Chapter 3 *im very original with chapter names i know*
Early the previous evening the leverage team landed in Colorado city, ready to begin their recon and figure out the best way to initiate their plan. Hardison "booked" them a private charter plane so he could bring along some extra equipment he wanted to make sure that he was prepared to track the hidden accounts and not lose them. He also rented himself a van to haul his equipment, while most of the members of the group rode in a non-descript black town car. Parker rode with Hardison mostly because she knew she was going to have fun riding around and finding their spot to set up their temporary headquarters.
Elliot drove the town car with Sophie and Nate and they went to the hotel to check in, they didn't normally operate in 2 places but Hardison extra equipment would be safer in another location that they could secure and wouldn't be caught on camera carrying into the hotel.
"After I drop you and Sophie off, Nate I'm going to drive to Markoff's house to do a drive by and find a good spot to check out the grounds from. Also ill find the escape routes while I'm there." Elliot looked at them from the rearview mirror. Sophie insisted they both ride in the back, she said it's because it will look less weird to pull up to valet and not everyone gets out of the car, but Elliot and Nate knew she was just having fun pretending to be driven around by a professional driver like she's an heiress. Having the cover of early evening meant that he would get a good view of their evening routine, while driving a black car at night would work in his favor.
Elliot drove off towards Markoff house to begin his early recon of the place, he liked to check places out at least once before they did their recon for the job, it made him feel more secure having a passing semblance of familiarity with a location. There have been surprises before in the past and since then he's done double recon on almost every single job. He had one of his favorite podcast playing in the background, it was an episode he had already heard but it got his head into the space he needed to start making mental notes. He got to the house at a decent time, he would have to remember to ask Hardison to check if that's a normal traffic routine or if something special was going on today that will affect their travel time. He found a nice shaded spot that gave him a good view of the front gate and those traveling in and out of it. The sun was low but it was still too soon for daylight savings so he still had some sun to see by. A car pulled up to the gate, the driver rolled the window down and the guard checked inside, made a check on his clipboard, while he checked the occupants of the vehicle another guard walked around the car with a mirror on the end of a pole looking for any kind of devices.
Elliot made a note of the car because the guards seemed relaxed even though others would have looked at this situation and said they were being overly cautious, but seeing as this was the first car he had seen entering the grounds he wasn't going to presume anything. He waited there for another couple of hours but aside from that one car no other cars entered, around the time he was going to call it a night and head back to the hotel, the gates opened, the guards snapped to attention and sleek silver Mercedes S class rolled out. He watched it go down the street and was about to pursue, when a young school girl walked out the front gates, she waved at the guards and walked next door. There was 1 guard at that gate and it was obviously more relaxed than Markoff house. Elliot made a note of the high schooler and drove off to catch up to the Mercedes, he started his car and turned the direction the other car went.
He lost the Mercedes for a few minutes and turned to go back in the direction of their hotel, when he caught sight of the car again. He made sure his earpiece was on and tried to contact Hardison.
"Hardison?" he waited in silence for the reply
"... Hey Elliot what's crack-a-lackin?" Hardison must have found a good spot and him and Parker are goofing off while setting up.
"How much do you have set up? I need you to run a plate, and track my earbud."
Hardison grabbed his mini laptop computer that he used as kind of a universal remote for all his equipment. It was portable, had great memory and speed the best part was that he could use it independently of his other equipment, it had its own secure Wi-Fi signal which took him a couple tries to get it right when he was building it. "OK, one second please I'm pulling up your signal now." He pushed a few commands on the computer and it brought up a map of the city, and 5 little dots popped up on the map, one of the dots was traveling quickly, that was Elliots signal.
"Alright, I got you, what do you need from me?"
"I'm following a very nice Mercedes, it looked like the one you showed us in the briefing Im following it to see where it's going."
"What are the plate numbers for it?" Hardison pulled up the DMV information log (?)
"Alpha Tango 8 North 5 5" He heard the familiar sound of Hardison fingers typing.
"mhmm...mmm...mmm..." Hardison always sounded like he was trying to taste something when the information was loading. "Well your right its Markoff and he's on the move, don't lose him Elliot let's see where he's going this time of night."
Elliot stayed a good distance back from Markoff car keeping at least 2 cars between them, the car exited in an industrial section of the city, the farther they went the less cars there were in the area and Elliot didn't want to get caught. He pulled off onto a side road and drove a little way down in case Markoff double backed "Hardison you have the plates can you hack into the car computer to continue tracking it? It's about to be very obvious that I'm following them."
"One moment please." Hardison replied in a falsetto voice acting like an old-fashioned operator "... and got it. We're in I'm following him now."
Eliot was parked in a side alley waiting to hear if he would be needed tonight, it was getting late and he needed to prepare mentally for multiple situations, he could do a basic grift but was not always a fan of grifting. He was not a thief like Parker but he could in a pinch, he was the hitter the one who had to fight 5 guys at the same time, but he liked to have time to meditate before the action starts, so he never loses sight of himself and his line.
"Eliot, come back to the hotel we're not making moves without a plan, Hardison and Parker finish up there and we'll order room service. We need more information before we do anything more, we're tapped into his car that's more than enough for one night." They heard Nate tell them over the ear buds.
In a newly built high rise, located downtown Parker and Hardison were hard at work finishing hooking up the equipment, "Why did we need to bring all this extra stuff? Two locations is harder to secure properly." Parker asked Hardison while she was scoping out the building marking entrance, exits, and cameras "And where are we supposed to light to this fire!"
"There's no fire, Parker. It's a fake fire to get him to show us where he's hiding his money." Hardison paused from connecting some wires to explain it.
"I don't think he's going to be scared by a fake fire! If we really wanted him to be scared we should light a real one!" Parker hated when they used too many metaphors to describe a con it just confused everything. Being a thief was so straight forward, find something you want, figure out how to take it undetected, super easy.
Hardison knew better than to try and explain this to Parker, but he thought it was cute when she would miss the metaphor and her nose would scrunch up as she tried to figure out if they were messing with her or being serious. Even after all these years she still didn't fully grasp certain parts of the con planning process, but he didn't mind, that's just who Parker is.
They got the second location up and running and headed back to the hotel for some food and rest they only had a few days to get recon and get this con off the ground. Nate never liked to dwell too long on a con especially one that was out of town which made set up all the more difficult. Everything had to be set up and operational but had to be taken down swiftly and easily, after a few years of doing this Hardison and Parker had it down to a science. Every time Parker made the same comment about how 2 locations is harder to secure, but she was great at the set up and take down of the equipment.
The team was gathered around the table in the hotel room eating food and going over the plan, Nate wouldn't let them stay up too late because they needed to be up and doing recon before Jacob Markoff or his bodyguards.
"I'm telling you we should buy a plane. It would be so much easier to transport any equipment and its ours we use it when we want to, no more "chartering" planes"
"Who's gunna fly your plane Hardison? Huh, you? Can you even fly a real plane and not one of those simulators?" Eliot recited back at him.
"ooh we could jump out of it! I love jumping out of planes it's so much wind in your face woosh!" Parker remarked with excitement.
"A plane would be nice; it would be easier to go visit Paris or vacation in the Caribbean." Sofie thought about all the different trips she could take for fun.
"A plane is like a puppy, I would end up taking care of it and there's too much involved that I don't want to do, so no, no plane end of discussion" Nate sliced his hand across the open air in front of the crew to signify the end of the conversation, but they kept on going not listening to him.
"Puppies are cute, but they're too noisy and leave too much hair everywhere, they're not good for thieves." Parker popped a chip in her mouth non chalantly
"One of the great breeds, from England would make a cute pet I think." Sophie was still planning her shopping trips in the private plane in her mind.
They continued back and forth like this for almost another hour before Nate really closed down the conversation and made them all go to bed, except Eliot who says he only sleeps 90 minutes a night and went to go meditate.