I Told the Witch Doctor...
31 OCTOBER 2007
BACHELOR PAD
00:12 PDT
"And that sums it up," Chuck said, tilting his chair back and staring at his ceiling. "Casey's still looking, but Laszlo got a good head-start by knocking over a DVD display stand."
He'd tripped, and badly, slamming his hip hard enough into the linoleum that he'd have an impressive bruise. It had been a bad enough fall that it had slowed Casey up and Laszlo Mahnovski had been able to slip through the unlocked front doors of the Buy More and into the oblivion of Los Angeles. Chuck and Casey had driven around for nearly an hour, combing the area, but there were far too many places Laszlo could have gone.
Now, wearing sweatpants and an T-shirt liberated from Sarah and Ellie's apartment, he tried to keep the glumness out of his voice. "We should've been more on our game."
"Chuck, you couldn't have known." On the other end of the phone, Sarah sounded tired. He'd pulled her from sleep, he knew, though she'd claimed otherwise. "Accidents happen."
"Mm-hmm." Chuck wasn't sure he agreed. After all, if it weren't for his clumsiness, Casey wouldn't have had to double-back to make sure he was okay, and a psychopath would be underground building weapons for the government instead of against it. It sickened him to think about it, so he pushed it from his mind.
"Wait a second," Sarah said on the other end, sounding a lot more awake. "What were you and Casey even doing at the Buy More that late?"
Chuck winced. He'd hoped to sneak that fact by Sarah, as he'd begun trying to tone down his geekiness around her. Not that she didn't already know, he just didn't want to call as much attention to it. "Starting a revolution," he said. "Capture the flag, winner take all—respect, that is."
"Capture the flag?"
"With Nerf guns, paintball, and in one case, a wakizasci."
"A what?"
"How do I know something about weapons that you don't?" Chuck dove for a spare sheet of paper and jotted his name down. It came out legible.
She must have heard the rustling. "What are you doing?"
"Making sure I'm not left-handed."
"Um, okay."
"Because the me in another dimension would be left-handed."
A long pause on the other end of the line, and finally Sarah sighed. "Another dimension or a mirror dimension?"
A smile broke out over Chuck's face. "Did Sarah Walker just correct me in nerd?"
Another long pause.
When she didn't answer for a full ten seconds, Chuck laughed. "Don't worry. I won't tell Casey. Speaking of Casey, you should have seen him tonight. Did you know he's got a stash of like every single gun made post World War Two?"
"And you're surprised by this?"
"Good point. But Sarah, it doesn't stop there. He has Nerf guns. Not just one. Multiple Nerf guns. That he names. Limited editions, too. I'm pretty sure I saw a Nerf Glock."
Sarah yawned. "And you're surprised by this?"
"Well, yeah," Chuck started to say, but he stopped mid-word. "I guess not."
"Even secret agents have hidden depths." Another yawn, this time more pronounced. Chuck wondered if Sarah had climbed out of bed for the call. He figured not, and had to wonder why that would excite him. Too long in the bunker, maybe. "Chuck, is there anything else to report?"
"Uh, no. You should go back to sleep. Sorry to keep you up so long."
"No, it's okay. How else would I know about the Nerf Glock? Good night, Chuck."
"Good night, Sarah. Happy Halloween."
A sleepy snicker, and she hung up.
Chuck set his phone down, tilted his chair down, and focused on his monitor. He'd swiped the security disks from the Buy More—at his own peril, as the Buy Morians hadn't appreciated the loss of their war tapes, even to The One Bartowski—but they hadn't told him anything salient. Laszlo had used the game as cover to grab a few supplies. Mostly snacks, and something from the small appliance section. The cameras in the store weren't high quality enough to make out fine detail, so if Chuck wanted to know what Laszlo had taken, he'd have to visit the store himself before his therapy appointment.
His computer chirped. He turned down his music and clicked over to the mirrored account where his activity wouldn't be on display to a series of government geeks. Immediately, a screen popped up.
No results found. Well, that sucked.
Chuck frowned and picked up his pencil so that he could tap it against his knee while he thought his next step through. He'd tracked down what felt like every Phillip Dartmoor on the planet, and he had the files covering his bed to prove it. The problem was, those files were all but useless, and would be unless he used the government databases, something he adamantly refused to do.
He had no idea what game Bryce Larkin was playing. Even with Sarah's warnings, or maybe because of them, Chuck couldn't give up on the charismatic spy. There simply had to be more to the story. Not a single motive had popped up to explain why Bryce Larkin had stolen the Intersect and sent it to him, or why Bryce would have attempted to rescue Chuck from Peyman Alahi. Until somebody sat down and told him why all of this had happened, Chuck would play it close to the vest and avoid letting the government know exactly what he was doing.
One of his problems was the paperwork. Nobody had told him just how much paperwork being a spy generated. Every day brought new bureaucratic hurdles for the team: different forms, some needing to be notarized (Chuck wondered when Sarah had had time between jaunts to take down dictators with silverware to become a notary, or if she'd stolen the notary stamp off of some poor dead legal secretary), others filed in triplicate. Eyes Only. Top Secret. Beyond Top Secret. So many official words, so many papers.
Chuck had started coding a program that would take care of the paperwork, mostly to help Sarah. Busywork just seemed to fall to her. Chuck had so much data to analyze that he could only tackle the basics, Casey was the team's forerunner for small operations. Things were already starting to backup on Sarah's desk, making the surface vanish entirely under a blanket of bureaucracy. She never complained, though Chuck wondered if she wanted to. First class CIA agent, she of the jet set and judo chop, chained to a desk.
It was a crying shame, really.
Even outside the office, Chuck generated paperwork. He'd started a personal log of every flash all the way from the beginning, which took up quite a bit of desk space. And at home, he had his files on the various Phillip Dartmoors eating up all of his bed space. He'd logged them into his own database so that he could code a search that would recognize patterns within the different Dartmoors. The problem was, he wasn't sure what Bryce wanted him to know, so the searches did him absolutely no good until he could get his hands on some context.
All he had was what his gut told him, which was that he was hungry.
Chuck picked up a forgotten slice of the pizza he'd nuked before calling Sarah, and settled in to read through each file for the fifth time.
31 OCTOBER 2007
BURBANK BUY MORE
10:22 PDT
Armed with screen-shots, a satchel, and raw nerves, Chuck stepped into the Buy More once more. He greeted Fernando at the door with a two-handed handshake and a how's-your-pet-rabbit, and headed into the main bay, seeking the small appliances section. The store, he saw as he hurried, hadn't taken too much damage the night before. The rack he'd tripped over had been righted, at least.
Chuck rounded a corner and immediately leaped back with a shriek he would probably never live down.
Harry Tang, wearing a ridiculously small cowboy hat, sneered. "Well, well, well. If it isn't Chuck Bartowski, returning to our fold."
Chuck squinted. Was that a red mark between Harry's eyes? "Uh, not exactly. I stopped by to—"
"Heard you got your own software company," Harry went on, steamrolling right over him. "Yet you're still pathetic enough to waste all of your free time in a Buy More? That's pretty sad, even for you, don't you think?"
"I'm sorry, is this your idea of customer service?" Chuck tried to sidestep.
No dice. Harry Tang simply stepped into his path again. "I'm an assistant manager now. Nothing can touch me. And since we're not stock-boys anymore, I have some bones to pick with you…"
At any other point in time, Chuck probably would have engaged him in battle. But right now, he simply had too much to deal with. The store was too open and vast. He was less than two hours from being forced into therapy. There was a bomb-making fugitive on the loose in LA that he was partially responsible for, as he'd let the guy get away. And to add to it all, echoes of long-distance disdain for the tiny, petty man standing in front of him sprang up. Apparently, absence really didn't make the heart grow fonder.
So Chuck pulled out his phone and punched in three numbers. "Yes, thank you, I need the number for Buy More corporate, please. Sure, I'll hold."
Harry Tang went the color of raw parchment. "You wouldn't."
"What's it matter?" Chuck asked. "Nothing can touch you, right? Assistant manager, isn't that what you said? Yes, hi, I'm calling to lodge a complaint." The last was into his phone.
Harry glowered. "Tattle-tale," he muttered, and stalked off.
"Missed you, too, buddy!" Chuck called after him. Into the phone, he said, "Actually, I changed my mind. Have a nice day." He hung up, his expression shifting from politely pleasant to annoyed as he hurried toward the small appliance section. "Dickhead."
Maybe he should go to the Beverly Hills Buy More whenever he had legitimate shopping. Things in Burbank too often reminded him of an episode of Scooby-Doo. The scenery might revolve in the background, but action in the foreground rarely changed. Amusing but, in the end, ultimately pointless.
Thankfully, the green-shirts all seemed too exhausted by the previous evening's festivities to notice the presence of "The One" Bartowski, so he was left in relative peace to peruse the section of the small appliance aisle where he and Casey had spotted Laszlo. He studied the screen-shots and his own memories carefully until he was mimicking the fugitive's actions perfectly. Grimly, he picked up Laszlo's quarry.
He stuffed the screen-shots back into the satchel and pulled out his phone again. This time, it only took one button.
"Bad news," he said when he heard Sarah pick up. "I found out what Laszlo was on a supply run for last night. I'm going to send over a picture."
"Where are you? It sounds loud."
Chuck glanced at the screens around the room, where Boris Karloff had just startled some poor woman. The music was indeed a bit screechy. "I'm at the Buy More, following intuition. I'm leaving for my therapy appointment soon, I promise, but you should let the FBI know to be on alert. Laszlo is definitely building a bomb."
He stared grimly at the kitchen timer in his hand as he hung up.
31 OCTOBER 2007
OFFICE OF DR. FARNSWORTH
11:28 PDT
When Chuck walked into Dr. Farnsworth's waiting room, he tenser than he'd ever been, fleeing the government through Siberia with a beautiful almost-stranger aside. Physically, he felt like C-3PO, all stiff limbs and stiffer joints. Mentally, he could probably rival the love child of Marvin the Paranoid Android and a Dalek. He hid both feelings as he introduced himself to the receptionist and was invited to sit and wait.
He stared at his hands the whole time. When the receptionist invited him to go on in, he thanked her and did so. What he found stopped him cold.
Maybe he'd been expecting something like Scott, his old therapist that had treated him to an A's game (nosebleed seats, naturally) as the culmination of their time together. Or a fussy psychiatrist with a silly accent. Somebody whose face could represent the system he resented.
What he was not expecting was Dr. Amelia Farnsworth.
"You must be Charles," she said, rising when Chuck froze in the doorway. "Gwen's told me so much about you. It's very nice to meet you."
Chuck automatically shook the proffered hand. "Dr. Farnsworth?" he asked, just to make sure he hadn't wandered into the wrong office.
"Please, just Amy. Dr. Farnsworth is my mother-in-law." Amy waited for a beat, but Chuck didn't move. He just kept staring. "I'm sorry, is something the matter?"
"What? Oh. No, ah, sorry. It's just, you look so much like—"
"The woman from 'Arrested Development?' I know. I love that show—it's a guilty pleasure." Amy laughed and gestured for Chuck to come inside. When he did, she reached behind him and closed the door. "I tell everybody that I came out here to be an actress, but that was too much work, so I picked up psychiatry instead."
Chuck forced a laugh. It helped, he noted in some distant corner of his mind, that Amy wore a boxy, loose business suit, something that Sarah would don only if forced. Otherwise, the resemblance would just be spooky. Sarah's hair was a little darker, her eyes more grey-blue than ice-blue, but whoa.
"So, have a seat, get comfortable. Sorry to go against the cliché, but I find that if I let patients lay down on a couch, they fall asleep on me." Amy smiled as she said this, and Chuck was strangely relieved to see that her teeth were even. He sat as ordered, and wondered why his joints didn't squeak. "I make do with just an armchair. Can I get you anything to drink?"
"Um, water?"
"Sure." Amy crossed to a mini-fridge in the corner. Chuck finally allowed himself to look around the room and see something beyond escape routes. The office was large, tasteful, the desk and chairs classy. The walls held a mix of Dali and Kandinsky, which told Chuck that Amy liked color in her artwork, at least. The desk was reasonably neat, the nearest edge lined with picture frames facing the other way. From the number, Chuck figured that Sarah's doppelganger probably had kids.
He nodded his thanks when Amy handed him a water glass. "So, you know Agent Davenport? Ah, Gwen?"
"I do. We've never met, but I used to do some profiling for her when I had spare time. A long time ago." She laughed a little. Definitely had kids, Chuck observed. "I don't normally take on cases for the government, since I don't like the restrictions, but Gwen Davenport's one of the best, and she speaks very highly of you. Your service record must be impressive, Mr. Carmichael."
Chuck shrugged robotically. "It is what it is."
"Very well. When Gwen told me about your case, I have to admit, I was fascinated. I hope I'll be able to help you."
Her words, unfortunately, held the opposite effect of her intention. The shock holding Chuck's emotions back dissolved, only now instead of frustration and impotence, anger flavored the mix. Anger that Dr. Farnsworth wasn't the sweater-vest wearing old fart he'd been hoping to shut down in his tracks. Aggravation that she looked just like Sarah. Annoyance at Gwen for putting him in this situation.
Had she done this on purpose? Had she known that Sarah Walker and Amy Farnsworth had evidently been separated at birth? She'd met Sarah in the holding facility; only one photo of Amy would be necessary to see the eerie resemblance. So, was Special Agent Gwen Davenport manipulating him, on top of everybody else in the damned government?
"Honestly," Chuck said, biting each word off, "I don't think you're going to be able to."
Amy's pleasant look remained unchanged. "May I ask why you think that?"
"I don't want to be here," Chuck said. "I can think of fifty places I'd rather be. Actually, I can think of thousands. There may be one place I want to be less than I want to be here, and that's that godforsaken hellhole bunker wherever my dossier says I was being held. I have problems, I know that. I want them to go away or at least stop interfering with my ability to function like a normal human being. But that's not going to happen if all I'm telling you is lies off of a dossier, so you're not going to help me, and I'm not going to be helped. This is all a stupid waste of time, when I have other, more important things I could be doing." Like stopping a renegade bomb-maker loose in Los Angeles.
"The dossier isn't to protect you, Agent Carmichael." Amy gave him a sympathetic look, of all things. It made Chuck want to take a page from Casey's book of life lessons and growl. He chose a stubborn glare instead. "It's to protect me should you be captured, given your status as a field agent. It was at my request."
"Why?"
"I realize details will be different," Amy went on, "and that may seem like a hindrance, but I promise you, we can talk openly about your interpretation of events, how you feel, how you think you're coping, or even the persons of interest in your dossier. Details change, but the origins, the feelings and the mentality behind it, you'll find, remain true."
Even if her point was a valid one—and he would have to mull that over later—Chuck focused only on one thing. His dossier file hadn't covered anybody he was allowed to mention by name. "Persons of interest?"
"Agent Walton and Captain Case?"
"Agent Wal—" Chuck started to echo, and burst out laughing without much humor flavoring the noise. They'd demoted Casey? And what the hell was up with the government's cover-story department? "Walton like Sam Walton? Creative, government. Good job. But yeah, honestly, talking about her would be a little weird for me. Especially to you."
"Why is that?" If Amy had been confused by the laughter, she didn't show it.
Chuck merely pulled his phone from his pocket and thumbed over to the pictures folder. "Here," he said, handing over the phone.
Amy blinked at the picture. "What on—"
"Dr. Farnsworth, meet your twin by another mother—or I'm assuming it's another mother. Agent 'Walton' has never actually told me about her family background, so you two could be sisters and I wouldn't have the first idea."
Amy glanced from the picture to Chuck. "This is your partner?"
"The pretty one, yes. She grunts a lot less than the other one, too."
For a long moment, Amy studied the picture, probably categorizing the same differences and similarities that Chuck had been doing for their whole conversation. "Well, if you say she's pretty, I guess I'll have to thank you for the compliment. But no, Agent Walton and I are not related. As far as I know." Amy took a final look and handed the phone back. "This is all just a big coincidence, as I'm fairly certain Agent Davenport knows me only through my work."
Chuck pocketed the phone. "Of all the tastefully-decorated, government contracted psychiatrist's offices in all the towns in all the world…"
"And you walk into mine," Amy finished. She shook her head and leaned back, tapping her pencil eraser on the legal pad across her lap. "Agent Walton is the one that found you in the bunker?"
"Yes. She got me out of there."
"Then this really isn't going to work." Amy frowned. "I'll refer you to one of my associates. I'll talk to Agent Davenport right away to clear up the problem."
"You could take your time, I don't mind," Chuck said. "In fact, if you could hold off for six months or so…"
Amy smiled as they both stood. "I'm sorry, Agent Carmichael. If the government feels you're important enough for field work, they'll want to move quickly. Therapy's not all bad, you know. Sometimes there are proper psychiatrists who actually use real couches."
Pessimism with the government aside, he had to smile back. He shook Amy's hand, they made a few twin jokes on the way through the waiting room, and she saw him off into the hallway that led to the parking garage. He paused at the door to outside as he always did, taking a deep breath. With that little bit of courage fueling him, he stepped out into the sunlight.
Outside, he evaluated the experience, just to distract himself from the sheer amount of space and people around. Did he like Amy on her own or because she was the spitting image of Sarah? He'd gone in predisposed to like her, but true, she'd been funny, and a little self-deprecating. Obviously a caring individual. Would he have felt an affinity this fast if she looked more like, say, Casey?
Chuck shuddered.
Okay, he amended in his head as he started to climb the stairs to the second level of the parking garage. Maybe Casey was a little far. But if Amy had looked like anybody else, he might have at least tolerated therapy. He couldn't be angry about sticking to a dossier if it was just a woman looking out for her kids. The point she'd made about the details changing, but the origins and mentality staying the same was actually a fairly interesting point. Maybe it was because he had an actual computer lodged inside his, but Chuck had a whole and healthy respect for the power of the human brain.
Wait a second. The details would be different, but the origins and mentality remain the same…
The origins.
"Oh, crap," Chuck breathed. He fumbled for his phone. It almost squirted out of his sweaty fingers, but he grabbed it before anything that would lead to Casey grumbling about requisitions forms could happen. He stabbed the appropriate button. "Hey, Sarah?"
"Chuck?" Suspicion and wariness leaked from her voice. "Aren't you supposed to be in therapy?"
"We, ah, adjourned early."
"What? Why?"
Chuck winced as he missed a step and scraped up the toe of his dress shoe. He'd much rather be wearing chucks, but a first meeting with the therapist required proper attire. "I don't know if you'd believe me even if I told you," he said.
"Chuck?" The wariness and suspicion grew.
"She can't take my case. It's a long story, or actually, a really, really short one, but that's not important. Laszlo's file—where he was he discovered? Was it off of a standardized test, or did he enlist in a program or something? I don't know how they recruit geniuses these days."
After a second, he heard paper rustling. "Agent Scary recruited him," Sarah said, her voice bemused enough to tell Chuck that she was still scanning the file.
"How?"
"He saw Laszlo playing Tetris in an arcade at…the Santa Monica Pier."
Halfway across the parking garage level to his car, Chuck stopped. The memory hit him harder than anything the Intersect could ever throw at him. He was yanked over time and space to Stanford, sitting in a chair across from Professor Fleming. Hearing words like "important" and "one of a kind" and "serve a vital role." Listening to his professor wax poetic about patriotism, about being meant for more.
He'd revisited the memory only a few times over the years—if he thought about it, really sat down and ruminated, anger would inevitably begin to seep through, growing and melting together, until it amassed into impotent rage that could never have an outlet.
"Chuck?" Sarah's voice prodded him back to the present.
"It's the Pier," Chuck blurted out, starting to move again. He raced for his car. "He's going to bomb the Pier."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah—they have a huge Halloween party every year." Or, Chuck corrected as he rounded the hood and fumbled for his key, they had five years before. Had that changed while he'd been stuck in the bunker? "If he's that set on getting out…"
"He'll want to make a splash," Sarah said. Through the phone line, he heard her scrambling, possibly to grab her gear. He climbed into his own car and threw it into reverse. "Chuck, get back to Castle, stay there, and stay downstairs!"
"What? No, I can help!"
"What's in your head is far too valuable to be going near any bombs. You get yourself back to Castle and you stay put!"
"Sarah—"
"That is an order, Chuck!"
Chuck's tires squealed as he peeled out of the parking garage, leaving only skid marks. "The guy is going to blow up the pier when it'll have the most impact, which is the Halloween party. Which doesn't start until early this evening. I've seen the guy in person, I can help!"
"It's not your job to help. Your job is to use the Intersect and keep it safe!"
"He's going to blow people up, Sarah. I can't let that happen." He could hear shouting even as he yanked the phone away from his ear, but he didn't care. He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat, where it continued to ring at him. How the woman managed to channel her anger through electronics, he had no idea, but somehow "Jazzy Jive Ringtone #4" sounded a great deal more pissed off than usual.
He beat Casey and Sarah to the Pier only by miracle and a magically open parking spot nearby. By the time he arrived, he could feel a panic attack lurking at the edges of his existence, but the very real threat of a bomb at the Santa Monica Pier mercifully kept the demons at bay.
Even so, by the time Casey and Sarah ran up to him, he was covered in sweat. "You can yell at me later," he said, since one partner looked annoyed and the other ready to commit Intersecticide. "I'm not hiding while this guy poses a real threat. Not with all of these people in danger."
Casey seemed to decide to ignore everybody present with, as he'd put it more than once, idiotic lady feelings. "Any sign of him?"
"No, nothing, but then, I just got here, so—"
"All right. We split up, I'll head to the end and work my way back. Walker, you and Bartowski start at the entrance and go from there." Casey sighed to himself and reached into his jacket. He held out a gun, butt first.
Chuck stared at the weapon, wondering why on earth Casey had mistaken him for Sarah and, consequently, what sort of head injury could possibly lead to that sort of gross misconception. "Um, Casey, I'm Chuck. Chu-uck. Remember? No guns without explicit written and spoken—"
"It's a tranq gun, moron. Since you insist on being a hero." Casey rolled his eyes. "You shoot a civilian with this thing, your ass is mine. You shoot yourself with this thing, your ass is mine. You shoot Walker with this thing—"
"Yeah, I know, I know, my ass is yours."
"I was going to say you're Castle's Employee of the Month. Now go. Your partner's leaving."
Chuck glanced over his shoulder, and swore when he saw Sarah's blond hair disappearing into the crowd. He took off after her.
"For Dan Daly's sake, Bartowski, put that thing away!" Casey called after him.
Chuck, realizing that running down the Santa Monica Pier in broad daylight with a gun in hand was probably one for the Bad Idea column, stashed the gun into his waistband. He kept running until he caught up to Sarah.
"Sorry," he said. "Casey had a pep talk for me. Sort of."
Sarah scanned the pier as they walked, though her body language remained relaxed, even languid. Her jaw-line, however, screamed tension. "When we get back to Castle, you and I are going to have a long talk about following orders."
"Will that include body armor or not?" Chuck scanned the interior of the arcade for signs of a psychopath with a hair-trigger.
All he saw, though, was Sarah. She grabbed his arm, stepping into his line of sight. He saw the same determined look he remembered from their spat by the Acropolis. "Chuck, go home."
"I'm keeping it together," Chuck said, though he could feel new sweat coating the inside of his shirt. He didn't know if it was because they might be near a bomb or because of all of the people sucking up all of the damn air. It didn't seem to matter much. "Sarah, I can help—"
"And you can get blown up." Sarah's grip tightened. "Please, Chuck, go back to Castle, and stay there."
"Sarah, have you metme?" Chuck, feeling the need to somehow put the situation back onto even footing, shifted his arm so that he could grip Sarah's wrist in return. He thought he heard her breath catch, but it was probably just the Sno-Cone machine hissing. "With my luck, I'll just get kidnapped on the way to the car."
Sarah grimaced, but didn't argue. She gentled her grip, using it to pull him along. When she shifted it to hand-holding, Chuck gave her an alarmed look.
"Did we just become the Rogerses again?"
"People pay less attention to couples holding hands. And Laszlo might already be looking for you."
"And he magically won't see me because I'm with you? Let's face it, Sarah, you're fairly tall for a woman, but you're not that tall."
"Not precisely what I meant." Sarah kept her gaze trained off to the left; her gait slowed, her hand tensed.
"What precisely did you—oh." The railing hit him mid-back as Sarah nudged him into it. He'd have complained, but Sarah immediately pressed up against him. All discomfort on the planet ceased. "Um, what are you do—"
Sarah leaned in. Chuck's heart, already cantering, began to clock overtime. He stayed stock still.
At the last moment, Sarah changed trajectory, angling away from a kiss and toward his ear. "Behind me," she murmured. "To your right, white male, trench coat. Don't look directly at him, but tell me, is that our target?"
Chuck forced his brain back into gear, trying to focus on something beyond every single point of contact between his body and Sarah's (and there were a lot of points of contact). He blinked a few times, trying not to squint too obviously. Trench Coat wasn't hard to spot in a crowd—a trench coat outside of rush hour on the subway tended to stand out like a Trekker at a Star Wars convention—but he had a hard time focusing beyond the scent of Sarah's shampoo, so it took a moment.
When he got a good look, he burst out laughing.
"Chuck?" He felt Sarah tense.
"About your trench coat suspect—"
"What the hell are you two doing?" Casey arrived, one hand hovering near his gun. Chuck could almost convince himself that he and Sarah weren't Casey's intended targets.
Because he felt Sarah tense, Chuck grabbed her by the waist to prevent her from springing away and ruining their cover. Or so he told himself. "Spying," he said. "Sarah thought she saw Laszlo, and she provided the necessary cover so that I could get a good look."
Casey grunted, but refrained from snarking about just the sort of cover Sarah could provide. Chuck smiled and let Sarah go so that she could ease back.
"Of course," he said, "we may need to get Sarah's eyes checked."
"What?"
"What?"
Chuck merely pointed. As he did, Trench Coat turned, and they got a good look. The target was the same height, weight, and coloring of Laszlo Mahnovski, except…
"You thought Laszlo was a woman?" Casey asked.
"Oh, come on. Give Sarah a break. She wanted to be close to me," Chuck said as Ms. Trench Coat, having paid for her cotton candy, walked away. "It's a curse. The Power of the Bartowski—hey, none of that now." He'd have edged away, but Sarah had already backed him into the railing. He eyed her clenched fist. "Every time you hit me, the gaming gods kill Navi. And do you really want poor Link to wander alone?"
"Hey, numbskulls," Casey said before Sarah could decide that she really didn't care one way or the other about Link. "Focus. Did either of you see anything?"
"We got nada. If he's here, he's not wearing a trench coat."
"Nothing," Sarah echoed, and gave Chuck a look. "He might not be here, Chuck."
"No, he's here. This is definitely the place. I can feel it in my—"
"Bones?" Casey offered, rolling his eyes.
"Gut, I was going to say gut. The problem is, Laszlo's a genius." Chuck turned so that he was staring out into the sand all around the Pier rather into the crowds dawdling along behind Casey and Sarah. "He made so many things while they stuck him in that stupid bunker, and he disguised them as really cool things, like laser-beam lipstick tubes or lighters that are, like, a combination taser, USB drive, GPS locator, and cell phone jammer. He could disguise a bomb as anything. We could be practically on top of it and…" He whirled. "On top of it!"
"What? What is it?"
"He wants to take out the whole pier, right?" Chuck gulped. "Best way to do that is to take out the support structure and let gravity do the rest."
They didn't bother to exchange uncertain looks. Without a word, they took off for the sand.
As he ran, dodging in and out of crowds and apologizing the whole time, Chuck called up a mental map of the pier. Where would he put a bomb, if he were going to flip his nut and randomly kill a bunch of innocent strangers?
The flash hit mid-stride. He stumbled forward, crashing to one knee and taking out a display of stuffed animals with his shoulder. Casualties flew everywhere, stuffed animals skittering across the sandy boards and bouncing into innocent passersby.
Sarah all but did a grand-jeté in the middle of the boardwalk and raced back. "What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
He'd landed in a pile of pink panda bears that had done absolutely nothing to cushion his fall. Chuck coughed and tossed a sweat-shop-made toy aside. At least, he thought sourly, he hadn't hit his head. "I'm fine, I'm fine. The flash just got me at the wrong moment."
When he realized that his stunt had drawn a crowd, he mustered up a weak smile. Sarah hauled him away before the babbling could begin—or the shopkeeper could notice.
"What'd you flash on?"
"Um, I was trying to call up an aerial map of the pier, and I flashed on the info."
Sarah gave him a startled look.
"Yeah, I didn't know I could do that either. But I think I know where he's going to hit."
They hit the sand. Chuck's pace slowed; Sarah's didn't change. She outstripped him in only a few seconds. It was official—starting tomorrow morning, he was going to take her up on her standing offer, and go running with her. This was just ridiculous.
Just before she reached the underbelly of the pier, where Casey waited for them both, she glanced over her shoulder and slowed. When he arrived, he was panting. "A month ago, my entire world was only a few meters long," he said before Casey could start. "And running on sand sucks."
Casey snorted, but again, no comment. "Any idea where he might be?"
"There are two locations he could be," Chuck said. "If he wants to hit the arcade directly, he'll be…" He knelt and quickly sketched a map in the sand, marking two spots with an X each. "There. And here's where he'll be if he wants to take out the whole pier."
Casey studied the map for a second and nodded. "I'll take the pier location. You take the arcade, Walker."
"Go with Casey, Chuck. There's more of him—he'll make a better shield." Sarah gave Chuck a tight-lipped smile.
"You know, I keep telling him exactly the same thing." Chuck returned the smile with a grimace and took off after Casey, while Sarah split to head up-shore.
Chuck told himself that it was only his imagination, but under the pier, the temperature plummeted to Siberian levels. The boards overhead muffled most sound; the lack of direct sunlight plunged the world into gloom. It also reeked to high heaven. That much, he knew, was not his imagination. Nobody who'd ever visited the pier could forget that smell.
He tried to take shallow breaths through his mouth as he followed Casey. The other man kept one hand on his gun hilt, crossing the sand with soundless long strides. Chuck tried to mimic him, but again, he rolled a one for stealth. He was positive a Tyrannosaurus Rex would be quieter.
"Stay close," Casey said sotto voce as they approached the site. "I don't know if he's got a weapon, but if he breached Castle, he'll definitely have something from our armory."
"Yeah, about that—"
"Shh."
"No, Casey, the weapons stash at Castle—"
Sarah's yell cut him off mid-sentence. When it was followed by grunting that could only indicate a fight, the two men didn't pause. They just turned as one and sprinted. Chuck's heart had literally stopped. He was also pretty sure he had quit breathing, and his mind had emptied completely, leaving nothing but a blank space between his ears. The only thing left was fear.
He ran practically atop Casey's heels, weaving in and out of the pillars. At some point, he grabbed the tranq gun. When he glanced down, it was in his hand, but he didn't remember how it got there.
Casey beat Chuck by a hair. He rounded the pillar and skidded, kicking sand in an arc. Chuck, who rounded the same pillar from the other side, did exactly the same thing, so that they formed yet another lethal triangle.
Only this time, it was Sarah being held captive by the crazy person with the gun. And instead of looking completely terrified, as Chuck had, she seemed plenty pissed off. Also, instead of looking grim, as Mei-Ling Cho had, Laszlo Mahnovski looked pretty pleased with himself—especially since he was holding a gun to Sarah's temple.
Chuck wished for one blinding second, before all thought vanished, that he knew more about guns. Why couldn't the Intersect have included more pertinent data on weapons and how to disable them? He couldn't tell if that was a gun that had been in the Castle's armory or not.
Sarah wasn't looking at Chuck, but at Casey. Her entire body was tense, and she had sand stuck to the knees of her jeans. Laszlo had an arm around her neck, but it was mostly the gun immobilizing her. For now. "He got the drop on me," she said between her teeth.
Chuck glanced up, saw the harness rig at the top of a column. Trust Sarah to be completely literal.
"Agents Rainer and Fitzgerald, nice of you to join us." Laszlo, despite the cool, fetid air, was sweating just as much as Chuck. Was that a common affliction among the bunkerized? "It's a very nice stronghold you have here in Burbank—they made a few changes to my original plans, the idiots—but still, nice and easy to breach."
Chuck felt something in his stomach sink.
Casey edged forward. "I hope you at least enjoyed the visit," he growled. "Put the gun down and drop the blonde."
"That's not how this works," Laszlo said, mutinously tightening his grip on both the gun and Sarah. She didn't grunt or struggle. In fact, the pissed off expression didn't change. It almost seemed like she were waiting for something. "See, the way this works is that you two put your guns down, and I'll maybe let the blonde—or Agent Winter, if you prefer to be a little more politically correct—go."
Casey snorted. Chuck figured he ranked "being politically correct" up there with "liking democrats."
"The home office says you're a genius," Casey said. "But from where I stand, you're pretty much a moron who can't do math. Two guns to your one, egghead. Drop it."
"Oh, we're doing math now, are we?" Laszlo laughed. Maybe Chuck was projecting, but the giggle sounded a bit…unhinged. He began to sweat anew at the thought of Sarah so close to a madman with a gun. "Here's an equation for you."
Chuck and Casey waited. Chuck adjusted his grip on the tranq gun and wished his hands weren't so greasy.
"One gun, one bullet, Agent Winter's head. That enough math for you?"
They waited a beat. "Seriously?" Chuck asked, speaking for the first time. His voice ratcheted up the scale and back down. "That's your equation? That's it? A kindergartener can do that equation."
"Chuck," Sarah said.
"What? So Casey gets to piss off the madman with the gun, but I can't?"
"Madman?" Laszlo snarled, and turned—yanking Sarah around in a way that made Chuck's breath clog in his throat—toward Chuck. "I'm not a madman!" His laugh proved otherwise. "I used to be sane. Once upon a time. Back before the government decided I was property and stuck me away for the rest of my life."
"And that's reason to shoot Agent 'Winter' in the head?" Casey growled. "Put the gun down, Mahnovski."
Laszlo's hand actively shook with either fear or rage. The gun barrel wobbled against Sarah's head; Chuck saw her grit her teeth. "No! I put the gun down, and they're going to put me back in the bunker, and you don't know what that's like. You don't know."
"Actually," and Chuck felt a surge of courage come out of nowhere and propel him a step forward, "you'd be surprised."
Three things happened at once. Laszlo, startled, turned toward Chuck, possibly to ask what on earth he was talking about. Sarah hissed Chuck's name.
And the gun dripped.
All three agents and Laszlo watched two small drops of water slide right out of the end of the barrel and fall for hours before they splattered soundlessly on the sand. For a full nanosecond of an eternity, nobody spoke.
Chuck was the first to break the silence. "Is that…is that a water gun?"
Before Laszlo could answer, Sarah sprang. The water gun went flying. So did Laszlo.
Sand typically made for a somewhat softer landing, Chuck knew, but it looked like somebody had forgot to mention that to Sarah. Laszlo plowed into the ground with a thud that had probably upset several seismographs in the area.
Fear, or maybe just desperation, made the bunkered genius scramble immediately onto all fours and try to take a running start. Which was when Casey fired. Loudly. Without warning.
The shot cut through the muffled silence under the pier, and thoroughly startled Chuck. As a result, he tensed—and so did his trigger finger. The gun had surprisingly small recoil for such an imposing-looking firearm.
Absolute horror welled deep inside him as his gaze slowly, slowly followed the gun's trajectory, down the gun sights, across the sand, up Sarah's denim-clad legs, up her leather jacket, and finally ending on her chest.
Or rather, specifically, the tranquilizer dart sticking out of said chest.
Sarah glanced down at the dart and sighed. "Really, Chuck?" she asked. She then flopped face-first into the sand, landing with a bigger thunk than Laszlo had.
Casey looked from the moaning psychopath on the sand to his downed partner. Finally, he leveled an unimpressed stare at Chuck. "Well, what do you have to say for yourself, dimwit?"
"Um." Chuck finally lowered the gun, shock making him dizzy. "Missed it by that much?"
Casey grunted. "Congratulations, Chuck. You're Castle's new Employee of the Month."
"Um…yay?"
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