10:00 A.M., Pacific Daylight Time
Sunday, August 26th, 2012
Studio City, California
Things were not good. Things were very much not good.
Well, some things were very much not good. Other things were great.
As far as Nerd Cave Video Games, LLC, was concerned, things were freakin’ fantastic. They had just sold their fifth video game, and had acquired the rights to the old Sim City franchise from Maxis. Section Eight and Warner Brothers were going ahead with filming on the Mindnode pilot, and after meeting with the cast, Chuck had grudgingly okay’d Anton Yelchin and Miley Cyrus.
As far as Studio City Consulting Services, Inc., was concerned, however, things sucked a big one. Absolutely no headway had been made on the Firestone Slayers case. Chuck, Morgan, Casey, and Sarah were still stuck in their undercover positions at Empire Plaza during the week. Bryce and Carina were both on the shit list after their little stunts in July. Staff morale was terrible, although Casey’s spirits seemed to be revived every day after he visited the shooting range.
Things were pretty good at home. Chuck and Sarah’s relationship hadn’t suffered too terribly from the incidents with Bryce and Carina. If anything, it had grown stronger after dealing with those little challenges.
Chuck had wanted to educate the kids entirely through Intersect encoding – his justification was that it would make their life easier and that they’d be little geniuses. Sarah had said absolutely not. She wanted John and Lisa to have a traditional education – her justification being that since both she and Chuck were freakin’ geniuses anyway, they should have no problem.
However, after Chuck did a thorough study of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s curriculum, Sarah agreed to let him encode certain things – but not everything. And so, now, every time the kids watched an episode of Sesame Street on DVD, they were also learning AP Calculus, physics, French, and eschatology. Chuck didn’t expect them to ever have any practical use for the last one, but he thought that theological studies of the end times might be fun.
What pleased Chuck the most, though, was that Sarah was starting to give some serious thought to adoption. She hadn’t said anything about it to him yet, and he knew that it was probably still a pretty sensitive topic for her. However, he had left a booklet on the kitchen counter one afternoon – totally inadvertently – and when he next saw it, it was in her nightstand, with several pages dog-eared.
But the good things were the furthest from Chuck’s mind right at the moment that they could possibly be. Rick Pope and Sam Tyler were both looking for updates on the mission and wanting to know why the hell nothing had happened yet.
What was Chuck supposed to tell them? “I’m sorry, gentlemen, we’re completely incompetent and can’t deal with a street gang; in addition, one of my agents tried to blow me on a stakeout, and then I beat the hell out of another agent after he made a pass at my wife”? He had the distinct feeling that that would not go over well.
That’s when Chuck’s phone rang. He sighed. This wouldn’t be good. It would be one of those two, calling for their update.
But it wasn’t. Chuck did a double-take when he looked at the phone and saw Sarah’s picture – the picture he’d snapped of her so long before, when he’d known her for just a couple of weeks.
Confused, he pushed the call button. “Hey,” he said. “What’s going on?”
There was a tremor in Sarah’s voice that he had never heard before. “You need to come home, right now,” she told him, not leaving it open for discussion.
“Uh, okay,” he replied. He knew better than to argue.
And he certainly wasn’t going to walk home, either – like he had walked to work that morning. He ran downstairs to the garage and got in, as Morgan called it, the Hoffmobile – his 1982 Trans Am. The Chevy 350 small block engine roared as Chuck brought the car to life. He sped out of the garage onto Vantage, took a hard left, and almost immediately a right out onto Ventura Boulevard.
Two minutes later, he roared into the driveway of his house. He didn’t even bother with the garage – the Magnum and Sarah’s old 911 – both finally repaired – were in there. He ran up to the front door, and with a trembling hand, unlocked it.
Sarah was sitting, indian style, in front of the coffee table in the living room. Her face was pale, and a letter was in front of her, along with a picture and something that looked suspiciously like a lock of hair.
“What’s going on?” Chuck asked.
Sarah didn’t say anything, just handed him the note, the picture, and the hair.
Mr. Bartowski – I compliment you on your ability to wreak havoc among my men. How unfortunate for you that I have the ability to do the same upon your family. – El Anillo del Fuego
Chuck looked at the photograph. It was a picture of Lisa and John on a playground, with Sarah next to them. The playground was at North Hollywood Park, at Tujunga and Chandler. The picture had clearly been taken through the scope from a sniper rifle.
Chuck’s hands started to shake as he set the picture and the note down. He looked at the lock of blonde hair in his hand. There was no question – it was Lisa’s. There was even a barrette attached to it that he and Sarah had just assumed she had lost.
“Where are they?” Chuck said quietly.
“They’re in the bedroom, asleep,” Sarah replied. “This was just delivered by messenger, five minutes ago.”
“Get them in the station wagon,” Chuck nearly whispered.
Sarah nodded, and silently headed toward the twins’ bedroom. Chuck pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
“Yo, Chuck!” came the voice of Morgan.
“Morgan,” Chuck said, the tone in his voice instantly causing a change in Morgan’s demeanor.
“Buddy… what’s going on?”
“I need you to call everybody, get them to the building. Right now. Tell Ellie and Devin to make sure they bring Katie with them.”
“I’m on it.”
And the line disconnected. Chuck went to the garage, his world seemingly in a haze. When he got there, he found John already buckled into his carseat, and Sarah putting Lisa in hers.
Neither Sarah nor Chuck said a word as they got into the front seat of the Magnum – Sarah driving, Chuck riding shotgun. As he buckled himself in, he pulled his Ruger from under his jacket. Sarah drew her Colt and set it on the dashboard.
The drive back to the SCCS building was silent save for the sounds of the car and the occasional sigh from one of the two sleeping toddlers. When they reached the building, Sarah pulled the car directly into the garage, the door rolling shut behind the car.
Every other car was already there. Chuck smiled grimly at the thought of how efficient the team was. He and Sarah stood to either side of the elevator doors as they waited for it to arrive. When the doors opened, they both turned into it, guns aimed toward the back wall. Nobody. With each a toddler in tow, they boarded the elevator. Sarah pressed the button for the second floor.
The clearing drill was repeated on the second floor, the two Bartowskis ensuring that nobody was going to shoot them down when they exited the elevator. Scooping up the kids, they quickly crossed the floor to the conference room.
They were all there. Casey, Bryce, Carina. Morgan, Ellie, Devin, Katie. Rachel, Will, Mitch. They all looked very concerned.
Chuck and Sarah strode to the head of the table, Sarah taking her seat and holding the two kids on her lap. “These were delivered to our house about twenty minutes ago,” Chuck said without preamble, handing the note, the picture, and the lock of hair to Casey.
Casey took in the three items wordlessly. His facial expression didn’t change, but Chuck could see the fire of murder and hatred erupt behind his eyes. He slowly handed the items to Bryce, who had a similar reaction.
Nobody spoke as the items were passed around the table. Ellie gasped when she saw the picture, but didn’t speak. When the items returned to the head of the table, Bryce finally spoke.
“What are we going to do?”
Chuck sighed. “Sarah, Ellie, and Devin are going to take the three kids and Casey’s Suburban and go to Casey’s safe house in Ensenada,” he said.
“What?!” Sarah protested. “You can’t –“
Chuck held up his hand, and she stopped. He turned and looked at her. “Please,” he said quietly. “I need you to take care of our children. I need to know they’re safe, and there’s nobody I trust more to keep them safe than you.”
Sarah looked down at the table. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t argue with Chuck’s logic.
“What about the rest of us?” Casey asked, a knife edge in his voice.
Chuck looked Casey directly in the eyes.
“Kill them,” he said softly. “Kill them all.”
2:15 P.M.
Bob Hope International Airport
Burbank, California
Mitch Tucker walked slowly around the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, checking everything. The stub wings were firmly attached, and they were as heavily loaded as they could get. A .50 caliber minigun on one wing, a pod of six Hellfire missiles on the other. It would do some serious damage.
The Black Hawk was going to be held in reserve for the moment. The first target was Hermosa Audio, just down the road. Then would be the armory house in Redlands, and finally the headquarters – a bar just east of Pioneer on Firestone. That’s when the helicopter would come into play.
Mitch would be flying the weapons position on the Black Hawk, with Will Williamson piloting. As Will began his own walk-around on the helicopter, Mitch began pulling pins from the Hellfire missiles.
Two Hummer H1s that had been purchased for this very purpose and parked in the hangar with the Black Hawk were being prepped for battle as well. Casey and Bryce were making sure that they were in tip-top fighting condition.
Sarah, Devin, Ellie, and the three kids had come to see them off. Sarah had spent nearly half an hour trying to convince Chuck that her place was here, but she had finally agreed to take the kids to safety.
The sound of sirens pierced the Burbank afternoon. All heads looked toward the gate on Hollywood Way as a stream of LAPD cars poured onto the airport grounds, accompanied by a SWAT truck and what looked distinctly like an armored personnel carrier.
The LAPD vehicles roared up to the SCCS hangar, and parked in a defensive perimeter around the opening. “Lovely,” Casey breathed.
But the officers didn’t jump out, guns in hand. Rather, the door of one car opened, and Commander Rick Pope stepped out.
“You look like you’re about to go to war, Mr. Bartowski!” he called as he approached the hangar.
Chuck had a guarded look in his eyes. “Something like that,” he replied cautiously.
Pope smiled. “Will a certain gang be coming out of this bruised and beaten, if they come out of it all?”
“That Suburban is headed to Ensenada,” Chuck replied, avoiding the question. “It’s taking my wife, my sister, my brother-in-law, my two kids, and my niece to safety. I’m not telling you anything else until that Suburban leaves.”
Pope nodded, turned his back on Chuck, and walked to another cruiser. He knocked on the window, and it rolled down. Chuck couldn’t hear what he was saying, but a moment later, four cruisers moved out of the perimeter and took up escort positions around the Suburban.
Commander Pope walked back over to Chuck. “Those cruisers will escort the Suburban all the way to Ensenada,” he said. “They may or may not be replaced by Polícia Federal at the border, but either way, the Suburban will have an escort all the way to Ensenada.”
Chuck looked at Pope with disbelief, and then jogged over to the window of the Suburban. It rolled down, and Sarah looked out at him.
“You’re gonna have a police escort all the way down,” he told her. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but it looks like they’re going out of their way to keep you safe.”
She nodded, and smiled sadly. “Please be safe, Chuck,” she said. “Don’t do anything stupid. I want to have a husband to come home to.”
Chuck smiled. “You will, I promise,” he replied, trying not to choke up. He leaned in to kiss Sarah good-bye, but she reached out, and practically pulled him into the Suburban. It was almost as if it was becoming a tradition – the Chuck and Sarah doomsday kiss, just like the one on the San Pedro docks, just like the one in the CIA facility in Moab, just like the one in their garage when the NSA strike team was about to kill them.
When she released him, he opened his eyes – and saw that hers were filled with tears. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you too, Sarah,” he said back. Then he stepped back, and she put the Suburban into gear. The four cruisers all turned their lights on, and the SUV and its police escort pulled away.
Chuck stood watching until the five vehicles had pulled off the Burbank Airport property. When he turned, he discovered Commander Pope and Casey standing right behind him.
“You ready to take care of the Firestone Slayers?” Pope asked.
Chuck smiled grimly and nodded.
“Alright,” Pope replied. “Let’s go do this thing.”
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