" She was wearing a smile that seemed genuine enough. But as Chuck struggled to stand up he found that his arms and legs were both strapped to the chair he was sitting in, despite the smile he was clearly a prisoner.
"Can I have a cab back to my hotel room?" He smiled back at her.
She laughed, "Sorry can't leave yet."
"Yet? Does that mean I'll get to go back someday?" He looked around the room. It was relatively barren apart from a bed and the chair he was sitting in. The whole room was painted white and the overhead lights were quite powerful of what he remembered. One elevated section of the wall, however, was replaced with a control room filled with computers and other equipment.
"ALPHA ONE REPORT TO THE CONTROL ROOM IMMEDIATELY," came a more familiar voice over the speakers, it was the man who had kidnapped him.
"You call each other that even at base? Or are we not at your base?"
"That's me I've got to go Charles."
"Chuck, everyone calls me Chuck."
She was surprised at him. Normally prisoners were far more hostile and while he was being honest in his desire to leave he seemed nice enough. She realized that she'd be able to get him to cooperate easily if she treated him nicely, "Ok Chuck, would you like a TV?"
"How about a cell phone? Preferably mine, but I'm not picky any old phone will do."
"You can't call Sarah."
"Ellie?"
"Doesn't know you're missing and we'd prefer to keep it that way."
"Casey?" He asked sheepishly, hoping that he hadn't pushed his luck too far.
"Chuck, you can't call anyone." She paused for a moment thinking, "But maybe if you're good we'll let you call Sarah I'm sure she's very worried about you." A smile played across her lips it'd been awhile since she'd had the opportunity to manipulate someone.
"So do you want the TV?"
He grumbled but at least he wasn't struggling yet, "got any video games?"
She smiled at him, "Yeah I'll ask Sierra to come talk to you she's a gamer."
"One of you is a gamer? I'm surprised, I figured you'd be all action and about the mission."
"You don't know anything about us Chuck, but I really have to go." She sprinted out of the room late for whatever Echo was calling her for. As she exited he realized that he hadn't flashed, he'd had a completely unobstructed view of her face and body for the entire conversation and yet he never flashed on her. Whoever these people were they weren't in the Intersect.
A/N- Hope you enjoyed, next chapter is going to be more Chuck centric. Let me know if you have any problems with any of it. If you're confused about the kidnappers just hang on a bit, I've managed to work a basic description of each one into a future chapter, but I can just add it in as an A/N as well if you'd prefer.
Added in the times.