A/N1: Ownership of Chuck isn't as complicated as people say. Wait a minute, do people even say that?
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 1:01 PM PST
Chuck and Sarah came upstairs to the main room of Castle. It was packed with their people all working hard. While downstairs in one of the guest quarters, Sarah had checked her phone and confirmed that the jet was a half hour out of Bob Hope, so she didn't have too much time to get there to meet it.
"Ok," she said. Looking around, she said, "Hey, where's Jorge? We have to go for the pick-up."
"Oh, shit," said Brett. "He's still asleep. I'll go get him." He jumped up and rushed downstairs to the sound of a smattering of laughter.
The phone rang and Marty said, "Sure, hang on, Colonel. He's right here."
Marty looked at Chuck and waggled the phone in his hand.
Chuck picked up on another extension and said, "Good news, Case? SP-117 did its magic?"
"Not this time, kid. Didn't even get to use it. He got so stressed by the possibility that his heart gave out. There was nothing the docs could do. There goes the only pilot we had," said Casey, bitterly.
"Oh, shit. Oh, shit. It was my decision to send him for the drug. I didn't...I didn't consider..."
Chuck's world stopped for a moment. He'd killed Ominsky. He ordered the drug and that had given the man a heart attack. He had managed to avoid killing anyone since this whole spy thing had started, and now...
As if reading his mind, Casey said, "Stop it, kid. Don't take this one on yourself too. Believe it or not, sometimes shit happens that you aren't responsible for. You're just not that omnipotent...at least not yet. I don't want you thinking this is your first kill or something and you've had your red test. You have no responsibility here. Big fat guy and his heart gave out from the excitement and a really shitty life-style. You want to know what killed him? Giant bowls of pasta, pepperoni pizza, and buckets of fried chicken. That shit's murder. Oh, and limiting his cardiovascular exercise to trying to find his own toes."
Chuck still felt bad about the death, and the loss of the potential intelligence on his dad's whereabouts, but was also struggling not to laugh at Casey's brutal take on the man's passing. Finally, he let out a short bark of laughter and said, "Ok, Case. Thanks. I was spiraling there for a minute and you caught me."
"It's cause you're a moron," said Casey.
"Gotta say I agree with you sometimes," said Chuck. "Where are you heading now?"
"Thought I'd head back to Point Mugu and rattle some more Fulcrum assholes," he said.
"Alright, Case. The plane from DC lands soon. Sarah's coming up with Jenny and Tony to set them the same task and the local FBI office is sending some more bodies too. Don't forget to try to catch a nap or something."
"Arghh," growled Casey, dismissively.
When Chuck hung up the phone, Sarah said, "Bad news?"
"Ominsky died of a heart attack before we could get anything from him," said Chuck with a grimace. "We don't have any other pilots held at Mugu."
"Aw shit. He was one solid lead," said Sarah. "We'll just have to keep going."
"Yeah. We'll just have to keep going," he agreed with a shrug. He leaned over and gave her a kiss. "Drive safe."
"Always," she said.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 1:15 PM PST
Fitz and Rachel knocked on the door of the head of the Studio's security force. Prior to the threat from Fulcrum maturing into a full-fledged war, which had really begun when Fulcrum began to try to kill the members of the Carmichael team, the security force had been mostly civilian contractors.
But when the attempted assassinations had occurred, at Sarah's request Malone had intervened and ordered armed paramilitary officers to protect the installation while maintaining its operation as a civilian movie studio.
The man chosen to lead the security force was a retired Army major by the name of Rob Wilson who was employed by the CIA in the Special Activities Division. He had short brown hair, blue eyes and a marathon runner's body. He was at least six inches shorter than Fitz, which put him at about average height.
Fitz had made friends with him early in the man's posting to the Studio.
As they came in, Wilson was standing behind one of his men manning the video monitors for the Studio's many cameras.
"Come on in," he called. Once they had entered, he said, "Hey, Fitz. And...Ms. Bernstein, right?"
Rachel reached out to shake the man's hand. "Yes, but please call me Rachel."
He said, pleasantly, "How can I help you?"
Fitz nodded his head to the office behind Wilson. The three entered the room and Fitz closed the door. "Is this room swept?"
"Yeah. I did it myself this morning. No one has been inside since," assured Wilson.
"Good. Rachel, the floor is yours," said the big red-head.
"Mr. Wilson..." she began.
"Please call me Rob," he interrupted.
She gave a quick tight smile and said, "Rob, we have some information regarding three men and one woman, all working here at the Studio and all members of Fulcrum. One of the men is a member of your own security staff."
"Oh, shit," Wilson said. "Can I see the information?"
"No. The raw intelligence is being closely held..." she said.
"Alright," said Wilson.
"...but here are the files on the four individuals." She handed him a thumb drive.
He put it into his computer and studied the files for a few minutes, shaking his head.
"Goddamn it. I spent two tours in Iraq with Evans. I never would have...shit," said Wilson, disgusted. "What do you want me to do?"
"At the moment, please, just watch and observe without being obvious. Let your guys know to keep an eye on these four and alert you to anything odd."
"That's it?" he asked.
"For the moment, that's it. We don't want to compromise the source of the intelligence we received. On the other hand, we aren't going to let them get away with something either. So, let's just watch and wait and see if they force our hand."
"Ok, Rachel. I'll take care of it," he said. All three of them shook hands.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 1:40 PM PST
Tony and Jenny threw their bags into the back of the black SUV that Sarah had taken from their motor pool and climbed into the truck. A few yards away, Jorge was greeting the new arrivals for the technical and computer assistance they had requested.
Sarah said, "Sorry, guys. No time for rest. We're throwing you into it right from the get-go."
"Great," said Tony.
"What do you have for us?" asked Jenny.
"First things first. Did you drop the Orion lead on Stringer?"
"Yeah. Shook him up, I think. Anyway, they now know who they have. No telling how long it took him to get word to their HQ, but it's heading up the chain of command if it's not there already," said Jenny.
"Excellent. That should keep Orion alive for a while at least," said Sarah.
"It was an easy lift. Although I'm still shocked that Stringer is Fulcrum. Anyway, what else you have for us?" she asked.
Sarah answered, "Interrogations. We have almost fifty Fulcrum prisoners out of about two hundred total. The rest are probably innocent employees of Roark Instruments, but we have to check to be sure. We have the roster of Fulcrum agents, but some of the prisoners might be using fake ID. Pressing the Fulcrum folks for the location of Orion is a priority, but cutting loose the civilians before it gets to be a political hairball is also a priority. We've asked the LA FBI office for a bunch of bodies to help...none of whom are on the Fulcrum roster, of course...but we need you two to supervise them and coordinate all the interrogations."
"You have the files on the Fulcrum assholes?" asked Jenny.
"Laptop on the back seat will have remote access to the database at Castle...our headquarters. This afternoon sometime, the fingerprints and other biometric data on everyone on the Fulcrum roster will be added to the database. When we get that, the sorting of the civilians will move faster," said Sarah.
"Yeah," agreed Tony. "Feed the person's fingerprints in, no hit on the Fulcrum list, and cut them loose. Bet they're pissed by now."
"Yeah, I think so. Hard to blame them, I guess," agreed Sarah.
Tony said, "So, Castle? As in the movie studio?"
"Yeah. It's a big intelligence operation and we're based underneath."
"James Bond eat your heart out," said Tony with a small smile.
"Any other leads on Orion?" asked Jenny.
"We're following up on a few different possibilities. A lot of the work will be done by the other passengers on the jet. The tech guys. We needed some more bodies and borrowed some of Graham's guys."
"Cracking cell phones?" asked Tony. "Stuff like that?"
"Yeah, among other things. We managed to ground five Fulcrum choppers last night. We need guys to go through the avionics packages, for example. We got nothing from the GPS units, but maybe the other stuff can produce something. Also, we have trackers on the phones of one of his henchmen, but it seems that he's either ditched them or shut them off."
"Sounds like there's a lot of work for everyone," said Jenny.
"Yeah. And it's all on an emergency basis," agreed Sarah.
"As always," said Tony, with a cynical grin.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 1:50 PM PST
"Chuck, you got a second?" asked Zondra.
"Sure," he said. "What's up, Zee?"
"I'm working on something and I want someone to check my work and assumptions," she said.
Sitting down next to her he said, "Ok. Shoot."
"The five grounded choppers were all Airbus H160's, identical models. All five have just about 330 gallons of aviation fuel left in their tanks. All the same. The fuel tanks hold 411 gallons of fuel, so they burned about 81 gallons from the last time they refueled. Now I'm going to get to some assumptions. I'm assuming that they filled the tanks to maximum. I'm assuming that they all refueled at the same time and place." She looked at Chuck for confirmation.
"Ok, Zee. I think those are reasonable assumptions. If the amount of fuel in the aircraft differed among the five, we might be facing something more complicated, but the fact that they all had the same fuel level supports the assumptions you made. Go on."
"Right. So, to burn 81 gallons equates to between one and one and a quarter hours of flight time. The helicopter burns between 66 and 79 gallons per hour in normal flight. It will probably be on the lower end of that range."
"Why?"
"Unloaded. No passengers for the outbound leg,"
"Ok," said Chuck.
"The next assumption I'm making is that they were going to do a round trip. Meaning, heading back to where they departed from when they came to Ventura to pick up their guys."
"Ok. A tougher assumption to make. No evidence to support it either way. But I see where you're going," said Chuck. He motioned for her to continue.
"They left Ventura at about 8:30 and were last heard...assuming the low flying helicopters were in fact our missing birds...outside Hodge at about 9:30. One hour. If it took an hour to get to Hodge, that gives them a remaining flight time of about 15 minutes max east of Hodge. It's 125 miles as the crow flies between Ventura and Hodge, so let's give them an average speed of 125 miles per hour. Now, the aircraft can go much faster than that, but it must have been flying a circuitous route to avoid detection. So, maintaining that average speed, say, 30 miles into the Mojave. Barstow is only 10 miles from Hodge, so we are talking maybe 30 miles or so east of Hodge and 20 miles east of Barstow. Now you'd have to cut that back somewhat, as there would be hover time and whatnot to burn fuel without forward progress, but it narrows the search...if the assumptions are valid."
"Ok," said Chuck.
"So, this is the map," she said, showing a map of the Mojave with a fan shape extending east of Hodge, encompassing Barstow.
"Excellent," said Chuck. "Great job, Zee. Let's put this up on one of the monitors and keep everyone focused on it. As more data comes in we can narrow it down."
"Right, Chuck," said Zondra.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 2:00 PM PST
Smith roughly pushed/dragged Orion into the darkened lab room where the Fulcrum scientists were working on their version of the Intersect. There were computers everywhere and, in the center of the main table, a glass tube with a glowing blue cube suspended in the center. The tube was capped at either end with steel plates and seemed to be filled with a glowing blue mist or gas of some kind. It fit into a wide circular metal base, itself connected by cables to the nearby computer terminals. The entire presentation was somewhat eerie. The room itself was chilled to keep the computers from overheating.
There were four scientists in white lab coats (over sweaters) working in the room and they looked up as the two men came in. One said to Smith, eagerly, "Is this him? Is this Orion?"
Smith nodded and shoved Stephen into a chair. From the crown of Stephen's head to his toes, it felt like everything hurt, but his mind was clear and his limbs functioned. Smith was as professional as was to be expected and had administered a serious beating with limited injuries to the victim.
The man turned to Stephen and said, "Wow. Did you really invent the Intersect?"
Stephen shrugged and said, "Only the really cool parts."
Roark, two of his fingers taped together with medical tape, followed them in and addressed Stephen. "So, here you are Orion. Now you'll build an Intersect for me and for Fulcrum. How long will it take you?"
"Ted, I have to look at what you've done so far and..."
"Yeah. Whatever. You know what? I don't care how long you say it will take you. I want it done in two days or I'll go back to the plan where I kill everybody. So, get cracking, Stevie boy." He turned to Smith and said, "If he doesn't do what we said, you can do whatever despicable acts of violence are in your nature. You can eat him for all I care. I'll get you your favorite wine to wash him down with. Or maybe you're a beer man. Whatever."
"Yes, Sir," said Smith, deadpan.
Stephen looked at Smith and said quietly, "Oh boy."
Roark turned and left the room.
One of the scientists said to Orion, "Let me show you what we've gotten so far."
Stephen glanced at Smith and said, "Yeah. That's probably a decent place to start."
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A/N2: The Airbus H160 wasn't released to the market until 2015, but it was a pretty cool aircraft with a nice big passenger capacity, so I included it here even with the anachronism.
A/N3: So, please let me know your thoughts. Many people working to save Orion and defeat Fulcrum. We seem to be pulling in multiple directions, but, with the leadership of the Carmichael team, all pulling together.
