"We're opening up a Pandora's box. Be careful what you wish for." – James Waters
Lessons in Stalking
18 OCTOBER 2007BACHELOR PAD
16:17 PDT
Though Casey had recommended—in the form of an order—that Chuck take a nap, he used the time waiting for Sarah to make progress on his setup. He unloaded his new computer, the monitor, the mouse, the speakers. It took time to enable the security algorithm that would fool anybody but the geekiest geeks about his computer usage. Since their mission in Burbank was classified, he doubted Sarah would get access to those types, so he felt confident as he set up the mirror account that would hide his usage, and the program that would scramble all data packets to make it look like he just had a fetish for West Wing fanfiction. He selected the passwords that Sarah and her team would have to hack with care.
For fun, he made passwords things she would recognize: souvlak1, Rad0msk0, The_St1ng, Wh1skey_Tang—
He felt his eyes roll back into his head.
An abandoned B-52 in a field, covered by weeds and graffiti.
WHISKEY. TANGO. FOXTROT.
WHISKEY—92 percentile scores in cognitive data assimilation. Approved for field work: subject recommended to MARDUK.
TANGO—93.7 percentile in cognitive data assimilation. Complications arising due to auditory and visual stimuli incurring psychotic episodes and instability far exceeding "safe" levels of Dendraphyl. Subject declared major risk: TERMINATED.
FOXTROT—98 percentile. Subject shows amazing capability for cognitive data assimilation, exceeds all expectations of participating scientists and Dr. NAME REDACTED. Initial resistance to hypnosis therapy—
PROJECT REDACTED.
An abandoned B-52 again.
Chuck's eyes returned to their sockets.
Without a word, without a reaction, he climbed to his feet and rooted around through the bags on his bed until he found the packet of dry-erase markers. He crossed to his new white-board and began to write, quickly and furiously.
Where's B.L.? went across the top of the board. Chuck drew a line, dissecting the board down the middle, and began to scribe dates, making a new tick in the line for each date.
26 SEP – Sends PKG to C.B., contacts C.B. via satellite phone
28/29 SEP – ATHENS? Delivers menu to S.W. and C.B.?
16 OCT – Delivers name "P.D." to C.B. Madison Mercy Hospital, LA
Chuck flipped the whiteboard over and began writing down everything he could remember from the flashes about Project Omaha and the mysterious Whiskey, Tango, and Foxtrot. Because the Gio Pete's menu and the flash he'd just had seemed connected, he figured the name Phillip Dartmoor fit in somewhere, so he wrote "P.D." on this side of the board as well, circling in with a red marker and drawing a large blue question mark next to it.
As soon as his computer was safely shielded from any prying eyes that the government might send, he'd check. Something told him that it wasn't wise to reveal just how much he knew yet. Chuck Bartowski had finally learned his lesson with the US Government, and he was playing this one close to the vest.
Because he heard footsteps on the stairwell, Chuck shoved the white board into his closet and turned, innocently, to face Casey. "What's up?"
"Get downstairs. Walker's on her way over."
"Is she bringing her new friend?"
Since Chuck couldn't quite interpret Casey's growl for either assent or "I hope not," he decided it was probably the latter. He followed the NSA agent downstairs—he took one of the couches, Casey sat in the worn, brown recliner that Chuck was positive hadn't been there the day before. Their interior decorator would never approve.
Casey stripped his gun and began laying parts, methodically, on a cleaning cloth. After a moment, Chuck leaned forward to get a better look at the military precision.
Casey merely pushed on his forehead, shoving him back into the couch. Chuck whimpered as that movement sent flashes of white and agony through his goose-egg.
He minded his own business until Sarah arrived. She did so presently, raising her eyebrows to see both of her teammates waiting for her.
"Walker," Casey greeted, his tone neutral. "I assume you didn't lead Carina straight to us."
"I know how to shake a tail." Sarah didn't sound offended, just resigned. "And Carina's got other things to worry about than the two of you."
"I just bet she does." Casey, satisfied that his gun was finally clean, began to reassemble it.
"I'm sorry I thought you were gay," Chuck blurted out. When Sarah and Casey turned on him, one annoyed, the other outright gaping, he hunched his shoulders forward. "What? I am!"
"Playing for the other team, Walker?" Casey voice took on a happy note that it usually contained only when he was picking on Chuck. A smirk was already beginning to creep in. "That explains most everything except your fascination with wonder-boy's—"
Chuck wasn't sure where the knife came from—he certainly hadn't seen Sarah move. But a knife hilt blossomed from the wall three inches from Casey's head nonetheless.
It would have made Chuck wet himself in terror. Casey just laughed. "You're fixing that, Walker. Don't want to lose our security deposit—tax-payers' dollars at work, you know."
Sarah made a Casey-like noise.
"So!" Chuck said, too loudly, hoping to move away from this topic, and quickly. "So, uh, what's up? DEA, drug lord, diamond heists, what? Yeah, let's talk about that! That sounds like a good idea to me. What about you guys?"
Sarah retrieved her knife and sheathed it before she sat next to Chuck on the couch (Chuck hoped his sidling away from the knife wasn't too obvious). "Carina came into town a couple of days before you both got here from DC. I was authorized by Graham to help her retrieve a diamond from a man named Peyman Alahi."
Chuck tensed, waiting for the flash.
"Nothing?" Sarah asked, raising her eyebrows. "Well, either way, he's a drug lord—an 'international financier of an opium cartel.'" She raised her fingers to make air-quotes as she said this—Chuck guessed she was quoting a briefing of some sort. "Carina was after a diamond he was holding—"
"What would an ex-DEA agent need with a diamond that size? Besides out-blinging Flava Flav?"
Casey grunted. "Probably hoping to trade it—move up the covert DEA ranks."
That theory certainly made more sense to Chuck, so he nodded and shrugged, settling in to listen to the rest of Sarah's recitation.
"Graham authorized me to help Carina, but I was to make sure I returned the diamond to him rather than letting Carina take it. She's a bit of a…wild card." Sarah bit her lip for a moment, as if debating just how much she should say. "We brought in a contractor for the job, an expert on the safe that Peyman was using to store the diamond. We would've waited for Chuck and the intel to get here, but Peyman was moving the diamond within 72 hours, so we had to act quickly."
Casey shrugged, a little "that makes sense" movement. "Who'd you get?"
"Fidget."
Casey groaned. "You didn't," he said.
"We didn't have much choice. We were on a deadline." Outwardly, Sarah didn't move but because Chuck was sitting right next to her on the couch, he felt her bristle.
"Who's Fidget?" Chuck asked.
"One of the best safe experts in the country."
"And one that can be bought for a price," Casey added, rolling his eyes at Sarah. "Any price. Which I'm guessing is what happened."
"Look, he turned out to be useful. Without him, we wouldn't have known about the twenty-thousand volts of electricity surrounding the diamond!"
"And when did he turn on you?" Casey wanted to know.
Sarah glowered for so long that Chuck feared another handily thrown knife might make its appearance by Casey's head. If she ever decided she didn't want to miss anymore, two members of Operation Prometheus could be dead in seconds.
"Yesterday," Sarah said. "He gave up Carina's name—he didn't know mine. Peyman tracked Carina down this morning. She got away, but she's pretty intent on getting the diamond and skipping town."
"So what now?" Chuck asked.
"I'm not giving up the diamond. Carina will realize that eventually. Carina disappears, Peyman's men spend the next few years tracking a ghost." Sarah shrugged. "Chances are, 'Carina Miller' will die publicly in some place like Burundi, and the woman we know as Carina will pop up with a new alias to cause trouble somewhere else."
"Ah."
"Assuming," Sarah said through gritted teeth, "she actually sticks to the plan and listens to me." Her tone conveyed her skepticism about the possibility of that ever happening.
Casey inserted the final piece into his gun. "Guess we'll just wait for the inevitable bad stuff to go down, and we'll deal with it when it does," he said, and chambered a round.
"Another for the 'Casey's little life lessons' book," Chuck remarked. When Casey and Sarah gave him confused looks, he raised his hands in a "what can you do?" motion. "I'm going to start writing them down, I swear I will."
"All right." It was another one of Sarah's automatic responses to Chuck's nerd moments. She frowned at him. "You're supposed to be on medical leave. Go upstairs and take a nap."
"I'm not tired."
"Go anyway." Sarah's look finished the sentence: or I will make you.
"Okay, okay." Chuck heaved a melodramatic sigh and headed for the staircase.
"And don't just spend the whole time on the computer."
"Nag, nag, nag." Chuck glared before he stomped up the spiral stairs.
"With Carina out there, we'll be working from 'home' for the rest of the day," Casey said. "I've wired the computers in here to Castle's work flow, but there's only one work station. Guess you're on paperwork detail, Walker."
"Or she can just use my computer," Chuck offered from the top of the stairs. "Since I'm apparently four, and grounded."
"You're supposed to be napping."
"Bed's all the way on the other side of the room from the computer," Chuck said. "And since I'm not really tired anyway, it's not going to matter. I'll just stare at the ceiling while you work."
Casey snickered as he holstered his gun. "Usually the other way around, isn't it, Bartowski?"
Chuck and Sarah rolled their eyes at him, but Sarah was already heading up the stairs, which meant the discussion was over. Chuck moved to the bed, dumped the bags on the floor, and flopped down face-first. He winced—bad idea with his body as sore as it was.
A few seconds later, he heard Sarah tap on the keyboard. "Password?" she called.
"Oh, right." Chuck levered himself off of the bed and crossed over to the computer. Since Sarah didn't take the hint and move aside, he had to reach around her—and get a good whiff of her shampoo in the process.
"Four passwords, Chuck?"
"Let the games begin." Chuck indulged himself in one last deep breath before he straightened. "Everything should work for you now."
"Thanks."
Chuck kicked off his shoes and crawled beneath the covers, grumbling under his breath at his overprotective teammates. He yanked the covers up to his chin in an act of defiance. Though he hadn't been tired even a few seconds before, the flat surface, the adrenaline crash, and the constant abuse he'd put his poor body through all teamed up against him. His eyelids drooped.
"Chuck?"
He almost didn't catch Sarah's whisper. Fighting exhaustion, he raised himself up onto his elbows and blinked heavily at her. "What's up?" Why he felt the need to whisper back, he had no idea.
She was nibbling on her lip, looking not at him but the computer screen. Chuck could see her outline in the dimness, her profile wreathed by the blue-white of the monitor light.
"That thing, with the ninja at Ellie's apartment…" Sarah kept her gaze on the monitor. "It…it won't happen again. I'm not going to let anything happen to her."
"Oh." Chuck stayed where he was until his abdomen began to burn. "Thanks, Sarah."
18 OCTOBER 2007
THE BACHELOR PAD
19:21 PDT
When he woke, splayed over half of the bed, Sarah was gone, but the computer had been turned off, the blinds opened to let in the dusky light, and all of the bags had been put away. He imagined that everything had been stowed neatly in its place. His first thought was amusement that a woman knew more about his bedroom than he did. His second was curiosity—what on earth had Sarah done to his computer since he'd allowed her access? One smile and the woman could twist him around her little finger if she chose.
He was glad she had decided to use her powers for good.
He rose, cursing his aching body and ruing the fact that Ellie had denied him Demerol. When he wandered over to the computer, he saw that Sarah had left him a piece of white paper draped over the keyboard.
Schnookie lives on.
Chuck laughed and rooted through his desk drawer until he located scotch tape. He taped the note on the wall right over his monitor, where he would be able to glance up and see it during work.
As he did so, a pair of picture frames on the corner of the desk caught his eye. He was positive they hadn't been there before he'd gone to sleep.
He sank into the desk chair. So that was where his pictures had gone. There they were, crumpled, weathered, worn, almost pathetic behind the picture frames Sarah had picked. Heedless that he was smudging the glass, Chuck trailed his fingers along them, and felt another small piece of him click into place.
He pulled off the backs of the frames, plucking each photo out and smoothing it straight with his fingers, lingering on the three faces in each of them, faces that had traveled with him all over the world now, hidden close to his heart. He then folded the pictures and stuck both in his pockets.
"Casey? You home?" he called as he jogged down the stairs.
Apparently, his babysitters had vanished. Chuck wondered briefly if they were okay—it would always be with him, he knew, the back-of-the-mind doubt about everybody in his life, wondering if they were hurt, if they were safe, if they had secretly been abducted by Cylons hell-bent on his destruction. He'd have to get used to it.
Or he'd go slowly insane. Either way.
Chuck, realizing that his clothes reeked of his panic sweat from earlier, began stripping before he'd even reached the bathroom. Since he didn't know if Casey or Sarah would return soon, he showered quickly and ran upstairs in just a towel, his clothes bundled under one arm.
Who on earth had picked the clothes in his closet? He pondered as he pawed through his selection. It was a pretty typical closet for a software designer—a row of white, short-sleeved button up shirts. Geek attire. Nerdy T-shirts (his favorite was "Cowbell Hero"), neutral, boring slacks. Had the CIA selected his clothes? Or had…Sarah? She'd had a hand in decorating the Bachelor Pad and Castle, so why not his closet, too?
He wasn't sure how he felt about a woman picking out all of his clothes. In fact, he was going clothes shopping as soon as his system could handle it. It was time to take control over something in his life.
Still, he had to appreciate some aspects of the whole thing. Like the clothes actually fitting him—and fitting well. Given the nature of his plans, he chose a dark shirt, military style with pockets and epaulets and everything, and dark jeans. He finger-combed his wet hair, donned his tracker watch, his by-now trustworthy chucks, transferred the pictures over to his new pocket.
And, grabbing his keys and wallet, he left before Sarah or Casey could catch him.
18 OCTOBER 2007
CHUCK'S CAR
20:32 PDT
If it was slightly stalkerish to sit in a parking garage and wait for his sister to get off work, what he was doing now knocked the stalker level through the red zone and out of the park. But Chuck didn't care. He just ate another sizzling shrimp and continued to stare out the windshield. Though he'd brought night-vision binoculars, they sat unused on the dashboard. Even he wasn't about to admit to that level of stalking.
He'd counted thirteen passersby on the sidewalk. Four had gone into the building. Three others had come out. Two people sat on a park bench across the street while their dogs sniffed every inch of the curb twice.
Still, no sign of her.
It probably wasn't unusual. He'd taken the time to count windows, he knew the floor plan of the building. Figuring out which apartment was hers had been easy—the windows were dark, and had been since he'd arrived. She clearly wasn't home, probably wouldn't be for hours. A woman in the final year of her doctorate should be studying, and she'd always preferred the library for that. So it made sense.
He could wait. He had all the time in the world—or at least he did until he was required to clock back in at Castle, or Casey and Sarah showed up to drag him back to the Bachelor Pad.
Another person strolled by. Chuck ate another sizzling shrimp and absently wiped his brow. Good thing he was staying in the car—that seemed to be holding the panic attack at bay. Sure, his heart was going a little fast, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. For now.
Life, he reflected as he munched, was a crazy journey. In a Buy More, only a couple of miles away from where he sat under a broken streetlight, there stood a wall—a shrine, a tribute that, put bluntly, gave him the heebie-jeebies. And now, here he was in a parked car, doing his own stalking. The double-standard was almost enough to put him off his lunch. It certainly would have if his lunch—or dinner, really—weren't sizzling shrimp.
He wished he'd made a stakeout mix for the occasion. Maybe a little "Every Breath You Take" action by the Police. "Private Eyes." Hell, even Weird Al Yankovic's "Melanie" perfectly fit the situation.
He started humming the last under his breath—and the passenger door opened.
Chuck's reaction was part fight, part flight. He scrambled back against the door even as his hands flailed out in a poor imitation of a kung fu stance. Sizzling shrimp flew everywhere.
Carina Miller looked less than impressed. "Well, hey there, Chuckie."
Chuck stared at her in absolute horror. Sarah, he thought distantly, was not going to like this at all. "What are you doing here?"
"Curious, mostly." Carina peered around the car, taking in the sights and even giving a cute little wave to the couple on the bench with the dogs. "Nice place. A little low-class for the likes of a CIA analyst, though, wouldn't you say?"
"It happens to be a perfectly respectable neighborhood," Chuck said, a bit stiffly. "If I were a grad student or just starting off in my career, I would jump at the chance to live in such a place."
Carina twitched a shoulder. She'd traded the ninja couture for a slinky top that revealed more than it covered, and painted-on jeans. Chuck wondered if all female agents insisted on going around in as little as possible. He couldn't say he minded, but it would make the job…interesting. And rough, at points. He figured the Intersect probably needed a great deal of concentration.
"Give me a beach cottage in Ibiza any day," Carina said, drawing Chuck's attention back to the matter at hand—that he was alone. In a parked car. With an ex-DEA agent that had a bone to pick with his new partner.
"Carina, what are you doing here? In my car? Right now?"
"I want to see what's got Sarah in such a tizzy." Carina's smile took on a predatory edge as she eyed Chuck. He shook off the sensation of feeling like a very cheap piece of meat. "I have to say, I'm a little surprised. You're not what I expected."
"I get that a lot."
"So what do you do, Chuck, that leads to single-car stakeouts in perfectly respectable neighborhoods?"
"What I do and what I'm doing are completely unrelated." Since she wasn't going anywhere, Chuck returned to what was left of his sizzling shrimp. "I'm an analyst, like you said. Risk assessment, mostly."
Carina chuckled. "They stuck Sarah Walkerwith a risk assessment analyst? That's just rich."
"Who says I'm assessing Sarah's risk? She could be my bodyguard."
"You're new," Carina said. Chuck didn't correct her one way or the other. "You're still shiny from the factory. Here's how it is—when a field agent like Sarah gets stuck with a 'risk assessment' analyst…well, it just means she's one step away from a burn notice." Carina laughed, harshly, humorlessly. There was almost sympathy in the noise, Chuck thought, but he didn't know if it was for Sarah or for his own naïveté. "Major Casey getting stuck with an analyst, too? I figured with the Bryce thing, Sarah makes sense, but Casey…oh, that's just funny."
"You're a very cold woman," Chuck said. "And no, Sarah doesn't make sense. I'm fairly sure, as one of your hated risk assessment analysts, that Bryce acted on his own volition."
"What? To get dead?"
"W-what?" Had Bryce died and nobody told him? Then who had delivered the Phillip Dartmoor clue into his jacket pocket?
"It's an occupational hazard," Carina went on, as if Chuck hadn't spoken at all. "Getting dead. Wait—own volition? Do you know something I don't? Did Bryce Larkin commit suicide?" Carina perked up at the thought of new gossip. "I heard he just went rogue and they put a bullet in him."
"Ah—ah—"
No. Bryce Larkin wasn't dead. Somewhere deep inside him, Chuck would know if his best friend from college had kicked the bucket. Which meant that the government didn't want their agents, ex or otherwise, to know. Still, Bryce Larkin being dead? That was the best cover the government could think up? Weak, Chuck decided.
But who was he to blow somebody else's cover?
"What I meant to say is that he went rogue on his own, and he left Sarah completely out of the loop when he did it. I'm not here to assess Sarah. Sarah is fine. She's good—fantastic, even." Chuck stuffed a whole sizzling shrimp in his mouth and glowered at Carina, daring her to say otherwise.
"Well, that's good, considering."
"Con-considering?" Chuck coughed as a piece of shrimp lodged itself in his windpipe. "Considering what, exactly?"
"Oh, you know." Carina peered through the windshield, her eyes cutting left and right. "What exactly are we staking out here, anyway? This looks more boring than usual."
Chuck ignored the question. "What do you mean, you know? Considering that Sarah and Bryce were, what, partners?"
Carina laughed again. "Partners? Yes."
"What are you saying? That they were…more than partners?" Chuck felt the car shrinking around him, though he had no idea why. He had no claim to a woman like Sarah, so—so what if she and Bryce had been partners in more than one sense? It shouldn't feel like a betrayal. That was illogical. And no way in hell should it feel like somebody was slowly and systematically sucking all of the oxygen out of his car. Chuck took a deep breath and tried to hold it together.
Carina, peering through the night-vision binoculars now, just smirked. "You sound like you're surprised, Chuck. A couple of good-looking people like Bryce and Sarah, all those high-octane situations, life and death day in and day out, how do you expect them not to get together?"
"They're not pandas in a zoo!"
"Either way."
Because very, very uncomfortable images were flashing through his mind about his best friend and his new partner, Chuck squirmed in his seat. "What are you really doing here, Carina?"
"I want my diamond."
"Well, whoop-dee-doo for you. I don't have it. Talk to Sarah."
"I'd do that. Except, I can't find Sarah." Carina draped an arm around the back of Chuck's seat and began to toy with his hair, making him flinch. But there didn't seem to be anywhere to go but out of the car. "I can find you, though. So—"
"Are you kidnapping me?" Panic began to crawl through him.
Carina just laughed. "Honestly, Chuck. We're all on the same side here, remember? I'm not kidnapping you."
"Whew."
"But I am going to use you." Carina's eyes sparkled with unhealthy fun. "You can be used to pass on a message, and I'm not missing that opportunity."
When Carina shifted to grab something out of her belt, Chuck tensed, waiting for a gun. She pulled out a cell phone instead, smirking at him as she activated the video feature. "Smile, Chuckles!"
Chuck did—until he felt something cold against the side of his neck. The smile died; sweat popped up to take its place.
"Hey, Sarah," Carina told the camera, leaning close enough to Chuck that he could smell her shampoo. Strawberries—fitting for red hair. He would now forever associate that scent with terror. "Me and Chuckie here, we're just hanging out. So how's about that diamond, huh? You've got twenty minutes—no, let's make that 45 minutes. Traffic's a bitch this time of night." She blew a kiss at the camera and ended the video. Keeping the gun to Chuck's neck, she sent the video whizzing away into the ether.
"I thought you weren't kidnapping me!"
"I'm not." Carina gave him a winning smile as she holstered her gun. "We're not going anywhere. So technically, I'm just holding you hostage."
"Oh. Good. Technicalities." Chuck put his hands on the steering wheel and sighed. It occurred to him that he could probably try and run away, but if Carina could give Sarah a bloody nose, he had no idea what she might be able to do to him. So he rested his aching forehead on the steering wheel, right between his hands. "Now what? We wait for Sarah and Casey to arrive and somebody gets shot?"
"Nobody's going to get shot. We've got thirty minutes before Sarah gets here, so we might as well either finish your stakeout, or get to know each other."
"This is the weirdest hostage situation ever," Chuck said.
"Try not to think of it as a hostage situation." Carina's voice took on a playful note. "Who are we watching? The Russians?" She purposely dropped her voice and leaned toward Chuck, conspiratorially. "It's the Russians, isn't it? It's always the Russians with you analyst types. You just like to forget the Cold War ended."
"It's not the Russians."
"Then who?"
Chuck didn't answer. He heard more than saw the predatory smirk overtake Carina's features, but he didn't open his eyes. To do so would acknowledge something he wasn't sure he wanted to face.
"We could always talk more about Bryce and Sarah. That seems to be a favorite topic of yours."
Honestly, he'd rather be gut-punched by the entire defensive lineup of the Green Bay Packers than think any more thoughts about Sarah and Bryce. Together. So he gritted his teeth. "Her name's Jill."
"What?"
"The stakeout. Her name's Jill."
For a long moment, there was silence from the passenger seat. And Carina began to laugh, genuine chuckles that shook her whole torso. Chuck finally lifted his forehead from the steering wheel to gape at her, his jaw nearly dropping when Carina wiped a bit of moisture from one eye. "Oh, this is just precious," she declared, grinning. "Does Sarah know?"
"What? No, Sarah doesn't know. She'd have been here a lot sooner otherwise, don't you think?" Chuck scowled. Here he was, staking out his ex's place, and now he had the DEA—ex-DEA—laughing at him. There were other ways, healthier ways, to spend an evening. "Don't forget, you're technically holding me hostage. For a friggin' diamond."
"The diamond's going to end up in the right hands either way." Carina chuckled again. "This way, I get my old job back. So what's she look like, this Jill of yours? Just so I can help you keep watch?"
He dithered for a moment, but eventually gave up with a shrug. Sarah had trusted this woman enough to go on missions with her. And it wasn't like they had much else to do. "Brown hair, brown eyes, slightly egg-headed," he said. "She was wearing glasses last time I saw her, though I don't know if she's gotten contacts or anything since then."
He had to face it: there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he knew about Jill Roberts anymore. Not since he'd received her last letter—two days before they'd bunkered him.
"Hm." Carina shifted, lowering herself a little so as to appear inconspicuous. She raised the binoculars and made a noise in the back of her throat. "Five-seven?"
"Or thereabouts, yeah."
"Pretty in a nerdy sort of way, likes purple?"
Chuck bolted upright. He'd just spotted the lone figure approaching the apartment building. It wasn't surprising that Carina had seen her first, given that she had the binoculars. Chuck leaned forward, straining his eyes.
"Oh, for Pete's sake, take these." Carina shoved the binoculars into his hand (ignoring his yelp when the movement jarred his scrapes), muttering something under her breath. Chuck was almost positive he caught the words "nerd love," but he couldn't be sure. With trembling hands, he raised the binoculars.
And there she was, looking exactly as breathtaking as she had five years, three months, and nineteen days before, when she'd kissed him good-bye on his sister's doorstep in Echo Park so that he could have one final day with Ellie before shipping off to Army Officer Candidate School.
Little things had changed. Her hairstyle was different (he couldn't have said how), she wore different glasses, and she'd usually worn old T-shirts and jeans at Stanford rather than the stylish lilac sweater and slacks the woman heading up the front steps of the apartment building wore now. This woman carried a grocery bag under one arm. As Chuck watched, she half-turned and smiled at a neighbor walking by.
The smile made his teeth hurt.
"You okay there?" Carina asked, almost bored.
Chuck ignored her. He knew it was creepy to sit there and watch through binoculars as Jill mounted the steps, as she rooted around for her keys, as she unlocked the door, but he didn't blink until she'd finally vanished into the building and out of his sight.
Then, and only then, did he lower the binoculars.
His chest hurt. It wasn't the constant ache that had throbbed through him all day; it wasn't the bruising across torso from the seatbelt the night before. His chest burned, as if somebody had super-heated a poker and was now pushing it, slowly and forcefully, into his sternum, inch by inch. He could all but feel the heat against his skin, sizzling and popping, filling the car with the acrid stench of burned flesh. Seeing Morgan had been a happy experience, finding Ellie again had completed the hole in his life.
Seeing Jill Roberts with her grocery bag and her purple sweater just hurt.
Chuck actually moved to put his hand on his chest—to do what, he didn't know. It wouldn't ease the ache. The wound wasn't real. It was all in his head, so why did it feel like his heart might shrivel and die at any second now? He heard his breath speed up, rasping strangely.
"Whoa." Carina tensed.
Chuck absently put up a hand to wave at her, tell her he was fine. But she wasn't looking at him. She was peering out the car window, over her shoulder. Tension ran through her limbs, making her seem like a long-limbed predator about to strike.
"Move!" she shouted, shoving him toward the door.
"Ow!" Chuck had no choice but to lunge for the handle, the way that Carina pushed him. He more fell than climbed from the car, stumbling out onto the sidewalk. Though the ache in his chest didn't vanish, the panicky sensation from the night before returned, taking over everything. "What the hell, Carina?"
"We've got company." Carina moved around the car in two long strides and yanked on his arm to pull him along.
Chuck had no choice—it was either run or be dragged. The woman had a grip to rival Iron Man's. Holy hell. "What are you talking about?"
"Keep running, but eight o'clock!"
Eight o'clock? What? Oh, she was telling him their enemies' positions. Even as his chucks pounded pavement, Chuck brought up a picture of a clock face in his mind. He looked over his left shoulder and wanted very suddenly to wet himself.
Two thugs, big guys. Meaty faces. Angry looks on those meaty faces. And they were sprinting down the sidewalk after Carina and him.
Still, logic apparently hadn't been tossed out the window with the flight reaction. "Why would I want to go with you?" Chuck demanded as he tore down the sidewalk beside Carina. "You took me hostage!"
Carina veered off into an alley. Chuck followed. "Yeah—for fun! I'm not going to be the one that gets Sarah Walker's new boy-toy killed!"
"I highly resent being referred to as a toy." Chuck stumbled over an aluminum can and would have crashed into the wall had Carina not yanked on his wrist. In addition to a vise-like grip, she also had the reflexes of a puma.
Was every agent he would meet at this job going to be a specimen of athletic perfection? Geez.
Behind him, he could hear the slap of nice shoes on pavement. They hadn't lost the rather imposing men chasing them, after all. Damn it. A slew of panicky swear words slipped through Chuck's mind. He pushed his arms and legs to go faster.
No dice.
The entire time, Carina kept up a string of commands.
"C'mon, this way—"
"Left up ahead—"
"Watch out—"
Carina veered left, onto an abandoned back street behind buildings. She hurdled a downed trash can with all of the grace of a track star. Chuck did the same—with the grace of a drunk. He caught himself at the last moment, but visions of face-planting into the concrete still flashed through his mind.
On they ran, their pursuers right behind them the whole time. Carina weaved a zig-zag trail through the alleys that left Chuck completely lost, but he didn't have much choice but to trust her at this point. The midgets that lived inside him took power sanders to his lungs and esophagus. His legs were on fire. His throat burned, his head spun. He wanted to simply collapse to the concrete, to put his weak and shaking hands over his head and hope that the men with the guns would just end it all with a bullet.
He ran harder.
They made a sharp left onto a populated street, whizzing past store fronts and dodging in and out of innocent pedestrians. An alarming few paused to watch the spectacle, even when Carina leaped clear over a stroller.
The mother, chatting on her cell phone, didn't even notice. It really did take all kinds.
Chuck dodged the stroller, tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, and yelped when Carina hauled him into another alley. Together, they ran toward the other end, toward escape, and freedom—
Chuck's lungs burned.
Almost there—
They hurtled past a wino crumpled up against a dumpster. He gave them a bleary nod.
It didn't sound like the goons had followed them. Maybe they'd run clear past the alley, and things would be okay again.
Two more feet—
A man stepped into view at the end of the alley. It normally wouldn't have been a problem—they could move around him since they'd become experts at dodge-bystander—except that he had minions.
Large minions.
Large, armed minions.
Carina skidded to a halt, those too-blue eyes flicking over each guard and back to the ringleader. She stood tall, her shoulders moving just the slightest bit as she fought to catch her breath.
Chuck stumbled to a halt and immediately bent forward at the waist, focusing every cell of his being on not reliving the Sizzling Shrimp in the middle of the alley.
"Hello, Carina," the man at the end of the alley said.
"Peyman." Carina nodded her head, just slightly. As if they were merely business acquaintances and she hadn't just robbed the man blind of a multimillion dollar diamond. "Fancy meeting you here."
Peyman scoffed (as an opening line, it was pretty weak, Chuck had to agree). He wasn't a tall man, a large man, or even an imposing man. In fact, he wore a khaki windbreaker and chinos, making him seem rather bland, like an accountant or a high school principal. Until he reached into his waistband and withdrew the biggest handgun Chuck had ever seen. Simply put, the thing was monstrous…and plated in gold.
"Now that," Chuck gasped, ignoring the fear that made him want to drop to the ground in the fetal position, "is just excessive, don't you think?"
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