Chapter 7

Another week passed and both Nate and Sterling were discharged from the hospital. Sterling had insisted on organising an Interpol safehouse and that they stay together. Nate had not objected. Perkins probably knew where he lived, and Sterling's house was out of the question. Although his aim was to take the man down, his main aim was to ensure that Sophie, Olivia, and the others remained as safe as possible until all of this was over.

"So Nate…" Sterling said handing the man a glass of whiskey before taking a seat opposite him at the table. "What do you think his next move will be?"

"I don't know. He lost four men and he failed in his play to kill us and Olivia, he is probably as mad as hell."

"Yeah, and it was your team that intervened." Sterling said looking at the man intently.

"I am aware." Nate said. "But I am sure he is watching and is under the impression that they work for you, that they are Interpol."

"So he won't move against them, not without having too." Sterling smiled, that had worked out well.

"No he won't not if he plays by his own rules, we stay here for the time being and let the cops feed us information, between them and Hardison we can hopefully get a line on where he is."

"And then?" Sterling asked knowing what the answer was going to be.

"Then we have to take him down again." Nate said softly, how exactly they were going to do that he did not know but they had to.

"Well for now we can do nothing. You are both still not in a position to do anything anyway." Sophie said speaking more to Nate than Sterling.

"I doubt he is going to give us time to recover." Nate said looking at her. "He is going to make a move and soon, Perkins was never a patient man."

"Nor a subtle one, he is going to come at us head on, especially considering how much we have pissed him off." Sterling agreed.

"I have this place locked down Nate." Hardison told him. "The police are also watching I don't think he will make a move on you here, if he even knows where you are."

Nate smiled at his Hacker and nodded. No Perkins would not make a move on them here, that is why they were going to have to go after him and not hide away. If they did not they would be hiding for the rest of their lives and he was not in favour of that at all.

"No Nate." Eliot said his voice hard as he focused on the Mastermind.

"Eliot…"

"Not going to happen. Sophie is right you are not nearly recovered and nor is Sterling, you are not setting yourself up, neither of you."

"I wasn't going to suggest that." Nate said innocently but they knew he was because they knew him. "Anyway, there is nothing we can do until we get some kind of line on the man."

"So what is his hook?" Parker asked.

"We are Parker, he is not here to steal, he has no other reason to be here doing this, we are his only concern at this moment, not money, not power, not greed, none of the things we usually target in a mark, it is us, me and Jim that he wants, and he is not going to stop until he gets us."

"Nate's right he is after us. I don't think there is a hook to this guy, or a way to stop him." Sterling added. "So we will just have to give him what he wants."

"What…" Five voices said simultaneously as they looked at the man.

"He's right." Nate said smiling at Sterling, they thought alike they always had in many ways.

"Dad you can't be serious." Olivia said softly, was her dad saying that he wanted to go out there and let this man shoot him again, no she could not believe that.

"Olivia, he has one goal in mind, and he is not going to stop, he is not going to give up, he is a determined man. The police have not been able to find him and I doubt they will, no…we are going to have to make him make a move, like we did when we took him down before."

"How did you take him down before?" Sophie asked, Nate had not told her except for the fact that he and Sterling had nearly been killed.

"It's a long story." Nate said.

"We have time." Eliot said. Perhaps if they understood what it took to take Perkins down before they would be able to devise a way to take him down now, preferably with nobody getting killed.

"Well it all started about 17 years ago…" Sterling said looking at Nate and getting a nod.

"Nate…"

"James…" Nate replied as he came to stand next to his friend at the top of the IYS office building. It had been a long day for him, but he had closed a case he had been working on and needed to unwind a little before heading home.

"So I was handed the file on Perkins today." Sterling said looking at him. "You worked on a case a while back on him didn't you?"

"Yeah, he stole a Caravaggio. Didn't catch him though and didn't retrieve the painting either." Nate said taking a sip of his whiskey, he did not often lose, and he hated it when he did, but this Perkins was elusive and dangerous. "Be careful Jim, he is bad news."

"Yeah so I gathered." Sterling smiled.

"That was the first time I had dealings with him."

"You didn't catch him either?" Parker asked.

"No." Sterling stated shaking his head.

"After that we had a few more times we both went after him for various reasons, he was a prolific thief and he never left any witnesses to his crimes or any trail to follow, well except that once where we managed to get his fingerprints and therefore his name, until then he was an unknown. He took out gallery staff, owners for the merchandise he was after and innocent bystanders alike if they got in his way the only ones he avoided injuring were cops, at least back then. He was merciless and he was deadly. So for over a year we both chased him on various occasions but not quite catching up to him or getting any of our merchandise back." Nate continued with the story.

"Then what?" Hardison asked prompting them to continue with the story.

"Well then about 15 years ago we got some intel and decided to work together to take him down." Nate told them.

"Nate got a minute?" Sterling said as he stepped into the man's office.

"Jim, sure sit."

"I got a lead on Perkins seems he is going after a Vermeer in Damascus."

"Really? Reliable intel?"

"I think so, long time informant." Sterling replied.

"So…?"

"So I thought we could take a trip, together we might be able to crack him." Sterling smiled at him.

"Well I don't have anything on at the moment so yeah I'm interested." Nate smiled back. "Do we have a timeline?"

"Waiting for that but I would like to be in Damascus within the week so that we can be ready."

"You ever met him?" Nate asked.

"Not face to face, you?"

"No, I don't think he would know us. He will know the names, but not the faces, I don't think."

"That's quite an assumption but I see you have something in mind…?"

"Well this guy is focused, when he decides on a job that is his main goal and he does it to exclusion of all else, no matter who he has to eliminate to get it done and no matter what else might be going on."

"And…"

"He won't take to kindly to another crew trying to get that Vermeer." Nate said meaningfully.

"I see, if he thinks his prize is in jeopardy…"

"Right, he will try to eliminate that threat, which means he will expose himself."

"Daring…" Sterling said thinking about it, it would take some smart manoeuvring on their part and it was dangerous. "I like it."

"I thought you would." Nate smiled at his friend.

"So the plan was just to draw him out in the open and get him to want to eliminate you both to stop you from getting to the Vermeer before he did?" Sophie asked shaking her head incredulously.

"Yes and we wanted him to chase after us once we had it to get it back from us." Nate said smiling at her.

They all just looked at Nate realising what he was saying, they knew this man did not hesitate to kill those that got in his way and they had deliberately made him come after them. They had both not changed one little bit Sophie thought, they were just like Perkins in a way, not that they disregarded the lives around them, no, just their own lives and safety in their quest to win the day.

"It seemed the only way we were going to be able to take him down and hopefully retrieve some of our stolen items. Art as you know…" Sterling said smiling at Sophie before continuing. "Is a difficult thing to get rid of, especially Masterpieces, so he would have at least some of those paintings insured by IYS in some storage unit somewhere, and of course, preventing him from steeling the Vermeer was important as IYS insured the painting too."

"Anyway, it worked. We went after the painting, he came after us and of course the painting, and in the end he was taken into custody …" Nate stopped thinking about the day it had all gone down and the one aspect he had regretted and still did to this day.

"Murder, attempted murder, assault with the intention of committing grievous bodily harm and of course theft. He was sentenced to twenty years." Sterling finished and they could all hear in his voice that he too regretted how it had gone down.

"Murder?" Hardison asked looking from one to the other.

"He killed the cop who was working with us." Nate said and they could hear the hint of shame in his voice at that.

"Nearly killed us too, beat Nate to within and inch of his life and shot me…twice." Sterling told them.

"But if it all went down in Damascus then how did he end up in a French prison?" Parker asked trying to understand how they had gone from Syria to France.

"Ah yes, well we had arranged with the owner of the Vermeer that we would 'steal' it from him before Perkins did, then we had to get him out of Syria, out of Damascus because as you know justice there is…well subject to how much money and influence you had. No we had to get him out of the country to one where we knew he would pay for his crimes."

"So you got him to follow you to France."

"That is exactly what we did." Nate nodded to his Hitter. "We made sure he knew we had the painting and then booked a not-so-secret charter out the country. Perkins followed us as expected."

"Why France?" Hardison asked trying to follow the reasoning of the two men.

"Well Nate had a theory that France was Perkins base of operations, still don't know why?" Sterling said looking at his friend. "Anyway, I had organised with some of my contacts with the French police a safe house for us to stay in where we could wait for Perkins to make his move and we weren't very secretive or subtle about our movements…"

"In order to draw him out." Hardison said his eyes wide, they had taken a big risk with a man like Perkins knowing what he was like to put themselves out there like that.

"Exactly." Nate affirmed. "It worked he came after us and the painting but unfortunately we miscalculated slightly…"

"Misjudged more like." Sterling said thinking back to what happened.

Nate looked at Sterling and nodded as he too thought back to what had gone down.

"Why what happened?" Parker asked.

"Well Perkins was very careful not to do anything in France, he had never committed a crime that we knew of there and he was not on the radar of the local cops, that was his home, where he kept his stolen merchandise, where he could move free of worry of the local authorities."

"That's why you chose France…" Sophie said, she like the others understood. Every grifter, every thief had to have one place they could go to when they needed to lay low and be safe, a country where there were no outstanding warrants on them in that country so local law enforcement would not be looking for them. That did not mean they were completely safe, there was always Interpol and of course people like Nate and Sterling, private cops for insurance companies or private detectives for the rich people they stole from searching for their merchandise.

"Yes so we knew he would come after us, but not that he would be so…well let's just say he was a little angrier and more direct than what we expected, I suppose we had wounded his ego to the point where he threw all caution to the wind. He was not subtle about how he went about it he came at us head on. He was pure hitter then and not a thief, we knew he was ruthless but…well not like that."

"It wasn't hard to find us, that we had of course made sure of, and we knew he was coming, we thought though that he would try to steal the painting back and be as quiet about it as possible considering this was his home base, he would not want to draw the authorities attention." Sterling continued.

"That however was not quite what happened." Nate said softly. "He came at us hard and took out five cops doing it, one…Detective Allard did not make it." Nate said and he could hear the regret in his tone.

"He was good…we misjudged him completely in what he was capable of doing." Sterling said quietly. "He was not happy when after all of that he found we did not have the Vermeer with us, and we had tricked him."

"But he wanted the Vermeer more than he wanted us dead luckily." Nate told them, if not he thought neither him nor Sterling would be here telling this story. "He did plan to kill us I am sure, but first and foremost he wanted what we had taken from him."

"So he tried to beat it out of Nate…"

"And shot Sterling."

"Twice…" Sterling added.

"But you took him into custody." Hardison said not seeing how that happened by the way this story was going.

"Yes we did." Sterling smiled at the Hacker. "As Perkins came in Nate dialled the number of another one of our friends in the police department and left the phone on. Then as Perkins tried to get him to tell him where the painting was it was all recorded, Nate got him to admit to killing Allard, to taking out the rest of the cops sent as our detail and even to giving us a fair indication of where he kept his stolen merchandise."

"Then they swooped in and took him into custody." Nate added. "Just in the nick of time as I remember."

"Precisely." Sterling said. "But not before he got off a few shots." Sterling said ruefully and Nate smiled at him.

"So in the end, we not only got the Vermeer, but we also got back a lot of IYS stolen merchandise and some other valuables, the police had a headline takedown of a prolific thief and the man who had killed one of their detectives and Perkins went to jail." Nate finished.

"And now you want to do the same thing, make him come after you. But he knows you both now, knows how you think and operate, he won't be as careless this time, the risk is too high." Eliot said.

He could see how they would think it was the only way to do it, but it was different to the first time, they were unknowns to Perkins then, now the man had had fifteen years to think about them, get to know them and plan this thing out.

"Besides like you said he is not patient, and he has shown that already and he is not playing games, he intends to kill you and he will do that as quickly and efficiently as possible, and if you thought you had wounded his ego then, well you not being dead right now and having taken out the four men he had with him, well that is going to do nothing for his mood."

"There is no other way Eliot." Nate stated. He knew it was risky, he knew it was dangerous and he knew it could end badly, but it was the only way to get the job done.

"The only reason you two are still alive is because he had a distraction then." Parker said going over everything again.

"What you mean girl?" Hardison asked not understanding.

"He wanted the Vermeer, that was his main goal." Parker said looking at Nate for confirmation.

"Yes." Nate said, she was right of course, if not for him wanting to know where the painting was he would have just killed Sterling and himself on the spot.

"This time he just wants them." Parker said meaningfully.

"So again I say no Nate." Eliot said locking eyes with the Mastermind.

"Eliot is right, you will just have to come up with another plan." Sophie said taking her husbands hand in hers.

Nate just looked from her to his Hitter and shook his head. There was no other way this was going to happen he knew it and they knew it and from the look on Sterling's face he also knew it. It was a chance, a risk but it was the only path open to them considering who they were dealing with. He could also see however on the faces of his wife, his team and Olivia that getting them to agree to any plan he came up with which involved either Sterling of himself exposing themselves to get the man to come after them was not going to get their approval. He looked at Sterling and could see the same thought had crossed his mind. Well then they would have to do what needed to be done and do it in a way that none of his team or Olivia could interfere. Sterling nodded imperceptibly at the Mastermind as if he knew what he was thinking. This was their problem to deal with and they would have to take care of it without Nate's team being directly involved, at least not for the setup, but they would need them for the takedown.

"Well I am feeling a little tired, so I think I am going to go have nap." Nate said unexpectedly and Sophie smiled at him and nodded. He looked tired, no he looked exhausted. He had been severely injured, and it was going to take a long while before he was back to being healthy again, he and Sterling.

"Good idea." Sterling said as he pushed himself up from the table.

Nate followed suit and then they both proceeded to make their way to their respective bedrooms leaving the rest to watch them go.

"They are going to do this you know." Eliot said turning to Sophie. "No matter what we say or do because they are right it is the only way to get it done."

"I know Eliot." Sophie said with a sigh, she did not like it, in fact she hated it, but it was true, if they were going to get Nate and Sterling out of this they had to get Perkins out in the open and the only way to do that was to expose Nate and Sterling to extreme danger.

"So we let them know we are going to go along with them." Parker said. She also did not like it, but she liked the thought that they would do it anyway without their help or backup, which she knew they would, a whole lot less.

"Yes." Sophie said sadly. "Ok well there is not much more to do for now."

"Movie…?" Parker said looking at Olivia who sat listening to all of them and casting her eyes at her father's room periodically.

"Great, I'll make the popcorn." Eliot said heading into the kitchen, he knew Olivia needed a distraction the girl was being overwhelmed by what was happening and besides Sophie was right, there was nothing they could do for now.

"You can choose Olivia." Parker said smiling at the girl who nodded at her smiling back.

A half hour later they were all sitting spread out around the living room in front of the television as they watched the movie. Sophie had checked on Nate and Sterling before joining them with a glass of wine and a magazine she was reading. She looked over at Olivia who sat between Parker and Hardison with munching on popcorn and then to Eliot who she could see was not really watching the movie but was deep in thought.

The Hitter looked up and caught her eye shaking his head slowly. He knew she was thinking the same thing as he was, tyring to figure out how to make the two most stubborn men they knew to play it safe, to not take insane risks to get the job done, and how in the hell they were going to get them both out alive from this mess they were all now in.