“What the hell happened here?!” Morgan asked.
“Uh, some folks who wanted to see Chuck and Sarah, shall we say, life-challenged, found themselves on the receiving end of a good, old-fashioned Wisconsin-style ass-whuppin’,” Casey replied.
Everybody’s eyes turned toward him. “What? I’m from Wisconsin,” he said. “So?”
“If this is the kind of ass-whooping you handed out in high school, I’m glad I didn’t know you then,” Chuck replied.
“All-state linebacker, three years running,” Casey replied. “Ohio State was interested, till I blew out – wait a second, what the hell, Bartowski? We need to get out of here, not talk about my high school days!”
He looked around. “Everybody’s cell phones. On the ground.”
Chuck and Sarah both stared at him. “No!” Chuck replied. “We both have iPhones!”
“Well, you go right ahead and keep it, then, Bartowski. The NSA will use your iPhone to iTrack you, and then iMake you iDead. But I’m not gonna tell you have to get rid of it.”
Chuck gritted his teeth, and then pulled his iPhone off his belt, tossing it on the ground. Sarah’s followed, and they were joined by Devin’s Blackberry, Ellie’s Chocolate, and Morgan’s Sidekick.
“Go ahead, Casey, shoot ‘em,” Chuck said. “Put us out of our misery.”
Casey looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m not gonna shoot the damn things,” he replied. “I’m gonna let the NSA track them all to this spot right here!”
He dialed a number on his phone. “Robert,” he said a moment later, “I’m gonna need six clean phones. Nothing on them, no credit history, not a thing.”
He paused for a moment, and then practically exploded. “Fifteen hundred dollars?! You work in Bellflower, Robert, not Beverly Hills!” He paused again. “No. A thousand, or I tell ICE to ship your ass back to Armenia.” Another pause. “Alright. I can do twelve hundred. Meet me at the usual place, one hour.”
Casey put his phone back in his pocket. “Hey!” Morgan shouted. “How come you’re not getting rid of your phone?”
“Oh, I will,” Casey replied, “but I’m expecting one more call before I get rid of it.”
He turned to Chuck and Sarah. “Chuck, you and Devin get Lisa and John and their carseats loaded into the backseat of the Machine. Ellie, get Katie back there as well. Sarah, I need you to
go inside, get the diaper bags for your munchkins, and show me where your armory is. Go, people, now!”
Morgan’s Mystery Machine was, luckily, a 1999 GMC Savana conversion van. Originally a fifteen passenger, he had left a three passenger bench seat in the back and put two rows of captain’s chairs in front of that, facing a card table. It could seat nine, which between the adults and the babies, was exactly how many people it needed to fit right now.
“Thank God you have this thing, Morgan,” Chuck said, as Casey and Sarah came out of the house. They were an incongruous picture – Casey with an armload of heavy weaponry, Sarah with ammo belts and two diaper bags draped from her shoulders.
Chuck couldn’t help it. He started to laugh, and reached for his iPhone to take a picture – “Goddammit,” he muttered, as he realized it wasn’t on his belt. He looked longingly at it, lying ten feet away on the lawn, but resisted the urge.
Casey and Sarah finished loading the armament into the back end of the Mystery Machine and slammed the doors shut. “Let’s go, people!” Casey called out. He climbed up into the driver’s seat, much to the dismay of Morgan, who ran around to ride shotgun – only to find Sarah climbing into that seat.
Grumbling about how a man should be allowed to at least ride in the front seat of his own van, he climbed up into the passenger cabin and slumped at the table with Chuck, Devin, and Ellie. As soon as Morgan was seated, Casey put the van into drive and rocketed away from the curb. As he turned left onto Valleyheart Drive, his phone rang.
“Casey, secure,” he said, answering it.
“Colonel Casey, this is General Beckman,” he heard. “Have Bartowski and Walker been taken care of?”
“Ah, that would be a negative, General,” he replied. “However, I was successful at neutralizing the strike team you sent as my backup.”
Beckman was quiet for a moment. “Excuse me, Colonel Casey? I’m quite certain I issued you an order.”
“Yes, well, General Beckman, that’s all well and good, except I don’t take orders from TRAITORS!”
He barked the word so loudly into his phone that Sarah jumped, and the three babies all started crying. “You hear that, General Beckman?” Casey yelled at the phone. “That’s the sound of kids who would’ve been orphans if I’d followed your orders! Two of them are my godchildren, for Christ’s sake, and your precious fucking Fulcrum wanted to eliminate their parents!”
“John,” Beckman said, her voice low, “there are things at work here that you don’t understand.”
“Don’t you dare ‘John’ me,” Casey replied, his voice sounding very dangerous. “The only thing I don’t understand is how a highly decorated Air Force intelligence officer could commit treason on such a grand scale.”
“John, Fulcrum is not the enemy.”
“Whatever makes you sleep at night, General. Now, can you do me a favor?”
“What’s that, John?”
“Find someplace quiet, where you’ll have privacy and won’t be disturbed, and go fuck yourself.”
And with that, he pressed the “End” button on his phone. “Roll down your window, Walker,” he said.
Confused, Sarah rolled the window down. With a perfect sidearm pitch, Casey hurled the phone out the window, where it bounced off the fence on the side of the road and clattered down into the Los Angeles River.
Casey hung a hard right onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard, and then rocketed down Ventura Place, screeching to a stop when it ended at Ventura Boulevard. “Shit,” he laughed. “I could really use a phone right now.”
“Uh, I’ve got like an old Virgin Mobile prepaid one in the glovebox,” Morgan said. “I don’t know if it even has minutes anymore.”
Casey’s eyes widened. “Doesn’t matter. As long as it turns on, I can still use it to make an emergency call.”
The light turned green, and Casey took a left out onto Ventura Boulevard, heading for the 101.
Sarah opened up the glovebox and dug out the phone, handing it to Casey. Casey hit the power button, and the old phone powered up. “Only one bar of battery, but that should suffice,” Casey muttered, dialing 9-1-1.
“Nine-one-one emergency response, what is the nature of your emergency?”
“This is Lieutenant Colonel John Casey, National Security Agency, authorization code one-four-seven-delta-four-two-eight. I need to speak with Captain Mark Charles, LAPD, immediately.”
“Hold, please.”
There was one ring, then a second, and then the phone was answered. “Captain Charles.”
“Mark, it’s John Casey.”
“John, what the hell is going on? Why did 911 just transfer your call to me?”
“I can’t explain right now, Mark. Just suffice it to say, it’s a matter of national security.”
He could hear the LAPD captain sigh on the other end. “Alright, Casey, what do you need?”
“I need you to inform all units, all agencies that a 1999 GMC Savana conversion van, black in color, California license plate five Papa Alpha Uniform zero three four, is being operated by the federal government, that this is a matter of national security and units should under no circumstances approach the van.”
Charles sighed again. “You’re driving that van, aren’t you, John?”
“The fun never stops!”
“Alright. You got it. Just, for God’s sake, don’t tear my city up too bad.”
“I’ll do my best, Mark. Thanks.”
Casey disconnected, rolled down the window, and tossed the phone out the window as he turned onto the southbound 101. “Didn’t you just bust that out because you really needed a phone?” Morgan asked, incredulous.
“Yeah, but if LAPD decides to trace the call, then the NSA can track the phone,” Casey replied. “If they do that, they’ll just find it lying in the bushes by the Campo de Cahuenga, and then won’t they look stupid.”
“You’re having fun with all of this, aren’t you, Casey?” Chuck asked.
“You have no idea, Bartowski.”
Fifty minutes later, Casey took a right turn off of Firestone Boulevard into the Stonewood Shopping Center. Heading down the entrance road toward Macy’s, he took a left, and flew across the parking lot, bringing the van to a quick halt in front of the Macy’s Home Store.
An Armenian man stood outside the store, waiting for him. Casey jumped out of the van and walked over to him. He spoke to him for a moment, and then the man handed him a bag. Casey pulled out his wallet, withdrew twelve one-hundred dollar bills, and handed them to him. The man shook Casey’s hand, and then walked inside the mall.
Casey jumped back in the van, and handed the bag to Sarah. “Six cell phones. They’re all clean, untraceable. Subscriptions are paid up through the end of March.”
He turned around and looked at Chuck and Morgan. “No special features. Just phones. Don’t bitch, or I’ll take them back.”
Sarah reached in the bag, pulling out six identical LG 200C phones. They had stickers on them, telling what the phone number was. “They’re all 562 area code phones,” Sarah warned. “You’re going to need to remember that, because I know we’re all used to either 818 or 323.”
Casey pulled back out of the mall and turned left onto Firestone Boulevard, heading southeast , back in the direction of the 605 freeway – where they had just come from – and beyond, to the 5 freeway. When he stopped at the light at Pioneer Boulevard, though, there was trouble.
A group of men wearing white t-shirts and black Dickies stood on the corner. All had green bandanas hanging from their right rear pockets. Two of them pointed at the van, and then started to walk toward it.
“Oh, fuck,” Casey muttered, as a low riding truck pulled up behind the Machine, and another stopped on Pioneer – directly in front of the van. The two approaching the van walked up to the window, and knocked on it.
“Hey, baby, you’re a little ways from home, eh?” one of them said to Sarah, more than loud enough to be heard from the window.
“Maybe you’d like to back away from this van,” Sarah said, just loud enough for them to hear.
“Maybe I would,” he replied, nodding. “And maybe you’d like to take a good suck on my dick. Ooh, look at those lips – I bet you suck a GOOD dick, baby.”
In the back, Chuck had a white knuckle grip on the edge of the table. A vein was starting to stand out on his forehead, and when the gang member made that last remark, he started to stand up.
Casey turned his head slightly. “Bartowski, sit DOWN!” he hissed.
Chuck sat. Directly in front of him, Sarah’s left hand was creeping down toward the space between the two front seats – to where Casey’s Saiga-12 shotgun sat.
“Come on, baby,” the guy outside the window was still calling in a mocking tone. “I bet you could take us two, maybe even three at a time? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
And with that, Sarah Walker Bartowski, once the best deep-cover operative in the Central Intelligence Agency, had had enough. She flung the shotgun door of the van open, smashing the punk in the face. He went down, and she landed on her feet outside the van. The Saiga-12 came up, aimed at the windshield of a low-riding Impala parked on the corner.
The shotgun roared, and the windshield of the Impala ceased to be. “Here we go,” Casey muttered. He reached between the seats and came up with a fully automatic AK-47. He jumped out of the van too.
Twenty men in similar dress had gathered in a circle around the van, and all had guns out – mostly crappy Friday night specials. Despite the fact that they outgunned Sarah and Casey ten to one, they seemed to be hesitating based on the two agents’ superior weaponry.
“ALRIGHT!” Casey shouted. “Listen up! I’m havin’ a bad day already, and quite frankly, killing Firestone Boulevard Slayers wasn’t on my list of things to do today, but I’m willing to add it!”
“We’re federal agents!” Sarah yelled from the other side of the van. “If you don’t move that truck out from in front of this van right now and stand down, I’m gonna add killing Firestone Boulevard Slayers to my list of things to do as well!”
Nobody moved. They just continued to stare at the two agents. “Fine,” Sarah said, aiming her shotgun at the Impala and firing again. The grill disintegrated, and the hood blew open.
“I’m gonna ask again ONE MORE TIME!” she shouted, clearly mad as hell. “Either that truck moves, or I start firing this thing at people instead of cars!”
The man whose face she had smashed with her door finally picked himself up off of the pavement. He glared at Sarah, rage in his eyes. But he didn’t say anything. He just looked at the driver of the pickup, and made a whirling motion with his finger.
The truck pulled away, and Casey and Sarah jumped back in the van. Casey put it in gear and sped off before Sarah even had her door shut.
It wasn’t until they were on the 5 freeway, headed south, that anybody spoke.
“Uh… where are we going?” asked Ellie.
“San Diego,” Casey replied. “I’ve got a safe house down there.”
Devin frowned. “I seem to remember your safe house being in Compton.”
“I’ve got a couple,” Casey said. “I figured you’d prefer the one in La Jolla, since you might be there a few days. Also, Morgan?”
Morgan looked up. “Yeah?”
“Hate to break this to you, but you’re gonna have to get this van repainted. Probably want to get new plates, too. It’s a target for a vicious street gang now.”
“Aw, man!” Morgan complained.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll pay for it,” Chuck assured him.
“That’s not the point, Chuck, I like the Mystery Machine!”
“Fine,” Casey grumbled. “Leave it. Get dead. What do I care?”
Sarah turned around. “Morgan, he’s right. It’s for your own good.”
Morgan leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms, and began to pout. “Whatever.”
Chuck looked at Sarah. “Hey, babe, can I tell you something?”
“What’s that?”
“You are incredibly hot when you’ve got a shotgun in your hands and you’re threatening gang members with it.”
Sarah smiled, and then looked offended. “So I’m not incredibly hot all the time?”
“No, you are,” Chuck assured her, “but even more so just now.”
The smile returned to her face. Chuck leaned toward her, and kissed her quickly.
Casey groaned. “God save me from married couples.”
Ellie said something under her breath that nobody quite caught but which sounded remarkably like “pot and kettle” to Chuck. “What?” he asked his sister.
“I said, talk about the pot and the kettle,” she replied.
Every set of eyes in the van was suddenly on Ellie – except for Casey’s. He was suddenly finding the tail end of the car in front of him quite interesting.
“After poker night,” Ellie said, a mischievous smile on her face, “Maya McCarthy didn’t leave Johnny Boy’s apartment right away. In fact, she didn’t leave until almost noon on Valentine’s Day!”
Sarah’s eyebrows went up, and an astonished smile pasted itself on her face. “And exactly what was THAT all about, Casey?” she asked.
“We were talking,” he grumbled.
“Oh, is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Chuck cracked. Morgan chuckled, and held out a palm under the table for a low five. Chuck brought his hand down on it.
Casey sat in the front seat and stewed. “We’re on the run from the NSA, and we just escaped a confrontation with the Firestone Boulevard Slayers… and all you can think about is my love life?”
“Oh, come on, Casey!” Chuck protested. “Yours is so lacking that it’s novel for anything to actually happen!”
Casey gripped the steering wheel with one hand, and pressed the other to his forehead, his thumb and ring finger massaging his temples. “With friends like you people, who NEEDS the NSA?”
Author's note: the license plate of the Mystery Machine is not one of those made-up studio plates, like you see all the time in movies. It's actually a real California license plate! However, fear not, it is not the license plate of some unsuspecting Californian driving around Los Angeles right now. I know this, because it's nailed to the wall of my garage, in Phoenix!
