There were several reasons for Linus to be nervous. For one the ten – eleven if you counted Tess – of them were holed up in a hotel in California, providing a massive target for any of Benedict's people that might be looking for them. As far as he was aware, the goons hadn't been seen for months, but still. He couldn't imagine many other circumstances in which the risk would be worth it.

But that was the point. They'd all agreed that it was worth almost anything to find out what had happened to Rusty. Linus would never even think of going against that. It was his teammates that were really worrying him.


Basher and Livingstone were sat in the corner, talking as they had been for the last three days. Linus seriously doubted that they were simply catching up. If Livingstone's tone had worried him at the airport, that was nothing to the dark and brooding looks that he and Basher had been exchanging, or the quiet but urgent words. They were plotting, pure and simple, and they weren't sharing their thoughts with the rest of the group.

Two days ago, Livingstone had slipped out of the hotel for a few hours, coming back with a nondescript hold-all and a face carved from stone. Linus had followed him and Basher upstairs, and had managed to catch a glimpse of them peering inside, looking determined yet hideously gleeful before the door had been shut firmly in his face. He hadn't seen what was in the bag, but he could guess. He could know. And he hadn't quite decided how he felt about it.


Saul was worrying him too. Yes, on an intellectual level he'd always known how old the man was – he'd been a semi-regular visitor to the Caldwell house while Linus was growing up, and to the child Linus had been he'd always seemed ancient – but he'd never looked so old. He'd heard people saying that Rusty had been Saul's student once upon a time. If that were true, he supposed that Saul would have known Rusty longer than any of them, except maybe Danny. Whatever the truth, Saul was taking Rusty's death hard. But then, they all were. Everyone was so quiet all the time.


Everyone was so quiet, except for Danny. And that was what was really frightening Linus. After those first, frantic, denials (and hadn't that been scary?) Danny had started acting . . . normally. Completely normally. He was smiling, talking, making plans - he'd even been cracking jokes earlier. If Linus didn't know how good a conman Danny was he might have thought that Danny really didn't care. As it was, they were all watching him very carefully, looking for any crack in the mask, waiting for the meltdown.

Linus couldn't help but wish he would just break down and cry, or yell, or something. Not that he could exactly imagine Danny crying, but anything would be better than this act.


Tess had cried She'd slipped away at the airport. Linus had followed, feeling concerned for her. He'd found her on a plastic bench, hunched over a framed photograph.

"I picked it up when we were leaving the house." she'd said, as he sat down. "I don't know why."

Taking the hint, he'd looked down at the picture. A much-younger Danny, in a rumpled tux with a white buttonhole, was standing next to Tess. She was in her wedding dress. They both looked relaxed and happy. Rusty was standing next to them, looking strangely out of place in his tuxedo.

"Our first wedding. He was best man at both of them."

"You must have known him a long time." he'd commented.

"As long as I've known Danny." That was when she'd started to cry. He'd patted her shoulder awkwardly, until their flight was called.




The last three days had been spent gathering information. Everyone had been leaning on their local contacts. Linus didn't really know anyone in this part of the world, but he had been keeping in touch with his dad in order to keep track of where the local police were in their investigation. Apparently there had been no official conclusions as yet.

"So what have we got?" Danny asked, hanging up his cell phone. Linus frowned; Danny had been spending a lot of time on his phone without actually saying a word. There had to be some kind of explanation, but Linus had no idea what it was.

"Roy Blake." Virgil announced, marching into the room.

"You got the name?" Turk sounded surprised.

Linus glanced sideways, hoping that Danny was going to step in and defuse the squabble. Danny was just watching though, smiling slightly, and spinning a pencil between his fingers.

Virgil turned on his brother. "Course I got the name. Why wouldn't I get the name?"

"Well, as I remember – "

"Guys!" Linus found himself yelling. They turned to look at him. "Tell us about Blake."

"Local talent. The word is he's strictly small time, never did anything big until about a month ago when he started working with Rusty."

"Wait, this wasn't their first job together?" Frank asked.

"Nah, apparently Blake's been bragging all over town over his new partner who's gonna make him a fortune."


There was an audible snap. Linus half-turned his head. Danny had snapped the pencil in two. And he was still smiling.

Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.


"So where is Blake?" Danny asked, calmly.

"Uh, no-one I asked seemed to know." Virgil stuttered, then brightened up a little. "But here's one interesting bit. Roy Blake has ties to Theodore Ramirez."

"The Theodore Ramirez?" Reuben asked, incredulous. Not that Linus could blame him. "The guy linked to every shady art-deal in the country? Arnold Whittaker's worst enemy? That's who Rusty was working for?"

Virgil nodded.

"No, that's who Blake was probably working for." Danny corrected, firmly.

"You can't be sure of that." Linus objected.

"Ru . . . he doesn't work for people like Ramirez."

Linus opened his mouth to continue arguing – they still didn't know what had happened, after all, and it was too early to be dismissing anything out of hand – but he felt Reuben's glare on the back of his neck. Right. They weren't pushing things.


Frank broke the faintly awkward silence. "We checked out the Whittaker place. Easy enough – everyone wanted to talk about the robberies."

"Robberies?" Linus questioned. How many times could one place get turned over?

"Seems that about a week after Rusty hit it, five men in full black body armor, carrying guns marched into the place. Major compensation going on there, know what I'm saying?"

Yen said something rapid that Linus couldn't follow.

Frank scowled, having apparently caught the gist of it. "We were pretending to be SWAT, that's different. Anyway, get this, they head straight up to the roof, pull something out of the ventilation system and leave by helicopter."

"You think it's connected to Rusty?" Livingstone asked intently.

"Got to be. When he and Blake hit the place, they went in as air-conditioning repairmen. Got the whole building evacuated because of some sort of chemical spillage, that apparently made the place 'stink like a dead skunk'. Then they looped the security tape and made straight for the hidden safe in Whittaker's office. Rusty'd have had plenty of opportunity to hide something in the ventilation system."

"So Rusty double-crossed Blake? That's why he was shot?" Turk didn't seem to be asking anyone in particular. Linus frowned, that didn't sound quite right to him.

"No, they could have agreed to leave it there and come back for it later." Virgil answered.

"But why would they do that?" Good question, unfortunately.

"What is it anyway?" Linus wondered aloud. "What were they stealing?" Everyone looked blank. Linus shrugged. "We should find out, right?"

"Right." Basher agreed. "Whatever it was, a lot of people seem to have a major hard-on for it."


"He wants them to know it was stolen." Danny said suddenly, sounding puzzled.

There was a pause. "What?" Linus finally asked, carefully.

"Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three – no, four – more subtle ways of getting into Whittaker's office. He's not stupid, he'd see them too. He wants people to be talking about the robbery."

"Why?" Saul asked.

Danny shrugged. "Don't know. But that means he definitely wasn't working for Ramirez, because it would be in Ramirez's best interests to keep the robbery quiet."

Linus felt uncomfortable; Danny was looking straight at him. "So, what, Rusty gets a plan, steals something from Whittaker, and his partner kills him and takes it to Ramirez?"

Danny shrugged again. "Maybe."

"Then what about the guys in black on the roof?" Livingstone asked.

No-one seemed to know.


A cell phone went off. "Mine, sorry." Reuben reached into his pocket "Hello? Yeah. . . . Yeah, we'd heard. How'd you . . . ? . . . . What? He did that? . . . What happened? . . . . Right. . . . I'll let you know. Yeah, I'll tell him. Bye." Snapping the phone shut, he looked straight at Danny. "Denny Shields says he's sorry about Rusty."

Danny simply nodded. "How did he hear?"

"Apparently some punk walks into Terry Benedict's office, says he's killed one of Ocean's 11 and he wants a reward."

Linus closed his eyes. God. "Roy Blake?"

Reuben nodded slowly. "Yeah."

"Bet Benedict was delighted." Frank muttered.

"Not really. He was looking for the more personal touch. Ordered his goons to take the little asshole out back. Except he got away from them. Strange thing is, he said he needed the money because Ramirez was after him."

"Ramirez was? Then he didn't get whatever they stole?" This wasn't making sense.

"Beats me. Now he's got Benedict after him too."

"And us." Basher said.


Right. And us.