1:30 P.M., Pacific Daylight Time
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
The Space Needle, Seattle, Washington
Sarah Walker had never – in this life or her “previous” civilian life – been to Seattle. Chuck had been half a dozen times since he was a kid.
And Sarah seemed like a little kid herself as they came out of the elevator at the top of the Space Needle. “This is SO cool,” she breathed. She laughed giddily as they exited outside onto the observation deck.
“You know, Chuck,” she said, turning to him with a smile on her face, “I’d be okay with it if you decided to forgo the moon and the beach, because right here, right now would be quite alright, too.”
Chuck looked at her and cocked an eyebrow. Then he reached into his pocket and came back out with the blue velvet box. “Really.”
Sarah’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. “Really?” she echoed him.
Chuck smiled and opened the box. “Sarah Walker…” he said, “I think…”
He snapped the box shut again. “That you’re just gonna have to wait until the moment is perfect.”
Chuck slid the box back into this pocket, and Sarah playfully slapped him on the shoulder. “Jerk,” she said.
“Yeah, but I’m your jerk, right?”
Sarah smiled. “Damn right.”
Chuck kissed her, and then stepped to the edge. He grabbed one of the coin-operated telescopes, swiveling it around. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out two quarters and slipped them into the telescope. The lens opened, and he put his eyes to the viewer, looking around –
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said with a laugh. “Take a look.”
Sarah looked at him, puzzled, and then stepped up to the telescope. She looked through –
And saw that it was pointed at a maroon Ford Crown Victoria. “Why, hello Casey!” she snickered.
The NSA agent was leaning against the car, smoking a cigar. Veronica Mars was sitting on the hood of the car – and she looked really unhappy.
Sarah pulled back from the telescope. “Chuck?”
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Take a look,” she replied. Chuck looked through the telescope.
“Oh,” he said quietly. “She doesn’t look very happy.”
“No, Chuck, she really doesn’t,” Sarah replied. “Do you think she saw us yesterday afternoon? Do you think that’s why she looks upset?”
Chuck sighed. “I’d say there’s a chance that that has something to do with it,” he said.
“When was the last time you talked to her? I mean, she is your friend, Chuck, and she may be feeling like you abandoned her.”
Chuck gave Sarah a weird look. “What are you now, an amateur psychiatrist?”
“Nooo,” Sarah said slowly, “just a woman saying I understand how she might be feeling.”
Chuck sighed. “I’ve tried to call her every day. She doesn’t answer the phone – probably because she doesn’t want to potentially give away the fact that they’re following us – and she won’t return my calls.”
“Probably for the same reason,” Sarah mused. “Well, maybe we should try to make this experience a little less torturous for her.”
“How so?”
“No more loud sex, mister,” Sarah said. That was enough to draw curious glances from a few people around her, which she ignored. “Unless we’re in the shower.”
Chuck narrowed his eyes. “You’re no fun sometimes.”
Sarah shrugged. “Just looking out for a fellow woman.”
“Fine,” Chuck replied, rolling his eyes. “Are we still going to pull our little bait-and-switch stunt on them tomorrow?”
Sarah grinned. “Oh, absolutely.”
Chuck and Sarah were still both awake at 1:00 A.M., but they had closed the blackout drapes to prevent the possibility of somebody spying on them. Chuck changed into all black, and then snuck out of the room. He headed downstairs, and slunk out to Sarah’s Porsche. “Sorry,” he whispered, and sank Sarah’s switchblade into the right front tire.
“Is it done?” she asked when he returned to the hotel room. He nodded, causing her to cringe. “My poor baby…”
Chuck rolled his eyes and crossed to the table she was sitting at. It’s a tire, he typed on her MacBook. They’ll put on a whole new set at the dealership while they’re exchanging Casey’s tracking fluids for new fluids.
“I know that,” she hissed. “But it’s the principle of the thing!”
“You and the principle of the thing,” Chuck groused, turning for the bed. He was not expecting to be tackled from behind.
“Ooof,” he grunted as he collapsed onto the bed. Sarah grabbed him by the shoulder and violently flipped him over.
“You are SO gonna pay for that,” she growled, a rather fierce smile on her face.
Chuck didn’t say anything – just smiled right back.
Casey sat in his hotel room three floors below, listening to the goings-on in Sarah and Chuck’s suite. He sighed and decided it was probably a good thing that he was monitoring right now, and that Mars was asleep. He was actually starting to feel sorry for her – this was not the first time in his life that he’d seen the sort of looks that she was giving Chuck through the camera while doing surveillance.
Then he heard something particularly disturbing and did his best to suppress a groan. “You two are twisted on the inside,” he muttered to himself.
8:30 A.M.
July 8th, 2009
Casey and Veronica had already been downstairs in the Crown Vic for half an hour when Chuck and Sarah came down to the Porsche. Veronica had a parabolic microphone pointed at the Porsche, which she would turn off as soon as the car started – the engine noise would render it completely useless.
And so she heard when Chuck said, “Aw, are you kidding me?”
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
“Somebody slashed the right front tire.”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”
There was a moment of silence, and then Sarah’s voice again – “Goddammit!” Sarah was quiet again, and then Veronica heard her say, “My member number is one three nine five six zero five one four. I’m at the Fairmont Olympic, and somebody’s slashed one of my tires. I need to have it towed to the nearest Porsche dealership.”
Sarah was quiet for a moment, and then said, “California license plate five zulu alpha victor four five two. It’s a black 2005 Porsche 911.” Another pause. ”Fifteen minutes? Okay, thank you.”
Veronica turned to Casey. “Well, we’re gonna be here a little while longer,” she said. “Somebody slashed one of her tires. She just got off the phone with AAA – they’re sending a tow truck to take the car to the nearest Porsche dealership…”
She opened Safari on her iBook and pulled up Google Maps. “…which is in the eleven thousand block of northeast Eighth Street in Bellevue, about eleven miles from here.”
“Great,” Casey grumbled. “Do me a favor, see if there’s a Ford dealership anywhere around there.”
Veronica searched, and reported, “About half a mile away.”
“Good, an inconspicuous place to hide,” Casey sighed. “It’ll take a while for them to change her tires. Might as well get the oil changed while we’re over there.”
Two hours later, the Crown Vic’s oil had been changed, and the trackers on the Porsche still hadn’t moved. “This is the most boring stakeout of all time,” Casey grumbled.
“Again, we can blame the CIA,” Veronica replied. “You said it yourself, this was Graham’s call.”
Casey nodded. “Still, I am kind of getting concerned about not hearing from General Beck-“
“They’re on the move!” Veronica interrupted him.
“Finally,” Casey growled.
Casey pulled out of the Ford dealership just as the blinking tracker crossed their longitudinal position on the east-west street a half mile north of them. “On the road again, just can’t wait to get back on the road again…”
Veronica looked at Casey in disbelief. “Major Casey!”
“What?”
“Please stop singing.”
Sarah waited on the side of the street a block east of the intersection and waited until Casey turned left. “Alright, Major, let’s see how good your counter-intelligence skills are,” she muttered.
Chuck looked over at her. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Sarah smiled. “It has been FAR too long since I got to do something like this,” she replied. “You BET I’m enjoying this.”
Twenty minutes later, the Crown Vic was on I-5 headed north, toward Canada. “I’m surprised we haven’t spotted them yet,” Veronica mused.
“Traffic’s pretty heavy, Mars,” Casey replied. “And according to the tracker, they’re still a ways ahead of us.”
“That’s true.”
“So, if neither of them is picking up their phone, how do you plan to contact them?” Sarah asked. They were a quarter mile behind the Crown Vic.
“I can remotely access the Buy More switchboard,” Chuck replied. “Casey won’t ignore a call if it’s coming from them. He can’t afford to get into trouble at the Buy More – the NSA will rake his ass over the coals if he does.”
Sarah nodded. “Very true.” Then she smiled and shook her head. “You know, if Bryce hadn’t gotten you kicked out of Stanford… you really would’ve made a great agent, you know that?”
Chuck actually blushed. “Nah,” he said, waving the compliment off. “When we were actually working together, I screwed things up all the time.”
“The physical end of things, maybe,” Sarah argued. “But that’s just because you never had the training. Your mental acumen, the way you see things – I mean, I’m not trying to pad your ego here, but you’re brilliant. You can see your way around intelligence situations in a way that no other agent I’ve ever known can.”
Chuck grinned from ear to ear. “Well, coming from the legendary Operative, I’ll take that at face… value…”
His voice trailed off as Sarah’s expression went from pleased to not-so-pleased. “Oh, shit.”
“How did you know that nickname?” she asked through clenched teeth.
Chuck sighed. “How do you think?” He tapped his head.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
He shook his head. “Well, because when I found out, I thought you were dead, and when you came back, I had bigger things on my mind.”
Sarah continued to give him a stern look – but then it broke, and she started laughing. “Oh, man, I had you going there for a moment,” she said.
Chuck’s jaw dropped. “Oh, you SUCK!” he said.
Sarah smiled. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. The look on your face – priceless.”
She turned her attention back to the road. “Don’t ever call me that again, though, or I’ll kill you.”
Chuck rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. I’m sure you know fifty ways to do it, too.”
“Over a hundred, actually. There’s the Crown Vic. Time to make the call.”
In Burbank, an automated system picked up. A moment later, a code was entered, giving the dialing phone remote access to the switchboard. Shortly after that, an outgoing call was placed from the line at the Nerd Herd desk.
Two seconds later, John Casey’s phone began to ring. He glanced at it, saw the 818 area code, and was about to ignore it, when he realized that it was the Buy More trunk line. “Oh, hell,” he muttered. He reached out and pushed a button, putting it on speakerphone. “This is Casey.”
“JOHN CASEY!” the voice of Chuck Bartowski boomed into the car. “Damn, you’re a difficult man to get a hold of!”
Casey rolled his eyes. “What do you want, Bartowski?”
“Listen, Sarah needs a favor. We’re following this car that looks a little suspicious, and I was wondering if you could run the plate?”
Casey glanced at Veronica. She nodded, and began to pull up a program.
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Okay, it’s California license plate five charlie alpha whiskey eight eight two,” Chuck said. “2004 Ford Crown Victoria, maroon in color.”
Casey’s heart just about stopped, as he realized Chuck had just described the Crown Vic to a T. “Uh, I, I’m sorry, Bartowski, what?”
“When was the last time you checked your rear view mirror?”
Casey gritted his teeth. “Fuck,” he breathed, and looked in the rear view mirror.
Sure enough, there was Sarah Walker’s Porsche 911. Sarah smiled and waved, and Chuck gave him the finger.
Veronica’s mouth had dropped open in disbelief. “How – they’re supposed to be in front of us!” she said, indicating the screen.
“Hi, Veronica!” Chuck said cheerfully. “I’ll explain in a moment. Take the next exit.”
And so Casey got off at the next exit. He pulled into the parking lot of the Shell station by the side of the road, and Sarah’s 911 followed him in.
Casey and Veronica got out of the Crown Vic, and Sarah and Chuck got out of the 911. “Alright, Bartowski, fair’s fair,” Casey growled. “How’d you find us?”
“In a moment,” Chuck replied. “First things first. You.”
He pointed at Veronica. Her eyebrows arched. “Yes, you. Come here.”
A wary look in her eyes, she crossed the space between the two cars to Chuck – and when she reached him, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him, embracing her tightly. Definitely not what she had been expecting, but she certainly didn’t object. She wrapped her arms around his back and sighed contentedly.
“I’m sorry if you felt like I had abandoned or betrayed you,” he said quietly. “I really care about you, Veronica Mars. I think of you as one of my best friends, and I would never, ever want to hurt you. Okay?”
She smiled, and pulled back from him. Looking up at Chuck, Veronica said, “Okay.”
Casey grunted. “Are you done?”
“Yes, Casey,” Chuck replied, almost as if he was humoring a small child. “I suppose you’d like to know how we found you?”
“I imagine that was Walker’s doing.”
“Actually, no,” Sarah replied. “It was all Chuck.”
Chuck smiled and nodded. “I figured it out initially when we were between Carmel and Eureka,” he told them. “I decided there had to be a reason why neither of you were answering your phones. We faked car trouble, pulled over, and saw you pass us.
“That night, while we were in Eureka, I figured out how you were tracking us – with nanotrackers in the fluids, right?”
Casey nodded grudgingly.
“Well, Sarah wanted to wait till we could actually go to a Porsche dealership to change the fluids. So, we decided to humor you a couple more days. We saw you again in Newport, but we ignored you. Then, last night, I snuck out after dark and slashed the right front tire.”
Casey thought for a moment – “Of course!” he exploded. “I should’ve realized after that little stunt three weeks ago! That’s your trademark!”
“Indeed it is,” Chuck said. “So, we had it towed to the Porsche dealership, where they changed out ALL the fluids – even the Freon – while they were changing the tires. They placed the used fluids on a disposal truck, which left the dealership right in front of us. After that, it was simply a matter of waiting for you to follow them and pull out in front of us, following you, and placing a remote call through the Buy More switchboard.”
Casey and Veronica both stared at Chuck for a moment. Finally, Casey spoke.
“Not bad, Bartowski,” he said, with a tone of grudging admiration in his voice. “Not bad at all.”
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