Chapter 4 - We Get It Done

They sat down and were soon greeted by their arresting officer, Officer Carrow.

He sat down across from them at the table, and Eliot could tell that he was relatively new to the force, which would make him a much easier mark.

"You two were caught trespassing in the private offices of Daniel Heller," he said, his hands almost shaking as went through the papers in front of him. "We found certain files were missing from Mr. Heller's private safe. He has not yet been notified, but will be shortly."

Eliot immediately saw his chance.

"How long did it take you to get to the building?" he asked the officer, throwing the young man off guard with his confident tone and his arms crossed defensively across his chest.

Carrow stuttered. "Uh, t-ten, e-eleven minutes."

Eliot looked over at Parker, who was sitting in her chair sideways, her legs crossed, and gave her a look, which she returned with a slight roll of her eyes and the comment, "Slow. It should have only been…what, eight minutes response time? Tops?"

Eliot nodded, and then watched in amusement as Carrow's expression turned to one of confusion.

"Uh…what are you talking about?"

This was it, he was about to reach into his jacket pocket, but was distracted by Sophie talking in his ear.

"Alright, now don't forget to undersell the part. If you oversell it, they'll insist on you staying and filling out reports, but as long as you give them just enough to-"

Eliot, pissed off at being interrupted, pulled out the earpiece and decided to use it to sell his bit.

"Officer Carrow," he said, looking the young man in the eye and reaching inside his coat and pulling out a badge. "I'm with the Marshall Service, and you are the first person to be informed that your unit has just failed to pass the most basic test."

At this, he saw a look of panic cross Carrow's face, so he continued.

Motioning to Parker, he said, "I am Federal Marshall Chris Kane, and this is my assistant, Beth Reese, who is with a special company, that will remain anonymous, that deals with finding weak spots in security and law enforcement."

The young officer stared at them, not sure of what to think, so the Hitter continued to speak.

"We were hired by Mr. Heller, himself, to see what kind of response time your unit has to these types of high-security break-ins. And it saddens me to say that you are not performing up to the level as was expected. Due to this, we're going to have to mark you down."

Finally, Officer Carrow reacted.

"Wait, wait…mark us down? The whole unit?"

Eliot nodded, a grim look on his face.

"I'm afraid so."

He then turned his glance over to Parker, who gladly took over, she, too, also taking her ear bud out, obviously annoyed by having Sophie in her ear.

Parker started in. "Not only was your response time lax, but the security that you provided for the building was minimal. It took me little to no effort to bypass the guards, as well as video cameras and pathetically out of date motion sensors."

She gave him a crocodile smile and then motioned towards the glass behind him.

"Is anyone in the other room, Officer Carrow?"

He shook his head.

At this point, Eliot took back over. "Well, in that case, we can overlook this as simply being a trial run, and keep it off the books to your superior officers. But now that you know, we'll expect you to get us out of here with as little fuss as possible. Are we clear?"

As he spoke, both he and Parker put their ear buds back in, the officer looking confused once more.

"Uh, what are you…?"

Eliot gave him a grin similar to Parker's. "Miss Reese and I were hired by Mr. Heller, Officer Carrow…we've been keeping him up to date, of course." He then turned slightly, pressing his ear bud slightly for the effect. "Mr. Heller, we did exactly as you personally requested…and, according to us, they did just fine."

He gave their arresting and interrogating officer a sly grin, and he saw the young man's look of relief, but then had to listen to Hardison complain.

"Dammit, Eliot! Do you not know how hard it is to fake phone calls and e-mails with this guy's security? I swear, you get back here alive and not in jail, I'm going to kill you!"

Eliot just grinned and glanced over at Parker to see that she was grinning as well.

As soon as they stepped back out into the bullpen, they were surprised to see Officer Carrow handle himself very professionally and were slightly impressed at how he handled the situation.

"Chief Payton, there has been a misunderstanding." The chief gave him a look, and Carrow continued. "These two here were hired by Mr. Heller to check his building's security, and he simply forgot to notify us of the fact. Mr. Kane is a federal Marshall, and Miss Reese is his…assistant. They were personally hired."

The chief looked skeptical, and gave the two a look.

"Personally hired, huh?"

Carrow nodded, and the chief gave them a look. "We'll need to make sure of that."

He motioned to one of his agents, who immediately got onto a nearby computer and pulled up what they could see were Heller's personal phone records. Yep…there were their names. Chris Kane and Beth Reese, both with Washington, D.C. area codes. They then watched as he pulled up the man's e-mail records as well…and there they were again.

It seemed to be legitimate.

Chief Payton gave the two of them a scrutinizing look, and then nodded.

"Fine, they can go."

With that, Parker and Eliot stepped out into broad daylight and walked down the road a ways until they stopped just out of view of the station.

Parker turned to Eliot and then said something unexpected…

"Thanks for that back there, Eliot. I mean, I usually can't grift worth crap, but you gave me something I knew I could work with. Sophie would've had me play coy and sexy secretary, Nate would've tried to convince me to be some sort of CEO type person, but you…you just expected me to work with what I know."

Eliot shrugged, not sure how to react to her thanks.

"Yeah, well…I know you have trouble with the grift, so I gave you something you know. I mean," he further explained, "That's all I ever do. Work off what I know."

She looked slightly surprised to hear this, and tilted her head in that certain way of hers.

"Really? Just stuff you know?"

He gave her a chagrined look. "Yeah, just stuff I know. Which includes the military, fighting, cooking, and horses," he said, ticking them off on his fingers.

"Don't forget singing and guitar," she added, an odd look on her face.

At hearing this, however, Eliot was surprised. He didn't even think that she really remembered that con, and it had never occurred to him that those two aspects of his life would be included as part of those things that he could use…but she was right. He had used them in the past, and they had helped him.

"Yeah, whatever," he said, shrugging it off.

He then noticed that she had already begun to look around for cars to lift, and saw her eyes light upon a nearly brand new Jaguar.

"How 'bout that one?"

He turned his head slightly and then grinned. "Or we could take that one…"

Parker saw where he was pointing and huge grin stretched across her face at what she saw.

"Oh, how well you know me, Eliot…"


Part 4/?