Chapter 3 - Crazy As You
Hardison sat on the couch in front of the huge display of screens in Nate's apartment, poking at his laptop and waiting for Sophie and Nate to return, hoping that they would be bringing something edible with them because he was almost hungry enough to actually gnaw on the furniture. He leaned forward to snag his bottle of orange soda and took another sip before setting it back down and turning back to re-arrange the information on his screen yet again - personnel, layout of the museum and location of the targeted pieces, position of the human security detail during the day, the electronic security at all hours and a list of information that he still needed to retrieve which included more information about the overnight security arrangements.
He flicked back to the picture of Miss Patterson. He hadn't managed to talk to her yet, didn't know her first name because being new her records weren't in the system yet. He'd tried smiling at her on and off throughout the day, but she just gave him a frown and looked at him like there was something wrong with him. He sighed, staring longingly at the picture. She was gorgeous and he really needed to stop just gawking at her and giving her the dumb smiles and actually get over the whole tongue-tied thing and talk to her. He wanted to ask her out, go for a coffee. Wasn't that what normal people did? He should ask Sophie how normal people got dates. He was pretty sure she'd know, after all, as a grifter it was usually her job to pretend to be a normal person, to go in and interact with the people they were targeting. She knew how to schmooze and impress when the occasion warranted it.
He wondered if she'd help him with this without telling Nathan. Nathan would just laugh and tease him about his social ineptitude as usual.
He heard a noise at the door and flicked the picture of Miss Patterson closed just before Nathan and Sophie opened the door. Nathan's arm was around Sophie's shoulders as ever and Hardison was glad that he'd already set himself up in the middle of the couch. Hopefully that would mean the two of them would have to separate and not sit groping each other in his presence.
"Hardison!" Nathan greeted. "Good to see you. So how was the first day at work?" he laughed.
Hardison glared ominously, "I'm sure I could have got this information from outside you know, if you'd have given me the chance. Instead of having to sit and listen to Mrs Nielsen bore everyone to tears. Seriously, do you know the rubbish she's making me learn about the art in there? It's not even the good stuff that we're going to lift!"
"Aw, sweetheart," Sophie said, brushing her hand over the top of his head like he was a child. "He's getting hungry and grumpy," she smirked. "It's a good job we bought him his favorite pizza," she said, thrusting a pizza box at him with a flourish.
"Go on then," Nathan said, pouring Sophie a glass of wine in the kitchen and himself a scotch. "Set it up and show us what you have got."
Hardison clicked to open the first folder, scrolling through the photos and telling them all as much as he could about the personnel. It was strange that both Sophie's and Nathan's focus went immediately to "Miss Patterson" as well but not in a good way.
"Who is she? And why has she taken up this post now?"
"Have you done a background check on her yet?"
"No, why?" Hardison snapped defensively. "She's new, she's not in their system. Haven't even been able to find out what her first name is, so until I can get that information I don't stand a chance of finding out much more about her."
"Facial recognition, finger prints - don't you normally hack all those systems? Why not with her?" Nathan pressed.
Sophie snickered, "Hardison likes our little Miss Patterson. Hardison doesn't want to run her through all his systems, he wants to woo her!"
Nathan threw back his head and laughed and Hardison picked at his pizza, all appetite deserting him as he flicked to the next folder and began to tell them about the security on site.
# # # # # # #
"So creepy guy is called Alistair Havers," Parker said as she climbed into the car with Eliot at the end of her shift in the museum. "I couldn't get much else as they haven't entered the information into the systems yet, but he did say he'd only been in Boston a few months 'this time'. That sounds suspicious, right, Eliot? I'm right to be suspicious about the creepy guy?"
"Well, it's a little strange and he's certainly one to watch out for, but don't narrow down the search too much just yet. Just because someone looked at you doesn't immediately make them suspicious," he said, grinning as he pulled back out into the traffic. "So how did you enjoy your first day as a museum employee?"
"You know it wasn't as bad as I was expecting . . . I mean some of it is a bit boring but some of the art is really interesting and I was looking at these little statue things of little naked men and they've got everything and it's all in detail right down to -"
"Parker! Enough! Seriously? You spent the day looking at statues of naked men to see if they were anatomically correct . . ." He shuddered at the thought, then cast her an all too familiar glare. "There's something wrong with you!"
She grinned back and settled into her seat more comfortably, "So are we grabbing a beer or are you just dropping me home? We don't have to go back to the office, do we?"
"No, I've finished up there. . . You want beer? The usual place?"
She nodded enthusiastically, already letting her hair down and shrugging out of her jacket before reaching over the seat to grab a small backpack and pulling it on to her lap so she could rummage through it. Yanking out a figure-hugging top, she swiftly pulled her 'work uniform' shirt off and began to struggle into the top in the confined space.
Glancing across to see what she was doing, Eliot almost lost control of the car as they swerved across two lanes of traffic. "Shit! Parker! What the hell are you doing?" he barked, grasping at the wheel and bringing the car back under control. "You do know that laws about public decency still apply to you, even though you work for the FBI?"
"Don't be such a prude, Special Agent Spencer. I know you like looking," she said coyly, receiving nothing but a growl in response.
# # # # # # #
Parker was just finishing packing her belongings into her work locker when Havers came in. She looked up at him in surprise when he greeted her. "Oh hi, Miss Patterson. It's really nice to see you again. I'm so pleased that I get to meet you again," he said, smiling broadly.
She frowned at him. "I work here. Why wouldn't you get to meet me again?" she asked shortly.
She saw as his expression turned distinctly embarrassed. "Huh, you're kinda strange, you know that?" she asked, slightly disconcerted by the splutter of laughter she heard through the ear-piece that connected her with Eliot.
"Umm, I guess . . . sorry," Havers stuttered back in reply. "Just I guess, you know, you might have found the job too boring and not come back after the other day or something . . . so yeah, it's nice to see you again."
"Oh, okay," Parker shrugged, accepting his explanation easily. "I'm . . . er . . . I'm gonna . . ." She waved a hand in the direction of the door to the public areas of the museum, "I'm gonna go do . . . work stuff . . ." She dashed in the direction of the door, briefly fumbling as she tried to push through the pull door and muttering under her breath, "He talked to me . . . Why's he talking to me, Eliot? And what kind of person says things like that?"
As she hurried down the corridor, she calmed a little with Eliot's simple reassurances that Havers had just been making polite conversation, even if he was almost as inept at it as Parker herself was.
"It's weird though, Eliot," she whispered grumpily. "I wish it was you in here and not me. You're better at this kind of thing than me."
"Stop panicking, you're fine and anyway, if I had to do everything I was better at, there'd be nothing at all left for you to do. So get used to it, kid, this is the real world of undercover FBI," Eliot snarked back. "Maybe you'll even learn to be a real human by the end of it!"
"Not funny, Eliot," she bit back, voice harsh despite its low level. "I am a real human. I've told you that before."
He snickered quietly and she ignored him, turning her attention to studying the schedule in front of her, telling her the assignments for the day. She let out a sigh of disappointment when she saw that both she and Havers were going to be covering the same gallery for a two hour slot just before lunch, but perked up a little when she saw herself down to train to work the cameras that afternoon. It wasn't like she hadn't already learned to do that and more in her work with Eliot, but it gave her more of a chance to develop an overview of the whole museum and look for the irregularities that might denote a security breach. She wondered when she'd get another chance to poke around in the computer system - Havers details might have been entered by now which would give her a better chance of proving to Eliot just how very suspicious he was.
# # # # # # #
Parker was sitting at one end of the gallery, browsing through the leaflets that Mrs Nielsen had given her and matching the information with the art around her. She was also keeping a wary eye on the visitors and had tutted loudly a few times when she figured people were getting too loud or too handsy with the statuary.
Eliot snickered in her ear every time and she hissed an insult at him under her breath. She was doing her utmost to completely ignore Havers who was sitting at the other end of the gallery and kept casting glances her way. It wasn't working.
"Eliot, he's looking at me again!" she hissed. "Do you think he knows who I am?"
"Nah, you're worrying too much, kiddo. Just relax. Maybe he's just a guy who appreciates a good-looking girl when he gets the chance. If you're really lucky, maybe he'll ask you out on a date . . ."
"I don't want to go on a date. Dates are . . . icky!" She shuddered and cast a glare across the space at Havers, who for some reason she couldn't begin to imagine, beamed back at her and stood up stretching before strolling nonchalantly across to her side. "Eliot! He's coming this way . . . again!"
"Just play nice, Parker. Just play nice," he said, encouragingly.
"Miss Patterson," Havers was still beaming. "How's your day going? Finished learning all this new and fascinating stuff about this awesome art yet?"
"Yes, have you? You don't seem to be paying a lot of attention to your work. I haven't seen you reading or watching all the people who might be touching things they shouldn't," she reprimanded curtly.
He continued to grin, "See, you were watching me . . . I knew it. You like me, dontcha?" He shrugged, then drew himself up to his full height again, "You want me to ask you out . . . that's why you've spent all morning trying to get me to look at you."
Eliot laughed in Parker's ear bud. Parker frowned, barely resisting the urge to snap at Eliot in favor of saying primly, "I was doing no such thing! I have learned the information on the leaflets from Mrs Nielsen and spent my time ensuring that the visitors behaved appropriately."
"You weren't ogling my fine form then?" he asked with a snicker.
"No! Of course I wasn't. I'm Working!" she finished emphatically.
"Maybe, I'll have to find a way to distract you from your work then," he said, leaning in closer. "I could offer to take you out to dinner after work tonight. That could distract you all day as you try to decide where you'd like to go, what you'd like to eat, what we could talk about . . ."
"I'm busy . . . I have . . . I have an . . . an Eliot!" she threw out the words desperately.
"An Eliot? What's an Eliot?"
"It's a . . . it's a - my . . . he's my . . . partner." She bit her lip realizing that was far too close to the truth.
"Your partner? As in . . . life-partner? Boyfriendy-husbandy kind of thing?"
She nodded frantically, "Yes, that's right. He's one of those boyfriendy-husbandy kind of things."
"You're useless, Parker," Eliot growled into her ear. "Seriously? I'm your boyfriendy-husbandy kind of thing. Like hell!"
"Sure you're not just saying that to get out of spending some time with me. You don't blow him up, do you?"
Parker frowned, bemused by the final question. "Blow him up? Why would I blow him up? I like him and that would be a waste of C4 . . . You're weird, you know that?"
"Erm . . . I guess . . . I thought I was more 'cute' than 'weird' but I guess weird works too. So you're not up for going on a date with me, then?" He sighed, "Stupid question. Pretty girl like you, of course, you're already spoken for . . . Still you know, if anything should happen like um . . . you get tired of your Eliot, I'd be available at short notice. Here's my number." He stuck his hand in his pocket and drew out a scrap of paper with a number on it. "Call me sometime if you change your mind."
He held the paper out steadily until Parker reluctantly took hold of it, at which point he turned his back and headed for his seat at the other end of the gallery.
"Parker . . . Parker . . ." Eliot's voice emerged from the white noise of surprise at the events that had just unfolded. "What's the number?"
# # # # # # #
Eliot ran the number Parker had got from Havers through his databases looking for any important information. His excuse was that Parker thought the guy was suspicious, in his heart he knew it was because he didn't want any serial heartbreaker mistreating his probie. She might be a little strange by normal standards, but Eliot kind of liked her the way she was. She was definitely growing on him, and nobody hurt his friends and got away with it.
So he wasn't really expecting anything major to ping up on his screen. So when the screen started flashing all kinds of security alerts at him, he was startled enough to swear down his mic at Parker, who gave a disgruntled, "Hey! What was that for? I've not done anything!"
"'s alright, Parker. Just got a little surprise this end. Make sure you stay safe, keep your eyes open, your guard up and yourself protected. You got me?"
"Yeah, I got you," she droned back at him, sounding a little bored at the oft-repeated words about keeping herself safe.
"I mean it, Parker. We're on the trail of some pretty serious criminals here, don't take any chances and let one of them get the drop on you. And watch out for your freaky stalker guy, just in case," he insisted, before turning his attention back to the information on the screens before him.
So it seemed Mr Havers was also more frequently know as Alec Hardison, thief and hacker, a.k.a. Adam Harding, Alan Hendersen or Aaron Heston. Scanning the screen, Eliot's attention was also drawn to the note at the bottom that said, "Possible associates Nathan Ford and Sophie Deveraux. Further information is available on these individuals, including a selection of known alias."
Eliot knew perfectly well it was, he'd hunted both of them before. This was exactly their type of gig, although sending in Havers, or Hardison as Eliot was going to think of him, was a new angle. He'd tracked both of them and almost been on top of them when a change in the brass had him hauled off the case and shifted to provide back up for someone else's drama. He'd not been happy when they'd robbed exactly the bank he'd said they were going to rob, at precisely the time he'd said, but they'd got clean away as despite his pleas, all his information had been ignored. Well, they weren't going to get away again, not on his watch.