A/N: The American designer John Maeda said, "Creativity is about ownership." I have no way of knowing whether he was thinking about Chuck when he said it. In any event, I must disagree. There is tremendous creativity here and, unless folks are prevaricating, little ownership.
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Chuck, Casey and Sarah sat huddled together in the tiny office in the Stanford Department of Public Safety. Chuck was in front of a computer monitor typing quickly. He shifted slightly.
"Watch it, Bartowski," growled Casey.
"Look, I know our knees are touching, but it's a small space. I can't help it."
"I'm just glad you showered today," Casey said, with a huff.
Chuck and Sarah looked at each other with smiles and Chuck said, "Oh, yeah. Me too."
"Ugghhh. Why did I open my mouth? Will you two knock it off, for God's sake? Have a little mercy on me," Casey said.
"You started it," Sarah said, laughing.
From Fleming's hospital room, they had driven back from San Francisco to Stanford (and by this point all of them were tired of I-280) and went immediately to the garbage can in front of Lathrop. There was no chalk mark. It was a fair assumption that whoever had removed the chalk mark had also emptied the dead drop. Of course, if it was a maintenance worker or cleaner, they might have hit a dead end there. Reis and Mead were talking to those people to determine if any of them had noticed anything odd with that receptacle.
The campus police, euphemistically called Public Safety, had been cooperative and given them access to the digital recordings from the video monitors. Luckily, Fleming had filled the dead drop just a few days before, as the information from the monitors was only maintained for thirty days before being erased.
It didn't take too long to find the right camera so as to isolate that particular feed. Chuck bounced back ten days and saw no chalk mark. Nine days, and no chalk mark. Eight days, and there it was. It was there until three days ago. Sometime three days earlier, the chalk mark had been removed. They looked at breakfast time from that day and the chalk mark was there. By dinner it was gone. At 11 AM, it was still there. Jumping forward, by 2PM it was gone. Noon was tough to see with crowds of students coming and going for the lunch hour. There it was. Still there. One PM, gone.
They started to run the feed from that one hour period three days ago at 150% of speed. At one point, a small crowd of people passed the can and the chalk mark was gone. They watched it again at regular speed. And again. They still could not tell who had erased it during the seven second clip of the crowd passing. They watched it at half speed ten times. They debated among themselves. There were four possible people. Three men and a woman. Two of them were facing away from the camera and were unrecognizable. The other two were facing the camera during either that crucial seven second period or immediately before or after. Chuck did screen grabs and printed out the faces of the two they could see to show to the campus police. Hopefully, if they couldn't ID the men easily, a facial comparison could be run through all student and staff ID photos.
The other two possibilities, though, were more problematic. Chuck shifted cameras and took up the next camera from where the man seemed to be heading as he left the library. There he was, but still no facial shot. The man had his head down and was looking at his phone, hiding his face from the camera. He was about six foot or so, and athletic looking with broad shoulders and dark wavy hair. He was wearing jeans and a tee shirt with a red backpack on one shoulder. If Chuck hadn't known Bryce was dead, Chuck might have thought it was him. "Bryce," said Chuck, a little breathless.
"No, it's not," said Casey.
"I know. That's not what I meant. He looks like Bryce," said Chuck.
"He just looks like him, but it's not him," said Sarah.
"It's not Larkin, Bartowski. Larkin is dead. I killed him," said Casey.
"I know. I was at his funeral, Case," said Chuck. "Wait...what?"
"I killed him. I'm the one who shot Larkin." Chuck just stared at him speechless. Casey continued. "I was the commander of the NSA reaction force that got scrambled when Larkin infiltrated the facility. I'm the one who shot him. I'm sure he's dead." Casey spoke in a completely matter of fact manner, as if this revelation was no big deal.
"I didn't know that," said Chuck, still stunned by the news.
They looked at each other for long moments. "Does it make a difference?" asked Casey, gruffly.
Chuck thought about it for a moment or two more while he continued to track the Bryce-look-alike with the security camera footage. Eventually he said, "No. It doesn't make a difference. Not at all. I was just surprised by it, that's all."
"Surprised by what? You knew somebody shot him," said Casey.
"Yeah. I guess I was just surprised that you never mentioned it before."
"Doesn't often come up in conversation. Why would I mention it?"
"Ok, yeah. I guess you wouldn't necessarily...but, you did go to his funeral."
"Yeah, that was weird," admitted Casey.
"I'll bet," said Chuck. A moment later, Casey put a hand on Chuck's shoulder and squeezed.
Chuck looked at him and nodded once. They were good.
Chuck turned to Sarah and asked, "Did you know that Casey was the one who killed Bryce?"
"Yeah, I did. Never seemed worth mentioning," she said. He smiled at her slightly and squeezed her hand.
It was ok. Chuck was surprised, but upon reflection, it really did make no difference to his relationship with his teammates. In Chuck's mind it explained, actually, why Major John Casey had been assigned by the NSA to the Intersect project when Bryce sent the email to him. Casey'd been involved since at least a couple of days before.
"Case, you were sent here to find me immediately after shooting Bryce. To find out why Bryce sent me the Intersect. That's why you were already briefed on me and the Intersect when we met the morning after the hotel bombing."
"Yeah, I was. Walker got to you first..."
"Lucky for me," said Chuck.
"Yeah. You would have had a very different experience if I had arrived before she did," said Casey. "The plane I was on had engine trouble and had to make an emergency landing in Provo. Without that, I'd have arrived much earlier. I probably would have interrupted your date the night the hotel blew up."
"Well, unless we would have been able to stop the hotel bombing, I have to applaud the engine trouble. I had a nice time on that date," said Chuck.
"Best first date ever," said Sarah, holding his hand and smiling.
"It all turns out the way it's supposed to. We're now a pretty effective team and have managed to do some good," said Casey.
"Yup. All good," said Chuck.
Chuck was tracking the man from camera to camera, watching in real time as he moved through the campus. It was a time-consuming process. Did this idiot ever look up from his phone? It wasn't even safe to walk around like this. He was going to walk into a light pole or something. Chuck thought about Sarah's admonition regarding situational awareness and considered that this guy needed the same lecture. There. There it was. Someone said something to the man and he looked up to reply and wave. Chuck froze the picture – it was not Bryce, of course – and printed out the man's face.
He went back to the woman. Their last candidate. She was a slender woman with disproportionately large breasts. She was wearing a light-colored tee shirt, tight jeans and knee-high boots. She had a purse over one shoulder. A floppy hat obscured her face. He followed her through campus. She made her way to a parking lot eventually and found her car. Just as she was getting into the car she took off the hat and twisted around to sit in the driver's seat. Chuck froze the picture and said, with a gasp, "Oh, my God. No way."
"Did you flash?" asked Sarah.
"No...I didn't have to. I know her. Oh, my God...what the hell is going on? This makes no sense. Bryce is dead. What the hell is going on? This isn't even possible..she's...I mean we buried him...I just..."
"Focus, moron. You're spiraling. Just tell us who she is," said Casey.
"Right. Right. Sorry. Her name is Candy. At least she was called Candy. I don't know if that was her given name. I'm not sure I remember her last name...Raymond? Reynolds? Rayfield? Something like that. She was a sort of girlfriend of Bryce when we were in school."
"Sort of?" asked Sarah.
"Well, yeah. Sort of...she's ...well, she's a...she's sort of...she's a hooker...a prostitute," said Chuck, clearly uncomfortable with the news he was imparting.
"I thought Bryce was a ladies' man in school. You mean he had to pay for it?" asked Sarah.
"Well, not often. But sometimes. If he was between girls for some reason. He would head into East Palo Alto and see Candy. He said if he didn't get it regularly he couldn't concentrate. He claimed his grades would suffer. He used to call them study sessions. 'Hey Chuck, give me a lift into town? I have a study session with Candy.' Like that. That's how I know her. I used to give him a lift sometimes. I met her a few times when I was dropping him off or picking him up."
"You ever visit her yourself, kid?" asked Casey, with a small smile.
"No. Of course, not. I had a girlfriend."
"Do we think Candy the hooker emptied the dead drop?" asked Casey. "Is she a student here?"
"No way," said Chuck. "I have no idea how she could get into the library. But..."
"But it's not a coincidence that Bryce's old bedmate walked past and the chalk mark signaling the service of Bryce's dead drop disappeared," said Sarah. "She erased the chalk mark even if she isn't the one who emptied the dead drop. We have to find Candy."
Chuck focused on the car Candy was entering and took a screen shot of the license plate. Taking his laptop from his messenger bag at his feet he accessed California Department of Motor Vehicles and found that that car was registered to a Ms. Beatrice Reynolds in East Palo Alto, the low-rent neighbor of Palo Alto, closer to the Bay. Switching sites, Chuck pulled up the records of the East Palo Alto Police Department (to which his federal clearances gave him access) and looked up the records of Ms. Reynolds. Ten arrests for solicitation in the last five years. One drunk and disorderly. And two misdemeanor assaults. The police had her at the same address as the DMV did.
Pointing at the screen, Casey said, "Is that the same place she was when you used to take Bryce to get his ashes hauled?"
"No. I don't recognize the address. She must be in a new living situation."
"Yeah, but some of those solicitation arrests were recent, so she didn't find a new line of work," said Sarah.
"True, that," said Chuck.
"All right," said Sarah. "Let's go. We'll clue in Mead and Reis on the way."
They switched off the computers and collected their stuff. Chuck kept the print-outs of the three men they had tracked by the security cameras, just in case. They thanked the campus police for their cooperation and hospitality.
As they were leaving the campus police offices, Sarah got in touch with Mead and Reis. As Einerson seemed to be lurking around every corner, the CIA agents insisted on coming along as an extra pair of eyes and guns if it became necessary.
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East Palo Alto is an independent city from its neighbor, Palo Alto, and is actually to the north of that city, not east. It is significantly less affluent than its neighbor to the south. Green Street was filled with one and two story small houses, some with broken cars in the driveways and overgrown lawns.
The house they found was in the middle of the block with a boarded-up house on one side and a vacant lot on the other side. It had peeling paint and a brown lawn. The walkway from the street up to the front door was cracked and uneven.
Mead and Reis pulled up behind them. Mead said, "You guys go on in. We'll stay out here in case Einerson shows up. If you hear gunfire, just go about your business. We'll take care of it here. I'm sort of looking forward to popping a cap in his frigid Icelandic ass." Casey grunted at that.
Reis said nothing.
Chuck, Sarah and Casey made their way to the front door and knocked. It took multiple knocks, but finally a barefoot Latino man in board shorts and a sleeveless tee shirt answered the door. He looked like he had just woken up, although it was about one o'clock in the afternoon. His hair was a mess, he had a three-day stubble on his chin, and he was squinting against the afternoon sun. The man was heavily tattooed and had a scar on his left cheek that pulled down his eye slightly. He was unlikely to be selected as a stand-in for Brad Pitt.
"Go away," he said, with a vicious sneer and a slight accent.
"Hi, I'm Chuck. I'd like to see Candy, please," said Chuck, pleasantly.
"Look, if you're the cops, I already paid this week. If you're customers," he stared at Sarah for a few extra moments, "you're too early and you need to come back in about four hours. If you're anyone else, you need to get lost."
Sarah spoke to him in rapid fire Spanish. The man gasped and began to back up from the door. Sarah moved forward and pushed the door open. She stepped into the house, never taking her eyes from the man. He said a few words to her, and she responded with a long paragraph. He again said a few words.
Sarah said, "Candy is upstairs asleep. First door to the left at the top of the stairs. There are two other girls working here. All three are asleep. You two go on up. Tuco and I are going to get to know each other better." Chuck looked at her to be sure. She smiled at Chuck, but looked at Tuco the way a lion looks at a tethered goat, and said, "It's fine, Chuck. Go on up." Tuco looked like he was being forced to chew glass.
Chuck and Casey crossed the living room space to the stairs. The living room was cluttered with the detritus of common living arrangements of people not too high on fastidiousness. An empty pizza box lay on the floor. Some empty beer bottles, and a half empty bottle of cheap vodka sat on the coffee table. A huge pile of magazines sat on a small table next to a threadbare armchair. There was little light and no air. The house didn't smell too fresh.
Casey and Chuck climbed the stairs and knocked on the first door to the left. They heard, from beyond the door, "Go away. I'm asleep." The woman's voice was muffled.
"Candy? Can I talk to you a minute? Please? It's Chuck..Chuck Bartowski."
"Who?" asked the sleepy voice.
"Chuck Bartowski. Bryce Larkin's friend."
There was movement inside the room. The door opened and there was Candy Reynolds. She was in her late twenties and about medium height. Slender but buxom. She had dyed blond hair with a single blue streak down one temple, cut just to shoulder height. She was wearing a long white tee shirt that just barely covered her bottom. She was sleep tossed and unkempt, but looked at Chuck with a huge welcoming smile. Overall, Casey found her to be pretty, if a little hard around the eyes. He could see that she would probably have a steady supply of customers.
"I remember you. How ya doing, Chuckie? I haven't seen you in years. Not since you and Bryce graduated. And who's your friend?" She smiled at Casey.
"I'm good, Candy. Thanks. This is my friend Casey. Casey, this is Candy."
She reached for his hand, "Hi, Casey."
Taking her hand, he said, "Nice to meet you, Candy."
Looking up at both men, each of whom was well over six feet tall, she said, "Couple of big boys here. So, Chuck, did you come to see me?"
"I did," he said.
"Ok, it's a little early, but..." she took his hand and tugged him toward the room and the unmade bed.
"Oh, no, no, no...that's not what I meant..."
"Do you still have a girlfriend?" asked Candy, with a bit of a pout, releasing his hand.
"Yes...yes, I do. A different one this time, though."
"Oh, Ok. She's a lucky girl." Candy turned to Casey and said, "I kept offering to give him a discount and everything, but he always turned me down. He had a girlfriend and he wasn't going to cheat on her. He's a real gentleman."
Casey said, "Yeah, Chuck's a good guy."
Candy said, "Then what's up, Chuck? Actually, you know what? Can we talk downstairs? I'd like coffee. I'm not usually up this early."
"Sure," said Chuck.
They went downstairs. Sarah and Tuco were still in the living room. Tuco was staring at Sarah with somewhat wild eyes. He wasn't exactly trembling, but he was certainly fidgeting. His eyes darted around the room as if looking for an escape. Sarah was speaking to him quietly in Spanish. He wasn't replying, but that didn't seem to be necessary for her part of the conversation.
Candy took no notice of the tension in the room. "Morning, Tuco. Hi," she said to Sarah.
"Hi. You must be Candy. I'm Sarah."
"Hi, Sarah. Are you friends with Chuck and Casey?"
Sarah smiled and said, "Yes. Yes, I am."
Candy quickly looked between Sarah and Chuck and back again and said, "And you are Chuck's girlfriend." She gave Sarah a big smile.
"Yes," said Sarah.
"Well, you're lucky. I haven't seen him since he graduated school, but we have a friend in common. A guy named Bryce. And Bryce always said how good Chuck was, so you're pretty lucky to have him as a boyfriend. He's a real gentleman."
Sarah smiled back at Candy and said, "Yes. I am. I'm very lucky."
"Can you all excuse me for just a second? I'm going to make some coffee to wake up. Be right back."
With a glance at Sarah, Tuco said, "No, no. You stay with your friends, Candy. I'll make you some coffee."
"Oh, wow. That's so sweet. Thanks, Tuco." Tuco scurried out of the room to the kitchen in back. "Oh, boy. He's never that nice. He's usually pretty mean. Huh."
"Candy," said Chuck. "Have you seen Bryce since graduation?"
"Sure. I see him every few months. When his work lets him come here to Palo Alto. But you know, he travels all the time, so it's hard. I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you, but he always liked you so much, Chuck, and always said you were really, really good, so I guess I can tell you. Bryce is a spy."
Chuck, Sarah and Casey exchanged looks with each other.
Candy continued, "He's like a James Bond spy saving the world and stuff. I mean, you probably know that already, being his best friend and everything, but if you didn't you can't tell anyone cause it's like a really big secret. So, when he can come to see me, he does. I'm always happy to see him. We go out to dinner before doing it and everything. He has the nicest hair, you know? Anyway, yeah, I've seen him."
"When was the last time, Candy?"
"Um, the summer. July. Maybe August."
"And the time before that?" asked Sarah.
"Valentine's Day. I saw him on Valentine's Day this year. I remember cause he was so sweet about it."
Chuck glanced at Sarah, but she showed no reaction. Given what he knew about the timing of Bryce going rogue, Bryce and Sarah would still have been a couple at that time. He made a mental note to talk to her about that later.
Chuck reached out to take her hand and said, "Candy, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. I know there's no easy way to say it, but I'm afraid Bryce is dead. He was killed on a spy mission a couple of months ago. I'm sorry. I know you liked him."
"Dead?...Bryce is dead...Oh, no...he's dead...oh...oh..." She put her hand to her face and started to cry. Within moments she was crying very hard, with loud sobs. Chuck and Casey stood there, uncomfortable and unsure of what to do. Sarah stepped up between them and wrapped Candy in a gentle hug, whispering to her and rubbing her back.
Tuco came back with Candy's coffee. Sarah pointed to the table and he put the mug down.
Sarah, still holding Candy gently, said, "Candy, we worked with Bryce. We're his friends. Did he ask you to do him a favor?"
"Oh, sure," she was still crying, but more slowly now. "A long time ago, even before he graduated, he told me to collect something from a secret spy place in the library. I go past the library all the time. He told me that if I ever saw the chalk mark on the garbage can I should erase the mark and take what I find in the secret spy place and hold it for him. I'd been looking for that mark for years and never seen nothing. But then a few days ago, I saw it and went in and got this thing for Bryce. I was so proud of myself, you know? Helping a real spy with secret stuff and everything. I sort of hoped he'd be visiting me soon. Cause I collected his secret thing." She sobbed loudly. "But he's not coming. Not ever again. Damn it."
"No, Candy. He isn't. I'm so sorry. We miss him too. But the thing he asked you to hold for him is still pretty important. Do you think you could give it to us? Please?"
Still in Sarah's hug, Candy said, "Well, you and Casey are really nice, but I don't know you. Bryce told me to only give it to him. But I know Chuck and he's definitely a good guy. Bryce told me once that he never met a better guy ...ever. So, that's ok. I can give it to Chuck. But, I don't' have it here..."
There was a noise from the kitchen at the back of the house. Casey looked at Tuco and said, "Anybody else here?"
Tuco said, "No. The other girls are asleep upstairs." Just Casey began to reach for his pistol, Einerson appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, his crossbow up and ready to fire. Several of his men were coming up behind him.
"Nobody move," said Einerson, in a Nordic accent. "You give us the disk and everyone gets to live." Candy screamed.
Casey said, "Still with the fucking crossbow. What is the matter with you?" Einerson aimed at Casey as Casey began to draw his pistol with his right hand. Casey snatched a fistful of magazines from the table with his left hand and raised them just as Einerson pulled the trigger on the crossbow. The bolt struck partway through the thick collection of magazines in Casey's left hand and jammed to a stop.
Casey growled, "Idiot" as he threw the impaled magazines to the floor and drew his SIG Sauer P229. One of Einerson's men launched himself at Casey as Einerson himself stepped to the side. Sarah, still entangled with Candy, found it difficult to reach her pistol, so she drew one of her throwing knives. The steel flashed through the air to bury itself up to the hilt into the man's chest. He fell to the ground motionless, skidding to a stop at Casey's feet.
Tuco, pretty much frozen with shock, said, "Dios Mio." He looked at Sarah with amazement and fear.
Einerson disappeared back into the kitchen as two more of his men appeared coming through the doorway. Sarah shifted Candy in her arms and almost threw her at Chuck, who took the woman and moved them both backwards, out of the way of the violence. As he did so, he gave Tuco a none-too-gentle shove backwards as well. The last thing Casey and Sarah needed was to have civilians underfoot in a fight.
Einerson's men had pistols in their hands, but by the time they had made it fully into the room, so did Casey and Sarah. The four of them stood there frozen, guns pointed at each other, nobody moving. The tension in the room was thick as the four antagonists weighed the situation. Mexican standoff. Into the still silence Candy, held firmly in Chuck's arms, cried, "What the hell is going on? Who are you motherfuckers?"
The man on the left, pointing his gun at Casey, glanced at Candy for an instant. In that instant, Casey shot him twice in the center of the forehead, killing him instantly. Casey's aim shifted immediately to the other man, who now had a dead partner collapsing to the floor, and the rock steady pistols of two deadly federal agents pointed directly at his face. Even more that the hollow unblinking eyes of the muzzles of the two pistols, the most unnerving thing was the cold, hard, deadly gaze that Sarah and Casey leveled at the unfortunate survivor. Understandably, the man's courage began to reach its limits. His eyes widened, his breath quickened, and his hands holding the gun began to tremble slightly.
Sarah saw all of that and said, "Two more agents are going to be running up to the front door about now. You are in a bad situation, asshole. Time to give up and live. Drop your weapon. Do it NOW."
Instead, the guy leapt backwards towards the kitchen just as the front door burst open and Mead and Reis came in with guns drawn. That moment of distraction was all the man needed. He was around the corner and out the back door of the house in an instant. Einerson's car was in the vacant lot behind the house and took off like a shot the moment the man was inside. It threw dust and pebbles high into the air as it went.
Sarah stood in the doorway at the back of the house and made a note of the plate number of the fleeing vehicle. Taking out her cell phone, she called it in to the local CIA offices and asked for a cleaning team to get to the house ASAP. Walking back inside, she saw Casey checking the body of the man with her knife in his chest. Casey shook his head no, indicating that Einerson's hired help would not be continuing in that line of work. He pulled her knife from the body and proceeded to use the dead man's shirt to wipe it clean of blood.
Handing it back to her by the handle he said, "Nice knife."
"Yeah. It was a present from Chuck." Casey nodded with approval., and began to search the pockets of the dead men.
As she slipped it back into her sheath, she went to Chuck and Candy. She glanced at Tuco, who flinched under her gaze. "You two okay?"
"Yeah, we're fine," said Chuck. Candy merely nodded tearfully.
Shouts came from upstairs as the two sleeping women, now awake, called down to find out what was going on. Candy and Tuco both yelled for them to stay upstairs and not come down to the living room.
She went to Mead and Reis, and, stone faced, said, "Where the fuck were you? I thought you were watching our six. What the hell?"
They had the good sense to look ashamed. "We were out front. Both of us. We couldn't see the back of the house," said Mead.
Reis said nothing.
Sarah grunted in derision, "Bush league."
Mead said, "You're right. Sorry, Sarah. We blew it." She walked away from them angrily.
She turned back to Candy. "Candy, I'm sorry you had to see all this."
"Are they dead?" asked Candy.
Sarah spoke softly to the girl. They were about the same age, but Sarah thought of her as much younger for some reason. "Yes, Candy. Those men are dead. They are the bad guys and they came for the disk Bryce left you. If we hadn't been here...well, there would have been no one here to protect you from them. The safest thing for you right now is to give us the disk right away and let us take it far away from here..from you. Can you do that?"
"Yes. It's not here though. I gave it to my brother. I didn't think it was safe here. Lisa..upstairs..she steals stuff. So, I gave it to my brother to keep it safe. I'll take you to him."
"Thank you, Candy. Where is your brother?"
"Glory Hole."
They all looked at each other with a mixture of surprise, confusion and maybe a little trepidation.
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A/N2: I'm sorry. My Spanish isn't that good. I don't know what Sarah was saying to Tuco. For all I know, she was encouraging him to go to church on Sundays. Or not.
A/N3: Little bribery here. Let's see if it works. If you review this chapter, I promise you will get a really nice "thank you" PM from me. (Well, I mean except for you visitors who haven't registered to get PM's. Nothing I can do there.) You can print it out, frame it, and admire it from time to time. How about it?