A/N: Ownership of Chuck. There, I said it.
A/N2: The CIA unveiled four additional stars on the Wall last Tuesday. Rest in peace.
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Earlier, that same day
Roan was going to do his own thing with the women realtors. After breakfast, Sarah and Casey went to the local CIA station to interrogate Sasha's men from the beach the prior night.
Chuck's online investigation had narrowed the search to seven of the party boat operators with a boat departing at 5pm and the remainder of Team B was going to talk to each of them. Chuck, Bryce and Amy parted at the hotel in separate cars. The entire team intended to keep in touch with each other throughout the day.
Two of the party boats were booked for private parties of college kids, so they were out. One had been hired for a wedding, making it unlikely as well. One of the companies had cancelled the 5pm trip and forgotten to update their website. By the time lunch was over, they had reduced the possibilities to three boats. They bought tickets for the team on each boat and waited to watch the passengers arrive.
Chuck was in a coffee shop watching the party boat prepare for the evening's trip and working on Carmichael Industries business while becoming overcaffeinated.
Casey and Sarah joined them, having gained no useful information from the men they had interrogated. Sarah joined Chuck while Casey joined Amy.
The operators of each of the boats had encouraged everyone to be on board by 4:30, to allow a 5:00 departure. People began to arrive at 4:00. At 4:10, Chuck and Sarah saw Sasha Banacheck and two of her men getting on the boat they were observing. They were dressed casually in shorts and tee shirts, and carried heavy looking backpacks. They were smiling and playing to the scene as if they were looking forward to partying.
Chuck said, "They won't recognize you." Casey and Amy might have been seen by Banacheck the prior evening rushing to Chuck and Bryce's aid on the beach.
"Yeah. I'll go up now. You get the rest of the team here and meet me onboard," Sarah said, giving him a quick kiss and joining the line to board.
Chuck touched his watch and said, "Guys, we've got them here at the Miami Wench. They are boarding already, so move quick." His team acknowledged his message. He texted Roan, but didn't receive an answer.
The Miami Wench was a two hundred foot long white boat with three decks, five bars, a DJ and dance floor, and four lifeboats. It could hold almost three hundred guests and promoted itself among the post-college crowd out for a rowdy night of drinking and dancing. The voyage Banacheck and her men boarded was mid-week and had maybe half the number of guests as the boat could accommodate. Although the event was described as a voyage, the actual path of the boat was to make lazy circles in the Atlantic in front of Government Cut and then head back into port when the requisite number of hours had been logged.
Bryce, Casey and Amy arrived with only minutes to spare and joined Chuck on the boarding line. Sarah assured them that Banacheck and her men were on the other side of the boat and would not observe them getting onboard.
The crowd was mostly late twenties or early thirties, boisterous and loud. Most were in mixed groups of a dozen or so men and women, with the occasional groups of single sex guests, hungrily eyeing the crowd for companionship.
Banacheck's team must have stashed their backpacks somewhere and were standing together looking out at the water and seemingly unconcerned with anything else. Whenever her exchange with Fulcrum was to take place, she obviously had time.
Team B met Sarah where they weren't visible to Banacheck and agreed to split up to cover the boat and keep an eye out for the Fulcrum team meeting her for the exchange. Sarah, as the only one they could be sure Banacheck hadn't seen the prior evening, stayed closest to her.
The boat left the dock and headed out to the open water to the cheers of the passengers. The bars opened and the music started.
After a while, Sasha Banacheck left her men and headed to the dance floor alone. She danced by herself for a half-hour. Although a couple of men approached to dance with her, none stayed and she didn't pass anything to them. Sarah, on the edges of the room with the dancing, had to wave off her share of male attention as well. Some guy was trying to dance while chugging an entire beer and spilled it mostly over himself. With the loud music and throbbing base, Sarah couldn't communicate with her team, not that she had much to tell them.
Next the Russian woman headed to the bar and got herself a drink. Sarah followed her as she headed to the top deck, where the wind was stronger and the air was cooler. The sound of the music was merely a pulsing throb at that location on the boat. Night had fallen and Miami glistened against the black water and starless sky like a long strip of multicolored Christmas lights stretching away to the distance in either direction.
As Banacheck stood and watched the lights, a woman came over to the railing to stand next to her. Despite the cooler weather, the woman was only wearing tight shorts and a bikini top. Sarah was watching closely or she would have missed it, but after exchanging a few words Bikini took something from Banacheck. The woman headed back to the lower decks immediately.
Sarah spoke urgently into her watch as she made her way after the woman, jostled by already drunk young men as she passed them on the stairs (which she remembered are called ladders on a boat). They could pick up Banacheck and her men later. The priority now was to identify the Fulcrum operatives.
As she watched, her team moved around the revelers to keep an eye on Bikini. They saw her go immediately to a man in a pink polo shirt and embrace him. She passed him the flashdrive.
"Pink shirt has the drive," said Sarah, having to yell slightly to be heard over the sound of the music. Her team acknowledged. Now they had to watch him and identify anyone with him.
A man with a loose Hawaiian shirt came up to Pink Polo and began to talk to him. Suddenly, that man started in surprise and began to pull a pistol from under his shirt.
Casey said, "Shit. I've been made. That guy is NSA."
Sarah was closest. She jumped forward and kicked the gun out of his hand.
Someone came at Sarah from behind and was knocked to the floor by Amy. Two more men tried to attack both Amy and Sarah but were disposed of by Bryce. Chuck showed up and began to trank anyone he could ID as part of the Fulcrum team.
Bikini threw a spinning back kick at Bryce, who leaned back so the kick passed within an inch of his face, then leaned in and hit her with a left cross. Chuck tranked her.
A man reached for Bryce, but Bryce knocked the hands away and hit the man with an uppercut to the jaw, knocking him out. The woman next to him screamed, "You knocked out my boyfriend!"
Bryce huffed in frustration and yelled, "Ok, listen. There's too many people here. If you're an enemy operative...please, raise your hand."
A man leapt from the crowd behind him. Bryce saw him coming and launched a back kick, catching the man in the jaw. Chuck tranked the man before the body hit the floor. Bryce looked at the unconscious man and said, "Thank you."
Team B looked around at the crowd, but saw no one else who appeared ready to challenge them. The music had stopped and the party-goers stood silently, watching Team B and the unconscious men and women at their feet. The revelers were stunned and confused. As the party lights continued to flash, the effect was eerie.
Casey said to Bryce, "Let's find Banacheck."
"Yeah," said Chuck, frisking Pink Polo to get the flashdrive. "And let's see what we've got here." Bryce and Casey left. Chuck took out his computer and booted it up. After a little while, he inserted the drive and opened it.
Casey and Bryce came back. "She's gone. She and her men are gone. They're not on board. What the hell?"
The Captain of the party boat came down the steps from the bridge and powered his way through the crowd of stunned onlookers like a bad storm. He said, "I'm Captain Weller and I demand to know what's going on here." He was a fat man with a uniform and an imperious attitude.
Casey got right into his face and said, "Yeah? No shit, Queeg. We're Federal agents and I demand to know how three passengers left this boat in the last fifteen minutes. What do you have to say for yourself?"
The man began to stutter and suddenly became clearly afraid, seeming to shrink upon himself as his attitude totally shifted, "Federal agents? No, no, no. It was just a joke. It was just a joke. She paid me five grand to let her and her friends leave in an inflatable boat to get back to the port. It was just a joke on her other friends here."
"When?" demanded Casey with a frown. "When did she make this arrangement with you?"
The captain said, "About six weeks ago. She said she'd tell me which trip it would be."
Casey looked at the others, confusion on his face. "Six weeks? That makes no sense."
"You're right, but I've got worse news. The drive is blank. She gave them a blank drive," said Chuck.
"What?" asked Sarah.
"Why would she do that?" asked Amy. "They won't pay her for an empty drive. If they haven't paid her yet, they wouldn't pay her when they opened it."
"Then why go through with this? There's no point," said Bryce.
"Maybe they paid her half upfront or something?" asked Amy.
"If you are going to rip off someone, don't do it to Fulcrum. They are some dangerous people. Why would she go through with this? All this nonsense? And prepare for it six weeks ago?" asked Sarah.
Silence met Sarah's question. But suddenly Chuck's face went pale. "Roan."
The others looked at him, but it only took a moment for them to catch on. "Oh, shit. That's it. She wants Roan," said Sarah. "That's the whole point. The Fulcrum thing was just the bait."
"Shit. Where is he?" asked Bryce.
Chuck checked his phone and the locator beacon on Roan's watch. "On shore. Actually, there," Chuck said, pointing to the shore. "If it were daytime, you could see the spot."
"Then they can see this boat," said Sarah.
"She said the worst thing she could do to him would be to hurt his team, to hurt us," said Bryce. "Oh, my God, we're her target."
"Captain, when they left did they have their backpacks? Did they take the backpacks with them?" asked Chuck with urgency.
"No. What backpacks?" said the captain, confused, but now even more scared.
"Get your crew to search the boat. Right now. Three backpacks. Two black and one white. Let us know when they find them, but do not let anyone touch them."
The captain, visibly shaking, spoke into his radio. Within five minutes, the backpacks were found on a lower deck pushed together under a bench.
By the time Team B arrived, the sailors had cleared the room of party-guests. Both Bryce and Chuck stepped forward, towards the bags. "Let me look," said Bryce to Chuck. "I've taken the demo class. If it's a bomb, maybe I can disarm it."
Before Chuck could respond, Casey grabbed Bryce by the shoulder, pulled him back, and said, "Shut up, Larkin." Bryce looked on with surprise as they all let Chuck handle this most dangerous task.
Chuck took out his multi-tool and made a careful slice in the fabric of one of the backpacks. With his penlight, he inspected inside the bag. He looked up at his team and the boat's captain.
"Yeah, it's a bomb." His voice was flat.
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Roan sat in the chair and tried to move his hands. It hurt, but he didn't want to lose them to bad circulation. He didn't make eye contact with the guy with the gun sitting nearby. He just saw no point to it.
There was the sound of a door opening and closing behind him.
"Hi, Roan, darling. I'm back," said Sasha. Roan felt that his sense of the passage of time must have been askew, as she seemed to have returned much more quickly than he would have expected from a party boat jaunt.
Her arms wrapped around him from behind and she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. She said to the man watching Roan, "Well, you left him in one piece. Good for you. Bonus pay for that one."
The other two men came into view. Sasha said, "Open the door, please. I want us to see the boat. But turn off the lights first. Let's make sure he can see outside really well."
The interior lights were doused and the huge warehouse door opened. The other two men, at Sasha's direction, dragged Roan over to the open door. From where he was sitting in the chair, he was about forty yards from the water and the dock extending far into the blackness. Sasha pointed to a set of lights on the water in the distance. "You see those lights, Roan? That's the party boat. The one with your team on it."
She pulled up the other chair next to him so that they could watch the lights together and rested a soft hand on his arm.
She glanced at her watch. "You see, I wasn't kidding. I know that the worst thing I can do to you is to hurt your people. Your team. Because I know you will blame yourself. In this case, you should blame yourself. That's the right thing to do. If it weren't for you, none of this would be happening. None of it."
She looked at her watch again and said, "Keep your eyes open, my darling. Wouldn't want you to miss the fireworks." As they watched, there was a giant explosion at the lights on the dark water. It blossomed in the blackness like a hideous orange flower and then was gone, leaving only the afterglow in his retinas. When the flash of the explosion had dissipated, there were no longer any lights visible in the water at that spot. A low boom sound came to them.
She turned and looked into his eyes. "They are dead, Roan. Together with a couple of hundred Americans. You failed. You didn't stop me this time. You stopped me before, from killing Bulgarians, but this time I've killed Americans. You idiots will probably blame Al Queda or the Serbs again or something. War on Terror. Right? But this wasn't political. Not at all. This was just personal. I knew how to hurt you, so that's just what I did."
She smiled a little bit. "I'm going to kill you Roan. I've thought about his for ten years. Every day. I've thought about killing you." She got up from her chair and walked over to the folding table behind them. She came back with a jet injector, a gun shaped device with a compressed air cylinder and a reservoir of some kind of drug for injection. "See this? It's to allow an injection without a needle. Compressed air. This one is filled with a fast-acting poison. Tetrodotoxin. You'll still have a good-looking corpse. No more scars. Don't worry. It's very deadly, very quick and pretty painless, or at least they tell me it's painless. Guess no one knows for sure." She shrugged. "They say it's something like forty-five seconds and you're dead. That sounds quick to me, at least. Better than a couple of years with lung cancer, I figure. Anyway, I'm going to kill you. But I wanted to talk to you first."
"You see, Roan, I couldn't stand the humiliation. Sasha Backcheck seduced and betrayed by an American agent. You know I was at the top of my class in seduction with the KGB. The top. I honestly considered suicide, it was so hard to live with what you did to me. So horrible. Such a monumental failure on my part. I knew better, you see? I knew better, but I fell for you anyway. You know, for a while there I thought I was in love with you. How insane is that? We all know that's not the life of a spy. And then you betrayed me and I was in prison. It was just what I deserved. Every time I was beaten or tortured or waterboarded, whatever, I just knew it was punishment for my stupidity. And I deserved it. I deserved it. It was penance, in a way."
She put her hand, holding the jet injector, lightly on his naked leg. "So, I decided to kill you when I was released. I couldn't really have you walking around enjoying your life after what you did to me. That wasn't justice. So, you had to die. But, I knew I needed to make you hurt before you died. I needed to make you suffer. And, I also needed to explain what was happening to you and why, you see. You understand, right?"
Roan nodded his head. He did understand.
"But when I got out, when those Bulgarian bastards released me, I ran into a snag. Seems you had retired and couldn't be found. Off the grid, they said. I hired some of the best and nothing. No one could find you. And we Russians have some great hackers. But you were gone. The only thing to do was make you come to me. The newest boogey man for you people was Fulcrum, so I'd have to deal with them to draw you out from your hole. And cut a deal I did. I'd pretend to sell them something, who cares what. It didn't matter, as long as I could get on American radar and have the Agency bring it to your attention. So, I used an encryption key that I learned your NSA had broken. Made the deal with Fulcrum that way, so the NSA could hear it."
"Learning I was in the game, I gambled ...correctly... that they would bring you out of retirement to try to stop me from doing a deal with Fulcrum. I didn't know, not for sure, I didn't know until I heard your voice in my ear last night. It was at least possible that that pretty idiot had just remembered three olives from some class he took from you or something."
"But no. You were here in Miami, just as I'd planned. Honestly, it took all of my self-control not to scream with glee. Here you were. Out of retirement and looking for me in Miami. And, what's even better, you found the clues I left you. The paper with the departure time of the party boat? I'll bet you thought you were so smart. And then, come on...an all-woman brokerage company for this place?" She waved her hand around at the warehouse. "I honestly worried it would be too obvious, but nope, you were thoroughly predictable and bought it entirely. Send in Roan Montgomery, the seduction specialist. He can get the location from a woman if anyone can." She laughed quietly. "It wasn't too obvious, then?"
Roan shrugged, as if to say, "Nope, but in hindsight..."
"I've played you all every step of the way, just to get to this point. Your team is dead and their bodies feeding the sharks. And you will join them soon. But first..."
A noise behind him caused her head to jerk up.
"Chert voz'mi," [Dammit] she almost snarled. After a moment's consideration, she touched his neck with the injector. "Have to go. Goodbye, Roan. Burn in hell."
He heard the hiss of the compressed air and felt the sting on his neck as the poison entered his system. He heard the clatter as the injector hit the ground beside his chair.
He watched as she ran from him. He tried to keep his eyes on her, but within moments his vision turned double and he was watching two Sashas running down two docks towards two speedboats. Breathing became difficult.
His head was heavy and started to sink to his chest. He heard activity around him, but it had nothing to do with him by that point.
As the blackness engulfed him, his last thought was, "Bye, Susie. I loved you."
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A/N3: Sasha Banacheck did seven years in a Bulgarian prison in canon (ten years in my story) as a result of Roan's betrayal. And somehow that didn't really play into the plot in canon beyond a couple of sneers. Really? I find that pretty unlikely.
A/N4: Casey called the boat captain "Queeg." That's a reference to the infamous Captain Queeg from the novel by Herman Wouk titled The Caine Mutiny and refers specifically to a WW2 Navy Captain so inept that his fellow officers mutiny. Humphrey Bogart won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Queeg in the movie by the same name.
A/N5: Let me know what you think, please.