Ellie Bartowski was truly enjoying her day off. She was confident in the knowledge that her brother had gone off to hike the Grand Canyon – who knew?! – and she was just lounging at the kitchen table. The L.A. Times crossword before her, a peanut butter and Hershey sandwich on her left, a glass of Chablis on her right. It was a combination that made Devin sick, but he wasn’t there to have to see it, so who cared?
She definitely wasn’t expecting the knock on the door, and when she opened it, she was even more surprised to see John Casey and a very exhausted looking Sarah Walker. However, she took it in stride, asking, “What’s a seven letter word for a 1980s Libyan dictator?”
“Qaddafi,” Casey replied automatically. “Can we talk to you?”
“Sure,” Ellie said, stepping back from the door. “Come on in.”
As Casey sat down on the couch, Sarah simply collapsed into Devin’s recliner. “Sarah, you look exhausted,” Ellie said, a note of concern in her voice.
“I’m fine,” Sarah replied, waving her hand. “Listen, we need to talk to you about Chuck.”
“Chuck’s at the Grand Canyon,” Ellie said. “I know.”
“No, he’s not,” Casey replied. “You know how we said we worked for the government, and we’re protecting Chuck?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, it turns out the government has kidnapped Chuck, and they’re holding him in an unknown facility.”
Ellie’s face drained of color. “Are you sure?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I got confirmation from the director of the National Security Agency.”
Ellie held her composure for a few seconds, and then her face crumpled. “Son of a BITCH!” she howled, smashing her fists down on the kitchen counter. She picked up her wine glass and was about to hurl it across the room, but Casey leapt up and grabbed her hand before she could do so. He took the wine glass from her, set it down on the counter, and then led her over to the couch.
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “What would you be willing to do to free Chuck?”
Ellie sniffled a bit before speaking. “Just about anything.”
“Would you be willing to commit a felony so egregious that you would probably go to jail for the rest of your life if it didn’t work out?”
“Would I be killing somebody?”
Casey shook his head. “No. There will be no violence, no death, no injuries even, as long as everything works out right.”
Ellie nodded. “Then yes, absolutely.
“What do I have to do?”
Chuck had gotten a good night’s sleep. After he’d woken up, he’d gotten to take out some of his aggression on General Beckman, and then he’d gotten to see Sarah. He had been a little upset that the transmission had been cut before he could say good-bye, but overall, it had been a pretty good morning.
Well, a good morning for being held in some secret government bunker.
Anyway, he’d decided to engage in a marathon session of Guitar Hero after that. He’d already determined that it bugged the hell out of General Beckman, so he figured he’d continue doing what he could to destroy what was left of her nerves.
He was in the middle of Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade when the game snapped off and Director Graham’s face popped up.
“Director!” Chuck said, a cheery note in his voice. “How are the boys?”
“They’re fine, no thanks to you,” Graham grated.
“Well, that’s good,” Chuck replied. “Don’t expect me to be apologetic, though. You did kidnap me, after all.”
“It’s for your –“
“-own good, yeah, yeah, fuck you too,” Chuck interrupted, rolling his eyes.
“Excuse me?”
“I believe I said, ‘fuck you too’,” Chuck replied. “I’m pretty sure I’m entitled to say whatever I want at this point. In fact, I called General Beckman a ‘bitch’ earlier; I’m pretty sure I could figure out something creative to say about you.”
Director Graham gave him what could only be described as a stare of death. Chuck matched him look for look.
“You don’t intimidate me, Director. I have nothing to lose. You have the Intersect to lose.”
With a final glare, Graham broke the transmission. As the screen went black, Chuck crossed to the cabinet where all his media was kept.
Pulling out a book of old CDs, he found a particularly vile one from his frat house days. Loading it into the DVD player, he turned up the volume on the sound system as loud as he could, and cued up track 1.
As the song started, Chuck shouted along. “SHAKE THAT ASS, BITCH, AND LET ME SEE WHAT YOU GOT! JUST SHAKE THAT ASS, BITCH, AND LET ME SEE WHAT YOU GOT!”
In the surveillance room, Director Graham dropped his head to the desk in despair. “Would somebody, for God’s sake, please turn the volume down…”
It was just after ten p.m. in Maryland. General Beckman was happy to be back at Fort Meade after the last few days.
She had turned the facility over to Director Graham and flown back to Andrews earlier that afternoon. She had other things to attend to with the NSA and couldn’t be concentrating on the Bartowski thing all the time.
Her car was waiting for her outside the main doors of the NSA facility. She got in the back seat, said simply, “Home,” and leaned back, closing her eyes.
Close to an hour later, she awoke, and realized she was nowhere near her home. “What the hell?” she asked, a note of panic rising in her voice. “Pull over!” she ordered the driver.
The driver pulled over. “Where the hell are we?”
“We’re in Patuxent River Park, ma’am,” the driver replied.
“What the hell are we doing here?!”
“Well, you see,” the driver said, turning around, “my name is Dr. Eleanor Fae Bartowski. I believe you may have kidnapped my brother.”
She turned on the dome light and General Beckman could see that yes, indeed, it was Ellie Bartowski.
Her eyes went wide, and she tried to think of something to say. “You… you… you know, kidnapping a cabinet level official is a federal crime, Dr. Bartowski.”
“As was kidnapping my brother,” Ellie replied, a hard note in her voice. “A kidnapping is a kidnapping.”
“He’s a government asset, we’re sequestering him.”
“I live in the Ninth Circuit, General Beckman. There are very liberal judges there who would see things very differently from you.”
“So what exactly do you plan to do with me, Dr. Bartowski? Are you going to kill me?”
“No way,” Ellie said. “But my friends might have something else to say.”
With that, the left rear door and the right front door of the car opened. Sarah Walker got in the backseat with General Beckman, and John Casey got in the right front seat.
General Beckman’s face hardened. “You two are finished,” she spat.
“I doubt that seriously,” Sarah replied.
Casey didn’t say anything to Beckman, just looked at Ellie and said, “Drive.”
Ellie put the car in gear and started heading south again.
“Why do you doubt that you’re finished, Agent Walker?”
“Because it’s an election year, ma’am. If anything about this were to get out, it would be a disaster for the NSA. Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, Senator McCain – they would ALL disown the NSA. You’re already a radioactive agency after everything you’ve done for President Bush, and if anybody were to be finished, it would be you.”
“Watch it with the Bush-bashing,” Casey growled from the front seat.
“Sorry. But still, the point is, you’re not going to do a damn thing to us, General. You can’t afford to.”
General Beckman nodded. “Alright. Let’s say that I conceded that point. I’m not saying that I will, just speaking theoretically here. What makes you think I would tell you the location of the Intersect?”
Ellie Bartowski slammed on the brakes so hard that General Beckman flew forward, her head slamming into the back of Casey’s seat before her seatbelt stopped her. Ellie whirled round to look at General Beckman.
“His name is Charles Irving Bartowski. You can call him ‘Chuck’. If you call him anything else, then so help me, you will be walking back to Fort Meade.”
General Beckman held a hand to her forehead. Ellie continued down the road.
It was almost 8:30 PM, and Bartowski was still going strong. He had spent most of the day either playing Guitar Hero or blasting vile rap tunes. It was driving Director Graham crazy.
Now he was watching New Jack City. Graham had finally had it. He turned on his feed, overriding the movie.
“Aw, come on!” Chuck whined as Graham’s image appeared on the screen.
“Are you trying to bait me?” Graham growled at Chuck.
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Chuck replied innocently.
“Really,” Graham replied. His mouth tightened, and his eyes widened. “Well let me tell you something, Bartowski. You want to keep playin’ that rap shit, you want to watch that movie, you want me to turn into a real street nigga, I will COME DOWN THERE AND BUST A CAP IN YO CRACKA ASS!”
If he was trying to intimidate Chuck, he had failed. Chuck simply smiled and nodded. “Ah, you cracked so much more easily than General Beckman.”
Graham couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’ve been doing this intentionally, you little shit?!”
“You’re goddamn right I have, you self-righteous, holier-than-thou son of a bitch! I don’t appreciate being kidnapped and caged like an animal one goddamn bit, and I don’t care if it IS for national security! So you had BETTER believe that I’m going to go out of my way to make your life an unholy HELL as long as I’m in here!”
And with that, he gave Graham the finger and turned off the TV.
General Beckman had a headache. She also had a general sense of unease that had grown as Ellie Bartowski had driven deep into Virginia.
Neither Walker nor Casey had said a word since Ellie’s last outburst. That bothered Beckman almost as much as not knowing where she was.
Finally, the car rolled to a stop. “I’ll handle this,” Casey said to Ellie and Sarah. “There’s no reason for you to have to witness this.”
He got out of the car, and pulled General Beckman’s door open. He roughly pulled her from the car, and guided her toward a farmhouse about fifty yards away. There was one light, flickering in the kitchen.
Casey opened the screen door, and was greeted with a shotgun to the face. “It’s just me, Abraham,” Casey said.
“John! How’sh it been?”
Beckman got a glimpse of the man with the shotgun in the guttering lamp light, and what she saw petrified her. It was a true hillbilly, probably in his seventies. He was missing most of his teeth, and his hair and eyes were wilder than anything she’d ever seen.
“I’ve got something for you, Abraham,” Casey replied, indicating Beckman.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my God,” she gasped.
“Oooh, she shore do have a purdy mouf,” Abraham said, a two-toothed grin appearing.
Beckman’s breath left her body for a moment, but she somehow regained it as Abraham approached.
“Moab,” she gasped.
“Excuse me?” Casey replied.
“Moab. He’s in Moab, Utah. There’s a facility there, just south of town, at Mill Creek Drive, and Murphy Lane.”
“Thank you, General.”
He re-opened the screen door, but before he walked out, he handed a bundle of cash to Abraham. “Sorry I can’t leave her with you, but that should tide you over for a while.”
“Thank you kindly, Johnny!”
Casey walked Beckman back to the car. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
She was practically catatonic as he opened her door. He had to encourage her to buckle her seatbelt, and then got in his own seat. Ellie and Sarah both just looked at him.
Finally, Sarah spoke. “What happened?”
“Not a damn thing,” Casey replied. “All he had to do was say she had a pretty mouth, and she spilled the beans. Moab, Utah’s where we need to go. Pretty sad for the director of a high-secrecy government agency, if you ask me.”
Beckman turned slowly to stare at Casey. “Damn you, John,” she whispered. “Damn you to hell.”
