Chuck versus The Last Wish

Chapter 11 – Alice in Wonderland

That day, Sarah was wearing a light, knee-length summer dress with a floral pattern. The orange and blue flowers against the pale background gave her an almost stereotypically touristy, everyday appearance. A small, rust-brown leather bag hung from her shoulder, just large enough to hold her phone, wallet, and a few other essentials. She had tied her hair into a loose bun, with a few lighter strands falling freely around her face. The dark-framed glasses both concealed her eyes and made her look completely ordinary. No one in the crowd gave her a second glance.

With an effortless motion, she adjusted her glasses before stepping through the glass doors of Anka Logistics. Sunlight glinted off the lenses for a moment. She didn’t stop immediately at the reception desk. Instead, she let the employees coming in carry her along for a few steps. As she moved, her eyes almost imperceptibly swept over the security cameras, access gates, and the pictograms lined up above the elevators.

The air-conditioned lobby suddenly swallowed the sounds of summer in Istanbul. Her footsteps echoed softly against the marble floor. Behind the reception desk, elegant dark wood paneling stretched across the wall, with two employees working silently behind it, as if they were in a hotel lobby rather than the headquarters of a logistics company.

The tiny camera in her glasses was recording continuously.“Perfect picture,” Chuck’s voice hummed through her earpiece. “Everything’s clear.” Sarah casually surveyed the space: a glass-walled conference room to the left, a waiting area to the right, and three elevators further ahead. Two served the main lobby, but the third sat secluded at the end of a narrow corridor behind a separate access gate—devoid of floor indicators, call lights, or chimes. From the safehouse balcony, Morgan watched through high-powered optics as delivery trucks cycled through the loading yard outside. “From here, it looks totally normal,” he muttered, “though that hidden elevator isn't exactly guest-friendly.”

Sarah sauntered toward the corridor, playing the part of a confused visitor. In the apartment, Chuck cross-referenced her live feed against municipal building permits, fire safety plans, and utility blueprints. “That’s strange,” Chuck muttered, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “According to the official plans, that corridor ends in a solid wall. The elevator doesn't exist.” Suddenly, two men in sharp suits stepped out of the restricted lift using dark-gray keycards. As the gate clicked, a towering security guard stepped into Sarah's path. “Excuse me, ma’am,” his deep voice boomed—so close that Chuck flinched. Staring at the monitor, Chuck’s heart hammered. “Sarah… that’s enough. Pull back.”

Sarah offered the guard a disarming, cheerful smile. “I’m so sorry—could you point me toward the restroom?” The guard nodded toward the main lobby, his eyes briefly flicking to the restricted gate. “It’s in the other direction.” Sarah thanked him warmly and strolled back at an unhurried pace. She washed her hands in the restroom, checked the mirror for tails, and walked back out into the Istanbul sun. “I’m out,” she whispered into her collar as a black SUV across the street softly idled in her peripheral vision.

Back in the apartment, Chuck finally exhaled, leaning back from his monitors. The architectural schematics remained spread across his screen—all showing a blank wall where the shaft clearly sat. They had their first major lead: finding out where an elevator that officially didn't exist actually went.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Sarah maintained her steady, unhurried tourist stride down the sidewalk. “I’m out,” she murmured into her comm.

“Don’t come straight back,” Chuck cautioned in her ear.

“I know.” Veering away from the safehouse neighborhood, she paused briefly by a street clarinetist, using a shop window reflection to check her tail before cutting through a park where elderly men played backgammon beneath grapevine arbors.

She lingered in front of a carpet display, using the glass to track the flow of pedestrians behind her—a young couple, a courier on a scooter, nothing out of place. Two blocks later, she executed a sudden direction shift, doubling back onto the avenue she’d just left.

From his perch on the safehouse balcony, Morgan lowered his optics. “The Coast is clear. If anyone’s on you, they’re doing it invisible-level professional.”

Sarah offered a quiet, noncommittal hum into her mic.

To complete her dry-cleaning route, she took a table at a small sidewalk tea shop. She sipped slowly from a slender glass, tapping her spoon softly against the rim while her eyes methodically mapped both ends of the street through the rising steam. Satisfied that no one was lingering or matching her movements, she dropped cash on the table, thanked the shopkeeper, and finally made her way back to the apartment.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Sarah reached the apartment building. Two rooftops away, a professional lens quietly and almost imperceptibly zoomed in on her. The camera’s shutter discreetly clicked as it captured dozens of photographs of her.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Chuck didn’t truly relax until the lock clicked softly and Sarah stepped through the door.

“Everything okay?”

Sarah nodded. “No one followed me.”

Morgan locked the door behind her and walked over to the temporary operations table set up in the middle of the living room.

On the main monitor, Chuck immediately rewound the feed from Sarah’s glasses. They went through the lobby footage again, Chuck replaying the same few minutes over and over—searching for a reflection, a shadow, or a door left ajar.

On the second viewing, the crucial detail jumped out.

One of the suited men hadn’t used an access card. The elevator doors had opened while he was still two steps away. Chuck froze the image and advanced it frame by frame. The man’s hands remained at his sides the entire time, reaching for neither a card nor a keypad.

“Facial recognition?” Morgan asked.

“Or some kind of passive RFID system,” Chuck said. “The camera didn’t capture enough detail.”

Chuck opened split windows across the screen—building permits, utility plans, fire-safety documentation, and satellite imagery—comparing them side by side. The crease in his forehead deepened. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the monitor as if waiting for the anomaly to make sense.

“The elevator doesn’t officially exist.”

Sarah stepped up behind him, her hand settling instinctively on his shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“I went through three different sets of blueprints. They all show the exact same thing—a solid wall at the end of that hallway.”

“Then someone remodeled it,” Morgan said, leaning closer.

“No,” Chuck shook his head. “This is much more thorough than that. There isn’t even a record of a renovation in the government databases.”

A heavy silence settled over the room as Sarah stared at the frozen image of the hidden lift.

“Whatever is up there…”

“…they really don’t want anyone to see it,” Chuck finished.

Their eyes met. Chuck closed his eyes for a second, running through every remaining remote option—satellite feeds, network intrusion—and coming up empty.

“We have to go in.”

Neither of them believed they could solve this from behind a keyboard anymore. Chuck closed the blueprints and opened the building’s documented security layout—mapping cameras, night patrols, alarms, and emergency exits until the monitors were covered in colored routes.

“If we go in, we only get one shot,” he said quietly.

Sarah sat down beside him. “Then we make sure it works.”

Beyond the window, the Istanbul sky was slowly turning a deep orange. Anka Logistics was no longer just a suspicious building on a map; it was their active target.

Chuck reached for a blank page in his small notebook. At the top, he wrote two clear words:

Get in.

Get out.

He stared at the ink for a few seconds. Then, right above them, he scribbled a third:

ALIVE.

Only then did he begin drawing their routes.

XXXXXXXXXXX

The living room had fully transformed into an operations center, the coffee table buried under schematics, scribbled notes, and half-empty coffee cups. Chuck pulled up feed after feed on his laptop, meticulously outlining camera angles on the paper floor plan with a red marker.

Sarah stepped silently beside him, though Chuck was too absorbed to notice.

“That creates the blind spot…” he muttered, marking another lens cone.

Sarah leaned closer. “That coverage leaves a massive gap.”

“It’s supposed to,” Chuck said, pulling up the hardware specifications. “They want you to think the visual sweep is seamless.”

When the camera model popped onto the screen, Morgan—sitting backward on a chair with his arms resting over the backrest—stared at the display with sudden recognition.

“Hey, I know that one.”

Chuck didn’t look up from his keyboard. “What?”

“BX-420.”

Chuck stopped, looking over at him.

Morgan shrugged. “We sold those at the Buy More for years. Customers brought them back constantly because the box lied about full-color night vision. It’s strictly black-and-white, and the IR sensor drops off hard past twenty meters.”

Chuck’s fingers flew across the keys again. “Which means the auto-calibration loop triggers on a timer…”

“Every twenty-two seconds,” Morgan corrected smoothly.

A genuine smile broke across Chuck’s face. “That’s why you’re on the team.”

Morgan leaned back, basking in the recognition.

Sarah refocused on the blueprints, pointing to a quiet alley. “The rear service entrance?”

“No foot traffic at night,” Chuck agreed.

“And the cameras watching the alley?”

Chuck pulled a thumb drive from his pocket and tossed it across the table. “I wrote a custom loop exploit for you.”

Morgan caught it cleanly. “Tell me this isn't a beta release.”

“It’s ready for field testing.”

Morgan sighed, plugging it into his rig. “I feel so much better already.”

XXXXXXXXXXX

By the time night fell over Istanbul, all three had suited up.

Sarah wore matte-black tactical gear that absorbed the ambient light, her hair pulled tightly back. Chuck had swapped his civilian clothes for dark trousers, a fitted black shirt, and thin gloves. Nearby, Morgan pulled on a dark hoodie and slung his backpack over his shoulder—housing his signal rig, high-gain antenna, and encrypted laptop.

“Give me five minutes at the perimeter, and I’m inside their network,” Morgan said, adjusting his shoulder strap.

Chuck checked his watch once more, his pulse quickening. “If anything goes sideways—”

“I’ll ping you immediately,” Morgan said.

“If the feed drops—”

“I’ll let you know then, too.”

Sarah’s gaze locked onto Chuck. Without taking her eyes off him, she pulled back the slide of her sidearm, chambering a round with a crisp, metallic click.

“Ready?” she asked quietly.

Chuck took a slow, grounding breath, racking the slide on his stun gun in response.

“Let’s go.”

XXXXXXXXXXX

By day, Anka Logistics passed for an ordinary glass office tower. At night, stripped of personnel, it felt like a fortress. The parking lot sat deserted, its dark windows reflecting the distant lights of Istanbul while a solitary floodlight illuminated the rear loading dock.

Morgan peeled off toward an electrical cabinet behind the building, connecting his laptop directly to the system junction. Within moments, Chuck’s custom script bypassed the outer firewalls.

“I’m in,” Morgan’s voice crackled through their comms. “Twelve cameras, three motion sensors, and a standalone fire network.”

“Nice work, Buddy,” Chuck murmured.

Sarah pulled a dark mask over her face as she reached the service entrance, Chuck pulling down his own right behind her and giving it a quick adjustment over his eyes. At the door, the electronic lock gave a faint click as Morgan’s program overridden the solenoid. They slipped inside, greeted only by the steady hum of the ventilation system echoing down cold, white-lit corridors.

Sarah moved first, Chuck trailing two steps behind in lockstep. As a security camera began its scheduled pan toward their corridor, Morgan called out over the feed: “Now.”

In perfect unison, Chuck and Sarah stepped into the twenty-two-second blind spot. The lens swept past overhead, registering nothing.

At the main desk, a solitary night guard sat watching a bank of monitors, coffee mug in hand. He didn't hear Sarah shadow him, nor did he hear the quiet thwip of Chuck's tranquilizer dart. Before the guard could slump to the floor, Sarah caught him under the arms, easing him back into his chair. Chuck stepped up beside her, unclipping the dark-gray access card from the man’s lanyard while verifying their clean status on the CCTV screens.

Every monitor showed empty hallways and quiet floors. Moving down the secluded back corridor, they reached the off-grid elevator. Chuck swiped the guard's card across the hidden sensor. A green LED flashed, and the doors slid open seamlessly.

Inside the unlisted lift, the control panel featured only two unlabeled, softly glowing buttons: Up and Down.

XXXXXXXXXXX

The elevator ascended silently, the sudden upward pull settling heavy in their stomachs. Inside, only the low hum of the motor broke the quiet as Chuck watched the panel—just two unlabeled buttons and a single destination.

Sarah checked her suppressed pistol before slipping it back into its holster. The lift slowed to a halt, the doors sliding open without a chime.

Chuck knew instantly that something was off. The floor looked nothing like the corporate levels below. The walls were clad in heavy armor plating, a dome camera was mounted directly to the ceiling, and a reinforced glass security station sat at the end of the hall.

Two men in tactical gear, carrying assault rifles, stood talking in front of the kiosk with their backs to the elevator.

Chuck didn't hesitate. Two dull pops echoed softly from his stun gun. The darts caught both men in the neck, dropping them instantly.

"Clear," Chuck whispered into his mic.

Morgan’s voice crackled nervously through their comms. "What happened? I don't see anything on my end."

"Two guards down," Chuck replied.

"I can't see them, Chuck," Morgan urged. "I don't have a feed."

Chuck stepped inside the security kiosk. Dozens of camera feeds cycled across a bank of monitors—showing the lower levels, but completely bypassing the space around them. "The upper level is running on a completely isolated network. This is what we were afraid of."

Morgan cursed over the line. "So I'm flying blind now."

"Yeah."

Chuck scanned the monitor bank. On the internal closed-circuit feeds, armed patrols in black uniforms moved through high-security hallways in pairs—at least eight heavily equipped guards.

Sarah stepped into the kiosk beside him. "Can you map the camera angles to the building schematic?"

Chuck shook his head. The feeds had no labels, no room numbers, and no structural markers—just identical, anonymous corridors intentionally stripped of spatial reference points.

"Downstairs was a ghost town," Chuck muttered. "Up here, it's a full military installation."

Sarah watched a pair of guards vanish off one monitor and reappear on another a few seconds later. "We don't know where any of these halls lead."

"No."

"Then we clear them manually."

Chuck nodded. There was no better option.

They were no longer dictating the tempo of the operation. At every shadow and corner, everything now hinged on a single variable: whether they spotted the next patrol first… or got spotted themselves.