50 — Solo

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it’s dead for you. — Oscar Wilde


4 FEBRUARY 2008
CASTLE: DOWNSTAIRS
09:07 PST

It took considerable skill to lean his desk chair back to the point of—but not quite—tipping over, or worse, crashing to the ground in a jumble of lumbar support and nerd. Thankfully, Chuck had pretty much minored in this in college. He knew the exact angle to which any of the old chairs in Green Library could be tilted without disaster befalling him. He knew how to tip a lawn chair, the old recliner at his frat house, and even those lounge chairs campers preferred since they folded easily into a cloth bag and could be slung over one’s shoulder. In the four months Prometheus had been around, he’d also done extensive experiments on his own body mass versus gravity in the chairs they kept at Castle.

He tweaked the angle, sliding his socked foot against the leg of his desk to adjust for the bag of magnetic darts currently balanced on his chest. Without looking—another skill mastered in college—he plucked one out and flung it at the dart board along the opposite wall.

It made a bit of a clang as it hit. Metal walls, metal darts. It figured.

“You know, Bartowski,” Casey said as he entered, rubbing his hair dry from his post-workout shower, “you’re a real paradox.”

Chuck tilted an eyebrow. “Big word for you, Casey.”

“You stick a pretty blonde in front of most men, they don’t do a lick of work. Take the pretty blonde away from you? I haven’t seen this little work out of anybody since the Air Force dropped by my base back in ‘04 to run some tests.”

“I’m doing very important stuff,” Chuck said, and threw another dart. “And I’m glad you think Sarah’s pretty. I’ll be sure to tell her so when she gets back.”

Casey grunted. “You get the data dumps scanned?”

Chuck pointed at a stack of files on the side of the desk. “Los Angeles’s finest are already tracking down its requisite amount of scumbags, courtesy of yours truly.”

“Well, at least there’s that.” Casey’s mien shifted abruptly from exasperated to annoyed. It was a minute shift with most anybody else, but Casey’s anger had many flavors. Chuck, about to reach for another dart, paused. Unlike with Sarah, though, he didn’t have to wait long for the issue to come spilling out. “And did you really have to reprogram Castle again?”

“What’s the matter, Casey? Not a fan of Paul Simon?”

“I will be in no way, shape, or form referring to you as ‘Al’ and neither am I technically your bodyguard.” Casey glowered. “I am an agent of the National Security Agency, and I expect to be treated as such. Got me?”

“Change the song, got it.”

“Nix the song entirely.”

“Can do.”

Casey paused and helped himself to the bag of pretzels on Chuck’s desk. “What’d you pick for Walker?”

“Does it matter?” Chuck tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “She’s not here.”

“The hangdog expression is a real lady-killer, Bartowski. Keep it around for when Walker gets back, will you?”

“Why do you care?” Chuck picked up another dart, but didn’t throw it.

“Because my expansion pack’s late, and I have no other entertainment to keep me occupied.”

“You could go beat on Frank some more. I’m sure he’s lonely, with Sarah gone.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“‘Maneater,’” Chuck said. “That’s the song I picked for Sarah.” He’d actually selected it before, as he was calling it in his head now, BriefingGate. But it hardly seemed to matter, not when she’d left him alone—in her bed—with only a note for company.

“Fitting,” Casey said.

“Is it?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’m not the one she ran off on.”

“She didn’t run off.” Chuck tilted the chair to dangerous angles and stared at the ceiling. “She went away for a couple of days to think.”

“Whatever helps you get through the day, Bartowski.” Casey dropped into the spare desk chair—Sarah’s chair—swung his legs up onto the desk, and helped himself to the pretzel bag again. “You talk to her at all?”

“The note said call her. I called.” Chuck remembered he was still holding the dart, and threw it. It hit the edge of the target, wobbled a little, but otherwise stayed fast. “For the record, she’s doing very well, staying at a little B&B, though she won’t tell me where, but she did enjoy a spinach omelet for breakfast and is getting ready for her drive back, and I’m sure she misses you, too, Casey.”

Casey grunted. For a long moment, silence fell between the men, as it had for most of the weekend. In fact, the entire Operation Prometheus just seemed to be quieter. Sarah was out of town, and Ellie and Awesome had been working but had been ultimately supportive in that “If you need us, we’re here and please call” sort of way. Casey had taken the news of Beckman and Graham’s manipulations with a shrug and a “That’s the DNI for you.” But he hadn’t made many belittling comments in the meantime. It was almost like he was waiting.

It was like they were all waiting.

“Make any decisions yet, Bartowski?”

Chuck had spent all weekend thinking about it, ignoring the file that even now sat on his bedside table at home. Now he said the one conclusion he’d managed to come to on his own: “Get the Intersect out of my head.”

“You think you can do that?”

“The government put it in my head. Well, indirectly. Bryce put it in my head. Whatever. Either way, they should have some way to take it out.” Chuck thought about it for a second, and thought about the history of the man sitting next to him. “Without a bullet, that is.”

“You’re the first subject, it could be difficult.”

“Could be.” Chuck tossed a dart in the air, caught it. “Don’t care.”

“What’s your sister think?”

“She’s looking into it.”

“What’re you going to do when it’s gone?”

“Not work for the government anymore, that’s for damned sure.” Chuck tossed the dart again. “No offense.”

“None taken.” Casey brushed pretzel crumbs off of his front and rose to his feet. “Well, it sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this, Bartowski. It’s been good working with you.”

“You’re being uncharacteristically nice to me,” Chuck said.

“What of it?”

“Uncharacteristically. It means out of character.”

“I know what the hell it means.”

“Any particular reason why?”

“None I’m going to share. Have the song gone before I get back.”

“Back from where?”

“I have a date.”

Chuck blinked. “Wait, I thought Ilsa left. I mean, I seem to recall her little walk of shame when—okay, not walk of shame, definitely no shame in that walk, you can stop making that noise, Casey.” When the growling had subsided, Chuck cleared his throat. “What I meant to say was that I am pretty sure I saw her leaving for the airport when I came home the other day.”

“Date’s not with her.”

“Then who—”

“I’m going to Simi Valley. You’re staying here. As in this office right here, within the space you see all around you right at this moment. You may leave to go to another room to collect more food, more Red Bull,” Casey ticked points off of his fingers, “if you need to work out, or relieve yourself. Otherwise? You stay within these four walls. It’s my birthday and I’m not waiting around for Walker to come slinking home because I’ve got a date with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and you are not screwing it up by getting kidnapped, dangled off a building, or nearly blown to pieces, got it?”

He strolled out before Chuck could remember to close his mouth.

A second later, he strolled back in. “Unless, of course, I get to shoot somebody. And for me to miss out on my day at the library, Bartowski, it had better be a lot of damned somebodies in order to make it worth it.”

“Got it,” Chuck said. A second later, he added, “And uh, happy birthday.”

The only reply was the sound of the Scooby door—which needed oiling again—opening and closing behind Casey. Stunned, Chuck slowly turned back to the computer and stared, unseeing, at the monitor. Casey had a birthday. Which meant... “Dude, he didn’t come off of an assembly line. I have to tell Sarah.”

Chuck paused, halfway to his phone. “And now,” he said aloud to nobody, “I am talking to myself.”

It just figured. Chuck opened up a new text message and settled in to share his amusement with Sarah.

4 FEBRUARY 2008
CASTLE: DOWNSTAIRS
10:36 PST

When an old-fashioned ringtone blared through the office, Chuck looked up in surprise and then down at his cell phone, which had sat silent since his texting bout with Sarah had ended half an hour before. The viewscreen was empty: no incoming calls. As he was the only person there at the moment, that was a bit puzzling.

The ringtone sounded again. Chuck looked around in confusion, and finally spotted the old rotary-style telephone on the wall. He squinted. “When did...”

Oh, right. Castle had a front business, Pacific Securities. The number must not have been routed through his cell phone like he’d thought it would be. Warily, Chuck rose, padding out of his office in his socks, and picked up the phone from the cradle. “Uh, Pacific Securities, Chuck speaking. Can I help you?”

Please, he thought, don’t be a test from Casey. After all, the phone was outside the four walls Casey had indicated.

“Chuck Bartowski?” a female voice asked. Chuck nearly breathed a sigh of relief: not Casey, unless he had paid somebody to play a trick on Chuck.

“This is he, yes.”

“Please hold for Mr. Kohlmeier.”

“Mr—” Chuck said, but classical music poured through the receiver. Chuck was left staring in befuddlement at the wall above the phone cradle. Had he heard that right? Andy Kohlmeier, bigwig at Kanichen Enterprises, and one of the men Chuck and the rest of Prometheus were investigating? Calling him?

What the frak was going on?

“Chuck, hey!” Andy Kohlmeier’s voice wasn’t hard to recognize, as Chuck had heard it at the very memorable party less than two weeks before. “How’s it going?”

“Uh, great, Mr. Kohlmeier. And, uh, how are you?”

“Andy, please, please.”

“Right. Andy. I’m doing well. How are you?” Chuck repeated. He wiped a hand across his face and crinkled his brow when it came up wet. He should be better at dealing with strangers by now, possible Fulcrum ties aside.

“Doing great, doing great. Listen, I know it’s last minute, but I was wondering if you were free for lunch today?”

“What?” Chuck asked before he could stop himself.

“There have been some security issues and I could really use a private contractor,” Andy went on, as though Chuck hadn’t spoken. “And like I said, I know this is very last minute and not usually how we do things at Kanichen, but I checked your company’s website and was very impressed with what I saw, and thought you might like to meet me for lunch. On Kanichen, of course.”

“Oh. Right. Uh, I’m not sure what my schedule—”

“If you can’t make it, it’s totally understandable, and we can reschedule, but there’s...” Andy paused, and Chuck finally heard something in the pause that made him squint and straighten up. “Something’s going on at Kanichen, and I’m not sure who to trust, so I need an outside contractor, if you know what I mean.”

“Wow,” Chuck said, his eyes widening. Because they’d been investigating Kanichen for awhile, he knew there was something hinky with the company, but for Andy to pick up on it? It must be serious. And they might not get an opportunity to, as Casey or Sarah had once put it, turn an asset like this again. Even so, Casey was in Simi Valley and Sarah wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours from her mystery trip, and neither of them would ever want him to go to this kind of meeting alone. “I’m not sure today works, exactly, but is there maybe another day this week?”

“I’m on a plane to Austria the first thing tomorrow morning, and I’d like to get a head-start on sorting this out,” Andy said, sounding regretful. “You would be doing me such a solid, Chuck, you have no idea.”

If he stayed in public, maybe Casey and Sarah wouldn’t mind so much. After all, there wasn’t much Fulcrum or Kanichen could do to him in public, was there?

“Where did you have in mind?” Chuck asked.

4 FEBRUARY 2008
MADAME COTILLARD’S
12:07 PST

Chuck handed the valet his car keys and received a nod and a “Have a good lunch, sir,” in reply. He hoped the fact that there was a line of sweat creeping down his spine, under his jacket and shirt, wasn’t obvious to anybody but him. As Sarah had pointed out a few days before, he had come so far for a man stuck in a bunker for years, but even now, facing the big, open space outside of Madame Cotillard’s without either of his teammates present had nerves shaking his stomach a bit. He smoothed a hand over the front of his suit coat and pressed onward.

Madam Cotillard’s sat on a corner not too far from Castle, a big, open building with ample patio dining. Chuck had Googled the site at Castle and knew all of the exits and other security issues, and had memorized the map for the couple of blocks surrounding it, but none of changed the fact that he felt naked without backup. Also, he was not nearly prepared enough for five-star dining, especially not today. The tablecloths were real, the napkins were linen, and the cuisine was French—very expensively French, at that. Normally, Chuck imagined the patio wouldn’t always be optimal dining in February, even on an oddly warm day like today. Andy, however, had scored them a table inside.

The other man rose as Chuck approached. “Thank you so much,” he said, shaking Chuck’s hand, “for meeting me on such short notice. You have no idea how much of a lifesaver you are.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Chuck said, though he wasn’t sure that was actually the case. He felt jittery as he unbuttoned his suit coat and took a seat across from Andy, but thanks to months of learning from Sarah’s poker face, he was pretty sure none of that was showing. “Just what exactly is the trouble you seem to be—”

“Shh, not yet,” Andy said, and the waiter came up to take their orders. Chuck nearly broke his poker mask and raised his eyebrows when Andy ordered a scotch. He stuck with water himself. “Sorry, in due time, I promise. After we order.”

“Certainly. Take your time,” Chuck said, and studied the menu. The cheapest thing on the menu cost enough to feed a small third-world nation for a week, he figured, but if Kanichen was paying, then...he ordered a salad and the salmon. Sarah was coming back in town; when she got back, he wanted to at least be partially truthful when he told her he’d eaten healthily.

Andy got the steak. Chuck wondered exactly what was going on at Kanichen.

“Now,” Andy said once the waiter had absconded with the menus and their orders. “Down to business, I suppose.”

“You make it sound like a great mystery,” Chuck said, fiddling with his water glass. He hoped he sounded suitably nonchalant. “We’re not dealing with corporate espionage here, are we? Because I have to say, that’s a little...”

“Cliché?”

“I was going to say ‘out of my ballpark,’” Chuck said, though he figured between all of them, Operation Prometheus probably had the market cornered on all things espionage. “My clientele isn’t usually on the level of Kanichen. What’s the problem, Mr. Kohlmeier?”

“Andy, please. Call me Andy.”

“All right. Andy, then. Pacific Securities would like to do anything it can to help, of course, with whatever—” Chuck spotted something out of the corner of his eye and nearly frowned. It was only a matter of practice that kept him talking with only a minor stumble. “Whatever issues you’re having. And I’m terribly sorry, but would you excuse me? I think I saw—yeah, I’ll be right back.” With that, he set the napkin on the table and hurried off. Should he go straight up to what he’d seen? Or wait?

In the end, he went to the men’s room, checked under all of the stalls, and washed his hands. It only took thirty seconds for the door to open behind him.

“Hey, Bryce,” Chuck said. “We’re clear. Just so you know.”

His best friend from college didn’t look at all surprised that Chuck had spotted him. “Hey,” he said, moving to the sink next to Chuck’s. “Spotted me quickly. That’s good, Sarah’s really coming along with your training.”

“That was Casey,” Chuck said, a little more annoyed at the idea of being trained by Sarah than he had any right to be, he knew. But everything that had happened with Sarah, and her leaving, still felt far too raw. “What are you doing here, Bryce?”

“Casey called me. Said you needed backup.”

So that was why Casey hadn’t protested his meeting Andy for lunch. “Nice of everybody to let me know.”

Bryce shrugged a half-hearted apology. “I could have been following Kohlmeier, you know,” he said in that mild way he had. “Have you found out anything?”

“He’s spooked about something,” Chuck said, wiping his hands dry. “Doesn’t really want to talk about it, but he’s edgy.”

“Drinking,” Bryce said.

“Scotch, yeah. I’m thinking it has to do with something in Kanichen’s computer system, though I haven’t been able to detect anything in the drives Sarah and I stole at the party.”

“Or it could be a trap.”

Chuck looked around at the upscale bathroom all around them, with the little stack of folded towels by the sink rather than paper towels. “Odd place to spring a trap.”

“A trap’s a trap, Chuck. Kanichen could be onto us, or worse, onto you, and out to separate you from your team. Not that they’re here at the moment.”

“But you are,” Chuck said, scowling at Bryce’s dismissal of Casey and Sarah. Casey, he could understand, as there was no love lost between the men, but for Bryce to speak about Sarah like so, after everything Sarah had avoided telling him about their relationship, it rankled somewhat. “And isn’t that what Graham and Beckman said, Bryce? You’re on the team, too?”

“Yeah, part of the team. Right. I get invited to all of the softball games and everything,” Bryce said.

Chuck bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from pointing out the obvious fact that maybe Bryce Larkin’s attitude and need for secrecy had something to do with that. But Bryce sighed, cutting him off at the pass. “Sorry,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m tired. It’s been a long few months.”

“No kidding.”

“Find out as much as you can about Kohlmeier and his problem as quickly as you can and then jump ship. I don’t like being out in the open like this. And try to remember as exactly as you can. Andy might be trying to pass something in code.”

“Or...” Chuck pulled out his wallet and dug through the credit card slots until he pulled out a small filament sheet. “Your watch CIA-issue?”

“Gift from Digital Dave himself.”

“Excellent, that makes this easier. Let me see it.”

With Bryce looking on, Chuck took both his watch and Bryce’s and set them on the edge of the sink. It took a little delicacy since the filament was so thin, but with his optical screwdriver, he aligned identical patches to the wiring on the underside of each watch face. A few seconds configuring each watch interface later and... “Done.”

“What’d you do?”

“My watch has a mic on it, it’ll record everything from mine to yours, giving us two copies to work with.”

“Awesome!” Bryce admired the watch for a second before he slipped it on. “Where was all of this tech wizardry at Stanford?”

“Not existent yet, I guess.” Chuck shrugged and donned his own watch, resettling it against his wrist. It always felt strange without it. “Spend a few years by yourself in a bunker, and you’ll be amazed what you get into just to make the time pass.”

“Oh,” Bryce said. He had a look on his face that Chuck couldn’t decipher, but it was fleeting, there and gone in a blink. “Right, yeah, I can see how that is.”

“Yeah.”

Silence fell. It was even more awkward than Chuck had always feared it would be, in the inevitable situations where he had to deal with Bryce without Sarah or Casey around to keep things professional.

“Look,” Bryce said, suddenly breaking the silence. “I should let you get back to...”

“Spying?” Chuck asked.

“Yes, that. Good work with the watches. If you need my help, I’ll be...”

“Yeah,” Chuck said, and headed for the door. “Thanks, Bryce.”

He paused in the corridor outside the restroom to shake his head; had it been his imagination, or had that been more uncomfortable than usual? Maybe it was because he was now officially breaking the bro code—their frat had always held to an oath not to go after your best friend’s ex; Chuck figured the allure of Sarah Walker was stronger than most any oath known to mankind. But Bryce truly hadn’t seemed overly bothered by it, except for that one moment in D.C.

Maybe Chuck was just imagining things. It happened.

He smoothed the front of his suit coat before he joined Andy at the table. “Apologies for that, I got a call from another client.”

“No international intrigue there, I hope,” Andy said, raising his scotch in a toast.

“Just system glitches that one of my programmers can sort out without me. Trifling, really.” Chuck picked up the napkin he’d left behind, frowning a bit. It was folded and he certainly hadn’t done—oh, the waiter must have brought over a new one. It nearly made Chuck twitch to notice that somebody had paid such close attention to him. There were too many people around, fussing, all the time. It almost made things hard to breathe.

Of course, that could be because he was meeting a man from a company affiliated with Fulcrum in public. Without Casey or Sarah there as backup.

“Hopefully they won’t bother me again. You said international intrigue? You’re making me a little nervous with all of this talk, I have to admit. I’m not sure I’m up to the level of international intrigue.” Or at least, Chuck thought, he wasn’t until he’d had his third cup of coffee.

“I’m not certain it’s that serious,” Andy said. “In fact, I may be, what is it you Americans say, jumping at ghosts?”

“Shadows,” Chuck said. “But if you’re suspicious something might be wrong, well, I highly doubt you got this far without trusting your instincts. Why don’t you tell me what you think the problem is, and I’ll see what I can do about it?”

“Discreetly.”

“Yes, of course. It won’t go beyond the edge of this tablecloth.” Except, of course, for the fact that Chuck’s watch was hopefully broadcasting every word to Bryce. Where Bryce was, Chuck didn’t know. The other man hadn’t returned to his table. But maybe he’d just gone somewhere private to listen into the conversation. Perhaps that spoke of a sense of confidence that Chuck wasn’t going to get himself into trouble, out in the open with Andy Kohlmeier. “Even if you choose not to hire me to handle this.”

Andy finally set his scotch down and gave Chuck a sober look. “Thank you, Chuck.”

“You’re welcome,” Chuck said, trying to ignore the guilt.

“A couple of days ago, I noticed an anomaly in one of the server scripts. I wouldn’t have picked up on it, except my programmer had gone home for the day and one of the in-house systems was...”

“Buggy?”

“Yes, good word to describe it, I think. And I may not be up to date on every fancy new code that comes out, but I thought I could handle a small error in the code.”

“What did you find, instead?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” Andy frowned and reached into his pocket. Casey’s gun club lessons had affected Chuck to the point where he tensed, but the other man only pulled out a mobile phone. “I took a picture, though.”

Chuck frowned at the phone screen. It took him a moment to recognize the programming language, and a minute more to decipher it: whoever had written this particular code hadn’t believed in organization. His old professors would have taken points off for the lack of indentation alone. It made his organized soul weep a little.

“I think I’d have to look at this in context,” he said after a moment.

“I was afraid you might say that.”

“You mentioned you were leaving the country, so I know that might cause problems.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Do you think it’s a backdoor? Is somebody trying to channel funds out of Kanichen?”

“Hell,” Andy said, and picked up the scotch again as Chuck continued to study the screen, “for all I know, we just have an idiot programmer working in development. You can find out for me?”

“If I can get access to more than this, chances are I can give you an answer,” Chuck said at length. How would Casey and Sarah play this? They’d have some kind of smooth plan to get inside Kanichen and gain full access to everything. He just had his wits and whatever he made up now with Andy. He could only hope he was doing this right, and that Casey wouldn’t strangle him when he returned from Simi Valley. “But it might take time. Finding this sort of issue...it’s not something easily done.”

“But you can do it?”

“I’m brilliant, no worries,” Chuck said. “How likely do you think this is—that somebody might be building a worm or a backdoor into your system?”

Andy shrugged unhappily. The conversation lulled as the waiter brought their meals out to them, offering the pepper grinder and checking twice to make sure the gentlemen didn’t need anything else. Chuck bit his tongue over a bad joke about wanting a good tip, and took his cues from Andy, who mostly seemed to ignore the wait staff as if they weren’t there at all. Unfortunately, this meant that Chuck couldn’t sneak a picture of the phone screen while Andy wasn’t looking, so he handed the phone back. He’d have to recreate as much as he could from memory later.

“Things at Kanichen have been strange,” Andy said when the waiter had finally whisked away through the kitchen door, not far from their table. “I don’t know what it is, but there is something in the air. I am not a superstitious man, Chuck.”

“Neither am I.”

“But I can sense when something is amiss. I have no proof, but I think it is something to do with the program I showed you. Tell me, would you be willing to go undercover?”

“Undercover?”

“I need a spy,” Andy said, and Chuck choked on his drink. “To infiltrate my company, and find out if there is a mole. Would that be a service I can hire you for?”

“I...” Chuck hastily set his water glass on the table. “I don’t know how great I’d be at the spying thing, honestly, Mr. Kohlmeier.”

“Andy.”

“Right, Andy. I’m just, I’m just a nerd, you know? I’m good with computers.”

“You’ve never dreamed of trying to be somebody else?”

Oh, he’d dreamed of it daily, it sometimes felt like. Especially in those first days after Sarah had pulled him out of the bunker, when he’d sweated through every shirt at just the thought of going outside. But Chuck put a puzzled look on his face. “I think I was good at that with just Dungeons and Dragons.”

Andy laughed, but there wasn’t much humor to the noise. “Do you think you could give it a try?”

“I don’t have to wear a cloak, do I?”

“No, no. I would just need you to...” Andy broke off in the middle of his sentence and turned so quickly that Chuck’s hand automatically twitched for the tranq gun hidden beneath his sports coat.

“What? What is it?”

“I don’t know. I thought I saw something, but no matter.” Andy turned back to face him.

Chuck, meanwhile, felt a drop of sweat slide down the back of his neck. Had Andy spotted Bryce? Surely the other man had to be watching them from some vantage point, and if Andy was already paranoid, that could lead to bad things. And they were so close to getting an actual mole inside Kanichen, even if Sarah and Casey probably weren’t going to like leaving him alone at Kanichen all day.

That was going to be such a fun conversation.

Chuck made sure to look around, but he didn’t see Bryce at all. A movement fluttered at the corner of his eye, though. Instinctively, he turned, and his eyes widened.

The door to the kitchen had a long slit of a window running along one side, obscuring most of the patrons’ view of the kitchen. But a waiter had just hurried back into the kitchen, giving Chuck a split-second look at what was clearly a reflection of Bryce Larkin, facing away from Chuck and Andy. Chuck didn’t know why, but he could sense Bryce was close to reaching for his gun.

Had they been found out? Was this really a trap?

Chuck twisted in his seat, searching for Bryce in the restaurant. Finally, he spotted the other man through the long bay of tinted windows, out on the mostly-empty patio seating. As he watched, Bryce faced off against two men in dark suits, obviously tensed for battle. And then Bryce took off running.

Oh, hell.

If Bryce was in trouble, so was Chuck. He shoved up from the table before Andy could say anything and said, “I’m really, really sorry to do this, but I think there’s--yeah, something, excuse me.”

He headed for the exit so quickly he bumped his hip into an empty table. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t—enjoy your lunch, sorry—” When he righted himself, he spotted the men. There were two of them, coming from either exit. The black suits and black ties shouldn’t have separated them from the rest of the customers in Madam Cotillard’s, but for some reason, Chuck’s blood froze. They had a predatory look on their faces, and they were aiming for him, threading their way through the tables.

“Oh, frak,” Chuck said. Had he walked right into Fulcrum’s clutches? Was Andy evil? He turned back to look at the other man, almost expecting him to be rising from the table with a monologue all ready to go.

But Andy hadn’t moved. He was giving Chuck a funny look, probably wondering why Chuck was hurrying away as fast as his legs could carry him. He hadn’t seemed to have spotted the men.

Neither of the men seemed to be heading for him, either. Chuck, however, was a different story.

“Oh, crap,” he said, and dove for the only escape route he could: the kitchen.

Heat hit him like a fist. Outside the kitchen, Madam Cotillard’s was clean, elegant, with real silver cutlery. The kitchen was another world: motion and progress, full dishes and food everywhere, steam rising like some demented bath-house. Cooks and wait-staff hustled about, never still for more than a fraction of a second. Pots and pans clattered in a weird cacophonous symphony. Chuck flinched.

“Monsieur!” The maître d’ nearly dropped the plate in his hand. “I am sorry, but the kitchens are off limits to—”

“Sorry, sorry,” Chuck said, and shoved past him. If he got kidnapped, Sarah and Casey would never let him hear the end of it. “Just got to—oh, crap, look out!”

The kitchen door crashed open behind him, sending a waitress flying. One of the men came through, reaching into his suit jacket for something.

Chuck didn’t intend to find out what. He took off running, dodging into the heart of the kitchen. Two long stainless steel counters stretched parallel to a grill that took up the entire back wall, chefs and cooks working diligently at various stations. They all stopped to stare until: “Gun!”

One of the cooks shouted, and the kitchen exploded into frenzy. Chuck had to swerve to the side, bumping his hip against the counter, to avoid trampling the sous chef and the dishwasher. “Gun! He’s got a gun! Look out!”

Of course the bad guy had a gun. Because plans just couldn’t go right when you were Chuck Bartowski.

A waiter streaked by Chuck, cutting off his path and sending him crashing onto a pile of flour on the counter and some half-finished pasta. He spun, looking for another escape, but there was nothing but the chaos of the fleeing kitchen staff, and the man who’d followed him in.

“Oh, crap,” Chuck said. There was a long counter between them, a counter covered in half-chopped vegetables, uncooked pasta, and other foodstuffs. To his right was the grill and the stove, with plenty of burning pans and lots of opportunity for pain. That wasn’t even counting all of the knives and other sharp instruments left abandoned by the staff. It was a veritable kitchen of death, and he was trapped right in the heart of it.

And from the triumphant look on his pursuer’s face, the goon knew it, too.

“Gah,” Chuck said, dodging back and keeping as far away from the wall as he could. Casey’s lessons flitted through his mind, too fast and too jumbled to be of much use. Find a weapon, any weapon.

Well, he was in the kitchen of death. There had to be a weapon somewhere. Chuck snatched something at random and flung it, hoping it was sharp. A bowl went flying; the man ducked. “Hey!”

Chuck threw a second bowl and ran to the right, hoping to get out into the main part of the restaurant again. It didn’t work; the man skidded a bit, but dashed after him, the counter still between them. He was going to box Chuck in at either end, Chuck saw, with no way out. The gun wasn’t precisely pointing at Chuck, but the fact that the guy had pulled it out in plain daylight and in front of witnesses definitely told Chuck he meant business.

Chuck grabbed a handful of vegetables and hurled them.

“Stop that!”

“No,” Chuck said, dodging backwards. The small of his back hit the temperature controls on the oven. He yelped. Suddenly, looking across the counter at his pursuer, he had a much stronger appreciation for the term “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

“Who are you?” he asked, hoping his voice wasn’t shaking like it sounded like it was in his ears. “What do you want? I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m just enjoying my lunch, man.”

“Shut up,” the man said. He raised the gun, and the end of the barrel looked huge, more like a cannon than a pistol. Chuck’s heart, already galloping, pounded even faster against his sternum. “Put your hands on your head and come with me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Chuck cast about, desperately, for an escape, any escape, any way out, but there was nothing but the thug and the counter between him and both exits. Stall, his brain told him. He needed to stall until Bryce could get free of whatever imbroglio he’d stumbled into, and could come save Chuck. “Look, look, do you know how expensive this place is?”

That was clearly the last thing the dude expected him to ask. “What?”

“I mean, we are talking five stars here, man. Do you know how much the T-bone costs in this joint?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It is expensive.” Chuck edged to the left. His pursuer mirrored him. Chuck stopped. A horrible, horrible idea was beginning to form. “Expensive, let me tell you. It’s like eighty bucks for a steak. For a steak. I could go to one of the flyovers and buy a cow for that much.”

“So?”

Chuck eyed the counter. He was tall, but it might work. And thankfully, he’d been in enough pants-dampening-scary situations to be able to keep a conversational pattern, albeit a terrified one, going. “So, you should let me go out and finish the steak. It’s only fair. I mean, it’s eighty bucks, after all. Do you regularly eat eighty-dollar meals? Because I sure don’t. Though you kind of look like you might enjoy some of the gourmet. What do you weigh? Two ten? Twenty?”

The man stared at him for so long, a disbelieving look on his face. The suit was a nice one, Chuck realized. It was clearly tailored, black, black tie, black shirt underneath. A professional, possibly somebody who worked as a goon for a security company. The shaved head and sunglasses—indoors, the guy was wearing his Ray Bans inside—told Chuck he was probably ex-military. And very, very baffled. “Who are you?”

“Wait, what?” Chuck asked. The guy didn’t know his name? But if they didn’t know his name, why were they coming after him, if they were secretly Fulcrum? Why were the...

It hit Chuck then: they weren’t after him. They must be after Andy Kohlmeier. The same Andy Kohlmeier Chuck had basically abandoned at the table. Chuck’s insides turned briefly to water.

He had to get to Andy. Something was definitely very, very wrong at Kanichen, and if Andy had stumbled across something, even something that wasn’t Fulcrum-related, he could wind up in a lot of trouble. Or dead.

The terror abated; a second wind took its place. Chuck’s hands stopped shaking. “Sorry,” he said, straightening up just the slightest bit. “But that would take too long to explain, and well, I’ve really got to run, so—”

“Stay right where you are!” Professional Security Goon said, but Chuck had already launched himself.

It was tricky with the floors slippery from grease and humidity, but he managed. Chuck sprinted hard for the back door, running along the length of the counter. Professional Security Goon would have cut him off at the end. Or would have, if Chuck hadn’t grabbed the lip of the counter and swung himself underneath. There was a low-hanging shelf below the counter that stored battered pots and pans, but led clear through to the other side. Cookware clattered as Chuck swung through like a gymnast on the uneven bars, sending his body hurtling parallel to the ground for a good distance. The thug didn’t have time to slow and instead skidded right past.

Chuck didn’t wait to see if he would regain his footing. The second he landed, he took off for the back door, arms swept out to spread pots, pans, foodstuffs, and chaos in his wake. He hit the back door running and exploded out into daylight, nearly crashing into railing. The kitchen led out onto a loading ramp. There was a bank across the alley, walls of windows through which he could see customers going about their daily business in the lobby.

They probably hadn’t even noticed the exodus of screaming chefs. Only in L.A., Chuck thought as he vaulted over the railing and sprinted for the side of the building. He’d have to circle around front, meet up with Bryce, and try to stop them from taking Andy. How, he had no idea. But he’d find a way. Somehow.

He careened around the side, fielded two fallen trash cans like an Olympic athlete, and subsequently stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk. He was still staggering a little when he rounded the front of Madame Cotillard’s.

It was sheer fortuitous circumstance that made him hit the tree. If he hadn’t, he would have run out right into the middle of the sidewalk—and right into the sightlines of the people that were loading Bryce Larkin and Andy Kohlmeier into a black, unmarked Dodge Sprinter. Chuck let out a small, silent yelp, and jumped behind the very same tree that he’d crashed into. They didn’t hear him.

But he wasn’t out of the woods yet. His pursuer from the kitchen rounded the side of the building from the alleyway at full tilt, his face ruddy and furious. Chuck might have been hidden from the van, but he was in plain sight to the other guy.

Oh, hell.

The other guy, sensing his prey, ran faster. Chuck’s brain kept up a mantra of crap, crap, crap, what do I do, even as he patted his pockets, looking for something, anything that could help. His hand landed on the tranq gun and he wasted precious time hitting himself in the forehead. “Doh!”

Chuck yanked the tranq gun loose and aimed. He closed his eyes. “Please don’t miss, please don’t miss...”

The tranqs hit dead center: two darts, right to the top of the chest, little fletches catching the sunlight and glinting.

The goon dropped like a sack of potatoes. A very, very loud sack of potatoes. The sound of a body thumping into concrete made the two gentlemen in suits behind the van look over in Chuck’s direction. Chuck heard “What was that?” from one of them.

“I don’t know. Go check it out.”

“Dammit,” Chuck said, and crouched down to run for the side of the building. The raised patio of Madam Cotillard’s thankfully kept him hidden from view of those out on the main street, but he still felt like an idiot because passing cars next to him could see him quite clearly.

These were some gutsy villains, doing all of this in broad daylight.

He’d never reach the back of the building in time, he realized. The bad guy would be coming around the corner in less than ten seconds, and Chuck was fast, but he wasn’t that fast. There weren’t any convenient alcoves to hide in, and he doubted that he could fit into the overturned trash can he’d leapt over earlier.

That left only the cars parked against the curb. Chuck prayed that the nearest one wouldn’t have an overly sensitive car alarm, threw dignity to the wind, and dove for it. He rolled under the car, ignoring the grime and dirt that was getting into his best suit coat, just in time. Italian shoes pounded by on the sidewalk, followed by shouting: “Hey! Get the van over here! Mickey’s down!”

“Is he dead?”

“No, looks like...looks like somebody tranqued him!”

The second man swore, and Chuck squeezed his eyes closed, praying that they wouldn’t start searching underneath the cars. Bryce and Andy were in the van, yes, but he couldn’t face down a whole team of guys on his own. For that, he needed Casey and Sarah. And to get Casey and Sarah, he needed to stay un-kidnapped.

His eyes snapped open when the second man said, “We don’t have time for this. Get him in the van. We’ve wasted too much time already, and we’ve got the guy.”

“But if there’s somebody—”

“That was an order!”

Whoever these professionals were, they were good at their jobs: they had their fallen comrade up and loaded into the van in under thirty seconds. Still, Chuck stayed right where he was, not even daring to breathe, until he heard the squeal of van tires against pavement, smelled the reek of rubber hitting the asphalt. He waited a full minute and then scrambled out from under the car.

The van was gone. With a shaking hand, Chuck pulled out his cell phone and hit speed dial. Sarah and Casey really, really weren’t going to like this.

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