Chapter 25

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Lucille was covered with green ribbons and tiny silver bells. On the roof of the van Hardison placed two large speakers to look like two flowers, one pink and one yellow, with huge plastic petals.

He seemed extremely proud of his creation, and he took their wordless staring as a sign of their awe. No one had a heart to say… anything.

Parker insisted on bringing the bag with the weapons, and surprisingly, Sophie supported her, so there was nothing left to argue about – the bag that would be a treasure for any police inspection of the crazy van was placed securely beneath the driver's seat. Hardison needed almost fifteen minutes to connect the spare monitors in the van, he took every one from the office, and the inside of the van was full of cables that were spreading all over the place, like a net of laser beams that had to be avoided. In the back of the van Sophie made a nest for Parker, with blankets and pillows, to make the thief as comfortable as possible. Parker was pale and looked tired, and they all knew she was in pain, but they had to let her climb down all by herself.

Nate didn't ask if she had been given any analgesics, he knew she probably refused them.

"I'm driving," Sophie opened the driver's door. "Hardison will be busy with his screens, and you'll be busy staring into them. Buckle up!"

"I don't want to see that office ever again," Hardison sighed, turning the monitors on. "The delivery service I used works 24 hours a day, so if we need the rest of the stuff I'll arrange it."

"Some of the stuff was intentionally forgotten," Nate said, putting the chestnut wig on Parker's head, causing a grumpy murmur from the thief. "Hardison, is now the best time to ask how you think the van decorated with the leftovers of St. Patrick day would be invisible in traffic? Being invisible was the main point, if I remember correctly."

"Not invisible to everyone, invisible to the Chileans that will search for Lucille. A Lucille that should drive carefully, be quiet and avoid busy streets, and all of that?" Hardison grinned, pressing buttons, and the speakers above their heads started to howl a commercial for a car wash with a ten percent discount, in a cheerful voice along with a music. "Trust me, no one would think that's Lucille, and we can go wherever we want, and park in front of fifty Chileans if we want to. And now, get in, we're ready to leave."

"Nate," Sophie said when he closed the door and she started the engine, taking them onto the street. "Look in the cabinet where we put the pillows, please."

He bent under two cables to reach the lower cabinet. Tucked in a blanket, there was a small oxygen tank with a mask attached to it. He caught Sophie's eyes in the mirror and nodded, remembering her escape from the Chileans the previous night, and her putting it and the crutches in the van. One pair was still on the floor, along with Parker's pair.

"If you're done checking the inventory, come here," Hardison called and Nate turned his chair to face the monitors. "He made a pretty good route by now. I marked all the relevant spots on the map with green dots. The orange ones are the results from street cameras, and basically, every camera I could find and hack. The images you can even make out – this one, for example, that orange flash is the Toyota passing by a cash machine with a decent camera on it. Unfortunately, the last half an hour, the Toyota is simply gone. Maybe he left it somewhere, because he didn't stop, he's still moving. Sophie, it's only twenty minutes from us, step on it. We can get close, maybe even intercept him in time. I really, really, really don't want to learn what is the thing worse than murdering of a man."

"No." The voice from the back of the van was quiet, but amazingly clear. Parker said just the one word, and Nate and Hardison turned to her.

"You said we can't stop him, and that we can only be close if he needs us," she said with an even voice. "Before we do that, before we get closer… we have to do one thing first. We have to call him and tell him that shooting me was something that can't be forgiven, ever, and that we are leaving."

"What?" Hardison croaked. "Why?"

"Nate, if you want him alive, you'll do it." Parker completely ignored Hardison's question, she stared directly into his eyes. "I can crack any safe, but not if I'm cracking another one at the same time. Or even thinking about combinations of the other one. We are now just one more side that he must fight, one more opponent, a distraction that can kill him."

"She's right," Sophie said. "That way he could concentrate on the Chileans only, and not waste his time on thinking about our steps."

"He wouldn't believe us," Nate said. "Would you?"

"No, I wouldn't," Sophie sighed. "I would try to find the hidden reason behind it, and probably waste even more time than before. But, remember his speech to Hardison. He even shot Parker. He wants us to leave him and go away, and if we give him that, he'll buy it. And if anyone here can do it, it's me."

"Okay, I admit, that might be useful," said Hardison. "Not only will he be concentrated only on the Chileans, and not on us, it will also give us a little advantage. If you call him, and tell him… well, that after all he has said and done, he's dead to us… we might get close to him, because he won't think he has to hide from us any more. He will literally turn his back to us and face the Chileans... and that's maybe our only chance to get close to him."

"If he… do you really want that to be the last…" Nate cut off his words, but the damage was already done, they all knew what he was trying to say.

"If he's expecting us to come for him, he'll waste his time trying to prevent it." Parker's voice was empty of any feeling. "I don't know what he can do at all, with all those things Hardison listed, but one less thing to worry about, and to fight, would help him. The time he spends on stopping or evading us, he can spend on the Chileans. You should call him, Nate."

Yes, he should. But he realized he couldn't. He simply couldn't do it.

"Nate…" Sophie's eyes were watchful and narrowed as she studied him in the mirror. Two eyes was all that he could see of her, and that intensified her gaze even more."Remember what you told me in that café, when I was whining about how we should grab him and run, when I accused you of being an insensitive son of a bitch… amongst other things? You said that you were not nearly cruel enough. The Nate from the café wouldn't think twice about taking that phone and calling, he would know it's wise and necessary. In the mean time, the situation has escalated to a level we never imagined it could, and now, knowing all that, knowing what's at stake, you hesitate. What changed, Nate? What happened between that, and this conversation?"

The grifter's stare never left his eyes, but he didn't blink, just smiled. How the hell she was driving?

"When we came to the hospital," he said, "when I've told you who our real mark was, I also told you we couldn't do anything until we saw what his moves would be. After we saw them, I could think about stopping Villacorta and of all our actions, because before that, any move we made could endanger Eliot's. Yes, the situation escalated, and I decided to stop him from doing this, for his sake – he is too weak for this. Don't be fooled by that overdose, it's merely fuel – but his engine is still broken. What changed? I don't know, Sophie. Maybe this time I don't, won't let him die for us, when it can be avoided."

"This time?" she quietly asked.

"Just a figure of speech."

"Yet, he is out there now, and doing things he is not supposed to be able to do, and you refuse to do something that would help him avoid dying… and you smoothly went around my main question: 'What happened in the mean time'?" she sighed when he gave her no response. "There is one more thing, now, when you've already mentioned dying," she continued thoughtfully, her voice quiet. "Let me repeat the words you said when we were going back to that warehouse, when all this started: 'He might die thinking we are safe; and he did all of this just for that– or he might die knowing we are coming for him, and that he failed in everything he did. What would you chose for Eliot, Nate? It's the same situation, the same dilemma, but this time it's even more important, because the correct response may help him to live through this, not just ease his worries."

They all recognized those words, Hardison visibly flinched. "It's not the same situation, Soph," the hacker said. "He is walking and doing things, not just waiting to see if the paramedics would come on time."

Hardison had no idea how much he was wrong, about everything… this time there were no paramedics on their way, no Bonnano and cops, no cavalry that would come in time. Besides them. And they were late, and far away.

"You're right," Nate said slowly. "It is the right thing to do. But one of you must do it. Not me."

Sophie sighed. "You're not telling us everything." she said with her best We Shall Talk voice. Not only she was driving with her eyes fixed only on the rearview mirror, she was also dialing the phone as she spoke.

"He's not answering." she said after fifteen seconds.

Yes, he should have told them about Eliot's numbered hours, and that they were in a race with death, and at some point of this night he would probably do it – but not now, not when they were finally doing something. Their strive was for now colored with hope, not fear, and it was better for them if that feeling was prolonged.

He could handle the fearing part all by himself.

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Eliot stared at the lit avenue until his eyes hurt and started to burn, pulsing to the rhythm of a song that played in a nearby cafe; something Irish, and wild. It went perfectly with his heart beat, quick, too quick, and shallow. One beat of the music, one heartbeat, connected.

'You thought you could hide from the mess that you made
All the promises broken, your best plans relayed'

He smiled.

He watched in fascination as flames started to engulf the orange Toyota; the music was so loud that it covered the sound of many smaller explosions.

The ringing of his phone sent electric blue flashes before his eyes, and Eliot closed his eyes for a moment, because the blue mixed with the flames that he was watching. Red flames, orange car, blue lights… too many bright colors hurt his eyes even more, everything was still blurred. He had to wait longer.

He took a few steps back from the crowd that was watching the explosion; people had poured from the café on the street, alarmed and scared. He reached the darkest shadows, just slightly brightened with colored reflections, and checked the phone.

Sophie was calling him.

Smart move. The King unleashed the Queen and the most powerful weapon of hers, but this strike would miss. He let the phone ring. He couldn't let her speak. Not now.

The damn board was dangerous enough even without his own crew to wander aimlessly around, and in this phase they were more dangerous than Villacorta. Villacorta was far away, on the other side of the board, surrounded by his own pieces, his army of pawns, and to get to him, Eliot had to be a step ahead of everybody. Especially his own team. The Knight had jumped him and almost stopped him; damn her swift, unpredictable moves; one could never know from where she would materialize, what obstacles she's jump over to get to the target. The Bishop was covering the board and every diagonal in search of him; he could reach him no matter how distant he seemed – once Eliot stepped on the fields that he covered and monitored, he would be caught. Avoiding his traps and minefields would be even harder than evading The Knight. And the Queen… damn, she didn't even have to speak to him, it was enough to know what she would tell him; he knew it, and he had to use all his strength not to allow himself to let her warm, gentle whisper enter his mind.

For a moment everything went white and black, and squares danced before his eyes; he turned around to see the distant figure behind his back. He felt his presence, he could feel his mind in every move other pieces had made, but the King was silent and closed. The King might be far away in the background, but he was the only one who could stop him.

A smaller explosion finished the orange car and crowd dispersed in fear, and that brought back the colors, pulling him out of the chess board, into the street again. The lights and music returned as well, mixed with the howling of Police and ambulance sirens. Firefighters were already there. They would add more blue and red colors and lighten the avenue even more.

'So you travel in circles, and that much is fine
But trouble will follow ya into the brine'

Boston was brewing, the streets were full of people – weekend nights kept them out till dawn. Tonight, the atmosphere would be much wilder than everyone expected. The avenue that he was watching was already looking like a river of fire, the burning car causing a traffic jam. He tried to smile again, but the trembling made it impossible; he had to wait a few more minutes before the new dose of morphine mixed with the last, and pushed him to the level he had carefully calculated. Timing was everything. He checked his new watch to see how many minutes he needed, noticing already that the blurring of his eyes was gone, and world once again became sharp… painfully, coldly sharp.

He waited; a dark shadow in the background.

'And sooner or later a ship comes ashore
It's here I can bet ya just wanted more
And you find there's nothing left to begin
And you can't go home again'

That song was driving him crazy, and lights before his eyes became redder. No, he couldn't go home again. They would never forgive him for what he was going to do. They would never understand all the death, all the blood, all the chaos he was going to unleash. But this was the only way. His way.

He had all night, he had all the time in the world. Seven hours until the dawn.

The wrath was getting stronger, and the calm inner voice was curled in the corner of his mind, with its hands covering its ears to stop the noise, trying to gather itself again, to remind him of the things that had to be done. And how those things had to be done.

He checked the time again, scanned the crowd, and stepped out of the shadows. Walking was easy now, though he couldn't feel the ground correctly because of the constant feeling of a removed axis, but it wasn't visible and it didn't affect his speed. He had to remind himself that he had to use his left arm and spare the right as much as he could – there was no pain except a deep seated warmth, but that hole in his chest didn't disappear.

When he waved to a taxi, it was a slow, relaxed move. One car stopped beside him, avoiding the long row of stopped ones, and he nodded the driver to lower the window. A blonde, long haired man checked his suit and obeyed, and he came closer, within the reach of the car.

"What can I- fuck!" the man swore and quickly closed the window. "Find another cab, pal!"

Eliot just smiled – in this light, his eyes must have been a pretty terrifying thing to look at, light, bloodshot, and with pin point pupils – but Parker's earbud was now traveling across town in the taxi, constantly moving, drawing the team away from him and his doings. He was pretty certain they would stay in the hospital, but he couldn't be sure. Every option was open – they might be in Mass Gen, they might even decide to leave town after he shot Parker. For a moment he had problems remembering all of his conclusions, the triple lying, he couldn't remember the last thing that had happened at all… the whole hospital mess now seemed so distant and foggy. He had to remind himself of what he had told Hardison; after that he had shot Parker; no, there was not any chance they were still looking for him. Nate was the only problem, it was possible that he understood the situation completely, but Nate wouldn't risk the team for him.

Eliot returned to his shadow and scanned the crowd once more. Police were securing the site, the yellow stripes were already in position. There was a small, round parking lot only fifty meters away from the last yellow stripe – he had measured well. There was no point in damaging his new car.

The phone rang again. This time, the lights that sliced through his head were orange.

"Yeah, Patrick, what can I do for ya?" he listened to his own voice as he spoke, finding it calm, clear and steady. It was good; he wasn't sure if he would be able to speak at all.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

The wrath grew in a second, almost making him throw the phone against the wall – kill him, kill that son of a bitch, kill him – it took almost five seconds to stop that urge, to be able to shut up the drugged maniac that was raging inside his head. No, it was Patrick – he made a mental note to add Bonnano to the group 'don't kill, keep safe' - and remembered that he was waiting for the answer. Last night he managed to separate the effects of the drugs and he knew exactly what was him, and what the morphine was doing to him, but now it was more difficult. He concentrated, bringing himself back to reality, and chose the Commander to talk to Bonnano. He seemed the least affected, he kept himself in the background, monitoring, thinking and waiting. He knew that there was nothing to be mad about in Patrick's words.

"Walking. It's a nice evening. Though, it smells like rain is possible in some part of the night," he politely said, satisfied with the control of the mad rage that was still howling inside. However, he wasn't satisfied with the time needed to analyze the wrath, to decide if it was real or just the drug, to control it, and to think of what to say. He sounded like moron; he could only hope that it would go easier with practice. Or maybe it would become harder to control it, and in the end, impossible. "And what are you doing?"

"Listen, Eliot…" Patrick hesitated, which wasn't a surprise at all. What was he supposed to say in this situation? "Betsy will be pissed." Damn, that was the result of his thinking? He almost laughed, but he couldn't allow himself that, not yet. He wasn't sure if he would be able to stop.

"Don't try to keep me on the line to locate me, just call your patrol 6141, I'm watching their party right now. And relax." He glanced at the crowd and the police. "You did everything you could, Patrick, and more than that, and now it's time to stop. There's nothing you can do, not anymore."

Patrick's mumbled curse showed him that Patrick recognized his own words from the hospital room, but he had no idea why he chose to say it. Except because it was true. Hah, maybe he had just solved his problems with coherent speech – he might use the complete sentences that he remembered from the past few days.

"Eliot. Don't. Kill. Anybody."

"Why not?" He frowned when he heard what he said. It was not the time for statements like that, not to a State Police officer. "Just kidding. Of course I won't. I needed some air, that's why I'm out. Walking."

He watched the policeman that was still in the car, and started counting.

Patrick was saying something, but he had lost track of his words. "Patrick… one more thing," he stopped him. "Stay home tonight. Don't go on the streets. Please" he added at the last moment. "It will be really rain tonight, I don't want you to get wet."

The policeman in the car reached for his microphone, answering a call. Damn, Patrick was already at his station; someone beside him called the patrol and warned them, while Patrick continued to talk to him. That wasn't good.

Eliot ended the call, cutting Patrick's last word in half, and thought about throwing the phone at the remains of the burning car. No, not yet. First he had to buy a few more phones.

Tracking him would do no good to anyone. Nor it would change anything.

He was glad he could still feel bad for of Patrick; he didn't deserve to be deceived and misguided. Eliot knew that the only way to make Bonnano think what he needed him to think was to push him to make his own conclusions. When he fed him all that bullshit about Occam's Razor, the simplest and the shortest way from A to B, Patrick had to think that he was going to murder Villacorta, that was the only conclusion he could draw from it. Precisely what he wanted him to think. And he held onto it so strongly that it became a fact in his head. A fact that he probably transferred to the team, as well. Everything that would keep them all away from his doings was useful, and Occam's Razor, having nothing to do with his plan, was perfect as a decoy. Patrick was a dangerous cop – if he wasn't fed with something that fit in his way of thinking, he would soon get too close, too near to the truth. He had been deadly close at one point. They were all forgetting that a dead Villacorta would be just as dangerous as Villacorta in prison, especially if it was known that Eliot Spencer killed him; that would only intensify the search for them. Nothing would be solved.

Occam's Razor as a principle was futile in this case – and Bonnano had no idea he was de facto merely talking about a tool; dull, broken, out of function… a tool that needed sharpening, its blade re-forged.

He smiled again, watching the two cops that had started to scan the crowd. He was in deep shadow, they couldn't see him in his black clothes.

He had one more thing to do before he made his first move; the team had to be warned to stay away from all of this, to stay away from the streets. Killed by a hit, or merely sucked into destruction… it made no difference. He took all the phones and looked at them, trying to concentrate and decide which one to use. The cheap one that they couldn't track; the silver that was now disconnected – nope, the silver one had to remain disconnected for now – or the black one, that was traceable? If he used the black one, Hardison would be able to find him if he didn't turn it off after they spoke… but that might prove to be an advantage later, not a problem. The black phone could send them where he wanted them to be, if they got too close to danger. He put away the first two, and took the black one to call. For the moment he couldn't even remember on which one he spoke to Bonnano.

He managed to stop himself at the last second. Wrong move. He wasn't thinking - okay, he was thinking, but it was a shitty performance for now – he had ditched them, he shot Parker, and he couldn't call them, worried, and warn them about the danger. He had to stay focused and remember that he didn't care anymore what would happen to them. He had said something like that to Hardison, but he wasn't sure if those were the exact words; in his blurred memory that sounded much, much worse.

The rage that he was feeling now was his, completely, it had nothing to do with the drugs. He was mad at himself, and his inability to line up things in the right order. Focus, Spencer.

He was alone here, the team was the past – no more calling, no more warnings, no more thinking about them, or he would ruin everything he had done so far. He had to erase them completely from his mind. But he couldn't.

He put away the phones, and checked the time again. The ambulance was gone as soon as they saw there was no victims of the explosion. One cop was rearranging the traffic to go around the burning car, now partially covered in white foam. The crowd was still there. Many that left were replaced with new people; the advantage of burning the car in the big avenue, in a lit, busy, noisy part of the city with a constant flow of passersby. Those who left were not interesting… he was watching those who were coming.

Pain was just a dull memory throbbing deep in his side; he smiled as the city lights started to pulse in the rhythm that was following his heartbeats and the music; the world was no longer a blurred, gray mess of shadows. Every single city light became a sharp needle, every shadow outlined and clear. The edges of the world were lined in thin silver and fire.

His eyes burned as he watched a tall, dark haired man who stopped on his way to his parked car and came closer to the crowd to see the burning wreck; in the flickering lights he could clearly see the recognition when the man saw the orange Toyota, and the questions that started to form in his head.

'It's the dance of a madman, until his heart stops
It's the voices of angels chained to the rocks
It's what's stored up my sleeve, it's the thrill of the spin
It's the heaven and hell that I'm livin' in'

He stepped out of the shadow.

The two cops that were searching through the crowd were on the opposite side for now, and he slowly went after the man who turned around and went into a small parking lot. It was much darker than the avenue, lit only by one lamp at the distant end, and his car was parked more than fifty meters from the light. He was talking to someone on the phone, frantically waving with the hand with the car keys in it, but he didn't turn around, didn't notice the shadow that walked behind him.

They were not alone.

Eliot was certain that the hallucinations would take the same form like those from the second night, monsters and abominated shapes of known objects, but those that were emerging from the night were more dangerous; silent, gray shadows, normal, plain, real. It would be very hard to distinguish them from real people in the next couple of hours. They brought the fear along, cold, deep fear.

'When you find there's nothing left to begin
You can't go home again
No you can't go home again'

Eliot waited until the man put the phone in his pocket, and unlocked the dark chocolate Hummer. When he opened the door, a shadow flickered on the door, and he slowly turned around.

The gray shadows flinched and dispersed in the background, disappearing for a moment in the darkness. Eliot smiled. Sweetly.

'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the death, I will fear no evil…

… for the shadow is mine.'

The razor was ready to slice the web.