With the meet-and-greet well underway, Nate observed the guests and waitstaff from a distance. All the usuals were there: rich businessmen in suits, women in glittering attire, and a decent number of well-groomed young waiters and waitresses ready to cater to their guests' every whim. They'd run these types of jobs dozens of times, and he was relieved that at least this part would go smoothly.

They couldn't afford another mistake, so he'd pulled Parker off of her job on the fourth floor so Hardison had time to double-check exactly which red wire they needed to access for the cameras. Once he had the cameras covered the rest would be quick, so grabbing Caldwell's entry card now instead of later wouldn't make much of a difference to the plan.

"Sophie, are you ready?" Nate asked over the com.

"Yes I am," she answered, doing the final touches on her makeup in the back corner of a lavish restroom.

"Alright. I'm gonna join the party and see if Caldwell's here yet." He made one last adjustment to his tie before heading out to join the other guests down the hall.

The mastermind was about to enter the event area when a blonde caterer with her back to him caught his eye. He paused, and just as she was about to turn around he quickly ducked out of sight. He leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath. Great job Nate, he thought to himself. Just had to jinx it, didn't you?

He kept his voice low as he addressed the team. "Guys, we may have a slightly more pressing issue to deal with."

Hardison was in the back of the van, tracing wires on the schematic with a half-dead Crayola marker he'd dug out of the glove box. "Uh, what could possibly be more pressing than trying to reverse engineer this snarl of a wiring diagram? On the fly, I might add?"

Normally not much, Nate thought ruefully before answering. "Sterling's here."

"What?! Where?" Sophie and Parker said in unison.

The mastermind peered around the corner, careful to stay just out of sight. "Not sure, but there's no other reason for Agent Nevins to be serving hors d'oeuvres."

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Parker and Eliot were in one of the staging rooms changing into their catering uniforms, each stopping mid-button as Nate informed them of Nevin's presence. Parker scowled and turned to Eliot. "Seriously, serving hors d'oeurves?! That's totally our play."

Nate moved away from the meet-and-greet and headed into an office to change outfits once more. He didn't particularly believe in coincidences, and there seemed to be a whole lot of them lately.

"Eliot," he said through the com. "I feel like you probably would've mentioned it, but for the sake of being thorough – were we followed here?"

The hitter growled. "Not a chance. And before you ask, yeah I'm sure."

Nate sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that."

"So I may not be the mastermind here," Hardison said, not quite following. "But since when is 'not being followed' a bad thing?"

"It means they didn't follow us here because they didn't need to," Nate explained.

Sophie waited a moment for another lady to leave then asked. "You think it's a setup?"

"I don't think so, but Sterling must've gotten wind of our move somehow," the mastermind said. "Or he's here hoping to grab Caldwell before we do."

Unlike Nate, Parker was a believer in chance events. "Maybe it's just a coincidence and Nevins is here for some other reason?"

There wasn't a hint of doubt in the mastermind's voice as he answered. "No, Sterling's definitely behind this."

Hardison ran a few lines of code to hack into Interpol's servers. "According to internal employee records, he's been on leave since Tuesday. Looks like he got a really bad case of food poisoning from the Fourth of July corporate picnic last weekend."

Eliot cracked his knuckles. "Oh how unfortunate. I was kinda hoping to run into that smug son of a bitch. His face is badly in need of a fist."

Although tempted to laugh, Nate chose to ignore the hitter's comment and stay focused. "Hardison, how many extra security guards were brought in for the event?"

He heard a few quick keystrokes before the hacker answered. "Looks like twenty five."

"And how many FBI agents were given field assignments this morning?"

"Hacking into their records now, give me a minute. Alright, field assignments today includes exactly...twenty six agents, over half of them with field training and tactical gear. I think Nate's right y'all, that's a bit much for a coincidence."

Sophie ran her hands through her hair and rolled her eyes, not at all pleased with the new development. "Lovely, so now we each get half a dozen armed guards to deal with. That outta be fun..."

Nate was already reforming their plans. "No no no, she knows us, knows how we work. She'll put two or three guards each on me, Parker, and Sophie, a couple outside for Hardison, and the rest on Eliot. He's the biggest threat and she'll know we need him to clear the way to the server room. Eliot, Parker, ditch your server uniforms. She's gonna be checking all the caterers and waitstaff. Sophie, they'll be looking for you as one of the guests so stay out of sight for now. Let's focus on taking care of those cameras."

Hardison couldn't help but notice that Nate's revised instructions didn't include him. "And uh, how exactly am I supposed to stay under the radar?"

Nate's answer was simple. "Don't be in a van outside."

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While Parker was finishing up on the fourth floor, Hardison was making the final adjustments on his equipment in the makeshift work space he'd set up in the back corner of an unattended bakery. He was surrounded by an assortment of random cupcakes, including a petite pink sprinkled one perched atop the corner of his computer screen. After plugging the final wires in place he leaned back and took a sip of his orange soda.

A few minutes later Parker's voice came over the com. "I got it, device is wired in."

The hacker leaned forward and hit a few keystrokes on his computer, interfacing with the security system. "Alright, I'm in. Sixteen cameras and….oh shoot, this is really not what we need right now."

He heard Nate sigh through the earbud. "What are dealing with, Hardison? Pressure sensors, voice activated locks, what?"

"Nah, nothing like that. Looks like they did a full upgrade on the network itself but only a partial one on the hardware, meaning there are four 'vintage' cameras on each floor that I can't hack."

The mastermind paused, weighting their options. "But you can hack the other twelve?"

"Piece of cake. I can control the feed from the cameras that cover the elevators, offices, and server rooms but there's nothing I can do with the ones in the hallways on the office levels, we'll have literally no cover there – no vending machines, no janitor closets, not even a damn oversized plant, man."

"We can't pull the plug on this, twelve's gonna have to be enough."

Hardison lifted his hands in an exasperated gesture. "Dude, are you even listening to the words coming out of my mouth? The moment one of us steps foot in the hallway, they're gonna see us."

Another pause. "Then we let them see."