Hi again. Adding another chapter to the story. Hope everybody is enjoying it so far, and thank you to everybody who has reviewed it. If you have been reading it but haven't had a chance to review, please feel free to do so. I promise: I don't bite. :-D

I debated a bit on where to end the chapter. There are a couple of sections that I originally intended to add, but that would have pushed the total up very high, and I made the choice to hold that off until the next chapter. That way, I can "reset" my mind to write the next chapter instead of desperately trying to shove everything I can into one chapter. Besides, you can live with a 6,000-word chapter, right? :-D

Please enjoy and review. And to Wepdiggy, who I think was the one who said it about a good Chuck story, this will be a GREAT chapter by your definition. :-D

Prague, Czech Republic
April 29, 2011
2:30 PM

Chuck, Sarah, and Jimmy stared at the four men pointing guns at them as Casey and Ilsa lay on the ground. Jimmy glanced to his right and made eye contact with Chuck and Sarah. The leader of the group was smiling as they cocked their guns.

A grunt came from the area where Casey and Ilsa were lying down. The man closest to them turned their way.

"I just saw one of them move! Those bullets were fake!" The other three snapped their heads in that direction. Chuck and Sarah stepped back, and Jimmy took two steps forward.

"These aren't."

Jimmy quick-drew two guns from behind his back and whipped his arms around, firing four shots in rapid succession. Each man took a bullet in the middle of the chest and dropped.

Chuck and Sarah looked at him in complete shock as Jimmy's arms were still crossed over each other from firing at the four men. He turned to them looking a bit humbled.

"Uh, was that bad-ass enough? I know I was sort of in Casey's role there. Was that kind of like something he'd do?"

Sarah shook her head in disbelief. She started walking away from Jimmy with her hands up in surrender. "Nobody. Nobody can be that clueless," she muttered to herself. Jimmy stared at her, wondering what he said wrong.

Chuck walked over to Casey and Ilsa to help them up. "That was a well-timed grunt, Casey. I'm giving that grunt single-digit designation. It was definitely a Top Ten grunt."

Casey and Ilsa pulled the exploded gel packs from under their shirts. "Whose idea was this?"

"It was Chuck's idea," Sarah replied as she put her arm around him. "He found a company online that sells supplies to movie studios that film in the Czech Republic. It turns out there are a lot of them here."

"But how did you set off the bags?" Ilsa asked.

Chuck held up a small remote and smiled. "That's why I had to stay nearby even after I slipped you the packs. This remote only has a range of a few feet."

"I figured you had a plan like that up your sleeve," Jimmy replied. "I was just trying to delay these clowns to allow you to pull it out."

Ilsa looked at Chuck, Sarah, Casey, and Jimmy. "A lot has changed with you people. You picked up another partner, and the lanky one looks like he went through some training."

Casey nodded. "Sorry, I forgot how long it's been. But you're right on both counts. Chuck is now a full agent, and the man over there is Jimmy Slade."

"We'll have plenty of time to talk, but right now we have to get out of here," Sarah replied to refocus the group.

"I have a safehouse outside of Prague. It's about thirty minutes away," Ilsa told them.

"Let's go," Casey ordered. The five started walking back to the street. Suddenly, gunfire erupted. Everybody dove for cover. Jimmy tossed Casey one of his guns, and Sarah placed live ammunition in hers.

"OK, don't see us making it in thirty minutes," Jimmy said as he crawled toward the opening to peek out. "There must be a bounty on your head, Ilsa. That's a very large group of scumbags with guns out there."

"Can we take them?" Casey asked.

Jimmy turned to him with a look of fear. "Uh, that depends. Anybody have a Gatling gun with them?"

Chuck crawled forward by Jimmy to peer out. "We have weapons in the trunk of our car."

"So do we," Casey replied. "But how do we get to the car?"

Chuck studied the street. He then closed his eyes to control his breathing. Suddenly, he flashed, and he opened his eyes with a determined look on his face.

"Jimmy, when I say go, run out guns blazing and head straight for the cars. Sarah, Casey, lay down some cover fire."

"What?" All three replied.

"GO!" Chuck bolted up and pulled Jimmy with him. Sarah and Casey rolled to the opening and opened fire on the group. Chuck and Jimmy sprinted towards the car, with Chuck following one step behind Jimmy as he fired away at the men outside. They dove behind the car Chuck and Sarah were driving. Jimmy fired over the car towards the mercenaries as Chuck opened the back door. He pulled the back seat down and reached into the trunk for an automatic weapon. He handed it to Jimmy.

"YOU STUPID, IDIOTIC, CRAZY SON OF A BITCH!" Jimmy was going ballistic at Chuck while he fired at the group. "What the hell were you thinking, you stupid moron?"

Chuck pointed to their left. "Look at the trees we went through. With the sun in their eyes and Casey's car also covering us, they would have had almost no shot."

"You could have just told me that, dumbass! You didn't have to run with me!"

"Who's going to drive?"

"I AM! You do the thinking, brainy stuff. I do the crazy shit!"

Jimmy's clip ran out, and Chuck handed him another magazine. Jimmy reloaded and then reached into the trunk to grab a second automatic weapon.

"Get in," Jimmy commanded as he got to the driver's seat. Chuck closed the door in the back. Jimmy started the car and floored it towards Sarah, Casey, and Ilsa. He spun the car and sprayed the crowd with his gun as Sarah and Ilsa dove into the car. Casey went to the trunk of his car and picked up some extra clips.

"Casey, what are you doing?" Sarah shouted.

Casey slung an M-16 rifle over his shoulder. "This is my favorite." He quickly got into the car. "Floor it, Slade."

Jimmy hit the accelerator and flew down the road. Everybody ducked down as the windows were shot out. Casey peered out the back of the car and aimed his assault rifle out the back window.

"Never thought I'd do this." He took the safety off and stuck his head out.

"Say hello to my little friend."

He fired the grenade launcher mounted on the rifle. The grenade hit one of the cars the men drove and exploded. Several of the thugs were hit by the explosion, and the rest were knocked to the ground and pelted with shrapnel. Chuck eyed Casey with considerable disdain.

"Really, Casey? You had to do a Tony Montana?"

"Not a good idea to bark at me when you're the one in the doghouse, Bartowski," Casey replied with a bit of a smirk. Chuck turned around and caught the irate glare Sarah was giving him.

Prague, Czech Republic
April 29, 2011
9:30 PM

Chuck, Sarah, Casey, Jimmy, and Ilsa were settling down for the night in the safehouse Ilsa arranged. Casey kept watch during the afternoon and early evening while Chuck, Sarah, and Ilsa went over the information she obtained in Moscow. Jimmy snuck into town and obtained a new car from one of Ilsa's contacts in Prague and got some supplies for the cabin.

As far as safehouses went, it was actually quite luxurious. They had satellite television and enough space where they could hold a dozen more people quite comfortably. One of Ilsa's friends wired it with a high-speed encrypted Internet connection so they could do any research they needed.

Chuck emerged from the bathroom in the bedroom Sarah and he would share. She changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants but bore the same look on her face she had since they escaped. If she was even half as mad as Jimmy was earlier, Chuck knew he was in a lot of trouble for what he did today.

Chuck carefully slid into his side of the bed. Sarah gave him an angry glare but then turned her head to face forward again. Chuck looked down, afraid to make eye contact with her.

"Go ahead and yell at me. I deserve it," Chuck said quietly.

Sarah sat there in silence, her anger boiling under the surface. Chuck glanced over at her.

"Sarah, please. Anything but the silent treatment. There isn't a guy in the world who likes it when women do that."

Sarah turned to face him. "Oh, really? You want me to yell so you can apologize and it gets swept under the rug? It isn't that simple, Chuck."

"That's not what I…"

"No, it is what you want. You want to be absolved of this. I can't do that. I'm supposed to be protecting you. They can't be allowed to get to you."

"Who? Those guys today were looking to kill all of us. It didn't matter whether or not I had the Intersect. If you were killed, they would have just killed me anyway."

"So you decided you could do some crazy stunt simply because they didn't know who you were?"

"No. I just…I flashed. It was all instinct."

"I don't give a damn if you flashed! You should have stopped yourself! Don't you get how important you are?"

"I'm no more important than anybody else now. My Intersect is coming out. If anybody is more important, it's Jimmy. He's about to be the Intersect, and I don't see you yelling at him when he pulls crazy stunts."

"He isn't more important than you! He's…"

"…not the one you're going to marry."

Sarah froze for a second. "No, that's not it, Chuck."

"Yes, it is. You're not mad at me because I'm the Intersect. You're mad at me because your fiancé risked his life."

"I'm mad at you because you're too valuable to be risking your life like that!"

"Then how come you had no problem with Casey going to Europe? Shouldn't you be upset at him for leaving me?"

"We are not doing this. You are not going to twist my words around!"

"I'm not. But if it's only about risking the Intersect, aren't there other people to be mad at besides me?"

Sarah's last bit of self-control was gone. "This is not about them! This is about you! You're too important to me! I can't afford to lose you!"

"Too important to you?"

"I…you are…" Sarah stared in barely-contained rage, almost ready to attack Chuck. She got out of the bed and walked out of the room, almost ripping the door off in the process as it slammed hard enough to shake the entire cabin. Her anger was ready to explode as she stamped her feet down the stairs. She pulled out a knife without thinking and threw it at the wall with a primal scream.

And missed Jimmy by six inches. He stared in shock at the knife in the wall that flew by his head. He turned back to Sarah.

"If I forgot anything, you just had to tell me and I would have gone back into town to get it."

It took Sarah a moment to realize what she did. The anger abated quickly. "I'm sorry. That was…I have no excuse. I'm mad at Chuck. Are you OK?"

"I'm fine. Don't worry about it," Jimmy replied as he pulled the knife out of the wall and handed it back to Sarah. "I figured you'd be ten times as mad at him as I was earlier."

She slumped down at the kitchen table. "God, what is wrong with him? Doesn't he get he still has to be protected? He's more valuable than any of us."

"Especially to you," Jimmy replied.

Sarah stared at Jimmy in shock. "No, what? That's not what I mean."

"Sarah, come on. Do you really think any of us would believe you're just doing your job when you have to protect Chuck? There's nothing wrong with worrying more about him than the rest of us. You're in love with him, and you two are going to get married. He should be more important to you than Casey or me. That's how it works."

"But I have to think like an agent, not a fiancé. I put him in danger by bringing him to help Casey. I should have just let you take care of this." Sarah was silent as what Chuck said earlier went through her mind. "Then again, if I think like an agent, then Chuck is right that you're just as valuable. You shouldn't be doing any sort of crazy stunts, either."

Jimmy was amused, to put it mildly. "So, I should go back to acting like an asset? Yeah, and how did that work out the first time we tried it?"

Sarah shook her head and laughed. "Not well at all. Although in my defense, I normally don't make a habit of hitting the people I'm supposed to protect."

"That was my fault more than anything. You had every right to…"

"Uh-uh. Don't even THINK of saying that. You pull Chuck and me away from a dozen Ring agents and I belt you for it? How in the hell could that possibly be your fault?

"OK, fine. Maybe it was 5% your fault."

Sarah made a face at him. "I hope Alex can knock some sense into you. I'm glad I warned her not to tolerate your negative self-attitude."

"Oh, so you're to blame for that," Jimmy replied with a look that was half annoyance, half jocular.

"Yes, I am. I just wish I had gotten on you about that from the beginning. You have, literally, no reason to do it anymore. All the work you did to get in shape has paid huge dividends, you're already one of the best agents in the CIA, and you're in love with a very beautiful and intelligent woman."

Jimmy suddenly froze. Sarah correctly guessed why.

"Yes, Chuck and I talked about you admitting being in love with Alex."

Jimmy shook his head and looked down at the ground. "OK, I get the whole 'couples not wanting to keep secrets from each other' thing, but can't a line be drawn somewhere?"

"I would have figured it out anyway, Jimmy," Sarah replied. "Don't you get it? This is what we've been waiting to hear since we…"

Sarah was interrupted by a beeping sound coming from the surveillance desk. Jimmy took a look at the computer monitor.

"Someone tripped the perimeter alarm," he said as he reached for his gun. Sarah looked at the monitors.

"There. Two coming in from the east, wearing night vision gear," Sarah said as she reached for her own gun and attached a silencer. She looked at Jimmy. "We don't want to give our location away to anyone else."

"Right," Jimmy concurred and attached a silencer to his gun as well. "Wait."

He quickly ran through the storage closets next to the pantry in the kitchen. On the bottom shelf in one closet was the item he was looking for. Chuck, Casey, and Ilsa came down the stairs after hearing the beeping sound and saw Sarah and Jimmy with weapons in their hands. Sarah pointed to the monitors. Casey went over and checked the assailants' movements.

"They're splitting up. They're going to try to come in two entrances."

Jimmy slipped out a window on the northwest side of the house, and Sarah carefully opened the back door of the cabin and exited on the north side of it. Jimmy carefully stepped along the porch towards the south with his gun pointed. He heard footsteps ahead of him. One of the assailants turned the corner and aimed his gun.

Jimmy turned on the floodlight he found in the cabinet. The man in front of him staggered from the instant light hitting his night vision goggles. Jimmy dropped down to avoid his errant shot and fired twice, hitting the man in the head.

Sarah walked around the east side of the cabin. Unfortunately, she didn't have a flood light like Jimmy did. She slid along the outer wall of the cabin. The second man peeked his head around the corner and took aim at her.

The exterior lights of the cabin suddenly turned on, and the assailant was blinded. Sarah took him out with a single shot through the chest.

She looked into the window of the cabin. Chuck stood there as he went from fearful to relieved, and Ilsa's hand was still on the switch to activate the exterior lights. Jimmy came around the corner, pulling the man he shot, and placed him next to his partner. Casey checked the monitors and then went outside to join Sarah and Jimmy.

"They were alone. Nobody else is in range."

"That's good," Sarah replied. Jimmy began to check the man Sarah shot as Chuck and Ilsa joined them.

"Oh, this is not good," Jimmy said as he removed the night vision gear the men were wearing. He handed them to Ilsa. She examined the gear and had the same expression on her face as Jimmy.

"Merde," Ilsa cursed. "The serial numbers match gear made by the Thales Group. They supply tactical gear to the French military."

Chuck could feel a chill go through his entire body. "Then that means…"

"We have to assume Ilsa's been declared an enemy of the state," Casey replied with a somber look.

Everyone walked back inside the cabin. Casey and Jimmy bolted the doors and checked the security system

"But she didn't do anything wrong," Chuck protested.

A thought came to Sarah. "The men who tried to kill us earlier today mentioned the name Toupin. Who is that, Ilsa?"

The mention of the name put an instant distaste in Ilsa's mouth. "Laurent Toupin. He's the Associate Director of Division Action in the DGSE. This has to be his work. He was the only one in the DGSE who knew I had found something. What I showed him must have been enough to order my execution. He has the authority to do it."

"But is he doing the actual dirty work, or is he doing it for someone higher up?" Jimmy asked. A heavy silence fell across the cabin.

"There's no way to know," Ilsa replied. "The only thing we know right now is that we have NATO, British, French, and American military papers being passed to North Korea in Moscow, and Toupin knows I can expose it."

There isn't anything else we can do right now," Casey said, bringing the discussion to an end. "We won't find another place safer than this tonight. We'll just have to be vigilant. Who wants to keep first watch?"

Jimmy looked at the two couples and snickered. "OK, everybody without their significant other present, raise your hand." He raised his. "Hey, I think I just volunteered."

Sarah shot him an evil look. "We are not deciding it…"

Casey cut her off. "Knock on my bedroom door in four hours, Slade."

Jimmy smirked. "I'll knock on whichever bedroom is making less noise."

Casey and Ilsa walked upstairs to their bedroom. Chuck grabbed Sarah's hand and pulled her away before she could start yelling at Jimmy. He checked the monitors before walking into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.

Chuck sat down on the bed, considerably subdued by the evening's events. His voice was quiet.

"I'm so sorry for what I said earlier, Sarah. I had to watch you go outside to confront that man and he had the gun pointed at you. I was scared out of my mind, and I…get mad at you for doing the same thing earlier. I…that was so stupid of me, what I said to you. I thought I could get to the car with Jimmy. You were right; I shouldn't think of myself as only an agent."

Sarah sat down next to him and wrapped her arms around him. He did the same, and they held each other tightly.

"You were right Chuck," Sarah said gently in his ear as she closed her eyes. "It is about you and not about protecting an asset. Those two intruders came, and I let Jimmy go outside without even a second thought. I always worried about you, and now that we're so close to being married, it gets harder and harder to put those feelings aside and do my job."

"I feel the same way," Chuck replied as he ran his fingers through her hair. "I worry every time because I love you so much. I wasn't expecting this to happen and…"

Sarah gently took his face in her hands and kissed him. She pressed herself against him as their kissing increased in strength and passion, gently grabbing his hair in her hands. They fell back on the bed.

Casey emerged from the bedroom in his standard navy blue pajamas and helped Ilsa slide the pillows from the bed into pillowcases that were folded up and prepared for them.

"Will your friend be OK keeping watch downstairs?" Ilsa asked.

"Slade? He'll be fine," Casey said. "He's a good agent. Only been a full-time operative for seven months, but I'd stack him up against most of the people who work in the CIA."

Ilsa sat pensively on the bed as Casey put away his toiletry case. "I wish we could have reunited under better circumstances, John. I certainly didn't want this to end up your responsibility."

"Don't worry about it," Casey replied as he slid her arm around her and started kissing her neck. "I needed to get out and get the feel of a true mission. I haven't had one of those for some time. Bartowski has turned into a very good agent. He and Walker do great work together. I'm almost not needed these days."

Ilsa took Casey's hands and wrapped them around her. She ran her fingers through the back of Casey's hair as he continued kissing along her neck. "Mmmm, that's good. Because I certainly needed you today. The four of you did great work."

"I aim to please."

Ilsa smiled and turned her head to kiss Casey, her eager lips anxious to feel his. "Speaking of aiming to please," she purred as she placed his hands on the sash of her robe. He immediately took the hint and untied her robe, gently sliding it off her shoulders. He planted kisses down the front of her and looked in appreciation at her attire.

"Mmmm, you remembered what I said about you in hunter green," Casey said as he slid the loose spaghetti straps of Ilsa's lingerie down.

"A woman never forgets a man telling her how hot she looked in something," Ilsa said with an appreciative smile. She started unbuttoning Casey's pajamas and continued to kiss him all over. "But we are going to have to work on your choice of nightwear. I would have preferred a t-shirt and shorts to this. These belong on a much older man."

Casey helped Ilsa relieve him of his pajamas. "I'm not as young as I used to be, Ilsa."

Ilsa arched her eyebrows and ran her hands all over Casey's body. She smiled. "You feel pretty young to me. I hope you don't need to take those pills I've heard about."

"Never have, never will."

"Mmmm, now you feel even younger."

Casey quietly growled as Ilsa kissed him hard and pushed him down on the bed.

Prague, Czech Republic
April 30, 2011
7:00 AM

Casey and Ilsa descended the stairs to the sound of the coffee pot percolating and the scrape of plates against the counter. They turned into the kitchen to see Jimmy putting out some napkins and pulling items out of the refrigerator. The coffee pot was half-full.

"Good morning," Jimmy said as Chuck and Sarah came down the stairs as well. "How did everybody sleep last night? DID anybody sleep last night?" He paused as his face contorted in disgust. "And did I just quote Jeff Goldblum from The Big Chill? Christ. How did I ever get a date?"

"You were supposed to come up at 2 AM and have me relieve you, moron," Casey growled.

"I told you I wouldn't knock if you were…busy," Jimmy replied with a tinge of frustration. "But everybody was. Hell, I'm surprised you didn't hear each other up there."

Sarah was still harboring some leftover annoyance from the prior night. "We would have come down and taken over…"

"Actually Sarah, I have to back Jimmy on that," Chuck interrupted. "You never want to be that guy."

"Give me a break, Chuck. He's a grown man, and we're all professional enough to…"

"Morgan? Barstow?"

Sarah immediately calmed down. "I withdraw my protest."

Jimmy yawned and stretched. "I'll go splash some water on my face and be back in a few. I figured we're going to stay mobile today, so I didn't break out the makings for the full Grand Slam breakfast. I assumed pastries would suffice."

"It's fine," Chuck replied. "Get going."

Jimmy ran upstairs while Ilsa passed out coffee cups and Casey put the pastries on a plate for everybody.

"How did you come across these documents, Ilsa?" Sarah asked.

Ilsa took a sip of her coffee. "It started back in March. I was assigned to a café in Paris where the head of the DGSE, Dr. Gauthier, was suspicious that official documents were being sold to an unknown group. On pure luck one day, I got photographic evidence of some of the documents. I was able to determine they came from our embassy in Moscow. I showed them to Toupin, hoping to get more resources to help me. The next thing I know, three men are sent to kill me.

"I knew I had to get the hard evidence, so I slipped into Moscow. Unfortunately, it was only a courier from the French consulate who was delivering the documents to contacts with North Korea. The courier got away. He must have been in contact with Toupin to have charges of treason leveled against me."

Chuck leaned back against the counter with his coffee. He had been a full-time spy for almost two years, and he thought he had seen his fair share of danger. But to have every government agency wanting to kill you simply because you knew someone was committing treason was almost incomprehensible. He did not envy Ilsa for one second. But at least she knew to call the right person to help her. Casey certainly saved him more than a few times.

"What can we do to help?" he asked.

"There's only one way out: get these documents to Gauthier," Ilsa replied. "Provided he wasn't the one selling the documents to the North Koreans. We have nobody we can really trust."

"We have to do more than that," Casey said. "We have to know who is selling the information to the North Koreans. Without a name to go with the crime, it could easily be swept under the rug and Ilsa would spend the rest of her life with a target on her back."

"There probably aren't any email communiqués to find. I can't believe they would be stupid enough to leave a trail like that," Chuck said. He stood there for a moment. Suddenly his face lit up. "Let me see one of the documents."

Sarah reached behind her to the desk and grabbed the folder. Chuck opened the folder and carefully studied the documents.

"Maybe…"

"What, Bartowski?" Casey asked with a little impatience.

"These were printed on a color laser printer. If they were printed in the consulate, it's safe to say they were printed on a high-end networked printer. The quality is well past most standalone color laser printers. I would guess an HP 9500. Those printers run five figures easily."

"Meaning?"

"The printer has its own memory cache, where it records a copy of the document and the computer it came from. We might be able to figure out who was printing these and trace them back to their bosses."

"Would that information stay on the printer, Chuck?" Ilsa asked. "I think we can assume they would suspend the operation as long as they think I'm going after them."

"Going back to Moscow would be preferable to sitting here and fending off attackers," Sarah replied.

"Perhaps. But how do we get to Moscow with every agency in the world looking for me?"

Chuck, Sarah, and Casey looked at each other. A smile came across Chuck's and Sarah's faces, and Casey gave a conspiratorial grunt.

Buy More
May 2, 2011
11:00 AM PDT

Devon walked quickly into the Buy More, looking for Chuck. He hadn't heard from either Chuck or Sarah in a week, and he was starting to run out of things to say to Ellie. They weren't returning her phone calls, either.

Morgan looks up from his desk in the back of the store to see Devon there.

"Whoah, I was not expecting to see something so Awesome on a Monday," Morgan said with a bit of a smirk.

"You've used that one already, Morgan," Devon replied. "Do you know where Chuck and Sarah are? Ellie is going crazy. She's panicking more about their wedding than she did about ours. I don't know what to tell her. You can only go to the 'I don't know' well so many times."

"Dude, I wish I knew. They took off last Sunday, said they were looking for Casey, and that's all I heard. They didn't tell me anything. What is wrong? They think I can't keep a secret?"

"Don't know, Morgan. But I gotta tell Ellie something."

"What's the big deal? Tell her they were having a practice honeymoon or something. You know, scoping out locations to go after the wedding?"

"I'll tell her, but I don't think that'll be enough."

"Wait. I got an idea. I happen to know that Chuck and Sarah haven't auditioned…" Morgan quickly looks outside the store to make sure Jeff and Lester aren't eavesdropping. "Haven't auditioned a band to play at the wedding. Tell her that they called me to do it, but I was too busy with my Assistant Manager duties. Ask her if she'll do it."

Devon was skeptical. "You think that will work?"

"Dude, Ellie is going stir crazy. The whole pregnancy thing? She probably needs a break from worrying about your future son and/or daughter. She's just looking for a project. A way to be involved in the blissful nuptials."

Devon mulled it over. "You might be right. How did you come up with that?"

Morgan smiled and leaned back in his chair. "My friend, you do not know how much your mind expands and you become one with the world, sensitive to the needs of others once you've express your undying love for another human being."

Devon looked even more skeptical. Morgan shrugged in guilt. "Anna told me."

"Let me know if you hear from them," Devon replied as he got up, stepped carefully over the vacuum cleaner, and departed Morgan's office.

Prague, Czech Republic
May 3, 2011
2:00 PM

Ilsa drove her car through the center of town. She was desperate to find out who was selling secrets to the North Koreans to bring them in and clear her name. She considered herself fortunate that not only did Casey come to help her, he brought his entire team. They were a tremendous help to her when she helped bring down Victor Federov three years ago, although she had to admit the younger nerdy agent was a bit on the peculiar side. However, he clearly gained in competency since the last time she saw him, and his idea to hack the memories of the printers in the consulate was something she never would have contemplated. And the new person, Jimmy, certainly had the guts of an agent, even if he had only been on the job for a few months. If John said he was good, that was the only recommendation she needed.

She turned onto the Cechuv Bridge. She looked to her right and saw two masked men, who opened fire on her car with automatic weapons. Dozens of bullets hit the engine block and the door. She started swerving to avoid them. The front tires were shot out, and the car began to skid out of control. The car went head-first through the barrier and fell into the Vltava River.

JFK Airport, New York
May 3, 2011
2:00 PM EDT

Mr. Diaz still sported several bandages and two bullet holes from Jimmy Slade's gun. He also carried a considerable amount of anger. The information he gained thus far had been for nothing. He thought he had Slade dead to rights, but clearly he underestimated what Slade was willing to do to rescue Alex Forrest. Mr. Diaz committed the one mistake he chided The Ring for making in the past: not respecting the individual. Even though he knew little about Slade, he knew enough that Slade helped take down The Ring's installation in Los Angeles a year and a half ago. Such a person was not to be trifled with, and yet that's exactly what he did.

He boarded his plane for Los Angeles. He would wait for an update from Dana Browning. And he would not make the same mistake again.