Chuck spent the rest of the morning sitting with Melissa and just getting comfortable. They ate breakfast and lunch on the couch. They took turns showering and getting dressed. Melissa put on the last outfit she had in her bag. This one a blue pin strip skirt suit, and a white fitted dress shirt. Chuck put the now dry cleaned clothes he wore on the first day back on. Chuck finished pulling on his jacket when Melissa walked out of the bathroom dressed. She took one look at him in his suit and blushed. Chuck saw it and smiled wolfishly. "See something you like?" He asked in a sexy deep voice as he stepped into her personal space.
"It's so not fare! You can't do that! Say things like that, dressed like that, and with that smile! It's not fare damn it!" she said shuddering.
"Why is it not fare?" he whispered as he brushed a stay lock of hair off her neck behind her ear. Making her shiver.
"Damn it Chuck! You have to stop doing that to me! It's Not Funny Any More!" She said blushing to the roots of her blood red hair.
"What am I doing to you?" He asked innocently as he ran his finger tips down her arm, before he took her hand in his. He rubbed his thumb over the inside of her wrist and she shuddered as her eyes rolled back in her head.
"I Said STOP IT!" She said yanking her hand away from him and turning away. "It's not funny to play with me like that. I don't like it!" She said hugging her self.
His smile died instantly and he hugged her from behind. "Melissa I'm so sorry! I didn't think about what I was doing! It's just, I've never been able to do that before and I kind of got, I don't know? Drunk on the power. I'm so sorry Melissa." He said hugging her tighter to him.
"I understand, but it's not cool Chuck. Not at all. You know you can get me hot without the way you look in that suit, but when you put it on? You, I don't know, become this perfect embodiment of sexy man. I can't take it Chuck. Not without ripping your clothes off." She said softly.
"I'm sorry Melissa, would it help if I took the jacket off?" He asked with a smile.
"I don't know. Just don't, you know, um, play with me like you did. I'm not used to being on the receiving end of that kind of stuff." She said reaching down and holding his hand around her waist.
"Okay no more playing." He said with a nod.
"If I think we're being watched I want you to do that. I want you to do what you just did and not stop until I tell you to, don't think, don't try to look for the cameras, just come at me with that confidence and don't stop till we pass out. No one will think it's fake. Mostly because for me it won't be. I want you to think about Sarah. Picture me as her and love me like you would her. Our lives might depend on it Chuck and Sarah told me that it was my job to get you out alive. I need your word Chuck." She said pulling his arms around her tighter.
He sighed and buried his face in her hair. She felt the tears roll down his cheek and land on her neck. "I promises. I will do it. I will make love to you. But I can't think about her, I could never think about her while we do that, never." He said.
"It's okay Chuck. I know she'll understand. I know she will because she told me she would. Now I don't know her like you do, but I'm guessing she a woman of her word?" She asked spinning around in his arms and taking his face in her hands.
"She is." He said with a small nod.
"I thought so, now kiss me like you've been banging my brains out for the last three days." She said before she smashed her mouth to his. She sighed as his tongue slipped into her mouth and rolled across hers. She grabbed the back of his neck and he tangled his finger in her hair. After a few minute they came up for air and she pushed him down onto the couch. She laid on top of him and went back to kissing him. They stayed like that for the next half hour. In that time she pulled his jacket off of him, and he had her shirt off. When she reached into his pants and grasped his hardness he shot off the couch. "Oh Chuck I'm so sorry! I went too far. I'm sorry. It's been a awhile since I've just made out with someone with out going farther." She said blushing.
"No it's okay I think I was lost there for a minute too. I think we got the kissing thing down don't you?" He asked in a high pitched voice.
Melissa looked at his blushing, confused, face, messed up hair, and half unbuttoned shirt and couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled out of her. "How the hell can YOU get ME so worked up? You don't have one cool bone in your body." She said laughing at him.
"What?" he asked, but she just laughed harder. He stood up and walked to the mirror he saw how he looked and smiled. "I will have you know that one of the worlds most beautiful and deadly women thinks I'm a sexy beast." He said puffing out his chest but that just made her laugh harder. "Fine be like that, but the next time you have a bad hair day I'm going to laugh at you." he said trying to get his short hair to lay flat. She laughed so hard she fell off the couch and that sent Chuck over the edge.
Casey gathered the strike team in a conference room. When they were all in and seated he stood up and walked around the big Conference table. "We know where Walker is. She's in custody in D.C. We have a new mission and I will share the details with you in just a second, but first…" He stopped behind an agent sitting at the table. He pulled a metal baton from his pocket, flicked it out, and smashed the agent across the back of the head. "I have to take care of the Fulcrum agent on the team." Casey said cuffing the unconscious agent and rolling the chair out of the room and into the two guards waiting for it. "Take out the trash." He growled. He walked back in and the team was all talking he raised his hands and the room fell silent. "He was a Fulcrum agent. Do any of you not know who Fulcrum is?" He asked and no one made a sound. "Good. There is a plan in place to bring down the whole organization. If any of you are Fulcrum you will turn yourself in right now, we will go easy on you. You have my word on that. If you don't turn yourself in and I find out you are working for Fulcrum I will kill you and your whole family. I will make it slow and very graphic. I will leave you for last and I will make you watch. I am not Fucking with you. The only people I care about are in the line of fire on this mission. If anything happens to them, and I link it to one of you I will take my time. Does everyone understand?" He asked in a voice that scared the crap out of everyone in the room. "Good now the mission started about a week ago… " and he brought the team up to speed. He did make some changes to the story, changes he had trouble keeping a straight face while saying. Changes like: "It was hard to keep you guys searching in the wrong places for them, but I needed to give them time to set up the deep cover." or "Agent Carmichael is everything his file says and more, the guy is a master at deep cover," or "Agent Barns was always working for us, she's been on a three month deep cover assignment."
"For the mission today I want the whole team to roll out twenty minutes after we do. You are to track the GPS signal in my SUV. If the signal stops, I want you to pull off to the side of the road and wait for a call, if I don't call you after five minutes I want you to converge on the signal at full speed. I'm going to be shot. Do any of you have field medic training?" He asked and six people raised their hands, one of them was Alex Dunbar. "Good, you," He said pointing to the tiny girl. "can patch me up. We will then continue to make our way back to Castle. Once we get there we are going to wait for Agent Barns to check in. After she does, we're basically on stand by for the next three weeks. At any point during that time the order can come in for tactical help. We need to be locked and loaded and ready to go at a moments notice. We are going to have two deep cover agents stuck behind enemy lines and we're their only hope of getting out of there alive. I want all of you ready to roll out in two hours, that's 1600 by my watch. Lets move people!" Casey said walking out the door.
Chuck and Melissa had just finished an early dinner when Casey came to get them. They walked out of the Black Sand holding facility and Chuck looked around for the strike team. "Where's your backup Casey?" He asked getting nervous.
"Relax, they're around back. This isn't the first time I've done something like this." Casey said getting behind the wheel.
"How am I supposed to relax? I know what's going to happen." Chuck said getting in behind him and sliding over so Melissa can get in next to him.
"Relax, I'm telling you we have nothing to worry about. Can you calm him down back there?" He said turning around and looking at Melissa.
"I could but it would go against Sarah's orders of not having sex with him unless it's life or death." She said with a laugh.
"Well if he's going to act like that the whole way, I might kill him, so yeah, go for it I say." He said with a smirk.
"Casey! That's not funny." Chuck said laughing. The tension of the car was broken though. "We are all ready though right?" Chuck asked settling back in his seat.
"Yes Chuck, we are." Casey said rolling his eyes. As much as he played it off though he too was nervous. Some time during the next four hour drive they were going to be ambushed, shot at, and most likely crash. This was going to happen fast, and in the mayhem he might get killed. This was one part of the plan he was not looking forward to. He trusted Chuck, trusted him with his life, with Sarah's life, and with the completion of this mission, but he didn't want to tell him how very risky this abduction could get for him. He didn't want to tell Chuck that if they attacked the SUV and started shooting at him they might kill him. Chuck would have aborted the mission, but Casey knew his life was worth very little when it came to bringing down a group like Fulcrum. He knew Chuck wouldn't understand that, so Casey didn't tell Chuck that in the chaos of the extraction he might die. The plan was for Chuck to shoot him but if one of the Fulcrum guy's beat Chuck to it he was going to die.
"Are the tracking devices in the special pocket of my suitcase?" Chuck asked.
"Yes, I also have a clip of stainless steal full metal jacketed rounds in my gun. Just remember what we practiced and everything should go as planed. Everything about the plan has worked out just like you said it would, why are you worried now?" Casey asked.
"Because even though you haven't said it out loud I know what will happen if one of the Fulcrum guys gets a shot off first." Chuck said looking at his hands. Melissa looked over and saw them start to shake. She grabbed them in hers and rubbed them.
"And I knew that when we first started this mission. We all had things we didn't want to do in this. Walker didn't want to hurt General Stanfield or his assistant, nor did she want to seduce her old contact in the Secret Service. We found ways around that and all she used Carina for was back up. You didn't want to seduce and use a Fulcrum agent, and you didn't. Now we have a new team member in Melissa back there. Good to have you on the team by the way, I don't think I've said that yet. I didn't want you to go in alone, and now you're not. At no point during the planning session did I have any reservations about what's about to happen. Not one. Do you know why? Because I've seen you quick draw and put five shots in a playing card size target from thirty feet. So calm the hell down, and don't forget your luggage when you go. Remember they want you, not the other way around. You don't surrender your gun, you take your things, and you never let them think they control you. Remember that talk we had before the Rite. You know one day you're going to have to use your gun. Today is that day, but you might have to use it after that. I want you to stay calm, stay cool, stay Carmichael." Casey said staring straight ahead.
"And remember I'll be right there beside you. If they put up a fight about any of the things he just said we will take them out and I can take you to my contact. We can say the shoot out went bad for the retrieval team." She said with a smile as she opened her purse and showed him her Glock19.
"Thanks guys but hopefully we can stick to the plan…" Chuck started to say but he stopped when three black Chrysler 300C's with tinted windows came up on either side of them.
"These guys are as bad as the NSA strike team guys. IT'S CALLED SUBTLY! You jackasses!" Casey said shaking his head. He smiled when he saw Chuck roll his eyes. The lead car pulled up in front of the SUV and slowed down making Casey slam on the breaks. The back windows of the two cars on either side of them opened up and two guys in tactical gear shot out the back tire and the sides of the SUV. "Stay Down Back There. These guy are shooting everything." Casey said ducking a stray shot. Casey slammed into both side cars and slowed down. "I can't give up too easy?" He said with a shrug as he leaned out of his shattered window and shot the guy sticking out of the back window on his side. He then put six rounds in the lead car, breaking the rear windshield and killing the two guys in the back seat. He skidded the SUV to a halt and pulled an MP5k from under the seat and shot the three cars full of holes. He spun around and tossed Chuck his gun. Had the Fulcrum agents been paying attention instead of spraying and praying they would have seen Casey smile as Chuck grabbed the gun out of the air, turned it back on Casey, and shot Casey in the chest. Casey fell like a tone of bricks. Melissa held up her hands.
"Holed your fire Jackasses! Don't shoot us were on the same side here!" She said as she crossed over to Casey's body and checked his pulse, he had one, it was strong and oddly calm. She bent down and whispered, "Don't worry Casey I'll take care of him." she said patting his shoulder, he grunted softly. "He's dead! Nice shot Carmichael. You idiots need to take a few tips from agent Carmichael here! He did with one shoot what you jackasses couldn't do with a hundred! And what's with all the shooting!? Were you trying to kill us too!?" She yelled at them. Chuck walked around the SUV to the back and popped the tail gate open. One of the agents ran up to him and shoved a sub machine gun in his face.
"Hands where I can see them!" He yelled at Chuck. Chuck flashed and grabbed the gun and slammed it into his face drooping him like a sack of potatoes. He then shouldered the gun and pointed it at the other four agents
"Anyone else feel like pointing a gun at me will not get off so lightly! I just killed the man I worked with for the last year and a half, what do you think I'll do to a bunch of random jackasses like you?" Chuck asked in a deadly voice.
"What the Fuck is wrong with you people? Do you even know who this is? Your lucky he didn't shoot all of you! What are your names and ranks!? I'm going to make sure Fulcrum Command knows what kind of fucking retards he sent to retrieve the best CIA agent in the world!" She yelled pushing them all into the two cars. "I will drive the last car and follow you! I refuse to be in the presence of you morons any longer then I have too. You, big idiot! Make sure to round up the dead bodies of your buddies! Leave Major Casey's body where it is." She said directing the clean up of the area as Chuck got his two bags out of the trunk along with the two tactical bags that Casey packed for him. one had an extra Sig229 and ten loaded mags. A lap top computer with all of the research he had on his Intersect 2.0 patch, and a tactical vest. The second bag has a spar vest for Melissa as well as an extra glock19 and an MP5 with ten mags for each. That along with his two suit cases went into the lest shot up car. The other agents along with the three dead bodies and the unconscious agent went into the other two cars. "Go ahead we'll be right behind you I just want to make sure no on is following us." She said waving the other two cars on. Once they were gone Chuck ran up to Casey.
"You okay big guy?" Chuck said taking a knee next to him.
"Yeah, now go. This went too good to screw up now!" Casey said from the ground.
"Okay, I think I hear the sirens anyway. See you later John." He said softly as he stood up and walked to the waiting car. As soon as he got in Melissa gunned the big V8 and quickly caught up to the other two cars. She looked over at Chuck and saw he looked pale and was shaking. She reached over and grabbed his leg. "Relax Chuck, you did good. Relax. Lay the seat back and chill, I think we're going to ditch these cars somewhere and switch to fresh ones soon. We'll need Agent Carmichael again incase they want to try something. I might have to make a call to Fulcrum Command. In fact that's what we should do. As soon as they say something stupid, and lets face it they will. They're not exactly the A team. I'll make a call." She said rubbing his leg. His hand closed around hers and he held her hand tightly.
"Thanks Melissa, with out you I would have lost it out there." He said in a voice thick with emotion.
"It's hard the first time you shoot someone. I know it was hard for me. The Red Test is hard on almost all of the agents. But think about it this way, when you have to shot someone in the future you wont have those first time jitters." She said with a smile.
"Yeah I guess?" He said.
"Good, now calm down. How many shots do you have in your gun?" She asked and Chuck popped the mag out and counted.
"I got seven shots, Why?" He asked reinserting the mag.
"Because if they get suspicious or rowdy we might have to put them down. Do you have enough rounds? You can take some from my gun if you need to. Lets faces it I'm just going to be laying down random cover fire if we get into a shooting situation. You'll be doing the actual killing, sorry about that, but that's the way it's going to be till you can do the upload." She said whit a sad smile.
"No if we have to shoot it out I can take them down with seven shots, and if things get real bad Casey packed an MP5-sd6 in the second bag." Chuck said looking at Casey's gun.
"It looks like we're turning off the road into a gas station up ahead. Be ready for anything." She said pulling her gun out of her purse and putting it on her lap.
Casey sat up and pulled his button down shirt open. Looking at the bullet hole he smiled. "That kid's just scary sometimes." the shot was perfect. Three inches from the heart and two inches from his collar bone. He hit no major organs or muscles, and the shot was so good that he had stopped bleeding already. Feeling around his shoulder he felt the exit wound and again it was perfect. With the antibiotic he had taken before they left and a few stitches he would be back to fighting form in two days. He looked down the road and saw the six black SUVs coming at full speed and he shook his head. "It's called Subtly! God dam it! I swear the first thing I'm going to do is buy ten gray Toyota Camrys. Blend in for God's sake!" he said as the SUVs pulled up and formed a perimeter around him. He stood up and brushed himself off. "Roll out the crime tape and call for a clean up crew! Where is Agent Dunbar?" He asked looking around.
"I'm over here sir." She said stepping out from behind a taller agent. Casey took a look at her and had to suppress a laugh. She was wearing black BDU, and a tactical vest. Both were too big for her, but Casey was sure they were the smallest set he ever saw. She came running up to him and snapped off a salute. "I can stitch that wound up for you sir. If you will just come with me we can get you seated in this SUV right here and I can start working on you." She said directing him to the lead SUV.
"Good, I want this whole place cleaned up in a half hour! Also someone report my death to the NSA. We have to legitimize Carmichael's kill." He said taking a seat in the back of the SUV and the Alex climbed in after him.
"Do you need anything for the pain Major?" She asked laying out medical supplies.
"No I don't. Take a look at this." He said showing her his wound. "It's perfect! I'm so proud of the kid! I taught him how to shoot you know?" Casey said with a smile.
"Very good shot Sir. I do believe he missed everything. You should be all good in a few days Sir. Agent Carmichael is a very good shot." She said with admiration shining in her voice as she stitched up his shoulder.
"Your damn right he is." Casey said grinning like a proud parent. After she stitched him up and put on a bandage she left the SUV and Casey pulled out a phone.
Sarah was sitting in the red room at the White House drinking Coffee with Carina and General Stanfield when the phone rang in her briefcase. She popped it open and pulled the phone. "Talk to me Casey, How's Chuck?" She asked with fear in her voice.
"I'm fine thanks for asking! You know I just got shot right?" He asked with a laugh.
"Yeah, by Chuck, the shot was probably so clean it's half way healed by now. What about my Chuck?" She asked impatiently.
"Well your right the shot was so clean I'd be hard pressed to repeat it. The kids fine. In fact more then fine. He threatened to kill them all if they messed with him and Melissa is treating the whole thing like a screw up on their part. Her and Chuck left in a car by themselves. The girl's good on her feet. I think they are going to be trying to kiss his ass for the next few weeks." Casey said with a laugh.
"Thank God. I was most afraid for this part of the plan no one was hurt thankfully." She said sighing in relief.
"I Was Shot! How did no one get hurt!? I was hit. By my own partner too! I'm wounded you think so little of me!" Casey said laughing.
"Oh can it Casey. You got off easy, I still have to tell Beckman that we ran a mission without her." Sarah said with a smile.
"Right, I did get off easy this time. I'll take a bullet from Chuck over an angry Beckman any day." Casey said nodding.
"Get some rest and heal up, I'll talk to you tomorrow. Me and Carina are going to fly to Vegas tonight and drive Chuck's car back. I can't leave it there too long and I want to surprise him with it when he gets back, he loves that Mustang. You should have seen how happy he was driving it to Vegas." Sarah said with a laugh.
The three black shot up cars pulled into an old abandoned gas station and the agents jumped out of the cars and ran around the back of the gas station, they drove three black BMW M5s up to the three shot up cars. Melissa and Chuck got out of the car with there guns in hand. "We switching cars?" she asked going to the trunk and pulling Chuck's bags out.
"Yeah, but before we go any where we'll take your guns, hand them over." One agent said shuddering his UMP.45.
"Agent Carmichael, can you knee cap this asshole for me pleas?" Melissa asked as she pulled her phone out. Chuck nodded and brought his gun up faster then anyone could blink and shot the agent in the knee cap, dropping him to the ground screaming. She dialed the number she called last time. She looked at the other three agents pointing their guns at her and Chuck. "I suggest putting those guns down before Agent Carmichael here drops another one of you." She said with a raised eyebrow. She heard someone pick up the phone.
"Report!" Said the voice like last time.
"This is agent Barns, I need to talk to Fulcrum Command, tell him it's about the Carmichael extraction. I'll hold." She said in an even tone. She looked over at the other agents, they still had their guns pointed at them. "Charles, the agent on the left, I don't like the calculating look in his eyes, his shoulder, please?" She asked. Chuck turned and fired hitting the agent in the collar bone and putting him on the ground. "The next time it will be a crouch shot. I'm not fucking with you! Drop the guns!" She said. She heard a click over the phone.
"This is Fulcrum Command, what can I do for you agent Barns?" He asked in a voice dripping in smiles and charm.
"The agents you sent are the biggest bunch of Fuck ups I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. We are, as we speak, in a Mexican stand off with two of them the rest of them are either dead or wounded. I will admit two of them were shot on my orders. They botched the extraction. They shot up the SUV we were in. They fired off about a hundred shots and didn't hit a God damned thing. In fact the one job they had, to kill Major Casey, was done by Agent Carmichael with the Majors own gun! They then tried to point a gun at Agent Carmichael, he beat the man senseless. Then at the vehicle exchange they try holding us up for our weapons like we are some kind of hostages. Please tell me we can kill the other two agents? They are asking for it as far as I'm concerned. You personal wanted to meet with agent Carmichael Sir. I told him Fulcrum was a very professional organization. Then his first impression of us are these idiots? What's stopping him form killing all of us and walking? We need him. He could care less about working for us. I'm half tempted to help him kills these two and run away with him! I must say getting shot at by my own people was a real eye opener for me sir." She said waving her gun around as she talked. Chuck for his part never took his eyes off the other two agents.
"Agent Barns, I'm very sorry for this whole mess. Can you put one of the still alive agents on the phone please?" He asked in an exasperated tone.
"Yes sir." She pulled the phone away from her face and held it out. "One of you two retards come get this phone! Fulcrum Command is waiting!" She said. One of the two agents took the phone. Melissa couldn't make out what Roark was saying to the agent but she could hear his yells from three feet away. The agent handed the phone back and waved the other agent down. "Sir?" Melissa asked.
"Agent Barns I would like to extend my sincerest apologies. From now on your in charge of the mission. I need you to talk Carmichael down and get him to come work for us. We need him. He's the only one that can fix our Intersect. Can you get him to Roark Towers in down town L.A.?" Roark asked in a pleading voice.
"Yes sir I think I can talk him into meeting you, but I will tell you this now. If he feels like he's being watched, or not trusted he will walk away, and trust me sir if he walks he might just kill a bunch of us for pissing him off. I've spent three days with the guy and I can tell you he's no joke. If he thinks we're messing with him he will take down Fulcrum just for the inconvenience we caused him. The guy's good, but he's also a bit crazy that way." Melissa said trying to keep the smile off her face and out of her voice. She was dictating terms for a deep cover operation with the leader of the enemy camp. She never thought she would be in this situation. She went from government call girl to deep cover super spy in just twenty-four hours. She loved working with Chuck!
"What ever it takes to get him here, you do it. If he wants to shoot those two idiots you let him. You do what ever it takes to get him to see me. I think I can talk him in to working for us. Pleases express my deepest apologies for the mess those agents caused." He said sounding desperate.
"I will sir. You can expect to see us later today I hope." She said before she hung up the phone. She turned to Chuck who still had his gun up and pointed at the two agents. "Well the boss says I'm to take you to meet him. He said you can kill these two if you want to. I say do it, they deserve it for fucking up so badly, but hay if you want to save the bullets that's cool too." She said with a shrug as she tossed his bags into the back seat of one of the BMWs.
Chuck looked at them in what he hoped looked like a Casey scowl. It must have looked right to them because he thought he saw the agent on the left flinch. "The price of a bullet is too damn high to waist on low life scumbags like you two. Pray we never meet again because if we do, I won't be so easy on you." Chuck said spitting on the ground by their feet. He put the safety on and tucked his gun in the front of his waist band like Casey and got in the car.
Melissa looked at the two still standing there. "You two are very lucky. I would try avoiding him in the future if I was you." Melissa said.
Chuck rolled down his window with a Casey scowl still in place. "Melissa get you ass in this car! Shooting people makes me hungry. I want pancakes, Lets go!" He said. She smiled and got in the car as soon as they drove away Chuck pulled the gun out of his pants and handed it to her. "Hold this I don't want it to fall out of the car when I do this," He said before he stuck his head out of the window and was violently sick. Melissa closed her eyes and turned the radio up, there was only one thing that made her sick and that was hearing someone else throwing up. When he had nothing left in his stomach he laid his head out of the window and let the cool air blow over his face. She turned the radio off before reaching over and rubbed his back.
"You okay Chuck?" She asked softly.
"Yeah I will be, I just need some air." He said reaching back and taking her hand in his. "Thank you for this. I would have never made it through this day without you." He said rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.
"I'm glad I was here to help. I like you Chuck, you're good to me and you took me in and helped me find my way back to the good guys side. Not only that but you got me on the kind of mission I've dreamed about doing since I started working for the NSA. Thank you Chuck, or should I call you agent Carmichael? I don't know if you've thought about this yet but you just did all of the agent type things in this mission so far. There was no Sarah or Casey here to do it for you. You did it Chuck! You didn't flinch, you didn't blink, you stood there and shot those two guys without a hint of hesitation. I know you always say the truth about the things agent Carmichael did and what the reports say are two very different things, but not today! Today I saw Agent Charles Carmichael, CIA. He put a bullet in his partner, saving his life. He beat an enemy agent senseless. He shot two other enemy agents with pin point accuracy, and made two more piss themselves. Today the legend of Agent Carmichael just grew in the Fulcrum camp. Those agents are going to tell every agent they see not to fuck with agent Charles Carmichael, and when they ask why, they will tell them about what you just did back there. And that stuff at the end? Where the hell did you come up with that? It was perfect. They looked even more scared after that! They think your some kind of crazy person." She said waving her hands around as she talked.
"I don't know, it just came out. A while back I created this persona. It was a combination of Sarah Walker and John Casey. I thought what would they do? The first time I met Casey he offered to shoot both Sarah and I, he then said he was going to go out and get a late night snack, maybe pancakes. That image of him so casually offering to shoot us and then eat pancakes still scares me to this day. I wanted to put that kind of fear in them. Sarah once told me if you can make the bad guy hesitate just for a split second then that gives you an advantage over them. The pancake thing was to freak them out even more. Also I was having a Hard time when I sat down in the car, so that was in the back of my head…" He said blushing bright red.
"I know I was excited, but I think that had a lot more to do with seeing agent Carmichael again. I don't know if you know this or not, but you look different when you're fully into agent mode. Your posture becomes more ridged, your shoulder roll back, and your face takes on this hard, predatory edge. I must admit I'm very turned on when I see it. It was agent Carmichael that had me panting, and wetting my panties that first time we met in the back seat of Casey's SUV. Agent Carmichael could have me right now in this car if he wanted to, but you Chuck, I don't think so. You're two different people as far as I'm concerned. Does that even make any sense to you?" She asked blushing.
"Yes it does. When Sarah gets ready for a mission she looks and acts differently then when we're not on a mission. About the only agent I know that doesn't look or act differently on a mission is Bryce, but the more I think about it the less I think he's a good agent. I mean the three times I've seen him work I wasn't very impressed by what I saw. I think he's more flash then fire. I mainly model my confidence off of him. He acts like he can take on Fulcrum by his self, but I don't think he could have handled any part of this plan without screwing it up. I've seen the files of his missions with Sarah and she did most of the heavy lifting. It reads more like the Carmichael file then anything. I could clearly see what he did on missions and most of the time all he did was back Sarah up. Unreliably I might add. She was shot twice on his watch." Chuck said making a bitter face.
"Wow, been holding that in for awhile have we?" She asked with a smile.
"Maybe, I try not to hate him, but it's just so easy sometimes. I mean he kicked me out of Stanford, he stole my girlfriend, then he sent me the intersect dragging me into the spy world. Then when things are just starting to look up with Sarah he comes back from the dead and tries to get her to run away with him. Twice! And he talked me into not going out with Sarah. Said it was for her protection. that asshole played me! We could have been together for over a half a year if it wasn't for him. About the only good thing he ever did for me was, ironically, give me the Intersect." Chuck said with a angry scowl on his face.
"Wow you really were holding that in weren't you? I've never heard you this angry before." She said.
"Well who am I going to talk about it with? Sarah? Casey? She was with the guy for two years and if I bad mouth the guy in front of her it just makes me look like an asshole. And Casey? He'd tell me to pack it in. Stop with the lady feelings. No I've had to bottle it up. I'm ashamed to admit that I wanted to tell Roark where he is before he had the chance to get out. I know it's petty, and spiteful. No I'll wait a few days to give up his location. By then Sarah will have told him to get out of there. I'm not the kind of guy to sell out a fellow agent. But for a second I thought about it." Chuck said with a look of deep shame across his face.
"Hey thinking about killing you girlfriend's ex and doing it are two very different things. Hell if it was a crime to think about killing your boyfriends ex I'd have got the chair by now, and so would half of the women in the world." She said with a laugh.
"I guess. I just, I, don't know. I felt so inferior to him for so long that it's created this nagging voice in the back of my head that sounds a lot like him telling me I'm never going to be good at this stuff, you know? I'll never be good at being an agent, or being with Sarah. That she could never be with a regular guy like me. It all stopped about a week ago when I read her file for the first time. When I saw the mission reports for their missions together I saw just how useless he was on those missions. I did more then he did on missions and I had almost no training. I used to think he was the perfect image of being an Agent, but now I see he's nothing but a frat boy playing James Bond. When I saw that my level of confidence shot through the roof. I ran the patch for intersect 2.0 that same day and I don't think I would have done it before I saw those mission reports. When we put together this super team after all this is over he's not going to be on the list of names for recruitment. Not unless Sarah puts him on there, and she has to really sell both me and Casey, and Casey can't stand the guy. I never really knew why he hated Bryce so much but I think I know now. He took one look at him and saw what it took me reading the mission file to see. He saw a fake. He saw a little boy playing agent. And for a man like Casey that's the equivalent of blaspheme. A sin right up there with treason and selling out your team. It's why he didn't like me for a long time. I know that now. I used to think it was because I wasn't a real agent, but I think it had a lot more to do with the fact I didn't take it seriously. I didn't treat the job with the level of respect it deserves." Chuck said picking up Casey's gun off her lap and running his fingers over the slide. It was a lot like his gun but Casey's had a railed frame and a laser grip.
He knew now what it meant to be an agent. The choices you have to make, the life you have to deny yourself. The knowing that the work you are doing is for a greater good that you yourself will never experience because your off in some rat hole Russian bar tracking down stolen intelligence, or in a cave in Afghanistan looking for a terrorist cell. No he didn't respect Bryce as an agent anymore. He barley respected him as a man any more. He read in one report that on a mission to Hungary they pissed off a local mob boss and he sent a ten man hit squad after Sarah, and where was her partner and boyfriend? Germany. Bryce got out of the country and left her to take care of them by herself. Of course she did, she's Sarah Walker after all, but her partner and boyfriend left the country to check on some leads that "went nowhere" the report said. The coward left her to fend for herself, and she let him get away with it. That was when he thought about selling him out to Fulcrum. He was not proud of his thoughts but the fact remains that when the chips are down and the odds are long, Bryce Larkin will skip town and leave you to take the fall. No Bryce was not going to be on the team, in fact he better watch out the next time they were in the same place, by then Chuck would have his own training and he had every intention of beating the living shit out of him. He was going to kick his ass so bad it was going to look like someone dropped Bryce in a food processor. He was going to turn his pretty face into a bloody mess. Maybe then the next time his life is going good Bryce wouldn't show up and screw it up again.
"Chuck I don't know what you did before we met, I mean I read the report and you told me what happened, but I didn't really know you before a few days ago but I've met agents before and I have to say you're the best one I've ever met. Look at what you accomplished with out training. Look at what your doing now. We're on our way to meet the head of Fulcrum. You're Agent Charles Carmichael for God's sake! You're such a badass they can't wait to meet you. Roark told me your file alone was enough to get you a meeting with him. Now we have a two hour drive before we get there, lets go get pancakes and make the bustard wait. If he wants a meeting with agent Carmichael he'll have to wait till you get there. Agent Carmichael wants pancakes and he's going to get them damn it!" Melissa said punching IHOP into the navigation system in the dashboard.
"That's right God Damn It! I want pancakes! And I also know my partner wants pancakes! We're getting pancakes!" Chuck said.
"Hell yes we're only ten miles form an IHOP!" She said fist bumping Chuck.
"Thanks Melissa. For saying all that stuff and for the talk. I know most of it was motivated by the fact that you've been thinking about pancakes ever since I first said it back at that gas station, but I still appreciate it." He said holding her hand.
"You know me so well Chuck. I haven't stopped thinking about them from the time you side it. Not even when you were hurling out the window. I kept picturing a huge stack of buttery pancakes. Oh and bacon! We can't forget the bacon!" She said licking her lips as they pulled up to the IHOP.
"I have a friend named Morgan, I think you two would hit it off. He too has inappropriate thoughts about breakfast foods." Chuck said as they walked into the restaurant.