Chuck versus The Last Wish

Chapter 30 – Indiana Bartowski & Sarah Croft

The dark blue van rolled silently to a stop along the perimeter of Montparnasse Cemetery. Casey cut the ignition, plunging the cabin into stillness.

Outside, the night air was crisp and damp, heavy with the lingering scent of last night’s rain rising from the ancient cobblestones. Somewhere off in the distance, a police siren wailed briefly before fading into silence.

Gertrude racked the slide of her pistol with a practiced movement. Beside her, Sarah gave her earpiece a quick adjustment, while Chuck hovered over the illuminated screen of his tablet, giving the route map one final glance.

“We go on foot from here,” Chuck murmured.

Morgan looked around at the dark alleyways. “Okay… and where’s the entrance to the catacombs?”

Chuck offered a quiet, nervous smile. “We’re not using the official entrance.”

Morgan nodded in resignation. “Of course. Stupid question.”

They set off down the narrow street, the amber glow of old gas-style streetlamps stretching long, skeletal shadows across the pavement. Most of the windows overhead were black, save for a few upper-story apartments spilling soft light onto the damp stones below.

A few minutes later, they came to a stop before an ancient stone church. Its gothic facade was shrouded in deep shadow, the moonlight catching only the weathered faces of gargoyles carved into the stone. The stained-glass windows were entirely dark, staring back like hollow eyes.

Morgan stopped in his tracks, staring up at the structure, then turned slowly toward Chuck. “Wait…”

Chuck blinked, affecting his best innocent expression. “Yes?”

Morgan pointed an accusing finger at the church facade. “You’re not… you’re not saying we’re breaking into a church, are you?”

Chuck cleared his throat delicately. “Technically speaking…”

“Chuck!”

“…we’re just passing through it!”

Morgan stared at him in utter disbelief. “That doesn’t sound any worse!”

Casey brushed past them without breaking stride or changing his stoic expression. “Side crypt.”

Morgan turned to watch him walk ahead. “That actually made me feel a little better.”

Gertrude smiled faintly, her eyes scanning the shadows. “In the eighteenth century, priests used this exact passage to transport human remains down into the catacombs.”

Morgan blinked rapidly. “Somehow, that made it sound infinitely less like a tourist attraction.”

Sarah nudged Chuck’s elbow gently. “Tell him.”

Chuck let out a soft sigh. “Morgan…”

“Yes?”

“We’re not breaking in.”

Morgan let out a massive breath of relief. “Thank God.”

Chuck slipped a small leather roll of lock-picking tools from his jacket pocket. “Because the door has been locked for over a hundred years.”

Morgan squeezed his eyes shut. “I knew it. I knew there’d be a catch.”

Casey was already kneeling at the heavy iron door of the side entrance, examining the rusted mechanism. “Bartowski.”

Chuck stepped up beside him. With two delicate, practiced clicks of his tension wrench, the ancient lock yielded. The heavy iron door groaned open on reluctant hinges, unsealing a pocket of cold, subterranean air.

The sharp odor of damp limestone, wet earth, and centuries of undisturbed dust hit them immediately. Beyond the doorway, a narrow stone staircase plunged down into absolute darkness.

Morgan peered down into the abyss, then looked back at Chuck. “You know…”

“What?”

“This is the absolute first time in my life I’ve ever missed the Buy More.”

Chuck chuckled quietly. “Relax. The only way from here is down.”

Morgan let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Now that is a sentence a spy should never be allowed to say without severe consequences.”

Sarah offered a reassuring smile as she stepped past him. “Come on.”

“If any skeleton down there smiles at me…” Morgan warned.

Chuck patted his shoulder gently. “They haven’t smiled in a very long time.”

Morgan froze. “Chuck!”

Grinning, Chuck turned and started down the stone steps into the dark.

Shaking her head, Sarah fell into step right behind him. “Sometimes you really are just like Morgan.”

Chuck glanced over his shoulder. “Was that a compliment?”

Sarah offered half a smile in the dim light. “Maybe.”

And one by one, they descended into the quiet blackness of the catacombs.

XXXXXXXXXXX

The low ceiling arched overhead, its soot-blackened stone pressing down until the damp air turned heavy with clay, wet limestone, and ancient mold. Somewhere in the surrounding blackness, water dripped in a slow, relentless cadence that struck the stone—and the back of Chuck's neck—like ice.

Ahead, a narrow threshold opened in the far wall, its worn stone steps dropping into pitch black.

Sarah and Casey moved first. The sharp beams of their flashlights sliced through the dark, sweeping across slick masonry before swallowing themselves in the gloom. Step by step, the descent forced the temperature down. The air grew perceptibly thicker, as if the subterranean earth were exhaling directly into Chuck's lungs.

At the bottom, carved stone gave way to hard-packed clay reinforced by ancient oak timbers, black and splitting under centuries of pressure, their cracks threaded with pale mineral veins. Sarcophagi loomed out of the shadows—heavy lids shifted half-open, buried under undisturbed dust. Wall niches held skeletons in quiet repose, bone-white frames frozen in time. A stray flashlight beam caught the hollow sockets of a skull for a fraction of a second before plunging it back into the dark.

A heavy breath warm at his ear—Morgan. “I really hope this place doesn’t collapse on us…”

“Stay together. Nobody falls behind.” Casey’s gravelly rasp bounced off the clay walls, returning as a hollow echo.

The damp air had already curled the corners of the layout map in Sarah’s hands. Chuck adjusted his headlamp, his light focusing on the blue lines as he leaned over her shoulder. “If this overlay is accurate, we’re still roughly four hundred meters out.”

Casey’s beam swept the low ceiling, checking structural timber before pointing down a side passage. “Move.”

Boots crushed loose gravel, then deadened against deep, ancient dust. The metallic tang of wet limestone clung to the back of Chuck's tongue. Drops of icy water struck his shoulders as the tunnel wound in tight, serpentine turns, expanding briefly before pinching down again. Flashlights could cut through only a few yards of the oppressive dark at a time.

Then the main shaft split into three distinct passages.

Sarah halted at the center of the fork, her beam scanning the map, the rock face, and back again. “Something’s wrong here.”

Gertrude stepped up beside her. “What do you see?”

Sarah’s light traced old chisel marks and faint, faded traces of red chalk on the wall. “The blueprint marks this as a four-way junction.”

“And?”

“There are only three passages here.”

Morgan shifted nervously. “Maybe someone stole one?”

“Or it caved in,” Casey grunted.

Chuck stepped past them toward the blank right wall—

A white-hot spike shot through his temples. Neural pathways erupted into a blinding glare of high-voltage data. French text burned across his retinas—1887 Paris Quarry Ledgers, hand-drawn surveyor grids, cross-hatched mining schematics, and a jagged red X stamped across a sealed subterranean shaft. The shock rattled through his jaw, leaving his teeth buzzing and his head spinning as the phantom blueprints collapsed back into the dark stone.

His pulse hammered against his ribs. The solid rock was right in front of his face.

“It’s right here.”

Morgan squinted at the solid masonry. “Chuck, there’s literally nothing there.”

Chuck closed the distance, pressing his bare fingers against the cold, wet limestone. Moisture seeped into the creases of his knuckles. He raised his fist and tapped the rock face.

Dull.

Dull.

He shifted three inches left and struck again.

Thump. A hollow, echoing cavity vibrated straight up the bones of his forearm.

Casey slid a gloved palm over the tight mortar joints. “Bricked up after the fact.”

“Likely during the late nineteenth century,” Gertrude added. “Large sections of the catacombs were walled off to stabilize structural collapses beneath the city.”

Morgan let out a long, heavy exhale. “Fantastic. We’re officially lost in a place that people deliberately sealed off.”

Sarah offered a faint, tactical smile. “At least it means we’re on the right track.”

“How can a sentence be entirely reassuring and completely terrifying at the same time?”

Casey was already pulling a short crowbar from his pack. “This way.”

Beyond the breached masonry, the passage pinched down brutally. The ceiling dipped until Chuck was forced onto hands and knees, crawling through a claustrophobic squeeze where gnarled tree roots poked through the rock, dripping cool water down his neck. The air ran thin and hot in his lungs.

Then the tunnel opened up into a vast, cavernous void.

Flashlight beams caught hundreds of human skulls at once—stacked in meticulous, orderly rows, with femurs and shoulder blades artfully arranged behind them in intricate geometric patterns. Thousands of empty eye sockets stared out from the shadows, emerging from the dark with every movement of the light.

Morgan froze dead in his tracks, his beam shaking as it swept wall after wall of bones.

“Okay…” he whispered, his voice trembling against the cold stone. “I officially hate this place now.”

XXXXXXXXXXX

“Left here,” Chuck said, gesturing toward a side shaft.

They turned into the narrow corridor, and after only a few yards, the ancient limestone came to an abrupt, striking end.

It was as if they had crossed a hidden, invisible threshold. The rough, hand-chiseled rock yielded to smooth, poured concrete. Massive steel I-beams braced the ceiling overhead, while beneath their boots, uneven dirt gave way to a level, man-made slab. Heavy, rusted cable clamps lined the walls at regular intervals, some still holding the porcelain insulators of a long-dead electrical grid. Even the air transformed—the musty scent of ancient earth evaporated, replaced by the sharp, metallic tang of cold oil, wet cement, and iron rust.

Morgan stopped in his tracks, staring at the abrupt change in architecture. “This… definitely isn’t the same place.”

Gertrude ran a gloved hand along the smooth concrete wall. “It isn’t. During the occupation, the Germans excavated miles of subterranean bunkers and supply shafts, linking them directly into the catacombs. Later, several sectors were reclaimed by the French Resistance.”

Casey swept his flashlight down the straight corridor, his eyes evaluating the tactical reinforcement. “Military construction.”

At the far end of the hallway, a massive, riveted steel door blocked their path. Its original paint had long since flaked away, leaving a heavy crust of reddish-brown rust along the edges. Set into the center was a star-shaped locking wheel, beneath a faded stencil barely legible against the metal: B–13.

Sarah knelt before the lock without a word. She slipped a narrow leather roll from inside her jacket, her headlamp catching the faint glint of slim steel picks.

Chuck instinctively posted up near the junction to watch their rear, while Casey and Gertrude covered opposite ends of the corridor with practiced focus.

Only Morgan leaned in closer, watching Sarah work. “You didn’t learn this off YouTube, did you?”

Sarah didn’t even look up. “No.”

The slender pick slipped into the keyway. A soft, precise click echoed through the corridor, followed instantly by another. Sarah applied steady pressure to her tension wrench.

The heavy internal tumblers disengaged with a deep, metallic clunk.

“Done,” she murmured.

Morgan shook his head slowly. “Someday, just once, I’d love to hear someone on this team say, ‘You know what? This is way too complicated. Let’s go home.’”

Casey stepped forward and gripped the cold iron wheel. The door resisted at first, bound by decades of rust, but Casey set his boots and threw his full weight into the frame.

With a loud screech of protesting hinges, the heavy steel door swung reluctantly outward.

A sudden gust of icy, stagnant air rushed out to meet them. Beyond the threshold lay a long, straight military gallery. Heavy conduit cables ran along the walls like withered vines, while the shattered metal housings of vintage emergency lamps hung from the ceiling. Embedded in the concrete floor, narrow iron rails glinted under their flashlights—tracks once used to shuttle ammunition and heavy supply carts through the subterranean fortress.

The silence here felt different. It lacked the quiet, natural resonance of the catacombs. Instead, the air held an oppressive, heavy stillness—the artificial silence of an abandoned war machine, as though the concrete walls themselves still remembered the hundreds of people who had once worked inside them.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Everyone stopped.

A smooth, reinforced block wall stretched out in front of them, blocking the dark expanse of the bunker corridor. At first glance, it looked no different from any of the other modern subterranean barriers they had passed, but Chuck looked down at the map on his tablet, then checked the flashing GPS coordinates.

“We’re here.”

Sarah stepped up beside him, shining the narrow beam of her flashlight against the cold surface. The rough impressions left by the wooden formwork were still visible in the concrete, with small, spiderweb cracks running across it here and there. Beneath the low ceiling, the rusted conduits of old electrical wiring disappeared into the solid mass.

Gertrude pulled out a compact laser rangefinder, the tiny red dot pinning the wall. “The basement of the conference center is directly on the other side.”

Casey set down his heavy backpack onto the damp floor with a dull thud. “Two minutes.”

He reached into the bag and pulled out a heavy, battery-powered drill along with a long, thin masonry bit.

Morgan raised an eyebrow, shifting uncomfortably against his pack. “Please tell me that’s not going to be loud.”

“It will be,” Casey replied dryly. “But they can’t hear it upstairs.”

The drill came to life with a low, vibrating growl that vibrated through the soles of their boots. Casey carefully pressed the tip against the concrete. The drill bit ground down into fine powder, falling over his leather boots in a gray, cascading cloud. After a few agonizing seconds, the resistance gave way, and the drill suddenly pushed through much more easily.

“Through.”

He shut off the machine, the mechanical whine dying instantly into the quiet tunnel. Gertrude was already handing him the flexible fiber-optic camera probe. Casey carefully slid the lens into the pilot hole, which was only a few millimeters wide. The small handheld display immediately came to life, illuminating their faces in a pale blue glow as they all leaned closer to watch.

The camera slowly rotated, panning across the hidden space.

An empty storage room.

Poured concrete floor. Rows of metal folding chairs stacked neatly on wooden pallets. Rolled-up conference banners. Plastic storage crates stacked along the perimeter. A janitor’s cleaning cart stood parked against the far wall.

Sarah spoke quietly, her eyes tracking the screen. “Cameras?”

Casey continued slowly rotating the probe. “None.”

“Movement?”

“Clear.”

Chuck let out a long, relieved breath, the tension leaving his shoulders. “That’s it.”

Casey pulled out the camera and slid it back into its protective case. “Tomorrow, you two break through the wall from here.”

Morgan looked up from the monitor, blinking. “Explosives?”

Gertrude smiled faintly, her tone smooth and amused. “Too loud.”

Casey closed the drill case with a sharp snap. “Hammer. And chisel, Grimes.”

Morgan stared at him in utter disbelief. “Wait… what?”

“Yes.”

“But we’re spies…”

Casey shrugged without a trace of expression. “Starting tomorrow, you’re masons too.”

Chuck suppressed a smile, catching Sarah’s amused glance. “Relax, Morgan. We only have to open up one wall.”

Morgan looked back at the solid concrete, then at Casey’s unwavering face. “That’s what a buddy of mine said once… then he spent three weeks remodeling his bathroom.”

Chuck and Sarah smiled silently in the dim, cool air of the bunker.

XXXXXXXXXXX

The heavy bedroom door shut with a silent click under her palm, sealing out the rest of the suite. Daylight was hours away. Through the narrow split in the velvet curtains, a razor-thin beam of pale silver moonlight stretched across the floorboards, cutting cold against the edge of the mattress.

Chuck’s breathing was a steady, rhythmic rise and fall that anchored the quiet room.

She stood motionless at the edge of the bed, watching the soft profile of his face in the silver gloom.

The fog was still there—thick, suffocating, a blacked-out ledger where years of her own life ought to be. Whole missions, names, places, erased into an infuriating void. Yet staring at him now, the cold analytical edge of her CIA training simply dissolved. The missing pieces didn't matter in the dark. Her body remembered what her brain couldn't reconstruct. Her pulse, perpetually keyed for an incoming threat, slowed to match the cadence of his breath. The lingering tension in her jaw melted, replaced by an undeniable, magnetic pull toward the warmth beneath the blanket.

She slipped under the heavy covers. The chill of the hotel room burned off instantly against the heat of the bed. She eased closer, careful not to break his sleep, but the second her shoulder brushed his arm, his body reacted without waking. His arm slid across her waist, fingers curling against her back, pulling her flush against his chest in one fluid, habitual motion.

Sarah closed her eyes, letting out a long, silent breath against his collarbone.

Safety settled over her—absolute, sharp, and undeniable, cutting straight through the gray haze of her stolen past. She pressed her face into the warm crook of his neck, inhaling the familiar scent of his skin.

Near his ear, her whisper was barely a thread of air in the dark. “I love you, Chuck Bartowski…”

The looming weight of tomorrow waited outside the door, but anchored in his arms, the certainty was absolute.

“…and now I know what to do about it.”

She rested her forehead against his chest, right over the steady, heavy beat of his heart. Her eyes drifted shut, her breathing sinking effortlessly into the rhythm of his as sleep finally pulled her under.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Long before the first light of dawn touched the Parisian skyline, the subterranean chill was already soaking through matching gray coveralls. Heavy tactical packs weighed down Chuck's shoulders, the canvas bulging with chisels, hammers, and breaching tools. Pale limestone dust coated every seam.

Near the surface access point, Casey and Gertrude melted into the shadows of the church crypt.

“If anything goes wrong, let us know,” Casey said, jaw set like iron.

“And we’ll make sure there’s a surprise waiting for them upstairs,” Gertrude added smoothly.

“Copy that,” Sarah replied with a crisp nod.

Flashlight beams sliced through the damp subterranean quiet. Step by step, Chuck walked beside Sarah, a warm half-smile tugging at his lips despite the cold.

“You know…”

“What?”

“In this situation, you kind of remind me of Lara Croft.”

Sarah threw him a lingering side-eye. “Really?”

“Yeah. You’re Lara Croft.” He gestured broadly down at his dusty, oversized coveralls. “And I’m Indiana Jones.”

Behind them, Morgan let out an indignant snort. “And me?”

Chuck glanced back over his shoulder. “Allan Quatermain.”

Morgan furrowed his brow, his flashlight beam wobbling. “Who’s that?”

“The classic adventurer! Basically one of Indiana Jones’s great predecessors. You know… King Solomon’s Mines?”

Morgan processed the pop-culture hierarchy in silence for a beat. “So I’m the character nobody knows?”

Sarah smiled faintly into the gloom. “Chuck knows him.”

“That doesn’t improve my situation,” Morgan muttered.

“Relax. In adventure movies, the supporting character always survives the weirdest stuff.”

“Thank you… I think.”

Sarah shook her head, the warmth in her eyes breaking through her tactical composure. “You two really can talk about this anytime, can’t you?”

“Stress management,” Chuck offered.

“Scientifically proven,” Morgan agreed instantly.

Sarah turned forward, her voice dropping an octave into pure operational focus. “Then manage it quietly.”

Both hands flew up in silent surrender. “Yes, ma’am.”

In the concrete bunker corridor, a sharp vibration rattled against Chuck's hip. He pulled his phone out, caught the glowing screen—a spam notification claiming he now owned Acker Aerospace—and shoved it back into his pocket with a muted sigh.

“Even spam emails aren’t what they used to be. It says I own some company now.”

Morgan exhaled heavily. “Sure. And I’m the new owner of Star Wars.”

Conversation died. Nothing remained except the rhythmic thud of rubber boots on concrete and the distant, hollow dripping of water.

Chuck unslung his heavy pack, letting it drop to the dusty floor with a dull thud. “Let’s get started.”

Morgan pulled a steel chisel from his bag and gripped Casey’s hammer with both hands. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.”

“Quiet,” Sarah warned softly, pooling her flashlight beam on the target area.

Morgan set the hardened tip beside yesterday's pilot hole.

Tap.

The metallic strike detonated inside Chuck's ear canals like a starter pistol in a tiled room. Every nerve in his shoulders jumped. His eyes darted reflexively to the dark ceiling, then down the corridor behind them.

Nothing.

Morgan struck again.

Tap.

Chuck winced, his teeth grinding together. “I don’t know about you guys… but this sounds a lot louder in here.”

“Your nerves,” Sarah whispered with a faint, amused smile.

“Thanks. I feel much better now.”

With every deliberate blow, concrete splintered. Fine silica dust drifted into the air, coating his tongue and nostrils with a dry, chalky taste.

Morgan wiped a sweating forehead against his sleeve. “If anyone asks, I’m never complaining about the Buy More stockroom again.”

Another heavy blow shattered the surrounding mortar. The first block loosened. Chuck pulled on a thick work glove, jammed his fingers into the seam, and eased the concrete block free. Cold, filtered air rushed through the gap, carrying the faint scent of floor wax and paper.

Working fast, they cleared an opening wide enough to shoulder through.

Sarah slid cleanly through the breach first, her pistol already up, sweeping the room in a sharp, practiced arc.

Wooden pallets. Stacked folding chairs. Rolled vinyl banners. Crates. A janitor’s cart leaning against the wall.

“Clear.”

They scrambled through one by one, Morgan dragging the three black gear bags last with a winded grunt. “Finally. I’m done with the masonry profession.”

Sarah knelt, unzipping the bag with a smooth, fluid pull to reveal tailored clothes and polished shoes.

Chuck reached in, pulling out his jacket. “Fortunately, the shirt survived.”

He unzipped his coveralls, letting the dusty canvas fall to his boots. Underneath, his white dress shirt and trousers were intact. Morgan shed his outer layer just as quickly.

Beside them, Sarah unzipped her coveralls and peeled the heavy canvas down her arms, revealing a sleek black lace bra and matching undergarments.

Chuck’s pulse executed a sudden, violent spike. His throat went instantly, completely bone-dry, and his spine locked into a steel rod.

In perfect, synchronized instinct, both he and Morgan spun a hard hundred and eighty degrees, snapping their eyes directly toward the unfinished concrete wall two inches from their noses.

“You don’t have the dress underneath?” Chuck forced out toward a pitted grey cinderblock.

“It’s jersey fabric,” Sarah’s voice came from behind him—flat, practical, completely unbothered by the chilly basement air or her own underwear. “By the time we crawled all the way down here in it, it would have been completely wrinkled.”

Every pitted grain and air bubble in the concrete block suddenly demanded Chuck's absolute, undivided focus. A tiny speck of dried mortar became the most critical object in France.

“So, what are you guys doing?”

“Well…” Chuck traced a hairline fracture in the masonry with his eyes, jaw tight, praying his face wasn't burning as red as it felt.

Morgan awkwardly scratched the back of his neck, staring violently at a rusted overhead pipe. “Being polite?”

“I’m standing in solidarity with Morgan,” Chuck declared to the cinderblock.

Morgan gave a rigid thumbs-up into Chuck's peripheral vision. “Thanks, buddy.”

Behind them, the soft, crisp rustle of jersey fabric gave way to the quiet, fluid sound of zipper sliding up her side.

“Boys… I’m ready.”

Chuck turned back, and the air locked dead in his throat.

The dark-blue jersey fabric fit Sarah with seamless precision. The artfully twisted bodice framed her shoulders, while the high neckline gave her the lethal, sharp elegance of a high-level diplomat. Dark-framed glasses with micro-cameras sat on the bridge of her nose.

His heart thrashed hard against his ribs.

Behind him, Morgan started a low whistle that died instantly under Sarah's sharp gaze. Hands slammed over his mouth.

Sarah stepped close, crouching down in front of Chuck. The faint scent of her perfume cut straight through the dust as she carefully wiped a smudge of mortar off the toe of his dress shoe with a tissue.

She stood back up in one effortless, fluid motion. “Now we can go.”

Blood hammered in his temples. “Sure… I just forgot for a second that we’re in the middle of a secret mission.”