A/N: Hello again, everyone! Guess what, I'm back. I missed you guys already.

A couple of things about this story: It was the one that lost the draw to the Other Super Spy, which got published first, but I decided to give this one a chance as well. Like the previous story, it hinges on Chuck having been recruited by the CIA back in Stanford and ending up partnered with his buddy Bryce, but other character background elements are different. As for the plot, you may recognize elements borrowed from a few movies which I thoroughly enjoy every time I watch them.

Naturally, all the standard disclaimers apply to this story. If you find any mistakes, rest assured that they're all mine and mine only. No betas were harmed. Also, I'll try to update at least once a week.

Enjoy!

Chuck vs the Master Thief

Chapter 1

The EUR business district in Rome was practically deserted, as it was the middle of the night. This suited certain people just fine. One of them, clad in black, was currently on the roof of an office building, which was home to many businesses. The late night visitor, however, was only interested in one of them. Security was good throughout the building, with alarms and regular patrols by rent-a-cops. Still, it was not 100% airtight.

Moving quietly and purposefully, the person on the roof rigged a strange looking contraption with a winch and secured it to a couple of structural strong points directly above the machine room for the elevators. At any given night, one of those would be reserved for use by the patrolling security guards and anyone who had to work late, the others being deactivated. As a security arrangement, it had a serious flaw: the shafts of the immobilized elevators were a ready made access point to any floor in the building. All someone had to do was figure out which elevator was active and choose one of the other shafts. As there were no security measures, not even token ones, for the machine room, it was a simple matter for a thief, and the person on the roof was a thief, to enter it and use a descender to go anywhere inside the building.

The thief clipped a controlled descent device to a cable and smoothly dropped down the shaft, going down and stopping just above the twelfth floor. Now came the trickiest part. At night the hallway was under surveillance by security cameras augmented by motion detectors. The only sound was the thief's breathing, muffled by a balaclava mask, and the whirr of an electric screwdriver. The grille covering the end of a ventilation duct came loose. It was then hung with a length of cord from a convenient beam. The thief's slim but voluptuous figure, for she was a woman, lithely wiggled into the duct and followed it, taking bearings from a GPS device. It soon vibrated to indicate that a preset waypoint was reached.

Voices were heard through the nearest grille. Two security guards happened to be patrolling and were in the hallway. The thief paused, not making even the slightest noise, waiting for them to move on. When they did, the thief resumed crawling inside the claustrophobically narrow ventilation duct, pushing a bag full of certain custom-made items of equipment ahead of her. Upon reaching the destination as indicated by the GPS, she used a borescope to survey the interior of the target office. As expected, nobody was there, given the late hour.

She disabled the alarm, lowered herself down on the floor and only paused for a second to admire the view through the manager's window before moving to the safe. It was top of the line, but easy for her to crack, as she had practiced on an identical safe. The desired item was inside, as she knew it would be. She took it, stuffed it in a pouch, replaced it with a perfect replica and went back inside the ventilation duct, taking care to leave everything the way it was before she went in.

She went out the same way she came in, using the remotely controlled winch to speed her ascent to the roof. Then, she used a zip line to a neighboring building, which was being renovated. Reaching the street, she walked a little further, staying in the shadows, until she got to where she had concealed a motorcycle. Mounting it, she sped off.

Across the street from the building the thief had worked in, two men looked up from their telescopes, glanced at each other and smiled.

"What do you think, Chuck?"

"Based on what we saw just now, she's just what the doctor ordered for our current mission, Bryce."

"I concur. If anyone can do it, she can. So, it's time to follow the plan. Who's gonna make the call?"

"You do it. You can fake your Italian better than I can."

"Just say when."

"We still have a little time," the man called Chuck said, scooping up the last slice of pizza from his box and taking a big bite. "Pack everything up and let's go."

The two men packed their telescopes, high resolution video camera and other equipment in their carrying cases and left the building. They then drove to a residential part of town and parked outside a small hotel.

"Now's the time," Chuck reminded his friend.

"Dude, are you sure about it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Shouldn't we handle it ourselves?"

"Let's just say I want to see if she can get herself out of a fix and, besides, an added incentive to be cooperative won't hurt."

"You're devious, man."

"I have but you to blame for that, buddy."

"Just in case you forgot, I tried to talk you out of it. You were the one who wanted in."

"Bryce, I needed something exciting to take my mind off my breakup with Hannah, even though neither one of us was to blame for it. And we still ended up partners, just like I told you we would, back then."

"So you don't regret that you made Charles Carmichael change careers. You know, the fictional millionaire playboy version of you, who wanted to join America's Cup."

"Hell no. You know perfectly well that I still do some work for Dad's company on the side."

"What the hell, so do I," Bryce confessed.

"You work for my Dad, too?"

"He never told you?"

"No. What exactly do you do?"

"I handle the occasional e-banking aspects of export deals. Our travels in Europe are made to order for that."

"Dad is a smart man."

"Plus, it's a nice and easy way to augment our meager government salaries."

"Just make the call, will you?"

"Okie-dokie." Bryce pulled a prepaid cell phone from a pocket and walked down the street to get a stronger signal. He rejoined his friend when the call was over. "Done," he said simply.

"Let's go." They entered the hotel and went to a room on the third floor. Bryce stood guard while Chuck picked the lock. It was child's play for him and soon the door swung open. "After you, my friend."

"Why, thank you."

"Now all we gotta do is wait."

"You seem pretty confident that she'll make it here."

"She's pretty capable, which you'd know had you bothered to study her file in detail. If I'm right, she'll be coming through that door in an hour, tops."

"Are you willing to bet on it?"

"Sure."

"Standard wager?"

"Of course."

"Plus we have her other place under surveillance. This way we'll know about everything going on over there."

"Now that you mention it, let's check." Chuck pulled his phone out again and dialed a number. "Hey little buddy… You're in position… She came in… OK, great. Just call when the local law decides to show up. And don't forget to tell us what'll happen afterwards." He hung up. "Morgan is in position and waiting."

"You know she's gonna be seriously pissed, right Chuck?"

"Can't help it, buddy. This little bit of dirty trickery on our part is essential in securing her cooperation. I mean, she wouldn't take the job if we just approached her and made an offer."

"True. But tonight she'll be desperate enough to listen to us – I hope."

"Might as well get comfortable while we wait," Chuck said, sitting down and checking his Walther P99. Bryce also checked his gun.

"Still, I think winning the bet will be like taking candy from a baby."

"You're too pessimistic, Bryce. Remember, if you win the bet we'll have failed."

"We still have Plan B."

"I'd prefer it wouldn't come to that."

"Damn, you're right. I can't believe I want to lose a bet to you."

"There's a first time for everything."

-o-

The woman the two friends were talking about entered the room she had booked under an assumed name and dumped her bag by the bed. As this particular room was her forward base of operations, she was especially careful not to leave any evidence behind every time she used it. Right now, she needed a shower. She went into the bathroom and removed her wig before undressing, turning the water on and getting under the soothing spray.

Ten minutes later she finished her shower and, feeling refreshed, wrapped a towel around her body and went back inside the main room. She gasped when she saw three men in there. One of them was in street clothes, while the other two wore police uniforms.

"What are ya doin' in mah room?" She asked the question in a Texas drawl.

"I apologize for the apparently inappropriate time," the man in civvies said in accented English. "But we need to talk."

"Yeah? 'Bout what?"

"We got an anonymous call, claiming you had something to do with certain incidents we are investigating. And it looks like our source was right," he said, showing the blonde woman one of the things she'd stolen that very night. "You are under arrest, miss."

"Do ya gents mind if I get dressed first?"

"By all means, take your time."

She sat down in a chair and slowly pulled on a pair of panties under the towel. All three men were staring wide-eyed at her. She was a beautiful woman and they were all red-blooded men. "Could ya please hand me mah bra?"

The senior officer drew his Beretta and used it to snag a bra from her bag, handing it to her.

Now or never, she thought, lashing out and kicking both gun and bra out of the man's hand, sending them flying towards the ceiling. With lightning speed, she whipped the towel off of her body and used it to whack the nearest uniformed cop in the face. She completed the move by landing a roundhouse kick on the last man's head and throwing a knockout punch on the one she'd hit with the towel. Then, she raised her arms, allowing the bra straps to fall neatly in place, also grabbing the gun with her right hand. Before the stunned detective could react, he found his own gun aimed at his family jewels. Not wanting to get them blown off, he froze in place.

"Do me up, please," she said. He did the clasp on her bra with shaking hands and stepped back. She smiled sweetly and pistol-whipped him, knocking him unconscious like his men. "Nice mess I got myself in," she muttered, no longer speaking with a Texas accent.

Right now, she had to sanitize the room and disappear. She used extra strength bleach to remove all traces of her presence in the bathroom, stuffed her things in her bags and hurriedly pulled on a pair of shoes and an overcoat, which she tightly belted at her waist. There was simply no time for anything else. The finishing touch was to stick a high dosage twilight tranq dart into each of the fallen men. She had stolen these not long ago from a US government contractor. They would be out for some time, at least twelve hours, and wouldn't remember the last hour before being injected with the compound, thus would be unable to give a description of her. Using a small mirror, she checked the street from a window. A police car was parked across from the hotel, but there was nobody inside. Its crew was lying at her feet, waiting to be dragged into the spacious closet. The room was paid for until the following day, so she had nothing to worry about. In addition, housekeeping would help make sure any evidence she hadn't managed to eliminate would be contaminated and rendered useless in the morning. Finally, she took the elevator to the lobby, ran out a side exit and sped away on her motorcycle.

-o-

Chuck hung up the phone. "She's on her way here," he informed Bryce.

"Then I lost the bet."

"Damn right you did. Pay up."

"Here you go: one Euro." Bryce flipped a coin to Chuck, who caught it in mid-air.

"Very considerate of you to pay in local currency."

"You got more than a buck, given the exchange rate."

The two men laughed. Their standard bet for anything imaginable was always one dollar, but they were in Europe now. Then they got serious. They had a job to do and had to deal with an unpredictable player. It all hinged on how played their own cards, but they were confident that they held the winning hand.

"Morgan's on the way back, too."

"For an analyst, the little guy is a good substitute agent."

"You mean like a substitute teacher?"

"Yup. I hope he's done some research on restaurants in Zurich."

"He always does before going to a new place."

The roar of a motorcycle engine from the street interrupted the conversation. Chuck moved to the window and peeked from behind the curtain.

"She's here," he said simply.

"And she looks even better without that brunette wig," Bryce remarked casually.

"Yeah, she's a natural blonde," Chuck reminded Bryce. "But if Jill were to hear you…"

"Luckily, she's still in the good ole US of A, working on a vaccine of one kind or another for LaFleur Pharmaceutical."

"Shhh… It's show time."

The blonde felt drained as she made her way to her room. She had booked the room in the other hotel simply because it was closer to her target, but she had never spent the night there during her stay in Rome. She would leave the country first thing in the morning. Her preferred options were to fly out either from France or from Switzerland.

"Things are finally looking up for me again tonight," she muttered, seeing that the marker she'd stuck in the door before leaving was still in its place. She couldn't know that Chuck had seen it while picking the lock and made sure to put it in place again.

She had barely taken two steps inside the room when the light came on and she saw two men sitting comfortably, apparently waiting for her.

"Nice to see you were able to make it, Ms. Walker," one of them said.

TO BE CONTINUED