There's an unpleasant section starting about a third of the way through. The start and end are marked if people want to skip it.

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

Langston Graham was fuming, as he'd not only lost the best agent he had (possibly the best agent he'd ever seen) to Beckman, but he'd also lost all control of the only viable Intersect host as well. In all the testing they'd done on Project Omaha, no-one else had ever had even shown a fraction of this Bartowski's compatibility with the Intersect. All of the formal test subjects were either killed or made into vegetables when they tried to load the Intersect into them.

Roark had been certain that Kowalski had loaded it into himself just before he started to really fall apart. If so, he'd certainly handled it better than any of their other test subjects, but he had shown damage straight away and deteriorated steadily over the next twelve to eighteen months before he disappeared, and it was a good bet that he'd gone off to die then as they hadn't seen any sign of him in the past thirteen years. So, even if he held out longer than the others, he'd still been destroyed by it like the rest of them. This Bartowski though, all the signs were that he was handling the Intersect with no problems at all, and what he'd loaded would have been many, many times larger than any of those test loads.

He had to find some way to convince Beckman to let him have Bartowski tested, so that his people could determine what markers that identified a viable Intersect host. He was prepared to let her keep him, because while this Bartowski may have an incredible brain, he was obviously weak if those reports that Beckman had on him were accurate, and someone that weak just wasn't suitable to be a proper Intersect host, he just needed the markers to locate a proper host.

Letting Beckman manoeuvre him into the position where he'd lost Walker to her infuriated him even more, mainly because he hadn't seen it coming. He'd always viewed Beckman as your standard petty little military empire builder who was beneath his notice. To him she'd been someone who had lucked out by taking over a great team from someone else, but hadn't shown any special ability herself. Now it was obvious that that had all just been an act and he'd fallen for it like everyone else.

He wasn't about to let that stand. No, Beckman was going to pay, and destroying her flawed Intersect host would obviously be the best way to topple her off her perch. If he couldn't get Walker back under his control, well she'd have to be disposed of too, he'd put a lot of effort into forming her into the weapon she was and he wasn't about to allow anyone else to enjoy the fruits of his labours or even worse, use her against him.

Graham had to concede that Walker wasn't likely to fall for the threat that he could get to her mother at any time any more without proof, as she'd undoubtedly find some way to get those damned analysts of Beckman's to investigate the hints he'd given her over the years about where her mother was, now that she was under Beckman's umbrella. Unfortunately, what that meant was that the only possible leverage he had over her now was her father. As flimsy as that leverage was though, she had stayed with him up until she finished high school, so she appeared to have had some attachment for him. With that in mind, Graham started putting together plans to have 'Jack Burton' released and point him at his daughter. Give them time to reunite and build an attachment again, then hopefully Burton may be usable as leverage over her.

The news only got worse a few days later when the senior people he had inside the DEA and FBI reported that they'd lost Miller and Rizzo in the same way he'd lost Walker, which meant that Beckman's Human Intersect team now had top agents from all four of their primary agencies. This was what he had envisaged for Project Omaha, a team of very strong agents to support the Intersect host, except that the Intersect host was meant to be at least a competent agent, capable of driving their missions, not some weak, broken civilian like Beckman had.

It would only be a matter of time before her civilian Intersect host, and therefore her Human Intersect team, failed, but he wasn't in the mood to wait and see. No, he could see himself getting considerable amusement from throwing things at them to make Beckman's Intersect host break.


They were still in the private room, talking, a couple of hours later, by which time Diane had cancelled the jet that was to take them back to L.A. that night, rescheduling it for first thing in the morning. Chuck and Casey spent the night at Diane's place, while Sarah went back to help Carina and Zondra pack for the move to Los Angeles, and get some of her own things as well. At least they didn't need to get rid of the house, or even pack it up, because it was one of the safe houses that the three of them shared.

Much of the night at their house was spent making sure that Carina was OK about the rather shocking news she had just received, and her and Zondra questioning Sarah about Chuck. That questioning escalated after she shared that another name Chuck was known by was Charlie, because they had spent two years hearing about Charlie while they were on the CAT Squad together.

Of course, the fact that she'd found her Mama and that she had been safe and well all the while Graham had been holding her safety over Sarah's head took up a lot of the discussion, that Sarah's saviour from the warehouse had been her stepfather since just after that was talked about quite a bit as well. Having Carina's mother as her godmother wasn't passed over either. They spent most of the night talking and neither Sarah or Zondra were impressed with how bright eyed and bushy tailed Carina was in the morning. Zondra groaned when Sarah told her that not needing much sleep was apparently a family trait that Carina got from her mother.

The car that they had at the D.C. safe house was one of the new Dodge Chargers, so it had no trouble carrying the three of them and what they were taking to Los Angeles. Even if Diane was Carina's birth mother, they weren't ready to give up their safe house to anyone yet, so they drove to Diane's house and left the Charger there. They'd be taken to Andrews AFB from there in Air Force limos.

Meeting her father for the second time when she arrived at the General's house was a shock for Carina, but none of them were surprised when Diane accompanied them to Andrews and told them that she'd be coming out to Los Angeles as soon as she had the transfers and arrangements bedded down. After they'd taken off, Carina looked around the C-21A and asked if this was how they normally travelled. Sarah deferred to Chuck and Casey as this was only her second flight with the team, but her eyes bugged out like Carina and Zondra's when Chuck casually answered. "Yeah, unless we're on a time crunch, then we have to take an F-15 with a few in-flight refuellings. These business jets are a lot more comfortable though."

That prompted another question from Sarah. "Chuck, I noticed that the guard at the gate called you Colonel Conrad and Casey Major Coburn, what was that about?" He glanced at Carina and Zondra but decided that they were part of the family now, especially Carina. "They're our Air Force identities, it's easier to use them when we're coming onto an Air Force Base, especially as we're usually coming onto the base to grab an F-15."

"But how are you a Colonel, while Casey's only a Major?"

"Because my Navy and Air Force identities are commanders of cyber intelligence and intelligence groups and I got more promotions on the basis of the achievements of those groups."

Casey cut in there. "And your combat achievements!"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah OK, but you've got plenty of them too."

Carina and Zondra were looking confused at that, but Sarah told them that they'd understand when they saw what was in Chuck's office.


Partway through the flight, they saw that Carina was getting upset about something, but she wouldn't discuss it with anyone but Sarah. The others tried to give them space to have a private talk, as much as they could on the small Learjet.

When they were alone, Carina got straight to it. "Was my father part of that training that you and I were forced to go through at the Farm?"

Sarah stared at her briefly, then shook her head. "No!"

"How can you be sure? He was teaching seduction for fuck's sake! How would he not be involved in the sex training?"

"Because, if you remember, he always taught us that if you have to resort to sex to get what you're after, you've failed!"

She hesitated, and then added. "And because I had the same suspicions and I confronted him about it when he butted into a video conference that we were having with your mother to tell me how glad he was that I'd found my way back to the family at last. Red, he was horrified! Not just because I could believe that he had been a part of it, but that I had been forced to go through that at sixteen….."

She broke off at the horrified look Carina was giving her. "Sixteen? I thought you were seventeen when I met you at the Farm?"

Sarah shook her head. "No Red, I was fifteen when I met you, though I'm pretty sure that Graham knew that my father had added two years to my age on my last few identities because he knew who my parents were. Oh hey, my father was a CIA agent too before he ran off to be a con artist, and Mama was their top analyst."

"What?"

"My father was a field agent, but he got kicked off field work because his overblown ego made him too erratic to be trusted. When that happened, he took me and disappeared, partly to hurt Mama, but mainly because no-one would expect a sweet, innocent little girl like me to have all the skills I did by the time I was seven so I could play them better than any adult. The CIA wouldn't release Mama, because she was too valuable to them. Auntie Mary and Uncle Bry were CIA agents and were working with your parents to get her out, but Auntie Mary was trapped back in Russia a year later and Uncle Bry ended up in almost as bad a shape as he was after Milan, so only your parents were available to do most of it. That slowed them down, and it wasn't until Uncle Stephen disappeared that they were ready to get her out. They created a new identity for Mama that showed that she was Ellie and Chuck's godmother, because she was their mother's best friend up until their parents died, well that was true except for the names they were using and their parents being dead, to get her granted custody of the two of them and set them up with new identities in Arcadia. That was how they got the three of them away from the CIA."

When it appeared that the private section of the discussion was finished, Zondra came over to see what Carina was shouting about. She was gob smacked when Carina said. "Oh, Sarah just told me that she's actually two years younger than she always told us she was. Oh, and both her and Charlie's parents were CIA Agents."

Sarah jumped in to correct that. "No, Auntie Mary was an agent, Agent Frost actually, and so was my father at one point. Mama was an analyst and planner, their best apparently, but the only times she saw action was when she was a field analyst. Uncle Stephen was apparently the CIA's top scientist and developed their technology for them."

In her rush to straighten that out, she had missed the fact that she'd just dropped another bombshell, until Carina asked. "So Charlie, your Charlie, that cutie over there, is actually the son of the CIA's greatest legend?"

"Yes, and she was training him, Ellie and me in whatever we could take in from when we were toddlers. They kept getting training from her, Mama, Uncle Bry, Casey and your parents after my father took me away, but I was getting trained by my father in the subjects Roan teaches from when I was a little girl, up until Graham got him."

Carina and Zondra looked at each other. "Well now we know why no-one's ever been able to touch her, except for Charlie maybe."

"Oh I don't know, you two have done pretty well for yourselves, you're a force of nature Zee, and we now know that Red comes from the same bloodlines as Frost, Mowgli and Raksha. I'd bet that with a bit more work on your skills you could match us, or at least come close…. And you two are going to love the training facilities that they set up there!"

Zondra snorted. "I'll withhold comment until I see them Blondie, they were set up for what, three or four people?"

"Seven, actually, and I doubt that even you'll be able to maintain your famous disdain when you see it Zee."

"We'll see…. So, have you finished your private discussion now?"

Carina looked at her, upset, and then grabbed her hand and pulled her down into the seat in front of her. "It wasn't you Zee, it was my father, you see..." She stopped and looked at Sarah, who nodded. "When we were at the Farm, both Sarah and I were forced to go through very intensive physical sex training, and when I saw him this morning…. I suddenly remembered what he taught at the Farm and wondered whether he had had a part in that…. But Sarah said that she'd asked him and he was absolutely horrified, both that she thought that he'd be part of that, and that it was done to her when she was sixteen….."

Extreme unpleasantness starts.

She looked off through the window with tears in her eyes as she continued in almost a whisper. "I'm weak, just like my mother, when she was sixteen, Sarah had the guts to tell Graham that if he sent her into another situation where her only option was to fuck the mark, either she or the mark would die, but I was never brave enough to say that to him. Graham had plans to turn both of us into perfect sexbots and killer robots. He was holding her mother's safety over Sarah to force her compliance. I don't think he knew who my mother was at the time, but even if he did, he would have known that I'd have no love for the woman who abandoned me to all that shit in foster care, so he came up with something else for me. He flew me to Thailand, or somewhere around there, and took me to show me a sex farm. Hundreds of girls and women from all over the world were there, from four to forty to cater for every perversion. They were losing several girls a day, as they were being ripped apart by what was being done to them. As long as their customers could pay up, they could do what they liked to them."

"The dead girls were being fed to the pigs, and then the pigs were in turn fed to the girls, to cut the cost of feeding them. Graham made me watch the girls' bodies being cut up and fed to the pigs, and then told me that if I didn't do exactly what I was told, I'd be sent there. He called over one of the men running the place and told him, right in front of me, that if I was sent there and I was allowed to die, he'd have the entire place wiped off the face of the map. They could do what they wanted with me, so long as I was kept alive and well enough to continue servicing the customers. When he brought me back, I was terrified and I did everything he said, but I just couldn't match Sarah as a human weapon. He kept threatening me to send me to that sex farm until eventually I snapped and screamed at him that I'd never be the killing machine she was. He just agreed and told me that my training was finished and I was going to the DEA, because they had a use for the skills I had mastered, so that's how I became the DEA's number one sexbot."

Zondra's grip on her hand was almost crushing it, but neither of them noticed. After a few minutes, Zondra began to talk.

"You have always wanted to know why I don't trust men, but have respected my wishes for privacy. Well I think we need to go into this with all of our secrets on the table. As you know, I wasn't born as Zondra Rizzo, what my name was before isn't important but where I came from is. My father was one of the top enforcers for one of the big New York crime families so he was quite feared, but like most bullies he was basically a coward. My mother had been a brilliant young woman with a great career in front of her before he stopped that and made her into a trophy wife. Mama was the most beautiful woman in the entire family and the D'Angelo family insisted that she attend all of their functions, because she lit up the room wherever she went. Tony D'Angelo, the heir apparent for the family, desperately wanted my mother and was determined to have her, but his father had an ironclad rule that he wouldn't allow married women to be interfered with. When I was seventeen, my parents took me to one of the big family functions and I caught Tony's eye. I looked just like a younger version of my mother so he decided that if he couldn't have her, then he'd have me. He promised my father a bigger slice of the action if he handed me over to him, but told him that he'd destroy him if he failed to deliver."

She looked up at the cabin ceiling, blinking back tears as she went on. "I don't think my father even hesitated before he agreed, he organised it for the next time he knew Mama would be out. A bit after she left, he came to my room and told me that he'd just gotten a call to ask for Mama to come to a last minute party, but when he told them she was out, they said that I should come in her place. When we got there, I knew the mansion well enough to know that he was taking me to the private wing that only the actual D'Angelo family used and I asked him what was going on. He told me that I'd been invited to dinner with Mister D'Angelo and that I needed to be nice to him. When I said that I wouldn't do it and I wanted to go home, he told me he'd kill me if I caused him trouble by refusing Mister D'Angelo's invitation, I could see from the look in his eye that he meant it so I gave in."

"When we got there, there was no dinner, just champagne and strawberries and drugs. When I saw that I tried to back out but my father grabbed me by the arm and told me again that he'd kill me, then he formally introduced me to Mister D'Angelo and left me there with him. This guy was a worse conversationalist than Casey on a bad day, but I tried keep up an inane prattle in hope that he'd get bored with it and throw me out. I was also nursing the drink he gave me as long as I could but he lost patience, so he grabbed me and started groping and kissing me. He got angry when I tried to fight him off and hit me hard enough to knock me out. I came to on a bed with most of my clothes torn off and him tearing into me. It was over almost before it started and then the bastard wanted to talk, or at least he wanted me to tell him how wonderful he was."

"I was stupid, I should have just told him what he wanted to hear so I could get out of there, but I had been a seventeen year old virgin who'd never been kissed before he raped me, I was hurting and I was frightened so I wigged out and laughed at him. I told him that I'd seen Chihuahuas with bigger dicks and more stamina than him and he cracked. By the time his guards came in and pulled him off me I was half dead, and I was torn up inside from the champagne bottle and other things he used in me. The guards' main job was to clear up trouble for the family, so they took me home and told my father to make sure this was kept quiet."

"By the time my mother came home I'd almost died from blood loss and my internal injuries. I later found out that my father had been planning on letting me die and then telling her that I'd snuck out to a party somewhere and had just been dumped at the door in this state. She called the doctor straight away, fighting him off when he tried to take the phone away from her. By the time the doctor arrived with the ambulance, he'd told her the truth about what happened to me, trying to convince her that they'd kill all of us if this went public. Needless to say, that didn't go the way he wanted, because she told him she'd see him and the D'Angelo family in hell for what they'd done to her daughter, and went to hospital with me in the ambulance."

"When I finally got out of surgery and was in recovery and she'd been assured that I was going to be OK, Mama went home to get enough things for both of us to get through the time I was in hospital, and a few other things that were special to us because she had decided that neither of us would be going back there when I was released. She'd already called the feds and done a deal to give up everything she knew about the D'Angelo family in return for protection for the two of us."

"What Mama didn't know though was that rat shit bastard who was my father had gone running straight to the D'Angelos and told them what she'd said about seeing them all in hell for what had been done to me, and the head of the family had ordered his men to get rid of us before either of us could talk. The FBI had a man inside the D'Angelos and he called in a warning that they were sending men to get rid of both of us, so the FBI sent a team to the hospital to protect us. They got there in time to stop the hit squad who had been sent there, but they hadn't considered that Mama would be anywhere but at my side. Unfortunately the D'Angelos had sent more men to our house, and by the time the FBI could get there, Mama had already been raped and beaten to death to send a message to anyone else who might consider crossing the D'Angelos."

"The FBI got me moved in secret to another facility and had the hospital records changed to show that I'd died of complications from my injuries, so as far as the D'Angelos knew they were in the clear. My father told the police the same story he was going to tell Mama about what happened to me, but the police must have been paid off, because they just wrote off what happened to Mama as the result of interrupting a home invasion. Raped and beaten to death in a home invasion that just happened to be the very same night I ended up in hospital from the same thing almost happening to me? Who would believe that?"

"As soon as I was able to talk, the FBI asked me to testify about what D'Angelo had done to me in collusion with my father so they could bring other evidence and charges up, and hopefully get some justice for Mama and myself as well. I agreed, but only if they'd guarantee that I'd go into training with them as soon as I was fit enough to, and if I passed, that I'd be made an agent working on cases against people like my father, the D'Angelos and everyone else like them."

"I got my deal in writing, and we had the trial straight away, I was testifying from my hospital bed to add to the impact. The D'Angelos' lawyers tried to argue that this was a fabricated case as I was listed as dead, but the FBI provided enough medical proof to verify who I was. The D'Angelos still managed to get Tony and my father off because they came up with a pile of people who supported my father's story that I was an out of control party girl who'd been hospitalised more than once as a result of the rough sex I liked at sex parties, and I was just accusing Mister D'Angelo because I had no idea who I'd actually had sex with, but the FBI upheld their end of the deal anyway."

"D'Angelo had done so much damage to my face that I already needed major reconstruction surgery, so we changed my appearance enough to ensure that I wouldn't be recognised. As I'd lost my mother's face, I made up my new name of Zondra from her maiden name of Sondra Zambini, and I chose a surname that had no connection to my father or the D'Angelos. I was motivated to wipe out all those bastards so I aced the FBI's training, and as per our deal I was made an agent at eighteen. By the time I was nineteen I had been involved in bringing down the D'Angelo family once and for all and making sure that Tony and my father went to prison. I was given a slap on the wrist for what I'd done to get the intel out of my father and others, but the black mark was removed from my record after two years' probation. There were some accusations thrown around relating to the gruesome way my father and Tony D'Angelo both died in their cells a few weeks after they went to prison, but I had plenty of proof to show that I had been somewhere else that night. You know what happened after that, and that's my story."

Extreme unpleasantness ends.

The three of them were holding each other and crying when Zondra finished. When she looked at Casey and Chuck, Casey looked worried about what was going on, but Chuck looked absolutely distraught, and Zondra realised that he must have heard something that triggered one of those information flashes they'd been talking about last night. She panicked at that, but Sarah gently took her hand and shook her head. "Yes, he's obviously seen it, but he'll never say a word to anyone about it."

"Not even you?"

"What? No, we're not together, and even if we are later he wouldn't betray your secrets to me or anyone."

"I'll take your word about him keeping my secrets because…. Well I need to believe that he'll keep all of that to himself, but for the other, who do you think you're fooling Blondie? We spent two years listening to you mooning over your Charlie, and every time you look at him it's obvious you're more gone on him now than you were then! As for him, well he's just as obvious as you are, and you heard what he said to Carina!"

Sarah looked at her, confused. Zondra growled in frustration and snapped. "Carina! What did Chuck tell you when you were pawing at him last night?" It only took a second for Carina's confused expression to clear and for her to recite. "I'm sort of taken and have been since I was a little kid."

"Thank you! So as you two obviously know what the rest of us can see, why are you pretending that you don't?"


With that, she stood and walked over to Chuck, leaning down to whisper to him. "While I don't doubt Sarah's word, it would really help my peace of mind to hear it from you that what you've seen in that Intersect will stay with you Chuck."

He turned to look her in the eye. "You have my word that I will never speak of what I've seen in regard to you to anyone Zondra. I shouldn't have told what I'd seen about Carina to anyone but her, but I was in a state of shock to find she was my cousin and I just blurted it out when she asked."

Sarah and Carina were shocked to see her whisper something else in his ear, and then hug him and return the kiss on the cheek he gave her after he whispered something back to her.

When she went back to sit with them with a big smile, Carina looked at her and said. "What was that about?"

"I haven't had any real family since Mama was killed, none at all since my father's 'accident', and I haven't wanted any except for you two until now. When Chuck said something about being shocked to find that you were his cousin though, something made me say that I wished I was too."

She looked at Sarah. "Hang onto that one Blondie! He told me that I was already family, but if I wanted it to be official all I had to do was say the word and he'd make sure that all the records were in place to show that I was his second cousin. He's even talking about asking his aunt to agree to be my godmother too. It's crazy, I know, but I suddenly felt like I belong somewhere for the first time since Mama was killed, and I felt that she is happy for me, so that's why I kissed your guy."

Sarah laughed and kissed her on the cheek, then went forward to plop herself Chuck's lap and give him a rather more serious kiss. When they came up for air, she leant her forehead against his. "Do you know how happy you've made Zondra?"

"I haven't really done anything yet, but the records will be in place within a day or so. She's had enough shit in her life and you three are like sisters. As your godmother's daughter Carina is effectively your sister and…." He held up his phone to show her the text that just arrived. "Auntie Di has already agreed to being long lost cousin Zondra's godmother too, so we can formalise it when she gets to Los Angeles. Besides, I can't see il Martello di Dio fitting in anywhere better than in our family, can you?"

"For a start, you have done something, you've made her feel that she belongs! You've already laid all of this out and I know that you'll have it all set in place in the next few days to show that Zondra's entrenched as part of the family. You know, once we're all settled in, I think we need to have another family dinner to celebrate all this."

Chuck nodded. "We could set it up for when Auntie Di's here, maybe we could even pull something off to have Uncle Roan here as well."

"I might be able to arrange something there, Aunt Jane should be able to organise for him to be in L.A. at the right time."

"So you're actually close to Jane Bentley? She wasn't just your handler?"

"No, she looked after me and ensured that she remained as my mentor after I left Harvard. She did what she could to protect me from Graham and the rest of those bastards. I… I killed my first handler when he came into my room to rape me one night and Graham knew that I'd do the same to any other guy who tried that, so he decided that the sensible thing was to replace him with a woman. He made a deal with Jane that if she shaped me into the agent I could be, she'd get the DDO's job the next time it became vacant after I graduated. She delivered on her agreement, but she also taught me how to protect myself, and stretched me far beyond the tool that Graham wanted me to be. He wasn't happy about that, but he had to honour his part of the deal because she'd made sure that it was all official and she definitely honoured her part of the deal. She became the DDO when he became the DCI, then a year later she became the first Director of the National Clandestine Service when the DNI's role was created and Graham was pushed back to the Director of the CIA. Anyway yes, to me Jane is almost as much of an Aunt as Auntie Mary is."

"Cool, that should make this easier, and maybe we can sit down and talk to her about building a better working relationship with the CIA through her."

After that, Sarah went back to relax with the girls while Chuck pulled out a laptop and got some work done.


They made sure to record Carina and Zondra's reactions to the Dungeon, because Zondra had been so certain that Sarah was exaggerating. As Sarah knew the easiest way to motivate those two to stretch themselves, she set up a challenge for everyone to step up and post the best scores they could on the range and the training rooms. Considering who his mother was, the level of training he'd received, the constant practice since he was a toddler and the sheer number of operations he'd participated in, no-one was surprised when Chuck posted the high scores across the board, or that Sarah, Casey or Ellie came in after him, as age and far too many serious injuries had started to take Bry's edge from him. He was still better than most, but he could no longer challenge the very best. The exercise worked as planned though, because Sarah's challenge on the plane had been accepted and Chuck's scores became the target the other two were shooting for.

Sarah took Carina and Zondra to see Chuck's Special Projects office, and they saw what she had been talking about on the plane. Looking at the medals, citations and pictures on the walls and the desk ornaments that displayed his ribbon bars and badges told a story that would have been unbelievable without the background information that they already had on him, and Zondra had seen with her own eyes the sort of thing this man of Sarah's could do.

Carina and Zondra were offered the same choice of apartments as Sarah had been, but they decided to share one of the spare apartments at East Pasadena. This meant that they still had one spare apartment there, and another at El Castello, so that worked out well.


Diane and Roan arrived a few days after Carina and Zondra moved in, but Diane had had an agenda when she selected her protection detail for this L.A. trip. She had argued that her usual detail of rather large military men would stand out too much in L.A. and had replaced them with five of her best and most trusted agents, Vincent Smith, Sydney Prince, Alexandra Forrest, Richard Noble and Victoria Dunwoody. She also brought in four more agents who she had worked with and trusted, Adam Carter, Eyal Lavine, Michael Westen and Rachel Gibson.

It was true than these agents would blend in much better in California than her normal obviously military protective detail, as they all looked like models, tall, taut and attractive, but that wasn't her primary criteria for selecting them. Even though the Human Intersect team was just starting off and she already had five top agents on the team (well, four plus an analyst officially), she was looking ahead to when the team's workload invariably exploded, just like the Special Projects Groups' workload had exploded as soon as everyone else recognised that they were the only ones who could deliver what was required in difficult times. These nine were the next best she had had working with her that she trusted, and she believed that they would fit in with the family well, so she was using this trip to introduce them to the family and have Chuck, Sarah and the rest of the core team get a read on them. That would hopefully give them a pool of agents who it was agreed would be suitable to be added to the team. They could possibly be seconded onto Intersect missions to see how they worked with the team as well.

With eleven people in the group who came to Los Angeles, they obviously couldn't stay with the family, so they booked into a nearby hotel. On their first visit to El Castello, the protective detail stayed on the ground floor with Jeff and Anna, who were pretending to be civilians. Chuck, Sarah and the others spent time talking with them all that day, and while the Intersect provided the majority of the information about them, the purpose of the discussions was to get a read on who they were, by the end of the first day, the team had agreed that the eight should make good additions.

Once they'd accepted them, they were shown the Dungeons, and like all of their ilk, their eyes lit up at the sight of the range and other facilities there. It didn't take much convincing to get them to see how they did on the range, and given that these were Diane's best picks, it wasn't much of a surprise when they all beat Jeff, Anna and Emma's scores on the range, and came close to Carina and Zondra's (some of the guys beat Carina and Zondra).

They actually held the family dinner in the lounge in the Dungeon, and the nine were included. It was a surprise for them to learn that John Casey and Bryan Mills had teenage daughters, the only things that were kept from them were who Chuck, Ellie and Carina's parents really were, and that Diane was Ellie and Chuck's Aunt. Some of them had worked with Chuck and knew that he was Mowgli, so there wasn't much point trying to hide that, but the link between their family and Diane could be explained away by the fact that Emma was Ellie and Chuck's godmother, while Diane was Sarah's godmother.


Their pleasant interlude came to an end when an urgent mission came from Langston Graham for the team. When Diane's staff tried to put him off, he insisted that this was on too tight a schedule to be delayed, and it was in Los Angeles anyway. Graham told Diane that there was considerable discussion among the European intelligence communities about a string of suspicious deaths that led from the middle east, through Europe and America, to the last death which was in Los Angeles. While no-one supposedly knew what this was about, it was believed to be something that could effect national security, so he had it flagged as a matter of the utmost priority, and a good test to determine the Human Intersect's abilities.

While something didn't smell right here, Diane agreed to accept the mission, because if this thing was as important as Graham was saying, they needed to deal with it. Possibly even more important in her view though was that this was also a perfect opportunity to see how the nine could work with the core team.

The only information that Graham provided, all he had according to him, were the pictures of some of the some of the dead along the trail of whatever this was to Los Angeles. Chuck was getting frustrated because he wasn't getting anything from the pictures, until Casey inadvertently came to the rescue. Despite the best efforts of Chuck, Jeff, Anna and Alex, Casey remained old school, and he always picked up his morning paper on the way to work. He had been in Chuck's office, discussing the fact that it was obvious that Graham was withholding information on this, but as he picked up the paper and went to leave, an article about a function and art auction that night on the front page of the paper provided the trigger needed to put some of the clues together.

When he saw Chuck being hit with a flash of information from the Intersect (as Chuck was still struggling to suppress his reactions) Casey stopped, and he was quite interested when Chuck brought up La Ciudad, as some of the solo missions Diane had sent him on had related to the hunt for the elusive arms dealer. Under the terms of the charter that had been drawn up for the Human Intersect operation, they were required to keep the sponsor for a given mission in the loop, so they had a video conference with Graham, with Diane patching in from Chuck's Special Projects office to cover up where she was.

They could see that Graham wasn't pleased that Chuck had put this together, but they couldn't refuse his 'help' when they pretended to be worried about getting a gown for Sarah in time for the function. Given that he was playing games, none of them were surprised when the gown that he insisted on providing arrived and it was nothing like the understated elegant black gown that Sarah specified for a mission of this nature, it was a flaming red number that would catch every eye in the room. Chuck said that they could just toss it and get the proper gown but her temper flared up. "No! We're going to show this bastard that we will succeed no matter what he does to try and sabotage us!"

Due to Graham's meddling and the surety that he'd have people watching, they could only get three people into the function, Chuck and Sarah as guests and Casey as staff. They would have Jeff and Anna in the van providing technical support with Bry as backup and three teams of four set up in the hotel for tactical support. Ellie was running the overall operation, some of the nine couldn't work out why it wasn't Bry, as the most experienced agent, but they weren't about to argue with these people.

When Chuck and Sarah arrived at the function, they ran into trouble before they even got inside, because some clumsy oaf was waving his hands about and smeared a canapé on Chuck's shirt. Sarah waited for him there, fending off advances from idiots who thought that her standing there alone meant that she was available, while Chuck went to the men's room to try and clean the mess off his shirt.

While he was in the men's room, a man came up to wash his hands at the sink next to him and Chuck was hit with an Intersect information flash. This flash showed many of the same scenes that Chuck had seen in regard to La Ciudad, so he was certain that this guy had something to do with him, and he might actually be La Ciudad. Unfortunately, the way Chuck froze and appeared to be staring when the flash hit him caught the guy's attention and he snapped. "Do I know you?" at Chuck.

Chuck thought that he'd gotten away with his answer of. "No, sorry, I was miles away, you see I'm really into my date tonight and was trying to impress her, but this isn't a good look and I was wondering whether I should just cut my losses, because I don't see her wanting to go in there with me if I can't get this mess off my shirt. Oh well, guess I may as well just go and face the music, have a good night." before he left the men's room, but he didn't realise that the guy had followed him out and watched as he went straight to Sarah and told her. By the time he told Sarah about his suspicions and turned to point the guy out to Sarah, the guy had looked away and they'd missed seeing that he was onto them.

When Chuck told her that the guy coming out of the men's room may be La Ciudad, they reluctantly agreed that she'd have to work him to get what she could out of him, and the best way to do that would be to play on what Chuck had said to him and have her storm off, angry about how he'd ruined the night. Accordingly, Chuck went to the bar to mope while she set things up to move in on the guy.

Casey knew how hard it would be for both of them if Chuck had to watch this, so he handed Chuck a glass of sparkling water and a napkin and told him to try and get the stain out of the shirt while he watched Walker. Chuck gave him a grateful smile and a nod as he did as he was told, and Sarah did the same as she looked over and read the situation.

If Sarah hadn't been so upset about being thrown straight back into this, and the need to seduce a mark with Chuck right there (she wasn't going to be doing any more than flirt with the man to find out what he knew, but that was bad enough at the moment), she would have almost certainly picked up on the man's reaction as she approached him, and she would have seen the other two men watching her approach, but she didn't.

She knew something was wrong when she engaged the man, as the subtle charm she was pouring on should have had him falling all over himself to talk to her, but he was rather reserved, even a little suspicious. The conflict that she was trying to deal with was the reason she also didn't pick up on the other men's approach until she felt what was almost certainly a pistol barrel pressed into her side. Sarah didn't dare look Chuck and Casey's way for fear of giving them away, but she sure hoped that Casey was still watching.

Casey had actually been distracted, making cocktails for a couple of demanding socialites, but he looked back to see that Walker wasn't where she'd been before, and he just managed to catch her leaving the function room with three men, two of whom were quite close to her but the one she'd engaged was walking ahead of them. Of course, when he told Chuck that, Chuck went to jump up and race after her, but he reminded him that he had to stay here to convince the watchers that he was what he was expected to be, a clueless civilian who'd fallen into this by accident and didn't have any idea about what was going on.

That slowed Casey down, so Sarah and the ones who had taken her had disappeared by the time he got out of the function room. Luckily, they had trackers on all of them and Jeff told them that Sarah was heading upwards. The obvious destination was the roof, so two of the fire teams got up there and hid before they got there.

While they agreed to wait until Casey got there to make a move, it was very hard for Ellie, Bry, Carina and Zondra to wait and watch Sarah being held by one of the men while another one took extreme liberties as he 'searched' her for weapons, spending more time 'searching' inside her pants and bra than he did anywhere else. The one who Chuck had talked to was obviously in charge, but he made no attempt to stop the man taking liberties, if anything he encouraged it.

When Casey burst out the door, Sarah was thrown aside as the three men grabbed their pistols. They ignored him as he identified himself as a federal agent and ordered them to thrown down their weapons. The arrogant bastard in charge actually ordered him to stand down as they were British Intelligence. Casey's response to that was to slowly move his laser sight up the man's body until it lit on the centre of his forehead. "So? This is America, you don't have any authority to operate here and you've assaulted and mishandled an American federal agent. Tell your men to drop their guns before I drop you!"

The man sneered at him. "Check with your bosses! We are authorised to be here and you're interfering with an important operation. As for her, she didn't identify herself, we just thought she was working for the ones we're here to get so we brought her up here to get information about them, and if we miss them because of your interference, you'll pay!"

"I won't tell you again, tell your men to drop their weapons now!"

The arrogant fool took a step forward. "I told you that you're interfering with..."

He stopped rather suddenly when a three round burst from a suppressed assault rifle hit the surface between his feet and the laser dot rose to join another one on his chest, looking at his men he saw three laser dots on each of his men, though two of the dots on the one who'd 'searched' Sarah were on his privates.

This time, when Casey barked. "Drop your weapons, now!", they complied.

Although it was fairly tall, the figure dressed in black from head to toe that appeared out of the darkness was obviously a woman. She was no delicate little thing though, because when the first of the men wouldn't comply when she moved behind him and Casey barked. "You! Hands behind your back!", she just kicked out his knee and grabbed one hand, and then the other to bind them together savagely with zip ties, she quickly went on to bind his ankles and knocked him forward onto his face to bind his wrists to his ankles with an obviously practised efficiency, slapping duct tape over his mouth to gag him. After watching that, all Casey had to do to get compliance from the other two was to say. "Now you." when she moved behind them. The others came forward as Zondra secured the three men.

The one in charge was still trying to argue that their operation was authorised and that interfering with it would have serious repercussions while Sarah collected her pistol and knives and set them back in their holders, she also had to adjust her underwear to make it sit more comfortably after that sleaze had been fumbling around inside it. When everything was back where it should be, she walked up the the one who had 'searched' her and kicked him in the family jewels, hard!

That felt good so she did it a couple more times for good measure before moving on to the one in charge. "What are you here for and what information do you have about what's going on tonight?" He was still labouring under the mistaken impression that he had authority there. "You're not authorised to know that, and you people are going to be in serious trouble for interfering with an operation of this importance!" Sarah only gave him one kick, as he hadn't been the one touching her, even though he hadn't stopped it, and then she looked at Casey. Casey nodded, they had to get back to Chuck!

Ellie said that they'd get the Brits down to the room to deal with them after, but as Sarah and Casey went to head for the door, she stopped Sarah and handed her the long barrel Glock 20 that was her primary side arm, along with a couple of extra mags, because she had a bad feeling about this. After dumping most of what was in her clutch purse out, Sarah just managed to fit them into it.