A/N: It would be nice if someone friendly owned Chuck.
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They had flown south from Los Angeles to Panama City, Panama and from there to Manaus, Brazil. The second re-fueling stop might not have been one hundred percent necessary, but the crew had erred on the side of caution while flying over the seemingly endless green expanse of the Amazon rainforest. Emergency landing fields were scarce in the jungle.
They were on the final leg of the trip, from Manaus to Rio de Janeiro, the last hour or so of flight time.
The five passengers were a subdued group, all dealing with what had happened to Carina in their own ways.
Casey and Zondra were mostly silent and stoic, looking out the window of the aircraft at the green beneath them.
Amy alternated gazing sightlessly out the window and crying silently, her normal ability to sleep in any possible circumstances having deserted her.
Chuck and Sarah held hands and talked quietly.
"I mean, I understand...intellectually, I understand, but I can't help how I feel. That bomb was meant for me...for us. It only hurt Carina by accident, because I lent her my car. I feel so guilty that I'm here with you and fine and with two legs and she's in the hospital," said Sarah. Sarah marveled at the way she'd changed in the months since she met Chuck. Their relationship had somehow freed her to talk about her feelings. Hell, to even recognize her feelings for what they were. Not that she was particularly good at talking about them, but with Chuck she felt comfortable enough to at least try sometimes. He'd prodded her a bit on this point, to get to this part of the conversation, but she was ultimately glad that he had.
"I feel exactly the same way, Sarah. It was meant for us and she was an innocent bystander," he said.
With a bit of a smirk, she said, "No one has called her innocent in a long time." Sarah's expression got serious again, "And, if it was Gaez, then she would have been as much the target as any one of us."
"Yeah, but I still think that's unlikely. It's too quick for him to have reacted. Even if he got word from a mole, to mount a bombing from Brazil that fast...I don't know. I think Fulcrum is much more likely."
"You're right. I just keep coming back to the last time we went after him. He seemed to always be a step ahead of us."
"Well, with me and Casey along, the dynamics have changed," said Chuck.
"I know. But in addition to feeling guilty about Carina getting hurt, I have a bad feeling about this one, Sweetie. It's why Amy and I wanted another team to take the mission. We both lived through the last clusterfuck."
"So, we'll be extra careful," he kissed her on the forehead.
"And when we get back home, we'll take extra good care of Carina," said Sarah.
"Oh, my God. She'll hate that so much," said Chuck with a small smile.
"Too bad," said Sarah, with a tiny smile of her own. "She'll just have to suffer through it."
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Gaez's apartment and night club were in the Copacabana neighborhood of Rio, so they had arranged to stay at the Copacabana Palace. If they were going to look for the man, starting the search his own neighborhood was sensible. Given the grim mood among the members of the team, they didn't think that the world-famous white sand beach across the street would prove to be a distraction.
Chuck gazed at the hotel, a vast white art deco establishment, fronting on Avenida Atlantica across the street from the beach. He wanted to be excited about his first visit to the city and to this iconic hotel. But the truth was, he was in such a shitty mood that he just wanted to find Gaez and get home. He wondered if this sourness was endemic to the spy life and he'd somehow managed to avoid it all these months. Even the gigantic statue of Christ the Redeemer standing guard over the city from the heights of Corcovado mountain elicited only a momentary glance.
The group was checked into the hotel and escorted to their rooms. They had taken three suites on an upper floor with balconies and views of the ocean. Zondra and Amy shared a suite. Sarah and Chuck shared a suite. Casey had one to himself, which led to some ribbing that he needed to find a girl on the beach to bring upstairs. But the teasing petered out quickly. No one's heart was in it.
The reservations were in the name of Carmichael Industries, as they had decided to keep the Intelligence Community in the dark about the mission until they could deliver the target coordinates. DNI Malone had funded a Carmichael Industries account to cover the expenses. As they would not be in contact with the local CIA office, and they didn't want to alert the Brazilian government that they would be conducting operations in their country, they didn't bring weapons with them on the plane. Who knew what contacts Gaez had in his hometown after all?
So, the first order of business was for Casey and Amy to meet with an underworld contact Casey knew and obtain weapons and gear for the mission. Amy spoke Portuguese better than any of the others, even Sarah, so she was the logical choice for the task to meet Casey's man with him. Carmichael Industries had four rental cars delivered to the hotel, so they had adequate transport when they needed it. Although traffic would make car chases slow moving affairs, he'd been warned by the former CATS.
While they were gone, Chuck scanned the rooms for listening devices and found them clean. At least for wireless ones, he admitted to himself. He was still unhappy about the Lizzie thing from a few months ago, where a simple tape recorder had evaded his security precautions. The fact that he was chewing on that failure just proved how grumpy he was.
When he finished his scans, he, Sarah and Zondra moved out to the balcony of their suite with some of the alcohol from the hotel's in-room bar. The ladies drank some Argentine white wine, while Chuck tried an Antarctica beer, intrigued by the name.
It was winter in the southern hemisphere, but in Rio that meant weather of 21 degrees Celsius, perfectly comfortable temperatures, if perhaps a bit cool for swimming. They were looking southeast, with the sunset behind them. The Atlantic Ocean sparkling in the last light of the day, the sky starting to darken. The afternoon's beachgoers were packing up their belongings and making their way off the beach. They could smell the briny scent of the ocean on the light breeze.
Looking over the water, they sat in a comfortable silence for long minutes, each lost in his or her own thoughts.
Finally, Chuck said, "I wish Carina was with us."
Sarah squeezed his hand while Zondra said quietly, raising her glass to the ocean in salute, "Fuckin A."
"But we are going to find out who did that to her and we are going to stop them from ever hurting anyone ever again," he said. He spoke quietly and without heat, but there was no mistaking the determination in his voice. Chuck was neither a violent nor a vengeful man, but he was certainly prepared stop violent people from hurting others if it was in his power to do so. And, as things had developed over the last year, he had a great deal of power.
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With Casey and Amy back at the hotel, the entire team gathered in Chuck and Sarah's hotel suite to plan the next steps. They assembled in the living room.
"How'd you do?" asked Sarah.
"Got what we need," said Casey gruffly.
Amy snorted. "What?" asked Chuck
"We could start a war with all the ordinance we picked up. Casey was like a kid in a toy store. You don't carry a gun, Chuck, but you'll have to on this mission. Not to shoot anyone, but we now have too many guns for the four of us to carry around. And, hell, we can blow up a couple of city blocks if we want to." Amy was laughing at her description of their purchases.
Casey just grunted, but he was also smiling a little if you looked closely enough. Chuck assumed that Amy was right and they had much more ordinance than they might possibly need. He remembered the advice about not going to the grocery store when you were hungry. Seems it might apply to Casey and armaments.
He got the conversation started. "Ok, guys. Here we are in Rio, and, while it's a delightful place, we have to start looking for Gaez. I figure we start at the nightclub tonight. Cabaret Soba Abiganta. See if he's there. Ask around. See if anyone has seen him or knows where he is. Sarah and I will go in as the Carmichaels. Amy, Zondra, come with as members of our party?"
"Yeah," said Zondra. Amy nodded her agreement.
"Casey, you on backup outside?" asked Chuck.
"Yes, makes sense. I don't speak Portuguese so I'm not too useful inside," he said. "I'll bring a car in case we need it. The club is within walking distance for us, but just in case."
"We can access his office in the club too. See if there are any clues there," said Sarah.
"Ok. I'll get some tech stuff to set up there. Something to alert us if he comes in," said Chuck.
"That's helpful," Zondra said.
"If we find him, we start to follow him until he's somehow isolated. Will he recognize you ladies from the CAT Squad days?" Chuck asked.
"Probably. We got pretty close to him last time," said Sarah.
"Ok. So, we'll keep that in mind. If we don't find him at the club tonight...or don't get a lead on where he might be...we'll try his apartment tomorrow," said Chuck.
"Yeah," said Zondra. "And maybe the apartments of the guys you showed us the other day. Those of his men we could identify. They all live here in town."
"Yeah," said Chuck. "Good. Sounds like a plan."
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They went to dinner at a seafood restaurant overlooking the water. At Sarah's suggestion, Chuck tried (and loved) salt cod, ordering the bacalhua, a staple of Brazilian cooking. Most of the others enjoyed their meals as well, although Amy's stomach was still bothering her from the Studio's tuna salad.
Team B made it to Gaez's club at about 11PM. The hotel's concierge had made sure the Carmichael party was on the list and the velvet rope parted without incident.
That seemed to be the last bit of luck they had. They were warned that it was cash only that evening. It seemed the club's computers were down, which led Chuck and the women to exchange looks. The lights were dim and the music was loud. A dancing crowd of attractive happy people filled the center of the large room while tables and a bar occupied the periphery.
Chuck and Sarah spent hours dancing, drinking and, most importantly, talking to the staff at the club. No one had seen Gaez for a few days. The responses seemed honest and were often accompanied by a shrug. He traveled a great deal for business and was often gone for weeks at a time. No one thought anything of his absence.
Neither Zondra nor Amy had any better luck with their questions. The club seems to have been a bust in their search for him.
Being careful not to be spotted, Chuck and Sarah made it to Gaez's office in the back. Zondra and Amy were on watch to make sure that they would have warning of anyone's approach.
The room was in darkness when they got inside. Sarah went to the window and closed the curtains. Once they were shut, Chuck turned on the lights. There was a desk with a monitor and a keyboard on it, but the computer itself was missing. Chuck and Sarah shared a sour look.
The club's computers were down and now Gaez's computer was missing entirely. Sarah didn't believe in coincidences. Whoever Gaez had inside the Intelligence Community might have told Gaez to eliminate his digital footprint, as Carmichael was now hunting him. That couldn't be helped at the moment, though.
The office had a desk at one end, with a couch and a couple of easy chairs set up along the other end of the room. A small bar stood against the wall near the couch. A stereo set up was sitting on a stand with two wall mounted speakers in either corner of the room. No bookshelves or photos on the wall. No knickknacks or souvenirs. The room seemed fairly sterile, as if it were a place to do business and not to relax.
Chuck said, quietly, "Let me get my thing set up, then I'll help you search."
"Ok, Sweetie. What are you going to do?"
Chuck gestured to a pair of stereo speakers to one side of the room. "Those are going to work perfectly. I was going to set up my equipment and hope Gaez wouldn't notice it under a table or something, but this is much better."
He took a multitool from his pocket and lifted a speaker off the wall. He started to unscrew the back of the box. "I'm going to turn this into a microphone and use it to trigger a voice activated recorder."
"Wait...what? You are going to turn a speaker into a microphone?"
"Yeah. Think about it," he said as he was working with the wiring inside the box. "A microphone takes sound and converts it to electrical signals. A speaker takes electrical signals and converts them into sound. All I have to do is reverse the polarity and...poof, I have a microphone."
Sarah was going through the desk drawers and finding nothing of interest.
"I know you're not kidding, but I've never heard you can do that."
"It's actually pretty simple. All I have to do is switch the black and the red wires and I've inverted the use of the equipment. If he tries to listen to music through this speaker it won't work, but he'll just figure his speaker is busted. Take it someplace to get fixed maybe. But, by then, we'd have heard him here and will know where he is."
"What if they sweep for bugs?" she asked, closing one drawer and opening another.
"It's a passive recorder only triggered by sound in the room, so there's mostly no wireless signal. We can send it a radio signal that will trigger a burst transmission to us of whatever it's recorded since the last time we emptied it. I guess if they were doing the sweep for bugs at exactly the same time that we've triggered a burst we'd be in trouble. But, that's pretty bad luck if that happens."
"How long will its battery last?"
"No battery. I've hooked it up to the power from the speaker itself."
"I have a smart boyfriend," she said, giving him a grin.
"Thank you, my wonderful girlfriend." Sarah was clearly distracted by something she was holding. "What did you find?"
"A picture. A picture of a woman and Gaez."
Rehanging the speaker on the wall, Chuck made his way over to Sarah at the desk. She held a picture of an attractive woman with dark hair and olive skin. She was smiling at the camera and had her head next to a smiling Gaez.
"You told us he doesn't have a girlfriend," said Sarah.
"Yeah. That's what the files said. No intel on a woman. Any indication of a name?"
"No, not that I've seen."
Chuck took out his phone and snapped a picture of the woman. "See what I can do with this."
Zondra said in their ears, "Wrap it up, you two. Looks like company may be coming your way. Amy and I will intercept them, but you've only got a couple of minutes."
Sarah said, "Right. We were just finishing up here."
They checked that they had left no indication that they had been in the room, turned off the lights, opened the curtains back up and left.
No more than a half hour later, the entire team was back in their hotel suites. And no closer to finding Gaez.
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A/N2: Yeah, that speaker thing is real. Cool, huh?
A/N3: You know one thing about writing fan fiction that's not as much fun as writing fiction for money? If I was getting paid for this, I could go to Rio and write it off on my taxes as a business expense. As it is, I just sit at my dining room table and google all kinds of things about Rio de Janeiro.
A/N4: Much less drama here compared to last week's chapter. Some steps in the hunt for Gaez but no joy yet. What do you guys think?