Author's note: I'm terribly sorry for the late update...was suffering from writer's block until I finally got to watch Ocean's 11! Yahoo! Anyway, enjoy this one...

Chapter 10

Skedrie was nice, but Rejdna was more convenient. Unless they wanted more exposure, Skedrie would have to do.

It was the morning after, the morning of day six. The replica was almost done, a most respectable effort from Virgil and Turk Malloy since they had managed to avoid any form of heavy argument between them throughout the process. With the harness tied onto his body, Yen tugged and pulled at the cable, making sure that it was as secure as possible. Frank held the cable down by squatting on it and gave ideas to Yen about how to bring the test one step further.

"Crash into the Malloys."

Yen gave him a questioning look. "Wei sher muo?"

"Yen, you freaking know I don't understand Chinese."

Yen grinned. "I was try to saying why?"

Frank sighed. "Just crash into Turk and Virgil."

Turk and Virgil looked at Frank. "What the hell for?" Turk asked. "Yeah, what are you playing at?" Virgil added. Turk glared at Virgil. "Why are you copying my lines?" "No, I wasn't." "You freaking was." "Shut it, Turk. You're just like a little girl." "I am so not a little girl!"

"Shut it, both of you, for the sake of humanity." They looked around and saw Andie Ocean, looking decidedly cross.

"Sorry, Miss Ocean." "Yeah, sorry."

Danny looked up from his discussion with Rusty and called to her from across the room. "Thank you, Andie."

"No problem."

Frank stared at Yen and Yen stared at Frank. Then Yen stood and folded his arms. "You still want me to crash?"

Frank glanced at the Malloys, and shook his head. "The cable's good."

"Yen drops into the room and replaces the Diamond with our replica. Then we pull him up just as the lasers zap back to life and we're out. It's flawless."

Danny scratched his chin. It was decidedly perfect. "But there's just one thing."

"What is it?"

Danny grinned but did not meet Rusty's eyes. "There's no zing in this plan. No boom, no bam."

Rusty laughed shortly. "I was thinking the same thing. But hey, you know, we can always go back to Vegas and rob the money that Benedict got back from the insurance company."

Danny smiled. "I think it's too late to turn back, don't you think, now that we've got a replica in the making and a cable."

"And a woman." Rusty glanced at Andie, who was seated on the couch, studying a complicated-looking screen on her laptop. Linus Caldwell sat beside her and they were in deep discussion. They looked so … cosy. And he saw that his hand was on hers, and that she was blushing and smiling that smile that lighted up her face. Rusty felt a strange ache in the pit of his stomach, and cleared his throat and looked away.

Danny noticed Rusty's discomfort and saw Linus and Andie, and he understood. He smiled and put a hand on his right hand man's shoulder. "I totally get what you're feeling now, Rusty."

Rusty did not meet his eyes, nor did he reply.

Danny tried again. "It's just like what I felt when Benedict was going out with Tess. I've been there and I've felt the pain. It's normal because I love Tess and I can't stand seeing her with someone else. And because it's normal, I'm not afraid to admit it." Danny gave Rusty an assuring gaze, even though he could not catch Rusty's eyes so that he could prove his point.

Rusty still did not answer him. Should he?

Danny decided to be more straightforward. "Do you have a thing for my daughter, Rusty?"

Rusty drew a sharp breath. How did –

"I'm hungry." He left Danny's side and grabbed his coat.

"Hey, Rusty. Rusty!"

Rusty glanced back at him, a blank look, before he opened the door and left.

"Dad?"

Danny cast a glance at his daughter.

Andie looked concerned. "Is everything okay?"

He stared at her and opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. Instead, he looked at her and tried to figure out what was it with women that could drive two best friends apart. Andie was beautiful, he admitted it, in a Tess way, and she had a sharpness and reckless streak that was definitely his. He smiled and nodded. "Everything's fine, honey."

There was a café not far from the motel: only two shops down, but Rusty needed a longer walk than that. He bought a cup of espresso and a sandwich and decided that by the time he had done one round around the block, they would be safely in his stomach to digest. And he could do more thinking about his sticky situation.

Why was he getting nervous around Andie? What was it about her that made his heart beat fast, and his hands all clammy? Luckily he was a good actor; thus he was able to mask his discomfort and anxiety around her with a confidence he would have thought almost impossible, if it wasn't for the need to save his face from admitting that he actually liked her. But look at what was happening now. Linus Caldwell, the rookie, the bundle-of-nerves and the morally-righteous, had took Andie for himself.

Almost as instantly as he thought it, he regretted it. He had no right to call Linus names, and it was true that Linus had more moral sense than he did. But sometimes, he can be such a pain in the neck: doing things that he wasn't supposed to.

He took a huge bite out of his sandwich and sipped his espresso. The combination was unpleasant but at least it was food. And then he remembered what Danny had told him, that it was all right to feel pain over a woman. He snorted. Yeah, right. If only they were truly worth it.

Then he thought about Isabel. His Izzy. She had come out of the blue to Copenhagen, and then, with the help of Andie Ocean, she had gone. Rusty saw the irony in the situation: Andie was chasing his thoughts away from Isabel. He had Isabel. Why the heck was he after Andie now? That's it, he thought, I've got Izzy. I've got no right to claim Andie Ocean, no matter how much I love her.

Love her? He stopped in his tracks. What the heck? Now he loved her?

He took the last bite out of his sandwich and gulped down the espresso. Perhaps all he needed to get Andie Ocean out of his mind was to call Izzy. Ask her what she was doing, and whether she missed him or not because he sure missed her and needed her to get a particular Ocean out of his mind. Then when she asked him, "Where are you?", he would lie to her face. "Oh, honey, I'm in Berlin, on, you know, business. Don't worry, I'll be back real soon." And then she would believe what he said and he was out of trouble.

But with Andie Ocean, he didn't need to lie. She shared his profession, she was into this Gabanski thing just as deeply as he was. She understood, at least a little bit, but she would probably share Tess's contempt for thieves, no matter how big or small. But Andie wasn't entirely like her mother. If Andie hated thieves, she wouldn't have agreed to help Danny out. Heck, perhaps they could even pull of heists together. He and Andie, they would make a great team. He smiled at that thought. But she was with Linus now. If Linus had social consciousness, so did he. He could refrain from Andie, and he would stop lying to Izzy when he got back to Amsterdam. He would convince her to quit Europol and they would settle down for good at Los Angeles, where he had his hotel.

His walk around the block was almost over, and he was glad that he had come to a decision, even though he was not entirely satisfied with it.

The door opened and Danny looked up, hoping to find a much happier Rusty. Instead, it was Basher and Livingston Dell. Basher carried a medium-sized box that seemed quite heavy and Livingston was grinning manically, something Danny had never seen before.

"What you guys got?"

"Photos," said Livingston. "Bombs," Basher said, with an excited glint in his eyes.

Danny crossed his eyebrows. "Bombs? Photos? What are you guys up to?"

Basher set the box in front of Danny and placed several mean-looking but surprisingly small bombs on the table before him. "I was thinking of this: there's a considerable amount of space in the ventilation tunnel, and well, instead of cutting through all that metal and wall, why not blow it up?" He held up a bomb. "This is a bomb, but not a powerful one. In fact, I can set it off now on this table and we still have a table. So, in order to speed things up, I thought that you guys can blow up some of these babies on the desired spot. That'll save a whole lot of trouble too." He grinned. "What do you think, eh, Danny boy?"

Danny picked a bomb up gingerly and smiled. "You're a genius, Basher. Just teach us how it works." He turned to Livingston and asked him, "What photos have you got?"

Livingston beamed, beamed because he was finally having his moment, and he laid the Polaroids out in front of Danny. "Basher and I paid a visit to the Gallere before we went to pick up the explosives. I happened to have a Polaroid camera with me, I don't know why, but I thought that it would be useful to snap some photos of the target spots, you know, our exits and entrance outside and inside the Gallere."

Danny studied the photographs and smiled with each and every one he saw. These were good shots, he thought. They might be useful as they didn't have a model of the building. "Good job, Livingston. These were well-shot."

"Danny." He looked up and saw Linus's worried expression. "What?"

"We've got bad news."

"We?"

"Andie and I."

"Oh. Well, what is it?"

Linus licked his lips before replying. "Someone's going to buy the Diamond."

"What?" Danny couldn't believe his ears, so did the whole crew. Exclamations of "which jerk did it?" "what the heck?" and "I don't believe it" exploded all over the room. Turk and Virgil Malloy threw down their gloves and shouted at each other.

"All right, stop yelling, all of you. Especially you, hey, Turk and Virgil!" The brothers noticed Danny's what-the-heck glare and immediately kept quiet. He turned back towards Linus. "Who's buying it?"

"An old acquaintance of yours, Dad," Andie answered his question. He looked at her questioningly. "Who exactly is that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Terry Benedict. The man you ripped off at Las Vegas. He just bought it for 11.5 million dollars."