"Smelling isn't everything," said the Elephant.
"Why," said the Bulldog, "if a fellow can't trust his nose, what is he to trust?"
"Well, his brains perhaps," she replied mildly. — C. S. Lewis
Don't Mess With Mr. Rogers
29 SEPTEMBER 2007
ATHENS, GREECE
10:22 BST
The vicious, conniving, gin-swilling grandmother of all headaches woke him. It drove a sharp spike of agony between his eyes, pounding viciously against the top of his head and making everything want to explode. Somebody drummed heavy metal hits from the '80s against his skull. Somebody else bulldozed his brain matter. And yet a third person took a jackhammer to the backs of his eyes so hard that his teeth rattled.
He did the only thing that he felt capable of doing. He groaned and tried his hardest to die on the spot.
He failed.
"Ah, he wakes," an unfamiliar voice said.
In that instant, a thousand sensations flooded in—movement, pain, traffic noise, hot, stuffy air against his skin. Chuck opened his eyes and nearly screamed when that made the headache worse. He was only somewhat aware of the green-gray roof over his head, the shelves leading up to it, the fact that he had something shoved up his nose. He dealt with the latter first. An oxygen tube. Great. "Where am I?"
A face filled his vision. Pasty white skin, white-blond hair, pale, pale eyes. An albino? What?
"You're in an ambulance, mate," said the man in a British accent.
Chuck's eyes rolled back in his head.
A drunk flapper splashing her '20s boyfriend in a pond. NAME: KAISER, RANDALL. DOB: 7 July, 1977, Sussex, England, Great Britain. Dual-citizenship, British/Canadian. Arrested three times, suspected ties to Liberal Canadian Freedom Front, known associates Jackson Burton, Terrence Jaymer. Drunk flapper again.
"Whoa, whoa, hold on, buddy," Randall Kaiser the albino said, misinterpreting the flash as Chuck passing out.
He managed to wave a feeble hand to hold Randall off, even though the flash had intensified the headache to almost beyond tolerance levels. "Sorry, I'm okay. Can I have some morphine?"
"Head hurt?"
"Is the Space Pope reptilian?"
Randall looked confused. "What?"
Chuck sighed. "Yes," he said, keeping his eyes on the ceiling of what was obviously an ambulance, "yes, my head hurts. Where's S—Di—my, uh, wife?"
"Following in her car, buddy. You're going to be fine. Just looks like a case of dehydration."
Dehydration, my ass, Chuck thought. If Sarah thought she could just knock him unconscious every time she disagreed with something he did—
Sarah. Randall Kaiser.
Randy.
"You're Randy!" Chuck breathed, ignoring his throbbing head for once to focus on the man in the paramedic's uniform leaning over him.
Randy, halfway to reaching for some sort of medicine, froze. "Walker told you about me? That's not in her usual MO."
"Uh, yeah," Chuck lied, for he wasn't going to just go around blurting out that he had a database in his head more fearsome than Facebook. "She didn't mention you were a paramedic, though," he finished lamely.
Randy laughed. He had a thin, unctuous sort of face that Chuck immediately wanted to distrust, but that may have just been the splitting headache talking. "I'm not a paramedic, Pete. We 'borrowed' the ambulance to get you away from the Acropolis. You must have really have done something to piss Sarah off if she's willing to go off-script for this assignment."
Only one thing in his statement was important. "So there's really morphine in here somewhere?"
"Of course there is. For you, however…" Randy reached behind him and came back with a small plastic cup. "Sit up and take these."
Chuck wrinkled his nose to see that there were only two aspirin in the cup. "You can't give me anything stronger? My head feels like Keith Richards used it for a hotel room."
"Sorry, orders from Walker."
Though every movement made his head scream, Chuck managed to fight his way upright so that he could swallow the pills. "I don't even want to know what she did to me, do I?"
"Still have all of your vital parts?" Randy asked.
Chuck had halfway moved to check before he stopped himself. "I really don't want to know. Where are we going?"
"Oh, c'mon, mate, you know I can't tell you that." Randy clapped him on the shoulder, and Chuck winced as the movement reverberated through his headache. "Just lie back and enjoy the ride. Keep your eyes closed—the headache never lasts long. Trust me."
"Been on the receiving end of a few yourself?"
Randy laughed. Though the noise set his teeth on edge, Chuck found himself hating the pointy-faced man a little less. "From Walker? The stories I could tell you. Either way…" He turned and Chuck craned his neck to see a large Greek man driving the ambulance. "He's awake, Teddy—we can stop circling now and give him back to Walker."
"Aye-aye, boss."
Randy turned back to look at Chuck and startled the taller man. Gone was the jollity. Instead, Randy looked like a very pale, very serious operative. "A few rules, Mr. Rogers," he said in a silky voice.
Mr. Rogers? Oh, right, his cover. There was definitely not a man in a cardigan sitting in the back of the ambulance with Chuck and the albino.
"Walker contacted me to help get the two of you out of the country. We've got a long history, Walker and me, which means that I don't want some hotshot analyst friend of hers screwing everything up."
Hotshot analyst friend? Chuck supposed that Randy probably meant him.
"Which means," Randy continued when Chuck said nothing, "you'll do as Walker and I say, from here on out. We let you wake up because you're easier to move conscious, but if need be, we can return you to the unconscious state."
It would probably help with the headache, but Chuck just crossed his arms and set his chin. He was glad he'd chosen not to lie back down. "Can you swear to me she won't get killed?"
"We can all get killed." Randy shrugged. "It's just the lifestyle."
"I'm not willing to risk it happening to her because of me," Chuck said. "She's a good person. She deserves better than the hand she's been dealt."
"She'll be the first to tell you she makes her own choices."
"They think she's a traitor," Chuck told him bluntly. "Because of me. That's my fault. They'll kill her on sight because of it."
Randy blinked. "What are you talking about?"
"I can't tell you specifics because, well…" Chuck pushed a hand through his hair and winced when it stood up. "It's complicated. But what Sarah's doing right now is because of me. I don't want her to die because of it."
Instantly, Randy held a handful of Chuck's shirt, dragging the taller man closer to him. He leaned in threateningly. "What do you mean, Sarah will get killed on sight because of you?"
"I can't explain—"
"No, you'll tell me why, and you'll tell me now. Teddy!" Randy fired off a long stream of Greek at the ambulance driver.
Immediately, the ambulance shrieked to a halt. Chuck would have crashed against the bulkhead separating the main bay from the driver's compartment were it not for the iron grip Randy had on his shirt.
"Look, I can't tell you why," Chuck said again, stammering now that he realized what exactly he'd gotten himself into. He knew now Sarah wasn't following the ambulance—Teddy and Randy were supposed to deliver him to some sort of safe-house somewhere.
Assuming Randy and—yep, the driver definitely had a gun peeking out of the waistband of his paramedic's pants—Teddy didn't kill him off first.
"I can prevent her from getting hurt," he went on, avoiding eye contact with the gun. "I can turn myself in, tell everybody she had nothing to do with it."
"Why don't you?"
"Because she knocked me out! I was attempting to do just that when she knocked me out in the middle of a freaking tourist site, okay? So if you want to help Sarah, drop me off at a train station and forget we ever met."
He saw the war taking place on Randy's face and decided to wait it out. Sarah clearly still meant a great deal to her ex-boyfriend—Chuck wasn't surprised. People like Sarah always meant a great deal to somebody, even creepy albino men in the back of stolen ambulances.
But his new guardian just shook his head. "I can't let you do that, Chuck. Walker's always got reasons for what she does."
Chuck closed his eyes, resigned. "Fine. Take me to Sarah, then. It's her funeral."
Randy didn't appear to like that anymore than he did, but the man ordered Teddy to continue driving all the same. He leaned back against the side of the ambulance while Chuck collapsed back against the other side, counting each individual throb of the headache tearing his head to pieces. He felt sick, and trapped, and most of all, scared for Sarah.
It was then that insight hit. Randy would do anything for Sarah—he'd made that much clear. And Randy had enough powerful contacts to rate an entry in the Intersect…
"Wait a second," Chuck said. "I think I know how to protect Sarah."
Randy's eyes narrowed. "I'm not dropping you off at the train station."
"No, no, I don't want you to do that." Chuck leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. "Can you get me an untraceable phone with video capability and five phone numbers?"
"Which phone numbers?"
Chuck told him.
30 SEPTEMBER 2007
SAFE-HOUSE IN ELEFSINA (OUTSIDE ATHENS, GREECE)
16:12 BST
"Man," Chuck observed as Sarah closed the door behind their visitor, leaving the two of them alone in the massive safe-house. "Pete and Diana Rogers know how to vacation in style."
Since he'd been making comments like that for an entire day, Sarah ignored him. "That was Randy."
"Did he have my package?"
"He does." Sarah held up a small cardboard box, her expression puzzled. "Mind telling me what's in here, Chuck?"
"Randy and I came to an agreement." Chuck gently pried the box away from her, but didn't open it.
The safe-house had more than one room, which meant he had privacy back. Especially since they were the only house for miles, which meant Chuck could actually sit outside with a little bit of safety. He was using the opportunity to work on his tan, neglected during the five years in bunkers.
Sarah, however, didn't let him get as far as his room. She did one of her lightning-quick moves, blocking his way. "What's in the box, Chuck?"
"Nothing dangerous, I promise."
"Then why not show me?"
"Maybe it's a surprise." Chuck's smile was thin-edged. Things were still strange between them even more than twenty-four hours after the Acropolis spectacle. He felt more trapped than he ever had in the bunker in Siberia. It didn't seem to matter that he understood her stance on the issue—it should be his choice about the lives he endangered, not hers.
But Sarah Walker was a formidable opponent even without the knives he'd seen strapped to her ankles and the badass secret agent persona.
She crossed her arms now, not moving from his path. "I hate surprises."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I like them, personally."
"Show me what's in the box, Chuck."
"Trust is a two-way street," Chuck reminded her. "If you really want me to trust you, you'll have to trust me."
He could see that little dart working under her skin, but Sarah's face never changed. "Show me what's in the box."
Chuck's fingers tightened for the briefest of instants before he begrudgingly handed it over.
Sarah wasted no time tearing into it. She blinked at the white-paper-wrapped objects inside. "What's this?"
"Souvlaki."
"You…got my conman ex-boyfriend to deliver you Greek food?" A line appeared between Sarah's eyebrows as she looked from the box to Chuck. "What?"
"He mentioned he knew a place with really good souvlaki, and I didn't believe him." Chuck took the box back for her and headed for the kitchen. The house was open, airy, and precisely the opposite of everything in his bunker. It gave him the heeby-jeebies. "He also mentioned you were a fan, so I had him get two."
"Did you now?" Sarah shook her head and followed him. "I guess I owe you an apology, then. I'm sorry. It's just, I still don't know who breached the bungalow—"
"Any other clues buried in the menu?" Chuck wanted to know as he stowed the souvlaki in the fridge.
"None that I can find," Sarah admitted. "I have no idea who would have left it, or why it would set off something in the Intersect about Project Omaha. And I can't ask any of my contacts what Project Omaha even is because, well…"
"Off the grid," Chuck said. "Can I take another look at it?"
"I don't see why not. It might keep you from going a little less stir-crazy."
"Ha-ha," Chuck muttered, but he couldn't deny it. Three days without computers was the longest he'd ever been, save the few weeks of training. Except then, he'd had more than enough to occupy his time, what with trying to survive boot camp. He'd noticed that he had begun to tap his fingers. And if he'd noticed, then Sarah sure as hell had, too. "Where is it?"
"Here." Sarah rooted through the trash and handed over the menu. "As far as I can tell, everything seems to be something you would find at a normal family restaurant around here, and I don't recognize any codes or ciphers within the text."
Chuck shrugged and turned the menu over. Nothing triggered a flash, but he still couldn't tell what would have in the first place. "The prices are normal?"
"A little cheap on some things, but reasonable overall."
"Which ones are cheap?"
"I already tried that," Sarah said. "I don't think the menu has anything to do with anything except making you flash."
"Except it has my cover name on it," Chuck said.
"Which is worrying, yes."
"And the person who delivered it knows I have the Intersect."
"Another worrying thing."
"And they were watching the place so they could deliver the menu while you weren't there because otherwise you would have caught them. And they didn't try to take me away."
"The worry parade continues," Sarah said, her voice droll.
"So." Chuck tossed the menu back in the trash, which seemed to be the permanent hiding place for it. He hoped that he didn't forget and drop food all over it. "How long do you think Bryce has been in Athens, Sarah?"
Sarah faltered. "Why would you think I think Bryce is in Athens?"
"Somebody who knows our cover and that I have the Intersect?" Chuck strolled out onto the back deck and let the sunlight soak into him, though it did nothing to stem the cold feeling lodged just under his sternum. "No strike team knocking on the door, which means it's not some random agent the government sent after us. Hence—Bryce."
"I was hoping you wouldn't figure that out." Sarah closed the back door behind them and sat on the edge of a deck chair, facing him. "If he was in Athens, he's long gone now."
"What's his end-game, do you think? Why give us the menu? Why Project Omaha?"
"Honestly…" Sarah shrugged. "I don't know."
"You two never discussed anything about Omaha?"
"Not about Project Omaha, no." Sarah looked away, out into the Aegean. "Can you do me a favor?"
Chuck tipped his sunglasses down. In the whole time he'd known her, Sarah had yet to outright ask for a favor. But seeing as he pretty much owed her everything, there was no way he could say no—unless it would lead to her getting killed. No favor was worth that.
"Shoot," he said without making any promises.
"Go for a run with me?"
"What?"
"I'm bored." Sarah stretched out her legs and actually bounced a little on the edge of the seat. "And yes, admitting that took some doing, so stop looking at me like that. I'm bored, and I get antsy when I go for too long between runs. But I can't leave you behind."
"I'll slow you up—I'm not a runner."
"It's fine."
"All right. If you don't mind me panting and wheezing like a wuss."
"Trust me, you can't be the worst I've seen." A real smile blossomed over Sarah's face. "I had Randy bring over some running clothes. I'll just go get them, then we can get changed and go?"
"Sounds great."
Chuck waited until Sarah had gone inside before he raced off. It took him a minute to find what he sought in the front bushes—Randy had hidden it better than he had suspected—but by the time Sarah returned to the deck, bag in hand, Chuck was sitting exactly where she'd left him.
"Here you go." Sarah tossed a bag at him—he fumbled to catch it.
"Cool. I'll just be a second." Chuck disappeared into the bathroom to change. He had to work quickly. He pulled the second package Randy had left out of his pocket and quickly thumbed through the menu to get the options he needed. The cell phone had already been programmed—Randy was just that good—so it only took a couple of minutes to do what he needed to do. Even so, by the time he came out of the bathroom wearing trainers and running shorts (Randy apparently didn't believe shirts needed to be worn during a run, but at least the shorts had pockets), Sarah had already had time to change into her own athletic gear.
She raised an eyebrow. "I know. I could really use a tan," Chuck explained.
"Put some sunscreen on, at least. You're fish-belly white."
"Nag, nag, nag."
They set off at a moderate pace—or what seemed moderate to Chuck. Sarah was probably stifled, but she didn't say so. She just loped alongside him, letting him run by the water's edge where the sand was firmer and easier on the calves. Before long, Chuck started to pant—and to wheeze—and finally to gasp. Sandpaper grated against the inside of his throat and down his chest, and there didn't seem to be enough oxygen on the entire planet.
Sarah finally noticed. "Let's slow down. We can walk, take a breather."
"I'm okay."
"You're bright red. Let's take a break."
They slowed to a walk. "Don't let me hold you back," Chuck told Sarah through pants and gasps. "You go on. I'll catch up."
"No, it's okay. We'll just enjoy the walk. C'mon, let's turn around." They'd wandered into a public area, which meant there were families enjoying a late afternoon on the beach. Chuck saw a few children chase each other through the surf, laughing. Another set worked on a sand castle, of all things. It made him nostalgic for the days when he would take a day-trip out to Venice Beach with Ellie and their father in his childhood. Their mother had always had something to do.
Sarah bumped him with a shoulder. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"What? Oh, nothing. I was just remembering something." Chuck scratched the back of his head and was surprised when Sarah grabbed his hand. Immediately, every part of him went on alert. "What is it?"
"Selling the cover. Nothing to worry about."
"Oh. Okay, then."
"So what were you remembering?" Sarah prompted after they'd wandered a few feet.
It felt strange to hold somebody else's hand. He'd noticed early on that Sarah was big on touching, while he himself had always had issues with it, stemming from long before his time in Siberia. But he needed to play along. "Oh, just, you know. Going to the beach as a kid. My sister and my dad and me. Back before Dad split."
"When was that?"
"Right before I turned seventeen. I moved in with Ellie for my senior year of high school—she was an undergrad then, taking care of a teenage brother. I still don't know what she was thinking."
"Is she the one in your picture?"
Chuck raised his eyebrows. He was positive that Sarah had seen the pictures—he'd carried with them since ripping them out of the lining of the parka—but she had yet to comment on either one of them. Now, he pulled the picture in question out of his pocket and handed it over. "Yeah, that's her. Ellie."
"You definitely look alike."
"Yeah. We looked a lot more alike when we were kids, but yeah." Chuck stared, unseeing, out into the vastness of the jewel-toned water. "I don't know what the government told her when they stashed me away. I haven't talked to her in five years. I…occasionally used satellites to, you know, check up on her, make sure she's okay."
Sarah handed the picture back, but the line appeared between her eyebrows again. "Who's the guy with the beard trying to hug her?"
"And failing horribly? That's Morgan. He's my best friend—and a force of nature." Chuck smiled. "We've been friends since we were kids."
Sarah lapsed into silence as Chuck tucked the photograph back in his pocket with its companion. They walked along the beach until they were out of sight of the vacationing families and Chuck had fully regained his breath. When Sarah suggested they returned to jogging, he gamely agreed, though his legs were killing him. It was, he figured, the least he could do.
"So what's the plan for tomorrow?"
"Randy's going to smuggle us out of the country by way of Germany. We'll need to be on alert—I'm not sure when he wants to leave."
"Fine by me. And what then? What happens when we get back?"
"We set up a meet." Sarah shrugged.
"That's the plan? Really? That's it?"
"It's a work in progress. Save your breath."
They jogged onward. Fire lit into every part of Chuck, infusing him with agony with every step, but pride kept him upright. He figured that a badass agent like Sarah probably ran at four times the pace and for four times as long, but she didn't complain as they made their way along the beach side-by-side. When they reached the beach in front of the safe-house, Chuck flung himself down and lay panting in the sand.
Sarah, however, was having none of that. "No, you need to keep moving and cool down, or you'll cramp up." She tugged on his hand, trying to pull him to his feet.
"It's been five years since I went jogging," Chuck wheezed at her. "Can't you leave me alone, woman?"
It took considerable effort on Sarah's part to get Chuck upright again. He returned the favor by splashing her liberally when he threw himself into the sea. She shrieked—the water was definitely colder than it looked. And the unspoken rules, Chuck felt, for shrieking were that the shrieker needed to get splashed again. He obliged the rules. Sarah's retaliation was to jump when his back was turned—and dunk him.
He came up gasping and laughing. "Uncle!"
Sarah shoved him into the water again.
This time when he came up, he was a little less amused. "I said 'Uncle,' Sa—"
"Shh." To his utter surprise, Sarah yanked him close. A wave drew back into the sea, throwing him off balance. He stumbled into Sarah and immediately tried to backpedal away, but she latched onto his hips and kept him near. She also maneuvered it so that she could still look at the house, though her body blocked most of his from view.
"What are you doing—"
"I saw movement in the house." Sarah shifted her feet to counter-balance the oncoming wave that tugged at their waists.
"Oh, fu—"
"How well can you swim?"
He was still winded from the run, and fear was making his heart jack-rabbit against his ribcage and tunneling his vision. Panic made him want to scramble somewhere, anywhere. "I—uh, I don't know—I wasn't on the swim team or anything, but Ellie and I used to swim a lot when we were kids—"
"Okay. I want you to swim as fast as you can. Head that way." Sarah motioned with the tiniest jerk of her head, and Chuck realized just how close they were standing—and how very, very close their faces were. Strangely, it made the panic ebb just a little bit. "Keep going until you can't anymore, then cross the beach and find the first public place you can. Go to the southeast corner of Syntagma Square and wait for me there, okay?"
"What are you going to do?" Chuck stammered.
"I'm going to deal with whatever's in the house."
"By yourself?"
"How many times," Sarah said, her voice strained, "do I have to remind you that I'm a fully trained operative of the CIA? I can handle myself. Go!"
But Chuck didn't swim away as ordered. When she shoved at him, impatiently, he instead turned and scurried for the beach.
"What are you doing?" Sarah chased after him.
Chuck pelted up the beach toward the house, toward the way they'd been running before he'd gone into the sea. He snatched three things out of the sand and grabbed his sneakers—
Only to have Sarah tackle him from behind. "Get down!"
Bullets. Very loud bullets. They tore into the sand less than ten feet to Chuck's left, sending up individual flumes and kicking stinging grit into his face and torso. Chuck let out a thin scream of terror.
"Those were warning shots!" a voice shouted across the beach. "Next one goes in your skull, Bartowski!"
Chuck edged his chin forward to get a better look, though he wanted nothing more than to run away like a little girl, both hands over his head like some cartoonish oaf. The angle of the sun made it a little difficult to see, but he got vague impressions of a man built like a Kodiak, dressed in black, and carrying a very no-nonsense type of gun. The semi-automatic type of no-nonsense. He was currently pointing it right at Chuck—or Sarah. It was hard to tell, since she was still on top of him, keeping him pressed into the sand.
"Don't shoot!" he heard himself stammer, and wonder exactly where he'd gotten that amount of bravado. It had certainly never shown its face before. "Don't shoot! We'll come quietly, I promise—no need to kill anybody—"
Sarah pushed on his elbow, out of sight of the bear-man with the gun. "Chuck," she whispered, her lips not moving, "when I count to three, I want you to run—I'll distract him—"
"The man is armed, Sarah!" Chuck hissed back at her. "I suggest we do what the grizzly with the gun says!"
"They'll throw you in a bunker!"
"So? At least we'll both be alive!" Chuck lunged, using the moment of surprise to knock Sarah loose so that he could climb to his feet. He raised both hands. "No need to shoot!"
More men in the same black fatigues as the leader poured out of the house. Chuck counted three, four, five, and stopped counting before his throat dried up. He could feel every pound of his heart against his throat. His head felt suddenly light and insubstantial, as though he might pass out at any moment. Which was more than a possibility, actually.
Sarah, meanwhile, hadn't fully risen to her feet. She crouched in the sand, eyeing their captors warily. "What are you doing?" Chuck hissed at her through the side of his mouth.
"Getting us out of this."
"Don't! I've got a plan."
This was certainly news to Sarah. She almost did a double-take. "You have a what?"
"A plan. Just go along with it."
The man had by now edged closer to them in that confident run-walk that all special ops types used to cover distance when they wanted to look badass. "You done, girls?" he asked both of them.
Chuck tried to look past the barrel of the gun to the chiseled jaw beyond it. "My name is Chuck Bartowski and I'd like to turn myself in now."
"You'd like to? Like, what, you've got a choice? Walker, on your knees. We need Bartowski alive, but headquarters didn't say anything about you. One less rogue spy is a banner day in my book."
But Chuck moved, subtly, so that he stood between Sarah and their captor. He still held his hands over his head, though his thumb, out of sight of the men in the scary army outfits, worked busily. "Not happening. The only way I go out of here without you putting that bullet in my head is if Sarah Walker accompanies me. Alive. And unharmed."
He could feel Sarah tense behind him. The leader, however, just sneered. "In case you haven't noticed, genius, we're the ones with the guns. You don't get a choice in what happens next."
"And I," Chuck said with a confidence he didn't feel (hell, what he did feel was the need to wet himself. And soon), "am the one with the cell phone who just sent a video exposing the Intersect to contacts at five major media companies."
The guns, which had relaxed the tiniest amount, snapped right back up. "You did what?" G.I. Kodiak growled.
"It's encrypted," Chuck went on, feeling Sarah tense up even further behind him. "In two weeks, the encryption wears off—unless I send a code that destroys the file. And I'm not sending that code until I know Sarah Walker is safe and sound, and back at her job."
"Chuck," Sarah whispered behind him.
Chuck ignored her. "I mean it."
He almost didn't see it coming, though Sarah did. The leader grabbed him by the scruff of the neck; he dropped to his knees in the sand. Something cold pressed against the back of his neck. Something cold and heavy. Like a gun. Behind him, he heard Sarah start to throw a kick—only to be stopped by one of the leader's guards.
"Send the code," the leader barked.
Chuck's heart had gone beyond jack-rabbiting. It was now beating against his ribs so hard and so fast that it felt like hummingbird wings. His stomach wanted to expel itself all over the sand; he wanted to soil his shorts.
But he swallowed, which did absolutely nothing for his dry throat. "No. Not until she's safe."
"You some kind of idiot or something?"
He heard each individual noise of a safety clicking off. And closed his eyes.
But something that sounded like radio chatter interrupted before he could die with a bullet through the brain. "Van's here, boss. Driver says the window's closing. Orders?"
"Take the skirt, for now. We can just torture the code out of the geek later. C'mon, idiot." The safety clicked back on; the gun lifted from Chuck's neck. He was hauled to his feet and dragged into the house—where something thick, heavy, and black descended over his vision.
He saw nothing else after that.
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