A/N: If we all pool our spare pennies, do you think Warner Bros. would sell us Chuck?
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Bryce Larkin was thinking. Before he'd been tranked by Chuck – 'good one, buddy. I didn't see that coming,' he thought - he learned that Chuck had the Intersect and all its data in his head. Bryce's plan had worked. When Chuck heard the name Delgado, he had immediately connected him with Fulcrum, even if he hadn't known what Fulcrum was. The Intersect was working exactly as Bryce had hoped it would. And, even better, Sarah was with Chuck. He'd been confident that she would find Chuck. Who else would Graham send to track down the Intersect? The fact that Chuck had the Intersect and was with Sarah was proof that she was not Fulcrum. He had not been positive that he could trust her. He wanted to. They were a terrific team and he liked her a lot, but he didn't know for sure that he could trust her – until now. Casey, that trigger-happy asshole, would also be clear of Fulcrum involvement, as he had also been there with Chuck. So, that was all good. The plan he'd put into effect in September was coming together nicely even without his direct involvement. Except for Casey, it was all turning out exactly as he'd intended. And Casey wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Bryce didn't like him, but he would be a formidable ally.
Now the next thing he had to do was to get to Sarah and Chuck. He had to talk to her and bring her over to his side. She'd be angry with him at first, but she'd accept his explanation. She was in love with him, after all, and that would make her easier to handle. So, he had to find them. Once he brought Sarah and Chuck on-board, maybe with Casey too if it worked out that way, Bryce would have his dream team. He could take the fight directly to Fulcrum. He and Sarah had been the best team the CIA had running. With the addition of the Intersect they would be unbeatable. Chuck would go along with his plan. When Bryce explained the stakes and that the good guys needed him, Chuck would follow him. He might need some encouragement, but he'd do it. Chuck was too good a man not to try to help if he could. Bryce didn't doubt for a moment that Chuck would step up. His nature would demand it of him.
So.
His immediate concern was that he had to escape before Fulcrum got ahold of him. Fulcrum must have missed picking him up from the transport and clearly the non-Fulcrum part of the CIA had picked him up instead. Or maybe the NSA, given Casey's involvement. Anyway, the good guys. His problem was that he really couldn't tell the good guys from the bad guys. Until he knew otherwise, he had to assume that everyone was Fulcrum. The only spies he knew for sure he could trust were Sarah and Casey, because they had been vetted by Chuck and the Intersect. But Fulcrum would be trying to get to him urgently and he didn't have a lot of time.
Bryce was awake, but pretending otherwise from the hospital staff bustling around him. It allowed him to listen to their conversations. He learned that he was to be transferred to a detention facility from this medical facility immediately. He learned that traffic would be bad because of the holiday tomorrow. He learned that the holiday was Thanksgiving, so, from that, he could deduce that he was somewhere in the US. He had assumed the last part himself. They had gotten Chuck to see him within a couple of hours, so he thought it likely that he was being held somewhere in California. Now he knew where Chuck would be tomorrow. He'd be with his sister Ellie for Thanksgiving. No doubt about that. And Sarah would probably be with him, protecting the Intersect. It only made sense that Graham would assign Sarah to the crucial job of protection.
The perfect time to escape their custody was during the move between facilities. He would be outside fences and walls and only guarded by one or two men.
They didn't trust him with merely the velcro straps anymore, so he had handcuffs on each wrist connecting his arms to the side rails of the gurney he lay on. A nurse bent over him to check his breathing. She had a pen clipped to the pocket of her uniform. And then she didn't.
They threw a blanket over him as protection from the November cold and started to wheel his gurney down a corridor. The fluorescent lights seemed to flash like strobes as he was rolled through the facility.
He used his thumb to snap off the flat metal pocket clip from the pen that he had stolen from the nurse. The locking mechanism on a pair of handcuffs consisted of the ridged teeth on the movable semi-circle of the steel bracelet engaging with ridged teeth on the locking bar inside the stable mechanism of the cuff housing, the locking bar pushed into place with a spring. If you can keep the two sets of teeth from connecting with each other the cuff is open. A handcuff key moves the locking bar backwards against the spring's tension to disengage the teeth. Bryce slipped the thin piece of metal from the pen, which he was using as a shim, into the gap where the bracelet entered the housing. It slipped along the bracelet teeth until it caught the top edge of the locking bar. He pushed it past the tension of the spring, separating the two sets of teeth. Using one finger to keep the shim in place, he used his thumb to open the bracelet. Ok, right hand free. He was happy these were old cuffs, instead of the newer double lock cuffs, where this method of opening wouldn't have worked.
They got into the elevator and the door closed. This was a good time since there was only a single guard here to overcome. The guard was behind him at his head. Wrong position, thought Bryce. Bryce began to thrash on the gurney as if he was having a seizure. The guard tried to hold him down from his shoulders. That didn't work too well. He stepped to the side of the gurney so he could use one hand on the shoulders and one on Bryce's hips. With his now free right hand, Bryce grabbed the taser from the man's belt and tased the man into unconsciousness. Simultaneously, he used his toe to press the stop button, halting the elevator.
Taking the man's keys from his belt, he quickly found the handcuff key and opened the other cuff. Leaping off the gurney, he stripped the guard and put on the man's clothes. The still unconscious guard was put on the gurney and the elevator re-started. Bryce was unhappy, though. The man's shoes were at least two sizes too small and hurt his feet. He checked the man's side arm. It was a SIG Sauer P226, with a full clip and two spare magazines. He was glad to have it, but if he had to fire that weapon his escape would have gone totally to hell. When the elevator doors opened he made his way out to the parking lot to the waiting ambulance, the brim of the guard's cap pulled low to obscure his face. It was nighttime and colder than he thought it would be in California. The driver got out and came around the back to help move the gurney with the insensate guard into the back of the vehicle.
Bryce checked to make sure they were not on any security cameras and then tased the driver into unconsciousness. He put both men into the back of the ambulance. He climbed into the driver's seat and pulled out of the parking lot. Looking up, he saw the sparkling string of lights that illuminated the Verrazano Bridge. Ok. Brooklyn. Fort Hamilton. Not California. Dammit. Ok. Thinking hard for a few moments, he formed a plan. It was going to be close.
But he had to wonder, what was Chuck doing in New York the day before Thanksgiving? Well, that's not a question he could answer sitting in a stolen ambulance in Brooklyn. He'd have to ask him later.
He left the Fort and followed the signs onto the Belt Parkway, heading east toward Queens. He took the first exit he could, parking under an overpass to give more concealment, and went to the back of the ambulance. He began searching through the available drugs. He found what he was looking for and injected both men with sedatives to keep them out for a few hours. He carefully positioned them on their sides so that if they vomited from the drugs while unconscious, they would not aspirate and choke to death.
Getting back on the highway, he took the exit from the Belt Parkway towards Kennedy Airport and, once in the airport, entered the long term parking garage. It was pretty full with the cars of travelers away for the long holiday weekend, but he found a parking spot on one of the higher floors. Once in the spot, he used one of the two pairs of handcuffs to connect the drugged men to each other and to the ambulance itself, in case the drugs wore off before he expected them to. Then he took inventory of the ambulance and its contents. He found, and took, all the cash the men had (but left their credit cards), one driver's license (of the driver, who looked the most like him), better clothes, including shoes from the driver that fit better than the guard's had, a warm coat, a small bag of tools, some drugs, one man's lunch, the remaining pair of handcuffs, a flashlight, a map, and other assorted bits and pieces of gear that he thought might come in handy. He took the taser and the guard's pistol and spare magazines, but left the holster and belt in the ambulance. They were too conspicuous. He spent ten minutes with the needle nose pliers and the file of a multi-tool one of the men carried turning three heavy paper clips into an improvised tension wrench and lock picks.
He was in a bit of a quandary about how to leave the ambulance. If the exhaust system was leaky, he risked the men's health from carbon monoxide poisoning if he left the engine running and the heater on. If he didn't leave it running though, the temperature in the back of the ambulance might drop to dangerous levels. He made a choice that might be considered the worst of both choices. He wrapped both men in what blankets he could find and left the engine running with the heater on but the windows partially opened. By the time the gas tank was empty, they would know he was overdue at the detention center and would be looking for the ambulance's GPS tracker. They would find it quickly enough and the guard and driver wouldn't freeze.
He walked down two floors to where he had seen an almost twenty year old Honda, having spotted it as he made his way to the higher level. Older cars were easier to steal. Newer cars had electronic tags inside the key fob and, without it, stealing the newer car was quite difficult. If he had had the time, he'd have found a parking valet and stolen a car from there. Stealing a car was much easier when you could get the actual key.
He used the improvised lock picks he had made to open the door of the car. He jammed a screw driver from the tool bag hard into the ignition switch, hammering it in with the butt end of a wrench. Twisting the screw driver like a key, he tried to start the car. It didn't work. Dammit. That usually worked on the older Hondas. He took the plastic housing off the steering column and used the flashlight to see the wires. The red wires were from the battery and the brown from the starter. He put on the rubber medical gloves he had taken from the ambulance (to protect himself from electrical shocks), using the multi-tool he severed the power wires, stripped them of their insulation, and connected them to each other. That gave the car power to the lights. Next he severed and stripped the wires for the starter, being careful not to touch them carelessly to each other. Once stripped, he touched them together, starting the car. Using some medical tape he had found in the ambulance, he taped the exposed ends of the wires separately from each other, so as to avoid having live power wires hanging in his lap as he drove. The steering wheel was locked. He just defeated that with brute force, snapping the lock itself. The last thing he did was to break the dome light, so that he wouldn't be illuminated every time he opened the car door.
As he left the garage in his stolen car, he went thru the EZ Pass lane and paid for the parking automatically using the white box of the EZ Pass device behind the mirror. The gate opened and he didn't have to talk to the parking attendant. Keeping a stolen baseball cap down to partially obscure his face from the multitude of traffic cameras, he drove out of the airport. Once again, he found the Belt Parkway and headed east, further out on Long Island. He was heading in the wrong direction to his ultimate destination, but the transport he was looking for could be found that way. He ate the lunch he had taken as he drove. Unfortunately, the sandwich was liverwurst, not his favorite. The Belt Parkway quickly became the Southern State Parkway, as he left New York City for the suburbs of Nassau County. He stopped for gas and coffee, keeping the baseball cap low and conversation to a minimum. The road took him through Nassau County and into the more rural eastern end of Long Island, Suffolk County. He kept going.
He drove on thru the night. He was on Montauk Highway and it was not quite 2:00 am when he got to Lukfer Airport and Spadaro Airport. They were two adjacent airports near the town of East Moriches which were connected by a single taxiway, one with a grass strip and one with an asphalt strip. Each had planes parked on the side of the runways. If he had tried to travel by commercial aircraft, he would need money, credit cards and ID. He didn't have much money, and had neither of the other two, as the other man's license wouldn't pass muster for boarding a plane. In addition, using the credit cards of the guard or the driver would immediately be flagged by the people he was trying to avoid, which was why he had left them behind. Even if he wanted to take a train or bus, he'd need more money or credit and would have to deal with more people and avoid more security cameras.
On the other hand, private planes flown from uncontrolled airfields were hardly regulated at all. "Uncontrolled" meant that there was no control tower and almost certainly no one around in the middle of the night. Just a bunch of planes parked next to a perfectly usable empty runway. If you had the flight training, which Bryce did, you could easily steal a plane and fly wherever you wanted. Finding an uncontrolled field, though, required him to travel some distance from New York City, as all fields closer to the City were controlled, and therefore manned. Hence, the long drive in the wrong direction. He could have headed to New Jersey and found a field there, but that would have taken him past the choke points of bridges or tunnels with their cameras.
In any event, he had learned to fly in Connecticut and had flown a couple of times into these airfields just across the Long Island Sound.
He pulled the Honda up next to the chain link fence surrounding the fields, in an spot hidden by overgrown shrubbery. When they found the ambulance, which they had probably done by now, they would look at the video tapes from the gates at the parking garage and no doubt be looking for the stolen Honda. But the car was old enough that it lacked the GPS tracking systems most newer cars had. With luck it wouldn't be found for a while.
Climbing onto the roof of the car, he draped the rubber floor mats from the car over the three sagging strands of barbed wire at the top of the fence and climbed over, dropping lightly to the ground inside the field.
He began to look for a ride. He looked in the fuel tanks of several planes with his stolen flashlight before he found one that had full tanks. It was a Piper Cherokee low wing single engine aircraft. With full tanks it had twice the range that he needed to get where he was going. Ample margin for error. The lock on the cabin door was a simple wafer lock and easily defeated with his paper clip lock picks. He entered the plane. Although he had brought the tools to hot wire the ignition, as it turned out he was in luck and the ignition switch also succumbed to the lock picks. He started the plane, taxied onto the runway and left the field behind. He figured the owner might not notice the aircraft missing for several days. If the man had been ready to fly somewhere for Thanksgiving dinner, he'd probably have left already (at least that's what Bryce hoped). In any case, Bryce just needed the plane for a few hours.
Bryce immediately turned south to head to Washington DC, where he kept his apartment. He didn't have the navigational charts he would have liked, but he knew them well enough by memory to accomplish what he needed. When he got to the DC area, he would recognize the landmarks and be able to navigate from there, even at night.
He flew low enough and outside of any controlled airspace, staying out over the cold, dark waters of the Atlantic to avoid having to deal with any flight controllers. He kept the coast in sight though. Luckily, it was a calm, clear night and the lights of the eastern seaboard were visible for many miles. Flying at night over water in a single engine aircraft without a filed flight plan was quite risky, but compared to some of the other things Bryce had been up to lately, he felt incredibly safe for a change.
Every plane has a transponder, essentially a radio sending an identifying signal to the air traffic controllers. He left his transponder set to 1200, the code to be transmitted when the aircraft would not be using the services of the controllers. Turning off the transponder entirely would definitely raise red flags. Hopefully, he wouldn't come to the attention of any of the flight controllers in charge of the airspace he was flying through. He wanted to appear as boring as possible.
The hours and the miles passed quickly.
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As he approached Washington, he had to contact Air Traffic Control as he passed the Bay Bridge near Annapolis, but that couldn't be avoided unless he was content to land at a field further from the city. He had to balance the risk of being noticed at this quiet hour with the need to get to Burbank quickly.
He landed at Freeway Airport, in Maryland, also an uncontrolled field with no one around early on Thanksgiving morning. Freeway was only a few miles from DC. Tying down the plane, he had to search for almost a half hour before he could find a pay phone at the airport. He was incredibly frustrated with that delay, but with cell phones everywhere, pay phones were harder to come by. The sun had come up by the time he found the phone.
He used it to get a cab to take him to a shopping area in the Woodland neighborhood of DC. Once there, he went into the CVS drug store, luckily open early this Thanksgiving morning, and headed for the photo booth in back. Drawing the curtain closed, he fed his stolen money into the machine and allowed his picture to be taken several times. While behind the curtain he reached under the seat and removed a sealed plastic bag securely taped to the underside of the seat. Inside was a magnetic key card and the metal key to a padlock. There was no identification on either one, so, if found by a stranger, there was no way to use them to access the what the locks protected. There were three such caches of identical keys around Washington, but this was the one within walking distance of his next destination.
He walked to the building a half a mile away, tearing up his pictures from the photo machine and distributing the pieces in various trash cans on the way. He kept an eye out for anyone tailing him, although he considered that very unlikely. It was mostly habit. He entered the self storage facility building with his magnetic key. On the second floor was his six by six storage room, sealed with a padlock. He opened the lock and went inside, closing the door behind him.
This storage room was held in the identity of the man he would soon become. It was paid for annually a year in advance, in cash.
The first thing he did was to strip off all the stolen clothing and wipe himself down with baby wipes he kept in the room for exactly that purpose, shivering from the cold. Then he shaved and brushed his teeth, using water from bottles. He used dry shampoo on his hair and brushed it out. Next he dressed in a fine charcoal gray suit with a very subtle blue stripe, and a red silk tie. It was a very expensive suit, and fitted the identity he was assuming. The shoes he wore sparkled with a fine shine. He donned a stainless steel Rolex Submariner wristwatch and an expensive overcoat to cover his expensive suit.
This was an identity that he had manufactured and nurtured over the last three years. It was unknown to the CIA and other agencies of the Intelligence Community, and therefore, unknown to Fulcrum. He had identification, both a driver's license and a passport (quite expensive purchases actually), credit cards, $10,000 in cash, and a burner phone in need of a charge. The identity was tied to a commercial mail drop that used a street address (also paid for in advance in cash). Many mail drops were identifiable as such by the use of a box number as part of the address. Bryce had found one that avoided that characteristic, so the only way to know that it was just a drop was to physically visit the address.
He also had weapons, tools and other implements of spy gear, all contained in a suitcase at his feet. It had a false compartment to hide such items from prying eyes should the case be opened. He left the guard's SIG pistol in the room. He couldn't safely dispose of it where he was going and, in any event, he had a weapon of his own in his suitcase. He did drop the taser into the hidden compartment in the suitcase. He decided that it was a handy little gadget to have. He'd have to find a charger for it eventually.
Newly minted, he relocked the door with the padlock, walked out of the self-storage facility with his suitcase and a small carry-on briefcase and hailed a cab to Washington National Airport.
Once at the airport, he checked the board in the terminal to find a plane leaving for Los Angeles within the next two hours. Approaching the ticketing desk for that carrier, he gave a good smile to the attractive young lady behind the counter.
"Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving," he said.
As he had expected, the smile was working its usual magic and she smiled back, "And a Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Sir. What can I do for you this morning?"
"Well, it's a little embarrassing, but I have to get to Los Angeles immediately. I know it's last minute, and the holiday and all, but can I get a First Class ticket on the flight that leaves at 9:15?" He put a platinum credit card on the counter.
She turned to look at the computer and began to type, "Why is that embarrassing?"
"Because my mother is making me do it," he said, trying to look a little embarrassed.
The young woman looked up at him and laughed softly, "Your mother?"
"Yeah. I was going to have Thanksgiving with my girlfriend's family, but she dumped me at the last minute. My mom, in California, threw a fit that I was going to have Thanksgiving dinner by myself in my apartment, so she insisted that I come to see her. To be honest, I'm sort of grateful to her for insisting. I wasn't looking forward to being alone for the holiday."
"I think that's so sweet...," she glanced at his credit card on the counter in front of her, "Mr. Caffrey. I think your mom is right."
"Well, I know it won't be easy to get onto the flight. But if I wait for the next one, I won't land in time for dinner with Mom."
"Well, let's see what I can do, Mr. Caffrey," she smiled at him again and looked back to the computer.
Looking at her name tag, he deployed the smile he used for closing deals, "Would you get in trouble if you called me 'Neal', Allyson?"
Twenty minutes later he made his way through security without his suitcase. He had had to check it. Although the hidden compartment was very well done, it wouldn't make it through the x-rays for carry-on luggage. On the other side of security, by the gate, he plugged in the phone to charge it and threw Allyson's cell phone number in the trash.
The plane boarded on time and he settled himself down into the wide comfortable seat in the First Class cabin, crossing his legs. A pretty stewardess approached. He gave her the smile and said, "Would it be possible to get a glass of champagne, please?"
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Getting off the plane at LAX, Bryce collected his bag and went into a men's room. In a stall he disbursed on his person all of the weapons and tools which he could not carry with him into the plane's cabin and had to stow underneath. Bullet proof vest. Holster. Weapon. Throwing knives. Escape keys and blades. Multiple lock picks and shims. Penlight. Compass. The collection of gear was extensive, but he needed to be fully outfitted. He was on the run from both the Intelligence Community and Fulcrum. A healthy dose of paranoia was only prudent.
Mr. Neal Caffrey had reserved a rental car from the plane. Collecting it, he used the GPS to guide him to Echo Park, luckily not too long a drive from the airport. Everyone must have been settled down for their dinners and the notorious LA traffic was blessedly light.
Once at the complex, he kept to the shadows. Looking in the windows of the apartments, he easily found the Bartowskis. At the table for Thanksgiving dinner were Ellie, a big blond man who seemed to be with Ellie, John Casey, dressed in a nice suit, Chuck, sitting with Sarah, who looked as happy and as lovely as he had ever seen her, Chuck's little friend Martin, who he had met while with Chuck at Stanford, and an attractive brunette woman Bryce assumed to be with Martin.
OK. He had to arrange to talk to Sarah. Seeing her brought back in full force his desire for her. He ached with the need to take her in his arms again, to feel her body moving under his again. If he could just explain to her what was going on, with Chuck's help she would help him figure out a plan to get him to the non-Fulcrum part of the CIA. If he could only work with them both, it would all be ok. He could get Chuck and Sarah and him and together they could take on Fulcrum. He and Sarah would be a couple again, the Andersons, and he'd have his best friend, his only friend, as his wingman with the Intersect. Fulcrum wouldn't stand a chance. Despite the grim life of a spy, he, no they, could accomplish something great.
He would wait here in the shadows until their dinner ended and she left to go home. He could surprise her and go back with her to her place. Once he had explained everything to her, what was between them would all go back to just the way it had been before he had been forced to leave.
He smiled to himself, happy for the first time since March. This was all going to work out just the way he intended. Perfect.
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A/N2: As usual, the descriptions here are pretty accurate if you want to use this as a blueprint to go on the lam. But, if you have all the skills necessary to accomplish what Bryce did, you're probably already a spy. I can't be the only person who wondered what the story was with Bryce. He escaped the CIA facility barefoot and in pajamas and showed up at Echo Park a few hours later fully dressed and with a weapon and bulletproof vest. I thought that deserved some kind of explanation.
A/N3: I know. I know. An entire chapter of Bryce. Yeah. Well, I won't do that again for a while. Next up, Bryce gets to talk to Sarah alone in Chuck's room. Anybody think it's going to be canony? Love to hear your predictions. And a very sincere thank you to all of you who have been following along and responding to me. That's what makes this stuff fun.