TRTJ – Chapter 10
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Author's Note: We are starting a resolution now. Don't expect this story to drag endlessly like the others did. I won't add more plot points and twists, so this will be one-case-only type of a story. Things are moving now, and we're heading for the climax very fast. (that 'very fast' should be taken with reserve, of course:D) So, when the final action starts, that will be it, there will be no 'something more/else' after they deal with this situation. I hope I'll be able to keep it under the 100K words mark – and that is one huge novel. I think Leverage novels are around 80K mark, so you're getting a few chapters more. It will take a little over 3 months to finish this, so maybe I can continue with that. Four novels a year ain't that bad.
We still don't have Season Six, Leverage Movie, not even any new novels, though they were promised to us, so I'll try to fill that gap as long as I can.
PS: Thank you for your reviews. That feedback is very important, I have to 'feel' you and see what you like or dislike – it all adds to my writing skills. And all your advice about ratings is taken into consideration. Only one thing – if you review as a guest, and ask something, I can't respond. Log in, it takes just 20 seconds, so we can use message form thereafter. If you don't want that here, for whatever reason, find me on Facebook – just type Valawenel in search. I do prefer FB messages over those, here on . They have smileys :D :D
PPS: special thanks to Smooth Doggie for betaing, and AJayeK for advice on how-to-make-4yo-twins-eat-vegetables issue :D you rock, ladies :D
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"And why, exactly, have we kidnapped a Phoenix Police Lieutenant, and tied him up in the basement?" Eliot asked Nate when he climbed up to the first story after checking that Schafer was completely immobilized. The cop regained consciousness shortly after they'd put him in the car, but that was a good thing. Though he had draped Parker's jacket over his head, he would have been able to hear their every word, so they drove back in companionable silence. At least from their side of things – Schafer recited every criterion for capital punishment, laws, and conditions of the Arizonan death penalty, considering their very serious crime. It was very… educational.
When they arrived, he put him in the basement, while Parker wandered off to the kitchen.
Nate raised his eyes from the papers he studied. The pale morning light broke through the storm and half opened shutters, coloring his face a sickly grey. More than likely a hangover. "We're just borrowing him," Nate said. "I'm not sure yet how best to use him, though I have a few ideas, but it will be handy to have him here in case we need him fast, don't you think?"
"Right, kidnapping a police officer in an unfamiliar city, while crippled and unable to figure out what the hell is going on – yep, that sounds completely sane." He looked around not waiting for Nate's reply. "Where's Hardison?" Sophie was sleeping on the big bed, but abandoned laptops were blinking without supervision.
"Sleepwalking with his tablet, so I sent him to get some sleep while you were gone, but he took that damn thing with him, and I heard him pacing just a few minutes ago."
Eliot slowly lowered himself onto Hardison's chair. A couple of coffee cups were on the table; one of them was his, but he didn't know which one. He took the first one within his reach, and tried to relax his back. Driving with Parker went surprisingly well. He'd spent the most of the time with his eyes closed, to avoid nausea, and he'd only slapped her hand to tell her to stop speeding sixteen times. He was also half prepared for a reasonable explanation for when Nate had demanded the head of Prince Charming, he hadn't meant only his head, but the whole package. No need for that, either. "Anything new happen while we were gone?" Preferably, something that wouldn't require him going out again; something that might deal with all this shit regarding Hardison's hacking, money transfers, and preferably end with a bad guy in jail by night fall.
"Yes, Manny was also sleepwalking."
Eliot sighed. Before he could formulate any thoughts, Hardison entered the room, quietly closing the door behind him.
"I've finished the checks on Campbell," Hardison said. "Stu E. Campbell. Our head of the Art department is very – is that my coffee you're drinking? – very, very suspicious. Illegal gambling; he is an addict. I traced the money, and it is really always about the money, to a few offshore accounts. He also holds a 30 percent share in Signia, which puts him in a very high position on our list of suspects."
"Our list of suspects?" Nate said. "You mean him, and Herbert Kien- Quaney III? That list?"
"Let's not forget that we are trying to do recon in one day, with power going on and off, in a damn dust storm – our preparations usually take days, sometimes weeks. These are not the best conditions, Nate."
"Does he have enough money circulating around, to pay for de Bruin?"
Hardison shrugged. "More than enough. But so does Herbert."
"Who are Signia's direct competitors on the market?" Eliot asked.
"Corso Games are developing a game in that niche, and very soon their marketing campaigners will start shooting at each other. Why?"
"We still don't know what Natalie Johnstone did to piss somebody off," Eliot said. "What if it wasn't someone in Signia, but their competitors? You said that game is very valuable, and she is making it. Maybe they want her head, full of secret-"
"There ain't a single fairy tale where somebody wants the head of the Princess, Eliot." Hardison stood near him now, watching him with a patience that was visibly evaporating, and Eliot remembered he was sitting in his place. He contemplated leaning back and putting his legs on the table just to drill for the hacker's last nerve, but it wasn't worth the effort. He took his cup and moved onto the bed, careful not to disturb the bundle of pillows and blankets, with Sophie in the middle of it.
"No, they, whoever they are, don't want her head. Only her heart," Nate said. "And we have it here." He waved his hand to the twins' room. "With her heart in their hands, they could control her head."
"Too many body parts for my liking," Hardison said. "You're saying that she's being blackmailed with her own kids. You don't have to be a mastermind to figure that out."
"Yes, and without the girls, they can't force her to do anything. So why then didn't she spill everything to the cops at the airport? She pushed the girls to you, you got away; she knows that. She knows the police are still after us, alleged kidnappers, but without success. That means we still have her children." Nate turned to the bed. "Sophie, wake up!"
"Not sleeping," came a mumbled response, and her head emerged from the pillows where it had been stuck. "But I could have, had you not started-"
"What might our Princess feel right now?" Nate ran over her words.
"Dread and hope," Sophie said sitting up. "And perhaps a little gloating. After all, she did manage to get her girls away from the danger. However, we shouldn't forget that she doesn't know who Hardison is – for all she knows, she might have given her girls to some weirdo, or child molester, or a clueless literature student; her dread and hope would be in an uphill spiral. She's a wreck, and it will only get worse as time passes." She ran her hands through her hair and frowned. "This is awful." She reached over the pillows and took his cup. Eliot stood up to get another one.
He stopped by Hardison's shoulder, watching the image of Natalie Johnstone from her file on the screen. She wasn't smiling, and her eyes were narrowed. And sharp. "Not just that. She could be deranged by now, but this lady is a fighter," he said. "Nate is right; she would set cops onto the goons that surround her, and the fact we are still accused of kidnapping says she had kept silent. Why?"
"That's what we must find out," Nate said. "Sophie, you'll deal with Natalie Johnstone. As soon as we gather a few more facts, you'll go to the airport and see what's going on there. At some point we will have to get her out."
Eliot twitched. "Alone?" the word escaped him before he could think.
"You were the one who said that the airport goons were not well trained, that they were likely personal security, rather than something official. De Bruin has his five henchmen with him, he isn't dealing with Natalie and the airport. Those goons could be Campbell's, Herbert's or the competitor's security."
"I'll send Parker to steal me another car," Sophie said. "You'll need that SUV we took last night."
"Which one do you want?" Parker asked entering the room. She held a plate in her hands, with a suspiciously tall pile of something on it.
"The nearest you can find – something small and nothing ostentatious. What's that?"
"A triple cinnamon roll ice cream sandwich," the thief's smile was smug. "You want one?"
Eliot considered a visit to the bathroom, but opted to simply avert his eyes from that monstrosity, careful not to roll them. Though he couldn't not say something. "You have real food prepared for breakfast."
"Do not start with food again, I beg you," Hardison said just before Parker opened her mouth, and Eliot just glared her grin away. "Let's concentrate on important things. Whoever drives that SUV has to be careful, it's been reported stolen and the police might do something, though it ain't likely, they seem to have more urgent matters to deal with in this storm. This must be a paradise for burglars, robbers… try to imagine how many alarms ain't working because of electr-"
"Wait," Nate raised his hand to stop him, right before the strange light settled in Parker's eyes. "How many giant SUVs could you steal in one dust storm, really?" he said. "Not you, Parker. In general."
"What do you mean?"
"The SUVs that chased us through the desert were also reported stolen. We stole the white mini-bus – and that reminds me, find the driver's name and buy him a new one - but all the cars involved in this were stolen. So I'm asking… how much time do you have to spend cruising through Phoenix in a dust storm with zero visibility, in order to collect so many, very similar SUVs?"
"You might be on to something," Hardison turned his back to them and typed. "Give me a few minutes – I'm keeping an open door to the police databases, in case we need something more, so I don't have to enter their reports again, I just have to go a few levels deeper… and almost there…" Eliot sipped his coffee while they all waited in silence. He watched Nate, a glint in his eye, and thought how Hardison could spare himself that search.
"While you're doing that, there's one more thing connected to those SUVs," Nate said. "Sophie, how long it took between your arrival in the warehouse and the arrival of the next SUV with people to collect Manny? It seemed only minutes passed, but I can't tell now."
"De Bruin called them when we left the car. It can't have been more than fifteen minutes, probably closer to ten."
"Signia Inc. building is in that radius," Hardison said. "They could have come from there, but I can't check, power was off at that time. No working cameras anywhere nearby. And we have results for stolen vehicles… Bingo! Signia Inc. reported almost half of their car park stolen yesterday. They cleared themselves in advance, by simply using allegedly stolen cars. I've counted five of them so far, I have all license numbers I need, but there's no need to check now." Hardison stopped typing and turned to another laptop, pressing a key. "So, that means we have only two suspects now." He pulled two photos up, one of Herbert Kien-Quaney III, and the second, a middle aged, tired looking guy, Stu E. Campbell. "Now to find out which buttons to press, Nate?"
"Yes, I'll do it. Today, as soon as you confirm that Signia's building has the power on. I'll need a business appointment, not a home visit. They have to be there, in the building."
"Herbert remains clean throughout all my searches, though his GPS shows a strange pattern – he visits his psychiatrist once a day. That's, like, way too much. I'll need more time to dig deeper into that. Start with Campbell instead. Natalie might've discovered his money transfers, or gambling debts, or that he used company funds… the possibilities are endless. Too bad we can't simply ask her."
"And why not?" Sophie said. "Who knows what opportunities I might find while at the airport. You could do one thing for me, though - we cannot predict how long this storm may last, though it will probably start calming down during today. Is there any way you can make some predictions as to when they will reopen the airport, and begin to release the first flights? We made a terrorism threat to ensure Natalie would stay there, grounded. Do we have to repeat that?"
"Probably not in the next several hours, but I'll keep that in mind. I haven't tried to enter the airport mainframe yet; every damn way I can is probably monitored, and I don't want SWAT teams on my tail unless I want SWAT teams on my tail. Her destination would tell us a great deal though, when we confirm Signia is the bad guy here, I can find out from their-"
Nate smiled. "Try Paramaribo."
They all looked at him.
"Okay," Hardison stopped his fingers. "You're just pulling our leg now. We did mention South America and a few other countries where Signia opened departments, but no way have you come up with that Para- mara-whatever through that. You just made that up."
"Numismatic museum in Paramaribo has the world famous copperPapegaaienmuntorParrotcoin," Parker's words got stuck into one giant bite.
"One what?"
She swallowed. "Parrot coin. Been there. Super old. But not shiny enough to steal."
Eliot noticed Nate's eyes rested on Parker with a strange attentiveness. "You have all the info you need, Parker. Make a conclusion." She mumbled something. "Chew that, and then make a conclusion," Nate added.
"How did you come up with Paramaribo as her destination? You want that?" she asked, lowering the cake-ice cream-sandwich that was melting dangerously now. "New departments are opening in Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname and French Guyana. Paramaribo is in Suriname, so she is flying to Suriname because of de Bruin."
Eliot glanced to Hardison. Judging by his frown, he wasn't the only one with a headache in the room. Parker's usual thread of thoughts made brains writhe in pain even without concussion. But Nate grinned at that nonsense, as if that made complete sense, and she grinned back.
Eliot leaned forward a little, so he could peer at Hardison's laptop. He pulled up the airport's website, or whatever it was called, as a regular visitor, and he went back to check all flights in a two hour time-frame of his first meeting with Natalie Johnstone. The hacker darted him a glance when the search results said Paramaribo, in mockingly bold red letters. He shrugged the unspoken question off – he had no idea.
"Oh," Sophie said. "I know. Suriname is the only one with Dutch as official language. De Bruin is Dutch, maybe even from there. That's a clear connection, it cannot be a coincidence."
"That, and the Malaria meds in her cupboard," Parker said. "You have to take them before flying, especially if you take the kids with you."
"Learn to share, Parker," Nate smiled again, then frowned. "Let me rephrase that – share all important things about our jobs, not, well, everything else."
"Okay, I'll find out everything I can about that Suriname department." Hardison for the moment looked as if he was unsure which laptop to turn to. Too many of everything already was going on upon them all, and starting one more meant he would have to stop or pause something else.
Eliot pulled a phone out of his pocket. "This is the best time to give you more work; I see you're already bored." He threw the phone into the hacker's hands. "Lieutenant Schafer's phone. It might have useful info on their investigation, and if our luck holds, something about the airport situation." He glanced at Sophie who was occupied with her hair. He still didn't like the idea of her going there alone, but the rest of them would probably be busy with their own tasks today. She could do a basic recon without any problem; it wasn't her side that worried him.
A frustration boiled within him, as the anger settled deep in his heart. Every single piece of shit that could go wrong accumulated in his mind right now, when he wasn't in the best shape, when his feelings were raw. Damn, he wasn't even sure how well he was hiding his self-loathing, his personal fear of all things dark that had been awoken and brought too close to the surface. No, scratch that – he knew exactly. He sucked at it. Even this room, with all of them inside, made him hope that de Bruin would send more of his men, giving him a chance to fight, to release this frustration in pure violence.
Which was utterly stupid considering all the holes he had in him, the concussion, and double vision; and so the dance would continue, round and around, until he simply climbed to the roof to fight the sand storm, if nothing else.
He just wanted to do something, to ease this boiling that gathered inside him – a hunting trip with Parker was just a small vent. He needed his steam valve exploding.
He took another sip of coffee, and sat back on the bed. He radiated a nirvana-like relaxation in all directions, in hope that it would equalize his inner turmoil, and he might appear relatively normal. His leg screamed in protest, but he paid it no attention, choosing instead to watch Nate. Who was watching Parker. Who, in turn, was watching Hardison. Who was watching…him? "What?" he asked Hardison, half ready to offer him some further searches to keep himself busy. It was better than sitting and worrying in silence.
"There is one suspicious thing that you will like," Hardison said. "Only suspicious thing I found is extreme security around the main Signia building, but I don't think they are arming nuclear war heads there… their game is in its most vulnerable stage now, a release is expected soon, and if anything leaks to their competitors, especially to Corso Games, they are ruined."
"Define extreme."
"All employees have signed confidentiality contracts, they have limited access to their departments only, multiple password protected steps to the mainframe database. Basically, not even the different groups in the art department know what the other groups are doing, not to mention the other departments. Everybody works only on a small part of the game, so they can't tell the bigger picture."
"That's not security, Hardison," Eliot said. "That's office politics. Security is armed guards, sealed rooms and motion sensors, alarms and scanners, dogs and fire pits under the stairways."
Nate turned to them now, the same silent alert in his eyes like when he watched Parker, and that hit every raw nerve in his body.
"What's your problem?" he asked him directly. He had no patience for - a quiet screech from the door stopped his thoughts, and halted Nate's eventual reply; one of the twins tapped barefoot across the room to them, clutching a huge monkey. They watched her in silence; she looked like she was sleepwalking. She went directly to the bed, put the monkey on it, and climbed after it. She probably repeated that with her mother every morning.
Both him and Sophie sat very still as she wriggled her way between them, but the monkey ended in his lap, and she curled herself by his side, rubbing her eyes. He sighed and his hand moved through the messy curls. No snapping at Nate now.
"That's it, the other will follow in a minute," Nate said. "We have to get them ready for today, it might be very tiresome. Sophie, which one…?"
"Mickey," Sophie said. All of them looked at the girl now, trying to figure out how she knew, but without Manny by her side it was impossible to tell. Though, Eliot suspected her choice of pillow told her that – Mickey was driving with him the last time, she knew him and had snuggled with him before.
"I want that," one little finger pointed at Parker who was licking the ice cream off her fingers; he opened his mouth to tell Parker to not even think about it, when the door screeched once more and Manny tapped in the room, with a panda in her hands. "Ice cream," Manny said, blinking the sleep away.
"Forget it," he said low; his growl was meant for Parker, not for girls, but it didn't end in tears and fear as in beginning; Mickey chuckled, and Manny came closer. "Parker, move that thing away, they have vegetable salad and eggs for-"
"True, they need real food," Nate said with a tone of a voice he usually used while proclaiming the con they'd choose for a job, and Eliot raised his eyes to him, meeting a smirk. "Give them breakfast, Eliot."
"Forget it." Again, that resulted in another chuckle. Manny was heading directly to Parker, he noticed with growing worry.
"If you want them to eat properly," Nate said, "do it yourself – otherwise we'll feed them with ice cream. But I have to warn you, feeding four year olds with vegetables for breakfast might prove much, much more demanding than feeding Villacorta with shit."
Damn, he couldn't tell him to do it himself. On his left, Sophie quickly got up, murmuring something about very important preparation for her role and airport con. Parker had too eerie glint in her eyes, and Hardison was too busy…
Nothing could go wrong, right? They were hungry, they'd eat anything. Only thing he had to do was to mute the darkness whirling inside him, and put some form of a smile on his face.
He got up and went to bring plates and everything else needed, trying to ignore the pity in Nate's eyes.
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The daylight didn't mean the sand storm eased its slamming at their windows, and Sophie knew what would wait for her outside. Phoenix was still wrapped in a state of emergency, only vehicles which were absolutely needed would be on the road, yet there would be traffic. That would make her drive more dangerous than their slow trudging through the twilight darkened streets had been.
Sophie took the girls to the bathroom while Eliot was in the kitchen, hiding Parker's plate out of sight. Now she stood in front of rows of clothes, tapping her chin with her finger.
"Parker, will you help me?" she said to the thief before she started rummaging through Natalie's closets. "I need as many plastic bags as you can find." That would also keep Parker away from Eliot and the girls.
If Nate hadn't told him to feed the kids, she would have done it. His eyes, even when he talked about the case, had that confined expression she had so rarely seen in him, as if he was ready to chew off his own leg to get away from something. There was a storm inside that man, nastier than this one that surrounded them – and much more dangerous. Yet, the dark dismay in his eyes eased when he was watching the girls; whatever was troubling him was put on hold while they were near.
He had returned with chairs from the kitchen, food and plates, and he was busy arranging a breakfast table out of the vanity unit; he probably counted that a mirror would help him.
Hardison didn't have time to pay attention to him, but Nate seemed to be equally fascinated and withdrawn.
"Nate," Hardison called him, ending her thoughts on diverting his attention. "I sent something about Corso Games to your phone, and everything I collected about Herbert and Campbell. What play did you have in mind?"
"I'm thinking about the White van con, but a variant," Nate said checking his phone when it pinged. "This started with a white mini-bus; we can end it in the same tone. I will-" Another ping came, and Nate reflexively checked his phone, only then noticing it was a different sound.
A single silver bell. Eliot's phone.
Eliot's other phone, Sophie realized when he reached into his pocket and took out a small burner phone.
Hardison let out a huff. "Do we have to guess who sent that message?" he said. "I'm not mentioning or implying anything, but have you seen the movie From Russia With Love?"
Eliot darted one nasty glare at the grinning hacker, and checked the message. No smile. Sophie watched him, hoping it was because of them – an audience probably annoyed him immensely. But he didn't hit reply. He just read it, with a blank face, and put it back. All her alarms rang at the same time when he stopped his hand, a flash of disgust showing on his face, and changed the move, instead putting the phone in his left jeans pocket. Then he looked at Hardison, and smiled. "You were sayin'?" he asked.
"Nothing, nothing, I got it. I was mistaken; it was For Your Eyes Only."
"Good thing there ain't too many Bond movies, you'll run out of them before breakfast."
"Too bad – we even have A Man with the Golden Knife."
"Don't you have, like, twenty-four searches you have to work on?"
"Couldn't agree more," Nate jumped in, right on time. "And don't you have, like, two starving children to feed? Move, people, we are running out of time."
That worked; a grin and a glare were exchanged before they returned to their duties. Hardison continued his typing, and he and Nate engaged in discussing all variants of the White van con.
Sophie tuned them out, her attention seemingly all on the clothes. She kept an eye on Eliot who entered into negotiations about toys. Mickey agreed to leave the monkey on the bed, and he turned to Manny with her panda, but only two seconds after his attention shifted, monkey was again in Mickey's hands, and panda didn't seem to move either.
Sophie chose shabby trousers and few shirts and put them on the bed, beside them. "You're doing fine," she said, patting him lightly on his upper arm. Her other hand, when she leaned to tickle the panda in Manny's embrace, slid into the right hand pocket of his jacket. That was a dangerous move; only Parker could lift anything from him, and she hasn't ever tried this before – yet he was too occupied with the monkey to notice it. She didn't have to pull the thing out to see what it was; her fingers recognized the shape and small holes in a golden coating.
She was lucky that Mickey rolled over in a forward roll and he reached to stop her falling from the bed, because her fingers twitched, and she pulled her hand out with a noticeable yank.
Why the hell had he kept de Bruin's knife? Though, now she knew why he changed his move; he didn't want that phone to even touch it. That was a good sign. She returned to the closets a little calmer, and tried to concentrate on the task before her, and not on the goings-on behind her back.
She resisted turning back for an entire minute.
The negotiations were in a delicate phase; it seemed that the only way to make the girls go to their chairs was to allow their toys to be put on the floor by their feet. Eliot even managed to get them on their feet, shooing them in front of himself; he almost made it. They were only three steps from their breakfast when Mickey went left, Manny went right – without previous arrangement, completely spontaneously – leaving him to stand mid-step.
Hardison and Nate, Sophie noticed, were still talking, but both of them were sitting comfortably and now turned towards the show in front of them.
Eliot went left, picked up Mickey who was reaching for the bathroom door, and took her to her chair. Then he went to the right, picked up Manny who was heading for Parker's plate with remnants of the ice-cream, and took her to her chair. But Mickey was already climbing down, pushing her monkey under the table. And they both giggled and talked, explaining to him how they really really really weren't hungry and why he couldn't just play with them.
Sophie turned around and buried her face in the closet. Clothes. She needed the clothes for the airport. It took a few minutes before she found something that would draw Natalie's attention immediately, something unique. She found a cloak, dark blue like a deep summer night, set with silver stars around the hem and at the throat. Not a usual mantle for the airport - she was sure Natalie would recognize it.
"Ah, geek is strong with that one," Hardison nodded approval when she added it to the chosen ones on the bed.
"There," Eliot said finally, and Sophie turned around to check his progress. He had both of the girls in their chairs, plates in front of them, and he stood by the table with his arms crossed. "Now eat."
She bit her lip when she saw aghast little faces; after the first moment of examination, they both raised their eyes to Eliot. Mickey's chin trembled; Manny was frowning. A dam broke in stereo.
"Where's the ice-cream?" They pushed the plates away; Sophie couldn't blame them, she saw French beans and eggs. "I want mommy! – Yuck! – Mommy ALWAYS gives us ice-cream for breakfast! Right?" Mickey stopped to nudge Manny. "Yeah, right, always. This isn't breakfast." After that, even Sophie couldn't decipher which one was saying what, except they both looked heartbroken. "I'll tell on you, you can't make us eat – eeuw, eeuw, eeuw, ACK! I'm not eating this, this looks gross."
Now Eliot's face looked aghast; he stared at the girls with a desperate realization. "Be reasonable," he said in a millisecond of silence, before Mickey changed her approach from crying to a charming smile, and Manny from anger to deepest pits of sorrow. Two miniature grifters had their victim in their claws. And they squeezed.
"Be reasonable?" Nate murmured beside her; she hadn't noticed him coming closer to the closets. He had two chairs in his hands, and he put them near her and sat down.
"Shhh," she whispered sitting beside him. Laughter boiled in her chest, but she knew if she laughed, the girls would take that as a cheer, and continued with double strength. "He is trying an individual approach now."
Eliot indeed directed all his effort on Mickey, leaving Manny to clutch her panda and murmur to it; but this time, Eliot Spencer encountered a female immune to his charm. Mickey watched the fork he held in front of her mouth with barely hidden revulsion. The only time she opened her mouth was to say: ice-cream – not even Eliot had time to fill her mouth with vegetables before the gate closed again.
"And there goes the denial phase," Nate said when he put the fork down and got up in one furious move, heading for a bathroom. "Now let's see how he will deal with the anger." Eliot returned in the blink of an eye, before they could slide down from the chairs – he brought two cups with water. Sophie noticed he was breathing through his nose, slowly. But his teeth were gritted.
"Nope, he is heading directly to the bargaining, dragging the anger along," she said.
"You do realize that monkey hasn't eaten for days?" Eliot said. "When was the last time you give him something to eat?"
"Oh." Mickey opened her eyes widely.
"I thought so. Shall we feed the monkey now?"
"Okay."
"I don't know what he likes, and we don't want to feed him with eeuw stuff – so you have to try this," he raised the fork again, "and see if it's good enough for him. Okay?"
Sophie now had a hand over her mouth. The scene reached the climax, the odds were balancing for one moment, almost, almost… and then everything crushed down when Manny said, "My panda only eats ice-cream."
Mickey closed her mouth and scooted away.
Eliot lowered the fork and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Nate leaned closer to her ear. "Depression or acceptance?" he asked. "How long before he realizes that you can't play fair with them?"
Sophie just patted his arm instead of replying. She was waiting for something else; she followed Eliot's every move, taking in his tone of voice, his posture, his facial expressions and smiles. But it wasn't time yet, he was still too nervous.
His next move was to arrange the hard boiled eggs on their plates, stuck the French beans in them, making small boats that sailed on a sea of mashed potatoes – seriously, his choice for breakfast was disgusting – and that kept them fascinated long enough for him to explain how beans gave super-powers to girls, monkeys and pandas. The monkey was the first one who gave in, though – and after the mutual examination of his newly acquired super strength, the miracle happened. They took their first bites. Even the panda had some.
And of course they then realized it was good, and they were really hungry, so he could lean back in his chair, and pay attention to the outer world. In the meantime, Hardison stopped pretending he was typing, but Eliot seemed to be too drained even to glare at him. He just listened to their babbling, occasionally pushing the boats closer to their forks.
When Manny poured some water on her potatoes to make waves, and genuine laughter escaped him, at that point Sophie got up and joined them.
She hooked her hip on the table edge, waiting for him to raise his eyes to her. There was softness in them, finally, when he did. She was deep into his personal space, almost touching him, and she felt no boundary walls rising up.
She couldn't say anything – but she waited for this, exactly this moment, to anchor this emotion.
"May I ask what was in Florence's message?" she asked, her voice and eyes matching his softness.
This time, his smile grew wider. "Good morning," he said. "And some babbling that would have no meaning to you."
She wiped some dust off his sleeve, leaning in even closer. "I do miss her, you know?" she said quietly. "And you are the only connection to her, so forgive me if I ask, sometimes, about her." Her words were followed with giggles – apparently, monkey had enough, and he was pushing panda with his new super-powers. Eliot's eyes darted to check the breakfast progress; her hand remained on his. She had to link Florence to this warmth, to bridge that gap she felt in him after nothing happened, Sophie. Using this on a team mate wasn't fair, but she had no other means. Damn you, Nate.
"Yeah, she misses you too. All of you," he said, that feeling mirrored in his eyes now, and Sophie smiled once more before getting up.
"They deserve some ice- cream now, don't you think?" she said, not pushing it further; she had done what she wanted to do. Two pairs of eyes turned to him, wide open, waiting for a verdict.
"Okay," he grumbled finally, and two unison screams of joy pierced her eardrums. The monkey flew into his arms, and one wet, mashed potato-lined smooch ended up on his cheek.
She left him in amidst another round of negotiations and under attack, and went back to her chair.
Nate's eyebrows were raised; he tilted his head to her with a half hidden smile. But he said nothing.
.
.
.
.
When Parker returned with her hands full of plastic bags, the light flickered for a few moments, and died. Hardison let out one low snarl. Eliot glared at him; the girls flinched at that sound.
"I thought you had everything charged by now?" Nate asked the hacker. "You should have a few more working hours even without electricity."
"The power is not the problem, internet is. It died. Completely, utterly, I'm-no-longer-online died on me!"
Okay, that was serious. Even Eliot frowned without any nasty gloating objection. Though, the thought of an offline hacker would be hilarious any other time. He never knew what Hardison did when he wasn't able to type something; that must've been something special to observe.
Nate got up and checked the morning light through the shutters. "Is there a chance you can catch some Wi-Fi somewhere in the city?"
"Maybe," Hardison said, pressing the keys all around himself in a desperately random pattern. "Can't tell, the storm is raging – but I should. You have something in mind?"
"Yes, foot work. We have to talk with former employees of Signia Inc. and see what's going on in there, and find out more about Campbell's money manipulations. Sophie is going to the airport so that leaves the rest of us, and now you too. I have a list of employees on my phone, with all their information including addresses; I'll pass it along to you all. We'll find the nearest ones, and go talk to them."
"Internet may return soon. It's better if I wait here and-"
"No. We will spend a maximum of two hours on this, no more, and you can catch Wi-Fi somewhere as we move." Nate glanced over the room, but his eyes didn't fall on him. Eliot was still sitting with bowls of ice-cream and both girls; Parker and Sophie packed some clothes into plastic bags.
"Your car is on the street," Parker handed Sophie car keys. That left the SUV for the rest of them. But they needed more transport in order to deal with the employees at the same time, not one by one, going all together. That was something they would solve when they get going; Parker could steal a car or two along the way.
"I tried to solve our earbud problem," Hardison said. "It's not the best solution, but it's the only one for now. Your phones now have a conference call on speed dial. You can go in and out of it, and I suggest you keep it on only from time to time, to check on others – as it will eat your battery very fast. Put your Bluetooth ear-piece in your ear and it's almost as you have an earbud. Poor sound quality, but that's all I can do for now. Check it now."
Eliot pulled out his phone; everything seemed to be working. But they had one more important thing to solve. "Nate, what about the girls? Who will take them? Or will we separate them again?"
"Well, about that…" Nate shrugged. "They will stay here. With you. You aren't needed for this as we'll simply ring on people's doors and ask them about their former employer."
"What?! I'm a babysitter now?"
"You'll do fine," Nate now smiled. "But it's not just that. We have a… D.E.A.D man in the house, and one policeman locked in our basement. It would be wise to keep an eye on them too, don't you think? We need this house as a base, guard it."
"A sparky dragon at the gate of the castle," Parker grinned.
"I have Ice Age two and three on the tablet," Hardison tapped him on his shoulder while passing him by. "Good luck."
Good luck he would need, indeed. The girls were still occupied with the ice- cream, but he couldn't feed them forever. He almost asked Nate what he should expect, but stopped that at the last second. They will, probably, play with… something. Or sleep.
But damn, he didn't like this – all of them out of his reach, doing things on their own, with as yet an unknown bad guy behind everything. Not to mention de Bruin and his five merry men, also lurking around somewhere.
They all avoided looking at him; he tried to keep calm because of the girls. And the team. And for Phoenix. "We bypassed a normal job one-body ago, Nate," he said finally. "Let's keep this on the current level, okay?"
"Simple recon," Nate said. "Not even plan A yet. But we are starting."
"What are we going to steal?" Parker asked.
Nate stopped mid-step and thought, his gaze flying over the twins. "Something that will bring our Princess home," he said quietly. Then he smiled. "Let's steal ourselves a pumpkin."
And just like that, they were gone.
Eliot slowly exhaled. A sudden silence in the room felt ominous; he'd gotten so used to their voices that only two, tiny ones, weren't enough anymore.
Yet, he had a message to reply to, and one prisoner chained to the wall to guard – not to mention The Ice Age; a day full of fun.
He chased away the sinking feeling in his gut; it was just his paranoia starting its endless tirade. Nothing could go wrong, right? A new mantra.
Right.
.