A/N1: Maybe, instead of the Intersect, Fulcrum is after ownership of Chuck?
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One of the Fulcrum men who had been tranked by Chuck during the attack on Sarah and him at the restaurant had awakened in the custody of the British MI-5 officers. Once they saw he was conscious, they moved him under guard and chained into an interrogation room. He was then attached to the metal table in the room, itself bolted to the floor, and left alone to look at himself in the reflective half of the one-way mirror on the wall.
He considered himself a tough and experienced agent, though, and the solitude didn't bother him at all. He recognized it as a tactic to unnerve him. He wished he had a poison pill to swallow, but had left the States in a hurry and failed to bring one with him. He'd readily have taken his own life rather than give up any information on his fellow Fulcrum men and women.
His watch had been taken and the room had no clock on the wall. He didn't even know if it was still daytime outside. But ultimately it didn't matter. He resigned himself and was braced for the rigors of the interrogation to come.
However long it was that he waited, the door opened and Carmichael himself came in with a newspaper under his arm. "Hey," he said, sitting down on the chair opposite the Fulcrum man and dropping the folded newspaper on the table between them.
"Carmichael," sneered the Fulcrum man. "Good luck with your interrogation. I have nothing to tell you."
"Ok," said Chuck. "I have nothing to ask you. So, I guess it'll be pretty quiet in here. Want something to drink? Must be thirsty after the sedative in the trank darts."
"Good cop, huh? Fuck you," said the man.
"Ok. Whatever, dude," said Chuck, seemingly not bothered in the slightest at the man's hostility. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and took out a newspaper. The man watched Chuck read the paper silently for a while, neither man speaking.
After a while, Chuck said, "You hear about the wedding we bombed in Kandahar? Still causing an uproar. Karzai is now telling us to stop bombing civilians."
The Fulcrum man considered a response and finally said, "This your interrogation method, Carmichael? Get me to talk? Your method sucks."
"Look, dude. In case you couldn't tell, I'm not interrogating you. Newsflash here. That will come later by some other guys. Guys who have the skillset to do it. That's not me. They will come for you eventually. Hell, they are talking to some of your buddies right now. A few of you survived the attack on Agent Walker and me at the Lobster Pot. Although most of you are dead, to tell the truth. The survivors are being interrogated. You...you're just waiting your turn. And I'm just here reading the paper while waiting for them to take you for a grilling. You want to talk to me about current events, fine. You want to sit there and pout, fine. I really don't give a shit, dude. I'm just making polite conversation."
Chuck went back to reading the paper. After a while, the Fulcrum man said, "I'm glad we bombed the wedding."
"Really? Why?" asked Chuck, looking up from the paper with a raised eyebrow.
"It's the war. We are at war. We were attacked. So, we hit back. That way, they know not to do it again. It's easy, Carmichael. You attack me with a knife, I shoot you. You attack me with a gun, I throw a grenade. You attack me with a grenade and I kill your whole family. When word gets out, the assholes leave us alone," said the Fulcrum man. "I want them all to be afraid of us."
"The bride didn't attack anyone, dude," said Chuck. "What about the rules of war?"
"There's only one rule of war. To win. Whatever you have to do to win. That's it," he said, passionately.
"Did you serve over there?" asked Chuck, nodding sympathetically.
"No. Never been in the military. I was stationed in Kabul for a tour though. I know what I saw," he said.
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In the adjacent room, looking through the one-way mirror, Sarah said into her open connection to Jorge Ribas sitting in front of his computer in Langley, a man they had called upon for help a few times in the past, "Kabul. Probably with the agency. Put it into the search parameters, please, Jorge."
Through the open line, Ribas said, "Yes, Ma'am."
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"What did you see?" asked Chuck. "I only ask because I have neither served nor been over there where the fighting is. All I know is what I read in the papers and what Colonel Casey has told me."
"They fight us without mercy or quarter, Carmichael. Exactly the way we should be fighting them. All your high-minded rhetoric about rules is just a bunch of bullshit," said the man. "That kind of thinking can get us killed."
"Listen...um, what's your name?"
"Doesn't matter. Call me John," said the man.
"Listen, John, that's easy to say, but we both know it's not that easy in practice. Our free press would call us out on that shit. Can you imagine what Congress would do if we tried something like that?" asked Chuck.
"So, see, Carmichael? Right there is the problem. You and the others who think like you are too bound to convention. Too unwilling to think outside the box. To take risks. Those Congress-critters are part of the problem. The whole set up we've been living under for centuries is outdated and has to be scrapped for something new and different. We need strong leadership, not some kind of divided circus in DC. Leadership to get us through the difficult times."
"I've heard this before, John. I know that's the Fulcrum stance. I understand at least part of what you are saying and calling for. But what happens to the people like me? People who stick with the concepts you think are outdated? Rule of law? Civil liberties?"
"They'll be persuaded. People are generally stupid and will believe what they are told. It's an old story, Carmichael. But you personally? You won't be here to see it. You and your team...well, I guess you figured it out already, right? Orders have changed. We finally get to kill you. Personally, I'm happy about that. You have been a thorn in our side for over a year. Every time we turn around, you and your team have messed up another operation. No more kid gloves for you though. It's just war."
"Wow. Should I be honored or frightened?" asked Chuck.
The man let out a short bark of laughter and said, "Mostly frightened, I think. There are a lot of us and you and your team now have targets on your backs. Hell, half your team is probably already dead. Two Fulcrum units were dispatched to St. Louis to take them out."
"What changed recently?" asked Chuck.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"You said orders changed. I gather those are orders from the Sachem. Why? Why are things different than a month or two ago?"
"Orion, of course. Sachem believed you would find Orion and you did. Sachem was right. And now you're no longer useful to us," said the Fulcrum man. "So, we're going to get you out of the way."
"Cold, dude. But, now you correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't have Orion yet," said Chuck.
"We will, though. Once you're gone the protection of Orion will devolve to the IC generally. And we have enough friends there to get to him..."
"...or her," said Chuck with a small smile.
"I guess," said the man.
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Listening with half an ear, Sarah was noting the information as fast as Chuck was extracting it.
She called Casey and then Zondra, leaving messages on each of their phones with the news that Fulcrum was on the warpath and they were now targets.
Then she called Malone with two goals. The first was to have Colt and his men activated as a fully-operational and armed team. She also wanted to have both Fitz's team and Colt's team deployed to the field as back up for both St. Louis and Grand Cayman. With Fulcrum having kill orders on them the more guns around her and Chuck and the rest of the team the better. The second goal was to have security deployed around Ellie, Devon, Stephen, Emma and Molly. It was likely that Fulcrum knew of them and might try to target them or use them to get to the core members of Team B. This was true even though they didn't know that Stephen was, in fact, Orion.
Malone approved both plans immediately and promised to make some calls to put those plans into motion as soon as possible. He also suggested that the unarmed civilian guards at Castle Studios be temporarily replaced with armed operatives and that the security protocol level at the Studio be raised. Sarah agreed.
Sarah then called the crew of the Citation and directed them to fly back to Los Angeles for some pick ups. She'd call both Fitz and Colt when Chuck had finished with this guy.
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"So once my team and I are out of the way, and Orion is now vulnerable to you guys, you take him or her to do what? That's something I keep having a hard time with. Why are you guys so obsessed with the Intersect? How does that help you achieve your goals? Honestly, John, it's the bit that has had me baffled ever since Larkin left you guys to return to the fold."
"Larkin. Yeah. He'll get his. Fucking defector," growled the Fulcrum man.
"Well, to be fair, John, he was only defecting back. And that's even assuming he was legitimately defecting to Fulcrum in the first place. If he wasn't, then he actually never changed sides. Right?"
"Brian," said the man.
"Brian what?" asked Chuck.
"It's not John. It's Brian," said Brian.
"Good to meet you, Brian. Excuse me for not shaking hands. Oh, and sorry you're trying to kill me."
Brian said, "Nothing personal, Carmichael. It's just business."
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Sarah fed the name Brian to Ribas. With the first name it only took the man ten seconds to come back with the last name Larson. Ribas was forwarding Larson's file to her immediately. She spoke into her watch and into Chuck's ear.
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"So, you're Salvatore Tessio?" asked Chuck.
"Huh?"
"From The Godfather. Tessio is apologizing for conspiring to have Michael Corleone killed. It's not personal, it's just business. It's what he said to Robert Duvall," said Chuck.
"Yeah. I guess so. Just business. You and your team are in the way and we need to get you out of the way," he said.
"I understand. Don't take this the wrong way, Brian, but I really hope you aren't too successful with that goal. But you didn't answer my other question. What's with your obsession with the Intersect? Seems weird to me. Some weird sci-fi shit that everybody seems to be chasing around like it's going to make … I don't know, magic superhero spies or something. What's with that?"
"Carmichael, you know how it is. You follow orders. None of us gets the full picture. That's deliberate. We, the guys actually in the field, we can't be trusted with the full picture for exactly this reason. When we are interrogated. I mean, I know I'm not going to tell anything when your guys start to question me, but some others aren't as tough or smart as I am. But generally, if guys like me get the full story we could tell the opposition under torture."
"So, basically, you don't know why the Intersect is so important because you trust your superiors to make those decisions and you carry out their orders? I get that right?"
Larson bristled at that. "Now listen, Carmichael, you know as well as I do that that's the way this business operates. Need to know. You make it sound like I'm some sort of stupid cog in their machine," said Larson, sounding offended.
"No, no, of course not, Brian. No offense intended. I can tell just by talking to you that you are one of the smartest of the Fulcrum guys I've talked to. Seriously. I'm sure if anyone would get the whole picture it would be you."
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Behind the glass of the mirror, Sarah rolled her eyes and shook her head.
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"Exactly. It's important to the Sachem and so it's important to us," said Larson.
"Yeah, I think I have to agree with you. The Sachem has got the big picture. And that's right, huh?" said Chuck.
"Exactly," agreed Larson.
"You think the Life Guard knows? Knows why they are so hot for the Intersect?"
"Maybe. I don't know," said Larson.
"You know any of them? The Life Guard? Any guys you'd talk to about that? You know, if you wanted to just get a bit of the inside scoop on how you Fulcrum guys are doing. Just to get closer to the decision maker. To the center of power."
"Naw, I don't see those guys too often really. I'm based in Miami. That's why I made it to the island quickly. You guys only arrived yesterday and we followed this morning," said Larson.
"Wait a second," said Chuck. "There aren't any Life Guards in Miami? How's that work?"
"Why would they be in Miami, Carmichael? I thought you were supposed to be smart. They are where the Sachem is and he's not in Miami," said Larson.
"But he travels, right? He's always on the move. I thought he'd be in Miami at least sometimes," said Chuck.
"Well, sure," said Larson. "Sometimes, I guess. But mostly he's on the other coast."
"Yeah. Listen, Brian, I'm a southern California guy myself, so believe me, I understand wanting to be there. We've got the best weather in the country. Even when it's hot, it's better than Miami when it's hot. Of course, the Sachem would choose southern California." Chuck was laughing at his gentle teasing of Larson.
Larson chuckled with Chuck and said, "Whatever. My guess is he picked southern Cal for some reason other than the weather."
"The girls, then?" Both men laughed.
"I'm from Miami remember. I'll put the Miami Beach girls up against the Southern California girls any time."
"How'd you get lucky enough to get the Miami gig? You didn't piss off anyone to get the Nome base to staff?" asked Chuck with a smile.
"I was in Atlanta. When we all got set up, they consolidated some of us into a unit in Miami. Fast reaction, as we might be needed for operations throughout the southern states or the Caribbean, like here."
"Consolidated? Huh. How'd you communicate with the Sachem to get those orders?"
"I don't know. That was the chief of our unit, guy codenamed Placer. He handled communication with the brass."
"I guess it was bad news for us that you were based close to the island in Miami. How'd you get here so fast, anyway?"
"Chartered plane. Easy," said Larson.
"Now waiting for you guys at the airport to head home. Easy for sure," said Chuck, nodding his head.
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Sarah alerted the MI-5 guys to send the police to the airport to find their plane.
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"Expensive, though," said Chuck.
"Sure, but the Sachem has the bucks. Never any question about that," said Larson.
"You don't know who the Sachem is, do you?" asked Chuck.
"Naw, and I wouldn't tell you if I did," said Larson.
"Yeah. I believe you. How many were in your unit anyway?" asked Chuck.
"There were ten of us plus Placer, but don't think I'm going to tell you their names or anything like that. Two units were ordered out on the hit," said Larson.
"Oh, don't worry about that, Brian. You see, in addition to you there's only one survivor from your unit. The nine other guys are all dead. Agent Walker and a British buddy of ours killed the rest. At this point I don't really care about their names. Kind of moot, right?"
Larson looked down at the table, looking dejected, and said, "Yeah, I guess so."
Chuck stood, picked up the newspaper, and said, "Thank you for the chat. Good luck to you." The door popped open for him to leave and Brian Larson heard him say to someone outside the room, "I got all I'm going to get from Larson. I'm done with this guy." The door closed.
Larson sat there suddenly dumbfounded and confused.
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A/N2: There really was a bombing of a wedding in Kandahar on November 3, 2008. Forty civilians were killed.
A/N3: This is actually a much more effective method of interrogation than something like waterboarding. The men and women who are called upon to do this are exceptionally skilled at exactly what Chuck did here. Of course, it didn't hurt that Brian Larson was as dumb as a bag of hammers.
A/N4: How'd I do?