A/N1: Don't know about you guys, but I'm glad ownership of Chuck wasn't contained in Crawford's safe.

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Ian Cartwright turned and, with a pleasant nod of his head, walked back to his car to drive off to do whatever it was MI-5 agents did when they weren't playing host to American intelligence officers. Fitz watched him go, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow with a white handkerchief.

Cartwright was an ok guy. He seemed switched on and cared about the safety of his American visitors, even as he expressed a bit of polite annoyance that a purely American conflict had spilled over to his little otherwise peaceful island paradise. Certainly, the bloodbath at the restaurant the other day had put everyone on high alert, although it had been announced as a shootout between rival drug gangs. Among other things, Cartwright had expedited the paperwork to allow the Americans to carry their weapons on the island. With the local authorities on watch, it was going to be harder for the Fulcrum guys to even make it onto the island to try again. The airport was covered, as were the normal maritime avenues. The biggest risk was the kilometers of beach that were unsecured. If anything worked to lower the likelihood of that particular option it was the rampant presence of drug traffickers. All of the efforts which had gone into place over the years to stop those vampires would come in handy to stop any Fulcrum teams from trying to sneak onto the island from the beaches.

Fitz and his team were outside a nondescript two story office building on the outskirts of George Town. Inside, in an office with no signage or name, were Chuck, Sarah, their friend Sydney Reilly (Fitz still grinned when he thought of the famous named spy), and two officers from MI-5 lending their time to the project. The five of them were methodically sorting through all of the hard drives Chuck had purchased, hoping to find some from the bank. It was boring, time-consuming work but they were attacking it with energy and diligence. For all the flash that Chuck and Sarah brought to the spy game, they were perfectly willing to roll up their sleeves and put in the hours of brute hard work it sometimes called for.

He knew that Casey and Zondra, still confined to the hospital in St. Louis, were putting in their own hard work going through the files copied from Crawford's safe by Mike. Fitz smiled to himself, thinking of his giant friend in one of those white protective suits. The man must have looked ridiculous.

With a flickering glance at the clock on the dashboard In front of him, Fitz said, "One, clear."

Marco said, "Two, clear."

Billy said, "Three, clear."

Leo said, "Four, clear."

He'd done the same routine every fifteen minutes for the last three hours. In another half hour he'd rotate himself and the men to each other's positions so they wouldn't become bored and stale. He wouldn't blame them, of course. Static protection was a hard job. Keeping on high alert for hours and hours as nothing interesting was happening was draining. But this was Chuck and Sarah. He and his men would wait for days on end if that's what it took to protect them. They were the finest people he'd ever met.

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Colt and Jack were sitting in the hospital corridor on folding chairs near the door to Zondra and Casey's hospital room, listening to the conversation from inside. They were there to protect the others from another Fulcrum assassination squad. Frankie and Marty would replace them at 8PM and take the night shift.

Both Zondra and Casey were symptom free, thank goodness, but the doctors insisted on another few days for continued observation. At the moment, they were on speakerphone with a man named Jorge from Langley. He seemed to be a computer jock and was working with them on the information from Crawford's files.

Colt had scanned every page and every photograph of the files they had found in the safe. The money found in the safe had been literally laundered and cleaned of spores. The vials of brown powder had proven to be a potent poison derived from the excretion of South American tree frogs. It was the files which continued to hold their interest though.

One of them had been Crawford's information on the Sachem. According to Casey and Rizzo, the file had contained no more information than they had gotten from the original letter. The man was still hidden among thousands in Southern California.

Each of the other files concerned a different member of Fulcrum. It was those files that the two agents were combing through with the help of the man from Langley. Some of them were known to have been deceased, many killed by Chuck's own team. Some may or may not have been killed, but not yet identified.

But some may have still been alive. Those were the ones being focused on by Casey and Zondra, with the help of Jorge. In particular, Crawford had a file on Vincent Smith. By everything they had learned of the man, he was a nasty piece of work and an incredible survivor. Again, from what he'd heard, Colt had learned that Smith had fallen out a third story window and then been blown up in a boat five or six miles from land. And, nevertheless, it seemed he was still alive and operating. As the leader of the Life Guards, the Sachem's elite bodyguard unit, he would be in regular contact with the moving force behind the entire conspiracy. Whatever they could learn about him was going to be useful in helping them track down and put a stake through the heart of Fulcrum.

Colt listened as they worked through various leads about Smith and whether any of them could assist in locating him. It was hard work needing imagination and persistence. Colt knew that the right people were on the job.

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Luck. One couldn't discount the effect of luck in life. Sometimes you stepped off the curb and bad luck hit you fatally. You were walking on the street and an air-conditioning unit fell on your head. Or a tree branch after an ice storm. One second you were there, and the next moment gone to the big sleep.

But good luck could happen too. You bump into someone in a coffee shop and discover he or she's the love of your life and your soul mate. You pull some random numbers out of thin air and become a hundred million dollar lottery winner. Or you happen to be sitting at your computer near where Carmichael is standing and are told by your boss to get up and give up your seat to him. Yeah, that Carmichael. The wizard mentioned in hushed tones near the coffee machine. The spy whose exploits will be studied for decades in the classes taught in the intelligence community. The man and his team pulling off incredible feats every single week and becoming legends in the secret community. The man whose unparalleled brilliance was literally breathtaking to some really really smart nerds. And yet, the same man who was charming and amiable and kind and funny. That Carmichael.

And the next thing you know, your entire life has changed. Sure, you had acted immediately and instinctively to help him. Opportunity had knocked and you had grabbed it with both hands and wrestled the motherfucker to the ground. And now? Now you are the computer guy Carmichael calls when he needs an extra hand. And you, Jorge Ribas, are smart enough to run-not-walk to his assistance regardless of any other considerations each and every time you hear from him.

Jorge smiled to himself. Every single member of his unit at Langley was jealous, although most them were good natured about it and sincerely wished him well. But the envy was real. Just by luck, he found himself in a position they would all have begged for.

And it was more than ambition that drove him and brought him this happiness and satisfaction. His burgeoning association with Chuck and the others was quickly developing into genuine friendship. By leaps and bounds, the more they worked together the closer they seemed to him. If it were a romantic relationship, he would say he was falling in love with dangerous speed. As it was, he was falling in like and falling hard and fast. He grinned at the thought.

The Citation taxied to a stop and the side door came down with a crew member at the top of the stairs.

"Mr. Ribas?" the man asked.

"Yes."

"Right this way, Sir," the man said.

Jorge Ribas almost ran up the short flight of steps and into the private jet, giddy with excitement but trying to act cool. 'Yeah,' he thought to himself, 'like taking a private jet is a normal thing.' He held his computer bag in one hand and a small black duffel bag with a toothbrush and a few changes of clothes in the other. But his metaphorical hands were wrapped around this continuing opportunity with a white-knuckled death grip and had no intention of ever letting go. Fuck no. Never.

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The zodiac rigid inflatable boat bounced through the waves on the way to their destination. Chuck and Sarah sat side by side as the spray from the waves wet them and the wind cooled them under the morning sun. Sarah's hair blew into her face and she used her free hand to try to push it back. Her other hand was holding onto Chuck's hand. She turned to him and grinned with happiness and excitement. He grinned right back.

They had been lucky. They had found six hard drives, among all of the ones they had bought, which had belonged to the bank. There were still a dozen left to look through, but Syd and the MI-5 guys (who had themselves become friends over the last few days) had insisted on handling those themselves. The Citation was picking up Jorge from DC and then the team from St. Louis and taking them all to Los Angeles. Only then would it make the return trip to pick up Chuck, Sarah and Fitz's guys. The timing was such that, other than the remaining hard drives, they would have the morning off. It seems that the British men permanently stationed on the island were truly offended by the possibility that Chuck and Sarah would leave without making the dive at Stingray City. With the near constant peer pressure and the assurance that no portion of their work would be ignored or delayed, Chuck and Sarah had agreed to give themselves a morning of fun before departing the States.

It had been explained to them that fishing craft over the decades had made a habit of dumping fish scraps just beyond a sand bar, causing generations of stingrays to congregate there for the plentiful food. Over time, the plethora of the creatures had become a tourist attraction. They were headed towards the deeper of the two locations, where the animals were about thirty feet down, an easy dive even for a newbie like Chuck.

The boat came to a stop and the dive guide, a friendly man named Lionel, grinned widely and said, "Here we go, guys. Let's get kitted up and take a look at our friends." He dropped an anchor over the side and raised a dive flag, to announce to the world that there were divers under the small boat. As a retired member of the Special Boat Service, the British unit roughly equivalent to the US Navy SEALS, Lionel had been specifically chosen by the local spies to not only give a first class diving experience, but to also offer a modicum of protection to the American visitors.

It was a little awkward to don the heavy gear while on the small rocking boat, but with each other's help they managed. The flippers on their feet were the last things they put on. They smiled at each other with excitement, pulled their masks down over their eyes, put their regulators into their mouths and gave each other and Lionel the OK sign. (Chuck had learned not to give the 'thumbs up' signal, as in connection with scuba it meant 'let's surface.')

Chuck, Sarah, and Lionel, each with one hand holding their mask and regulator in place and the other hand holding the top of their tanks on their backs (to avoid a nasty bump on the back of the head when hitting the water) rolled backwards off the boat and into the sea. The water was just cool enough to be pleasant and was crystal clear.

Chuck immediately righted himself to be head up and looked around. He was maybe a half of a meter under water. He saw the bottom edge of the small boat, Sarah next to him in her bikini and Lionel on the other side of the boat, looking at them both. Chuck's facemask was solidly on his face without leaks and he could hear the hiss/burble of the air being pulled into his lungs from the regulator and being discharged in bubbles as he exhaled. He reached for the button on the end of the string at his left shoulder and dumped air from his buoyancy vest with a simple pull. Although the vest shouldn't have been inflated, any excess air which found its way in would keep him afloat on the surface, not where he wanted to be.

As the air was dumped out, he began to sink and watched as Sarah and Lionel did the same. About two meters down he began to experience discomfort in his ears as the water pressure increased on his ear drums. He reached up to pinch his nose closed and make the effort to blow out through the now closed passage. As he had trained and expected, the air that couldn't go through the nostrils backed up through the eustachion tubes and into his inner ears, equalizing the pressure with the surrounding water. His ear discomfort instantly ceased. He had to repeat the action every couple of meters or so.

As he headed down, he looked around and saw dozens of stingrays congregating on the sand under him. He looked at Sarah for a second and saw her glee and amazement at the presence of the animals, feelings he shared. It was only a few moments later that his flippered feet hit the sand. Making sure he was less than arm's length from his fiancée, he tucked his feet under him and went to his knees on the sand. As he had been told to expect, the stingrays came to them. Their winged bodies undulating with their gentle flapping, powering them through the water to the new visitors.

The animals were diamond shaped, about a meter across and maybe not quite a meter long, not counting the tail extending out behind each of them maybe 2/3 of a meter. They were a light brown color, slightly darker than the sand under them. With the eyes on top, but the mouth on the bottom they couldn't really be thought of as having a face. As one came to Chuck he reached out and gently touched it. The skin was smooth and not exactly slippery, but by no means rough.

Lionel reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a fistful of something. He reached out and handed it to Sarah. As she'd been instructed, she kept her hand clasped tightly closed. Then Lionel repeated the action with Chuck, who found himself grasping a fistful of squid meat. Lionel waved his hand and suddenly a half dozen stingrays came to Chuck and Sarah. They didn't exactly swarm, but they certainly came to their next meal with enthusiasm, jostling the three divers with abandon.

Chuck was laughing out loud, even through the mechanism of the regulator gripped in his teeth. He looked at Sarah and saw her shaking with her own mirth as she opened her hand and the flat toothless mouth of the stingray in front of her vacuumed up the food in her now open hand. Chuck had the same experience as the food in his hand was instantly gone, but the stingrays continued to congregate around them both.

Lionel, meanwhile, was taking picture after picture with his underwater camera. A stingray, for some reason known only to it, decided to sit for a moment or two atop Sarah's head. She held her hands to her sides, palm up, in a humorous 'what can you do?' gesture. It seemed Lionel caught that picture.

Only a few moments later, Lionel directed them to get closer to each other, put their arms around each other and smile for the camera while surrounded by milling stingrays, Chuck and Sarah waving at the camera. He gave an ok sign when he'd gotten the picture.

That photo was destined to adorn Chuck and Sarah's refrigerator for many years to come, even as their children pestered them for a return visit to the island to swim with the fishies.

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A/N2: Stingray City, Grand Cayman. Yup. Somewhere, I have a picture of my smiling wife thirty feet underwater with a stingray sitting on her head. It was under a magnet on the fridge for years, but I'm not sure where it is now. Fun times. I got my scuba certification almost 50 years ago. I wholly recommend it as a fun pastime. Give it a shot if you can.

A/N3: Another small step forward in the search for the Sachem. Let me know what you are thinking, please.