A/N: It would be kind of nice if someone here owned Chuck, huh? I mean, not me, but someone responsible. David Carner would be a good choice, for example.
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Chuck was driving Casey's Crown Vic with Cole Barker as a passenger. Given that Casey still made a show of blaming him for the destruction of the old Crown Vic by Lon Kirk's missile, Chuck took no chances and drove very carefully.
Barker was a pleasant companion and, on the drive from Castle to the Brewster Building, he told Chuck some funny, and very raunchy, stories about a prior visit to Los Angeles which involved the movie industry in general and two famous women actors in particular. Casey, Sarah and Amy had established themselves in the plaza an hour or so earlier, setting the stage for Fulcrum and Barker to meet.
They had not been able to spend much time with Barker earlier in the day. Team B had spent most of the morning and early afternoon on an extended conference call with John Neilson, the lawyer from New York, about the operating agreement for their new company, which they had decided to name "Carmichael Industries, LLC." As it turned out, the entity had to be formed before a bank would open an account for it. With the reward check for the Andric capture in process, they wanted to get the legal entity started as soon as possible. John had asked them to decide dozens and dozens of questions in order for him to write up what they wanted. He had promised that they would have a draft to review in a few days.
Arriving at their destination, Chuck touched his watch and spoke aloud to the rest of the team. "Everyone in position?"
"Roger that," said Casey.
"Yes," said Sarah.
"Good to go," said Amy.
Turning to Barker, he said, "You good, Agent Barker?"
"All good, Chuck. Thanks," he replied. "And call me Cole, eh, matey?"
Chuck nodded and said, with a smile, "Well, good luck, Cole."
Barker left the car and made his way to the plaza in front of the Brewster Building. He was pretending to be sipping from a cup of coffee, actually empty, and was wearing a pink tie. The other members of Team B had him in sight right away.
Chuck had learned that sometimes being a spy meant sitting and waiting while watching nothing much happening. Not that he really thought of himself as a spy, of course. He mostly thought of himself as a member of a team that included spies. And really awesome spies at that.
Chuck listened to the chatter in his ear. "He's clear, no one approaching." "On the south side..." "No. Cell phone." "Couple by the flowers..." "I got 'em." "Wait til this crowd passes..." "Right, he's still clear." "Watch that limo, it's been cruising." "Got it." "I'm moving further back, near the entrance." "Don't get too close and scare them off." "Right, I'll pull to the center." "Limo stopping." "There it is..." "Wait. Wait. It's wrong. They have a gun on him..." "Shit, shit, shit..." "What the hell? They are putting him in the limo." "I see..." "It's moving already...down the block...can you see them?" "No, blocked by the building." "Chuck, do you have them?"
"Got it," he said. "I see the limo. Coming towards me. California livery plate 2-A-A-A-Z-1-1-1. It's coming past me now, heading east...what..?"
The limo slowed as it got to the Crown Vic. From its open window someone fired a trank dart into Chuck's shoulder. Chuck's world went black.
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Alexis White considered herself a cautious woman. She had been a top spy for the CIA for many years, assigned to work with the Special Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since her recruitment to Fulcrum and immediate resignation from the Agency, she felt as if all her operations on US soil were essentially on enemy territory. She wasn't concerned about capture, certain that she would take her own life before she permitted that to happen. She didn't want to die any time soon, though. She just felt that she had much left to do to assure a Fulcrum victory and the salvation of the country she loved. She recognized that she was being paranoid, but was concerned that she wasn't being paranoid enough.
Together with two of her men, she sat in the back of the rented limo as it cruised the area around the Brewster Buidling. She and her men were watching carefully. She had learned long ago not to concentrate too hard on this sort of pass. To do so would focus you on the details, which she wasn't interested in. She wanted the "feel' for the people she saw. She wanted her subconscious to dictate to her. To alert her to a problem. Situational awareness was best utilized if you could allow it to operate in the background.
She didn't see anything to make her nervous. Kaplan would be there. He would be there alone, as instructed. And he would have the chip.
They made another pass in front of the plaza. She spotted the old-fashioned car, like an old cop car. Inside was the man she recognized as Kaplan, but he was with another man. He had not come there alone. Taxi driver? No. They were talking like friends. Kaplan got out of the cop-style car and headed to the rendezvous with the coffee cup in one hand. The car stayed put. Ok, that made her nervous. Kaplan had come with back up.
She made a spur of the moment decision. She would take both men and figure out later what was going on. She took a trank gun out of her satchel.
"Guys, when we stop, get Kaplan to the car without drawing attention. I'll trank him. Then we trank his friend in the car. Let's get them both back to the FOB and question them there."
Her men acknowledged her instructions.
On the next pass they pulled up and both her men got out. Shortly, Kaplan was getting into the limo at gunpoint. No sooner was he in the car than White tranked him. He collapsed to the floor.
"Oh, shit," said White when she saw the watch on his wrist. Twisting her head to her man in the front passenger seat she said, "Glove compartment. Give me the static bag that comes with the FasTrak pass." The man handed her the metallic bag from the glove compartment.
They slowed down near the car containing Kaplan's friend. From the open window, White tranked the man in the shoulder. Her two men leapt from the back of the car to muscle the unconscious man from his car into the back of the limo.
White took that man's identical watch off his wrist and dropped it into the static bag with Kaplan's watch.
"There," she said, "that will block the signal to whoever they were in contact with. Now we can talk to them without being interrupted."
She grinned a little bit at the thought of the interrogation. It was her favorite part of the job.
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Chuck woke to pain. His wrists and shoulders were on fire. He tried to move his hands to ease the pain in his wrists, only to find that he couldn't move his hands. His mind vaguely formed the words, 'what the fuck?' but that was when he realized he couldn't speak them. He tried moving his mouth and found it taped shut.
His eyes popped open in terror. He was in a run-down industrial building. There were windows along one wall and the night sky was visible beyond. So, he knew he'd been unconscious for a while. He looked up to see his hands in chains hanging from a pipe. He looked to his side and saw Cole Barker hanging from the same pipe next to him. Barker was stripped to his shorts. Uh oh. He looked down. He was also. Well, this sucks.
He took several deep breaths through his nose, trying to calm himself down. It didn't really work. Barker looked at him and tried to convey a message with only his eyes. That didn't work too well either. Whatever Barker wanted to tell him would have to wait.
A pretty brunette woman came over to them, with several burly looking guys behind her. Given the setting they were incongruously well dressed, more ready for a business meeting in a boardroom than interrogating almost naked men hanging in a crappy old building. Chuck wondered if the henchmen were all provided by the same talent agency and that's why they all looked alike. The pretty brunette didn't have a pretty look on her face at all. In fact, she looked … sadistic and happy about it. She casually held a long leather strap, like a belt, swinging it back and forth as she walked.
She looked at Barker and Chuck for a moment or two. She could read defiance in Barker's gaze and fear in Chuck's. The defiance challenged her. Fear she was used to, but defiance was something to snuff out.
"I think I'll start with you, Kaplan. You are giving me a real 'fuck you' look and that just makes this more fun."
She swung at Barker, the strap hitting his side and wrapping around to strike his back. He didn't make a sound. The only noise was her exhalation of exertion and the smack of leather on flesh. She hit him again, and he still refused to make any sound whatsoever. She kept on hitting him, again and again. Silence.
Chuck, on the other hand, was yelling through the tape on his mouth. "STOP IT. STOP IT. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP IT." Although the words were muffled, she could make them out.
Eventually, she was distracted enough to turn to Chuck. "Oh, you're jealous of Kaplan? You want some?"
She began to smack Chuck with the strap. The violence of the blows made him swing from the pipe over his head. The pain in his side and back was terrible, but not enough to cloud his mind. While she was beating him, he was yelling, "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? ASK US. ASK US."
She stopped, breathing heavily, "What?" She was sweating a little from her exertion.
"I said, you should ask us what you want to know," said Chuck's muffled voice.
"Ok," she said. She stepped forward and ripped the tape off his face. "You intend to cooperate. Don't intend to be a tough guy. I like that."
"They always say that everyone talks eventually. I believe that, so I just figure why not cut right to the end and save the beating part? We both get to go home for dinner that way."
"I wouldn't count on that last bit. What's your name?"
"My name is Chuck Bartowski. Well, I mean, Charles...but everybody calls me Chuck. I'd offer to shake hands but... well, you know."
"Ok, Chuck Bartowski. Who do you work for?"
"I work at the Buy More in Burbank..." The woman gave an exasperated huff and raised the strap again. Chuck continued though, "...but that's not what you were asking. I know. You want to know who I work for that put me in the car today watching Tom. Ok, see I work with Tom. Not for Tom, with Tom. We're partners. We're trying to sell you Fulcrum people a computer chip."
"So, you're Kaplan's partner?" she asked. "How come we haven't heard of you yet? As Kaplan's partner?"
"Well," said Chuck, "I'm sort of a silent partner." He was vaguely aware that Barker was watching him with surprise.
She hit him again with the strap, just for good measure. Turning to Barker, she pulled the tape off his mouth. "What do you have to say, Kaplan?"
"I want to tell Chuck that we should burn the fucking chip rather than give it to you, you psycho bitch." She hit him a few times. Blood began to trickle down his back.
"Now, Tom, stop that. You're letting your temper get the better of you again," said Chuck. "There's no need to be insulting." Inwardly, he was relieved that Cole was following his lead and was stringing these people along.
"So, that's your story, huh, Chuck? You and Kaplan are partners to sell us the chip."
"Yes."
"You're a liar, Chuck." She smacked Chuck a half dozen times with the strap and said, "You must think I'm stupid. That's bullshit. You were both wearing NSA watches. I know, I've seen those before. You are government agents."
"NSA? Seriously?" She hit him again. "Dammit. You know you really have to stop that. Here I am cooperating with you and you keep hitting. You ever hear of a Skinner box and how to train something? If I'm telling you things you want to know you're not supposed to be hitting me. You don't give me a disincentive to tell you the truth. Look I know you're really good at torture and I don't want to tell you how to do your job or anything. I mean you might have taken a torture class in graduate school and stuff. Hey, did you have to write papers in that class? You know, the theory of torture or something? Or was it more like a lab course?"
She hit him again. "Shut up. Jesus, you are annoying. Shit."
"I say the same thing all the time," said Cole. "He can get really annoying." Chuck gave him a disgruntled look.
"Yes, I know it was an NSA watch," said the woman.
"Wait, am I supposed to shut up or supposed to..I mean, you just told me to shut up..."
"I think you're supposed to answer her now. Just an idea, matey," said Cole.
"Ok. Wow," said Chuck. "That's cool though. NSA. Who knew? I got them off E-Bay. Seriously. You can check. I thought they were pretty neat. Tom and I use them instead of walkie-talkies. I'm serious. Go check. I got them around Christmas time. They weren't sold out when I got them, but ...I don't know, they might be now I guess."
White turned to one of her men and said, "See if you can find out what the hell he's talking about."
Chuck said, "I thought they were cool. Like Dick Tracy watches. Of course, I had to explain Dick Tracy to Tom. You know, he's a Brit and all and didn't grow up with that..."
Barker spoke up, "You didn't have to wrap them like a Christmas present, you know. I mean it's not like you were giving me a gift."
"You're just saying that because you didn't get me anything for Christmas and you feel guilty..."
"Shut up," said the woman. "And the rest of the gear? Bulletproof vests, a trank gun for you, Kaplan's pistol?"
"Yeah. Didn't do us much good against you guys, huh? I guess we underestimated you." said Chuck.
"Yes, you did. Kaplan," she turned to look at Barker, "we had an entire team killed last night at your hotel. Care to tell us about that?"
"Bloody hell. Was that your lot? I had no idea. I heard a gunfight and got the hell out of there. Not the place for Mrs. Kaplan's boy, I'll tell you that. I don't want to be anywhere around that business."
"Where'd you go?"
"I went to his flat," he gestured with his head at Chuck. "Not exactly posh, but nobody shooting each other either."
"Not posh?" said Chuck. "I gave you clean sheets for the couch and everything. You know you are really ungrateful, Tom. See if I open my door to you..."
She held up a hand in a stop gesture. "Not now. Where's the computer chip you and Kaplan were going to sell us?" she asked.
Before he could answer one of her men said, "Hey, he's right. E-bay has a bunch of walkie-talkie watches for sale. Some are pretty cheap, too. A real bargain..."
She turned back to Chuck and Barker, "Fine. Whatever. The chip"
"Yeah. We didn't bring it to the drop," said Chuck.
"I know that." She hit him again. "Why not, Chuck?"
"Jeez. You really have to stop that. We didn't bring it because we want the money. The eight hundred gee's. We were afraid that with that much money at stake you might just try to take the chip and not pay us...which..." Chuck looked around at the building and his hands and the chains and the pipe. He shrugged at her. "Maybe we were right, huh? You guys sort of didn't keep up your end of the deal."
"Well, you didn't first. Kaplan was supposed to come alone and with the chip."
"No, you didn't first. You didn't send the money to the bank in BVI, so we don't have payment for the product we were selling you."
"We were going to send the money when we determined that you had given us the chip. You don't get the money first," she complained.
Cole said, sounding aggrieved, "That's not what I arranged with Eugene. This time it was supposed to be money first. Too much was at stake. What if you took the chip and didn't give us the money?"
"Right? See? So, don't accuse us of breaching the deal when you did it first. And we really want to get paid. If we get the money we can even forgive you hanging us naked by our wrists from the …." said Chuck.
"Give us the chip," she demanded. She hit him again.
He yelled, "SHIT. You know, I'm trying very hard to like you and you're making it really difficult. You were just being mean that time. The chip is in a safe deposit box at a bank. We can collect it in the morning when the bank opens and our bank in the Caribbean confirms the receipt of our money." A streak of blood ran slowly down his side to drip onto the oil-stained floor below.
"You're hardly in a position to make demands, Chuck."
"I'm not making a demand. I'm making a deal. It's business...Hey, you know, I don't know you name. What should I call you?"
She paused, "White."
"Miss White? I mean, it could be Mrs., but I don't see a wedding ring, so...but, you know what? Let's stick to Ms. White. That works. So, Ms. White, we are making a deal. You get your computer chip with all the super important info on it and we get the money. And trust me, you really want what's on that chip."
"What do you mean we want the intel? How do you know what's on it?" she asked, surprised.
"Well, I looked at it, of course. I wanted to make sure that we were giving you something with info on it. Didn't want to sell you an empty chip. You folks scare us...with good reason, I think, huh? We..."
"You couldn't have looked at it. It can't be read without a special reader. It's essentially encrypted without the reader," she sounded adamant.
"Oh, yeah. The special reader thing. Ummm...listen, I don't want to upset you or anything. You know, to speak ill of someone, maybe. Ummm...did you pay extra for that? For the super-duper, secret no-reader thing? Cause if you did, you should really see about getting your money back...I mean..."
She lunged at him and grabbed his face, squeezing his cheeks and hissed, "You were able to open it?" Her angry brown eyes right up to his.
"Yeah," the word came out distorted with her hand squeezing his face. "Took me about half an hour with a soldering iron. Your people are idiots. Sorry."
She let go of Chuck's face and turned to her men, who had been watching. A couple of them shrugged.
"How did you figure out how to do that?"
"I'm the tech guy. It's what I do. That's why I'm partners with Tom. I do the tech part and he does the spy parts. I'm really not even supposed to be here, you see. This is really part of the spy part of the whole arrangement."
Ms. White looked at him seriously for a few moments and said, "If you are telling the truth, you must be a pretty competent tech guy."
"He's the best tech guy I've ever met," said Cole, actually speaking the truth at that point.
"I'd love to tell you that Tom keeps me around for my good looks, but we both know that's not true."
White looked him up and down for a moment of two and shrugged a shoulder, as if to suggest the statement could be the subject of a debate she did not intend to engage in. She continued, "What did you see on the chip?"
"Well, there was a note, to you I guess, or to someone at least. I guess whichever one of you guys opened the chip. Said the chip contained a file on whoever has been going all Frank Castle on you guys. I didn't look at the file, just the note..."
"Wait, what?" she asked.
"You know...Frank Castle...the Punisher...the guy who..."
One of Ms. White's men said, "Yeah. Frank Castle, from the comic books."
"Yeah, that's right. Although I call them graphic novels...you see, I have this girlfriend and she can get all judgey..."
White's guy started laughing. White said, annoyed, "Stop it, you two. What are you talking about?"
"Well, according to the note I read, Frank Castle...he kills the bad guys..ummm, the guys he disagrees with.. you know, maybe they're not so bad really... So, some outfit has been grabbing up you Fulcrum guys and ...well, killing you. The chip has the file on the group doing that."
There was a stir among the men behind her as they started to murmur among themselves.
White stood in front of him and said, in her most menacing tone, "We want that chip."
Chuck said, "Good. I want to give it to you. And I want the money. How about we do a deal? This time for real?" She noted that his voice was clear and strong and the fear was gone from his eyes, leaving behind sharp intelligence. That's when she suddenly realized that Kaplan was just the muscle and Chuck was the brains of their unlikely partnership.
"That's what I've been saying all along," said Cole, earning himself a few smacks with her leather belt. "Ah, you fucking bitch. Maybe we shouldn't do a deal with you. Burn it and let you all go to hell."
"Ms. White, Tom is just annoyed. We aren't going to destroy the chip. It's worth money to us and worth a lot to you too." Turning to Barker, he said, "Come on, Tom. Deep breaths. You know you've been eyeing that place on the beach in Bermuda. You can use your share as a downpayment. Keep your eye on the ball, partner."
Barker seemed to shake himself. "Right. You're right, Chuck. We just need to make the deal. Get the money, get rid of the chip. Get away from these people."
"See, that's the right way to think about it. Ms. White, we can take you to the bank in the morning to get the chip. It's later back east, so by the time the bank opens here, our Caribbean bank can confirm that the money has arrived."
"I'll consider it, Chuck. But I have to tell you..." She took a gun from behind her back and pointed it at Cole. "I don't really like him. Say, goodbye to your partner, Chuck. Your share of the money just doubled. You can live to take us to the bank in the morning, but I don't need both of you." She touched the gun to Cole's forehead.
Barker growled at her. Chuck said, "No, no, no. Ms. White. No, stop. If you do that, you won't get the chip. Please, stop. Please."
"And why not, Chuck? You going to be a hero here?"
"No. Not me. I'm not the hero type. Obviously. You won't get the chip because I don't know both passwords for the bank to open the box. I know one and he knows the other. That way, we have to work together and neither of us can cheat the other. Look, it's kind of embarrassing, you know, to show that we don't completely trust each other, but it's a thing."
"It was your thing, Chuck," said Barker. He was breathing heavily as the gun had been taken away from his head.
"Oh, let's not start that again, Tom. And not in front of Ms. White and her friends. I don't want to burden her with our problems."
"Well, I'm just saying that if you hadn't..."
"Oh, we're not going back to discussing my parents again, are we? This just gets..."
"SHUT UP," screamed White. "Jesus. I've never had subjects under interrogation that just kept talking and talking and talking like you two."
Barker and Chuck looked at her with surprise.
"I'll be back. We are going to discuss what you two fools have told us," she said, as she turned to go.
Chuck said, "Listen, Ms. White, can you let us down from here while you guys are having your little confab? You see, I'm tall enough already and if you make me taller people are going to stare. And I'm not really good at basketball. I'm sort of klutzy, actually."
White looked at him for a few moments and said, "Don't go away."
She and her men left, leaving Barker and Chuck hanging from the pipe and Chuck muttering, "I hate that joke."
Barker looked at Chuck and said, in a whisper, "Make a fist. Make two fists."
In a whisper, he said, "I can't. My hands are numb."
"That's the point. I need you to work your hands. It's going to hurt like hell, but I need you to get them back to life." As he was talking, he was clenching and unclenching his own fists. Chuck followed his lead.
"Damn, this hurts. Cole, what are we doing?"
"We're getting the hell out of here, Chuck. At least if they leave us alone long enough."
"Ok. Now you have my attention," he said. They each moved their hands until they worked again.
"Ok, Chuck. Do what I do." Barker pulled one of his hands down as far as he could. That resulted in his other hand rising up to touch the pipe they were chained to. He grasped it in one hand, immediately taking the strain off his wrists. He brought the other hand up as well and was now hanging from the pipe by his hands.
Chuck followed suit and was immediately relieved as the pain in his wrists began to ease. "Oh, thank God. I thought my wrists were going to snap."
"Ok, Chuck. Next step. You ever lift weights?"
"Yeah. Casey taught me."
"You do the dead lift?"
"Yeah," replied Chuck.
"OK. You and I are going to do the deadlift together, but upside down." With that, Barker piked his legs up past his head, past the pipe, up to the ceiling, which was about ten inches or so above the pipe. He planted his feet flat on the ceiling.
Chuck followed what Barker had done. Now they were next to each other, upside down and hanging from the pipe. Thinking back to Casey's instructions on the deadlift, he spread his feet a little more than shoulder wide, his grip inside his knees and as wide as the chains would permit, and straightened his back. He looked straight ahead, which was weird upside down, but it helped him keep his back straight.
Cole said, "On three. One...two...three."
Together, both men pushed off against the ceiling, holding the pipe. There was a creaking sound as the brackets holding the pipe up to the ceiling began to bend. It was followed by a scraping noise as the bracket bolts were pulled out of the concrete. They heaved again, the pipe tore loose from the brackets and collapsed to the ground.
Chuck and Cole tumbled into each other on the floor in a heap as the pipe came down.
As they were untangling themselves from each other, Cole murmured, "I wasn't sure that would work."
"Now, you tell me, dude," said Chuck with a small grin. Cole gave him a quiet laugh and a friendly rap on the shoulder.
They slipped the chains off of the now broken pipe. Without the pipe to hold them in place, the chains came loose from their wrists, leaving each of them holding a loop of chain closed with a heavy padlock.
There was a loud bang from elsewhere in the building. Almost immediately that sound was followed by another bang from another part of the building. The sounds of noisy shouts and gunshots came to them.
Cole looked at Chuck, who said, with a grin, "The cavalry."
Five Fulcrum men ran around the corner towards them.
Not even waiting for the men to recognize that he and Chuck were free, Cole attacked. Spinning the weighted chain, Cole tore into the five. In the first seconds, he cracked one across the head with the padlock and hit a second man with a side kick with the edge of his foot to the outside of the man's knee. One of the other men dodged under a chain attack, only to receive a hard kick in the testicles and a blow to the head with the padlock as he fell. The fourth man grabbed at Cole, only to be thrown to the ground and hit with the still spinning chain.
The rattle of gunfire got louder. Chuck watched Cole rip apart the Fulcrum men. He held his chain, ready to lend a hand if needed, but pretty certain that his assistance would not be at all necessary.
The fifth and last man lunged at Cole, who used the chain in two hands as a grappling tool to wrap the man's hand and wrist into a position to flip the man down onto his head. The last man conscious was the man on the floor with the damaged knee who had drawn a weapon from its holster and was bringing it around to aim at his attacker. Cole stomped once on the man's head with the heel of his foot and knocked him out, then bent to pick up the man's weapon.
He checked the gun quickly and hurried back to Chuck while he was doing so.
White ran around the corner towards them and instantly saw her men lying insensate on the hard ground. She stopped as Casey came around behind her, aiming a Colt submachinegun at her retreating back. Amy right beside him. Casey yelled, "STOP." Cole raised the gun he held in two hands to point at her.
White looked at Chuck and Cole and the gun in Cole's hand with surprise and turned around slowly to look at Casey. She raised her gun to the side of her head and seemed to pause for dramatic effect before saying, "Fulcrum wins."
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A/N2: White's limo had a livery plate. Those no longer exist in California, but they did in 2008. So, there we go.
A/N3: As White spent time with the Special Forces, she might have picked up some of their lingo. "FOB" is Forward Operating Base. It is a location utilized during an operation or series of operations for logistics and deployment. In this case, it's the abandoned industrial building where Fulcrum set themselves up to collect Kaplan's computer chip.
A/N4: When faced with the two NSA watches, White immediately reached for the static bag that is distributed with the toll tags, in this case the FasTrak system from California. They are metallicized bags to block the radio signals to and from the tags, but will work equally well to block the radio signals to and from the special NSA watches, including the GPS trackers. In this case, the toll tags were from California, but it could have been any of the toll tag systems. On much of the east coast of the United States it would be the EZPass system. In Florida, it's the SunPass system. They all work the same way and static bags are the tools used to assure drivers that they will not be charged for a toll if it's not appropriate, so long as the tag is inside the bag when it passes through the reader.
A/N5: In canon, Alexis White had a syringe full of ricin available as one of her implements of torture. She used that to threaten Chuck. She said it was enough to kill an army and she wasn't exaggerating. Ricin is the deadliest poison in the world. A dose the size of a couple of grains of table salt can kill an adult. It's so deadly that I was afraid to write about it. And it's so insanely dangerous that I couldn't think of realistic ways to include it or have White threaten to use it. Even having it lying on the table was a bad idea. So, I took it out of the story and gave her a gun to threaten Cole with. Not as exotic, but much more sensible.
A/N6: Reviews appreciated. And visit us on the FB page for Chuck FF. And let's remember, we may be ready to be done with the virus by now, but it's not done with us. This is the most perilous time. The risk is at the most extreme, the fatigue is real, and the hope is visible. It is exactly the time we are most likely to let down our guard and suffer the worst consequences. Stay safe.