GreenEyedGirl33

A/N: Hopefully it hasn't been too long since I posted to this. If it has been, sorry, dudes. APR

Aboard the MV Sprite
Two Georges Marina
Boynton Beach, FL

Chuck was shocked to the point of being speechless. Carina saw the look on his face and grinned. The Sprite was just a little bit longer than she'd told him. Twenty-seven feet longer, to be exact. The 90-foot cruising yacht had three levels above deck and two below, if you counted the small sound-proofed area that housed the engines and steering gear and the bilge spaces.

"Ca-Carina…she's beautiful. Weather deck, promenade and bridge and flying bridge…my God, Art's done himself proud. You won't get sick on this boat, Shorts, it's got stabilizers. Let's go aboard. I want to see what other understatements you've not told me about."

"Wait until you see the lounge, Chuck. It's couches and tables and…it's just like a floating hotel suite and it has a complete kitchen, and I mean complete! And the stateroom and cabins are opulent and…it's like a floating palace, Chuck. We're going to spend all our time here, you watch! You can land a chopper on the foredeck and the living room/lounge opens up onto a lanai that doubles as an open air dining room"

He smiled at Carina's enthusiasm. He didn't blame her. If Sarah had been here, he'd have had her naked and screaming in the master stateroom within minutes. It was an incredible piece of marine engineering and opulent design.

"Remind me to call Art and thank him, Shorts. And thank you for nagging at him. She's 90 feet of decadent pleasure. Find me the logs and manuals and then disappear for a while. Catch some rays on the deck or go watch one of your soaps in the cruising lounge."

He leaned over and kissed her sweetly and gently on the lips, feeling uncomfortable but, as his wife had told him when they'd discussed it, it was necessary for his cover. He'd be lying if he said he didn't feel anything

He saw the look on her face and muttered "Sorry, I just…aw, hell, honey, I just…" He didn't get to finish. She kissed him with hungry desperation and pushed him down on the queen-sized bed and straddled him, silencing his protest with a kiss.

"I know it's too soon, Chuck, but I love you and I always will. You've always been straight with me and so I'll be straight with you. We can have sex together without it being anything more than physical release for you but it'll always be more to me. Consider it stress relief, Chuck Talley. No strings attached, I promise."

"We'll...it's too soon. It's like when Lynn died and Sarah wanted…too soon. I'm sorry. I never should have kissed you." He pushed her off him and got up, unconsciously rubbing his chest and she saw it, of course, and knew he was right.

"I'm not sorry. You do that whenever you feel like it. As often as you feel like it. I'll keep ice in the little fridge under the night table, just like Mexico."

She laughed at his blush and went to find the logs and ship's manuals. She knew it was too soon but she was patient.

Earlier
Charah House
Lantana, FL

"Chuck, we need to talk. You'll be all alone here with all these beautiful women and I'll be away from you for God knows how long and…"

"And what, Sarah? I'd never cheat on you, you know that, surely?" He was appalled that his pregnant wife would think he was capable of such a crappy act.

"No, my love, I know that. I'm saying…well, oh, crap. You're going to have to sleep with one or more of them to shore up your false flag efforts. It's not cheating, not in my eyes. It's using a skill to survive and get your sweet ass back into my arms where you belong."

"NO! Definitely not. It'll never come to that. How would it look? It would be so disrespectful…"

Her laughter filled their bedroom and really pissed Chuck off. He got up, still naked and sweaty, and stormed out of their room and across the hall to their 'private verandah' and walked to the railing, furious with her.

She ran after him, realizing how badly she'd misjudged how he felt about…

"Chuck…THINK! Your wife dumped you and ran off to Timbuktu or someplace and God knows what possessed her. You won't owe her respect, although I love you for it. No, I won't be mad, Chuck, because it's no different that killing an enemy. It's something you'll have to do, no matter how distasteful it might seem. It's something you'll have to do, if the situation requires it, and I trust you enough to know when that time will come."

"Sarah, I don't think I could pull something like that off. Really. I just…I don't cheat, Sarah. It's not something I would consider. They'd see right through it."

She was quiet, molding herself against his cooling back, trying to absorb him into her skin.

"Shhh. Listen. Carina's the obvious target. Then Faith if Carina's not in the mood…oh, crap, her not in the mood?" They both chuckled and then she continued.

"But Chuck, stay away from Amanda. She's mini-me, and she's always watching you. The other day on the beach when you were baiting Carina – she was watching. I saw it. Chuck, she's the only one I'm afraid I might lose you to so please, stay away from Amanda."

"I'll stay away from them all. There's no way I'll do this." She got mad, pissed, angry, whatever word you'd use.

"You will do it because it's a survival tool just like your pistol or a knife. You need to survive so that our child has a father, Chuck and so I'll have my 'happily ever after'.

Chuck rubbed his face with his hands, shaking loose the memory of Sarah's demand that he sleep with one (or more if required) of his teammates if the situation required it. He'd often noticed Amanda Blaine's penetrating stares and her incredible similarities to his wife, Sarah. She was a smaller, less gregarious version of his wife, probably what Sarah had been like earlier in her career. He would have to watch out for that one.

He went up on deck and did a walk-around. He could spend hours here marveling at this and that, discovering new secrets every day. He happened to glance over at an adjoining berth where a sailing yacht was berthed Mediterranean style while divers tried to remove the buildup on her hull. There was something about that…

Chuck walked up to the foredeck and laughed. Carina had stripped to her bikini and was sprawled on a cushioned lounger soaking up the rays. She still complained about being 'chilled from New Orleans'.

"Hey, babe, I'm going over to the dock and borrow some flippers and a mask. I want to see how badly she's fouled with barnacles and crap. Be right back."

"Chuck, wait a sec and I'll go with you. You know the rules. Another one of us should be with you in addition to me but I wanted this time alone with you when you first saw the Sprite. Wait for me and I'll go with you."

"Carina, I'm going 25 yards and I'll be in full view the whole time. I'm not going to run or off myself. I won't give her the satisfaction. Stay. I'm going. Live with it. Maybe I'll be nicer after I know she's clean below the water line."

He walked off without waiting for her reply. He knew she would watch him like a hawk but he wasn't doing anything but what he told her he was going to do – lulling her into a trusting place.

He borrowed an aqualung, flippers, weight belt and a mask and promised to give the guy a tour of the Sprite and also asked him to order a full team's worth of diving equipment. He figured they could motor out to one of the wrecks on the weekend and have a team dive. A good exercise in building trust.

He kicked off his deck shoes and t-shirt and donned his equipment and walked up to where Carina was now snoozing. He knew that she'd slipped off to sleep the instant he'd boarded. She took her duty seriously.

"Carina, wake up and spot for me. I don't like diving alone, even in 20' of water. Just follow the bubbles and get help from the dive shop if I don't come up in 20 minutes or so." He put on the flippers and gloves and went over the side.

The water was murky but he could easily see that the fiberglass hull was fairly clear of barnacles and any other buildups that would create drag and burn fuel at a higher-than-planned rate. He swam along half the port side and then under the stern to begin a sweep of the starboard hull when he spotted a box fixed to the metal keel.

He pulled off the clean box that was held on by strong magnets. He used the dive knife to pry a corner up and the managed to pop it loose. It was clean and hadn't been in the water long. A wire was strung along the entire keel almost to the bow and he knew it was a low frequency device that used the unusual antenna length to carry the signal.

Chuck swam up to the stern and pulled himself up to the dive platform that comprised a part of the stern. He looked at the metal and plastic device and shook his head.

He stripped off his diving gear and went in search of Carina, pissed off and full of angry questions that demanded immediate answers. If this was an example of the competency of his new team, they were all in a deep pile of doggy doo.

Chuck walked up to where Carina was dozing on the deck and kicked the lounger she was laying on over on its side, dumping her on the deck. He didn't care if she sported bruises for the next week or so. They would serve as reminders of how she'd flaked off in supervising the team's examination of the Sprite.

Carina bounced to her feet, mad as hell but quickly put all thought of popping her boss in the mouth on hold when she saw the look on Chuck's face. She took in his expression and the box and wires he was holding in his hands and knew the best course of action was to shut her mouth and take her tongue lashing.

"Agent Hansen, get the team down here immediately. Have them bring their bug detectors, swimming gear and a change of clothes. This was attached to the keel. I'm going back down to explore the rest of the hull. You get those…idiots back here and go over this entire floating whorehouse with another finetoothed comb and find all the items you missed. There're at least one or more transmitters in this scow that relay to this master transmitter. Find them."

"Chuck, I…"

"Shut up. Do what you're told. Vacation is over. We're back in the game whether we're tasked or not. We're all in the crosshairs, Hansen, not just my tramp wife, understand? This is newly placed. There's no growth or scum on the casing. It's a CIA unit. You figure it out. I'm going down below again."

He whirled on his heel and stomped off to the dive deck, a sly grin on his face. 'Better than an ice water enema to get their attention and teach them a lesson: Talley is the Team Leader, not Carina Hansen or anyone else.'

An hour later he surfaced, walked over to the dive shack and got another two tanks and a dive light. There were anomalies in the hull that served no purpose whatsoever and they needed to be examined and he was losing the light.

He wouldn't have noticed the ceramic limpet mines that were irregularly shaped and discolored to match the hull if he hadn't been using the dive light. The intersect dumped data regarding the US Navy's ceramic limpet mines into his forebrain, providing a lot more questions than answers.

The 12 mines were placed below the sleeping quarters, the fuel bunkers and the diesel engines. He was lucky that he'd deactivated the transmitter because it also was capable of initiating the detonation sequences for the mines.

The team was sitting around in the salon drinking beer or soft drinks and arguing about the placement of the 6 transmitters they'd located beneath locations they'd already pulled bugs from. Carina looked like she'd been crying but he didn't care. She'd be in worse shape if a limpet blew her ass off while she slept.

It got really quiet when he came in, wet and carrying a plastic dive bag. He set a limpet mine down in front of each of them, leaving the remainder in the bag.

"These are US Navy anti-shipping directional limpet mines. They were distributed around the hull in strategic locations. Pope, you and Blaine would have been turned into gore since two were placed beneath your cabin. The same thing goes for the rest of you. The master suite had 4 and there were two each in the fuel and engine areas. You were sloppy and we'd have all died out at sea and no one would know it was sabotage."

He looked at Eric and Amanda and told them to go get dinner for the team and a case of beer because they were going to have a little discussion about the 'care and feeding' of Team Talley in mission mode.

San Pedro
Ambergris Caye
Belize

Sarah sipped her juice concoction and sighed. Another day in paradise without her husband. She wondered what he was doing? Was he sitting out on the patio watching the sun set as she would be doing in a few hours? Was he safe?

She'd checked off every item on her 'Chuck List' and added a few more after thinking a bit about her pregnancy. Chuck hadn't considered running with a pregnant woman in tow and some items simply didn't provide for such a contingency so she'd added what she thought was 'necessary'.

Tomorrow she planned on a thorough recon of the island, starting with available doctors, grocery stores and meeting with the island constabulary. She wanted them to know who she was and why she was there, in her role as a wife waiting for her husband to come back from war. It never hurt to have the fuzz looking out for her.

Rubbing her yet-to-be baby bump and smiling softly, she sent a mental hug to her Chuck and prayed to a God she no longer thought cared to watch over her big dork and keep them all safe.

God hears all prayers. Sometimes he says 'No'.

APR