Sometimes there are things that feel inevitable.
Somewhere in Boston, in a brightly lit bar, a boy watches his father slam a man down onto a table, and makes a promise to himself. He will never, ever be anything like his father. He'll make an honest man of himself, someday.
A man watches helplessly as his now ex wife drives away, taking their baby girl with her. Everything in London reminds him of them and his failure, so he requests a transfer to a different branch. Within a month he is on a plane to headquarters in L.A.
Over in Leeds, a young woman is slipped twenty quid to make a scene in front of a museum. Intrigued, she follows the man who paid her, and finds herself in the doorway of a studio with seven identical paintings. When he smiles at her, she follows him in. A few weeks later she follows him out of the country.
In New York, a girl is caught lifting a wallet. The man who catches her has a firm grip, and deftly plucks his wallet from her hand. When he turns to look at her, she flinches away, expecting him to slap or shake her or call the police. Instead, he kneels down beside her, and criticises her technique.
Sitting in front of a glowing screen, a teen grins broadly and chugs his soda as just over a million króna is transferred into his account and converted to.. well, more than enough US dollars. He feels a little bad about it, sure, but he'd feel worse if his Nana died. Iceland can spare the money.
In a hotel room somewhere, a man does not blink as he is offered an obscene amount of money to shoot a general in Myanmar. The boy he was would have recoiled in horror. The soldier he has been would have been furious, offended. The man he is now simply nods.
These things rarely ever are.
In seedy bars and illegal casinos, deep web chatrooms and penthouse suites, people talk. They talk about the jobs they've done, the jobs they have planned, the allies and enemies and rivals they've made, the ones to hire and the ones to avoid.
They talk about Devereaux and Starke's latest hits, marvel at the legendary grifter and her partner. They speculate about the illusive Parker, about which of the latest unclaimed heists are hers, about how much of her legendary craziness is an act, about where she came from. They warn each other of I.Y.S's attention, knowing how dangerous it is to face Ford or Sterling or god forbid, both at once. They mostly don't talk about the hacker who cracked the Tanuki system and shut off the Oberon and once trolled the Pentagon. Without a hacker handle, only other hackers know who did it. And in the darkest corners, they whisper furtively about Moreau and his dog, who has disappeared a hundred people in a hundred cities around the world.
When things change, word spreads fast. Ford is out of the game, and into a bottle. Screwed over by the company he had worked and bled for for so long, his son dead, his wife gone. Devereaux is as well, returned to the life of a normal, law abiding citizen. The dog has broken his leash, and willingly blunted his claws.
All around the world, they talk.
They only seem that way in hindsight.
Stop.
Rewind.
The devil is in the details.
The boy watches his father work, and sees a dozen more efficient ways of doing the same thing. His dad might be satisfied with ruling a neighbourhood or two, running jobs for the Irish families. He isn't. Boston's too small for him. Someday, he promises himself. Someday he'll be someone.
The man channels his rage and frustration at his failing marriage into his work, and by the time his wife leaves him, he's made quite the (fake) name for himself in certain circles. Two weeks after the divorce, he gets a call from a private number, offering him a job. Two weeks after that, he is on a plane to San Lorenzo.
The woman follows the man for a while, but he's too ruthless for her taste, and the guilt of stealing, and lying and tricking sits uneasily in her. When they stop in France, she cons her way into Interpol headquarters, and turns him in. She half expects to be arrested as well. Instead, she gets an offer.
The man is better to her than any of the girl's former foster parents have been, but she is acutely aware that he loves his own daughters more. Desperate for his approval, she tries a solo heist without his knowledge. It goes badly. She ends up cuffed to a chair, and faced with a choice. She doesn't want to go back to jail.
Nana gets sick again, and the teen, now a young man, tries the Bank of England this time. He thinks he's gotten away with it again, until the badges come to his door. "The man" has computer whizzes too, they tell him, and his hands starts to shake. But not enough, they say, and even fewer as good as him. They make a deal.
The moment he leaves the hotel, a black car pulls up to him. The door opens, and he knows better than to refuse. The men inside wear no identification, but he knows Interpol agents when he sees them. They read out his file to him, years of service to his country reduced to mere bullet points. He won't get the obscene amount of money, they say. But he could wash off some of the red military service has painted him in.
Sometimes the slightest things make the greatest difference.
In seedy bars and illegal casinos, deep web chatrooms and penthouse suites, people talk. They talk about the jobs they've done, the jobs they have planned, the allies and enemies and rivals they've made, the ones to hire and the ones to avoid.
They talk about items being stolen from thieves and returned to their owners, joke about it being a vengeful ghost or a team of thieves looking for a new challenge, then go back to check their stashes. Just in case. They speculate about hackers disappearing suddenly, all traces of their internet presence wiped out. They warn each other of a long haired man who has an unfortunate tendency to show up at soon to be failed assassinations, who once fought off an entire armed squad with nothing but a spatula and a cheese grater. They mostly don't talk about Sophie Devereaux. The ones that do know of her curse her name, and how she played them. And in the darkest corners, they whisper furtively about Moreau and his hired hounds.
Ford and Sterling, the genius duo who seem to never lose, who are rumoured to be brothers or lovers or rivals, who can solve any problem you put in front of them for the right price, who sometimes pull whiz mobs together, but never for more than a few jobs. Officially, they are freelancers, but it's Moreau who hires them most. For heists, sometimes, or particularly tricky smuggling routes, or other delicate jobs. But mostly, to get people out of the way. They don't kill. A matter of principle, perhaps, or pride, or preference, no one knows. They don't kill. They ruin.
When things change, word spreads fast. Ford is out of the game, and into a bottle, after a botched job. No one knows why, only that he nurses a vicious grudge against his former employer. Sterling no longer freelances, working exclusively for Moreau now. The legendary pair, once seemingly unstoppable, are no longer on speaking terms.
All around the world, they talk.
Sometimes they don't.
