A/N1: Ownership of Chuck. That's my mandatory mention. Ok, it's not really mandatory, it's just a silly bit of fun I do every week.
A/N2: Welcome to the thirty-sixth arc of New Day. I'm calling it Fulcrum's Quietus Arc. It is based, well sort of based (you guys understand by now) on a combination of Chuck versus The First Kill and Chuck versus The Colonel. Now let's get cracking. There's a lot to do.
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Monday, December 1, 2008; 10:06 PM PST
Stephen Bartowski shifted in his seat to try to ease the discomfort in his bound arms. The plastic zip tie on his wrists dug into the skin, and he had a hard time almost sitting on his hands. He tried to move them to a more comfortable position. His face throbbed where he'd been hit with the butt end of a submachine gun. His tongue worked at a tooth which he'd found loosened by the blow. He could taste the blood in his mouth and spit it onto the floor of the chopper.
The man to his right hit him in the ribs with a sharp elbow. He wondered if it was just general sadism or if the man was offended by Stephen sullying the floor of the aircraft. No words were exchanged, which was hardly a surprise. The roar of the engine and the bass thrum of the rotors overhead, not to mention the wind from the open windows, made any kind of conversation impossible. Even if one were to try, the wind would whip the words away long before they had arrived at the ear of the intended recipient. Between the noise and the multiple blows to his head from his Fulcrum captors, Stephen felt a headache coming on. He shrugged to himself. That should be the biggest of his problems.
As they flew, he looked out the window of the helicopter and tried to figure out where he was. He knew they were heading east, but they were flying so low that no major landmarks could be spotted. He saw a helicopter ahead of them, identified only by its running lights. As the helicopter he was in made turns, he caught glimpses of another one behind them. The turns seemed to be planned to get them around obstacles on the ground while still staying low, probably below the height of the FAA's radar.
His mind was occupied with these almost mundane matters. It allowed him to avoid contemplation of the bad news that he'd been captured by the very people he'd managed to avoid for years. If there was any silver lining to this horrible situation, it was that they didn't know they had Orion. They knew they had a member of the Carmichael team, and that was pretty bad given the losses they had suffered at the hands of Charles and his teammates, but for them to discover that he was Orion would be infinitely worse. They would torture him to create an Intersect for them. And to give these maniacs that technology would be the single greatest error of his life. So, they would hold him for a while to get information about whatever plans that Carmichael had to stop them, then they would kill him. And that was much preferable to his treatment if they knew he was Orion.
Killing him. Yeah. Sarah couldn't do it. The logic was unassailable, but she'd begun to cry, her face twisted in emotional agony. She'd balked. She'd told him she'd rescue him. She'd called him 'dad.' He'd seen it. He'd seen what she did. Shame he'd never get a chance to mention it to her someday.
He had no idea how long they had been in the air, but eventually the sound of the rotors changed, the wind began to drop off as the chopper slowed, he saw the stars in the night sky from out the front windscreen as the nose rose with the pilot's braking maneuver. From the side window he saw a series of lights, presumably marking the landing zone for the Fulcrum air fleet.
The helicopters landed together and the moment they had done so, the lights illuminating the landing field were turned off, plunging the area into blackness. When the aircraft's own lights were doused, the stars in the sky offered the only light for the men and women climbing out onto the cracked and weed dotted tarmac. He heard the ticking of the helicopter engines cooling.
When the rotor blades had slowed and stopped, two of his captors roughly helped him down from the helicopter, no easy thing to do with his hands behind him. They stood around him, crowding him, perhaps worried that a single member of the Carmichael team could pull some unprecedented magic to orchestrate a sudden victory. He saw the shapes of others climbing out around the grounded choppers. The winter stars were bright an crisp overhead and a cool wind whipped at his hair.
Shortly, several nearby trucks started and their headlights cast a sudden eerie light. They drove towards the surviving Fulcrum men and women.
One man bellowed, "Who's got the prisoner? Carmichael's man? Who's got him?"
One of the men standing next to him yelled, "Here, Sachem. We've got him here."
Ted Roark came across the field, followed by Smith, and came face to face with Stephen Bartowski for the first time in more than thirty years. When he recognized Stephen his face split into a delighted grin. "Stephen. Wow. It's great to see you again." He made a show of appraising the other man. "You got old." He wrapped Stephen in a hug, grinning the whole time.
Stephen said, "You got fat."
Roark let out a deep laugh and said, "The rich life, my friend. You could have had it too, you know."
"Not me. I'm a man of character, Ted," said Stephen.
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Ted Roark said, "Aw, don't start that again. I don't want us to start that old fight when I haven't seen you in so long. I mean, just this morning your psychopath son and his pet maniac killing machine mentioned that you were helping them, so I've been thinking about you all day. I've missed you, old friend. Really."
"Really? I've avoided you like a social disease," said Stephen.
Roark roared with laughter again and turned to Smith. "You know, this is my best friend, Stephen Bartowski."
"Is that so, Sir?" asked Smith.
"Come on," ordered Roark. "Let's get to the base and we can talk." Roark put an arm around Stephen's shoulders and said, "We've got a lot to talk about, brother." The one-armed hug was more than a little awkward with Stephen's arms still bound behind his back.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 12:02 AM PST
Chuck slowly became aware of his surroundings. Sarah was holding his hand. He was in bed, but she wasn't in bed with him. He cracked an eye and recognized one of the guest rooms in Castle. Sarah was sitting in a chair next to him, watching him. Although the room was quiet, there was the noise of activity going on upstairs in the main area. Sarah didn't look happy. As usual, there was love in her gaze, but he could tell she was upset. Very upset.
He remembered. They were in the Roark Instruments computer room, hoping to get the Fulcrum roster. He had been surprised by a random Fulcrum agent and both of them were tranked. So, obviously, his team had extracted him from danger and gotten him back to Castle.
His voice was hoarse as he said, "We struck out? We didn't get the roster?"
"No. We did," she said. Her thumb began to softly rub the back of his hand.
"Ok. What went wrong?" he asked quietly.
"A lot has happened that you need to hear about. The Fulcrum fight is nothing like it was a few hours ago. But the biggest problem is that your dad got taken by Fulcrum," she said.
Chuck swung his legs off the bed, reached for the water bottle on the table and said, "Oh, shit." He rubbed a hand over his face and glanced at his watch. It was midnight. "How long ago?"
"About three and a half hours. I'm sorry," she said, taking his other hand in hers. With tears in her eyes, she said, "I blame myself."
"Why?" asked Chuck with a frown, taking a drink of water.
"I was supposed to protect him. To protect you both. You got tranked and he got taken," she said miserably.
He reached out and took her in his arms, hugging her to him. She began to cry quietly. "Don't beat yourself up, Sweetie. I know you did everything you could to save him. Now we have to get him back." Chuck's voice had a mix of emotions; concern, understanding, forgiveness, anger. But, mostly, confidence and determination. While still holding her, he said, "What else?"
She pulled back a bit so she could look at him, using her fingers to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "We wanted to put Roark off balance with the multi-pronged attack. Well, we unleashed something unexpected. He seems to have lost his mind. I'm not really exaggerating when I say that. He personally shot both of the FBI men sent up to arrest him, killing one. Then he shot and killed his own lawyer. He must have had the Life Guards there at the campus and he turned loose a hot war on the Feds we sent to arrest him and search the place. They opened fire on our men in the lobby."
"Oh, shit. Casualties?" asked Chuck.
"Our side, eighteen dead. Mostly from the initial firestorm of the ambush," she said. "Their side, seventy-one. Both of those numbers are tentative. The Ventura hospitals are full and pulling back-to-back emergency surgeries. Some of the wounded have been airlifted elsewhere to other hospitals. I understand Devon is performing surgery at Westside right now on one of the FBI agents. Depending on the results of the surgeries, the number of dead will almost certainly climb."
Chuck scowled at the numbers. "Damn. Our guys?"
"Leo broke two ribs when his vest caught a round. Fitz got clipped along the shoulder by a round, but other than some stitches, he'll be fine."
"We got lucky. Thank God," said Chuck.
"And Mike and Fitz's teams are still there with FBI and Ventura SWAT, helping clear the buildings. Casey and Zee too. I guess there could be more fighting there yet to come, diehards and holdouts and whatnot, but I haven't heard of much so far."
"Ok," said Chuck. "Prisoners?"
"We have about two hundred, but most of them are probably legit Roark employees. We'll have to interrogate all of them."
"Sure, but faster to use the roster to cull the innocent from the guilty," said Chuck. "If we have a list of names, it'll move efficiently."
"Yes. Jorge is isolating the roster from the file that your dad got us. When we have it up and operational we will use it that way," she said.
"How did they get my dad?"
"Marco and I were holding them off in the computer room, but they got in and overwhelmed us. Stephen wouldn't leave until the roster was downloaded. By the time it was done the firefight was too heavy and I couldn't get him out. I told him we'd save him later and I left him when I ran out of ammo." She shuddered and said, "I'm sorry, Chuck. I'm sorry."
Chuck hugged her again, and said, "Sweetie, you were out of ammo. If you'd stayed you'd have been taken too. You did the right thing." She still had a haunted look in her eyes. "How did Fulcrum get out of there?"
"Rachel...by the way, you can't believe how she stepped up. Everyone is impressed as hell."
"She's your pal. I can certainly believe it," said Chuck.
"She had the Ventura PD close all the roads. Fulcrum came in with eleven helicopters to take out the Fulcrum operatives. Our people took out seven of the eleven, so only four made it out. Two were destroyed and five were merely grounded. Rachel had her people get the FAA to focus on the surviving four, but none were using their transponders and they flew low, below the FAA radar. When she heard that, she got the FBI to get on to all local law enforcement to the east of Ventura and collect reports of low flying helicopters. We tracked them for a while that way, but lost them at the town of Hodge, south of Barstow."
"Heading out into the Mojave," he said.
"Yeah. That's what it looks like," she agreed.
"Did the FAA have anything on where they came from?" he asked.
"No. Their filed flight plans were bogus and no one was paying attention on radar," she said.
"From the type of copter, could we tell the range without additional refueling? You know, based on its typical fuel consumption?" he asked.
"I don't know. I'll get on to Casey and get him to measure the fuel left in the tanks of the remaining birds. We should have some kind of an answer on outbound range with that data," she said.
"Might tell us how far into the desert they were intending to head. What is the press being told?"
"So far, nothing. But with all the wounded it's only a matter of time," said Sarah.
"Short time. The administration will have to get ahead of it," said Chuck, grimly, shaking his head.
"Langston tells me that Malone is with the President and Vice President at the White House. They have Obama and Biden on a conference call from wherever they are. Some assorted advisors too. They'll come up with a story."
"We have to have Malone let us know when they break. I have to call the President personally and apologize. Offer to step aside, if he wants," said Chuck.
"What are you talking about?" asked Sarah, shocked.
"Sarah, this was our plan. Our idea. And we lost eighteen good people, probably more. There's a war going on on American soil. Dammit, it wasn't supposed to work this way. He wasn't supposed to declare a hot war. This clusterfuck is my responsibility. My fault. We should have expected something like this."
Sarah stepped back, annoyed at her man's self-sacrificing intentions. "No. Absolutely not. Chuck, get real. You can plan the next ten moves ahead on the chessboard. And you did. But Roark turned the board over and threw the pieces on the floor. You can't plan for insanity. Just not the way the world works. Roark is nuts. And anyway, you can't step aside. Don't you dare even think about it. We need you now more than ever. The fight against Fulcrum is reaching its most dangerous phase and we need our leader. We need Carmichael. And I need my Chuck." She held onto his arm with a fierce grip.
Chuck gave her a quick smile and leaned in for a kiss. Their lips pressed together and he sighed. "No matter how much turmoil I am in the middle of, kissing you always makes me feel better. Lowers my blood pressure maybe."
"Maybe it just moves your blood around to a different part of your body," said Sarah with a smirk.
"Oh, boy. Ok. Gotta get to work. Let's get out there and find my dad," said Chuck.
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When they got upstairs to Castle proper, the only ones present were Rachel, Johnny, and Brett. All three were on the phone with someone or something. When they saw Chuck and Sarah join them, they broke off their calls and smiled at him.
"Hey, Boss," said Rachel. "Welcome back."
"Hey, Rach. Hey, guys. I hear from Sarah that you guys did good work amongst all the chaos tonight," he told them with a smile of pride.
Rachel said, standing from behind the desk said, almost defiantly, "No. We did what we could from nice safe places. The ones who really did good tonight were all shot at. Thank God our guys made it out mostly okay, but there are eighteen families tonight that will never be the same. Hundreds of people who will suffer for the rest of their lives from the loss of loved ones. What we managed with a few goddamn phone calls is nothing compared to the people who really did something." She had tears in her eyes, but managed not to spill them.
Chuck stepped forward to Rachel and wrapped her in a hug. She put her head against his chest and started to cry quietly, her shoulders shaking. Both Brett and Johnny looked at them sympathetically, maybe close to tears themselves. Sarah looked at him with love, knowing his compassion. This was the second crying woman he'd comforted in the last ten minutes.
She was muttering, "Sorry. Sorry. I didn't mean to lose it. Sorry."
He murmured, "Maybe everybody did good, Rach. Everybody did what they could do. All our people did good. Well, except for me, of course. I took a nap."
She snuffled a quiet laugh and gave him a weak slap on the chest.
"Where's Jorge?" asked Chuck.
"Delivery coming in upstairs from Ventura. He's just run up to get it," said Rachel.
"Has he finished what he needs to do with the roster?" asked Chuck.
"Yeah. First thing he turned to. Took him a few hours, but he just finished a minute before he headed up. He's downloaded the roster to our own mainframe and put it in a searchable format."
"How many names?" asked Chuck.
"Almost two thousand," replied Rachel. "I asked him if he can tell from anything in the list how many are still active. I mean, in the last few weeks alone, you guys have killed dozens. He couldn't, so we might have to do our own cross checking. But if you want to search a name, or a location, or a particular government agency, we can do it."
At that point, Jorge bustled in from the elevators. He was carrying a black garbage bag in each hand and they looked to be heavy.
Chuck said, "Hey, dude." He released Rachel.
"Hey, Boss." He carried the bags to his desk and put them down on the floor.
"Great job on the roster," said Chuck.
Jorge grinned, "Thanks."
"What you got there?" asked Chuck.
"The avionics from the five surviving Fulcrum helicopters. I hope at least one of the pilots programmed in the eventual destination into their GPS. But even if not, maybe some of the other data can give us a clue about their hide out." He bent down and began to pull devices from the bags. They were flat metal rectangles with wires and connections dangling. The boxes were of different sizes and configurations depending on what type of equipment they were.
Chuck watched him for a moment and sighed heavily. He leaned back and perched his ass on an empty desk. "And you still have to handle the use of the roster. And all of the Fulcrum agents, dead and alive, will have cell phones to crack. Roark Instruments will have hundreds of computers. Hell, the mainframe in the closed off wing should be open to us now, if they didn't destroy it on the way out. Jorge, there's just too much..." He stopped himself and started again.
"Ok. There's just too much there for you to do on your own and we are in a hurry. I'm not going to be able to help too much with all the other shit going on. Get on to Langley, please. Take your five best friends from your section. The folks you trust. Before you call them check the roster and make sure they aren't named. Tell them to pack a bag and get to Ronald Reagan. We'll send a plane for them." Chuck turned from Jorge and said, "Sarah, please clear that with Graham." He shifted focus again. "Rachel, check the roster for FBI agents Jennifer Statler and Anthony Mulia. They won't be there, but we've got to get into this habit. Then get ahold of Director Mueller from the FBI. Fuck, you know what? Check his name on the roster too. I expect you'll have to leave a message, as he's probably in the Oval Office right now. We have too much to do here on our own. We need help and I want people I know and trust. Ask him for the use of Agents Statler and Mulia here at Castle for a while. When he says yes, call them and have them get to Ronald Reagan to catch the same plane as Jorge's guys. I'll let you know the ETA."
Sarah was on the phone and put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, "I'm on with the crew. Jet should be there in seven hours if we can get the FAA to clear a flight corridor. Refuel, and another six hours back."
"Right, Rach, please let Jenny and Tony know that timing when you wake them up," said Chuck, nodding.
"Got it," said Rachel, reaching for her phone. As she did so, she looked at Johnny and said, "Call back the FAA. Get air corridors cleared for our jet. Round trip."
"Right," said Johnny, picking up his phone. He gave a quick grin and said, "Damn, I love this job."
Rachel continued, "And Jorge, please check the roster for our plane's crew. As the boss says, we have to get into that habit."
"Sure thing, Rach," replied Jorge.
Chuck's cell phone rang. He looked at it and announced to his team, "Malone."
He stepped away from the others and answered, "Evening, Director."
"Chuck, how do you feel?"
"I'm fine, Sir. I slept through everything. It was the rest of my team that carried the load tonight."
"And quite a load it was," said Malone.
"Yes. Sir, are you finished with the President this evening?"
"Yes. Just walking out of the Oval Office," said Malone.
"May I ask a favor, Sir? Could you put me on speaker and let me speak to the President, please?"
"Sure, Chuck. Hold on." Malone's voice changed as he took his mouth from the phone and said, "It's Chuck. He would like to speak to you, Sir."
A moment later, the sounds changed to a speakerphone and the President of the United States said, "Good evening, Chuck. Or, good morning, I guess."
"Good morning, Sir. Thank you for giving me a moment of your time. I just wanted to apologize, Sir. The plan worked out by my team and I led to something totally unexpected. The bloodshed ... was shocking. We had no indication that Roark and Fulcrum would react in such a ..."
"Batshit crazy manner?" asked the President.
"Exactly, Sir. Batshit crazy. I'm very sorry, Sir. Tonight's violence was my fault for failing to anticipate..."
"Listen, Son, tonight was a total clusterfuck, but I'm gonna need you to climb down off your own back here. No one can plan for crazy. I heard from Director Malone what you and your team intended for that prick and thought it was goddamn brilliant. Do not blame yourself. Don't. And anyway, I'm going to need you to see the silver lining here."
"Sir?"
"You ever read A Soldier's Story? By the general, Omar Bradley. His memoir. No?"
"No, Sir," said Chuck, wondering where this was going.
"Northern Europe. December 1944. German Army's on the run, back to Germany. You know what Bradley was worried about? That the Wehrmacht would cross the border and dig in. That we'd have to dig them out hole by hole and man by man. He was really hoping they'd come out and fight in the open. And they did. That was the Battle of the Bulge. Now they did really well there for a while and it was a hard fight, but what you wouldn't know unless you read his book is that he was delighted. With the enemy out in the open we could hit them and kill them. Well, Chuck, you did it. You brought Fulcrum out into the light of day. Now we get to take care of the bastards. Thanks, Son. Thanks. Your plan didn't work out the way you wanted, it worked out much better."
"Thank you, Sir. I hadn't thought of it that way," said Chuck.
"Well, you did a great job. You and your team. The Nation owes you, Son. You know the bad news, though? When you do well, you get more responsibility. So that's where we are. You are now the leader of the war against Fulcrum. I'd congratulate you, but maybe condolences are more in order. You and your team now are the very tip of the spear. The rest of us are here to get out of your way and give you whatever you need. No pressure, I guess. Good luck and God speed, Chuck. I have faith in you and your friends."
"Thank you, Sir. We'll do our best not to let you down," said Chuck.
"I know. Now let me go back to bed. Another night like this one and I'll end up looking like my dad," said the President.
With a small laugh, Chuck said, "We should all be so lucky."
"You're a suck-up," he said, laughing. "Night, Chuck."
"Night, Sir."
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A/N3: Macguffins. By definition, although macguffins drive the plot, they are usually insignificant in and of themselves. Maybe the most famous is the Maltese Falcon. So cast your minds back to Chuck Versus the Fat Lady. The macguffin was a list of Fulcrum agents, most famously Jill Roberts. Canon is a little confused as to how complete the list is and how it was created, but our heroes managed to secure it. And then...and then...and then, nothing. We never heard about it again. And they fought Fulcrum for the entire balance of the second season. Not even a mention like, "Wow, good thing we arrested everyone on the list we got or Fulcrum would be harder to fight." Nada. Zilch. Well, New Day doesn't work that way. Carmichael's people got the roster of Fulcrum agents (at significant cost) and, by God, that's going to play a big role for the rest of the fight against those traitors. That's actually why I saved the roster until near the climax of the fight with Fulcrum instead of dropping it into an earlier arc as they did in canon.
A/N4: Of course, the Omar Bradley story is accurate. As the reports of the German attack (causing a "bulge" in the Allied lines) came to Bradley, he said to an aide something along the lines of "Well, I wanted them to go on the attack, but this is ridiculous."
A/N5: Somewhat calmer chapter after the last few on the roller coaster. Don't you worry, though, there's more action to come. Now that you've all caught your breath, what do you think? Logical developments and actions by the heroes and the Fedeal government writ large? Let me know, please.