AN: My wife could tell me where I hid the note about the ownership of Chuck, but I have to remember to ask her.
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Casey, Sarah and Amy were watching a documentary about tiger shark births when Chuck called out, "Ready, guys."
They turned off the TV and re-assembled at Chuck and Sarah's dining room table. Chuck began. "Ok, here we go. Tyrell Bennett was born in New York City on March 5, 1947. In 1968, he joined the New York City Police Department. By 1971 he was a detective. Quick, but not unheard of. His police career was excellent. He received a commendation for disarming and subduing two armed men robbing a bodega while he was off duty, hand to hand. He didn't even bother to draw his off-duty weapon. Just took them both out.
"Anyway, somehow he came to the attention of the NSA and was recruited in 1975. In NSA training, he excelled at combatives. Seems martial arts had been a hobby of his since grade school. He has a third degree blackbelt in Shotokan Karate, a second degree blackbelt in Kodokan Judo, and a second degree blackbelt in Aikido."
Casey added, "And he's got experience with a dozen other styles of fighting. Military combatives are a combination of techniques from anywhere they find them. Mix and match whatever works. Some of the stuff he taught, he made up himself."
"Ok, that explains some of what comes later." Chuck continued. "As an NSA agent he also had a very successful career. In 1981 he was awarded the National Security Medal for an op he ran in the Bekka Valley. In 1985 he was injured on a mission in Columbia and he was medically pulled from the field."
"Injured?" asked Sarah.
"Yeah," said Casey. "He's deaf in his right ear. Was too close to a blast."
"The NSA didn't want to lose him and moved him into the training program to teach combatives to the new recruits. He's been there ever since. Twenty-two, twenty-three years. As Sarah said, he's almost a legend by this point."
"I never met anyone who actually trained with him," she said.
"Yeah" said Casey. "I met him a few years after he began as an instructor. As I told you, I was a messed up new recruit and he helped me a lot. Helped me put my head in a better place to be a spy. Did the same for a lot of the guys over the years. Not just the combatives training. General spy knowledge. The way to look at the job...the mission. Getting us ready for it."
"Well, his performance reviews are fantastic. Until White's revelation about the recruitment for Fulcrum, he had a perfect record."
Amy asked, "Any indication why he went over to them? Went to Fulcrum?"
"From what we understand of Fulcrum (and that's mostly from Operation Thirty), there's nothing solid, but I have an idea. His younger brother, James, ten years younger, joined the NYPD in Bennett's footsteps. James was killed, along with 22 other New York police officers, when the towers came down on 9/11. Seems Bennett took it pretty hard. He took all his accrued vacation and went up to New York to work on the Pile...what was left of the buildings."
"Oh, hell," said Sarah softly.
"Yeah," said Chuck. "They never found a body. Anyway, not too much else to tell about Bennett. No wife or kids. No evidence of a steady girlfriend or boyfriend. Nothing strange with his bank accounts or savings."
"He's got money offshore," said Casey.
"I didn't see that. How do you know?" asked Chuck.
"Because he told me to do the same thing. One of his lessons was to have money available off-shore in case you had to bolt for some reason. My guess is somewhere in the Caribbean. It's currently the easiest place for that stuff."
"Really?" asked Chuck. "People do that?"
"Of course," answered Casey.
"Of course," answered Sarah.
"Of course," answered Amy.
Chuck looked at them with a funny frown. "Ok. I'll see if I can find traces of it. Otherwise, he owns his house. Paid off the mortgage six years ago. Decent pension. Could have retired at full pay a few years back but kept working anyway. No real presence on social media. Other than martial arts, I don't see any hobbies. Doesn't seem to have a personal email account."
"Bonsai trees," said Casey. "He's the one who introduced me to them. It's a calming routine. It helps me with patience."
"Of course," said Sarah. "We've all seen your trees."
Casey continued, "He's definitely got a personal email account. It's what he uses for the bonsai group."
"Ok. Interesting. What's that?"
"It's called Bonsai Village. Not too often, but every once in a while, I'll go into it with a question or something. Looking for advice on the forum. Sometimes, he'd be the one to respond. I'm sure he doesn't use his work email for that. He goes by the name 'NYCBonsai.'"
"Ok," said Chuck, making a note. "What's your name on the site?"
"Leatherneck."
"Ok. I'll look at that. See if that helps. Anyway, I can see from the traffic in the IC that they are doing all the usual things to find him. Nothing extraordinary or imaginative. Just one more Fulcrum asshole on the run."
Amy said, "So, what can we do that they can't?"
"Find the money in the Caribbean," said Sarah.
"Yeah," said Chuck. "And find Bennett's personal email account. It's got to be one of the free ones, like gmail or something. If it wasn't, I'd see payments in his bank records. I'll find it."
"Ok, so what should we do now?" asked Amy.
Chuck said, "You and Casey head home to your beds. You too, Sweetie. Just let me poke around a bit online and see what I can come up with."
Casey gave him a rap on the shoulder. Amy gave him a kiss on the cheek. They left.
Sarah said, "Are you going to sleep tonight, Mr. P. Rana?"
"Depends how fast I can find Bennett. Don't wait up, Sweetie."
"Ok. I love you," she said, giving him a kiss.
"I love you right back." His smile left no doubt about that.
Before she left, she put up a pot of coffee for him. And opened a bottle of Chardonnay, just in case.
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Casey woke to the buzz of his cell phone. It was Bartowski. The phone said it was 5:49AM.
"Yeah," he said.
"Saddle up. We are going to Santa Fe, New Mexico and it's an all day drive. At least," said Chuck.
"Flying'd be faster," said Casey, still in the process of waking up.
"Yup. But we don't want the bosses to know what we are up to. So, we drive. Just be happy it's not Ohio."
"Our cars have trackers, Kid," he said, wiping his eyes while swinging his legs off the bed.
"At the moment. And I have to disable the trackers on the cars and watches before we leave," he said. He sounded very chipper.
"You didn't sleep last night, did you?"
"Nope. How can you tell?" asked Chuck.
"Because you're too fucking happy," growled Casey.
Chuck just laughed.
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On the road to Santa Fe, Chuck slept in the passenger seat of the Porsche for the first five hours. Even with the seat pushed all the way back and as flat as possible, it wasn't the most comfortable sleeping surface he could imagine (especially for a man of his size), but he was next to his fiancé, and there was nothing more comforting than that.
Once Casey, in the Crown Vic with Amy, and Sarah decided to stop to pee and get some food, he woke up. They were in Kingman, Arizona.
Looking up at the sign, he said, "Awesome. I love Cracker Barrell." Sarah rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, don't be a snob," he said. "They have great fried chicken and sweet tea."
Sarah gave him a smile that could make his insides melt. "Ok, Sweetie. If you love it, I love it." She took his hand and kissed him. Holding hands, they walked to the door of the restaurant, meeting Amy and Casey there. After visits to the restrooms, they made their way through the kitschy giftshop and were seated at a booth.
"Ok, kid. Spill it. Why Santa Fe?" asked Casey. They hadn't pressed him for the explanation, letting him get some sleep.
"Digital breadcrumbs," said Chuck.
Under other circumstances, Casey would have said that Bennett was too smart to make that sort of mistake, but he knew without a tiny bit of doubt that as smart as Bennett might be, Chuck was smarter.
"The first was the Bonsai website you sent me to. I hacked in. I got to NYCBonsai and found the email account connected with that name. I was right, it was a free one. A German-based service provider called GMX. I hacked in there next and got to his personal email account. I read his email messages for the last couple of years. Nothing to find on the surface."
The waitress arrived and they ordered lunch. Fried chicken, meatloaf, sandwiches, sweet tea all around.
"Can you get in trouble for the hacking, Chuck? I know you have been pardoned for the prior stuff, but this is new and we aren't on a mission. I don't want you to get in trouble. The pardon couldn't be prospective," asked Amy.
"Naw. Thanks, though. If Bennett was a civilian, that's one thing. But his contract with the NSA gives us permission for this stuff. No need to get a FISA warrant on him, it's all authorized by his employment contract."
"Good," said Amy.
"So, if there was nothing in his personal email, how'd we get here?" asked Sarah.
"You know what it's like when you have multiple email accounts? You get something to one account you sort of wish had gone to a different account? You try to keep email folders together to organize your life? It gets harder and harder as time goes by."
"Sure," said Sarah.
"Right. So, what do you do when that happens?"
"I send it to myself. I sent an email to myself at the other account."
"That's right. And do you write yourself a message when you do it?"
"Of course not. It's me to me. No need for a message," she answered.
"Exactly. That's how I found Bennett's last email account. I looked for forwarded messages without any added text. There weren't many, but I found a few. He made it easier for me by deleting all of them from the 'Sent' folder."
"Why is that easier?" asked Amy.
"Because they end up in the deleted folder then. And how many deleted emails are there where you are the sender? Almost all deleted emails are ones that come to you, not that you send. That was a red flag."
"Ok. That makes sense," she said.
Their food arrived and they began to eat lunch.
"So, what did you find in the last email account, Bartowski?" asked Casey, sipping sweet tea.
"Well, this was the one that matters. It's the one he kept secret from the NSA and everybody else. I didn't find anything about Fulcrum. Maybe they are too smart to communicate by email, I don't know. But I found the stuff he wouldn't want us to find if he was to run. I found his communications with his bank. You were close, Case...about the Caribbean, I mean. It's in Panama."
"Close enough," said Casey.
"Yup," said Chuck. "I got his account number and hacked into the bank. The account is under the name of Bruce Norris."
"Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris?" asked Amy with a smile.
"That's my guess," said a grinning Chuck.
"So, what did we find in the bank?" asked Sarah.
"I found Mr. Norris' Am Ex card. The payments to pay for it come directly from the Panama account. The annual upkeep charges."
"And?" asked Casey, impatient.
"And I went into Mr. Norris' account at Am Ex. He went on the lam a few days ago. That's when the card started to show activity. A series of charges at gas stations. All moving west as the days went by. There was charge on the card two days ago. Gas and groceries at a gas station in Santa Rosa, New Mexico."
"Bingo," said Sarah.
"Yup," said Chuck.
"Just gas stations?" asked Sarah.
"Mostly. A couple of grocery stores, but no hotels or motels," he said. "Knowing he was driving, I found the car registered under the name Norris. A red Jeep Cherokee 2003. Virginia plates."
"Paying cash for lodging?" asked Sarah.
"Maybe, but then why use the card for gas?" said Chuck.
"So, he slept in the car coming cross-country?" asked Amy, with a frown.
"Camping," suggested Casey. "It's what I'd do. Why Santa Fe?"
"Seems that until Clines Corners, New Mexico, he was heading west on I-40. The next gas station charge, the last one, yesterday afternoon, was near Lamy, New Mexico." said Chuck. "So, he got off I-40 and started to head north on 285. I don't know why or where he's heading ultimately, but Santa Fe is the biggest town just north of Lamy. I'm not putting us ahead of him. Not really, anyway, as he's probably gone north of Santa Fe by now, but I hope I'm putting us right behind him."
Casey nodded his head and said, "Good job, Kid."
"Thanks, Case," said Chuck, wiping his fingers on a napkin.
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"Stop it," Sarah said glancing at him with a fake frown, trying to hide a little happy smile, her blue eyes twinkling.
"No," said Chuck.
"It's weird," she said.
"Is not. It's the most natural thing in the world."
"Not true. No other boyfriends would spend so long watching their girlfriends as they just drive a car," she said.
"Ok. First off, it's fiancé, not girlfriend. We are past the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing. We are an engaged couple. I'm so happy about it that I insist we talk about it whenever possible and use all the right marrying-stuff terms. The fact that I will be married to you gives me joy every time I think about it, Wife-to-be."
Looking away from the road, a ruler straight section of I-40 eastward through the desert – a lot of desert – Sarah, smiled at him with all the love in her heart. "Fine. Fiancé. Husband-to-be. And, for the record, you can't be happier about it than I am. I love you more than anything."
"We'll call it a tie," he said with a grin. She laughed with happiness. She loved this man so much.
"What's the second thing?" she asked.
"I agree. No other boyfriends look at their ...girlfriend...fiancé...wife-to-be...significant other...woman..."
"Ug, ug. Grog have woman," she said, punching herself on the chest a couple of times in the way they expected cavepeople to have communicated.
"Right. No caveman stuff here. Anyway, other men probably don't. But it doesn't make me weird. There's a reason." She glanced at him with a raised eyebrow of inquiry. "It's obvious. You are the most incredibly beautiful woman ever. Like seriously ever. Ever, ever. If Helen of Troy were to show up in the modern day and see you, she'd cry herself to sleep every night, knowing that there's someone even more beautiful. Your beauty is so far beyond skin deep. You just glow and it's magnetic. I just can't stop looking at you..."
"With love," she said, looking back at him with love.
"...with love."
She took his hand and gave it a nice squeeze, keeping her eyes on the road at the same time. "You know, if you keep talking like that, we may have to find a rest stop with a secluded area."
"Oh, boy. Now that's a thought. Send Casey and Amy on ahead."
"Nope. They are at least forty-five minutes behind us by now. I drive faster than he does."
"No way forty-five minutes is enough time," said Chuck.
"Oh, God. Stop it," she said, laughing. "Do you even have any idea what you do to me?" She flapped her hand before her face in an effort to cool herself off.
"Glad I got that sleep," said Chuck. "I think I'll need it later."
Sarah laughed harder.
The time passed and the seemingly endless desert rolled past the car at Sarah's preferred (illegal) speed. Once again Chuck realized, there's a lot of desert in the American southwest.
Eventually Chuck said, "You know, they weren't really cavemen and cavewomen, right?"
"Huh?"
"Grog and his woman. Most likely they weren't cavepeople," said Chuck.
"Um, no. I didn't know that," said Sarah.
"Yeah. It's among the latest theories and ideas and stuff. It makes a lot of sense to me. The caves are where we find the evidence that they were around, because it's a pretty protected environment, right?"
"Right," responded Sarah.
"Ok, but that's just where we found the fossils and chipped rocks and ash and midden piles and stuff. It's why we started to call them cavemen. But it's much more likely that most of them were living elsewhere," said Chuck.
"Um, ok," said Sarah.
"So, here's the question," said Chuck. "We're going camping. You and I. Where's the best campsite you can think of? The first consideration?"
"Well, they taught us that the first thing you want is to be near the water...Oh, of course. Proximity to fresh water...but then all the evidence that the cavepeople...ancient people, were there would be washed away by the eons. But it would be preserved in a cave. That's why they are, inaccurately I guess, called cavemen."
"Exactly. The scientists who are doing the work have broadened the scope of the range they are looking at. Just harder to find the evidence. Doesn't mean they weren't there."
"Oh, my God. That's so cool. Where did you read that?"
"In a magazine a few months ago. What can I say? I'm a nerd," he said with a self-deprecating shrug.
Looking away from the road for a moment, she gave him a look that stopped all brain activity in the man. "Do you have any idea...any idea at all...how sexy nerds are? I want to pull off the road right now and show you exactly what Mrs. Grog used to do to Mr. Grog to make more Grogs."
"Yikes," he said with a bit of a happy grin.
Laughing, she reached out to hold his hand and grinned back. The loveliest smile he could ever imagine.
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AN2: The website Bennett and Casey were visiting is based off the site Bonsai Empire. As I indicated, there's a forum page for questions and community answers on bonsai. Bonsai is a fascinating art form. Honestly, I didn't appreciate that until I started to look into it. Pruning and training is used to create something that resembles, for aesthetic purposes, a much larger tree. When Casey indicates that it would engender patience, I suggest we believe him. Is it possible that he's capable of the long-term shaping of things that aren't trees?
AN3: Again, not too much action here, but moved our friends a bit closer to Bennett. And lunch at Cracker Barrell is always fun. Hey, Frank Suppa, did you like the last bit with Chuck and Sarah? Little bit of Charah for you, my friend. Let me know how I did, guys, if you wouldn't mind. Stay safe out there, please.