A/N1: Ownership of Chuck is not kept in the basement of a farmhouse in Ohio. I'm sure you're all happy to know that.
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Ellie was just finishing dressing for the day when her phone rang. Devon was at work, but she had taken the day off.
"Hello," she said.
"Morning, Ellie. It's Langston," said Graham.
"Hi. What's up?"
"Just wanted you to know that those Orion notebooks we talked about the other day are being delivered to you today. I'm having an Agency courier bring them by. What time would be good? I wouldn't want him to leave them at your front door or something if you weren't home."
"Sure. How about one o'clock this afternoon? I'm heading in with the Team to Castle to hear Chuck's briefing on the Orion trap. I should be back home by then, I think. Not going to the hospital today so I can take a look at the notebooks this afternoon. See if they shed any light on what his ideas were."
"Ok. One o'clock it is," said Graham.
"I know I'm repeating myself, but this is a hell of a find."
"I hope so. I glanced at them myself and can't make heads or tails out of them. I'm not even sure some of the words are in English. But I'm hoping you and the rest of the Intersect team can put them to good use."
"Cross fingers," she said.
"And toes. Anyway, I'll see you shortly as part of Chuck's briefing," he said.
"Sounds good. Later," she said.
"Later," he said, and disconnected the call.
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"Bye, dad," said Chuck.
"Bye, Charles. Bye, Sarah," said Stephen. "Have a good day at work."
Stephen had set himself up in Chuck and Sarah's guest room. He had three computers up and running and had made extensive use of Chuck's wifi and local area network to reach the outside world. Luckily, Chuck's connections had tremendous excess capacity to handle whatever his dad wanted to do. In addition, Stephen had some gear he hadn't yet unpacked, so there might be more to come.
They had had breakfast together, chatting pleasantly about the day ahead. Stephen intended to continue his research on 3D optics. Chuck and Sarah spun a tale of a busy day at the office, warning that they might have to go out of town suddenly.
With a cheery wave, they left the apartment.
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On the large screen in Castle were a collection of participants for this briefing. DNI Malone, DCI Graham, and NSA Director General Beckman, of course, but, in addition, there was the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations, the CIA's Director of the Special Activities Center (tasked with CIA paramilitary operations), and the Deputy Commander of the US Military's Special Operations Command (in this case a Vice Admiral and former Navy SEAL). Together, they had more than a hundred teams of operatives spread around the world about to be put on high alert, waiting for orders from Chuck and his team. In Castle, standing behind Chuck, were the rest of Team B with Ellie standing next to Sarah.
"Ok, guys. Let me get this started," said Chuck, addressing the camera for the remote participants.
"Twenty years ago, a CIA scientist codenamed Orion quit and went off the grid. So far as we know, he hasn't engaged in any activities since his disappearance that are hostile to the interests of the United States, meaning he's not really a bad guy. But, we need to talk to him and he doesn't want to be talked to. We've been looking for him for years now. Opposition operatives have also been looking for him for the same reason. He's evaded us all. Several times, he's faked his own death.
"I'm setting a trap for him. The men and women under your direction and command are the teeth of the trap. Here's what I'm doing and how I hope it's going to play out. We know he has an interest in a particular program the IC is running and that he wants to shut it down. I had us take down the files from the main computers so he couldn't get to them. Last week I had us put some of the program files back up, behind a very strong firewall. Someone, and I have every reason to believe it's Orion, figured out a way past the firewall. I expected that. He thinks he left no trace, but I added a very small indicator of activity in a place he wouldn't think to look for it. So, he did leave a trace of his presence and I found it. He seems to be checking on those files once a day or so.
"Since this activity, he downloaded two of the files that we left for him to find with no adverse consequences for him. Now here comes the trap. I'm adding another file as soon as this call is finished. This one, though, is a Trojan Horse. When he downloads it and then opens it, the file will quietly send up a flare telling me where he is. And he could be anywhere, guys. When I get the notice, my team will alert Deputy Director Younger, who will coordinate with the operative team leads. I know there are over a hundred teams around the world on standby and, even with the best case, only one will be called on, but we saw no other way to ensure that we could move fast enough to capture Orion. We don't know how long he will be wherever he is when he opens the file.
"I understand that you have been briefed on the Rules of Engagement. No lethal force except in self-defense. We do not know him to be armed and believe him to only be dangerous with a keyboard at hand. Once one of your teams detains him, let us know. I will fly out with my team to take custody.
"Any questions?" asked Chuck.
The SOCOM Admiral said, "Yes, Agent Carmichael. I read his file. He's an American citizen and hasn't committed a Federal offense. What's our legality for this operation?"
"Let me answer that one, Agent Carmichael," said DNI Malone. "I'm having a Presidential Directive signed, Admiral. I'm expecting it any moment and I'll share it amongst you when I get it."
"Thank you, Director," said the Admiral.
"I have a question, Carmichael. If he doesn't want to talk to you, why are you so sure you can make him?" asked the CIA paramilitary officer. "Even if he's in custody?"
"Fair question. The best answer I can give you is that I'm confident we can," answered Chuck.
"Why are you so sure he will download the newest file?" asked the Admiral.
"We exchanged messages with him a couple of months ago. He told us that the topic of the file was impossible to accomplish. That file, among all the others, is sure to interest him," said Chuck. "If nothing else, he'll want to look at it to prove to himself that he was right. We don't get the impression that he's suffering from excessive humility."
"If you were chatting with him why couldn't you track him down from that?" asked the CIA paramilitary officer.
"Shit, dude We tried. He led us on a wild-goose chase to Pakistan. Then hijacked one of our Predators and used it to supposedly blow up his boat in the Gulf. At this point we aren't sure he was even in Pakistan at all. He could have just been laughing at us from Kansas City or something. There's a reason he's avoided capture all these years. He's brilliant and really slippery."
"That Predator thing was him? Jeez. Ok," said the CIA DDO, "but won't he scan the file he downloads for viruses and whatnot? Won't he see the flare you built in?"
"I expect him to run the scans. I'm not worried about that. The file itself is not really altered because you're right, Orion would almost certainly find any problems with the file. I won't bore you all with the details but I'm coming at this from a completely different direction. I've worked very, very hard on this. Took me more than a month, to be honest. The flare will pass through any scan he does. I know this because it has passed every scan I was able to perform and I even knew what I was looking for. Orion won't. Microsoft is going to be royally pissed when they find out what I was able to do. That was, frankly, the hardest part of the trap. At least the hardest from my bit anyway. You guys having to run to Timbuktu or wherever is obviously harder."
"How long do you expect us to remain on standby?" the Admiral asked.
Chuck shrugged. "I wish I could give you a time estimate, Admiral, but I honestly don't know. I figure it should be over pretty quickly. He'll go in, download it, scan it, then open it. But, the timing is a mere guess. If it hasn't happened in a couple of days, we'll reconvene and discuss it again. I know it's a huge burden to have so many operators on the edge of their seats. I'm going to be near my computer for the duration as well, so when the flare goes up you'll know immediately."
No one seemed to have any more questions. Chuck said, "Anything else?" They looked at him silently. "Ok. Good luck, everyone. And good hunting."
Chuck disconnected the conference. He turned back to the men and women behind him. "Ok, kids. Here goes."
Chuck touched a button on the keyboard on the table behind him. "The 'How to remove the Intersect' file, as prepared by Dr. Eleanor Bartowski is now part of the Intersect project files. Now we wait."
"Ok, little brother. I'm going to wait at home. Langston is sending over the notebooks he found. Talk to you guys later," she said, giving Chuck a kiss on the cheek.
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It was about two hours later when Chuck's computer gave him an alert. He was on a ladder with a screwdriver in his mouth, connecting a device in the ceiling to some computer cables. He hopped off the ladder and went to the computer. The rest of his team was nearby.
"The file on the Intersect removal has just been downloaded. So far, so good. Now we wait for him to open it."
Chuck sat at the computer and stared at it, seemingly hoping that somewhere Orion was scanning the file before opening it. He was tapping his fingers on the table with a certain amount of impatience and nervous energy.
Then it happened. The computer made another tone and a structured set of numbers and alpha-numeric characters appeared on the screen. Sarah and Casey stood at his shoulders and looked at the data, which didn't mean anything to them.
Chuck gasped and said, almost to himself, "Shut the fucking door!" as he sat looking at the numbers with his brain frozen, his mouth hanging open, his jaw slack. He twisted in his chair and looked at Sarah, his expression one of profound shock.
"What is it? What is it, Chuck? Do you know where he is?" she asked.
Silently, Chuck turned back to the screen and stared at it as if he expected it to offer up an explanation to him that was more reasonable than the one in his brain. He shook his head hard, to clear it.
Suddenly, he stood up, almost bumping into his partners. He grabbed Sarah's hand and pulled her along behind him as he almost ran to the elevator.
"Chuck, what...?" she began to ask.
"Casey, stand everyone down. All of them. Stand them down," said Chuck. "And thank them."
"Did it work, kid?" asked Casey, as baffled as anyone.
"Yeah. It worked," he said as the elevator doors were closing. Casey, Bryce and Zondra just looked at each other in confusion.
"Chuck, you're scaring me," said Sarah in the elevator.
Chuck leaned over and gave her a quick kiss, but still looked shocked. "Don't be scared, sweetie. I...I...I can't say it. Not yet. I can't say it."
"What?" Now she was really adrift.
They ran through the Castle Studios lobby and made it to the parking lot. Chuck jumped into his car with Sarah and began to race back to Echo Park. Sarah was obviously shocked that Chuck was driving about twice the speed he would normally and discovered it was her turn to white-knuckle grab the door handles.
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Ellie answered the door to the CIA courier. She identified herself and signed for the package. She dropped it on the table and went to get her cup of tea from the other side of the room.
Taking a knife from a drawer in the kitchen, she slit open the package and spilled the notebooks out onto the table. She smiled when she saw them. Her dad used to use notebooks like that and when she had to get notebooks to take to school as a youngster he had given her some of his.
She looked at the outside of the books, but they weren't labeled or identified. She couldn't put them in order, at least not from the information on the cover.
She opened the front cover of one at random and froze, staring at the words on the page.
'NO, NO, NO, NO,' her mind screamed. 'This was just not possible. Not possible. No.'
She kept staring at the page, not moving. Eventually, she leapt from the table and raced to her room. In her closet, on the top shelf, beneath some sweaters she never wore, was a shoe box. She snatched it down, tumbling the sweaters onto the floor, and ran back to the table. She opened and overturned the box, spilling its contents onto the table.
At random, she grabbed a birthday card from her father she'd gotten when she'd turned 18. Opening the card and the notebook, looking back and forth between them. Her hands began to tremble.
But it made sense. It made sense. It explained things. Not everything, of course, but some things. Oh, my God.
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Chuck pulled into his parking space and turned off the car. He leapt out and began to run to his and Sarah's apartment. Sarah followed, still not sure what the hell was going on. To be on the safe side, she drew her weapon.
Chuck burst through the front door, Sarah at his heels.
He ran directly to the guest room where his dad was sitting behind his multiple computer monitors, the light from the monitors reflecting in his glasses. Stephen pushed those glasses up to his hairline and said, pleasantly, "Hello, Charles, Sarah. You're home earlier than expected."
Chuck just stared at him.
Sarah had no idea what was going on, but holstered her weapon. She saw nothing around for her to shoot.
Only a moment passed before Ellie ran into the room with a notebook in one hand and what looked like a birthday card in the other.
Together the siblings stood silently looking at their father.
Finally, Ellie took a deep breath and said, "Chuck, dad is..."
"Orion," finished Chuck and Ellie simultaneously.
Stephen looked at both of them and said, quietly, "Oh boy."
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A/N2: So that's out of the bag. Stephen is Orion. Still a lot more to go here, though. From the technical discussion of how Chuck did what he did, to the persuasion to get Orion to finally agree to work (once again) with the Intelligence Community. And we can't forget the familial explanation for his sixteen year disappearance from the lives of his children. Many discussions to follow, as you might imagine.
A/3: Have to be honest here. I did enjoy Chuck versus the Dream Job, but I thought it was a bit of a logical mess. (I always love Chevy Chase.) I won't be repeating the plot of that one here. This is Gravitron except that I've moved up the Orion reveal. In my story, Carmichael outsmarted Orion, plain and simple. And some good detective work and lucky breaks by Graham and Ellie allowed the children of Orion to arrive at the same conclusion simultaneously. As usual, I have relied on Steelejay for the technical stuff of what Chuck is up to. He contributed to both this chapter and the next one. Thank you, my friend. Your assistance is always invaluable.
A/N4: Always happy to hear from you guys. I'm away on a vacation with the family right now and might not be able to respond to reviewers right away though. I will get back to you when I can, but it might not be for a few days.