"Twenty-third floor. Elevator to the seventeenth and—"
A chorus of voices from five people followed, all tired of hearing about the plan.
"— stairs the rest of the way."
Right now, they were crammed in an electrical closet on the first floor of the parking garage- one of Angela's 'friends' had stashed their guns and goods there, out of the way of witnesses and cameras. Of course. They had left the van with Craig and Jenn— Angela felt uneasy leaving the thing alone for more than a second and a half in a big city such as this one.
Well, John supposed he'd have a hard time leaving his possessions unguarded in New York, too. Noisy, terrible, stinking city it was— John had always imagined himself a city person, but after this month and a half in this city, the quiet life didn't seem so bad anymore.
"Okay, okay, whatever. Will, do you have the bomb?"
On second thought.
He'd never leave the city, or the excitement of a life where—yeah, where a woman wearing a short-cropped blonde wig could use his alias to ask him if he had the bomb and the answer would be yes, yes it's here in my briefcase.
"Yes— yes, it's here in my briefcase. Of course it is."
He was past being uneasy about the plan. There was nothing ultimately murderous about it— he'd had his reservations when he'd first heard about the bomb. It was mostly about taking some data and destroying the evidence and (apparently) three and a half years of work from Moriarty's point of view.
Or, Raskolnikov's. John had been much more diligent in keeping what he knew to himself, after the incident in Atlanta. Much harder to refer to a tiny, terrifying Irishman by a name from classic Russian literature, but John did what he had to do. Neither were bigger than the other.
One may be a lot more guilty.
"Tony, your damn wig's crooked again. Bend over."
Tony bent over, and John had to lean away from them as Angela tried to fix the black wig on Tony's
head—
"No, no, Angela, now it's too far down on his forehead, he looks like a caveman."
"Well, he looks like a fucking caveman already, Mary! There's nothing I can do about that— oh, don't give me that look, Tony."
John smirked to himself at the conflict behind him, pulling at his tie- he felt like a shaggy dog with the brown wig he was wearing, foreign hairs prickling at his forehead and the back of his neck.
Everyone looked like perfectly respectable office lackeys. This was the first time John had ever seen Mary in anything other than her standard utilitarian outfits- she looked remarkable, if uncomfortable, in a pencil skirt and high heels, with her coarse black hair pulled back into a sleek bun.
He would have told her that she looked nice, were it not for the I'll kill you if you dare look she gave him the moment he opened his mouth.
Well, maybe next time.
Angela was looking everyone over, looking herself over. Repeating the plan again. Cursing at them when they scowled or made a sarcastic comment.
"Okay, come on. Let's get this over with."
John and Tony walked side by side, briefcases in hand- in the main hallways, no one bothered to look at them. John felt like a dork with his wig and his tie, especially compared to Tony— even with the dark wig and the office dress, he was intimidating.
And then he'd flash a smile, and he was just a big guy with a briefcase.
Not that anyone would guess what was in his briefcase- guns and ammo, obviously enough. They were told not to expect to need them— Angela said that this would be a simple job— but they both knew better than to rely on expectations.
Tony was talking meaninglessly to give them place in the long hallway—
"There isn't a goalie on earth who could have saved that shot—"
"Oh, I beg to differ— "
— Which had quickly turned into a real, passionate argument about football.
Tony had started the conversation, John assumed, just as an empty way to get them to talk while they walked down to the middle of the hallway, to the empty office where they'd be doing little other than making a lot of noise and smoke to clear the floor.
However, they both turned out to be very not-American and therefore quite a bit more invested in the sport than first thought— Tony rooted for a Spanish team, which John supposed didn't surprise him.
Ironically, their conversation made them fit in well in the American office— no one paid the two men any attention as they talked sports comfortably; confidently making their way down to whatever office they were probably looking for.
They'd gotten so comfortable with the conversation that they'd almost missed the damn room.
John nudged Tony slightly at the elbow, and the taller man— shaken out of his football reverie— took a quick turn to the left, knocking into a smaller woman, dark hair pinned up in a messy bun.
"O— Oh, I'm sorry—"
It didn't take her long to realise that she didn't recognise either of them.
"Are you looking for something?"
Shit.
Tony spoke for them— which was all well, John wasn't the best at lying on the spot.
"Hm? Oh, no, sweetheart. I think I've found it."
— Lying on the spot, or making himself look like a creep for the sake of hiding in plain sight. Tony, on the other hand, was doing a great job— he looked at the woman greedily. It didn't take long for her to avert her eyes—
"Well— uh, all right then. I— gonna leave you two to it."
"Well, come on back if you need us, honey. We'll be right here."
She rolled her eyes— she spun around and left as quickly as possible, and the two men ducked into the office as she clicked away on anxious heels. Tony didn't bother to lock the door behind them, instead turning to the desk behind him— where John had carefully sat down his briefcase, opening each latch one by one.
There was nothing in this room that they needed— just the location. Easy to see and hear from most of the main hallway, and in proximity to the office they were interested in— the office of the man that Angela was in an interview with. The man would be preparing for Angela to pull something in the room, try to steal whatever it was that he thought she was trying to steal.
Of course, whatever it was that this old, wealthy man had thought she was trying to steal was actually the thing that Jennifer had (distantly) helped Mary retrieve from the electronic safes on the twenty-third floor. John and Tony were just there for a diversion for Angela's escape.
Since August, John had been living in a real-life mash-up of a James Bond and an Ocean's Eleven.
Not that he was complaining. This was exactly the sort of thing he'd wanted to do as a boy, as a result of too many spy movies with his father. All he needed now as a perfectly tailored suit.
When he expressed this to Tony, the taller man chuckled, passing a second pair of earplugs to John—
"Well then, you're in for a treat tonight,"
He barely waited for John to jam the plugs into his ears before detonating the smoke bomb.
"Well, I mean, your resume is impressive, Ms. Foster—"
"— Mrs."
Angela had to keep herself from playing with her wig- it felt askew. The shortness bothered her- the tips tickled her jawline. She didn't look good blond at all- her skin was too tanned for it, her jaw too angular. She kept looking in the long mirror positioned to her right- a good place for it to be, it allowed her to see the open door, and it made her look vain instead of expectant.
"Ah. I'm sorry. I just- I don't think that you're quite suitable for this line of work, it seems as if you're more comfortable working in journalism—"
Here comes the hard part.
"My resume is impressive?"
"Well yes, you have a lot of experience for someone your age, but—"
"Then why aren't I suitable?"
"Ma'am, your field of experience just doesn't coincide with what we need right now—"
"That doesn't make any sense, If I'm overqualified that must mean you're hiring me on a premium—"
She glanced at the mirror, waiting for the signal— she'd hear it before she'd see it, smoke billowing through the hallway, but it was still making her nervous. Where were they?
"Mrs. Foster, I don't think we are looking for anyone with your experience nor your attitude to work at our company—"
"Well maybe you should have made your terms a little more—"
BOOM.
The walls rumbled, and the old, fleshy man yelped and dove under his desk at the noise of the explosion.
It was a lot louder than Angela was expecting- her ears rang and the surprise from it found her on the ground with the old man. She brought herself to her senses, however— she grabbed the handgun from the small purse she'd been carrying and got to her feet.
"What the hell was—"
With one hand the old man pulled himself up- with the other he clutched his heart.
She had a gun, and pointed it at where his head will be when he's done standing up.
"— Jesus—"
"I want you to stand completely still, Mr. McClelland. And on the count of three, I'm going to ask you to—"
His hand darted to somewhere under the desk— she shot a cautionary bullet in the self-portrait just behind him.
"Don't make this harder than it has to be, Mr. McClelland. I don't give a shit what you were reaching for, it's a gun in my mind, so if you would please— slowly— put your hands up."
Slowly, he raised his hands, putting them on top of his head.
"It's— It's—"
Angela was almost disappointed. This man was in control of a major facet of Moriarty's regime— there was no way he was this... Bumbling.
"I know where it is, McClelland, I already have it. What I'm interested in is that watch on your wrist. Why don't you give it to me."
"My— My watch? It was— It was a gift from my wife—"
"Well, she'll have to buy you a new one. When I count to three, I want you to take the watch and— hold on there, wait until I count, now."
She counted— slowly, methodically. She needed to give Mary and Jenn some more time.
He fumbled to the watch, keeping his hands on his head all the while— eventually he got the latch and stretched his arm out, timepiece in hand.
"Do you want me to throw it?"
"I want you to drop it on the desk. And then you want you to go and stand in that corner, facing the wall."
He looked like he was entertaining the motion of defying her— she took a half-step forward, which set him going.
As soon as he was safely in the corner, she snatched the watch- the name on the back and the various age-telling scratches allowed her to confidently determine that it was the right one.
"It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. McClelland."
She smiled to no one in particular, backing out of the room before he could answer.