This chapter is NOT nice, if anyone is squeamish at all, please don't read it.

Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters.

After Mary had made the calls she stepped back into the room, Chuck looked at her over Sarah's head and she gave him a thumbs up to let him know that they were all OK. Chuck smiled and nodded then reached out an arm towards her, Mary wasn't normally a hugger but after the wringer they'd all been put through in the last couple of hours, she was ready to change, and as soon as she was in reach she had one of her son's arms and one of her daughter in law's arms around her. They stood like that for about five minutes until one of the strike team came to the door to tell them that they were wanted downstairs.

In the Intersect lab, Shaw, Bentley, Laszlo and Manoosh were still alive, Ricky and Vicky had been killed in the fighting with the rest but these four sat down and surrendered. Casey had stopped Carina from finishing them off until they heard what Chuck wanted them to do. Chuck and Sarah looked each other in the eye, neither spoke a word but after about 30 seconds Chuck nodded slightly and let go of her hand as he turned to the prisoners. He walked up to Shaw, who sneered much in the same manner that Graham had, quite sure that Chuck would order them taken into custody. Yes, Chuck had shot him once, but that was in the heat of the moment and this time he was unarmed and in shackles, no threat to anyone. Chuck didn't say a word and his eyes and face were totally devoid of emotion, he just looked at Shaw for about 30 seconds and them drew a pistol from his holster. Shaw started babbling and pleading then, telling him that this wasn't him, he couldn't do this,. The words were very familiar to Chuck, and then he realised where they both remembered them from, it was what he'd said to Shaw when he was trying to save Sarah on the bridge in Paris. Chuck had cocked his head to the side with a frown as he was trying to remember, but his expression cleared as he brought his head up again, and he finally spoke, saying "Those lines didn't work for me in Paris, either", as he squeezed the trigger three times, ensuring that the majority of Shaw's brain was sprayed over the wall behind him, and that there was no chance of revival. When he walked up to Laszlo, the mad genius didn't say a word, just smiled at him as if he was grateful that it would all be over, and with a few more squeezes of the trigger it was. Manoosh wasn't interested in going out with dignity, he begged, grovelled, pleaded and soiled himself, but a few seconds later he was gone as well. He then walked up to Bentley and stood, looking at her, she didn't try to beg, she just looked defiantly back at Chuck. After the staring contest had gone on for about a minute, he just holstered his pistol and turned to walk away, she wasn't a genius who could build WMDs out of household supplies, she didn't have a head full of secrets that could change the world, she wasn't an immediate threat to them, or anyone else really. Casey argued that they couldn't leave her to join the next fight against them, but Chuck shook his head, repeating that she wasn't a threat, in the end Casey said that he accepted that that was Chuck's position, then said "this is mine" as he pulled his pistol and walked up to Bentley to put a bullet between her eyes.

The strike team members were looking at them in horror, wondering what kind of psychos they were dealing with, and that was reinforced when Sarah turned to the strike team leader and told him that they had to put at least one bullet in the head of every body in the building. He argued that there was no need, it was just defiling the dead, so finally she just grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him across to Shaw's body, bending down to rip his shirt open and point at the tight grouping of bullet hole scars over the heart, she got up in the guy's face, telling that Shaw had been dead, her husband killed him, but he was brought back, the only way to ensure that that DIDN'T happen was to blow their brains out, so that was what he and his men were going to do to every body, starting with Ricky and Vicky (pointing at their bodies), and the two very large bodies on the third floor, to make sure that no dangerous enemy personnel could be recovered, did he understand? He looked at her, looked down at Shaw's chest, then back at her and nodded.

While the soldiers were dealing with the bodies, Chuck and the others went to secure the disks from the computer systems in the building, as they still had to ensure that they cleaned up the remnants of BGRU, and their own data was the best way to track them down. As Chuck went to leave the room, Casey stopped with a surprisingly gentle hand on his shoulder, when Chuck looked up he held a flask out to him, Chuck gave him a nod of thanks as he took it, unscrewing the top and taking a swig as he walked out the door, he stopped and hacked at the first swig, as it was at least 150 proof, probably way more, but he took his second swig straight away and kept swigging from the flask as he went down the hall. Casey looked after him with pain in his eyes, as he'd said to Ellie years ago, Chuck would do what he had to, but it came close to destroying him when he did.

On the flight home, no-one spoke, Sarah lay in Chuck's arms and Mary sat beside him, holding his hand, everyone else sat by themselves, each doing what they had to to process what they'd been through, and what they'd done. When they got home, they were glad to see that Stefan had followed orders, and the safe room did not get opened until he confirmed that it was really them at the door and there was no-one else in Castle Carmichael. The kids were confused and a little frightened when they were immediately grabbed and hugged by their parents, holding them as if they'd never let go, they could tell something was very wrong, but they didn't know what.

When they'd had a few hours to settle down, Chuck and Stefan got started on cracking the disks that they brought back, while Sarah and Carina went to DC to have a talk with Bella. They had to get the full story of the role that she'd been inserted for, and everyone who had been involved in setting up her identity for that role, another thing that was critically important to them was to extract what the plans for the kids had been, they had managed to find out that Bella was to take Charlie and Clara as well as Sarah's four children, and the idea of what they may be planning for them, especially Clara, was horrifying to Sarah and Carina.

Chuck and Stefan were making good headway on the disks, the encryption was pretty much the same as they'd already cracked on the files they'd extracted via the portal, so they were managing to do more in a day as they had in a week before. As soon as they'd extracted the data from the files they passed it on to the others for analysis, and it was going as a steady stream. Even early in the piece, they were seeing a LOT of intel that they hadn't found via the portal, so the exercise was going to be a valuable one.

When Sarah and Carina started the session with "Bella", they stuck to the plan, extract every piece of intel on who was involved in setting things up to make her a perfect candidate to get into Carmichael Industries (and not set off any alarm bells with the General or her people when they were going through the vetting process) BEFORE they started on the segment that they would be concentrating on the most. The list of people involved in the set-up was long and worrying, because there were quite a few very senior and highly trusted names on that list (so much so that Carina often left the room to call them through to the General immediately). The fact that her "partner" was also an agent was no surprise, he'd already been picked up and was scheduled for questioning after "Bella", but the fact that her "children" had been acquired purely because they looked close enough to her to be believable WAS, one of the calls when Carina was out of the room was to get DNA tests started, and to have searches for murdered parents with a missing toddler and baby commenced (as that was the most likely scenario).

When all the intel on the creation of "Bella" was extracted and passed on, they started on the section that they were dreading. The extent that she had been read into the plans indicated that she was a very high level operative (something else Carina stepped out to pass on), as she knew about the breeding program that resulted in Sarah's children, and how promising their test results were. She also knew of Graham's specific plans for her daughters, because he'd talked to her about how much it had frustrated him not to have her like that, and how aggravated he'd been that she and Chuck had interfered with his plans, his master plan, so often (at that point Carina had to pull Sarah out of the room for a few minutes before she killed "Bella", for a start they needed more out of her in this session, and given what they'd learned so far, they both knew that they wouldn't be allowed to kill her, Graham had made sure that one of his top people was inserted into CI to keep an eye on them, that made her too valuable for the powers that be to let them eliminate her, something reinforced by the fact that there was now a strike team waiting just outside the door).

When Sarah had calmed down enough, they went back in, the sight of "Bella" sitting there smirking was almost enough to set her off again, but she held it down. Aside from Graham's personal plan for her daughters, the plans for her children were basically as expected, train them to be super spies, but with the addition of the Intersect as they were uniquely capable of dealing with it (even more than Chuck), condition them for total obedience to Graham, and use them to keep world politics in order for him. With them out of the way, it was time to find out what the plans for Charlie and Clara were, once again, Charlie was largely as expected, most of his test results were far and away above most other children, if not up to Sarah's children, so he would be a genius athlete, quite capable of being a super spy and working with his half brothers and half sisters (except for the Intersect, as his mother's genes meant that his retention capacity wasn't high enough to be an effective Intersect host), so that was what he was to be trained for, but Clara was something else.

Clara had the Bartowski genes from her mother, but her father's genes pulled her down in most areas except for physical capability and appearance. As a result, she was a very bright (but not brilliant) child who was quite capable physically, she was already very good at the various martial arts she was being trained in at home (having multiple martial arts masters available helped training opportunities), and at 11, she was already growing into the great beauty that she would be. By most standards, that would appear to put her on track to be a super spy herself, but Sarah and Carina knew what sort of sick bastards that they were dealing with, and were dreading what they would learn as they continued the questioning. The plan for Clara was to give her some training to be a spy, and obedient, but the demand for pre-teen beauties was high in many areas of the world, so she would be put to work to collect information when she was farmed out to men with those tastes, later she would get further training if she held up OK and wasn't too damaged. At that point Carina dragged Sarah out of the room and told the leader of the strike team to secure the prisoner and await direct orders from the General while she could still speak (Sarah was already beyond that point), because if they hadn't left the room they would have both killed the sick bitch who was enjoying telling them the plans. When they got into a private room they both broke down, they had seen pretty much the worst that the world had to offer in their time in the game, what they had planned for Sarah's children and Charlie pushed the limits, but to hear that bitch calmly, if not eagerly, discussing what had been planned for that beautiful little girl that they both loved was beyond anything that they could handle.

Before they left the facility to head home, they had a private meeting with the General, briefly skimming over the material they got from "Bella" and telling her to listen to the recordings if she wanted the details. She looked at them and quietly asked "Bad?" Carina shook her head and said "Beyond bad". Carina went on to say that she'd instructed the strike team leader to hold "Bella", awaiting the General's direct orders, but given the number of holes the organisation obviously had, she needed to ensure that she was properly secured immediately, she paused to look at Sarah and then looked back at the General before saying "If we find that that bitch has been allowed to escape or kill herself before you got more information out of her, after we had to hold ourselves back from killing her, you'll have to answer to us!". The General wasn't used to getting death threats from people she regarded as family as they looked her in the eye, but she nodded and silently vowed to listen the recordings after she'd had a few drinks. They discussed the fact that they weren't in any state to interrogate the "partner", so the General would have to get someone else to do that, it wasn't expected that he'd be anywhere near the level that "Bella" was, as his role was mainly part of her cover as a family woman who wanted to get out of the game for her family. With that they left and went home. When they got home they took Chuck, Casey and Mary into an interview room and locked it down so no-one outside could hear, they were all shocked, disgusted and devastated by what they were told, and everyone agreed that it was never to leave that room. What did leave that room was a determination to ensure that every part of that organisation was destroyed and that none of their evil plans would ever have a chance of being completed.

Chuck kept working with Stefan to crack the encryption on the disks and pass the files on to the others, as they progressed there was a steady stream of additional disks coming in from the other BGRU facilities that were taken down, so they had plenty of work to keep them busy. Stefan could see that something was really disturbing Chuck, but whenever he asked him about it Chuck shut down and shook his head with a strained expression on his face.

As they went through the intel on the disks there were regular calls to DC when new facilities, personnel or associations were discovered, and raids were happening all over the world to arrest senior politicians, government officials and public figures. There was considerable public outcry about the frequency with which people were being "killed resisting arrest" throughout these exercises. There was a great deal of analysis done on each member/associate/patsy of BGRU before their apprehension orders were issued. It had already been determined that the probability of being able to keep people in prison was decidedly questionable, so the prime determination of what happened when they were taken was the level of the information that could be expected to be extracted from them. The "patsies" who were on the hook to do BGRU's bidding, but weren't senior enough to do terrible things, weren't operatives, didn't hold dangerous information and weren't close enough to BGRU to know the structure or people were the primary ones who had a chance of being incarcerated. Senior patsies got a chance to convince those talking them that a) they hadn't actually used their positions to do terrible things, and b) they didn't know what they were working for, and that they'd advise who they were instructed to the moment they were contacted by anyone using the old channels, and if those apprehending them believed what they were being told and that they'd given up all information that they held, they may be incarcerated too. Part of the reasoning there was that when they got out, they wouldn't have the positions that would allow them to do terrible things any more. Those who were believed to have serious intel about BGRU or anything else were questioned, if they didn't have damaging intel and managed to convince the powers that be that they weren't a danger to anyone, they were added to the list who may, possibly, be incarcerated. For the rest, if they'd used their positions to do terrible things, were operatives who were capable of and/or had done terrible things, and if they had damaging intel on BGRU or anything else, any intel that they had was extracted and then they were eliminated (the two senators who had worked with the Woodcombs had accidents in prison after the BGRU intel they had was extracted, Mary, Casey and Sarah made that call without involving Chuck).

The methods they were using were terrible, and Chuck wasn't the only one who would be having trouble sleeping for the next few years, at least, but they had just taken down a monster and his cabal, from all the evidence just soon enough to prevent them from taking control of governments around the world. They were still trying to locate and take down the remnants of the Puppet Master's organisation and many senior people were assuredly still out there. It was obvious that one of the Puppet Master's criteria was to recruit those who were the most morally challenged, as those that they'd taken so far were vile examples of humanity, so it was imperative that the remainder was tracked down and dealt with before they escaped to do more evil business elsewhere. It was also probable that, to clean out the rest of this viper's nest, they'd have to deal with most of the world's established crime families, from the mob families to the triads, to the cartels, so realistically, most of them were expecting this to be their life's work, the job certainly wasn't going to be over soon, just about every time they took out one monster, they'd see the next one, perhaps because they stepped up to take the place of the first, perhaps because they discovered information in the first one's records, but it rarely finished with the one that they had dealt with.

The others kept asking what it was that was being kept from them. Eventually Ellie cornered Mary (planning to use the guilt of abandonment against her) and demanded to know why she was hugging Clara with tears in her eyes so often now. Mary looked at her, trying to think of a way of holding back the information, but she knew her daughter would never give up, so she told her that Sarah and Carina had got the plans for the children out of the woman they knew as Bella, most of the plans were terrible, especially to those of them who knew what you have to do as a spy, but the plans for Clara were worse. She begged Ellie not to make her tell what those plans were, and the desperation in her eyes told Ellie that she really didn't want to know, but she insisted, so her mother told her about the plan to turn Clara into a pre-teen and teen sex slave for deviants to extract information from them, and if she survived that without too much damage, then turn her into the type of spy that Carina had been forced to be. Ellie left her mother then and went looking for Carina, Carina could see from the look in her eye what she was asking when Ellie asked "Is it true?", they both cried when Carina nodded, but when Ellie's next question was what did she need to do to protect her daughter from that, Carina knew that Chuck wasn't the only one in the family who's sense of right was so deeply engrained that they'd do whatever it took to do the right thing, so she told her to talk to Chuck and Sarah.