Sorry it's taken so long for the next chapter. You know...LIFE. Almost done and Chapter 25 up soon. Thanks for reading.

Chapter 24 : Welcome to Crazytown

"Three days back in school and already I'm ready to dropout."

"Whoa, there, Vee. You're starting to sound like your boyfriend," Wallace laughed.

"Oddly, no. He is chipper about this semester. Some new business class has him all giddy. It's like we've traded bodies or something."

"I know. He's moved out of Party Central and never hangs out with Dick anymore. It's like he's a different person," Mac chimed in.

"And how exactly would you know he doesn't hang out with Dick anymore?" Veronica asked snidely?

"Because you told me so," Mac countered quickly.

"Yeah. Ok." Veronica quipped, trying hard not to laugh at her friend's icy stare.

"Speak of the devil," Wallace said.

"Hello, people. What government are we plotting to overthrow today?"

"Logan, what has gotten into you, Dude? You're all into school now?" Wallace asked.

"I know. It's so uncharacteristic of us surf boys, but the little woman here has made me a changed man," Logan smirked as he put his arm around Veronica.

"Wow!" Wallace said.

"I know, right?" Veronica said, her eyes rolling at Logan's teasing.

"And I wondered how Vee could choose you over nice, normal Piz. It's obvious you're both insane," Wallace commented, shaking his head.

"Wallace!" Mac chided, slapping his arm.

"He's right, Mac. I'm a lucky man. It's not every day your special kind of crazy finds someone who is equally insane and will follow you blindly. IT's like I have my own little personal country to dictate."

Veronica rolled her eyes again. She had taken just about all of 'giddy' Logan she could handle for a while. She opened her mouth to say as much, when he interrupted her.

"So, how is Piz these days? Probably glad he isn't back in our little 'vida loca,' huh?"

"Actually," Wallace laughed, "he's doing damn good. You beating the hell out of him was probably the best thing that could have happened to him."

Logan grinned and nodded to Veronica as if to say, "See?"

"He decided to stay in NYC to work. He's basically a gopher, but he's at a label working his way up. He's happy as a lark."

"A lot happier than here in Crazytown," Mac laughed.

"Well, it's been lovely schmoozing with my public. But I have class."

Logan kissed Veronica and headed off.

"He's seriously messed up, Vee," Wallace said.

Veronica shrugged.

"What can I say? I seem to have an effect on people…"

"Well, I'd love to sit around and analyze you two crazies, but I need to go be a productive and sane member of society."

"Well, you have fun with that Wallace." Veronica pulled her phone out of her back pocket in response to the vibration. It was Agent Fuller. "Turns out, I have to go be productive, too."

"So, are you comfortable with the plan, Veronica?" Agent Fuller asked.

"Comfortable? Um…no! But I understand the layout."

"Nobody cares if you like it, Blondie. Just if you can do it."

"Of course, Nacombe. Your sense of caring is overwhelming me right now. It's just my life at stake, so yeah, I'm golden," Veronica retorted, giving him a fake smile and two thumbs up for emphasis.

"You know, Napalm," Agent Ford whispered to Nacombe, "if you pretended to not care a little less, it wouldn't be as obvious that you do."

"Shut up, Cowboy," Nacombe hissed.

"Special Agent Fuller is flying down tomorrow," Cecille told Veronica.

"Wow, that will be confusing. When I say, 'Agent Fuller' which one of you will answer?"

Agent Ford laughed.

"I'm going to pretend that you meant that as an actual question and not a smart ass remark," she continued, "I understand the difficulty of the situation, so we will refer to Special Agent Fuller as "SAC" and you can still address me as Agent Fuller."

"Got it," Veronica acknowledged.

"We'll have the black Lincoln parked along the street as you jog in the morning. As soon as our agent makes his move, we hope the others show their hand."

"And we're certain the Sorokins are keeping their distance from here?"

"We've been watching them for a week. They are not watching your home. It seems they want to make their move in public. It seems they might be intimidated to apprehend you alone."

"Oh, they fear me," Veronica nodded her head in mock indignation. 'They're scared of what I can do."

Agent Ford laughed again.

"I ain't got no doubt about that, little blonde one. I'm a little afraid myself."

"Hey, I have to leave early in the morning. I've got some things to take care of before school starts back. I'll try not to wake you."

"Oh, it's okay, Logan. I thought I might go for a jog. I'll get up when you do."

"Okay, the alarm is set for 6:30, then. Goodnight, Sugarbritches."

"Goodnight, Logan," Veronica smiled, trying to hide her nerves. Tomorrow was a big day for Veronica. They would hopefully uncover who the mystery followers were. They were also hoping it would make for a good trial-run at the real action. They were hoping it would help solidify their plan when the Sorokins actually made their move. She knew there was no real danger for tomorrow's exercise, but she was nervous nonetheless.

It was no small feat for Veronica to run the block down the street. Her legs felt like lead. She willed them to move, even though every fiber of her being fought it. It's like her subconscious knew the plan was flawed from the beginning. She sensed it, but only too late.

She saw her captor seconds before she felt his arm wrap around her. She had prepared for this, engaging in a similar, controlled scenario several times the day before with Agents Ford and Nacombe. She knew what was coming, but the her fear overtook her all the same. Her training kicked in, however. Seconds after she felt the arm, she knew something was wrong. She sensed it. She hadn't been told who her perpetrator would be, so as to preserve the ruse. She knew it would be an agent she'd never met before. They wanted it to look as real as possible, so recognizing her perp would jeopardize that.

However, she somehow knew that the person who had just grabbed her was not the person who was supposed to. As she was thrown into the back of the car, her fears were confirmed as she felt the bodies of two dead agents at her feet. She stifled a scream. Fear threatened to overtake her and her breathing became erratic. She felt darkness almost overtake her, but somewhere deep, deep inside the recesses of her mind, a tiny bit of her training fought back. She closed her eyes and took deep, cleansing breaths. She fought the darkness and fear and managed to control her breathing. She slowly opened her eyes and confirmed the presence of the two agents dead at her feet. She surveyed the inside of the car and saw another perp, the driver and her attacker quickly closing the door he pulled her into. He said something hastily in Russian and the car sped away.

"Who are you?" she asked, now fully aware that her team would be listening. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed two black SUVs trailing behind her. She could only pray that whoever had been following her these last few weeks were on her side and they would help rescue her from these goons that she could only assume belonged to the Russian mob.

"Who we are, not important," the goon in the back with her mumbled out with a thick Russian accent.

"Fine. Who do you work for?" Veronica asked.

"Shut up," he spit out angrily.

"Do you think I don't already know? I just want to hear you say it," she demanded.

The driver mumbled something in Russian and the backseat goon lifted his elbow up to meet Veronica's jaw, sending her head flying back into the opposite window. The goon pulled something out of his pocket and placed it over Veronica's face. Just as the light faded she heard him say, "Night, night, little blonde girl."

"Mars, do you read? Mars?"

"Nacombe, what the hell?", Ford yelled.

"Something's gone wrong. I heard Russians."

"What the f*ck do you mean you heard Russians?" Agent Fuller asked, panic stricken.

"Unless the agents you sent in are Russian, we have a big problem.," Nacombe replied.

About that time the door swung open and SAC Fuller walked in.

"Ok, bring me up to speed. Do we have eyes on the tail?"

A nearly breathless Agent Fuller pulled herself together and turned to face her boss.

"Something has gone wrong, SAC."

Agent Fuller began to fill in the blanks for the SAC. As soon as Veronica left her doorstep, things began to unravel. Interference knocked out their signal for only seconds, but when it returned, everything began happening at once. Veronica was grabbed by what was supposed to be a seasoned veteran tactical agent who was to radio back "Package acquired" as soon as he had secured Veronica in the vehicle. No message was received. The next thing to come through on the radio was Veronica asking, 'Who are you?'. The three agents stared at each other.

"Anderson, confirm package receipt." Agent Fuller called out.

Silence.

"Anderson, come in. Anderson?"

"Shit!" Agent Ford tore out of the door, racing to find the SAC.

It was then Nacombe tried to reach Veronica. By the time they realized the operation had gone south, Veronica was already passed out.

SAC Fuller pulled out his phone.

"Get me someone in CIA, NSA, and Homeland. I need to know who's been shadowing us and I've got to get ears on their agents now. It's life or death."

He hung up and turned to face the three agents, who were white. As seasoned agents, they'd experience their share of mishaps in the field. They'd even each seen agents lost to mistake or circumstance. But this time was different. This time they had placed a young girl in the line of fire, and they were each afraid it would cost her life.

"How in the hell did you three let this go wrong? What happened, Fuller?

"We had contact with Agents Anderson and Tyson just seconds before the apprehension, sir. They confirmed sight of her on her front doorstep. It's impossible that anyone got to them without Veronica seeing. She would have aborted the mission had she suspected anything was wrong. She's smart," Agent Fuller offered.

"Then were they on the take? How were they selected for this mission?" SAC Fuller inquired.

"They were selected from a very short list of tactical agents, sir. They've both been in the field a very long time. I find it impossible that they were rouge agents, sir," Nacombe answered.

"I find it impossible to believe that you had radio contact with two seasoned tactical agents just seconds before you lost your mission, Agent. So stop telling me how impossible this whole scenario is and figure out how in the f*ck you're going to fix it," he yelled.

His phone rang and he turned to answer it.

"This is Fuller…Hightower I need to know if you have a team in the field in Neptune, California trailing a young college student who is involved in an issue with the Russian mob…don't give me any of that classified bullshit. I don't care what your operation is or why the hell you're involved, but if there's a team following her I need to know. She was until exactly 4 minutes ago, involved in an operation with the FBI which appears to have been compromised. If you have a team on her I need contact with them now before we lose her completely. Do I make myself clear?...Fine."

Agent Nacombe took a breath and waited a few precious seconds before gathering enough courage to ask the question. Lucky for him, Cecille asked first.

"Any luck?"

"That was Hightower at Central Intelligence. He is going to check and get back to me. If there is a team in the field, he is unaware."

"Well, that's bad…" Ford smirked.

"It's pretty typical. They should rename that ridiculous organization. The 'I' should stand for idiots," SAC Fuller retorted.

"Don't they say the same about us?" Ford asked.

"Well, I'd say the way you 3 f'ed up this mission, they'd be about right, don't you?" he snapped.

Ford hung his head, knowing the SAC was right. He really liked Veronica and he was pissed at himself for screwing this up so badly.

Twenty minutes passed and there was nothing. A team had been dispatched to try to track the black Lincoln, but to no avail. A top-level computer expert was sitting in Langley trying to trace Veronica's signal. It appeared that a jamming device had caused the interference the agents had first heard right before Veronica was apprehended. It didn't appear to be top-of-the-line because it had gone out long enough for Nacombe to hear the Russians. The expert was trying to ping Veronica's signal in-between. He got close, but couldn't lock it down. He did give them enough information to guide them in a direction. Agent Fuller led the team trying to pick up the trail while Ford and Nacombe stayed behind in the command center to feed her information.

"Well, that was the last of 'em," SAC Fuller said, frustrated. "No one has a team in the field tracking Mars. If this is some agency team, they are completely black - off the books."

"Does that even make sense?" Nacombe asked. "What kind of black op would be following a teenage girl around?"

"It doesn't make sense, Nacombe. Are you sure the boyfriend's security is not involved?"

"Yes. We verified they did not leave Virginia."

"But…" Ford interrupted, "the kid is rich and he'd do anything to keep Veronica safe."

"Yeah," Nacombe agreed. "And he's stupid enough to get in the way and screw this all to hell."

"Get him in here now," Fuller ordered.