A/N1: Too much action coming to spend too much time on the ownership of Chuck. Hang on tight for the next few chapters.
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Monday, November 30, 2008; 6:48 PM PST
The vast expanse of Roark Instruments' Ventura campus stretched ahead of them, floodlit gleaming modern buildings and acres of well lit, well maintained green lawns. They had selected a spot along the perimeter fence that was the closest to the closed off section of the main building, their target. Tactically, they had picked a spot that was in more shadow than adjoining areas, but they were by no means invisible.
Jorge, in their ears, said, "Ok, our teams just arrived at the front door. Go for it, guys."
"Roger," said Casey. "We're cutting the fence."
Chuck and Casey began to use handheld wire cutters to cut the chain link fence. Each snip cut one of the knots between the links where they joined. The metal wire was thick and tough, and it was a strong man's job. Both of them were strong men. It only took a few moments for them each to have cut the first six links up from the bottom, each line of cuts about two feet from the other.
Tucking the cutters into a satchel, Chuck said to Sarah, with a nod, "Go." Meanwhile, Casey and Zondra had their weapons out and ready and pointed into the Roark property, just in case the Roark security forces chose to interfere. Each of them was armed with the M16A4 rifle, as they were expected to remain outside the building and could use the added range. In contrast, Sarah was armed with the smaller H&K MP-5 submachine gun, silenced for interior work. Chuck had a trank gun, but Stephen was unarmed.
Pushing her weapon ahead of her, Sarah slithered through the gap in the bottom of the fence, came to a knee and whispered, "Go." With one hand, she held up the flap of fence they had opened, easing the passage for the next person.
Zondra slithered through the gap, came to her knee, and said, her eyes and weapon pointed into the facility, helping Sarah hold the flap open with her left hand, "Next."
Stephen went next and came to a knee silently.
"Next," said Sarah.
Chuck went next and came to a knee beside his dad.
Casey came last.
Sarah said, "We're through. Jorge, what do you see?"
"They are blind to you right now. No one near. In front, there's a mess. Dozens of our guys sort of milling round until someone in charge gets there."
Chuck said, "I thought this was all coordinated?"
"Yeah. But we didn't coordinate with Roark," said Jorge, with a verbal shrug.
"Ok," said Sarah, "We are heading to the target."
Jorge said, "Right. I'll see you go."
"Right," said Sarah.
"Just so long as they don't," quipped Chuck.
"Not on my watch, Boss," said Jorge.
The wing of the building they were heading to was two hundred yards from the fence, all of it open well-illuminated lawn. They trusted Jorge that the Roark security systems would be blind, but all of them knew to worry about good old-fashioned eyeballs. No matter how brilliant your tech was to make you invisible, some dude stepping outside to take a leak in the bushes might see a handful of ninjas coming across the lawn for an unescorted visit. For that reason, they crouched and jogged fast across the open ground until they got to the wall of the building they were infiltrating, minimizing their time in the open.
"I could have done that," said Jorge. "Ankle or no ankle."
"Jorge?" said Sarah, with the voice of a momma about to scold.
"Right. Right. Sorry. Hey, did it occur to anyone that we are suing him for creating a back door to his system and yet we are going in through his back door?"
"Jorge," said Sarah, a little bit more momma scolding in her voice.
Jorge said, "Sorry. On track now." Chuck grinned at the by-play. "Roark security systems are still looped. There's chaos in the lobby. So far as I can see, most of their security patrols have been diverted to the front of the main building."
"What are they saying on their internal com network?" asked Chuck.
As this discussion was ongoing, Casey and Zondra were looking in opposite directions over the sights of their rifles. Stone-faced and concentrating.
"Oh. Hang on. Let me access that," Jorge said. "Right. Hang on." Less than a minute later, he came back. "Everything is focused on the drama playing out in the lobby. No one has noticed you. The security guys are standing with their thumbs up their butts. They don't know what to do and aren't getting any direction."
"Right," said Sarah. "Where's Marco?"
"In position," said Jorge.
"Ok," said Sarah. "We're heading in. Kill the alarm on the door."
"Right," said Jorge. A moment later, "Done."
Up a few steps and adjacent to a small, raised landing, there was a door to the closed wing of the building. It was unmarked and solid metal. Totally unremarkable. Probably a fire exit door. Sarah took out a lock pick and a tension wrench and made short work of the job of opening it while Chuck and Stephen waited, Casey and Zondra on guard.
They had barely any idea what they would find on the other side of the door. It was decided that Chuck and Sarah would enter together. Chuck would use his trank gun on any occupants of the wing, unless there was someone who posed a danger to them, then Sarah would engage with her weapon. Neither Casey nor Zondra believed there was any need to explain the distinction between the two types of targets to Chuck and Sarah. Charah thought with one mind, after all.
The tension was palpable and both Chuck and Sarah wiped sweat off their foreheads before opening the door. Stinging eyes would be a distraction.
With a soft click, the door unlocked. Chuck reached out and held it an inch or so open while Sarah stowed her lock picking gear. That done, they looked into each other's eyes, took deep breathes, and nodded. Chuck opened the door all the way and stepped inside first.
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In shirt sleeves and a loosened tie, Bernie Culp arrived in the lobby of the building. There were dozens of men and women in suits with the law enforcement windbreakers over top of the suit coats. As much uniform as anything else.
He walked from the elevators to the security desk where a totally overwhelmed Ian Pope, Roark's head of security for the campus facility, faced some very serious looking people. Truth be told, Culp didn't blame Pope in the slightest for freaking out.
"Ok," said Culp with authority in his voice. (If he was unsure, he was making damn sure no one could tell.) "Who's in charge of this circus?"
One of the men thrust an ID wallet into Culp's face. "I am. FBI Special Agent Taylor. And who the hell are you?" Seemingly, both men had read the same books on intimidation. Or perhaps learned it in pre-school.
"I'm Roark's lawyer that's going to sue you for harassment and governmental abuse and about a dozen things I haven't even thought of yet."
"Oh, so you're Bernard Culp?" the man asked with a tiny smirk.
"Yes," said Culp.
The man behind him slipped an envelope to Taylor and, handing the envelope to Culp, Taylor said, "Mr. Culp, you've been served."
He did his best to hide it, but this interaction was deeply unsettling Culp. Whatever he was holding, it was personal to him, not the company. And after the day he'd already had...but, if there was a good sign, it wouldn't be an arrest warrant or he'd already be in cuffs. What the holy hell was going on?
Taylor continued, "And I not only expect your lawsuit, I am looking forward to it. My guys and I have the present authority to run roughshod over this whole building looking for evidence. The only reason..." he paused for emphasis. "...the only reason...we aren't doing so is efficiency. Having your people walking us around will be much easier than going room to room. So, here's the deal, Mr. Culp. Take us to Roark for his arrest."
Culp stared at the man wide-eyed. "Arrest?" He was beyond shocked.
"Look, dude. You and I both know he'll be out in the morning. Guys like him don't face justice the way the rest of us do," said Taylor. "Right?" When Culp just looked at him with shock, Taylor said, "Of course, right."
"Humm," said Culp, still trying to understand what was happening. "Ok, look. How about I take a couple of you up to see Mr. Roark? I can't bring everyone. That's insane. We can talk about it like civilized people. There's no reason to have my client spend a night in jail. That's just theater for the media." As he said 'media' he flicked his eyes outside but didn't see any news trucks, thank God. "Doesn't do anyone any good. I'm sure we can work this out. Do you have someone from the US Attorney's office we can talk to this evening?"
"I'm sure we can arrange something along those lines. Why don't we go up and see Mr. Roark? Just Mason and me. Don't need the rest of our team. We can talk to him. In the meantime, I need you to send us some tour guides to get us where we need to be."
"Right, right," said Culp, distracted by everything going on. "Sure. Let's get you up to see Mr. Roark."
Culp took Taylor and Mason past the security desk and towards the elevators. Probably the happiest guy in the huge lobby was Pope, the head of security. This was no longer his problem.
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Chuck and Sarah stepped through the door and into the closed-off section of the building. They had had a limited preview of the space from the video capture Marco had managed in his guise as a janitor. It was a large rectangular room with computer monitors at individual stations, maybe a couple of dozen spread in rows of desks lengthwise down the space. Along one wall were either servers or a mainframe (the images they'd seen could have shown either) for those monitors. At the far side was the main door to the rest of the building (the one Chuck and Sarah had entered from being an emergency fire door, as they expected).
The room was large, but otherwise unexceptional. Maybe forty feet wide by a hundred-twenty feet deep. The door they had entered through was about two-thirds of the way along the outside wall. There were some doors at the far end, probably for separate offices. It was not a luxurious space. The walls were barren of decoration. The furniture was utilitarian. Metal desks and chairs. It seems that most of the of the money had been spent on the computer systems. From Marco's video, Chuck and Stephen had recognized them as powerful state-of-the-art equipment.
As they entered they saw four people in the room working at the computers. Given that it was later in the evening, the lack of staff wasn't too surprising and one of the reasons they had chosen to visit at night. As Chuck and Sarah assessed the room, the four people, three men and a woman, stared at them with surprise at the armed intrusion. While they were staring at each other for only a second or two, Chuck reacted and quickly shot three of them. They collapsed out of their chairs to the bare concrete floor. Before Chuck could adjust his aim a third time, the fourth person threw herself to the side behind the desk at which she'd been sitting.
Sarah and Chuck, without discussion between themselves, split into two and ran down two parallel alleys between desks towards the woman, so as to arrive at either side of her. When they got to her, she was trying to pull a pistol from a desk drawer. Sarah got to her first and said, "Ughh ughh." The hard blue eyes and the single black eye of the submachine gun's muzzle made the woman pause. As she did so, Chuck shot her in the neck with a trank dart.
In their rush to the woman, Sarah knew they had not fully cleared the room, checking behind and under desks in the front half of the room, for example. She glanced to her left at the closed office doors and to her right at the seemingly empty desks in that direction. She made the decision to check the offices first. Given the data available to her, it was a sound tactical decision. It was also wrong.
Sarah spun off from Chuck to check the offices in back.
As Chuck sat down to a computer monitor previously occupied by one of the now unconscious technicians, a man, hidden behind one of the front desks until then, jumped out and leaped towards Chuck. The man's hands were empty and he was, seemingly, unarmed. Why he'd been hidden by the desk when Chuck and Sarah had entered, they were never to know.
Coming out of the empty office behind him and seeing the other man on the move, Sarah screamed, "CHUCK, WATCH OUT." Her weapon twitched in her hands as she aimed at the man without any conscious thought.
Chuck spun on the seat towards the man and drew his trank gun. Before Sarah could fire, Chuck and the man crashed together, knocking the computer off the table and Chuck off the chair. Sarah heard the "phttt" of the trank gun firing. Then again, a second later. "Phttt." The man went limp atop Chuck. As she got to him, Chuck looked at Sarah with apology in his eyes and suddenly faded out.
"FUCK," she screamed. She rolled the man aside and checked Chuck. She pulled the trank dart from his thigh and tossed it aside. She touched her watch and said, "Casey, get in here. Chuck's tranked. You have to carry him out."
"What the fuck?" yelled Casey. "Who tranked him?"
"Bad guy took us by surprise and was wrestling for his weapon. They both ended up tranked. Fuck. I should have cleared this room first," said Sarah. As Casey entered the room with Stephen close behind. Sarah turned her gaze to Stephen, who was watching with alarm, and said, more harshly than she'd intended, "Sorry. All on you now, Stephen."
He said, "Just take care of Charles. I'll take care of everything else. Trust me." He looked at the mainframe along the wall and hummed his appreciation. Stephen sat at a computer terminal and began to do his magic.
Casey went to Chuck, examined him for a moment then picked him up and hoisted him over his shoulder.
He looked around the room and saw the empty desks and the offices behind. He said to Sarah, "You cleared the offices before this room, right?"
"Yeah. I was supposed to protect him, Case. I'm an idiot. I fucked up," she said bitterly.
"No, you didn't. It was the right decision. Just worked out badly is all," he said with certainty and a shrug. "Shit happens, Sarah. Don't beat yourself up. Anyway, yeah, it's a clusterfuck. I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Right. Get him to safety, Case," she said. Her eyes were very expressive and conveyed her terror for her man, as incapacitated as he was.
Casey turned and carried Chuck out the side fire door. He touched his watch and said, "Jorge, Chuck got accidentally tranked. I'm carrying him back out to our vehicle. Keep an eye on the rest of the team. I'll be heading back to them when I drop off Chuck."
"Aw, shit, Colonel. Yeah. I'll do that. I'm going to re-route one of Colt's team to the vehicle for protection duty at Point Delta. Don't worry," said the younger man.
"Good idea, kid. But worrying is all I'm going to be doing for a while now," Casey growled.
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In the wreckage of his office, Roark had finally managed to end the meeting of the Board of Directors of Roark Instruments. He had assured them all that things were well in hand, but the almost five hour meeting had been torturous. Most of the Directors were friends of his and had been put on the Board at his suggestion and with his votes. But not all. There were three independent directors, two appointed by the holders of the bond financing and one representing the holders of the class B stock shares. Although they couldn't outvote his members in normal circumstances, this wasn't in any way normal.
The attack by Stephen's brat had come from a totally unexpected direction. He had to give the shithead credit for ingenuity, but Roark knew his own response would be scorched earth. Bartowski's entire life and family would be reduced to radioactive molten glass. Roark knew he'd survive this, as he'd survived challenges before, but it would be a long ugly fight.
The most urgent thing was to kill Stephen's kid. And that psychopathic bitch with him. Walker. The sooner the planet was cleared of their stench, the better for him. He'd make Stephen watch. If he could find Mary, maybe he'd talk to her before he killed her son. Let her know why her life was turning to shit. Yeah, that would be fun.
Smith knocked and came into the room, quietly observing the devastation without comment. Roark waited for him to say something, but the man hesitated.
After a moment or two, Smith finally said, "You ok, Boss?"
"No, but I will be. Carmichael and his guys launched a legal attack. Looks like it's gonna turn into a shitstorm before it's done, but we'll weather it. We get sued all the time. I'm an old hand at it. Pissed me off, though. I want to go back to the assassination plans for Carmichael's team. They are too dangerous to let live."
Smith's face indicated that he disagreed with his boss, but thought he'd discuss it later.
Roark continued, "So, what I need your guys to do is..."
They were interrupted by Culp at the door to the office. "Ted...Jesus Christ...what the fuck happened here? Holy fuck." When Roark didn't answer, he continued. "Anyway, listen, Ted, there's an army of Federal agents downstairs. They have indictments and search warrants. You have to meet with them."
"I have an idea, Bernie. Tell them to go fuck themselves. No, you know what? I'll tell them."
"Ted, I know you're pissed off, but these are the Feds. You cannot bully them," pleaded Culp.
Roark saw two men standing just outside his office and called to them.
"You guys the Feds Bernie is telling me about?"
The two men stepped into the office. Both were of medium build and height. Nondescript. Each was wearing a blue windbreaker. Roark expected the agency they represented would be named in large yellow letters across the back of the jacket. He couldn't give two shits, though.
The first man, holding a sheaf of papers in his hand, spoke, "Mr. Roark, my name is Special Agent Taylor and my partner is Agent Mason. We are here to tell you that you are under arrest for..."
"Oh, this is just fucking stupid. FUCK YOU," screamed Roark. He opened a drawer in his desk, picked up a Glock 17 pistol and shot Taylor once in the face. Then he shifted his aim and shot Mason.
While Smith stood immobile, Culp backed up a few steps and screamed, "HOLY FUCK, TED. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO? ARE YOU INSANE?"
Roark turned to Culp and said, "Probably." He shot his old friend once in the chest, then turned to Smith. "Activate all Fulcrum agents on campus. First, we kill every Federal agent here …none of them are ours or this wouldn't be a surprise...and we clean out the F Wing. Destroy the mainframe. We can back up the Fulcrum data to a portable hard drive or two and take it with us."
"Yes, Sir," said Smith.
"And call the helicopters. We'll all evacuate to the desert after this place is done."
"Yes, Sir," said Smith.
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A/N2: I have to thank my friend Hiller7496 for pointing out the irony of going in the back door of Roark's campus. Thanks, buddy.
A/N3: Don't know about you guys, but Roark's quick descent away from sanity was a bit of a surprise to me. However, when I look at the last four episodes of Season 2, in my opinion, he was acting pretty nuts. So, maybe I just added some steroids to his lunacy.
A/N4: Now here's something to contemplate. Remember that the identity of the Sachem is a closely held secret known, generally, only to the Life Guards. So, if the Fulcrum rank and file didn't know that Roark has anything to do with Fulcrum, why would any of them participating in the staging of a raid on Roark's headquarters alert anyone in Fulcrum of the upcoming action? If Rachel enforced opsec on the source of the information used (the FISA warrants), the agents on the ground in Ventura would have no special knowledge of any connection to Fulcrum (whether the agents were Fulcrum or not). Wouldn't it be funny if it ended up with Fulcrum agents fighting Fulcrum agents? Ok. I have an odd sense of humor, I admit it.
A/N5: I know it's Christmas Day on Monday. And yet, I have given you guys a decidedly un-Christmas-like chapter today. Yeah. I can't plan the timing of things in New Day worth a damn. Merry Christmas, to those of my readers that celebrate. Happy Hanukkah, for those of you who celebrate the festival of lights. Happy Kwanzaa, to those of you who celebrate that holiday. You know what, just happy holidays to you and your family whatever your Solstice celebration of choice might be.
A/N6: As usual, love to hear from you guys. And visit the FB page once in a while too. Chat with your friends there.