Disclaimer: I don't own the challenge; that belongs to Lee. Buffy and Angel and respective characters belong to Joss Whedon, and Ocean's Eleven belongs to Warner Bros.
Feedback: Please do.
Challenge: Basically, redo the basic plot of Ocean's Eleven with Buffy and Angel characters. Angel should take the place of Danny Ocean, and Connor as Linus Caldwell. The other characters are up to you.
Angel's Eleven
As they sat in their hotel room, Willow, Gunn, Giles and Spike watched with broad grins on their faces as the first wave of bills was tossed onto the vault floor, Angel, Connor and Oz rapidly gathering up everything they could get their hands on.
It had been a difficult struggle to get to this point- and the next part of the plan was unquestionably going to be the riskiest bit, but, if it all paid off, it was definitely going to be worth it.
"Ever been in love?" Giles asked, breaking the silence as he stared at the screen.
Tilting his head to one side in a reflective manner, Gunn paused for a moment before he answered his friend's query.
"No… I guess not," he said finally, a somewhat dejected tone in his voice. "Not really…"
"Trust me," Giles said, a slight smile on his face as he looked at Gunn. "The only thing better than this is finding the perfect someone to love."
"Amen to that…" Willow said softly as she studied the screen, her chin in her hand as she watched her ex-boyfriend take the casino's money off its shelves.
Back at the location of the fight arena, Lewis and Tyson having resolved the confrontation to everybody's satisfaction despite the initial complications caused by the blackout, Parker Abrams had just walked out of the arena, Buffy walking beside him, when Abrams' phone rang in his pocket.
Rolling his eyes in frustration, Abrams reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone, automatically flipping it open as he raised it to his ear.
"Yes?" he inquired critically.
"Hello there, Mr Abrams," the familiar voice of Lilah Morgan said on the other end of the line. "Just thought you might want to know that you're being robbed blind as we speak."
As Lilah sat nonchalantly in her hotel room, she grinned maliciously as she studied the monitors that she'd had her remaining staff (Most of the others had quit after Angel destroyed their office) study the monitors that they'd set up on Wesley's instructions. The set-up wasn't quite as elaborate as what Willow had created in her room, but given that it was only intended to tap into Willow's pre-existing link to the system rather than do anything to the main casino systems itself, that didn't really matter.
Besides, thanks to them tapping into Willow's signal, they not only had access to al the cameras, but also had complete control of what she was making the cameras show… plus, of course, they had access to the secret camera Lilah had asked Wesley to install in the room itself.
Looking at Willow and her group as they eagerly watched the screen showing their 'team' shoving the vault's money into the bags that they'd subsequently have Abrams remove, the ultimatum being that he either take the money out now or they'd blow all of it up and he'd lose everything.
Clever little scheme, Lilah admitted to herself as she heard Abrams enter the monitoring room over the phone that she still held in her hand. Of course, thanks to Wes it was never going to succeed, but still, pretty clever.
If it wasn't for the memory of what Angel had done to some of her colleagues, she might have actually let him go through with it just to see him in action once again.
As Abrams' voice began to bark out orders over the phone, Lilah forced her attention back to the matter at hand; as appealing as it was to contemplate Angel's fate when he was discovered this time around, she had to ensure that those circumstances would actually happen before she allowed herself the luxury of fantasizing.
"Miss Morgan?" Abrams' voice said over the phone, sounding slightly smug as he spoke to her. "Your concern for me is appreciated, but I can assure you that my casino vault is fine."
"Really?" Lilah said, nodding over at one of her staff as she spoke. "Just a sec…"
Despite her best intentions, she was unable to stop herself sneaking a quick look at the screen showing Miss Rosenberg's room, smiling broadly at the shocked expressions on their faces as the image Willow was broadcasting was replaced by the real image.
"What the sodding Hell?" Spike yelled, staring in confusion at the hacker. "What the hell are you playing at, Red?"
"I-I don't know!" Willow protested, as she stared in confusion at the screen before her, desperately trying to reestablish the feed even though she knew it was too late. "I-it's like somebody's using my own link against us!"
If it wasn't for the fact that she hadn't installed a two-way speaker system- and the fact that she couldn't guarantee they'd stay there if they knew somebody was tampering with the system-, she might have been tempted to let them know that somebody was deliberately interfering with the signal.
Shaking her head, Lilah turned her attention back to the phone, smiling slightly at Abrams' shock on the other end.
"That's the thing about this town; it doesn't take much to change your luck in a moment," she said casually. "Now then, unless you want to lose that money, you'll do exactly what I tell you."
"Which is?" Abrams asked, sounding like he wanted desperately to punch the messenger who'd delivered this bad news to him.
"As you may note, they're only packing about half the money you've got down there- which, given the amount you commonly have in these places on times like this, comes to probably around seven hundred and fifty million dollars," Lilah explained, smirking slightly as one of her team showed her the amount that was currently stored in the vaults on his screen; she vaguely registered that it was somewhat higher than she'd guessed- around $163,156,759, to be precise- but that didn't matter. "If things had gone according to plan, they would have tapped your lines, sent in a fake SWAT team, and moved all the cash out while you were left thinking that things had been blown up."
"I… see" Abrams said, his voice cold and inquisitive as he spoke into the phone. "May I inquire as to how you are so 'well-informed' about this little scheme?"
"Let's just say I had inside information and leave it at that," Lilah said, narrowly stopping herself from chuckling slightly as she recalled exactly where her 'inside information' had come from in the first place. "Now then, you have two options; either call the SWAT team and get your cash nicked, or call my private security force and be sure of getting your cash back."
"Private security team?" Abrams stated skeptically.
"Hey; it's the only communication line that I can guarantee you hasn't been tapped by these guys," Lilah said, grinning at the still-shocked expression on the faces of Willow and her little group as the hacker continued to try and fail to regain control of the system. "As I said, it's trust me and keep the money, or take a chance on your own and lose it."
As he stood in the middle of his casino's security centre, listening impatiently to the voice on the other end of the line, Abrams only just managed to prevent himself from groaning in frustration at how things had turned out. He wasn't an idiot; he knew full well that if he agreed to let Lilah help him deal with the current problem, he'd end up owing her significantly, and if there was one thing he hated more than anything, it was owing someone something.
But, on the other hand, if things fell apart here and now, he'd end up losing all his money and a significant amount of his credibility.
It wasn't much of a contest.
"Buffy, get out of here," he said, waving the museum curator towards the door as he turned back to the call, barely even registering the annoyed expression on her face as she walked out of the door.
"Very well then, Miss Morgan," Abrams continued as he spoke into the phone, "I'll use your 'private line'. All I ask is simple; you get the money back- all of it- and we'll leave it at that. Clear?"
"Crystal," Lilah chuckled, before her expression became more serious. "Oh, by the way, I'll need to do this by the book if we're going to put anyone away, so I might need to take at least some of the money away as evidence for the cops; you know, fingerprint tests and all that."
Gritting his teeth slightly, Abrams tried to avoid yelling, but, in the end, he knew he didn't have much choice; if he didn't let Lilah do things her way, he'd never really figure out who was behind this…
And, right now, he really wanted to know who'd done this.
"All right," he said grimly, as he spoke into the phone. "Make the call."
"Good choice," Lilah smiled, as Abrams heard a brief click of fingers over the line; evidently a signal of some kind. "I'll let you know when we've dealt with it."
As she sat back to study the screens before her, Lilah chuckled once again as Willow, having finally come to the conclusion that any attempts on her part to regain control of her system were pointless, rapidly began issuing instructions to the others in the room to have the equipment dismantled before somebody discovered them.
If it had been up to her, of course, Lilah would have had then captured along with Angel, but Wesley had, regretfully, made his instructions quite clear; capture Angel, but let everyone else go.
Well, I'll just have to see what I can do about changing Wes's mind about that, Lilah mused to herself, as she watched one of her staff make the call to summon the security team, nodding in approval at him as he gave the thumbs-up to confirm that they were on their way.
"OK, the team's coming to you as we speak; they should be here in a matter of minutes," she said casually. "I'll call you when they've got the people responsible, OK?"
"Fine," Abrams said grimly; he clearly hated the idea of having to owe someone something, but was nevertheless acknowledging that he didn't have much of a choice if he was going to keep his money.
Not that Lilah could blame him for his attitude, really; she was pretty much the same when it came to protecting her 'investments'.
After waiting impatiently for a few minutes- during which he had been even more frustrated to learn that Lyman Zerga had apparently had a heart attack while he was busy attending to business with that 'Gunn' character- Abrams finally sighed in relief as he saw a van containing people who could only be the security staff Miss Morgan had mentioned entering the building via the main doors.
As he watched them move through the casino, Abrams had to admit that he was more than slightly impressed by their professionalism; they avoided paying any kind of attention to their surroundings, focusing exclusively on their designated task despite all the activity that currently surrounded them.
If it wasn't for the fact that they were working for somebody else, he could almost have admired them.
As it was, he just resented them; the more professional they were, the more efficient they were, the more he'd probably end up owing Miss Morgan once this was all over.
Still, as long as they got the job done, he supposed that he couldn't legitimately complain about their presence…
As Abrams watched their progress towards the vault, he took a brief opportunity to count their numbers- there was about seven of them, all carrying bulky-looking bags that presumably held any extra equipment that they may require. As they approached the vault, he nodded briefly at the men operating the elevator control system, watching grimly as the lift activated to allow the team access; they would, of course, be rappelling down the elevator shaft to prevent them from attracting too much attention from the three still down there, but they still needed the doors open at this point.
In a matter of moments, the money in the vault would be his once again, and all those in there would be marching off to a prison sentence that he would ensure would be the maximum penalty that his money could arrange, followed by the ruination of everybody even remotely connected to that little group…
He just wished he could pick out some kind of distinguishing feature about the three men inside the vault at the moment. Unfortunately, apart from the fact that one of them was significantly more muscular than the others, and one of them was slightly shorter than the other two, they were too well-covered to give anything important away about themselves.
As the team rappelled to the bottom of the shaft, Abrams waited for them to activate their night-vision goggles, before he nodded at his security manager.
"Cut the lights," he said simply.
With that, the lights in the vault suddenly terminated, leaving the screens in total darkness as the cameras cut out. As he listened into the SWAT frequency, Abrams smiled grimly as he heard the leader issue the order to enter the vault corridors…
Then he heard a new voice, distant and panicked- definitely not one of the SWAT team- and his eyes widened in horror.
"Guys, someone's here!" the voice yelled; it sounded like the speaker was relatively young, only in his early twenties at best.
"Take him down!" the team leader yelled at the rest of the group. "Now!"
There was a brief spurt of gunfire, and then there were a massive explosion, followed by a momentary silence before the team leader spoke again.
"Lights!" he yelled over the radio. "We need power now!"
A brief nod from Abrams was all the staff needed to encourage them to bring the power back online…
Then, the moment he saw the picture on the monitors, Abrams felt like punching the 'messenger'.
There on the screens in front of him, spread out like some demented landscape of destruction, smoke filled the vault as two of the security team's members pushed through the door as their associates helped to evacuate the unconscious guards.
Swearing under his breath, Abrams activated the intercom; he had a pretty good idea what had just happened, but he preferred to know himself.
"What's the situation down there?" he asked grimly.
"They blew it," the team leader replied, a somewhat apologetic tone in his voice; evidently he acknowledged that he'd screwed up and was prepared to acknowledge it.
"They blew the... Oh, Jesus..." the team leader added as he entered the vault, staring grimly around himself at the destruction. "If there was anybody still in there, they're not in one piece anymore."
Glaring grimly at his floor manager, Abrams narrowed his eyes as he processed what he'd just heard.
"Tell them to take the van," he said, indicating the team now in his vault. "I'm going down there."
As he turned to walk out of the control room, he turned to look at the manager, yelling as he departed the room, "And find out how they got into my system!"
The manager didn't even try to point out that Abrams had left the actual process of selecting the computer systems for the casino up to other people; the mood his boss was in at the moment, he could every easily have somebody not only fired but put out a contract on their heads.
Faced with a choice between pointing out an error made by their 'perfect' boss (Perfect in the sense that he always said or did the right thing to put him one-up on everyone else, of course), and staying alive and employed, everyone in the casino would pick Option A every day of the week.
As he headed down towards the vault elevator, already wiping his hands to make sure that his fingerprints were clean for the scanner, Abrams growled low in his throat as he entered the elevator and typed in the access code to take him down.
He couldn't believe this had happened to him, of all people! He should never have listened to that Morgan bitch; if he hadn't allowed her 'personal security team' to take point in this screwed-up mess, this would never have happened…
As the elevator doors finally opened before him, Abrams marched into the now smoke-filled vault corridor. Ignoring the dazed guards that were now struggling to their feet and heading for the elevator with the aid of the security team, he walked up to the decimated vault door and studied it.
A moment's assessment was all he needed to confirm what he already knew; anything that had been inside that vault at the time of the explosion- people, money, Lyman Zerga's emeralds- could only have been destroyed.
"Mr Abrams?" the team's leader inquired from behind him as he stared grimly at the vault.
"Yes?" he said grimly, refusing to look around at the man; punching somebody may make him feel better, but it wouldn't help anything.
"We couldn't find any survivors," the man said apologetically. "Or, I'm afraid, any of your money. I'm sorry, sir."
Gritting his teeth, Abrams stared grimly ahead of himself, refusing to respond to anybody as he tried to prevent himself from just punching the people who'd failed him; not only would it create the wrong impression of himself, but the helmets they were wearing would only bruise his hand.
"Take your men out," he stated grimly as he stared ahead of himself. "Now."
Nodding briefly, the team leader turned to look at the rest of his group.
"OK guys," he said, nodding at them, "grab your gear and clear out."
As the team departed, Abrams crouched down to look in frustration at the paper spread out on the floor of his vault.
Damnit… he mused to himself. All the time that must have gone into planning something like this, and those goddamn bastards go and blow up my own goddamn vault rather than be captured…
Then his eyes fully processed what he was looking at, and widened in shock.
The paper lying around him at the moment was not the money he'd had in his vault.
They were all flyers for a call-girl service.
But how? Abrams mused to himself. We saw them putting that money in the bags…