Disclaimer: Don't own Chuck
Also for the title, it's pronounced "Tay-Oh," that was the abbreviated way to refer to S32 / Office of Tailored Access Operations, Rob Joyce was the actual head of TAO in real life. He makes for a good character. Everyone else is fictional.
One thing that frustrated me in the show was the sheer animosity that was displayed between CIA and NSA especially in the early seasons, I'm not going to pretend that interagency rivalry doesn't exist, but it's nowhere near the degree that it was portrayed in the show.
Sorry if you got multiple update alerts, the FFN formatter broke up how I sectioned out the dialogue. I manually added the breaks in, it helps it read better I think.
October 15, 2007 – 0530
Chuck's phone woke him, he rolled over and looked at the number, "Morning Mark, what's up?"
"Hey Chuck, sorry if I woke you, Rob wants you to come in to collect some gear, he already let Major Casey know."
"I'll be right in, let me shower."
Chuck quickly showered and ran to his car, on the way into Meade he thought about the last few weeks, they'd been hunting Bryce and the Constellation data nonstop, and his evenings had been filled with a blonde enigma, between dinners and late-night food runs for the team. She was captivating in all the dangerous ways, smart, beautiful, witty, funny... his thoughts trailed off as he passed the first checkpoint.
Chuck left his phone in his PED locker and walked down to his old office and found Mark and Rob at his old desk.
"Mark, Rob, what going on?"
"Chuck, this assignment looks like it may take longer than we expected, Mark is going to be officially taking over your team. We'll figure out what to do with you when you get back. Don't worry, we'll make it work."
Chuck nodded, "I figured, but I was hoping it'd just be temporary, take care of them."
"I know it's not optimal, you've worked hard and your reviews will reflect that, you're still part of the TAO. I just can't afford to have a lead on detached duty for this long."
Chuck tuned out the praise, he hoped his frustration wasn't showing, even rising to the level that he had, in the little time he was a part of the team was a major achievement, it was the first big win since Stanford. When Rob had said that he was getting his own team to manage and develop he was thrilled, it was the first time he pushed past the feeling that he was inadequate compared to his peers.
Mark was a good leader, effective and capable and Chuck knew it wasn't fair for him to have been left in a temporary role.
Rob nudged Chuck pulling him out of his thoughts.
"Don't worry, we'll make it work, catch this guy fast we need you back here. I took the liberty of checking out as many ready-to-go items in the ANT Catalog as I could, hopefully, this stuff will help." He gestured to three large cases, "Mark will help you get this to your car. We've cataloged all the serial numbers for you."
Mark took two and Chuck took one of the cases and they started walking back out of the office.
"Hey just so you know, I didn't want to take over like that, Rob asked if I was okay-"
Chuck cut him off, "No he's right, can't have a leader who's not present. Just feels like yet something else that jackass blew to hell. The team is in good hands, really, I would have chosen you to replace me."
They loaded the sealed crates into Chuck's car and with a wave, Mark turned and started walking back into the building.
Chuck drove to CIFA HQ his thoughts in turmoil, he had worked hard, risen up, all for Bryce Larkin to bring it all down. It was 9am by the time he arrived, Chuck tossed his keys and phone in the PED locker and went to where the rest of the team was set up.
Casey and Andrew were talking by a whiteboard Sarah was reading some documents at the desk by herself and Keith and Ashley were going through a folder.
Sarah looked up as he walked in, she saw his slumped shoulders, forlorn expression, and watched as he straightened himself and entered the room. She'd been waiting for him to come in all morning, almost to the point of distraction. Over the last few weeks they'd grown closer, each time they went out she found herself enjoying the company of the tall lanky nerd, he explained the distinction of nerd vs geek. He was friendly and funny, he made references to things she didn't understand, but would always stop to explain them with enthusiasm. When she mentioned that she hadn't seen Star Wars he insisted that they'd marathon the movies when they had some downtime. Apparently, a few post-mission comedy movie nights with the GRS team she'd worked with a few years ago wasn't a "satisfactory pop culture education."
"Hey sorry I'm late, was at NSA collecting goodies. Rob got me most of the ANT catalog," he said with a forced smile.
Casey grunted, "Right, time to get going," he gestured at the CIFA team, "you guys keep working through this. I'll read Bartowski in."
"We're going after La Ciudad, arms dealer connected to some of the nastier players out there. Out of the 15 recently blown ops, this is most likely linked to the Constellation data. There was supposed to be an art auction in LA that was to draw him out, but he managed to get wind and evaded it. We're going to hunt him down."
He loaded a few folders into a secure briefcase and sealed it. "We'll talk on the plane, chatter we picked up has him in London. TFI traced one of the bank accounts gave us some useful intel. He's holed up in a hotel."
Sarah watched as Chuck grabbed everything they needed. "We'll take my car, I've got the ANT gear in there."
They quickly made it out to Chuck's car and drove to the airport, "CIA is loaning us a crew and a hardened plane," Casey handed Chuck a heavy folder, "Here's a new legend with accompanying ID."
Chuck looked at it, "So this is who I'm pretending to be?"
"Yep, memorize the details, and leave all your original ID in the bag here, we don't want it found where we're going." Casey paused and took a deep breath. "Listen up, we're going up against dangerous people, you need to follow my or Walker's instructions to the letter."
Chuck was about to object.
Sarah chimed in, "You wouldn't send me or Casey to hack the Iranians, would you? Not without training and supervision right?"
Chuck agreed, "No I really wouldn't, but -"
Casey interjected, "But nothing kid, look nothing against you, we go up against anything electronic I'm sure you're going to take the lead and completely dominate it, but you're in our world here. Listen to us. Do you know the paperwork that'll happen if you get killed?"
They checked into the airport and parked, Casey and Chuck grabbed the cases and loaded them on the plane. The CIA crew nodded to them as they boarded. Sarah happily walked around the plane and looked it over. She climbed into the cabin, "I love Gulfsteams, I learned to fly on the G100," she said with a smile. "This is a G150, new and improved." There was joy in her voice as she talked about flying and she ran her hand down the side of the plane as she sat down next to him.
"So, since Casey is occupied with the flight crew, want to tell me why you walked in this morning looking like someone kicked your dog?"
Chuck just mumbled, "I'm fine," while reading the folder on La Ciudad he'd taken out of Casey's folio.
"Chuck, talk to me, what's going on." Sarah wasn't sure why she was pressing so hard, normally she'd take the rejection and move on to something else.
Something inside her was bothered to see Chuck looking so upset.
Chuck closed the folder and pressed his palms against his eyes, "What else, Bryce-Fucking-Larkin, ruiner of things. Because I'm on detached duty here, they removed me from my position in the TAO. They gave the position to someone who will be there full time."
Chuck sighed, "Sorry I apologize, again. Not trying to sound like a broken record, it just feels like this never ends. I achieve something, Bryce blows it up."
First, she needed to cheer up Chuck, "Look I'm sure-"
"Rob said that I'm still a part of the TAO, but it hurts, this was my first "big" professional achievement, since Stanford, and it's gone," Chuck continued.
Sarah was quietly grateful for the foresight of the people who'd authorized "any and all means of interrogation" and "Enemies of the United States" was such a beautifully broad term. The plane started taxiing for take-off.
"Chuck, you're fantastic at what you do, and I can't see them keeping you on the sidelines for too long once this is done. Frankly, if they're stupid enough to leave you there, we'll take you in a heartbeat," she said with a teasing smile.
"Walker, no poaching," growled Casey as he walked up the aisle and sat down next to them.
Casey continued, "So we have no idea who La Ciudad is, TFI shows the money was used to get two rooms at the Mandarin Oriental. Members of MI-5, The Security Service, have the hotel under surveillance. We'll rendezvous with the team when we land, we've been granted approval to operate in the UK."
"Does our approval extend from when we land or is it already in force?"
"It's technically in force now, why?"
"I could compromise the Hotel, get the guest list, check and see who's checking in, we could get a head start by the time we land."
"Good idea, get on that. If you can pull it off using our in-flight connectivity I'll even be impressed," Casey said with a smirk and walked to the back.
Sarah watched as Chuck started typing quickly, "I don't want to use TAO resources for this, it's not worth it, so I'm using some infrastructure left over from a crime ring we took apart."
Sarah nodded along as he said, "What I'm going to do is see if… Ah, I'm in."
"That easily?"
"They're not very protected, don't be too impressed, they left a print server exposed to the internet and there was a vulnerability out there for it. So I just took advantage of that and from that foothold, I'll be able to move laterally through their environment…" Chuck's enthusiastic explanation trailed off at the look on Sarah's face.
Sarah smiled and said, "That's impressive, and a waste of a perfectly good explanation, but I really appreciate you trying, please don't stop next time" She finished the sentence with a bit of a laugh and bumped his shoulder with hers.
Chuck smiled his first real smile of the day, "I'm going to make sure we can get back in if we need to, but given their defensive posture. It shouldn't be too hard." Sarah lay back on the chair and watched him work, his hands were a blur, when he was deep in thought he would stop typing and spin a pen in his hand instead. After 30 minutes, he finally looked up from the laptop and called Casey over,
"Unfortunately we can't view the video here, the bandwidth just isn't good enough. But we could have the CIFA team go through it and tell us if they find anything interesting."
Chuck notified the CIFA team of where he'd copied the video and door access logs to, they told him they'd get to work and start weeding out the suspect pool.
Chuck started going through his legend, "So I'm Charles Carmichael, software engineer, what happens when they try and do an employee verification on me?"
"They shouldn't, if you're at the point where the bad guys are trying to validate you, Casey and I have done something horribly wrong. We'll be working onsite with an allied team for this operation. Generally speaking, you'll pass all validation, the startup that we created and put you under will last until the end of our mission."
Sarah quickly stole his laptop and typed a URL in, "Look you even have a website."
Chuck took his laptop back, "Cool, I finally get to work at a startup," he said with a bit of a smile.
Casey nodded, "We'll sort out access if we need it, but since we're linking up with the MI-5 team we should be good. We're going to avoid names, stick with colors, Blue, Red, Green." he said pointed at himself, Chuck and Sarah.
Chuck leaned back and kept reading.
Sarah found herself again watching the lanky computer nerd and she thought to herself,
'I'd love to have his head on my lap while he's reading and just run my fingers through his hair.'
She got up and stretched out, sitting for too long always made her feel uncomfortable. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Chuck watching her, she put a bit more enthusiasm into her stretch, she let out a quiet moan.
She watched as Chuck nearly dropped the folder in shock and smiled to herself.
When she finished stretching, she sat down next to him, closer than she had been before.
Before she could say anything Casey walked up, "Pilot says we'll be landing in an hour, get ready."
The CIFA team reached out to Chuck with several photos, Chuck spun the laptop around so Sarah and Casey could see the first one.
"Andrew says that this is Yuri the Gobbler, one of Volkoff's enforcers, he was seen in one on one company with these 7 people. We're working to ID them, however, we should assume that any of these people could be La Ciudad."
"How's Volkoff play into this? He's worked hard to stay off of our radar," Casey asked with a thoughtful tone.
"We'll figure it out on the ground, but tell them to add Volkoff to the board, and we'll figure out where he plays into this when we interrogate them, Gobrienko is an HPT all on his own."
As they started landing they each took a corner to get changed, Chuck changed into the button-down and slacks they had picked for him and tied his tie. Sarah was in a professional pantsuit and Casey was in a suit.
Sarah looked over at Chuck when they were seated again, "Oh, your tie is crooked," she reached over and adjusted the tie with a soft smile. Her hand lingered for a moment before she pulled it back.
Once they landed at RAF Alconbury, they were met with two MI-5 liaisons, "Welcome, we've been watching the hotel all day, none of the potential HVTs your team identified have left as far as we can tell. Yuri's room is not connected to anyone so we weren't able to ID La Ciudad that way." Chuck and Casey grabbed one of the cases from the plane and followed the MI-5 team walked them over to a large Vauxhall sedan.
"It's about an hour and a half to London, so we'll have some time to get familiar with each other," the Agent in the passenger seat said. "I'm Frank this is Geroge, we'll be attached to you all as long as you're in-country."
"Sounds good, I'm Mr. Blue, Geek over there is Mr. Red, the lady is Ms. Green"
Chuck asked, "Were we able to identify any of the phone numbers Yuri might be using?"
"No, we weren't, unfortunately. We're waiting for him to make an active call and when he does, we'll check with all the providers to see which numbers made a call at that moment, it'll give us a list that we can narrow down."
Chuck smirked, "We brought some tools that can help with that."
Chuck stared off into the countryside, very conscious of the fact that they were all in a sedan meant that Sarah was pressed up against him, he relished the contact.
Sarah smiled to herself, she took full advantage of the situation to press herself more against Chuck. They all passed the time with some light conversation.
As they pulled into the hotel across from the Mandarin Oriental, they got out of the car and went up to the room where MI-5 had set up the Observation Post.
There were two MI-5 agents in the room, "We've been watching the site, we were able to narrow down this number to Yuri we have 90% confidence that this is his. The call times match up and he's using Vodafone, the phone was activated 3 days ago with corresponds with their entry into the country."
Chuck took the number and set up his laptop, he started typing on it, after a few minutes he said, "Good news, it's an iPhone." There was barely concealed glee in his voice as the words came out. He cracked his knuckles and said, "We have authorization to use any of our standard tools on hi-"
"Standard tools, what, you're going to torture Yuri to get answers?" One of the MI-5 men spoke incredulously. "We're not going to authorize that, for one thing, that won't work with a guy like Yuri, for another, MI-5 is not in the business of torturing people."
Sarah was about to cut him off when Chuck just gave him a flat look and said, "Are you done? We're not torturing anyone, we're going to hack his phone."
Chuck walked over to the case he and Casey had been dragging around and opened it, out came a new laptop with an Orange "TOP SECRET" sticker on it. Chuck connected it and started typing on it, when he paused waiting for the processes to complete his left hand fidgeted a bit, Sarah grabbed one of the hotel pens off the nightstand and handed it to him. He didn't look up but started playing with it the way he had on the plane.
She smiled as she watched him work, not realizing Casey was watching her with a thoughtful expression.
Chuck stood up, "Okay good news, Dropout Jeep has infected his phone, I've got all of his calls and all of the texts he's made since the phone was activated. I'm forwarding it to our team for further analysis. I'll make a copy for you when we're done," he said to the MI-5 team. Chuck walked over to the whiteboard, "Can I use one side of this?"
"Sure flip it over, we haven't used that side yet."
Chuck wrote Yuri and his phone number in the center and then he started writing out the other numbers. "Okay we need to know who these people are, I'll also need a map of all the ways to drive out of that hotel."
One of the MI-5 staff took out an Atlas they had and circled the hotel and the main roads that serviced it.
Chuck went over to the case and took out 4 devices and another laptop. He started typing quickly on the laptop and looked up to confirm something from the whiteboard
He took the pen in his hand and circled 4 spots on the map, "I want you to take these Candygram devices and find somewhere covert to plant them near where I've circled. These will tell us if any one of those numbers enters or exits the area."
He looked at Frank with a smirk, "I want them back when we're done, otherwise my boss will make me pay for them."
Chuck went through the phone numbers and circled it, "Okay we have one incoming call. We can give some degree of confidence that this is La Ciudad or someone affiliated with them. The provider puts the call in the same hotel."
Casey looked it over, "It's worth raiding the place even if all we capture is Gobrienko, you agree Walker?"
Sarah nodded her agreement and looked over at George, "Can we get a tactical team? I don't want to tackle "The Gobbler" without backup."
George walked away and made a few calls and came back, "We've got a few units we can use, if you want a team from Stirling Lines, we'll need to wait until they can arrive. We're looking at three hours by vehicle and an hour by helicopter."
Casey grunted then said, "We've got eyes on all ingress and egress points, we've got the fancy boxes to tell us if they're trying to get out another way, I'd rather have SAS and not need them, than the other way around."
Chuck called out from his laptop, "I've got access to hotel cameras, we can keep an eye on them that way too. When we're going to enter, we can use a Stingray to cut off all communications in the hotel and track where they are."
Chuck got up and stretched, "Good news, the other phone is an iPhone too, we can exploit it the same way. It looks like from the messages I'm reading here, they weren't expecting to stay in London this long."
He started typing at the keyboard again, when he paused he would pick up the pen Sarah had given him and start spinning it.
"Okay we have the other number compromised, I'm grabbing all the data off of it now."
Chuck went through the messages they'd captured from Yuri's phone he paused at one and stared, "I hope one of the CIFA guys knows whatever language this is."
Sarah walked behind him, "Russian, that's a very unkind way to refer to a woman, so there's a possibility there's some accuracy to the La Ciudad moniker. Since La refers to a woman in Spanish."
"So you're thinking it's a woman?"
Sarah shrugged, "It's a possibility, I wouldn't say 100% confidence, but I'm leaning that direction. You wouldn't really say that to a guy, loses a lot of impact."
"Maybe we'll get more context off of her phone."
As the data populated onto Chuck's laptop, the rest of the MI-5 team came back from planting the devices.
Chuck checked his other laptop and saw that all 4 of the Candygram devices were reporting in. "Okay tripwire is live." Chuck took out the Stingray and associated antenna and started setting it up.
"Walker we're going to need to do a weapons check, let's get it out of the way so when the SAS arrive we're ready to go."
The two of them walked to a corner of the hotel room and started checking their weapons and gear. Sarah went into the bathroom to put on her vest and holster, when she came out Chuck couldn't tear his eyes from her. Her hair was in a ponytail, she had on a baseball cap, her vest, and holster gave her the look of a modern warrior, the thought came into his head that this is what a Valkyrie would look like in the modern world.
Sarah caught Chuck's eye and he quickly turned away blushing not seeing her shy smile.
Casey came out ready to go, George grabbed his phone, "SAS team is ready, they're setting up overwatch over the exits, our breaching team is downstairs waiting for us."
Sarah looked over at Chuck, "Stay in the hotel here with Frank. Do not leave this room unless your life is in immediate danger."
She noticed the look on his face, "Frank is the one who gets to determine what constitutes "immediate danger" are we clear?" her look at Frank made it clear that Chuck better be in exactly the same condition she was leaving him in.
"Got it, keep the boffin safe."
"Okay let's go, Chuck feed us information on where our HVTs are and if they start moving SAS will be running their operation from their van downstairs," she said as she popped an earwig into her ear, she gestured for Chuck to do the same.
Chuck grabbed two USB dongles from the case, "Sarah here, if you find any laptops that are open, plug these devices into it immediately."
She nodded and put them in her vest. Chuck noticed there were three throwing knives in easy reach that he'd missed.
The last Chuck saw of Sarah was a small smile as she waved at him while closing the door.
Frank looked over at Chuck's laptop. The Stingray was feeding data on where the phones were located to him. Chuck looked over at the Candygram devices, if he increased the power he might be able to get elevation and get the specific floor they were on. He fed the data from all of the devices into a small program on his laptop and the overlay told him exactly where they were.
"Sarah they're on the 14th floor on the Southeast side of the building. Rooms 1415 through 1419, that's as close as I can get you."
Sarah responded, "Got it, the SAS will have operational control from here. Stay off-air unless it's critical. I'll see you in a minute okay Chuck?"
Chuck started reading through the texts on the woman they thought was "La Ciudad"
Chuck watched as she entered the hotel with the SAS team, he watched as they took a master keycard from the Hotel manager.
The SAS had everyone put their cellphones in a pile and left one man watching the lobby to prevent any phone calls.
Chuck and Frank watched as the team entered the elevators, Chuck's eyes never left Sarah, they watched as the team exited onto the 14th floor. The team moved silently through the hallways until they got to the block of rooms Chuck had outlined. Chuck's nerves were on fire, he was wondering if he should triple-check his analysis, make sure that he didn't get the wrong result, maybe he should have-
Out of the corner of his eye, Chuck saw a message load in,
"SAS at your door."
Chuck called out, "Sarah they know you're there." Just as the lead SAS man was about to open the door.
Chuck saw Sarah grab the SAS man and pull him out of the potential line of fire, he saw them quietly talking and looking at the door that had been behind them. Then the SAS along with Sarah and Casey staged to breach both rooms at the same time, two of the SAS unfolded what looked to be massive hammers and then men behind them took a grenade off of their vests. The lead SAS swung the hammer and the grenades flew as the doors burst open.
Chuck couldn't hear the bang, but the flash was enough to blind the cheap cameras, by the time the image came back the entry teams were in the rooms. Casey and another two SAS men jogged to the room next door and repeated the same actions.
A moment later a low familiar growl entered his ear, "Get over here, now."
Chuck nodded at Frank and the two of them ran over to the other hotel. The SAS man in the lobby stopped them until Frank flashed his credentials.
Chuck hadn't seen Sarah since the teams had entered.
One of the SAS men commented, "They had a spotter watching the room, looking to see if anyone was entering. Thanks to your warning, we didn't get cut down." He patted Chuck on the shoulder as he walked by.
Chuck entered the first room, Sarah was smirking watching over an unconscious woman, Sarah had a split lip. "You okay Green?"
"Oh yeah, I'm fine, she caught me with an elbow when I went to restrain her. I plugged that dongle you gave me into her computer."
"Good, they should have started cloning all the data off of the laptop."
Casey walked in, "We got Yuri restrained over there, good call with the entry Red."
Chuck started going over everything in the rooms, he found 3 more phones.
"Looks like they traveled light, one laptop and a handful of phones is not what I'd expect them to have."
Frank stepped in, "We'll take custody of them, we'll send you all the notes from our interrogators."
Casey agreed, "Fine, we're keeping the phones and the laptop."
Chuck received a text that they'd cloned everything they could, he plugged another device in that he had in his pocket. It would take a bit longer, but they'd have a full forensic clone of the drive and the RAM.
Once that was complete Frank escorted them back to the OP and had agents pick up the Candygram devices, once everything was back in the case, they packed into the Vauxhall and drove back to the base.
All the devices were placed in a Faraday protected box and loaded on the plane.
Chuck leaned back, "I can't even sleep, how long have we been awake, I'm wired. That was so cool the way you guys rushed into the room was like a movie" The words spilled out of his mouth faster than either of the other two had heard him talk.
Sarah gave a small grin, "Welcome to the post-mission rush, feels like you want to run around doesn't it?"
Chuck nodded vigorously.
"Okay just sit down on the couch over there, and stretch you'll crash in a bit."
Chuck looked rebellious, his body moved like he wanted to do more, but he finally agreed and lay down using a cushion as a pillow. His leg kept shaking and he kept shifting positions until finally, he dozed off. Sarah grabbed a blanket from the back and draped it over him.
She sat back in her chair and watched him sleep before drifting off herself.
Casey woke them as they were landing. "Rise and shine."
Sarah stretched out and shook Chuck to make sure he was awake.
"Hey, you just completed your first field op, if my internal clock is right, it's after eight at night, want to get a drink?"
Chuck shook off the sleep and stood up. "Oh, sure. Yeah, I'd love to."
They all got back into Chuck's car and loaded their gear, the CIFA team came out and helped move everything inside. Chuck happily traded in his mission phone and identity for his real ones.
"Walker, Bartowski, I'll join you guys a bit later, just want to make sure everything squared away here. Text me where you're meeting, I'll be there."
Chuck and Sarah walked into the quiet bar, they found a quiet table in the corner and left a spot open for Casey when he arrived. Chuck texted him the address.
"Well done on your first day," she said tapping her bottle against his.
"Thanks, it was nerve-wracking watching you guys," Chuck said quietly, "I wanted to run over a few times."
"I'm glad you didn't, I'd hate to come up with a punishment for you," there was a teasing glint in her eye as she said that, Chuck coughed a bit as the sip of beer he was taking went down the wrong pipe.
"So why," Chuck gestured between them, "The dinners, and the niceness."
"Just being a teammate."
"Casey is just being a teammate, you're being more."
Sarah set her beer down and played with the label. "I like being around you, I enjoy your company,"
She said quietly while looking downcast and insecure, "I'm guessing being his bedwarm-" Chuck had never heard the word "his" pronounced with such malice before, he cut her off before she could finish the sentence.
"Look, I'm really sorry, that was one of the worst things I've ever said to anyone. Ever. You didn't deserve it," he said pinching the bridge of his nose.
"It's fine, I get it. He keeps screw-"
"Sarah, stop being reasonable, I fucked up. I said something awful in a heated moment and I feel bad about it. I've enjoyed your company. Frankly, it's been one of the best things that's happened to me since I moved here."
Sarah looked up from the beer, the hint of insecurity she displayed was gone, Chuck couldn't place the look in her eye.
"You mean that?"
"Yeah, I do, honestly."
Before the conversation could continue Casey walked in, ordered a beer, and walked over to them.
"Good job today. Everyone was impressed with your work Bartowski."
"Thanks, watching you guys enter was one of the coolest things I've ever seen," Chuck said quietly.
"Like I told you, against anything electronic you'll come out ahead."
The three joked for a few more minutes before Casey looked at his watch.
"We've got to be in early tomorrow, see what other intel we can extract from what we brought back," Casey said as he drained his beer and got up.
"Walker, a minute?"
The two of them walked outside, leaned against Casey's Crown Victoria, and turned to keep an eye on the bar,
"This going to be a problem?"
"What?"
"Walker, I'm not blind, between dinners, the whole tie thing, and the flirting…" Casey trailed off awkwardly. "I'm not so good with the lady feelings, but I care about finishing our mission, it's important. The kid just did the work of an entire team, on the fly, I don't want him getting distracted."
"What are you saying, exactly Casey?"
"I'm just asking, what are you doing?"
Sarah took a moment to gather her thoughts, "He's different than anyone I've ever met, CIA or NSA." She finished with an awkward shrug.
"You think about your reputation? One partner is bad enoug-"
"Right, sleep with too many partners and suddenly I'm the CIA mattress right? If I was a guy-"
"Not what I'm saying, I don't see you that way, you know I don't, I'm just looking out Walker."
"I get it, but frankly, I like being around him." She stared Casey down as she said it.
"It becomes a problem, I'll remove one of you, and finding a new geek is harder. You tell him about your wetwork yet?"
"No, I'll get around to it."
"See that you do, before you start mixing chocolate and peanut butter, I'll keep it to myself for now."
"Thanks," she said as she walked back inside, Chuck was playing with his phone.
"Hey, sorry, Casey just wanted to go over some stuff."
"Oh, everything okay?"
"Just some paperwork over me being detailed over here."
She picked up her beer and finished it.
"Sarah, would you like to get dinner with me this weekend?"
"Like a date?"
"Yeah… I mean, if you're interested."
"Believe me, I am."
Appendix:
Tech Stuff:
ANT Catalog – List of tech goodies NSA and TAO produced that could be used by the broader IC.
CANDYGRAM – GSM simulator, doesn't have the capabilities of a Stingray, but it can function as a tripwire or it can help ID targets, can also be used to triangulate a device with a reasonable degree of accuracy. This iteration runs Windows XP, pity poor Chuck.
DROPOUT JEEP – Covert software implant for the iPhone, allowed ROC operators to exfil data. It was part of a broader framework of tools, but I've made it self contained here. For many reasons.
Stingray – "Cell site simulator" "IMSI catcher" Device manufactured by the Harris Corporation to catch cell phone connections and to remotely access them by Law enforcement/Intelligence officers. Used under strict NDA, lawyers get mad when you talk about the capabilities of the platform. So I've had to be vague.
Agency Stuff:
TFI – Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, tracks terrorist money movement, serves as the inspiration for TFAD in the Jack Ryan TV series.
F3EAD cycle – Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyze, Disseminate. F3EAD is a system that allows the US to anticipate and predict enemy operations, identify, locate, and target enemy forces, and to perform intelligence exploitation and analysis of captured enemy personnel and materiel. We're watching Chuck go through an abbreviated version of that in this chapter.
Find: We know La Ciudad is working with Yuri, or at the least we know Yuri is in the area that La Ciudad has been placed based on FININT (FINancial INTelligence) We can use Yuri to pivot to our unknown HVT.
Fix: We bring our array of tools against Yuri, we know he's making calls, we get enough moments where we see him on the phone and we can get a high confidence phone number.
We pivot off of that data to see who else he called. Dropout Jeep let's us turn his whole phone into our own personal SIGINT (SIGnals INTelligence) platform. We can do anything we need to using his and any other iPhone in the area.
With the CANDYGRAMs we can make sure that our targets stay in place. We have overwatch teams, we know that the people we're after are in that hotel.
Finish: We have La Ciudad and Yuri in allied custody.
Exploit and beyond will be covered in the next chapter.
GRS – Global Response Staff, protect CIA and SCS/SCE assets abroad and function in a more "Direct Action" context when needed. Usually picked from the SOF community.
HPT – Someone who when they get killed, significantly decreases the enemy's capability.
HVT – High Value Target someone we want, dead or alive.
Stirling Lines – Colloquial way to refer to SAS, used to be Bradbury lines (If you're on the older side you might remember this), but that was renamed, thus, Stirling lines.
Context Stuff:
In flight wifi was in its infancy in 2007/2008, given the CIA has better options than Gogo inflight it makes sense for Chuck to be able to open a terminal and compromise a server, but not watch a movie/handle video.
(For those of you brave enough to try and load YouTube on Gogo back in 2008, I salute you, I couldn't make it work.)
Also sorry, NSA may have let TAO staff get away with a lot (And they did), but there's no way they're allowing anyone to bring Chardonnay into the office and drink it. So instead of wine we have pens.
Generally speaking, there's a lot of work that goes on before people are sent in, you don't want to needlessly risk lives. I pulled back the curtain a bit on the targeting process circa 2008, many things have changed since then.
I never took La Ciudad seriously, she was supposed to be this big evil villian, but decides to handle everything as stupid as possible. Here I've given her outside reasons as to why she's stuck. We'll see those next chapter.
Gen McChrystal was a huge proponent of on the fly Sensitive Site Exploitation, his way of thinking was pretty revolutionary for rapid response. We'll see a bit of that throughout this story, especially as we move into the later chapters.
Remote cloning, not the best option because so much forensic data is lost, but its useful to get data immediately in the hands of analysts.
The era of WinXP and WinVista (we're still 2(ish) years away from the launch of Windows 7.) was vastly different from modern times. There was so much you used to be able to do that you just can't anymore.
Chuck asked Sarah out on a date, I felt it might be a bit early, but I wanted to introduce an element of stability before we bring in Carina.
If the Appendix/context stuff is boring, let me know and I'll stop including it.