A/N: Okay, I'm just gonna give up trying to predict how many chapters this is going to have, because I've obviously been wrong every single time I've tried. Thank you to all who are reading, and taking the time to review. Thank you for letting me share my vision of these characters and their world with you. Reviews make my day, so please keep them coming. I don't own Leverage and make no profit off of these stories. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy. Without further adieu...
Chapter 5
The girls decided to go one direction, while the boys went the other, knowing they could round up all the veterans in the study more easily that way. After they left, Eliot took out his cell phone and texted his friend, and then stretched out on the bunk and closed his eyes. Master Yu started the IV, and then lit the candles and turned off the lights, except for the small, stained glass wolf lamp that Eliot had sitting on the desk. Master Yu started some chant-like music in the background, hoping it would help Eliot to relax.
When his phone beeped, Eliot opened his eyes and used his free hand to retrieve it from his pocket. He read the text message, and then said, with a long yawn, "My friend is at the door to the apartment. Will you let him in?"
"Yes." Master Yu disappeared for a moment, turning off the music as he left, and reappeared with a really tall man, who was carrying a bag. Yu then disappeared back into the living room, closing the door softly behind him.
"Well, Spencer, it looks like you've gotten yourself into a mess this time."
"Looks like it, Vance. Thanks for coming." He offered the hand with no wires, and they shook.
Colonel Vance laid the small bag he carried on the desk, and said, "The drug in there will reduce most of the effects of the gas on the body, at least somewhat. I should warn you, it's a hallucinogenic, though. I hear it gives people some pretty wild dreams. Tell him to wait a couple of hours before administering, to be sure you don't throw a funny reaction to either of the other two drugs first." He paused and looked directly at Spencer. "I'll be wanting to know how you came in contact with organophosphates, in a civilian setting."
"CIA was involved. Dustmen."
"What?"
"I can't tell you any more than that, Vance. Get me everything you can on a Mister Conrad, CIA, and my team will take him down. He's got enough rank to rate heli-service."
"I'll see what I can find out, but I wish you'd let me help with this."
"I can't risk him catching wind of your involvement. Need you as a secret weapon, for later, if necessary. And I can't let you take the heat for something I plan to do when I am better. I'll owe you a favor for the information, though."
"All right. I can live with that," Vance said. What he didn't say was that he would find out what he could, and help from behind the scenes as much as possible. Spencer had intimated on the phone that it involved veterans, and anybody that hurt veterans the way he suspected this man hurt them, was bad news for all soldiers, and needed to be stopped.
"Goodbye, my brother. Get well, because I'll be collecting that favor."
"Count on it."
"I'll text you the information I find."
"No. Nothing electronic. CIA, remember. Oral or hand delivered only."
"Got it. Call you when I have it."
"Thanks, Vance. Now go on, get out of here."
When Vance left, Eliot closed his eyes again. The Diazepam in the IV was forcing him to almost sleep, though he had enough of the stimulant still left in his system to counteract it somewhat. He tried to relax, and lose himself in the shadows, when he heard the door open. Opening one eye, he confirmed that Master Yu had returned, and spoke up. "My friend said that the medicine in that bag on the desk will counteract most of the effects of the nerve gas, but we're supposed to wait a couple of hours before you give it to me, to be sure I don't have a bad reaction to either of the other two."
"All right." Both of them heard the apartment door open, and then they heard a number of voices. Master Yu said, "No doubt your friends will want to visit again. I will let them come one at a time, but that stimulant will be out of your system soon, and the diazepam will probably make you want to sleep. Sleep when you need to do so, even if there is someone else in the room. Ring this bell if you need something before someone comes in." He placed the bell on the small table right next to the bed.
He thought he heard a soft "thank you' as he slipped out and closed the door.
(0o0)
Hardison walked in first, looking a bit tentative, as if he wasn't sure Eliot really wanted to be bothered right now, least of all by him.
"Well, come on in. I ain't gonna bite ya. You need to drink the rest of your cranberry juice, and another one, too. It's in the fridge."
When he heard those words, Hardison walked all the way in and over to the refrigerator, where he rummaged around until he found the opened bottle of cranberry juice. Twisting it open, he brought it over to the little table, and sat down in the chair next to the bed.
"How are you feeling?" Eliot continued.
"I should be asking you that question."
"So answer me, and then I'll answer you."
"I'm all right. A little stiff, but nothing compared to what you are facing. Thank you for doing the blood test."
"Yeah. I'm just glad I didn't expose you to it. Hot shower'll probably help the stiffness. How do you feel about what happened on this job?"
"A little embarrassed," the hacker admitted.
"Why?"
"I tried to tell Nate you can't fake cool. I must have done something wrong because they got my CIA file, and then when Zilgrim told me to put the hood on, I did, and they took me down to that room in the library, and I got my ass handed to me. All I could think of, when they started hitting and kicking me was covering up my vital organs. I wanted to fight back, but I couldn't. You would have fought back. So would Nate. Even Parker. And probably Sophie. All I kept thinking about was how disappointed you would be in me." He continued babbling almost incoherently a while longer.
"Hardison," Eliot ordered, cutting through the chatter. "Look at me." The young hacker looked up and their eyes met. Eliot softened his voice and spoke again. "I need to tell you something."
Hardison didn't speak, but he gazed at Eliot steadily, waiting for him to continue.
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about. You didn't do anything wrong. The interrogator told me when I was interrogating him—they got your file because they were able to get my fingerprint off of a tazer. You are listed as one of my known associates. I wasn't as careful as I should have been. I'm sorry. As for the hood and covering your vital organs, those are both instincts, ingrained into humans over millennia, for self preservation. As for me, I am not disappointed in you. I am proud of you. Nate and I are telling you all the time that you can't do the things we do, and that's true, but we can't do the things you do either. The team only needs one hitter, and I'm not ready to give up that role yet, but where would we be without your laptop and Lucille, and your ability to make us new identities, to book us last minute transportation, and to do all the other things you do? We don't say thank you enough because most of us really can't get our minds around how you do it, or how much is involved, but the truth of the truth is that the team couldn't survive without you, either. Don't ever doubt that."
"You don't understand. You don't do things that are embarrassing."
Eliot barked a laugh and said, "Yes, I do. I'm just a little better at hiding them than you are. I'll tell you a little secret—I'm about to do something really embarrassing. That drug on the desk there, it's a hallucinogen, which means once Master Yu gives it to me, I'll be seeing all kinds of things, and they very well might be things that make me scream and kick my feet, and so forth. In fact, you don't think I find the prospect of all of this embarrassing—making you all watch this side of me? I wasn't lying to Nate when I told him it wasn't going to be pleasant. I especially don't want Parker or Sophie to have to see it, but I agreed to do it here, so that's not really an option any longer."
Hardison jumped, startled, as the door opened, to Parker standing there. "Hardison, are you gonna hog Eliot all night?"