A/N1: At this point, maybe we should just be happy about the ownership of Chuck.
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'No one had clocks anymore,' thought Sarah. 'Not mechanical clocks, anyway. Everything was electronic.' So, the fact that the clock was real and actually ticking was sort of odd, but comforting at the same time. The sound took her back to her youth in Ardmore when her parents were still together. Not that it was an appropriate time for this sort of wool gathering, of course. But, in the otherwise silent apartment, the ticking seemed much louder to Sarah than it was in reality.
As she and Zondra moved through the apartment, a new sound gradually made itself known. It was the sound of light snoring. Not the stentorian snoring of a man, but the gentle snoring of a woman. The susurration was soft and, at least so far, rhythmic. As the sleeper was the only other person present, Sarah moved slowly and silently, hyperalert for any change in the sound of the snores. Any change in rhythm or volume. The snoring stopped and she and Zondra froze in place. A soft fart sounded and, a moment later, the snoring began again as if it had never been interrupted. There was also a dog in the apartment, but he had been given a very light dose trank as soon as they entered.
Sarah and Zondra glanced at each other and continued on to the woman's bedroom. They paid close attention to the clothes on the floor, careful not to disturb them. The woman was sleeping on her left side, facing the window of her bedroom. Zondra slipped to that side of the bed, as silent as she could be, and held a small cloth, soaked in chloroform, to the nose of the sleeping woman. Without her ever having woken up, the woman slipped into a much deeper sleep. But that would only last a couple of hours at most and wasn't reliable in any event. When they were confident the woman in the bed was sleeping with the added help of the chemical, Sarah took out a trank gun and fired a single dart into the woman's upper arm.
Once the woman was tranked the tension drained from the room. Zondra and Sarah both pulled the black hoods off their heads and tucked them into their pockets. Sarah plucked the dart from the woman's arm and tucked the now empty cylinder into a pocket. Zondra closed the blinds on the bedroom windows. She and Sarah stepped through and into the living room. They closed all of the blinds or curtains they could find.
Without much in the need for discussion, Zondra began a methodical search of the apartment, paying particular care so as to leaving no trace of their activities that could be found later. If the woman thought she'd had midnight visitors, the entire operation might be compromised. Sarah, on the other hand, moved directly to each electronic device in the unit and, following Chuck's instructions, began to install Chuck's specially designed software.
The tranked woman was Helen Kennedy, who worked professionally by the name of Skye. She made her living as a high-end escort. She seemed to specialize in the "girlfriend experience" where at least some of her professional activities were vertical and not horizontal. Sarah and Zondra were in her condo in Oxnard, a bit north of Los Angeles proper. It was a nice place, testifying to the profitability of her chosen line of work. The condo itself was modern and tastefully decorated.
Kennedy herself was a handsome dark haired woman. Given her profession, she could be expected to be a sex-bomb, but she wasn't really. She came across as more as a no nonsense business woman. Curvey, but more solid than willowy. The men on the team, though, all thought she was definitely attractive and could be expected to be successful in her line of work.
They knew from Chuck and Jorge that the condo was worth over a million dollars and had a mortgage of only half that amount. Kennedy had an investment portfolio with not quite two million dollars. It seemed she was not only very good at her job, but sober and careful with her money. For a woman in her early thirties with no college degree, she'd done quite well for herself financially. Outside of work, her only hobby was karate. She was a third-dan blackbelt in Shotokan Karate practicing from a local Oxnard dojo.
Kennedy had no family to speak of and certainly none in the southern California area. Some friends in the area, mostly ladies in her line of work and fellow karate-ka from the dojo. No boyfriend or other romantic connection. Thinking of Kennedy, Sarah considered the difficulties involved in pursuing a romantic relationship when part of your job involved getting laid and understood why the woman would be single. For an instant she froze in place and thought about her own profession...well, at least until she'd met Chuck and her life had changed. Coming at the question from a different point of view shocked her and she put that aside to deal with at a later time. Wow. She shook her head to clear it.
They had gone through Crawford's file on Vincent Smith with a fine-toothed comb, discussing every detail among the team. He was more than a bit of a ghost and seemed to have more lives than Rasputin. The only lead they could pick up from the file was in a drugged sleep in her bedroom. They found that the man frequented Skye on a somewhat irregular basis. It wasn't clear if he saw her merely professionally or as part of an actual more personal relationship. Whatever she did with him did not run through the company that offered her services professionally, at least according to Chuck and Jorge. She was either with him for her own purposes or was being compensated outside her regular arrangements, or maybe both.
So, to get another step closer to Smith and therefore the Sachem, Team B obtained a broad FISA warrant on Kennedy and put on a full court press on the woman. Watching her was the easiest. But Colt's man Frankenheimer, called Frankie by his friends, had made first contact. He had the blond surfer boy looks and had collected a King Charles Spaniel puppy named Maisie on loan from a shelter. The dog was the most adorable little creature imaginable. Frankie was walking his new dog along the same path that Kennedy was using with her older bulldog, Winston, and he saw to it that they met.
Frankie had made no effort at recruitment or seduction, simply pleading smiling ignorance at dealing with a puppy and asking for any guidance Kennedy could offer. As they were sitting for coffee at a nearby Starbucks, the dogs playing at their feet, Sarah and Zondra had begun a conversation with her while waiting for the restroom. Didn't take long before all four were outside chatting away about this or that.
From that conversation and a couple of other similar ones to follow, they had learned about her schedule, her living arrangements, who watched her dog, Winston, when she wasn't home, her family, her love life, how long she'd lived in Oxnard and where she eventually wanted to live. She, naturally, learned the same about her new friends. Of course, everything she learned was fictional.
Tonight's black bag job was the next-step operation following the initial intelligence gathering. Frankie had shared a drugged doggy treat with Winston that afternoon to make sure that he was sleeping deeply when Sarah and Zondra got into the condo from the sliding door to the balcony. The goal was primarily to gain ownership of all her electronics. Secondarily, to search for anything else of interest. They didn't consider it likely that they would find a bundle of letters to her from Smith with a convenient return address, but a thorough search was prudent in any event.
Sarah, following Chuck's instructions, installed software on all of her phones (she had four), her laptop, her tablet, and her smart TV. He already had complete access to the building's security feed and, while she and Zondra were working inside the unit, he was downstairs installing some devices on Kennedy's car. He'd declined to be with them inside the apartment of the sleeping escort, somehow feeling it wasn't quite right for a man to be part of that team.
Although they didn't think it likely that Kennedy would bring Smith to her apartment, they nevertheless installed some small motion activated cameras and listening devices.
As expected, the physical search hadn't yielded any significant clues. Although, Ms. Kennedy had an astonishing array of sex toys. Sarah took pictures of two of them to show Carina, as she had no idea what they did and which sex they did it to.
It was almost four hours after their entry, they left via the balcony, locking the sliding door behind them and leaving no observable trace that they had ever been there.
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Jorge sat with Chuck in the main room at Castle, sipping his coffee. Chuck had spent the prior hour or so giving him the rundown on the various team members helping them with the war against Fulcrum. Now it was time to brief him on the new team members starting that afternoon. It was with those men that Jorge might be spending the bulk of his time for the next week or two.
Chuck said, "We found seven hard drives from the bank. We found mention of the Fulcrum account on two of them, and were able to access some of the deposit records on only one. That's where we'd like to you start."
"Tracing the money?" asked Jorge.
"Yeah. The money into the account has to come from somewhere. We want to trace it back to the source. But I'm not asking you to do this alone. DNI Malone has lent me two forensic accountants from the Treasury Department, from the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. They will be joining you upstairs this afternoon."
"Upstairs?"
"Yup. No real space down here for a war-room. And we don't want to get Carmichael Industries involved in the spy stuff, want to keep it clean if we can, so I've gotten the Studio to lend us some offices in their space."
"As easy as that?"
"Yeah. Since the whole thing is one giant intelligence op," said Chuck.
"The whole thing? Castle Studios?" asked Jorge, clearly surprised.
"Yeah," said Chuck with a grin.
"I guess that explains the last Jasmine Bourned movie. Made the CIA look pretty smart and cool," said Jorge with a matching grin. "Almost makes me wish I could tell anyone who I worked for."
"Only fiction, dude," said Chuck with a smile. He liked Jorge and was rapidly considering him a friend. And the man's technical skills were absolutely top-notch, not to mention his instincts. From the moment they'd met, Jorge had impressed him.
"So, who are these guys you're teaming me with? The forensic accountants? What the fuck is a forensic accountant, anyway?"
"It's a combination of accountant and detective. They not only trace funds, but also identify fraud and other financial crimes. They work to find hidden assets. They explain it so even idiots like you and me can understand it, at least they're supposed to," explained Chuck. "The way we figure it, with them doing the accounting work and you doing the hacking, with me as backup if you need any help, we will hopefully figure out who is funding Fulcrum. That will put us a step closer to shutting them down for good."
"Excellent," said Jorge, nodding and pulling with a couple of fingers at the soul patch on his chin.
"First is a guy named Brett Goldmacher. Been with their intelligence unit for a couple of years. CPA. He was the key guy in getting to the money flow from the Banteria Cartel. Figured his way past a pretty complex series of cutouts. It's why Malone sent him to us."
"Ok. And with the position he's held, he's got the right security clearance," agreed Jorge.
"Yeah. We're looking forward to getting his help. The other guy is Johnny Gordon. Same unit..."
"Goddamn. They much be pissed to lose two of their guys," interrupted Jorge.
"Yeah. No shit. Don't be surprised if they give us grief. At least with you I have a relationship with Langston to save my ass from damage. With Paulson, I fully expect that I'm going to have to take a serious spanking for poaching." Jorge laughed, but at the same time understood that he was now talking casually with someone who expected a spanking from the Secretary of the Treasury himself. A man who seemed like a fairly normal guy to have a beer with, but was more powerful than almost anyone he'd ever met. Jorge stifled a grin. Goddamn he loved this job. And loved this guy.
"Anyway. Yeah. The second guy, Gordon, is from the same unit. He worked hand in glove with some Mossad guys to shut down a big Hawala network in north Africa."
"What's Hawala?" asked Jorge.
"It's an informal network of cash exchange among certain Muslim populations. It runs on honor and integrity within the generally closed community. No banks or electronic communications. Basically, word of mouth and trust. You drop off money in Cyprus, you pick up money in Tangier without question. It's been going on for centuries. Almost impossible to trace, but Gordon figured something out."
"With the Israelis? Good trick. They don't like to work with anyone." said Jorge.
"He's Israeli." Jorge raised an eyebrow. Chuck continued. "Born there of American parents. Raised in the Midwest, but gone back to visit a bunch of times. Still got family there, including a twin sister. Anyway, it doesn't matter. He figured out how to use cell phones to create an algorithm to track the money. I think we'll like him."
"Ok. So, what's the deal? Brett, Johnny and I use the thread from the Cayman's account to pull and pull until we can get to the source of the funds?"
"Yup," said Chuck.
Jorge looked at the wall in Castle for a moment or two and said, with a grin, "Cool."
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And that was that. Jorge and the two accountants began to pull on the threads from the Cayman hard drives. The rest of the team settled back to wait for Kennedy to be contacted by Smith. Chuck and Sarah talked about it and decided they'd need a lawyer to help them with all the warrants the investigation might need and asked Graham to run a security check on Rachel Bernstein to get her a top secret clearance asap. They'd tell about it later.
And they waited. Chuck and Sarah, and Ellie and Devon, did all the prewedding things they were expected to do. Ellie and Stephen worked to perfect the Intersect removal program. Of course, everyone also had their day jobs too.
Emma prepared for the largest Thanksgiving celebration she'd ever hosted. In addition to Molly, Chuck, and Sarah, she had Ellie, Devon, Stephen, Devon's parents, Casey, Sarah's new friend Jorge, Zondra, and Carina. It was going to be a pretty crazy Thanksgiving. Fun.
And they waited.
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Zondra checked the feeds and yelled out, "CONTACT. Smith was on with Skye."
Chuck and Casey ran to her station and began to listen to the recording.
"Hey," said a male voice.
"Hey, stud. You coming to visit?" replied Skye.
"Friday?"
"I've got a date, but I'll cancel it," she said.
"That's my girl," he said with a growl.
"Text me time and place?"
"You got it," he said. Chuck clicked the recording off.
Casey said, "How can we be sure it's him?"
"I used the digital recording of his final Army review board meeting. Took his voice and used it for digital voice print analysis. The computer has confirmed it's him. We have a lead." Chuck had a grin.
Casey wanted to grin, but stopped himself. "For now," he grumbled. "Can't lose it."
"Yeah, big guy. I agree with that," said Chuck, giving Casey a friendly rap on the shoulder.
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A/N2: Another clue. I know the puzzles in Fat Lady were fun, but they were also sort of stupid too. I'm trying to do better and I leave it to you to tell me how I'm doing. All the best, my friends.