A/N: I am so sorry that this is so late. But believe me, it wasn't for lack of trying; this is pretty much exclusively what I've been doing in between school hours for five days straight. I think this was difficult for me because a) it's very different from what I'm used to writing, and b) in the past when I've written multiple connected chapters, I've written the whole thing before I posted it, which meant if I wanted to change something in the story, I could alter the whole thing accordingly without having to worry about continuity with what I'd already put up. Suffice to say, I'm glad it's over.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed, and who has stuck with me through my inconsistency, it means a lot. I usually try to reply to reviews with a PM, but I can't do that in the case of guest reviewers, so to guest Wanda: Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint. :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Leverage. (That would be too much for me to handle)
~Earbud~
Parker pressed her ear up against the cell door. She could just barely hear the dull thud of boots on the concrete floor, intermittently broken by the screech of metal hatches being opened and closed. It was the middle of the day, and the prisoners were being fed.
Parker swung her head towards where Eliot was sitting against the wall. "Ready?" she whispered, then heard Eliot drag himself to his feet and come to the door.
"Ready," he answered. Parker pressed her ear to the door again, and then backed away hastily as the hatch at the bottom of the door slid open. The tray of food was shoved through, but before the hatch could close again, Parker quickly slid the tray halfway back to stop the hatch. Then she tapped on the sliding plate at eye level, but nothing happened. Parker held her breath. This whole plan hung the guard opening that hatch. She tapped again, and this time the hatch opened. Parker squinted at the light, so sudden after almost two days of darkness, but tried her best to put on what she assumed was a flirty face. Her Portuguese was rusty at best, but it would have to do.
"Hey," she said in a sultry voice, "wanna let me out of here?" she batted her eyes at the guard, who snorted.
"No."
Parker kept her flirty face on. "Ok," she said. Then, with lightning speed, she punched him in the face. He stumbled back just barely, but before he could even yell, she slipped one end of her belt out through the hatch, then back in, and pulled it so that it tightened around his throat. "How about now?" Parker whispered. The guard was gasping for breath and trying to pull at the belt around his neck. She tightened the belt by a tiny bit. "Do it," she hissed. She heard the guard fumbling with his keys, and loosened the belt just enough so that he wouldn't pass out before he got the door open. In a second the door was swinging open, and as soon as the guard was reachable, Eliot clocked him in the head and he slumped: unconscious. They dragged him inside and pushed the cell door to, so that is was almost closed, but not quite.
"You got the contact codes and passwords, right?" Eliot questioned as they tied and gagged their hostage. In reply, Parker rattled off a list of names and numbers.
"And the location?"
Parker repeated the coordinates Eliot had given her for the approximation of where his comm had worked. Then she paused.
"What if they don't come?" she asked uncertainly.
Eliot answered immediately, "They will." There was another pause, and Eliot pulled Parker into a hug. "Now go," he said after a moment, and released her. Parker nodded and stepped back. Eliot handed her the guard's gun and keys; the former she stuck it in her waistband, and the latter she put in her pocket so they wouldn't make any noise. She took a deep breath as she set her hand on the door, then slipped out of the cell as silent as a shadow.
This was the most dangerous part, right as she came out and didn't know what to expect. Eliot had been able to give her some basic outlines, but he had been a bit too unconscious to be very observant. Blinking against what seemed like a harsh light to her still-adjusting eyes, Parker stood still as a statue right after she slipped through the door and scanned the corridor, counting cameras. Make that camera: there was just one. It was a rotating camera, and Parker's internal security catalogue told her what model it was, and exactly how many seconds she had before it got back to her. Without hesitating she bolted under it, only stopping when she got to the corner.
She heard footsteps and held her breath, already wishing Eliot were with her. She did have the gun, but if she used it any hope of escape would be gone. Parker exhaled silently as the sound of boots faded away down the hall, and then dared to peek around the corner.
"I'd slow you down if I went with you," Eliot had said. "You've got to be quick and light if you're gonna make it out of here."
Quick and light. Quick and light. Parker repeated to herself as she made her way through the bunker's corridors. She employed every evasion tactic she knew; she listened, she watched, she waited. She relied on her intuition and years of experience. She by-passed guards and hid from cameras, just barely scraping by. As she passed more personnel, and as she saw more boxes littering the hallways, Parker realized something: the base was relocating. Considering the state of things, Cardoso and everything in the bunker would be gone in less than twenty-four hours. Eliot must have really freaked them out. Parker doubled her pace and ran through the tunnels until she found what she was looking for.
Parker pressed herself up against a wall and counted until she knew the camera had circled away from her. She rushed to the door that read: MAINTAINANCE: VENTILATION, and knelt in front of it, drawing out her lock-picks. In less than a minute she had the lock, and slipped inside.
Her face split into a grin when she saw the vents. It turns out underground bunkers need a lot of air, and have big, beautiful air ducts. Parker slipped into the main vent, then hesitated. A few yards after the place where the pipe met the cooling system, it branched off into several different directions. Parker hesitated. She didn't know this ventilation system. If she crawled inside the wrong one, or took a wrong turn, this could be her long, metal coffin; with wind. The idea didn't bother her as much as it would have most people, but what made her falter was the thought of Eliot, still sitting in that cell, depending on her to get him, and others, out. She didn't know what to do.
Parker had never been religious, the survival of the fittest had always lined up more with her experience, but right then she prayed. She didn't have anything to go on. With how big and closed in the bunker was, there wasn't much in the air quality of the different ways to tell her anything. Her resources were exhausted, so now she was banking on Someone else knowing. Parker opened her eyes, expecting some great big arrow pointing one way or the other, but there wasn't anything. She sighed. She was slightly disappointed, but not surprised.
She made a quick decision and went to the first opening, but as she started to move towards it, something felt… off. She slowly backed up and went to the next opening, but she got the same feeling. She tried two more, and even got a few feet down the last one, but she just couldn't settle herself into it. Finally she backed down and stared at her choices. What was wrong with her? She was wasting time that she didn't have with her indecision. She shook her head quickly as she moved to the next to last opening and started to go down it, and this time it seemed right.
Parker crawled through the ductwork, navigating as best she could by the light which came through the other openings along the way. Eventually the metal began sloping upwards, and before long the tunnel got brighter, and Parker saw sunlight filtering through an opening just ahead. She couldn't believe it. Once she had gotten to the cover and lifted it off, she poked her head out just enough to look around, and she realized that she was pointed in the exact direction she needed to go. Parker breathed a thank you to Whoever had led her to that vent.
Eliot had told her there was a patrol, and probably cameras, so Parker pulled herself back inside the duct and recovered it, waiting. Given the perimeter of the bunker, she didn't expect it to be very long until the patrol circled around, so she busied herself with making a mental map of the base while she waited.
After she heard the guards' footsteps and conversation approach and then fade, Parker pulled the hatch aside again and crawled out, noting the security features (or lack thereof) on this side of the structure. She immediately found a blind spot in the camera network and stayed there, pressed close to the exterior of the bunker. She slipped herself off of the slope of the concrete and onto the ground, capitalizing on cover while she had it. Then, without warning, she crossed the clearing and escaped into the trees.
Once she was far enough into the forest that she couldn't see the bunker, Parker slowed, but didn't let her guard down. Still on high alert, she followed the directions Eliot had given her, and began to make her way to the communication point. She got to the approximated point and put in her earbud.
At first she only heard static, so she paced around the area, listening for any sign of signal. A few steps ahead, a quarter turn left, a tiny step backwards; nothing. Then she got an idea.
Parker craned her neck to look at the trees above her. Judging from where she was, she quickly selected the tallest one and began climbing. The higher she got, the more the static faded, until it was gone completely. Then she stopped, suspended by her arm halfway in between branches. She glanced around her quickly, making sure no one was in the immediate vicinity, and then hazarded a whisper.
"Hardison?" Nothing. Parker climbed up a couple more branches and then tried again, her whisper a little louder, "Hardison!"
"Parker?"
"Hardison!" Parker breathed, and felt some stress slip away for the first time since she had left the cell.
Hardison sounded infinitely relieved as well. "Parker! I- I didn't know what I was going to do if- and when Eliot's comm shorted out, and- are you ok? Nate! It's Parker! Where are you? Wait, never mind, I've got your location. Are you ok? Are you with Eliot?"
Parker cut him off, "I'm fine," she heard Hardison give a sigh of relief, "and I've been with Eliot, but he's not here now."
"Ok, do you know where he his? We'll come get you." Parker heard someone say something in the background, and Hardison replied, "She's near where Eliot called from." There was another mumbled something and then Parker heard Nate over the comms.
"Hey, Parker, nice of you to call."
"Eliot and I got caught," she said, relieved to hear Nate's voice, but ignoring his attempt at humor. "I was able to get out, but Eliot's still in there. We're not exactly sure where the bunker is, but we think it's somewhere nea-"
"Parker, we know where the bunker is, and we have a plan." Nate paused. "… Sort of," he amended.
"I'm still pretty exposed," Parker whispered, and glanced around, "so I need to talk fast. Write this down, Hardison." Then, before either Hardison or Nate could interrupt her, she gave the pairs of names and numbers that Eliot had drilled into her head.
"Ok," Hardison said after a brief pause, "got it. What are they?"
"Eliot says it's a list of his 'associates'. He says if you contact those numbers and give those names, along with a rendezvous point and time, they'll know what to do."
"Well," she heard Hardison say after a moment, "It's a better plan than we have."
As soon as she had given her information and gotten a response, Parker said, "I have to sign off, I'm afraid someone will hear me."
"Wait!" Hardison broke through. "Parker, we're coming to get you."
Parker hesitated. More than anything she wanted to be back with the team, but she knew that for them to get close enough to the base to pick her up, they would have to risk alerting Cardoso and his men. Besides, Eliot was still in there, she couldn't leave.
"Don't," she finally blurted. "If you do that, then we'll risk the chance to bring this guy down. On my way out I found out that these guys are on a schedule to relocate. If we tip them off, they could be gone in a matter of hours, and then we'll never get a shot at them again."
Hardison sounded angry. "What does it matter if we get a shot at them? We get you, we get Eliot, and we're out of there!"
"We weren't the only ones in there, Hardison! We think the boss has a human trafficking ring. At this point we have a chance to bring it down, but if they leave…" Parker let it hang unfinished. "It's what we do, Hardison, we help people." Parker waited for him to reply, and when he didn't she addressed the other man on the line. "Nate?" She was asking for his confirmation.
Finally, reluctantly, Nate agreed. "She's right."
Before Hardison could do anything but sit there in stunned silence, Parker told them she would check in regularly until everything was set up, and she signed off. She removed her earbud and slipped it into a pocket on the inside of her sleeve, then got into a more comfortable position in the tree, and settled in to wait.
It was getting dark now. By her count it had been about eight hours since she had last talked to Eliot, and more than forty-eight since she had seen any of the others. It sure felt like longer. With the reminder of how long it had been since she had slept properly, Parker's head began to nod. Just as her chin touched her chest she jerked awake and shook her head, she couldn't fall asleep. If she fell asleep then she wouldn't be able to check in with Hardison, and Hardison wouldn't know what had happened to her. Parker shook her head again to stave off the tiredness, and tried to employ every trick she knew to stay awake, but her adrenaline was giving out, and days of being on constant alert were taking their toll. Her eyes began to droop. Finally, as a last resort, she put her comm back in her ear.
"'s it ready?" she slurred, even though she knew that it had been barely fifteen minutes since she had signed off.
"Not yet," Hardison responded. "I made contact, and now Nate is working something out with one of them."
"Ok," Parker replied, not sure what else to say, "I'll check in again soon." She started to remove her earbud.
"Hey," Hardison interrupted again. "Uh… why don't you leave your comm in?" he suggested. "That way I can just tell you when it's done."
Parker weighed the options in her mind. On one hand, if she took out her earbud and kept checking in periodically, it would remove distractions (other than sleep, of course) so that she could focus on listening to what was around her. On the other hand, if she kept her comm in, she would have someone there to keep her awake, and to keep her company. Right now, as she sat alone in the top of a tree in the jungle, she was having a really hard time seeing the merits of the former plan.
"Ok," she agreed after deliberation. "I need to be quiet, but I'm afraid I'm going to fall asleep, could you…" she hesitated, "could you talk to me? Make sure I stay awake?"
Hardison agreed, and began to talk.
-0o0-0o0-0o0-0o0-0o0-0o0-
Eliot's eyes shot open as gunfire rang out in the bunker. He got to his feet as quickly as possible and went to the cell door, which was still unlatched. He pulled it open just enough to see out. There wasn't anyone in the hallway, but he could hear more clearly the shouts that echoed down it. He couldn't make out much of what was being said, but the general theme seemed to be that the bunker was being attacked. Good. That meant Parker had gotten out safely and delivered the names to Hardison. Even better, it meant that Eliot would be out of there soon.
Eliot figured it hadn't been quite twenty-four hours since Parker had left. During that time he had tried to talk to the others in the cell, but they had been even less willing to talk to him than they had to Parker, now he tried one last time, telling them that they would be out of there soon. There wasn't really anything else Eliot could do, so he settled in to wait.
Eliot hated waiting. He was good at it, but that didn't mean he liked it. He had to sit there, hearing the voices and gunfire filter in through the cracked door, and not being able to go out and join the fight. He leaned his head against the wall and tried to discern what was happening outside from the noises, but nothing stood out. That is, until an explosion shook the walls. The girls stifled screams, but Eliot was unfazed. How else were you supposed to get into a bunker? He continued to wait as the shouts got more frenzied, and then, finally, he heard different voices, ordering that weapons be dropped.
Eliot got to his feet slowly, trying to keep as much weight off of his right ankle as he could. He had laced his boot as tightly as possible, which gave more stability, if no pain relief. Eliot sighed internally. That was going to take a while to heal. Then Eliot heard footsteps running down the hall and he backed away from the door. Extending the baton he had taken from the guard, he stood ready to defend himself as the door swung open abruptly.
-0o0-0o0-0o0-0o0-0o0-0o0-
As soon as Eliot's recruits had cleared the way, Parker went head-first into the bunker to get Eliot and release the other prisoners. Even though she was going in a different way then she had gone out, it didn't take Parker long to find the corridor that held the rows of prison doors. She ran down the hall, all the way to the end where Eliot's cell was, and pushed open the still-unlocked door. The light fell on Eliot and he squinted, his eyes had been adjusted to the dark for so long.
"Eliot! Come on!" she said. He began to step towards the door, but before he had even put his foot down Parker crossed the room and slid an arm around him so he could lean on her.
They went a couple steps before Parker stopped again. She turned to the girls, who were still all huddled in the corner, and told them in broken Portuguese that they were free to go, and that if they went outside someone would be there to help them.
"Who came?" Eliot asked as he and Parker exited the cell.
"Everyone you had Hardison contact," Parker replied. Eliot nodded with satisfaction, he knew he had called the right people. "Nate, Sophie, and Hardison are on their way now," Parker added as she unlocked the next cell. In between going from cell to cell and releasing the prisoners, Parker told briefly about her escape, and about how quickly Eliot's friends had broken through the defenses.
"Those guys really know what they're doing."
"They should, I trained them." His voice hid a note of pride, but if Parker thought that the fact he had trained essentially a small South American army was strange, she didn't comment on it, and the pair slowly but surely made their way outside.
"Parker!" she heard a familiar voice call once they were out. She glanced quickly at Eliot, whose only response was a relieved look in his tired eyes, and a half-smirk in the direction of the voice as he lifted his arm off of Parker's shoulders. Almost before she had registered what she was doing, Parker turned and bolted towards the voice, nearly knocking Hardison to the ground when she got to him. They stood there for a while, simply holding onto one another while the others got to them.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Hardison was saying into her hair, over and over as Parker squeezed him tighter and said "me too". Eliot and the others exchanged hugs, Eliot still bracing his ribs with one arm and looking a little worse for wear, and Nate and Sophie just looking relieved. Eventually Parker and Hardison let go and greeted the others, Parker immediately going to Sophie, who wrapped her up in a tearful embrace, and then to Nate, who gave her a drier, if no less earnest, hug.
By that time, Eliot's impromptu army was loading Cardoso's goons onto transports, and a man who looked like he was in charge made his way over to the team. He and Eliot saluted each other, and then shook hands.
"You saved my life again, Garcia." Eliot said.
The man gave a dismissive wave, "You've saved mine many times, Comandante. How could I have done anything less?" Just as he said that, the team saw Cardoso being led out of the bunker at gun point, his hands tied behind his back, and looking none too happy. Garcia glanced from the captured mob boss back to Eliot.
"What would you like us to do with that?" he asked, indicating with a quick nod in the prisoner's direction. Eliot thought for a moment.
"He's not too popular with the local government, is he?"
Garcia laughed, "No, he is not. He basically stole all their equipment, but they couldn't do anything about it… because they had no equipment."
"Yeah, yeah, that should do nicely," Nate mused. "Turn him over to the locals. Make sure the authorities are compensated for every year he stays in prison." Garcia glanced at Eliot for confirmation. Eliot nodded, and Garcia saluted and went back to his men to give the orders.
In regards to the other prisoners, the Leverage team would make sure the girls who had families got back to them safely, or, if they didn't have family, the team would commission a trustworthy local to set up an establishment where the girls could stay until they could be independent.
Once everything was in order, or delegated to capable and trusted hands, the team started off for the airport. Parker and Eliot told their story, starting with the explanation of how Parker got caught that very first day. After they finished, Nate assured Parker and Eliot that they had been looking for them, and been on the verge of executing a poorly put-together plan (that Nate confessed was one of the worst he had ever come up with) when Parker made contact.
The whole time they were talking, Hardison sat with his head down, looking miserable. Nate was just telling how Hardison had worked all hours to find them when Parker leaned her head on the hacker's shoulder and whispered a thank you. Hardison snapped out of his gloom and looked at Parker like she had two heads.
"Thank you?" he asked incredulously. "For what? Getting you caught? Being so inadequate that you guys had to practically rescue yourselves? You would ha-"
"Thank you," Parker cut him off abruptly, "for caring." She paused. "I know I've been on this crew for a while, but it still surprises me sometimes that you guys care. And besides," now it was Parker's turn to look ashamed, "it wasn't your fault. I should have been able to tell those guys were coming. I'm trained to do that."
"And I'm trained to look at a computer screen! Now, which one of us do you think can be blamed more for not doing their job?"
Voices erupted in the vehicle as each team member tried to say that the biggest fault was theirs.
"Oi!" Sophie (who hadn't been involved in anything even remotely associated to Parker's abduction, and was just glad everyone was safe) shouted over the din, "Be quiet! All of you!" The noise died down immediately. Sophie rolled her eyes. "Look, the point is, all of us were a little bit off that day. All four of you could have been more observant, but here we are, all alive, so I think we should just drop it and make sure we do better next time. How does that sound?" She received grumbled replies.
There was mostly silence until they got on the plane that would take them home, then there was a squabble among the younger three thieves about who would get the window seat. Eventually Hardison won, and they all slid into their seats; Hardison, Parker, and Eliot in one row, and Sophie and Nate in the one in front of them. The plane had just taken off when Sophie turned around to ask Parker something, but she stopped herself. They were sleeping. Eliot's head was leaned back against the headrest and he looked rather peaceful, despite the cuts and bruises on his face and the bandaging peeking out from underneath his shirt. He had an arm thrown around Parker, who was leaning against him, while Hardison's head was on Parker's shoulder, their hands intertwined. Sophie smiled to herself and nudged Nate, which elicited a snore from his general direction. Sophie's smile broadened as she pulled out her phone and snapped photos of the sleepers before curling up next to Nate and following suit.
Those pictures would make good blackmail.
A/N: I hope I stuck the landing. I wasn't (and still am not) very confident in this one; as you can probably tell, action writing is not my strong suit, so if you notice any problems or glaring plot-holes, please let me know. Thank you all again for being patient with me!
Next up: Sport
