Here's the next chapter for you all. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 3 – A Fish Out Of Water
The world was shaking, and Eliot was fairly sure that it wasn't supposed to do that. Not shaking really, more like swaying. That was the first thing that penetrated through the haze in Eliot's mind. The next was that his head was pounding fiercely, his whole body hurt, and he had the feeling that there was something important that he had forgotten. A sharp stinging slap to his left cheek threw his head to the side against something hard and metallic, and with a groan Eliot blinked his eyes open.
Everything was a little blurry and out of focus – some back part of his brain informed him that he very likely had a concussion – but Eliot ignored that for now and blinked hard a couple of times until things became clearer. Not that he liked what he saw, or the memories that came attached with it. The face of Hector Fuentes was looming in front of him, sneering when he saw how Eliot was about to wake up. Eliot had never seen the man in person, but they had done enough recon on him that he had no doubt as to who it was in front of him.
Eliot's reaction was instinctive. He didn't even waste a thought about where he was, or what had happened since his memory blackened out, his head immediately snapped forward as he tried to lunge at the man.
But his hands were held tightly behind his back, and the force of his movement tore at his shoulders and sent a spike of agony down his left side that robbed him of his breath. Panting, Eliot sank back against the wall behind him, painfully reminded about the earlier abuse his ribs had suffered. They didn't feel broken, but were probably cracked if they were still hurting like that.
Fuentes chuckled and got up from his crouching position in front of Eliot.
"Don't bother trying to get free, you're tied up pretty well. Now, since you were kind enough to finally wake up again, maybe you want to fill me in on what you were doing in my warehouse. Unfortunately, your partner refused to say anything on that matter."
Eliot's head snapped up and he immediately started searching the room. It was testament to how knocked out he had been that it hadn't been his first course of action after regaining consciousness. He hadn't been alone when he had been captured, his first course of action should have been to try and find out where Hardison was.
It seemed Fuentes had brought him to a small storage room. At least there were shelves and cupboards on the walls opposite him and to his left that suggested that was what the room was used for. The room was small and cramped, maybe two by three feet, if that, and that didn't include the shelf-space. But for now Eliot didn't waste much thought on where he was and what the room was normally used for, his eyes kept scanning the room until they finally settled on Hardison.
The other man was sitting against the wall to Eliot's right, lodged between a shelf and the corner of the room. Judged by the pipes that ran out from behind his head and the uncomfortable way his arms seemed pulled behind his back, Fuentes' men had probably tied him up against those. Eliot felt a similar set of metal pipes press into his own back, his hands tied up uncomfortably around them.
Hardison was awake and looking at him, and he seemed worse off than the last time Eliot had seen him. Before, he had only suffered from a bleeding cut above one eyebrow. Now his lip was split, and there was significant swelling around his left eye, too. But Fuentes had said that Hardison hadn't told them anything, that at least was something. It didn't help the feeling that Eliot wanted to slap himself for getting knocked out like that. It had been his job to get Hardison out of that warehouse, or at least make sure that these guys had somebody else to focus their anger on than the computer expert. Somebody who knew how to take it.
Eliot raised an eyebrow at Hardison, and got a small nod of the man's head in return. They weren't experts in silent communication, but Eliot took it as a sign that the other man was unharmed, even if he had been roughed up. Bad enough, but they had to deal with that now. And for as long as Nate and the others were still listening in, there was a chance they'd find a way out of here. The light in the room came from a single light bulb on the ceiling, but judged by the little natural light that came in through the small porthole high in one wall, it was early morning, around daybreak. He had been knocked out longer than he had thought.
Eliot turned his head and looked back at Fuentes.
"What, you want me to answer your questions?"
Fuentes shrugged nonchalantly, although Eliot wasn't paying much attention to the man's body-language. With men like Fuentes, Eliot had learned that staring them right in the eye was the best course of action to disconcert them. Also, people most often betrayed when they were lying in their eyes, not in any other way.
"If you care about your life, and your friend's life, this is your last chance to tell me who you are, who sent you and what you were doing in my warehouse."
Eliot smiled. "Oh, and if I tell you all about that, you'll just let us go? Right. just spare us the small-talk, why don't you?"
Fuentes' eyebrows went up, but his eyes remained hard and cold.
"You don't seem to care much for your friend's life. Or for your own."
"First of all, he's not my friend. Just to make that clear once and for all." From the corner of his eye, Eliot saw Hardison shift slightly at those words, but he didn't glance over at the other man. He was calling the shots for as long as they were in this situation, and there would always be time for explanations later.
"And secondly, you're not going to let either of us go, no matter what I tell you. So, you can go punch me some more, or go a few more rounds with him, but since you're going to kill us anyway you can as well spare yourself the effort."
Fuentes struck fast.
There was just a flicker in his eyes that betrayed the movement, then Eliot felt his head snap to the side, cheek colliding painfully with the cold metal of the wall he was tied to. It hadn't been a knockout blow, far from it. Fuentes wasn't the kind of guy to make his own hands dirty, and while Eliot had no doubt that he had at least one man more than capable of physical violence standing outside the door, he also doubted that Fuentes was going to call the man in. This was a show off of strength, and with both Eliot and Hardison tied down, Fuentes would be stupid to call in someone else to do the dirty work for him. It would be a sign of weakness. And a guy like Fuentes was too clever to show weakness in front of someone like Eliot.
Fuentes got up and shook his head, as if what he was about to do saddened him greatly.
"This is all on you, then. You've had your chance. But I guess whoever sent you to spy on me, if you don't show up anymore it will be a lesson to them not to mess with me any further."
He turned and left the small room, the sound of metal against metal ringing loudly through the room as the door closed behind him. Eliot relaxed the tension in his shoulders a little now that Fuentes was gone, registering all the pains and aches from various parts of his body for a second. His head was still pounding, his left side was stinging with every deep breath he took, and the blow against his face had torn his split lip open again. Blood was running over his mouth and down his chin, but all things considered it wasn't so bad.
Eliot turned to look at Hardison.
"You okay?"
The other man nodded, although there was a frown on his face that didn't vanish even as he answered.
"I'm good. They roughed me up a little, but it was nothing I couldn't take."
Eliot seriously doubted that. Hardison was completely out of his element and his comfort zone here. But if whatever was holding him together now would last until they were out of here, that was enough. Now they only needed a plan.
"Nate, you heard all that?"
There was only silence, no voice answering back over his earpiece, and Eliot shook his head slightly, as if that would help establish communication.
"Nate!"
"Yeah, about that…"
Eliot turned back towards Hardison. "What?"
"They found the earpieces and destroyed them."
Hardison sounded resigned, but his words didn't make sense to Eliot. It was extremely hard to find those earpieces if you weren't looking for them specifically.
"How?"
Resignation turned into obvious discomfort as Hardison shifted slightly, as much as his bonds allowed him.
"They heard me talking to Nate."
"What?"
"You heard me." Hardison rolled his eyes. "I talked to Nate, they figured out that we were communicating with someone else. That's how they found the earpieces."
Eliot still didn't want to believe what he was hearing.
"Why the hell would you break cover and talk directly to Nate? You must have known that Berger was going to guess something was up if you did."
"I didn't think, okay?" Eliot was sure that Hardison would have thrown up his hands had they not been tied. "I have no idea how things work in your world, but I'm not used to seeing people beating unconscious right in front of my eyes! You might be used to bodies littering your way, but I don't normally get chased down by huge bodyguards and then watch a wannabe drug dealer knock out a friend right in front of my eyes. It happened too fast, Nate was yelling in my ear, asking what was going on, and I answered. I didn't think, it was a mistake."
Eliot let his head sink back against the metal of the wall. Yeah, it had been a mistake, but not one he could really blame Hardison for. The other man was on the team to deal with all their technical problems, not to handle himself in situations like the one they had ended up in. That was Eliot's job, and it seemed he had screwed this one up pretty good.
Once they were out of here, he should maybe do something to remedy that, give Hardison some pointers on the real-life ugliness of crime that happened outside of a computer screen. But for now, they needed to get out of here. Fuentes had stashed them away on one of his boats, that much wasn't too hard to guess from the layout of the storage room, the metal walls and the gentle swaying. From their research they knew that the man had a number of boats, but Eliot would bet good money that they weren't tied up on one of his two yachts. So they probably weren't in the same marina where the party Sophie had attended had taken place.
Suddenly the gentle rocking of the boat beneath them stopped as the entire frame vibrated with the starting engines.
"Oh, come on!"
Eliot raised an eyebrow at Hardison's outburst. "What, you thought they were going to keep us tied up in a docked boat where everybody can find us, Hardison? We need to get out of here."
"I really agree with you. But you seem to forget about one tiny little detail here."
"Oh yeah?" Eliot shifted around slightly, grimacing as the movement tore at his cracked ribs. "And what is that?"
"We're tied up here!" Hardison yelled, jerking forward as if to emphasize his point. "And I don't know if you're the great Houdini, but my hands are tied pretty tightly."
Eliot smiled, as much to cover up the pain as in amusement at Hardison's words as his fingers felt around the pipe in search of what exactly was holding his hands bound to the pipe. It was hard to feel anything, there wasn't much movement left to his hands and no matter how much he wriggled, the bindings didn't loosen. But it was obvious soon enough that it weren't handcuffs he was bound up with. Cable ties of some sort, flexi-cuffs maybe. Ah well. Nothing was ever easy, but things definitely weren't as dire as Hardison thought they were.
"Take this as a lesson, Hardison."
"What? If you're stupid enough to agree to break into a drug lord's warehouse at night, you're going to end up handcuffed on a boat? Thanks a lot, I think I got this one."
"That's not what I meant." Eliot interrupted himself with a suppressed groan as he started to move around again, trying to arrange his limbs into the order he needed them in.
"If you tie up somebody, make sure that it's not only the lateral movement you impair."
And while it was true that the plastic cuffs held his hands pretty tightly and prevented him from moving them to either side, he had just enough room to slide them up and down the metal pipe he was cuffed to. And that meant he could move up and down as well.
Of course, moving in any direction meant sharp pain all the way down his left side, but right now he needed to get them out of here. And for that he had to move, so there really was no discussion about it.
"Lateral move…are you kidding me? I can't move a frigging millimeter here."
"Not to the side, Hardison. But if some amateur ties you to a pipe, that means you can move up and down."
"Hallelujah! We're tied up in a boat, with a bunch of thugs who want to kill us, but at least we can still bounce! Why didn't you say so earlier?"
Eliot smiled, but he was too focused on shifting his body and avoiding as much pain as possible while he moved. Lifting himself up, he managed to get his left leg underneath him. Slowly, he lowered himself down again so that he came to sit on his boot. The position was awkward, not to mention uncomfortable, but as he slowly lowered himself down again he started shifting back towards the wall.
Moving up had been painful enough, but moving down was even worse. Eliot had to stretch, but he needed to be able to reach his boot with his hands. Normally that movement wouldn't have been a problem, but the pipe didn't leave him much room to maneuver, and he had to stretch out his chest and bend his head at a weird angle until his fingers finally made contact with the heel of his boot.
"See?" Eliot grunted out from between clenched teeth. "If you want to stop someone from doing this, you tie them up properly."
There was a moment of silence, and while Eliot couldn't see Hardison in his current position, he could only too well imagine the look on the other man's face.
"Right." Hardison said after another second or two. "You know, I'm a supporter of healthy living, I really am. The whole my body is a temple thing? I really dig that. But to be frank with you, I have no idea how any of that yoga crap is going to help us right now. Unless you can go into some sort of yogi-trance that will give you superhuman powers to break through those ties."
Eliot laughed at that, though he should have known better. Laughing sent spikes of agony down his left side, and after a second the laughter turned into a groan.
"You all right, man?"
"I'm fine," Eliot ground out, even though he knew that the tone of his voice belied the statement. There was nothing he could do about that now, anyway, and it would get better once he got those restraints off.
"So, if it's not yoga, what the hell are you doing there?"
"Cutting through the restraints."
Eliot thought it would have been obvious, actually. He most certainly wouldn't bend himself into such an awkward position just for the fun of it, not with cracked ribs.
"If it's your boot knife you're looking for, they took that earlier. After they found the earpieces, they frisked us pretty good."
Eliot only smiled. Good probably, but he would bet that they hadn't frisked them good enough. He had resources that weren't this easy to find.
"'s not the knife I'm looking for."
"What, you got other things hidden in your boots? Dude, aren't you ever worried someone's gonna find that? I hear airport security is pretty tight these days."
"Why do you think I have an Air Marshal badge?"
Eliot shifted some more, and finally his fingers could reach the place where the sole of his boot met the heel. And there was the little metallic edge he had been looking for, barely visible amidst the thick stitch of thread that ran around the entire edge of the boot. It was a small piece of razorblade Eliot had lodged into the sole of his boot for just that purpose, its outer edge dull and bent slightly, just enough so that he could grip it even with his short fingernails.
Eliot really would have preferred had it been metal handcuffs. Getting out of those would have been easier, and trying to cut through these plastic cuffs with the small blade and with limited range of movement was going to get messy.
Hardison seemed to get nervous by Eliot's prolonged silence.
"What are you doing?"
"Just…give me a second."
Eliot didn't have any energy or attention to spare to the other man right now. If the small blade slipped out of his fingers, things were going to get difficult. And if his attention strayed, he would end up cutting himself.
Once the blade was free, Eliot shifted again, moving his leg out from underneath him and stretching it out again. It took some of the strain off his ribs, even though pins and needles were already running through his leg from the cramped position he had forced it into earlier.
Moving the blade in his fingers was tricky. Eliot couldn't see what he was doing, he had to rely on his sense of touch alone. The blade was short, but with a little careful shifting Eliot could bring the blade up against the plastic tie holding his hands together. A sharp pain ran through his right thumb as he applied pressure to the blade, but Eliot ignored it and kept on pushing the razor into the plastic. He couldn't saw through it, there wasn't enough room for the movement, so brute force would have to do. Even if it meant that the other side of the blade cut into his thumb.
Eliot grit his teeth and pushed a little harder, pulling his wrists apart at the same time. For a moment the ties held up, but then the blade cut through the plastic and his wrists were free. Eliot dropped the blade, but he didn't really care about that for a few seconds as he immediately stuck his thumb into his mouth, sucking at the deep cut in his finger. Hardison's head perked up as he saw that Eliot was free of his bonds now, but it took a few moments for Eliot to sort through his various pains and injuries before he was able to react.
"How did you do that?"
Eliot forced a smile, taking his thumb out of his mouth and pressing down hard on the cut with his index finger. The blade had fallen to the ground behind him, and Eliot picked it up again before he slowly got back to his feet. All the moving around hadn't been too good for his injured ribs, but he knew from experience that a little rest and some painkillers would take care of that. Later.
The small piece of blade in hand, Eliot took a moment to gather himself, then he walked over towards where Hardison was sitting. The other man's eyes bulged in what would have been a comical way in any other situation when he saw the bloodied razorblade in Eliot's fingers.
"Dude, you're not…"
"Lean forward."
Hardison shook his head emphatically. "You know what? I think I'll just take…"
"Lean forward or I'll lean you forward."
Hardison seemed to contemplate that statement for a second, then he hesitantly leaned a slight bit away from the wall. Eliot stepped up towards him and, seeing that the gap between Hardison's back and the wall wasn't big enough, put a hand between the other man's shoulder blades and pushed him away from the wall.
"Hey!" Hardison protested, his voice muffled as his upper body was leaning towards his legs, but Eliot didn't really have time to consider comfort right now. And if Hardison thought these few seconds were uncomfortable, he should try getting out of the plastic cuffs with cracked ribs and tied hands. Once Hardison did that, he had earned the right to complain.
From this position, and with actual room to move the blade while he cut, not to mention that he could see what he was doing this time, cutting through the plastic ties took only a couple of seconds until the plastic gave way and Hardison brought his hands up in front of him, frantically rubbing at his wrists.
As much as Eliot could sympathize with how Hardison wanted to enjoy his newfound freedom of movement, they didn't have time for this. The boat had left he harbor not too long ago, there was still a chance for them to get off. But they had to move fast. Eliot put a hand on Hardison's arm and tugged him up.
"Come on, we need to get moving."
Hardison stumbled to his feet. "What are we going to do now?"
"We need to get off this boat. Right now they think we're still tied up in here, so we need to get out before they realize we're free. We're below deck, so we need to get up on deck and go off board. It's early morning, there should be other boats out there this close to the harbor. If we're lucky, they won't notice we're gone before it's too late. If not, maybe they'll hesitate to shoot at us if there's other boats around."
Eliot walked over towards the door and checked the lock. It wasn't too sturdy and he should be able to open it without much effort. He heard Hardison step up to him as he inspected the door.
"What exactly do you mean, we have to go off board? Like, take a lifeboat?"
Eliot laughed. "Not if we don't want to draw attention to ourselves. We need to be quick about this, Hardison. And we can't be too far away from the harbor yet. How good a swimmer are you?"
It was an off-handed question, just a reassurance about Hardison's skill while Eliot was still focused on the lock. But when there was no answer, Eliot straightened up and turned around.
"Hardison?"
The other man looked back at him with an uncomfortable expression on his face.
"I don't swim, man."
They really didn't have time for that discussion right now. "It's not really a question of principle here, Hardison. Around us there's water, you will have to swim, whether you like it or not."
Hardison remained silent, but there was an expression on his face that made something heavy settle in Eliot's stomach. It couldn't be. On top of everything that had happened, it just couldn't be. He shook his head, willing Hardison to tell him that he had just misunderstood.
"Please don't tell me that you can't swim."
*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*
TBC...
*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*
Thanks for reading. As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks a lot.
