A/N1: Why do I mention ownership of Chuck at the start of every chapter? Why ask 'why?'
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Wednesday, December 3, 2008; 9:01 AM PST
Team B, as augmented with the assistance of the people they had flown in from the east coast, had been working in shifts overnight. Eating from the Studio's commissary and taking turns sleeping in Castle's guest rooms below the main level.
A great deal had been accomplished. The captive Fulcrum agents had been moved from the aircraft hangar at NAS Point Mugu to the USS Minnie in the harbor of the Naval Air Station. Just about all of the non-Fulcrum Roark Instruments employees had been cleared and cut loose, although eight of them had been identified as Fulcrum operatives from the roster and had been detained on the ship with the others. All of the laptops and cell phones from the Fulcrum men and women had been cracked and their information was being downloaded to the Castle database. The contents of the Fulcrum mainframe from Ventura were being transferred that morning.
The roster itself was in the process of being culled, updated and expanded. In the months leading up to the Battle of Ventura, as it was coming to be known, many dozen Fulcrum agents had been killed or captured by Team B. Those individuals were being removed from the list, allowing the focus to remain on the free and active enemy operatives. Biometric data, such as fingerprints and voiceprints, where available, was being added to the roster files. Anything to make it easier to locate and identify the men and women of Fulcrum, even those who might have made an effort to change their identities, was being incorporated.
In the meantime, a list of all properties owned or leased by Roark Instruments, or any related or subsidiary entities, had been compiled and was having files of their own created. Rachel had prioritized properties within the fan shaped area on the map Zondra had created showing the area east of Hodge. Within that limited area there were three warehouses off I-15, a small light-manufacturing facility in Barstow, and two areas of vacant land in the desert east of Barstow. Looking farther afield, elsewhere in the country there were several hundred properties. Internationally, there were almost a thousand properties total.
Washington itself had been a hive of activity. The normal holiday traditions had been overshadowed by the fallout from the Battle of Ventura. The press was going crazy to get information about the group that had killed so many Federal agents. The connection to Roark Instruments led to a microscope being applied to the company by the press and the results were beginning to trickle out. Roark's business was, for all intents and purposes, shut down. Both the President and the President-elect were essentially singing from the same songbook regarding the incident. For the most part, the political left was not taking advantage of the administration's woes. The right wing was understandably quiet and concerned, most unsure of what had happened and whether any of their leaders would be tarred with the stain of treachery. Of course, the lunatic fringe of both parties trotted out a plethora of outlandish conspiracy theories, including that the whole event had never taken place and was entirely the product of a vast disinformation campaign by politicians of all stripes (for some unknown reason).
Chuck and Sarah sat at the front of the large conference room in the Castle Studios offices, absorbing the briefing from the varied members of Team B. The size of the team had long outgrown the underground spy center of Castle and, with the new extent of their operation, no longer even fit in the large conference room in the Carmichael Industries space. Ben and Lisa Mattock had summarily ordered the Studio personnel off an entire floor of the building for an indeterminate period of time, allowing the expanded Carmichael team room to operate.
In less than an hour, Chuck and Sarah would be on the phone to Washington for another update with Malone, Beckman, and Graham. While the news they would be passing along reflected admirable progress, they knew they would be asked what was coming next.
As the members of Team B finished, Chuck said, "Ok. Thanks, guys. Superb job. We all know that we have more to do, but you have all accomplished an amazing amount since yesterday."
Sarah said, "We know we have to keep going. We have to vet the last of the prisoners not on the Fulcrum roster and cut the innocent ones loose. We have to interrogate all of the Fulcrum prisoners to get every scrap of information from them. We have to finish the input of the remaining electronic devices and transcripts from the prisoners we do have. We have to investigate all of the connections that Jorge's data mining has thrown our way. We have to finish adding the biometric data to the roster files."
Casey said, "Yeah. We have to handle all those things. But there's more we can be doing."
Rachel said, "Well, I've been in contact with the Justice Department lawyers we used last week to get the FISA warrants for Ventura. Now they are preparing applications for warrants for the residences and cars of each and every one of the Fulcrum prisoners we have. We can't start going for the residences of the rest of Fulcrum...the non-prisoners I mean, without alerting them to the fact that we have the roster..."
"Probably figure it out pretty quick on their own, though," said Jenny Statler, shaking her head.
"Yeah, probably," agreed Rachel. "But in the meantime, we can go into their homes and see what we can find. Also, I want them to get the FISA warrants to serve on the cell phone carriers to map the locations of their cells over the last few weeks. It's a longer term process, but be smart to get started."
"Great," said Sarah. "Let's do that."
Colt said, "If it's ok with you and Chuck, I'd like to take my guys out to check out the Roark Instruments locations near Barstow. Maybe they are Fulcrum bases or something. Can't hurt to get some eyes on."
"Go for it, Mike," said Sarah. "They didn't show up on any of the connections from Jorge, but Zondra's work with the helicopters is certainly worth the look."
Rachel said, "I'll get you the files we've prepared on those, Mike."
"Thank you, Rach," said Colt. She nodded to the big man.
"If we want to check out some of the Fulcrum connections that Jorge's program is finding for us, I have a suggestion," said Rachel.
"That Strength Leader Corporation thing you showed us yesterday?" asked Sarah.
"I'm sure that will be on the list, but I'm not ready to present that one yet. Too much to dig through still. I have a different target for you. A warehouse near Marina Del Rey. Every one of the Fulcrum agents had that same location in their contacts, but all saved under different names. When I pull it up on Google it's totally unspectacular. Free standing. Not huge, maybe thirty by sixty yards. Eight or nine cars parked in the lot. A truck bay leading to a loading dock. Security doesn't appear too unusual. Some cameras. No guards. Chainlink fence with a gate for car entry. Nothing to raise the profile. I figure it's worth a look," said Rachel.
"Sounds good," said Casey. "Zee, want to go for a ride?" She nodded yes. He turned in his seat and looked at Fitz, "How about you and your guys? Maybe get to shoot something."
Fitz laughed and said, "Sure, Colonel. It's only been thirty-six hours since our last gunfight."
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Wednesday, December 3, 2008; 11:34 AM PST
Casey and Zondra parked on the street in front of the warehouse and casually walked up to the gate. Mounted on a post by the gate was a keypad mounted with an intercom button. Casey pushed the button and waited for a response from the occupants of the building.
"Yeah," said the disembodied voice from the metal box.
Casey said, "Joe sent me."
Casey looked through the fence at the wall mounted camera pointing at the gate. There was silence for a few moments then the voice said, "You got the wrong address, friend. Try the next building over. This one ain't right for you."
Casey took a few pieces of paper out of his jacket pocket and looked at them. It was actually a draft of his best man's speech, but, of course, couldn't be seen from that distance. "Naw," he said. "It's pretty clear. This is where I'm supposed to be." He waved the papers at the camera. Turning to Zondra, he said, pointing to the papers, "Look, you agree, right? This is the right place."
"No question," she said.
"Look," said Casey, reasonably, "Just take a look at my instructions, will you? Joe is gonna be seriously pissed at me if we can't get this done."
"Naw. Listen, just get lost," said the voice.
Casey pushed the button and held it down. Almost a minute passed. Finally, the voice inside the box said, "Asshole. Get the fuck out of here."
"You know, you started out calling me 'friend.' You should work on your patience. No criticism, just sayin'. You seem to lose your temper pretty easily," said Casey.
Zondra turned her back on the camera and smirked. She said, quietly, "Chuck is rubbing off on you."
Casey looked at her innocently and growled, quietly, "Don't be mean."
The voice said, "Yeah, but that was before I knew you were an asshole."
"You gonna come look at my papers or not?" asked Casey.
"Fine, I'll be right out. But you're still an asshole."
Not even a minute later, a door opened in the side of the warehouse and a man descended a few steps, leaving the door ajar. The man was of average height, with a shaved head. He wore a machinist's smock and his hands were stained with oil. He looked angry as he strode across the parking area to the gate with Casey and Zondra.
As he came towards them, the phone in Zondra's front pocket was sending a video of his approach to Castle. In their ears, they heard Jorge say, "Yup. On the roster. Don Wilson. Ex-military. Armorer by training."
Zondra tapped her ear twice to acknowledge his information. That was the confirmation they needed. On the off chance that this operation wasn't a Fulcrum facility, they hadn't wanted to employ violence until either confirming the connection or if they were themselves attacked. With the confirmation from the roster, the gloves could come off.
The man opened the gate and reached for Casey's papers, saying, "You're fucking wasting my time, asshole."
"Yeah. I'm sure that's right," said Casey, moving to hand the man the papers with his right hand as his left hand touched the electric stun gun to the man's forearm. The man twitched and fell to the pavement at his feet.
Zondra tranked Wilson as she stepped over his body. Fitz and his men, dressed for heavy combat, came out of the back of a nearby van and the six of them ran towards the open door in the side of the large building.
The most dangerous job before them belonged to the first man through the door. If there were guns pointed towards them, the first man through was the most likely to get hit. Casey sprinted for the door, not allowing any of the others to take that risk.
His weapon was in his hand as he lunged through and immediately to the right. There was no gunfire to greet him. Zondra came in on his heels, moving to her left. They knew the importance of clearing the doorway as soon as possible. The vision of the attacking force clustered just inside the door, illuminated by the sunshine behind them was enough to give an experienced urban combat warrior nightmares. One by one the rest of their team entered the building in relative silence.
Although the interior was lit, it was still darkened compared to the daylight outside. They didn't have much time to allow their eyes to adjust and had to move quickly with the best vision they had.
The area of the building they found themselves in was lined with wooden boxes stacked to a height of six or seven feet. The arrangement created two corridors between the rows of boxes down the length of the building. No one was in sight, but they heard sounds coming from one end of the building. Casey motioned with a hand and Fitz, Billy and Leo moved to the far aisle and, with a nod from Casey, began to move silently down towards the sounds. Casey, Zondra, and Marco aped their movements down the nearer corridor. While Casey and Zondra carried their pistols, the other four had submachine guns in hand. For that reason, Marco took the lead from Casey on their side.
A voice called out from ahead of them. "Hey, Don, is that guy gone?" There was a pause and then, "OH SHIT. GUYS, SCRAMBLE!"
From in front of them came the sounds of men moving quickly and the clacking metal sounds of weapons being readied for violence. The members of Team B concentrated down the sights of their own weapons and continued to move forward.
As an armed man stepped out into the Marco's sights and Marco fired off a burst from his H&K MP-5, hitting the man in the chest. Another man stepped forward, but that man had a better sense of self-protection and fired at them from cover. They could hear gunfire heading in both directions from the aisle with Fitz and the others. Cover in the aisle was scanty.
Marco reached into a pocket on his combat vest and removed an M-67 fragmentation grenade. He looked at Casey for permission. If they could, they wanted the Fulcrum agents for interrogation and corpses couldn't share their knowledge. But self-defense trumped that, of course. Casey nodded his approval of the other man's intended action.
"FIRE IN THE HOLE," Marco yelled, tossing the bomb forward.
He and his team sheltered against the blast as a sharp bang reverberated around the building.
Both elements of Team B moved forward quickly, weapons ready. The weapons were unnecessary as the five Fulcrum agents facing them were no longer a threat. Two were dead and three were wounded.
"Ok," said Casey. "Let's get these three some help and then see what we have here."
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Wednesday, December 3, 2008; 3:04 PM PST
Back from the warehouse at Marina Del Rey, Casey and Zondra sat in the conference room with Chuck and Sarah, Rachel and Jorge. They had left Fitz and his men at the warehouse and Colt's team wasn't yet back from Their trip to the Barstow area. Jenny and Tony were on the ship supervising the interrogations of the Fulcrum prisoners.
"An armory," said Casey. "The warehouse was a Fulcrum armory. Ready to go to war."
"Military gear," said Zondra. "A lot of those crates were from military stores."
"Yeah," agreed Casey. "We're getting some MP's to take control of the hardware. Don't know how they got ahold of the stuff, but we called in the 110th Special Investigations Unit. They'll get to the bottom of it. Those guys don't fuck around."
"What about the prisoners?" asked Chuck.
"The guy from the gate is being transferred to the Minnie and the other three are at Doctors and Nurses being treated under guard. When they are fit enough, they'll join the others," said Zondra.
"I've already had the roster updated for all six," said Jorge. "And the electronics from the warehouse are being fed into the data."
"DC will be happy with another victory," said Chuck. "As horrible as things are, we are giving them some progress."
"Well, how about a bit more?" suggested Rachel. "I'm ready to talk about the Strength Leader Corporation now."
"Floor is yours," said Sarah with a gesture.
"The corporation, when you punch through all the subsidiaries and cut outs...thank you, Jorge...is owned by Roark Instruments. They purport to be a management training outfit. They have a website..." said Rachel.
Jorge said, "No way into their own systems that way. I hacked in, but it was a simple shared server hosting a number of websites. Nothing to be done there. Cheap dead end. Earlier today we used a drone to drop a BB-87 onto the roof. I used it to hack into the building's wifi network, but only got to the building systems like HVAC and life safety and that sort of stuff. The really important Fulcrum stuff must be airgapped or otherwise hidden from us."
Rachel continued, "But we looked at the website and everyone shown as an officer or lecturer of the company is on the Fulcrum roster. As this outfit was visited by no less than twenty-nine of the Fulcrum prisoners we are holding and three more were scheduled to attend an event of some kind there soon, it's the next place we should hit. The more Fulcrum agents we can net and question, the better."
"What are we talking about? Physically, I mean?" asked Casey.
"Building is freestanding. Eleven stories. In the center of a parking lot. 1600 Destefano Court, off Mulholland. Can't tell how many occupants daily, but based on the cars in the lot, it looks like there are upwards of seventy or so per day. Unless some use mass transit," said Rachel.
Chuck laughed lightly and said, "Not in LA, Rach. Not happening."
Rachel shrugged, smiled and continued, "Fair enough."
"Number of entrances?"" asked Casey.
"Two pedestrian east and south and a loading dock west side in back," said Rachel.
Casey pondered and said, "We could blow it up. Take out the whole rats' nest."
Chuck shook his head. "I'd rather take the whole collection alive so Jenny's folks can interrogate them."
"Tough to manage, Chuck," said Zondra. "We'd have to hit it from multiple directions all at once. It's eleven stories tall. Be a hell of a firefight. We aren't getting seventy surrenders, seventy prisoners. That's not at all likely."
"We could infirltrate a team. Head inside looking for leadership training," suggested Chuck.
"To what end?" asked Sarah. "Nothing useful for us to do once we get inside."
"Yeah," Chuck agreed.
"Could we get a team on the roof? Like we did over the summer in Bakersfield?" asked Sarah. "Is there a heliport?"
"No heliport," said Rachel.
Casey said, "Maybe, but we'd need a hell of a distraction for them not to hear the choppers. And it's not a contained site like Bakersfield was. People are coming and going and walking around the parking lot. If we shut it down before an attack, there goes the element of surprise."
"Yeah," agreed Zondra.
Sarah was thinking hard. Bakersfield. On the roof. Something was floating around the edges of her mind. Something from their prior missions. Something that might...yes.
"Guys, I have a plan," she said with a sudden grin.
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A/N2: The 110th Special Investigations Unit is just a little name drop for Jack Reacher's unit. Not a crossover, just a mention to get a grin or two. While I enjoyed the TV show, it's basically as realistic as Chuck but way more violent.
A/N3: As usual, love to hear from you guys. Let me know what you think.