A/N: Thanks to all of you for following along.

Somebody owns Chuck. Or so I'm told.

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Carina checked the time on the luminous dial her watch. Dawn would arrive in a half hour or so, which was perfect. She listened to the rough sound of Alahi's snoring. It had not changed in pitch, volume or rhythm for well over an hour, clearly enough time for him to enter the deepest stage of sleep. She had seen to it that he would be thoroughly exhausted, having kept him awake and active almost the entire night.

Moving very, very slowly, she drew back the sheet from her naked body. He did not stir and his breathing did not change. She swung her legs off the bed and sat on its edge. Freezing for a moment to confirm that there was no reaction from Alahi, she stood. Again, as her weight came off the bed, she stopped and waited. Nothing.

Padding soundlessly on bare feet, she found her bathing suit on the floor. The house was silent with just the gentle susurration of the Pacific waves far in the background. To her, the sound of her own breathing was even too loud. On a chair she found her dress and purse, with her sandals underneath the seat. Collecting it all, she moved to the bathroom to dress in the dark, still listening closely for any movement from the bed or change in his breathing. She took the string sling from her purse and draped it over her shoulders so the bag was behind her, bumping her butt. Her next stop was Alahi's closet, where she removed a leather belt and, having buckled it closed, looped it over one shoulder.

Moving to the door of the balcony overlooking the ocean, she grasped the cool metal handle and began to turn it. She prayed silently that the hinges hadn't rusted in the salt air and that the change in air pressure in the room didn't wake its sleeping occupant. She had a choice in opening the balcony door. Go slowly, so any changes were gradual and less likely to provoke a reaction or go quickly and minimize the time the door was open. She chose the latter, confident that she could talk her way out of any concern up to this point. 'Oh, Peyman, I'm sorry I woke you. I just wanted to smell the ocean air.'

She stepped out into the cool night air and took a heartbeat to gaze at the beauty of the ocean. 'Ok, girl. Now you're on,' she thought. She swung her legs over the balcony railing one at a time. Standing on the balcony, on the other side of the rail, she grabbed two of the vertical bars connecting the railing to the floor of the balcony. Squatting down and removing her feet from the balcony, she slid down the bars until she was able to transfer her grip to the balcony floor itself. Now she was hanging by her hands from the floor of the balcony, her feet about five feet off the ground. Releasing her grip, she fell the distance to the concrete patio below.

She froze on one knee and listened. All she heard were the waves and the wind moving the cord on an empty flagpole off on a corner of the property. She began to move to the side of the house. The entire house was painted white and she wore a black dress, which sort of sucked, she had to admit. It couldn't be helped, though. As she moved silently, her eyes were scanning everywhere – the grounds, the windows, the edges of the walls in her view, twisting behind her, the roof of the house and the ancillary buildings, the ground in front of her. She took advantage of shadows, but they were few and far between. She had earlier noted that the security cameras didn't completely cover this side of the house.

Finally, she came to a sliding glass door. Taking a quick look around to make sure she was still unobserved, she squatted down beside it. She studied the lock for a second or two. From her purse, she took out a tension wrench and a wavy pin rake. She had to laugh to herself about the Hollywood version of lock picking. The superspy jams a hairpin into the lock and the door magically opens. Of course, it wasn't like that in real life. A key, in addition to moving the pins of the lock into the necessary alignment, also exerts a twisting force on the lock cylinder. A single picking tool will not be able to do both, so lock picking is a two-handed activity. She set to it, exerting the torsion force on the lock cylinder with the tension wrench and gently scraping the rake over the pins inside the cylinder until she found the right alignment and the cylinder shifted. It had taken her about 25 seconds.

She opened the door and slid her body inside. She left the door slightly ajar, as she planned to leave by that door in a hurry. Again, she froze and listened for any out of place sounds. A few feet in front of her was the stairway down to the display room. When she was certain that she had heard nothing out of the ordinary, she moved to the top of the stairs.

Stairs creak. It's one of the things you learn in spy school. Stepping on the edges of the stairs minimized the risk, so she made her way down the stairs with her feet widely planted on each of the treads, a bizarre spread leg gait that looked ridiculous, but was thankfully silent. Her skirt was tight enough to impede that motion, so she had to hike it up a bit to spread her legs wide enough.

At the bottom of the stairs she checked her watch. Dawn should be coming up about now. She took her phone from her purse and ordered an Uber. What others might view as cockeyed optimism, she viewed as prudent advance planning.

She faced the light blue glass room at the bottom of the stairs and remembered Alahi's tour from the prior evening. The diamond was mounted on a lit pedestal in the center of the room. Protected by this locked and alarmed door, a sealed gas system based on inert gas fire extinguisher technology, an alarm on the diamond's mount itself, and, finally, a high voltage electric cage surrounding the mounted diamond (which Alahi almost didn't share last night, until she had reached for the stone and been abruptly stopped).

Given the pedestal alarm, she had decided that the equivalent of a smash-and-grab was a good plan. Sarah and her team would likely think it was elementary, but to her, the equivalent of throwing a brick through the jewelry store window, grabbing the stone and running away, was perfectly doable. It wasn't elegant or sophisticated, but would put her out of harm's way with the Nadan-I-Noor in her purse. And that was the mission.

She removed the SSA-3000 portable decryption and encoding device from her purse, plugged it into the access port on the wall mounted control pad and activated it. As expected, the device cycled through a series of numbers until it settled on 13680, the door's code. The device in her hand encoded the code onto a card, which she removed and inserted into the door's locking pad. The door opened without an alarm sounding.

She immediately moved a sculpture off a pedestal to the floor and moved the pedestal itself to sit in the open doorway, glancing at the ceiling to make sure of its placement. The room was equipped with a gas system activated by the trigger of the alarm on the diamond. These types of systems were designed when it was realized that valuable electronics would be damaged by water-based fire extinguishing systems. When triggered, they seal the room and flood the area with an inert gas like argon or halon to suffocate the fire. Of course, they would suffocate any human standing next to the fire as well, so there were elaborate safety precautions taken to avoid that. Alahi had not set up any of the safety protocols, of course.

Approaching the diamond, Carina moved with care. The high voltage cage around the stone was her next hurdle. She took Alahi's belt off her shoulder, unbuckled it, and tossed one end around to the far side of the pedestal, catching it with her other hand. she brought it up to the far side of the diamond mounting, being careful not to come too close to the electricity, until the belt was at the same height as the diamond. Then she froze for a minute while she ran through her next steps in her mind a couple of times. Up until now, she had had time to think carefully about each of her actions. In a moment, though, the time for thinking would be done and she would have to move and react as she had pre-planned. She was about to smash a brick into the jewelry store window.

Using both hands, one on either side of the pedestal, she snapped the leather belt through the high voltage electric cage to hit the diamond and knock it off its mount. She dropped the belt and caught the stone in midair as it spun towards her. The alarm sounded, blaring and discordant. She was already on the move. The top gate that had moved to slam closed over the doorway was blocked by the pedestal she had left there.

She tucked the diamond into her purse and sealed it closed while running through the doorway, ducking low to avoid the lowered gate, and ran up the stairs. She burst through the sliding door at the top of the stairs and began to run around the side of the house.

A guard came out of an open door about ten feet ahead of her. He reacted swiftly and braced himself with one leg forward with his hands raised in a classic karate front stance to stop her from fleeing. She ran straight at him. Her left foot landed on his forward right knee and boosted her up. As she rose on his bent leg, her right knee rose faster and caught him squarely under the jaw, snapping his head backwards and sending him pitching over. Without missing a step, she continued to run to the beach, having almost literally run over the guard.

She heard shouts behind her now mixed with the blaring of the alarm, but there was sand under her feet. She touched a button on her watch and the modified jet ski Sarah's team had pre-planted in position bobbed to the surface of the water. They had left two of the remote-controlled vehicles under the waves, in case one of both of their recon teams ran into trouble and needed a last-ditch emergency exit. Pulling off her dress as she ran to the newly surfaced black machine, she wrapped the dress around the string of her bag. Within moments, she was rocketing away from the beach, straight out into the Pacific.

She heard shots behind her but the slugs came nowhere near and shortly she was out of range. She gave a "Whoop" at the top of her lungs. Winston Churchill had been right, there was nothing so exhilarating as to be shot at without effect. She felt like she had champagne in her veins. Her speed whipped the wind through her hair. The salt spray splashed into her face and the day's new sun caused the waves before her to glisten and sparkle. She laughed and hollered. Damn, she loved her job.

Arriving on the beach a few miles away from the compound, she made her way quickly to the road, pulling on her dress. Her Uber was waiting. Settling into the back seat, she took out her phone and called Sarah.

"Morning, Blondie."

"Morning."

"I got the diamond and I'm heading to the hotel." She was staying in another room at Sarah's hotel.

"Ok. The team will meet you there."

"What? No, congratulations?"

Sarah had hung up. Carina figured she must still be angry about Carina deciding to stay with Alahi. Well, she thought, Sarah will have a hard time arguing with success. We have the diamond. Mission over.

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Carina had just come out of the shower and pulled on jeans and a tank top when there was a knock on the door. She looked through the peephole with her gun in her hand and saw Sarah.

Opening the door wide, she said, with a happy grin, "Morning all. Beautiful day, isn't it?"

Sarah, Casey and Chuck came in unsmiling. "Oh, come on. Don't be sore. I acted spontaneously and we accomplished the mission. The important thing is we got the diamond. It's all good." She bounced the stone in her hand. Well, she thought, if they were going to hold a grudge about this...

Without a word, Chuck took out his laptop and opened it. Carina wondered what they were up to. None of them looked at all happy. He touched a few buttons and pulled up a picture of an old painting. It looked Dutch, a pretty girl with a blue scarf around her head. She had seen it recently.

Sarah said, "This painting is by Vermeer. It's called 'Girl With a Pearl Earring.' Does it look familiar?"

"Yes..."

"You passed it this morning in Alahi's display room."

"Yes, that's it. It was on the wall."

"Yes," continued Sarah. Chuck had brought up a second picture. It was a scene from a park in a more impressionist style. A woman in a white dress sitting on the grass with a lounging boy. "This one is by Manet and is called 'The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil'. It was also on the wall of the room with the diamond." While she was talking, Sarah had crossed the room to take a tall glass vase of flowers from the side table and bring it to the more centrally placed table in front of Carina. She took out the flowers and laid them down, leaving nothing in the vase but the water. "Give me the diamond." Sarah was still unsmiling.

Now uneasy for some reason, Carina handed her the diamond. Sarah placed it just above the water and slowly lowered it in. She let go. "Do you know what both of these paintings have in common, Carina? They are both in museums. The Vermeer is at the Mauritshuis at the Hague and the Manet is at the Met in New York." Carina watched spellbound as the diamond sunk through the water about three quarters of the way down the vase and stopped, floating about four inches above the bottom of the vase. "The paintings were fake. Just like the diamond you stole. Real diamonds don't float, Carina."

Carina stared at the floating stone, as her upbeat mood turned to ashes, and said, "Well, fuck me." Three pairs of eyes looked at her and all three resisted the obvious response. Moments after she said it, she regretted the expression.

"Alahi is a bullshitter," Sarah continued. "Putting on a show for others to prop up a fragile ego. He set up a fake diamond as a distraction, like the other fake shit in his display room. Casey and Chuck saw it all on their recon. It didn't seem weird to you that there were no security cameras on that room?"

"They were on the perimeter of his place. I thought they considered that enough," said Carina.

"No," said Sarah.

"So Alahi doesn't have the real diamond?"

"Oh, he does. In a real walk-in vault in the basement. Chuck and Casey did their jobs yesterday and somehow managed to stay on task. They got a complete tour of the security for the compound. Our operation to take the diamond starts tonight. We are already in his camera and computer system. We watched you all morning as you took the fake."

Carina was silent for a little while and said, "I'm sorry. I screwed up. I tried to improvise and blew it."

Casey spoke for the first time since entering the hotel room, "I wanted to let you go back to the DEA with the fake stone."

"Payback for Prague?" she asked. Casey just shrugged.

"We weren't going to let you do that," said Sarah.

"I abstained," said Chuck.

"We weren't going to let you do that," Sarah repeated.

"Thank you. Thank you all,"

"Carina," Sarah spoke seriously, "when this team was first formed, we had growing pains. It took some mistakes before we learned to trust each other. Now we do. Totally. You and I both know how hard that is establish and how easy it is to lose. You blew it yesterday. Improvising is the same as 'ready, fire, aim'. No good. As a result, once Casey and Chuck left the compound with their recon complete, all three of us spent the entire night on watch outside Alahi's place waiting to see if you were in trouble and needed us. Casey alone would have gone in full-Rambo if you needed help. That's what a team does for each other. Now you are safe and out of danger. So that's it... Bye... Or ... we can use another pair of hands on tonight's job. The question of the moment is, can we trust you? Can we trust you not to improvise and to stay with us?"

"I'm sorry. Yes, you can trust me. I will be a good team player. I promise."

"Ok," said Sarah. "We're going to get some sleep. Meet me in my room at six tonight. We go in overnight."

"I will," said Carina, seemingly suitably chastised.

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Once in Sarah's room, Chuck and Sarah ordered breakfast from room service. Casey had agreed to meet them back at the room later, allowing everyone to get some sleep. Some of the equipment they needed they already had in the trunk of the Crown Vic or Sarah's Porsche, but he intended to swing by an NSA facility and pick up the additional gear for that night's operation.

"Well, I think she'll behave now. She's probably kicking herself for screwing up," said Chuck.

"Yeah, she'll behave for a while at least. Until her inner Carina comes back to the fore. I couldn't tell her this, but if that had been the real diamond, that would have been a really cool caper she pulled off."

"Um, yeah, I guess...but if the Queen had balls she'd be King...if it had been the real diamond, security would have been different, so we'll never know," answered Chuck.

"Fair enough," said Sarah. Chuck had opened her closet and was looking inside. "What are you looking for?"

"My black jeans. I'll need them tonight and I can't remember if I left them here or Echo Park." He continued to poke around.

"I think they're here. Let me help you." She came over to stand with him by the closet. "It's sort of a hassle to have stuff in both places. Last week I couldn't find my pink blouse and it was in your laundry," she said. And then suddenly realized the implications of the solution to the hassle and found herself a little flustered. "Oh, here you go." She handed him his jeans.

"Thanks."

Breakfast came and they wasted no time in eating. Dinner had been a few granola bars and a bottle of water while on alert by Alahi's compound. Sarah said, "I meant to ask you. Yesterday morning, when we were talking about Prague with Graham and Beckman, Graham said he'd tell you later. Since when do you talk to Graham without me?"

"A few weeks now. Was I not supposed to talk to him?"

"No, it's not that. It's just that ...I don't know...it was surprising, that's all."

"Don't you talk to him without me?"

"Yeah, but it's different. He's my boss," answered Sarah.

"He's my boss too."

"Well...yeah, he is. Do you talk to Beckman too?

"I do, but not as often as I talk to Graham."

"What do you talk about?"

"Nothing operational. He first called me when he and his wife were trying to set up an X-Box for their grandkids. He was stuck and called for help. We talk about once a week or so. Family. News. He asks how we're doing."

"Us?"

"Well, yeah, us, but also 'us' sometimes" he waved his hand around to indicate a bigger 'us'. "The team, the three of us. How we're doing."

"What do you tell him?"

"The truth. We're great. I'm accomplishing good things. Doing good important things. Despite the danger and craziness, I'm happier than I have been in...well, I don't even remember being this happy before...oh, God, that's such a terrible thing to say. Now something really bad is going to happen."

"I hope not." She leaned forward and kissed him. "I'm happy too, boyfriend-mine. You make me happy. Even Carina noticed it and commented on it."

He kissed her back with purpose. "I am going to make you even happier if you'll let me," he said, while lightly rubbing her back.

"Oh, I have an idea." Giggling, she went to her closet and took out a black plastic case the size of a shoebox. Taking out military style night vision goggles, she started to adjust the straps. Chuck took the breakfast cart and moved it outside their door with a do not disturb sign.

"Close the curtains, please." He did and the room became instantly darker. Like many hotel rooms, heavy dark curtains fit well over the windows and blocked almost all the sunlight. "So," she said, "You're going to have to wear these tonight and should get some practice beforehand. Let's do that." She spent a few minutes explaining the workings of the device and how Chuck would be operating it.

He put the goggles on his head as she turned off the lights darkening the room totally. He found he could see reasonably well, albeit entirely in shades of green and with no peripheral vision. As he watched, she took off her shirt and reached behind her with both hands to undo her bra.

"Let's see what you can manage while wearing those," said Sarah with a green tinted smile.

As it turned out, he could accomplish quite a bit. And vigorously.

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A/N2: Just a word about the high voltage electric cage surrounding the stone. I know we are talking about a show with a computer program in a guy's head, so we accept a certain suspension of disbelief, but seriously, guys. Electricity doesn't work that way. It travels along conductors. Air is not a conductor, it's an insulator. If there was anything like what the screenwriters described, it would be a hissing, crackling mess of lightning like you'd find in a mad scientist's lab. I know you all know this, but I just felt the need to share.

A/N3: Both of those paintings were on the wall in Alahi's display room. I guess the set designers were told to put up museum quality paintings from the prop room, and they put in museum paintings instead. There was a Van Gogh there too, but I couldn't get the name of the specific painting so didn't bother to add it to the story (Van Gogh had done a series of very similar landscapes and I couldn't narrow it down from there). I thought I could use that mistake to my advantage story-wise.

A/N4: Thanks to Zettel for his discussions with me about Carina. His Carina from Mis(Ed) and my Carina here are different ladies, but he helped me focus my thoughts tremendously. As usual, if my Carina is entertaining, we can thank Zettel's assistance. If not, she's all mine.