A/N: I know, I know...ownership of Chuck. It gets to you, huh?

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Riordan Payne was a businessman. Like the majority of businessmen, he sold things. In his case, it was things that he could acquire that no one else could. Hard to find things. Things that other people didn't want found and sold, making them that much more valuable, of course. That's what had made him successful, the ability to get to those things and dispose of them on the market. He had managed to be profitable in this unusual line of work for almost a decade, and was proud of his ingenuity, skill and planning. What other people saw as arrogance, he knew was merely justified self confidence in his own considerable abilities.

Unfortunately, his current job was heading in a very bad direction, through no fault of his own, of course. It had started out well enough. Payne moved a wet mop around somewhat aimlessly on the already clean floor as he thought back to the beginnings of this endeavor.

Adelbert de Smet, commonly referred to as the Belgian, had contacted him and requested a copy of the Sanctuary Report. The Belgian was prepared to pay him Twenty-five Million Dollars for said copy. This was not the most lucrative commission Payne had undertaken, but it was certainly large enough to garner a tremendous effort. It was even more agreeable, as the job would be accomplished here in Los Angeles, his normal base of operations.

First, he had looked into the Sanctuary Project and the members of the committee performing the analysis for the think tank. There were several decent candidates, but he selected Mason Whitney. In particular, Whitney's girlfriend, Linda Moreno was a weak link. She had, in a past history of revolutionary political fervor and under a different name, participated in a bank robbery that resulted in the death of a bank guard. In a simple discussion with her, once she had finished pathetically crying and begging, Payne had explained the wisdom of cooperating with him to obtain the Sanctuary Report from her boyfriend. The alternative was to attempt to explain to the FBI why she should be allowed to continue to live as a free woman in Los Angeles. Maybe it was a trifle cold-hearted, but Payne had to admit that he found the woman's predicament a little humorous.

Payne had no idea what she had told Whitney to get him to download the Report onto a chip and he didn't particularly care. All that mattered was that it had worked and the final Report was now located outside the hard drives of the well-protected think tank where Whitney had worked. Easier pickings.

Unfortunately, that's when the job ran into its first speed bump. Whitney had smelled something wrong with the situation and hidden the chip. Then he'd disappeared and gone on the run. Even Moreno didn't know where he was for a time. When they realized what he had done, the Feds began to look for him too. Payne was luckier than they were and caught him trying to contact Moreno (who was, of course, lying to them about her boyfriend).

Payne put away the mop and began to empty trash cans into the large pail on the cart he was rolling behind him.

Once Payne had Whitney in his control, he intended to question him and find the location of the hidden Report. That's when the second big problem with the job occurred. A representative of the Volkoff group had sold him a derivative of sodium pentothal called SP-117. It was supposedly the ideal truth serum, almost mythical in its effect, developed by the Biological Weapons Department 12 of the Russian FSB. The subject would lose all ability to lie and would blurt out truthful answers to any questions put to him. Payne had stockpiled some antidote as well, of course. When using dangerous substances like this one, it was simply good planning to have an adequate supply of antidote on hand.

Payne was mildly furious at the Volkoff man (and intended to have some very stern words with him just as soon as this job ended), as the substance worked no better than ordinary sodium pentothal. No, actually, it was worse than sodium pentothal. Much worse, as the subjects tended to die. One problem with the drug was that it could be delivered through three different mediums – intravenous, oral, or by inhalation. Normally, that would be a positive attribute, especially with the kind of job that Payne had. It might be useful to administer it to people without them being aware of having been drugged, so oral administration or through inhalation might be ideal. In this case, though, judging the correct dosage was proving almost impossible. Particularly the dosage of the inhaled drug version, which was not given in any typical controlled manner. Whitney had been given a specific dosage through the IV injection and, while he was deteriorating and, in all likelihood, would soon die, at least he had been relatively coherent for a time.

Payne had drugged Whitney and followed his directions to the pick-up spot where he'd hidden the Report. Payne had stayed back during the pick-up, so as not to be recorded on any cameras, but was listening as Whitney retrieved the chip. "Here..here...my Report...Still here." So, Payne was momentarily satisfied. He had finally arranged for the chip with the Report to be in Whitney's possession with himself just a few steps away, only to have the next problem develop immediately thereafter. The good Samaritan bystanders got involved and the retrieval had totally gone to shit. And, to make the situation even worse, the woman who had tended to him on the street was also a doctor at the same hospital he was taken to by the ambulance. That made Payne's own position much more problematic. He couldn't claim to be a relative or friend of Whitney in case she had seen him in the crowd on the street.

He dealt with the ambulance and the EMTs, but that did not produce the chip. At that point, he knew the Sanctuary Report was somewhere in the hospital or with one of the people from the hospital, so he had no choice but to infiltrate the hospital. Stealing a janitor's uniform and identity had been easy. He had killed the regular janitor, being careful not to get blood on his uniform, and left his body in a dumpster. He was sure no one would miss him.

In his assumed role cleaning the floors nobody was paying him the slightest bit of attention, which was exactly how he liked it. He aspired to be one of those little invisible gray men. As a merchant in information, his stock in trade depended on him getting facts other people didn't have and wanted. The best way to do that was to be inconspicuous. As he was physically small and adept at adopting an unassuming character, he most often managed.

On very rare occasions he found himself resorting to violence in his work, which tended to bring unwanted attention. He derived no pleasure from that violence, but was in no way deterred by it either. It was the attention violence generated that bothered him. On this particular job, so far, he had had to drug and probably kill four people for information, which didn't even count the janitor. The only part of that bloodletting that bothered him personally was the uselessness of it. Neither of the EMTs had any useful information. Neither did the woman doctor who had ridden in the ambulance with Whitney. Their deaths would be just an unfortunate inconvenience, but would make the balance of the job that much harder. The LAPD was sure to be on the case at this point. The Feds were already on station, led by a huge redheaded agent. Luckily, he had gotten everything he could from Whitney before those men arrived.

He had spent hours cleaning the floors and trash cans and still was no closer to the Report. He hated to disappoint the Belgian, who might have a need for future commissions. There wasn't a tight deadline as the information was not particularly time-sensitive, but he was a commission based business man. When he finished this job, he could be on to the next. If he didn't finish this job, he didn't get paid for his efforts no matter how hard he tried or how close he had come. While that happened sometimes, he was successful enough that it was rare. The very prospect was irritating to him.

He fervently hoped that it would not happen here, but he had to admit to himself that he was almost out of leads to the chip. Whitney's clothes didn't have the chip. The ambulance he had ransacked didn't have the chip and the EMTs didn't know where it was. The woman doctor didn't have it and similarly didn't know where it was. He had checked the emergency room itself and Whitney's hospital room. Nothing. The LAPD was now involved and protecting the other members of the emergency room staff from his questioning, so they were almost impossible to access. If any of them had had the chip, though, the redhead would have found it and left already.

The only real lead he had left to try was the locker containing the woman doctor's street clothes, in case Whitney had dropped it into one of her pockets without her knowledge. She had changed into scrubs when she arrived at the hospital with Whitney, so those street clothes would be kept in her locker. But the women's locker room was difficult for him to access, even in his janitor guise. He would likely have to wait until she died and her boyfriend emptied it, or maybe try it in the middle of the night when there were no women inside changing. He still needed her locker number, but there would be a registry of assigned lockers somewhere with the hospital administration. He was patiently taking the steps necessary to access that registry. While he did so, though, he continued to listen through an earwig to the feed from the listening device he had planted in the woman doctor's room, in case the boyfriend mentioned her locker number or declared an intention to visit the locker room to collect something for his unconscious girlfriend.

Around lunchtime the hospital came alive with news. The LAPD had found the missing ambulance abandoned in an area of warehouses and industrial buildings. Both of the EMTs were dead, poisoned with the same sodium pentothal derivative as Whitney and the woman doctor.

Meanwhile, in the doctor's hospital room, he heard the boyfriend cajoled into leaving her side to have some coffee in the cafeteria, leaving only two other visitors with the unconscious doctor. He listened to the brother chatting with his girlfriend, both of them worried about his sister.

They were an odd couple, those two. The brother, an employee of the Buy More Nerd Herd from his outfit (including a pocket protector... seriously, who uses a pocket protector?) and name tag, looked like a nerd from right out of central casting. But Payne prided himself on his ability to read people and there was something else about the brother that he noticed. Something in the way his eyes moved. Payne could tell that the brother was a very intelligent man. Payne wondered idly how he had ended up in a dead-end job at the Buy More. He supposed the man to be a world-class underachiever.

The girlfriend was also puzzling. She looked just like a Russian prostitute he had hired a few times in Tel Aviv. Smoking hot gorgeous, this woman was patently in love with the Nerd Herd brother, but, unlike the girl in Tel Aviv, she was also obviously intelligent. He wondered what she saw in him. With looks like that and a good mind, she could have any man she chose. Women were inexplicable to him.

There was a third person lingering near the hospital room. A big guy in a Buy More green shirt. He didn't talk much, but was a strong supportive silent type. A friend to both apparently. All three looked and sounded sick with worry about the dying doctor.

Just then he heard the woman say to her boyfriend, "Hey, what's this?"

"Lemme see," he replied. Moments later he said, "It's a computer chip. Where did you find it?"

"It was over there. Under that stuff."

"Weird. Could it have fallen out of one of these machines?" There was a pause and some movement, then the brother said, "No. Those don't look open or anything."

"So, what do you think it does?" the girlfriend asked.

"I dunno. Wait here. I'll take it to the car. I have my bag there. I can check it out with the equipment I have in the bag."

"Ok, sweetie. Hurry back. I'll keep Ellie company." There was the smacking sound of a quick kiss and then silence.

'Yes!' thought Payne. 'Here we go.' Taking his messenger bag with his gear from the janitor's cart, he headed immediately towards the parking lot, leaving the abandoned cart in a hallway. He didn't know how the chip had made it into her room, but that didn't matter. Finally, he was going to get it for the Belgian. He knew he'd have to take it from the Nerd Herd brother, but that would be easy. He wasn't exactly cocky, but he was certainly confident that the nerd would pose no great challenge.

He caught sight of the brother leaving through the doors to the parking lot side of the building and followed as the man made his way through the cars, coming to a stop in front of a Porsche. He unlocked the car and reached inside for a messenger bag. He seemed to be doing something with the contents of the messenger bag when Payne interrupted him.

"Excuse me," he said.

The brother turned to face him, the messenger bag clutched across his chest defensively. For some strange reason, the man didn't look surprised or scared to see that he was being held at gunpoint. Payne noted that oddity with just a tiny bit of apprehension.

Payne aimed his compact Glock 43, extended with a silencer, at the brother and said, "Give me the computer chip you found in your sister's room. Your sister is dying of poison. I have an ampule of the antidote here in my bag. It's not too late for her. You're a smart guy..." he glanced quickly at the name tag the brother wore. "...Chuck Bartowski. Do the trade. If you don't, I will just shoot you and take the chip. Then both you and your sister, the pretty doctor, will die. It's a good deal I'm offering."

To his shock, behind him he heard the girlfriend's voice, as cold as the wind over the Arctic ice, say, "I have a better idea. I shoot you and take the antidote from your body as it cools."

Payne had not gotten to where he was without a lot of nerve. He knew that the best way to survive an ambush was to act decisively and with immediate violence. He shot Bartowski in the center of the chest through his messenger bag. The man flew backwards into the Porsche with a loud grunt of pain. Payne lunged for the dying man and twisted his body around to use as a human shield. He moved very quickly and the girlfriend's shot at him missed, allowing him a moment to also shoot her in the chest. Losing the gun in her hand from the impact of the round, she flew backwards to land on the blacktop next to the parked cars.

The man in his grasp, with a bullet in his chest, was not reacting as expected. They were scuffling with each other. Bartowski slammed the edge of the messenger bag down onto Payne's wrist, knocking the Glock to the ground. Then his sneakered foot kicked it under the car. Clearly, the man had not been shot.

As he watched, the girlfriend began to get off the ground. 'She must be wearing a vest too,' he thought. Goddammit, these two were Feds and were dangerous. Payne was chagrined at himself for underestimating them. Time to leave. He pushed away from Bartowski, shoving him towards the woman agent and began to run across the parking lot. He knew he was very quick and was sure he could get away from these two. He was almost out of the lot and into the street when he looked behind him and saw Bartowski chasing him.

He ran across the street to the large public park across the way and redoubled his speed. He was fast and he kept himself in good shape, but his legs were a great deal shorter than the man pursuing him and that made a big difference. The tall brother/agent seemed to also be in pretty good shape and was running fast with an easy lope. A glance over his shoulder showed that Bartowski was steadily gaining on him. He decided to stand and fight. He had earned a black belt in karate and was confident that he would easily take down the taller man in hand-to-hand combat.

Before he had the opportunity to pick a place to fight and stop his sprint, he was shoved hard from behind. He overbalanced and fell. In midfall, he turned it into a somersault across the grass and rolled to a stop near the far end of the park. Coming easily to his feet, he spun to attack the brother to incapacitate him. He intended to take him down quickly and get far away from the hospital before he was swarmed by Federal agents. This man and woman team had proven to be tough customers. Running away from them was a prudent course of action given all the circumstances.

He never got the chance to land a punch on Bartowski. The girlfriend, who had apparently been running after them both, literally flew through the air from behind the brother to hit Payne with a classic Tae Kwon Do flying kick. The movement of the hard edge of her right striking foot combining with her forward momentum hit him hard in the side. He both felt and heard at least two ribs crack. He flew backwards into the city street on the far side of the park.

This situation was going from bad to worse. Again, he turned the fall into a roll, this time a back roll, his own messenger bag flapping against his side. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he came to his feet with fists clenched to attack the girlfriend. To his dismay, she clearly knew how to fight. Her stance was balanced and ready and she had a look of fierce determination and focus. As beautiful as she was, she was going to be a tough opponent, a beautiful badass. Bartowski didn't square off the join the fight, seeming content to let his woman handle it. Payne had a flash of admiration. 'I knew he was smart.'

Suddenly, Payne looked up and to his right at the roaring sound of a powerful engine and his last thought before the car hit him was, 'Crown Vic.'

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A/N2: "L. Moreno" was the name of the emergency contact listed on the medical card that Chuck took out of Whitney's wallet in canon. If Moreno's real name is Lester or Lou, well, then it's not Linda.

A/N3: SP-117 is real. Or, to state that more accurately, supposedly real. There has been no independent confirmation of its existence from western intelligence agencies that I have found reported, but Russian sources have claimed that it not only exists but has almost magical properties. Odorless, colorless, and tasteless, with no immediate side effects, it supposedly results in not only truthful answers to the questions asked, but also removes the memory of the interrogation altogether. Alexander Litvinenko (the former FSB spy murdered by his former colleagues in London) claimed that the FSB used SP-117 on a Russian presidential candidate during the candidate's kidnapping. It is understandable that Payne would be angry at the Volkoff organization for selling him merely a lethal version of sodium pentothal instead of what he had been promised and had paid for.

A/N4: With the possible exception of SP-117, there is no such thing as truth serum. The closest real-life substance to the various fictional truth serums seems to be ethanol. It has side effects, though. For example, it leads people like me to believe that we can dance. In vino veritas indeed.