Los Angeles, CA
Gerry Building
The elevator dinged as the car reached the 11th floor of the building. Liza stepped off, chatting with Sophie and Parker. Eliot leaned against the wall, waiting for them. Liza pulled a piece of paper from her dress pocket. 'Office 1107, two lefts, middle office'. Her cursive script read. Liza pointed to the hall to the left of the elevator. "It should be this way," Liza said. Beginning down the hall, Liza asked Parker, "So what'd you do with the payout, Parker?"
Parker's expression curled into one of cat-like satisfaction. "From the first job?" Parker asked, coming to stand in between Eliot and Liza.
As they turned the next corner, Eliot glanced at Parker. "Yeah,"
"I put all that money in a Swiss bank account," Parker replied, stopping in front of Office 1107.
"Millions of dollars and you didn't buy anything?" he asked disbelievingly.
Parker turned her head. "I don't like stuff, I like money."
Liza smiled, huffing a laugh. "Why doesn't that surprise me, Parker." Liza glanced at Sophie. "What about you? Buy anything special?"
"I bought a little retirement home in Ireland," she said.
Eliot crossed his arms. "Nice."
Liza stepped forward, seeing a small envelope taped to the door with her name written on it in Nate's distinctive scrawl. She pulled it off the door as Sophie continued to list the cities that she now owned homes. Liza ripped the envelope open, tipping the key inside into her palm.
"What about you?" Parker asked Eliot.
"Yeah," Eliot drawled. "I'm not about to tell three-" Liza cast a sharp glance over her shoulder, quirking her brow, causing Eliot to change his number. "Two known thieves what I did with a multi-million dollar payout,"
Sophie was the picture of perfect innocence when she asked. "Why? Don't you trust us?" Sophie shared a laugh with Parker while Liza hid a smirk while she opened the locked door.
Liza stepped through the door, halting suddenly when she saw the sign boldly emblazoned on the lobby wall. "Leverage Consulting & Associates?" she asked herself. The other three walked around her. Sophie looked down to the Persian rug underneath her feet and the other expensive furnishings.
Sophie's eyes widened, nodding her head skeptically as she observed her new surroundings. "Ok...ok,"
Liza squeezed her eyes shut as her fingers went to rub at her temples. She sighed. "I really, really hope that this is not what Nate meant by 'office work',"
Eliot's brow furrowed. "I don't get it,"
Parker looked away from one of the awful portraits on the wall. "What is this?"
Hardison appeared from the next room, carrying four sets of files. "I am glad you asked. This is our new cover story-"
"Have you been standing behind there this whole time?" Liza asked.
Hardison pointedly ignored her, continuing, "Welcome to Leverage Consulting and Associates, founded in 1913 by the great Harland Leverage the Third." Hardison pointed to another portrait behind them, which held a suspicious resemblance to one Nate Ford.
Liza threw a hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh. "Oh, you did not!"
Hardison chuckled, "But I did." sharing a hive five with Liza.
Sophie stepped closer to it, laughing. "I'm sorry, but Nate is going to kill you,"
Against his better judgment, Eliot asked, "Did you paint that?"
Hardison shrugged, grinning. "I'm gifted,"
"That's weird," the other man replied.
Hardison placed the folders on the desk before giving them a new cell phone and ID. "Now Leverage Consulting Inc. is squeaky clean. All corporate taxes on record have been paid for the last ninety years." He then handed them each a folder. Liza opened hers, finding a set of new business cards, tax records, employment records, and insurance files. "All your identities as partners, your payroll taxes are paid," he said before starting down the hall, forcing the group of four to follow him. Liza flipped through the pages, glancing up when they passed multiple, modern, sleek offices.
"In 1998, I won the sack race at the 4th of July picnic." Parker laughed. "Cool,"
"Now these, these are your offices." he motioned to the open rooms on either side of them. "Now you can bring something like a photo, you know what," he glanced over his shoulder. "a plant! I'm a big supporter of dandelions,"
Liza passed an office on her left which caused more than a cursory glance on her part. She stopped in the door's threshold, poking in her head. A familiar bookcase stood on the opposite side of the room while trinkets from across the country were strewn across the desk and end tables. "...hey, wait a minute," she said to herself. "Is that my stuff?!" her head jerked to the side. "Hardison, wait! How did my stuff get here?"
"That would be Nate's prerogative, miss sassy pants," Hardison replied easily before Sophie interjected, surprised:
"Hardison, I can't believe you spent your share of the cash on all of this,"
Hardison's eyes bulged as he vehemently shook his head. "Me? No, hell no!" he gestured around him. "Nate paid for all of this, you know with what he had left. I mean, you know, after he gave the rest of it away." he turned back around, taking a few steps before Eliot stopped him.
"Whoa! What do you mean?" his eyes darted to Liza, who shrugged a shoulder, pushing her glasses up her nose. "He gave it away?"
"Yeah, all of it. Every last penny," he said incredulously, not understanding why Nate would do such a thing. "It was like to some children's hospital or something like that,"
Liza downcast her eyes while Sophie surreptitiously looked to the younger woman.
A proud smile split the hacker's features. "but this," he pulled the sliding doors apart, the light inside flashing to life. Six large flat screens arranged into one continuous monitor lay on the opposite wall in tandem. A large conference table set in the midst of the room with leather desk chairs around it. "this is my masterpiece,"
Liza and Sophie entered the room with Eliot and Parker following. Sophie bobbed her head, looking around her. "Nice," she said.
Eliot spotted the TVs on the wall, a small grin quirking his lips. "My man,"
Hardison crossed his arms, smiling. "You want the long version or the short version?"
Liza placed her set of files on the table as the others filed into the room. "Short," she said just as Eliot interjected:
"Short version,"
"Shortest," Parker continued. Liza backed up a few steps, choosing to lean against the wall while Sophie sat down, and Eliot and Parker stood behind a pair of desk chairs.
Hardison picked up a small black remote from the table, pushing a button, causing a stream of data to fill the screens. "Photo and video forensics programs, backdoors into every," he smiled smugly. "electronic banking system in the world, running heuristic data crawls all over the news sites to find our clients, oh also!"
Parker tilted her head, mischief dancing in her eyes. "This is the short version?"
Hardison ignored his colleague's snickers. "Facial recognition database tied into CIA, NSA, and the FBI. But, the real pièce de résistance-" Hardison tapped another button on the remote. Several different sports channels flashed onto to the many screens. "DirectTV HD Total Sports Package. NFL, NBA and I threw in a little bit of hockey," Hardison looked to Eliot as he said, " 'cause I know you people like that,"
Liza rolled her eyes while Sophie shook her head. Eliot looked as though his knees were about to buckle as he leaned forward, placing his hands on the table. True love, at last, Liza thought.
Eliot grinned wickedly. "Hockey,"
Liza jumped out of the way when another set of sliding doors opened, almost knocking her arm. Nate appeared in the doorway, mildly amused at Hardison's enthusiasm. Liza offered a small wave to Nate when he glanced at her. "All right, stop kicking the tires." Nate held up a small black flash drive before tossing it to Hardison. "Wanna take her for a spin?"
-O-
Five of them were seated around the table while Nate chose to pace behind them as Corporal Perry's video played. Liza opened her small notebook, scribbling down a few notes as she watched. The jocular young man laughed and joked with his friend. Liza turned her head, averting her eyes, when the gunfire started, instead choosing to focus on the notes she had taken. Hardison paused the clip when Nate began with:
"Our client is the cameraman. Corporal Robert Perry. He says that the Castleman contractors spooked and started firing," he said, coming to stand behind Sophie.
Eliot leaned back in his chair. "5.56 NATO rounds mixed in with some 9 mils from the sub-machine guns." he shook his head. "Insurgents would have used AK-47s with 7.62 ammo. It has more of a.." he hit the back of his hand with his palm. "crack. Contractors shot 'em up all right."
Parker turned her head, her delicate brow furrowing. "You ID'd the weapon from the gunshot sound?"
Eliot regarded her contentiously. "It has a very distinctive sound,"
Liza looked at Nate suddenly, dropping her pen. "Wait. Castleman? As in the Castleman security firm? Charles DuFort?" Her smile became disbelieving. "Nate, you gotta be kiddin' me,"
"You know him?" Nate asked.
Liza hesitated. "Uh… well, not personally. A friend of mine at MI-6 asked me to work up a threat analysis,"
Sophie tapped a well-manicured nail against the table, asking nonchalantly. "And how high did he rank?"
Her eyes widened, her mouth contorting into a grimace. "Ooh. Pretty high. I've never seen so many different narcissistic personality disorders and signs of severe paranoia in one man in all my born days, to be honest," she drawled.
Hardison grabbed the remote on the table. Pointing it at the monitors and tapping a button, a new set of photos appeared. A smiling Charles DuFort paired with the Castleman logo and a meeting with a local congressman stared back at them. "Castleman Security is hardcore, folks. Billion dollar company, they got fat government contracts everywhere we got troops." Hardison glanced away from the screens. "That's Charles DuFort, CEO. Like Liza said, very paranoid and very professional,"
"I want to get this clear right now," Eliot interrupted. "This is a private army you're talking about taking on. They got their own intel assets, they got a lot of trigger pullers,"
Liza wondered if Eliot meant to glare at Nate or if the habit had become second nature after working as a hitter for so long.
Nate took the passive-aggressive criticism in his stride, leaning against the table and answering, "Yes, and lobbyists in every office in Washington, DC."
Liza's mouth quirked into a faint smile. Way to sell a job, Nate. You were always so good with words…
"The problem with a cover-up is," Nate continued. "all the paperwork it takes to keep the lies straight,"
"Internal emails, memos," Hardison offered.
Nate hit the desk with his palm. "Exactly!"
Sophie turned her head to look at Nate. "So…"
"So let's go to work." Nate pivoted on his heel, exiting the room, leaving the rest of the team to scramble to their feet to follow him.
Sophie reached the entry room first. "So, we steal the evidence and threaten to expose them,"
"Blackmail," Parker said, standing next to Sophie.
"Ah, yes," Nate said. "But just enough blackmail to, uh, pay for Perry's rehab, maybe a couple of million more in damages." The practicality in his voice unnerved Sophie.
Ever the perpetual student, Liza raised her hand. "Excuse me?" Nate looked at her. "Yeah, hi. I can name about seven laws off the top of my head that that plan breaks." she shrugged.
Eliot crossed his arms. "It'll never hold up in court,"
With one hand in his pocket, Nate held up an objecting finger. "Ah, but that's why Corporal Perry is lucky, he doesn't have lawyers. He has thieves." Nate held out his arm, motioning for them to go out the open door back into the hall.
Parker began first, smiling at the flattery with a cat-like satisfaction while Sophie followed with little more than a mild eye roll. Hardison ambled past before the hitter. For the first time that day, Eliot offered genuine, half grin to the mastermind before walking out the door.
"That's exactly how Hannibal sounded before he crossed the Alps, just sayin'," Liza said with a good-natured as she brushed past. She tapped Nate on the shoulder, pointing Hardison's artwork behind his head. "The new kid's got skills, Nate," she said, slipping into the hall.
Nate's brow furrowed as he turned around to look. His mouth dropped into a scowl, the lines in his face conforming to the characteristic expression. He bit out a sharp "Hardison," before following his team into the hall.
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Author's note: Hi! Yes, I can imagine your surprise, but I still exist. Please, please, forgive me for the late update. I've been taking summer classes to finish my degree on time. But I have a few weeks break so I cranked out this next chapter. I really hope that you guys like it. I have enjoyed writing Liza. She is like so much fun.
AND ALSO what the crap! I have over 2k views on this story! TBH I didn't think anyone would read this. I was just writing this because this was a story that I wanted to read. You guys are freaking awesome!
Xxx. Much love, dudes. I hope you'll keep reading :-)
scripturient3201: your review made my heart sOOO happy! Thank you so much! We are now best friends :-)
wildcat717: AAAHHHH thank you! I tried to make it funny...I hope i did anyway XD Thank you so much for commenting on this story! YOU MY FRIEND ARE AMAZING
