Leverage Characters, Nate's Apartment and John McRory's are owned by Dean Devlin, Electric Entertainment and TNT. Everything else (including the new characters) are owned by me.

Chapter Three

Seven Years Ago

Eliot was never short of work, since he had become a fulltime retrieval specialist he was busier than ever. He had walked away from the army after he had been forced to take part in acts that did not sit well with his conscience. Sometimes you had to let other countries sort out their own problems themselves without interference.

He believed if he was going to work as a soldier he was going to make sure that he was well paid for it and would only pick the jobs that he wanted. No more sitting there and witnessing civilians being blown up, no more feeling powerless as drugged up teenager soldiers pulled guns on him. No siree, if he was going into a foreign territory in the middle of a war, he was going to defend himself and whoever he was well paid to defend. No more watching friends get blown up and going home crippled to be spat on and jeered.

Why would anyone ever join the army, he thought, he had been made to do it at the time, foolish young and headstrong. He had wanted to get away from home. He could no longer bear to watch his mother being verbally and physically abused by his father. She did not have to take the abuse, logically Eliot knew that and he had never understood why she stayed with him. If she was willing to accept that behaviour from him, that was fine, Eliot would not accept it anymore.

He had to get out of there, but there was little for a guy just got out of high school, Eliot was smart but there was no money to send him to college, his father had gambled every cent they had and they were up to their eyes in hock. Anyway even if there had been, his school record would have been enough to bar him from every decent college in the country. In light of this Eliot went straight into the army when he turned eighteen and never looked back. He had worked hard and had worked his way up to Sergeant but after six years he had enough and was honourable discharge. It was on his way home from Afghanistan, that Eliot had found where his talents lay. He had become accidently embroiled in the kidnap of a Noman Chief's son and ended up negotiating with the kidnappers to get the Heir apparent back in one piece to the Chief. It had gone very successfully and the foundations of the legends surrounding Eliot were set. Eliot found he liked the excitement of being a retrieval specialist. He knew what he did was outside the law, but he had long since given up on the concept of law and order. He had seen enough lawlessness from his own commanders in the army to make him turn into a criminal forever. However six years of regimen served him well, he was disciplined and able to fend for himself anywhere, he was lucky his internal compass always got him to safety. He just wanted to do his work and have the freedom to live the life he choose. He vowed never to let his feelings ever get in the way of him doing his job.

Eliot was twenty eight when he was contacted by an underground activist group in, they were looking for soldiers of fortune who were willing to train their guerrilla army for a coup that they hoped to stage in Costa Fuerez. At first Eliot turned down the job, he had never even heard of the country. He did not want to help terrorists but the group would not give upthey pursued him relentlessly. One day they sent oneof their leaders to meet with him and encourage him to join their activities. He had agreed to meet this woman in a coffee shop in Memphis, how they had tracked him down to Memphis he would never know, but he liked to stay there when he could. He loved the feel of the town, the music the nightlife and the women, you never had a bad night Memphis he smiled to himself. He walked into the Elvis Barista Coffee shop, expecting to meet a woman well into her fifties wearing an Armani suit and iron grey hair. To this day he still did not know why he had that image in his head when he entered but there was no one like that in the coffee shop. He looked around and there was nobody there except for a young woman, no more than a girl really, she looked barely out of her teens, early twenties at best, with her dark hair tied back in a pony tail, she was dressed in jeans and white vest top, she had one of those Harry Potter Books that Eliot had always wanted to read but never got around to it on the table beside her coffee cup.

She looked at him and smiled, his heart stopped. She was breathtaking, he smiled back, his blue eyes twinkling and brushed his hair back from his face with his hands. Then realisation dawned, he could not stay to flirt with this girl, if the client was not here, he would have to leave, there was no sense endangering innocent folk.

He reluctantly turned towards the door.

Kat had known who he was the minute had passed the window of the coffee shop. He was very handsome, she conceded to herself. Generally she did not notice things like that she was too consumed with her cause. Kat had been given his file and had memorised every detail including his photographs, she could see the scar he had on top of his lip, in the file it had said he had gotten that trying to retrieve a religious statue from a Kurdish tribe in the mountains of Turkey. She watched as he turned away from her to head out the door.

Imbécil!, she thought angrily.

"Mr. Spencer", the girl called, her voice had an accent but there was no mistaking she had been living here for a while, the edge from her voice Eliot thought it might be Michigan or Boston, but he was not sure.

Eliot cursed himself. He had been unprofessional, he should not have dismissed the girl so quickly, without turning around he knew it was her who had spoken, because there was nobody else in the damn place.

Eliot fixed a serious expression on his face and turned to face her, his eyes met hers, the twinkle that been there was now replaced with a steely glint. He nodded sharply at her and said with the best southern manners he could muster "I do apologise Ma'am, I wrongly assumed that the person I was meant to meet would be …..", Eliot searched for the right word but he could not find it.

Kat arched an eyebrow and smiled at him knowingly "Older?".

Eliot felt a lump in his throat, for some reason he felt nervous. What the hell was going on, he wondered. "Yes that's correct, I apologise but I was under the impression that the person I was meeting was heading this operation".

Kat gestured for Eliot to sit down at her table, her look never wavered from his, "That is understandable, I may appear young Mr. Spencer but I have invaluable experience that will greatly assist what we are planning".