A/N: David Carner recently told us he doesn't own Chuck or fluff. I believe he doesn't own Chuck. But as to fluff, I think he has a long term lease with an option to buy at a minimal price.
Sorry for the longer than usual delay in posting this chapter. The real world interfered with my writing time.
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Chuck answered the knock on Casey's door and found Carina on the other side. "Hi, Chuck. Can I come in?"
"Uhh, sure, but Sarah and Casey aren't here right now. They should be back soon, though."
"Ok, if I wait inside?"
Chuck realized he was still blocking the door and stepped back embarrassed, "Oh, yeah. Sure. Of course. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't welcome. Of course, you..."
She rubbed his arm and said, "It's ok, Chuck. I didn't think you were being rude. Just relax. I don't bite." She said the last with a sexy smile and a wink.
"Can I get you some coffee? Casey doesn't keep a full larder, but he does like good coffee. I was just going to make a pot. I expect it's going to be a late night."
"That's so sweet of you, Chuckles. Thank you."
Chuck went into Casey's kitchen and began the coffee.
Carina said, "Any luck today?" She was idly wandering around Casey's living room, taking note of things here and there. She spent a long time looking at his bonsai tree.
"Yeah, some. How helpful any of it will be...I guess we'll know as we get to the planning stage of the mission. You guys have been after Alahi for almost a decade, but you've never gotten enough evidence to turn over to the FBI or a prosecutor."
"Yeah, I know...on second thought, should we wait for the others for the full download?"
"Probably a good idea. Save us from doing it twice." He was standing in the kitchen leaning on the counter with his arms crossed in front of him.
"So, if we're not going to talk business,..tell me about yourself, Chuck."
"Not too much to tell. I'm the supervisor of the Nerd Herd desk at the local Buy More. I fix computers," he said with a lopsided grin. "My life is pretty boring. How about you?"
She snorted slightly, "Nothing too exciting either. Just your typical undercover DEA agent, roaming the world hooking up with drug dealers and kingpins to bust their sorry asses for the sake of truth, justice and the American way. Hoping that, with my next big victory, I will get an assigned parking space a little closer to the entrance to headquarters in Springfield. But, we have great retirement benefits," she said with a somewhat rueful smile. "Naw, that sounds too jaded. The truth is I still love my job. It's usually pretty exciting. I go to fancy parties in exotic locales and get to dress up on an expense account. Of course, I run into a lot of bad guys, but I'm a bit of a badass myself, so it's all worked out ok so far."
Chuck laughed. "I don't know if you can say, but have you known Sarah long? You guys seem pretty friendly."
"I can't say much, but yeah. A few years now. We worked together before and got along well. She's the best...I mean actually the best. The best spy I've ever worked with. The best spy I've ever known. Casey too...but I will hurt you severely if you ever tell him I said so."
"I believe you. Your secret is safe with me."
"I know you can't talk about it, Sarah warned me as much, but this is a crazy team assembled here at the Burbank Buy More. CIA/NSA combo. That's pretty much unheard of. And two of the country's top spies...and you. I don't know you, Chuckles, but just that right there tells me that you must be bringing something pretty special to the table. So, I'm braced for it."
"Braced for what?"
"Braced for you to dazzle me," she said.
"Oh, shit," he said with a nervous grin. "Now I'm going to have performance anxiety."
"You're Sarah's boyfriend. I'm willing to bet you don't have performance issues with her."
"Oh, God..No...that's not what I ...no..I mean..."
Carina laughed and said, "Relax, Chuck, relax. I was just teasing you."
"Coffee's ready," he said, pouring her a cup and taking a cup himself.
"You were right," she said taking a sip. "Casey does have good coffee. That's one of the perks of my job. South American coffee is superb."
"I guess in your line of work you are down there a lot," said Chuck.
"Yeah. I remember once when Sarah and I..." She stopped herself. "Sorry. All the classifications and top secret this and that. It's why spies don't talk about their lives too much. You get into habits of secrecy and they are hard to break."
"I know. Well, at least I'm learning."
"Sarah?"
"Ummm -hummm," Chuck nodded his head.
"You're a couple. She's your girlfriend."
"Yeah," said Chuck, with a slightly dreamy smile.
"How's that going? You and Sarah," asked Carina.
"Great. I mean...great. We're great...she's great...she's...really great," he stammered, clearly embarrassed by the question. Carina was watching him closely, with intelligent appraisal, but he barely noticed as he thought about Sarah.
The front door opened and Casey and Sarah came in. "Speak of the devil," said Carina.
"Hey," said Sarah, kissing Chuck hello.
"Hey. How was work?" asked Chuck.
"I smell like grease."
"Hey, Case," said Chuck.
"Bartowski. Miller," said Casey. "You have a productive day or did you spend all day drinking my coffee?"
"Would 'both' be an acceptable answer? Cause I didn't know it was an either/or type of situation," Chuck responded.
"Alright," said Sarah. "Let's order some dinner and then we can get the download from Chuck."
Dinner ordered, Carina said, "Handle a lot of wieners today, Blondie? How about you, Casey? Sell anything to advance the nation's security? All the while, someone here was actually working today." She ran her hand through Chuck's curly hair and slowly down the back of his neck. She leaned down and said, so close he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek, "Isn't that right, Chuckles?" He didn't exactly flinch, but he didn't look at all comfortable either.
Casey almost growled. Sarah said, with a frown, "Knock it off, Carina."
Carina laughed lightly and gave Chuck's neck another light pat. She drank some more coffee. "Can I get you or Casey some coffee? Chuckles made it. He makes great coffee," she purred.
Sarah said, "No," still frowning.
Casey said, "I'll get it myself." He looked uncharacteristically pleased, almost expectant.
Chuck said, "Ok, let's get some work done." He had set up the TV to accept pictures from his laptop. He started with the diamond itself, it's size, shape, and value, then he moved on it its history and current ownership by the Afghan terrorist group. It seems they intended to use the diamond to fund the purchase of $26 million worth of surface to air missiles.
Dinner arrived and they began to eat. Carina took every opportunity to touch Chuck, brushing her hand over his arm or sitting a little too close to him. She laughed a little too loudly at his jokes and gazed at him seemingly enraptured when he talked. Chuck was uncomfortable and Sarah got more and more annoyed as the meal progressed.
When Carina got up to bring empty plates into the kitchen, Sarah followed her and said, "Stop it. Stop flirting with Chuck."
"Oh, yeah, right," said Carina dismissively with a smirk.
Sarah's anger at her friend had been rising for almost an hour by that point and it boiled over. "Outside, now," she hissed.
Once in the courtyard and alone with each other, Sarah said, angrily, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"What?" said Carina with feigned innocence.
"Don't you 'what?' me. You know perfectly well. Getting all handsy with Chuck. Flirting with him. Running your fingers through his hair. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Stop it. Chuck is off limits."
Carina laughed lightly. "Off limits? Oh, come on. You know better than that."
"I'm serious, Carina. Stop it."
"Where'd that 'off-limits' idea come from? Since when? Just because you're sleeping with him?"
"Yes, exactly," said Sarah.
"Oh, come on, Blondie. That doesn't make him off limits, that's exactly what makes it fun."
"No," said Sarah. "You don't understand."
"If you weren't sleeping with him it's not much of a challenge. There'd be no good basis of comparison and nothing interesting to talk about later. Come on. Lighten up," said Carina.
Sarah said, "No. I told you. He's my boyfriend. For real." She was growing increasingly frustrated with Carina's obstinate refusal to listen.
"So what? All that means is you're sleeping with him regularly. Still not off limits. You said yourself that the relationship wasn't serious. You told me that yesterday."
"NO," yelled Sarah, grabbing Carina by her upper arms. "No. You don't understand. He's more than just a boyfriend. He's more...he's more...I think I...I...he's more." By the end of her outburst, Sarah's voice had shrunk to almost a whisper. She was still angry, but stood looking at Carina suddenly silent, shocked at what she'd just admitted.
Carina gently touched Sarah's arms and leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek and wrap her in a hug. She said, quietly, "I do understand, Sarah. I do. I've understood all along. I just thought you needed to hear yourself say it." Sarah reared back slightly and stared at Carina with surprise in her eyes, her anger dissipating like a wisp of smoke. Carina continued, "For the first time since I've known you, and I've known you quite a while now, you seem happy...here in Burbank...really happy."
"I wasn't unhappy before," said Sarah quietly.
Carina continued as if Sarah hadn't spoken. "You're almost glowing you're so happy. I didn't know why until the moment I saw you two together. Then I understood. I understood immediately. So, don't you go feeding me that crap about your relationship with Chuck not being serious...that's bullshit." Sarah continued to stare at Carina, stunned by the direction the conversation was taking. "You were feeding yourself the same line of bullshit. Right?" Sarah looked away. "That's what I thought. And I wasn't going to let it continue. So, I pushed you. I pushed you to do...this."
Sarah hugged her and said, "I hate you so much."
"I know. I know," said Carina, lightly rubbing Sarah's back.
Carina just held her gently for a while. "So, I guess it's serious," Sarah said eventually with a small smile.
"Guess so," said Carina, with a nod and a tiny smile that Sarah couldn't see.
"I'm scared. I don't know how to do serious."
"I know. Don't blame you. It's pretty much uncharted territory. Would be for me too, so I'm sort of lacking in the advice thing. The one thing I can tell, though, is that he seems like a really good guy and he's crazy about you. You should see the look he gets in his eyes when he thinks about you...when he talks about you. You guys will figure it out."
"You think so? I suck at relationships. You know that."
"Naw. That's not what I know. What I know is you suck at picking guys to have a relationship with. That's the truth. Maybe you finally picked a good one. Maybe you picked the right one," said Carina.
"The right one? That has a pretty serious sound to it."
"Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Deal with it."
Their relationship was serious. Sarah was trying to process what Carina had forced her to admit to herself. A serious relationship? What did that even mean? She knew she was exclusive with Chuck...that they were exclusive with each other. She had figured that out just before she beat the hell out of La Ciudad. She knew she wanted to spend time with him. To be with him. To hold him and be held by him. Now that she thought about it, she realized that she wanted to spend all her time with him. "Alone time" no longer held the attraction for her that it once had. She had never been a snuggler, but the thought of waking up with him in the morning, being snuggled in his arms, made her feel a comfortable warmth inside having nothing to do with actual body temperature. Carina was right. He made her happy. And she couldn't remember ever being happy before. Not like this.
Their relationship was serious. But what could that even mean in her line of work? She had told Carina the truth the day before. Her job could pull her to the other end of the world at a moment's notice. How could she have a serious relationship when her life was so uncertain? Her future so unknowable? Even if the powers that be didn't call her away suddenly, life here in Burbank could be dangerous and potentially deadly. Was it fair to Chuck to run headlong and heedless into a serious relationship when she could be dead on the next mission? Life's uncertainty made short term "un-serious" relationships easier and more palatable, but, she was forced to acknowledge now, so much less satisfying.
Their relationship was serious. She felt something for Chuck that she had never felt for any previous boyfriend. The thought of Bryce flashed into her mind and out again in a heartbeat. No comparison. Had Casey been right weeks ago? Did she love Chuck? Spies don't fall in love. Was she in love? Maybe for the first time in her life? Certainly, for the first time in her life. Every time she turned around something or someone seemed to be pushing that question to the front of her mind. She thought of her dad's admonitions to avoid love as a loser's game. Her dad...
She was standing there, lost in her own head, but her thoughts were interrupted by Carina. "Come on Blondie, we can talk about this later. If we don't get inside now, Casey will drink all the coffee." She smiled weakly and nodded.
The curtain in the window fluttered as two watching men scurried away from the window. Chuck had been interested to see what would happen between the women and to make sure Sarah was ok, but Casey merely wanted to see Sarah kick Carina's ass. He was deeply disappointed.
As they went back inside, Carina said, "Chuckles, Sarah has set me straight. I apologize if I've made you uncomfortable. I'll behave from now on...promise."
Chuck said, "S'okay, Carina. No worries." He smiled at her somewhat tentatively.
"I'll just pay more attention to Casey from now on," she said with a sexy smile.
Casey came very close to spitting out his coffee.
Chuck got everyone back to business. A picture of Alahi was up on the screen. Chuck explained what he'd learned about the man. Where he was born and raised. His family. His London-based wife and their children at Swiss boarding schools. Where he himself had attended school. His business dealings and financial situation. Where his holdings were and what investigations into them had revealed or not. His assets, insurance arrangements, and accounting and legal relationships. The screen in front of them shifted among pictures, maps, graphs and blueprints. His charitable and political donations. Chuck was very clear about what questions the government still had and the difficulty in obtaining evidence of his financing Afghan opium. The inconclusive evidence of recent connections to Afghan terrorists. The discussion and questions and answers lasted for almost two hours.
Sarah was uncharacteristically quiet. Carina was a willing participant, but seemed maybe a little impatient with the process.
Finally, Chuck moved on to the Malibu compound itself. Its size and layout. Its power requirements. It's security, or at least as much of the security as he could determine from the available sources. The number of armed guards Alahi had on staff. One particularly useful discovery was that the compound utilized a series of SVB-54 explosion protected security cameras with infrared surveillance and thermal imaging (which devices were visible and identifiable from drone camera footage the DEA had on file).
Sarah asked, "Why is that good news?"
"Because those cameras are wireless. They can work on either bluetooth or a wi-fi system. If it's wi-fi and I can get into the wi-fi network, I can control all those cameras. That would get us a step up when we try to get the stone."
"How would you get into that system, Bartowski?" asked Casey.
"Well, if we could insert one of the NSA's BB-88 devices into the area I can use it to hack past the firewall and …"
Carina laughed, "It's not a cover."
"What?" asked Chuck.
"The Nerd Herd. You really are a geek," she said.
"Nerd," Sarah and Chuck said at the same time.
Carina's continued chuckling and interrupted herself with a gasp. She was suddenly staring at him with her blue eyes growing wide-eyed in astonishment. In almost a whisper she said, "Holy shit. You're Carmichael...from Union Station...you're Carmichael."
Chuck glanced quickly at Sarah and Casey who both nodded. Chuck said, "Yeah."
"HOLY SHIT. Oh my God..." she sat silently looking at all three of them one after the other for almost a full minute. Finally, she said, "And La Ciudad?"
Sarah nodded. She realized Carina wouldn't have heard about the Zarnow mission, as it had been kept very quiet for any number of reasons.
"Jesus Christ...holy shit...you told me your team was good, Sarah, but I had no idea. This isn't good. This is a goddamn super team. I don't know how long you've been operating, but those two ...successes...wow...Ok, Chuck...I'm officially dazzled. You win." She reached out to give him a fist bump.
"Carina," began Sarah, "this is highly classified..."
"Yeah, no shit," she was almost giggling. "I got that, Wienerwarmer. Wait, that's not right anymore, is it? How about 'Chuck'swienerwarmer'? Naw, no good. Too much of a mouthful...oh, a mouthful...get it? I made a .."
"Can we get back to work, please?" asked Casey, irritably.
"Sure," said Carina. "Apologies, Blondie. LA is not boring. I stand corrected."
"So, anyway," continued Chuck. "If I can get that device inside the compound I can take control of the security cameras. Loop them, or something. I can blind Alahi's security team."
"That's no big deal. We can drop it on the roof from a drone," said Casey.
"That would work with the BB-87, which has its own power source. I want to use the 88, which has to be plugged into a wall socket. It's got more power and range and we wouldn't have to time our entry to the ticking clock of its battery life."
"How big is the 88?" asked Sarah.
"It's designed to mimic an Apple cube..for recharging your phone. Little white box. Same size, shape and color."
"Well, that's easy enough to get inside. And wouldn't draw any attention. Those things are all over the place," said Carina. "You told us there's a party there tomorrow. You, Sarah and I crash the party, recon the compound from the inside, and plant your doohickey."
"No," said Casey. "I have a better idea. Kid, can you dummy up some emails from Alahi's insurance carrier?"
"Sure, that's easy."
"So, what do you think of a snap inspection of the security system by the carrier insuring the contents of the compound? We get the target to give us the guided tour of the system we have to crack to get the stone."
"That's a great idea, Casey," said Sarah.
"Yeah, but it might be awkward for us to plant the 88," said Chuck. "We'll have Alahi's security guys with us the whole time."
"So, we'll do both," said Carina. "Sarah and I will go to the party and plant it and you boys will go in as insurance men."
"That actually might work," said Chuck.
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The next day
It was a beautiful California day, late in the afternoon. Sunny and warm with only a light breeze coming off the Ocean to cool things down. Carina looked around the party at the vapid, attractive people drinking and laughing by the pool. She also saw the dozen or so armed security guards in suits, stationed on the periphery of the festivities. They were as inconspicuous as gorillas in dinner jackets.
She knew that her appearance gave her entre to the crowd without too many questions. Sheep's clothing was one of her most effective tools.
Sarah was at Carina's side, smiling and laughing, but with her eyes constantly scanning, her brain processing – the cameras, the security goons, the exits, the spotlights, anything and everything that might help them get close to Alahi and the diamond.
They had been at the party for forty-five minutes already and had, on a run to the ladies' room, planted two BB-88's and several minicameras and listening devices. Their recon had indicated that there should be a display room downstairs which, hopefully, housed the diamond. Chuck and Casey were on the property as insurance men and should be able to confirm.
Alahi himself was sitting by the edge of the pool in a speedo bathing suit with gold chains around his neck surrounded by five young women in skimpy bikinis. The women were hanging on his every word. Chuck's briefing had been incomplete. It had failed to mention that Alahi was covered with a thick coat of hair everywhere but on his head. Wasn't life unfair? This guy needed a serious waxing, thought Carina. He's really pretty gross.
Sarah spoke quietly, "I'm going to head around to the other side and see what's there. I'll be looking for a refill."
"Ok," said Carina. Sarah headed off, her empty champagne glass in her hand.
As she studied Alahi, an idea came to her. She appreciated the thorough planning and briefing that Sarah and her team had put together and understood that today was merely recon, but she was an improviser. That's how she got things done. She spotted opportunities and exploited them. It was one of her strengths. As she looked at Alahi, all she thought was "opportunity".
He was telling a story to the five bikini-clad girls crowding around him and was clearly enjoying the attention from his rapt listeners. There was no wariness in his gaze, just the pump he got from having his ego stroked by the pretty girls. Well, an ego stroke might be just what this mission called for.
Making sure to stand in his line of sight, Carina stretched to her full height and slowly pulled her dress off over her head. She languidly dropped it on top of her purse, toed off her sandals, and stepped to the edge of the pool. She performed a long graceful shallow dive and swam under the water to a stop about five feet in front of Alahi. Slowly rising from the water, she saw that he was staring at her, as she knew he would be. Using both hands, she pushed the water from her hair over the back of her head, which had the effect of thrusting her breasts forward. She held his gaze for a moment or two and said, "Excuse me, is this where the pre-school meets?"
Alahi said, with a small confused grin, "What?"
She gestured at the five pretty girls and said, "I see you with these children. I just assumed it was the pre-school. I thought maybe you would prefer to talk to a woman for a change." Her voice was a sexy, husky growl.
Alahi looked at the girls and made a dismissive motion with his hand, "Later, girls. I'm busy now." They left him alone with Carina, pouting and flouncing their departure.
Carina smiled at him and said, "I understand you are my host today."
"Pretty women call me Peyman."
"Well, Peyman, how can I ever thank you for such a lovely party in such a beautiful home?"
"Perhaps I can think of something."
"Now doesn't that sound interesting?" She stepped forward and laid a light hand on his hairy thigh. "Will I get tour?"
"Would you like one?"
She smiled a sexy smile and said, "Only if it's very thorough. I want to see everywhere...and everything. Can you do that, Peyman? Can you show me all your private places?" She had moved much closer to him and was standing waist deep in the water between his spread knees, looking up at him with hunger in her blue eyes.
He grinned and said, "What's your name, beautiful lady?"
"Carina."
"Come with me, Carina. Let me show you some amazing things," said Alahi.
In her ear Carina heard Sarah's voice, "What are you doing? This isn't part of the plan. Disengage, Carina. Disengage."
Alahi held out a hand for her to leave the pool. She took his hand, and, never breaking eye contact, ever so slowly climbed out of the pool with an exaggerated sway to her hips.
"Carina, disengage. We can't cover you if you are inside. You'll be on your own. Disengage." Carina waved her hand behind her, seeming to wipe something off the back of her thigh, but actually to wave off Sarah.
"No, stop it. Don't go in there..." Carina stuck a finger in her ear, ostensibly to rid her ear of pool water. She switched off her earwig.
Her hand on his arm, Carina followed Alahi into his home and disappeared from Sarah's view.
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A/N2: Only WvonB caught the Bond homage in the last chapter. In Diamonds Are Forever, the novel, not the movie, Felix Leiter does a front tail on Bond on the streets of 1956 Manhattan. It ends with the same kind of "can't you just say hello like a normal person" dialogue. That made much more sense to me than hand-to-hand combat in Sarah's hotel room. WvonB gets oak leaf clusters annexed to his nerd badge.