Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion — Calvin Coolidge
The Demise of Frank
2 OCTOBER 2007
DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
06:28 EDT
Every part of Chuck felt the C-130 land, not that that was hard. An autumnal storm had rolled in over the east coast, which had made for an eventful last hour of the flight and an ensuing questionable landing. But even if the landing had been the smoothest glide over the softest feather down, Chuck would have felt it. Every part of him seemed enlarged in some way to the point of exploding. His head would likely split in two at any moment, his teeth and jaw throbbed, and his torso had swelled so much that it belonged to a giant.
Sarah, handcuffed to the seat next to him, had spent most of the flight tensed up so that she wouldn't accidentally jostle him. She looked over when the plane finally thudded to the tarmac and Chuck groaned. "You okay?"
The plane bounced a few times for good measure. Chuck shut his eyes and whimpered. "When my grandchildren ask if I was cool, please don't tell them about this moment."
Sarah tried to give him a bolstering smile. The problem with her smiles was that she rarely hid what she was truly thinking around him anymore. Her eyes gave her away every time. They were annoyed now, mostly at others. Though Chuck knew he shared some of the blame for that.
"Trust me, Chuck," she said. "If your grandkids ever have the opportunity to ask me if you were cool, I'll have plenty of other examples."
"Thanks, Sarah."
"Hey, lovebirds!" Major Casey, their personal major pain in the ass, didn't look up from his card game near the cockpit, though the landing had surely splashed the pot. "Can it!"
Chuck rolled his eyes—and instantly regretted it when the movement sang through his black eye. He winced.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
"Hey." The current bane of Chuck Bartowski's existence half-rose from his seat, his hand on the butt of his gun. "The man said shut your—"
"Smith!" Casey used the guide-ropes hanging from the top of the plane to navigate his way back to the shorter man. He slammed the man back into his seat. "What did we talk about?"
Smith said nothing. He just chose to glare at Chuck.
"Answer me when I ask you a question, soldier!"
"If I speak to the prisoners again, your foot will find its way so far up my ass that it will take all of NORAD and a personalized, hand-drawn map to find it, sir!"
It wasn't the most mature move, but Chuck and Sarah muffled their snickers. Or at least Chuck did until the snickering reminded him that he was currently suffering worse than a milksop stuck in the middle of a bar fight in an Irish pub. He started coughing.
Casey half-turned. "You got something you want to add, Bartowski? Or you just want to get more blood on a multi-million dollar government piece of property?"
"Leave him alone, Casey."
Casey sneered. It was somewhat undercut by the fact that the plane bounced a little on the tarmac—even the taxi toward the end couldn't be smooth, apparently. Casey had to tighten his grip on the overhead straps, but he maintained his sneer. "You always get your girlfriend to fight your battles, Bartowski?"
"Why not?" Chuck coughed a little more. Thankfully, he'd stopped coughing blood a couple of hours into the flight. "She's good at it, judging by that shiner you're sporting."
Casey growled and probably would have attacked him had his second-in-command (who had been his third-in-command back in Greece, Chuck noted, before the fiasco with Smith) not approached and muttered something to the Major at that moment. Casey grunted his acknowledgment before he stalked away to the front of the plane.
Chuck remembered something. "And she's not my girlfriend!" he called after Casey, lamely.
"Way to stick to your guns there, Chuck," Sarah muttered.
"What? What if you wanted to date one of these guys and they got the wrong idea?"
Sarah gave him a deadpan stare before she pointedly swept her gaze over the guards. Two were sleeping at the poker table, one was cleaning his fingernails, and Smith sat there like a great hulk, glowering at them.
"Point taken," Chuck said. A coughing fit overtook him.
Sarah leaned close, but not close enough to bump him. "Seriously, Chuck, are you okay?"
He took a minute to cough out most of the phlegm that had gathered in his chest. Smith's interrogation/beating before they'd left the air base in Italy had done more than a number on him—it had stopped the show with a full tap-dance, followed by an aria, and an encore. "I'm fine," he said. "Nothing either a full body transplant or a short spin in a Bacta Tank can't handle."
"Bacta Tank?"
"We've really got to work on your education in the classics," Chuck said, mustering up a smile that nearly sent white explosions across his vision. The plane finally slowed to a halt, so he looked around even though it killed his neck by inches. "Guess we're here. What happens next?"
"Hopefully we get you some medical attention."
"A Two-One-Bee of my very own. Sounds nice."
"Um, okay. You'll have to send that code that destroys the file about the Intersect that you sent out to the media."
Chuck's face, a swollen mass of purple and waxy skin, firmed up. "Not until I know they're not going to assassinate either of us in our cells."
Sarah shifted against her handcuffs. "We're back on US soil. We're safe."
"This is the same government that can throw somebody in a bunker against their will for five years. I'm not taking any chances." His resolve hadn't changed when Smith had used him as a human punching bag during an "interrogation." It hadn't changed when Casey had broken things up. It didn't change now. "When we're both safe, I'll send that code. Not a moment before."
"Well, either way. We'll convince the CIA, NSA, and the national security council that we're not traitors, and that we shouldn't be thrown in prison or an underground bunker, you'll send the code, we'll get our new assignments. And when that happens, I go off the grid, kill Smith, and make it look like he had an accident involving rusty garden shears. Several times."
"Is that all?" Chuck coughed again, his strength dwindled to nothing. He kept his head off of the back of the seat by sheer force of will. "Piece of cake."
17 OCTOBER 2007
CHEZ ELLIE
00:02 PDT
"And, of course, a blanket for the night." Ellie frowned as she laid the last item on the couch beside Chuck. "I'm just glad I keep a few spare toothbrushes around for Devon's frat brothers if the gang crashes here. Of course, I can't do much about clothes for you…"
"The bike shorts are fine," Chuck insisted for the fifteenth time, even though they were giving him a wedgie. "I'm just grateful Awes—I mean, Devon—keeps stuff here at all. My clothes were getting a bit ripe."
"Well, they should be dry by morning—I've got them hanging up in the bathroom." Ellie glanced around the living room of her apartment, nibbling her lip as she pondered what else she could do. "Do you think you'll need anything else?"
"Honestly, Ellie, this is more than enough." Chuck smiled. "I would've been comfortable with a patch of floor and a sleeping bag."
"Like I'm going to let my baby brother sleep on the floor." Again, Ellie bit her lip. "I'm sorry I don't have your old room available—"
"Don't worry about it. I like the new roommate. She seems to have a lot of…character."
"Yeah, she's great." Ellie, obviously not in a hurry to go to bed—or maybe just afraid to let Chuck out of her sight now that the shock had passed—sat down on the couch next to him.
"I gotta ask—"
"Why aren't I living with Devon by now?" Ellie laughed, just a little hollowly. "It's complicated. We only just got back together." When Chuck gave her an alarmed look, she shrugged. "We broke up after you…left. And I don't want to talk about it right now."
"Again, Ellie, I'm sorry. I can't say it enough. If I could change it, I would in a heartbeat, but—"
"Nothing we can do about that now," Ellie interrupted. She sighed and glanced at the clock. "I've got the early shift tomorrow, unfortunately. As much as I'd love to stay up and catch up some more."
"Go on, get some sleep." Chuck patted the pile of supplies she'd deposited on the couch next to him. "I'm more than taken care of out here."
But before Ellie disappeared into her bedroom, she gave him a long hug. "I know I didn't seem like it at first," she said, "but I'm glad you're here. And alive."
"I'm glad, too. I missed you." Chuck waited until his sister was almost out of sight. "Hey, El?"
She half-turned. "Yeah?"
"I know it's only about ten minutes after midnight, but…Happy Mother's Day."
He heard a sniffle before the door closed, but the guilt it caused was just another drop in the ocean threatening to drown him. Once he was finally alone, Chuck put his head in his hands and sighed. Inwardly, he counted backward from ten—on three, he felt the couch shift beside him, but he didn't look up. "Explain."
His companion was silent for a moment. "Your face looks better."
"Thanks. A week with the best doctors the government can get works wonders. I'm fine—better now that the panic attack's over."
"You getting those often?"
Every day since they gave you your orders, Chuck thought, but didn't say anything. "You told me in the hospital, 'We don't know each other. Blow my cover and I'll kick your ass.' I kept the deal, Sarah. Now tell me why you're suddenly in southern California and rooming with my sister instead of undercover in some place like Jakarta in a knife-fight with an evildoer."
"I requested Jakarta, actually."
Chuck finally looked up—like himself, Sarah had changed into sleep gear, only she was lucky enough to avoid wearing Devon's bike shorts. He squinted at her T-shirt. "Hey, is that mine?"
She glanced down at the Stanford lettering on her chest. "I guess. Ellie said she was going to throw a whole bunch of stuff out, but I took a few things. You know, just to sleep in. My cover's out of work and I can't really justify spending a lot on clothing."
"Oh." Chuck shook his head—it was probably best not to tell her that shirt had been Jill's preference for sleeping shirts. He focused on the matter at hand. "Why would you request Jakarta?"
"I didn't literally say, 'I want to go to Jakarta.'"
"I figured."
"But I did put in for field work again. Actually, I put in a request to go after Bryce." Sarah looked briefly troubled, but she seemed to shrug it off. "The home office felt my unique abilities might be of more use here, protecting you and your sister."
"So they listened to my demands," Chuck said dully.
"Chuck, you single-handedly out-bluffed the NSA and the CIA. Of course they listened to your demands. That's why Casey and I are in Burbank."
"Why you two, though?" Chuck frowned. "It doesn't make any sense. You're a field agent, and he's…" He trailed off. He could think of about a hundred words to describe Major John Casey, and only four of them were anything approaching pleasant. "Him."
"Security detail for the Intersect compound was his job. And since you are the Intersect compound now…" Sarah shrugged. "It makes sense. Plus, he and I are the only ones that know you're the Intersect. And since Bryce going rogue is fairly well-known, putting his partner on a domestic field desk as punishment is a logical move. Assigning John Casey out here also makes sense because on paper, it looks like he screwed up, too. Casey and I took the black marks on our records to make it look real."
"You shouldn't have had to do that." But it did explain why Casey hadn't been the most enthusiastic person on the planet about hopping a plane cross-country. Chuck and Bryce had managed to wreck what was probably an exemplary record. No wonder Casey had been so pissed. "Is this even what you want to do, Sarah? I mean, you're the jet-setter. Secret missions, karate-chopping bad guys in the neck, hell, I bet you even have, like, a closet full of ninja outfits."
"Not a closet," Sarah said, her eyes cutting away.
Chuck narrowed his eyes, trying to imagine it. This one was probably best left alone. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For the bluff." He'd thought about the apology a thousand times over the past two weeks, but this was the first chance he'd truly had to voice it. "I know you were mad at me, when the CIA had us at Langley."
Sarah didn't confirm or deny that. She just continued to watch Chuck, her face expressionless.
"You're mad at me for going behind your back and getting Randy to deliver me that phone, and for not telling you the bit with the code and the media agencies was just a bluff. And if I were you, I'd be mad, too. It wasn't that I didn't trust you—I just didn't know if Casey and his men were listening in or not, so it was easier to let you believe the code and the file were real. And you should be mad that my demands got you stuck in California instead of a bar fight with a bunch of corrupt oil sheiks, so I'm sorry about that, too."
"Stop apologizing."
"Okay. Sorry if it's too much—"
The last thing he expected Sarah to do was laugh, but a chuckle bubbled out nonetheless. "Chuck, you of all people should know that we rarely get a choice in what we get asked to do. So what if I'm, as you say, stuck in California? You're not in a bunker, and I'll be able to get a tan without worrying about dehydration for once."
Chuck gave her a confused look.
"You know, because the only time I get to tan is when I'm in the desert and I'm never sure when water is going to—oh, never mind. Quit smiling."
"It's a hard knock life, Sarah Walker."
Sarah shook her head and clapped him on the knee before she rose from the couch. "Get some sleep. Team Bartowski kicks off tomorrow."
"I like the name. Give you a dollar if you use it in front of Casey."
"Deal." With one final dazzling smile, she left him on the couch.
17 OCTOBER 2007
CASTLE
09:58 PDT
"Oh, great. You." Casey looked up from the conference room table and scowled. "Should've known you'd be the third agent, Walker."
"Good morning, Casey."
Chuck, following Sarah down the stairs to the main bay, paused on the landing. "Is it just me," he said, "or did it just get really chilly in here?"
"Shut up, Chuck."
"Shut up, Bartowski."
Sarah's order had been said with a smile, Casey's less so. "Glad you two agree on something, at least. Ready for our first official meeting? Go team and all that?"
From the tightening of Casey's jaw, it was obvious that there might be another "Shut up, Bartowski" in the near future, but the computer screens along the wall all flicked on at once. All three agents hurried to what would become their permanent briefing posts. Casey standing in the middle, with Chuck to his left and Sarah to his right.
General Beckman's eyes swept over her unlikely team. "Good morning."
They all muttered morning greetings with varying levels of enthusiasm. Chuck wondered why Director Graham wasn't hovering over Beckman's chair. Wasn't this supposed to be a joint operation?
"Welcome to the first official team meeting of Operation Prometheus. You've all been selected because you are aware of what's in Agent Bartowski's head. All of you know how you got here, so no need to rehash that, I suppose?"
She managed to form an actual question in such a way that it became completely rhetorical. Chuck had to admire her for it.
"In reality, the briefing this morning will just to be to go over a few security details. Director Graham sends his regards and his regrets that he was unable to make it this morning." Beckman's lips firmed, a line of disapproval, but she plowed on before anybody could comment.
The next twenty minutes were a revisit of the things the Director of the CIA had told Chuck before he'd departed DC. Regular hours in Castle for Chuck with what he was privately calling surveillance dumps of passenger lists, shipping manifestos, and other things taking place up and down the pacific coast—check. His cover identity as a security software designer—check. His team working as part of his operation, Casey on security and now, Sarah Walker on paper as the office manager for Pacific Securities, LLC—check. Beyond top secret clearance—check. They were to report solely to Director Graham or General Beckman, and only orally via secure connection. Preferably within Castle or the apartment Chuck and Casey were now sharing.
Chuck listened to all of the protocol involved and nodded at appropriate moments, though he'd already memorized the necessary data. The only thing that changed was Sarah being in on the operation—he'd been positive that the CIA would send another agent and that Sarah would be tracking Bryce, which was an unofficial mission of Operation Prometheus. Not an active one, General Beckman specified, but if Chuck were to, say, overturn any intelligence on the whereabouts of one Bryce Larkin, the Prometheus team would be cleared to follow any leads.
It made the scrap of paper burn a hole in his pocket, but he kept silent.
"Agent Walker, Director Graham has requested a private briefing with you in the com room." General Beckman's eyes cut to her agent and the Intersect. "I'm certain Agents Casey and Bartowski can find something to occupy themselves in the meantime?"
"C'mon, Bartowski. Let's get your nerd brain in gear. General."
"Major Casey."
Casey grabbed Chuck just between the shoulder and neck, hauling the skinnier man out and up the stairs.
"Ow! Geez! I would've gone along on my own—" No amount of wriggling could loosen the NSA agent's grip. Chuck was dragged up the stairs and through the Scooby door into his own office. Casey released Chuck and shoved him into the chair in the same motion. Immediately, Chuck massaged his abused shoulder. "Was that really necessary?"
"Team meeting in an hour. Start setting up those brilliant schematics you promised in DC."
Chuck frowned at the desk. "I seem to recall requesting more monitors than this—"
Casey moved the stapler. Two panels in the desk slid open with silent efficiency—two flatscreen HD monitors popped up.
"Wow. Never let it be said that the NIA shirks their show business quota—"
"NIA?"
"You have to admit, CIA/NSA is a mouthful."
"NSA/CIA," Casey said.
"Two CIA agents, one NSA agent. Ergo—"
Casey growled, a small, almost silent noise. It still contained more than enough threat for Chuck. "And which branch screwed up and blew up the Intersect?"
"And which branch let—"
That was as far as Chuck got before Casey had him by the throat.
"NSA/CIA it is," Chuck managed to rasp.
Casey took his time letting go. "How long before your setup is operational?"
"What? Honestly, Casey, I haven't even had the chance to review the system, I don't know what state it's in and what needs to be calibrated—"
"So? How long?"
"Could be days, could be minutes, could be hours." Chuck pushed his fingertips against his closed eyelids briefly, trying to search for an appropriate answer to the man whose face never changed. "Geez—look, let me assess the situation, get back to you, okay? I'm working blind at the moment, but I'll have a better picture soon."
"You've got until the team meeting."
"I guess I'd better get to work then." Chuck nudged the pencil cup, picked up the post-it note station.
On his way out the door, Casey paused and sighed to himself. "I'm not sure I even want to know, but what are you doing?"
"If moving a stapler nets me two extra monitors, I figure the post-its merit a Red Bull, at the very least."
Casey just grunted—maybe it was an aural hallucination, but Chuck swore he heard a tinge of humor in this one. "Get to work, Bartowski. And don't spend the hour spying on Walker."
"I can do that?"
"Forget I said anything." Casey stalked away to find something to do in the front room.
Once the other man had disappeared completely, Chuck let out a long breath of relief. Alone at last. It was a flimsy illusion, he knew. Casey was only a room away, and Sarah could emerge from downstairs at any moment. But right now, he was alone. Blessed solitude—now he could sit down to work.
Forty-five minutes later, Casey poked his head back in. "Fifteen minute warning, Bartowski."
Chuck grunted.
He'd programmed his watch—an all-new electronic leash/tracker gifted by the good old boys in DC, as his old one was probably leading the government on a merry chase through Beijing by now—to give him an eight minute heads' up, so seven minutes after Casey's warning, his head shot up. He jolted out of work mode as his eyes fell on the manual Casey had shoved at him the night before. He had just enough time…
It was the simplest thing in the world to skim the section on surveillance and input the codes he needed to access all the feeds. A screen not unlike something from the Brady Bunch opening credits overtook each monitor. Only instead of the youngest one in curls, Chuck could see the main bay of Castle. He began to click through—
His upstairs office (he waved at the camera), the detention cells, guest bedroom, outside where his Subaru sat squished between Sarah's jeep and Casey's Crown Vic, his sister's bedroom—"Empty but awkward."—a couple of other rooms at his sister's place, and—
"Wow." Chuck blinked at the arsenal/locker room. "That is a lot of guns."
He took a moment to fully appreciate how this might make Casey's assignment in Los Angeles more palatable before he clicked again, this time bringing up the training room. This one featured something much scarier—a blonde CIA agent. Judging by the way she was whaling on the training dummy, she was more than just a little pissed off.
"Do you have any idea what the director wanted to talk to Sarah about?" he asked Casey when the scowling NSA agent came back in.
Casey took one look at the monitors and cuffed Chuck on the back of the head. "What did I say about spying on Walker, Bartowski?"
"I—I wasn't—I was just looking through the manual, the one you told me to review, and I was navigating through the vid feeds and saw this, that's all." Chuck tapped the monitor, disturbing little ripples of plasma across the image just as Sarah, on screen, landed a kick that would have certainly ended the family line of the poor, innocent training dummy. Masculinity demanded both Chuck and Casey wince. "It's a little cause for concern, wouldn't you say? I mean, I know we're all supposed to train and keep in fighting shape, but this just seems…"
"Vicious," Casey finished with a nod.
"Terrifying was the word I was going for, actually." Chuck watched the one-sided battle dance on, remembering all of the times Sarah had claimed she could take care of herself during their fugitive days. The woman might have been many things, but a liar wasn't one of them. "Should we, uh, should we wait until she's done for the team meeting? I don't exactly want to interrupt her little love-session with Frank."
"Frank?"
"The dummy. I'm rather fond of having limbs—specifically, all of them."
On screen, Sarah's kick should have taken Frank's head clean off. "A few minutes wouldn't hurt anybody," Casey decided.
But they heard Sarah's watch beep on the audio feed. She delivered one final crushing kick to the ill-fated Frank and scooped up a bottle of water. "Chuck? Casey?" She glanced over her shoulder as she called this, expecting both men to be downstairs already.
Upstairs, Casey shoved on Chuck's shoulder. "That's our cue, Bartowski. March."
"You first."
"Coward."
"She can't kill you without causing an inter-agency scandal," Chuck pointed out. "She kills me, the only one upset is the CIA. Despite the government intel in my noggin, I'm just a little more expendable, wouldn't you say?" He deliberately left out the part about how John Casey's brawn made him an admirable human shield.
But by the time the men had descended into the Castle, Sarah was seated at the briefing table, her manner calm. All except her eyes, Chuck noted as he cautiously sat down opposite her. They looked both furious and troubled.
"Have a good chat with the director?" Chuck felt bold enough to ask.
Sarah moved a shoulder.
"All right. Moving on, then. Casey, what's on the agenda?"
"First assignment. There was a shoot-out in a club in Chinatown last night." Casey clicked something on the remote and instantly every screen in the room filled with surveillance photos and video of said club. Chuck could only feel relief that nothing about it caused any flashes—his head felt logy and disconnected enough already. Ellie's couch hadn't been the most comfortable sleeping arrangement. Hell, he'd slept on barn floors more comfortable—though that may have had to do with the company. "Normally, it wouldn't be a task for Prometheus but…well, watch this."
He clicked the remote again. Video rolled.
Chuck's jaw dropped when a sedate night club turned into an old wild west shoot-out. It unfolded quickly—a woman strode in, guns already out. Tables were overturned, people jumped for cover. And twenty-four seconds later, the same woman ran out through a different door, noticeably limping.
"When did she get winged?" Sarah asked.
Casey studied the remote to locate the button he needed. He rewound the feed.
"There!"
It took a couple of tries for Casey to stop the rewind on the proper spot. After a moment, Sarah snatched the remote and tossed it to Chuck. It took him three seconds to study the remote and one attempt to find the right spot on the video.
"She's aiming for the man in the wheel chair," Sarah observed, studying the trajectory. "He's well-guarded and those are—"
"Those are Chinese-army issued pistols," Chuck said, his voice almost mechanical.
Casey and Sarah turned to look at him as one. "And how would you know that?" Casey asked.
Chuck merely tapped his temple.
"Get a flash on who she is?"
"No, just the guns."
"I'm going to go through channels, figure out if the Chi-Coms sanctioned a hit last night." Casey, with one last glower at the remote in Chuck's hand, stalked out to one of the underground offices.
Sarah, meanwhile, moved to the computer bay across the room. "Watch that footage again," she ordered Chuck. "See if you flash on anything else. I'm going to contact local hospitals, see if anybody came in with a gunshot last night. It's slim—the woman looks well trained, military bearing, so she'll likely know rudimentary field medicine, but…"
"It's worth a shot," Chuck said, his eyes already roving all over the view-screen in hopes that something would cause a flash of intel. He still didn't have quite the handle on how the Intersect flashes worked, but he'd picked up that they recognized patterns in the intended targets—tattoos, odd facial characteristics, scars, birthmarks. And the woman currently shooting up the Chinatown club was a beautiful woman, but nothing really stood out about her.
Still, he zoomed in close and used the remote to track her progress through the fight. Sarah was right—military bearing, sure-handed despite using two pistols at once. He saw the look of more surprise than pain when she got, as Sarah put it, winged, but he also saw the steely resolve take over her face. A woman on a mission.
It was a look he recognized from just outside the Erectheion, when Sarah had knocked him unconscious. It made him shudder.
"Did you get something?" Sarah called from the other side of the room.
"Unpleasant memories."
"Um, okay."
"Say, when you knocked me out in Athens, how'd you do—never mind, I think I…" On screen, the woman shooting up the club turned—and her jacket rucked up her arm. The flash hit him mid-sentence. Tiger, tanks, Chinese files, CONFIDENTIAL.
Sarah, sensing something from his silence, wandered over. "What's up, Chuck?"
"Her name's Mei-Ling Cho, she's Chinese intelligence, and she's never been on US soil before." It came out in a rush. Chuck realized the video was still going and paused it before he rewound to the close-up of the tattoo on Mei-Ling's arm. "The Intersect noticed the ink."
Sarah took her time surveying the picture. "All right," she merely said, and went to pound on the door to Casey's office. "We've got a break out here, killer," she called through the door.
"Killer?" Chuck echoed.
Sarah shrugged. "Nicknames aren't my thing."
Casey came out before Chuck could comment. "What is it?" Once Chuck and Sarah had filled him in, he nodded, just once. "And nothing at any of the area hospitals?"
"Seven gunshot wounds, but nobody matching Mei-Ling's description."
"Seven." Chuck made a humorless 'heh' noise. "Seems like a low number for LA."
"Officially, no sanctioned hits from the Chinese last night."
"Unofficially?"
"Seems to be the same." Casey crossed his arm as he studied the freeze-frame of Mei-Ling still up on the screen. "While they put me on hold, I did some digging—the club is owned by a guy named Ben Lo Pan. Guy seems to own about a third of Chinatown, so it's not surprising."
"But she was definitely aiming for him," Sarah observed, frowning. "His bodyguards seemed like they were waiting for an attack. Coincidence? What on earth would propel her to act against him—and why does he know she's coming?"
Chuck kicked the floor, sending his wheeled chair to the nearest computer console. He began typing, fingers flying.
"Care to share with the class, Bartowski?"
"Shh," Chuck said without looking away from the browser. A minute later: "Aha!"
"What is it?"
"Take a look at this." Chuck reached behind him without looking and snatched the remote. The picture on his browser immediately overtook every other computer screen in the joint. He pressed the space bar and security footage from the Chinese consulate began to play. All three watched as an upwardly mobile young man chatting on his cell phone was snatched from the street and shoved into the back of a white van.
"Professional job," Casey remarked.
"That's Lee Cho," Chuck said. "When I flashed on Mei-Ling in the Intersect, it mentioned family. One younger brother. He's in LA right now—or he was two days ago, when this footage was taken."
"Seems like my contacts may have neglected to mention a few things," Casey growled and stalked off to make amends for that—Chuck didn't envy whoever would be on the other end of that phone line. He didn't get long to send pitying thoughts that person's way, however, for Casey turned just before he went into the office. "Walker, you and Bartowski should probably get dressed."
"I am dressed," Chuck pointed out, though Sarah was still stripped down to work-out clothing. Which didn't seem to be more than pants and a sports bra. And yes, he'd had a hard time concentrating. At first. A little. He was only human, after all. "Okay, so maybe my suit's a little rumpled, but it's clean—"
"He means for our assignment." Sarah grabbed Chuck by the elbow to pull him along. "Congratulations, Chuck, we're going undercover."
"W-what? Um, I should probably warn you that I'm not exactly qualified on any weapons right now, so if it comes down to me and some bad guys and fisticuffs, is there like a twenty-minute tutorial you could take me through?"
"Relax." Sarah continued dragging until they were in a locker room in the back of Castle. "We're going undercover as detectives to view the crime scene at the club, I highly doubt there's going to be gunplay. Your clothes for the assignment are in there—I'm going to go shower real quick."
And she headed toward the showers, already stripping. Chuck didn't precisely see anything the censors would have disapproved of, but the suggestion was there and—he turned abruptly toward the locker she had indicated, positive that he was flushed bright red. In fact, he was still a lovely shade of crimson when Casey stomped in and immediately began to strip. Chuck kept his eyes forward like he'd done during boot camp and changed into his detectives clothing—a boring brown suit. Apparently, he was not going to be attempting to use any ladykiller skills on this mission.
Casey's suit at least made his shoulders look broad and threatening—not that it took much. Chuck watched him holster his sidearm and fought the dual feelings of wishing he had a gun and loathing the sight of the weapon in general. Not for the first time, he wondered if those feelings had showed up on some secret psych evaluation and if those feelings had been the ones to land him in the bunkers.
Probably.
Casey caught the scowl. "What's your problem now?"
Chuck slammed his locker closed. "The freaking government. Let's go pretend to be somebody else."
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