A/N: I hope you are enjoying reading this story as much as I am enjoying writing it for you. I don't own Leverage or any of the characters, and make no profit off of this. I write for fun.

Here's Chapter 20. You didn't think it would be that easy to capture Conrad, did you?

Thanks to all of those who are reading and reviewing. It really means a lot to me to know what people think about my stories. I don't write slash. Enjoy.

And to all of my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving.

Chapter 20

Doc had triage set up in the cave when they got back. Eliot led Parker into the cave and seated her on the stone seat. "Let Doc look at your knee," he growled.

"Why can't you do it?" she asked petulantly.

"Because I'm still a danger to you. You heard me talking to Mitchell, we haven't sorted all of the trigger words yet. Until we do, I don't need to put my hands on anyone on the team."

"Wait, you told Mitchell about the trigger words? That's not the private man I know." Eliot gave her a fierce look.

"No, he asked me if you had found all of them, and advised me to let you help find them. I thought you had told him, and I planned to talk to you about it later. It isn't like you to violate confidentiality rules like that."

"I didn't tell him anything."

"So how did he know?" Doc and Vance and Eliot exchanged a glance, not liking the implications. Then, Doc shook herself and gently pushed up Parker's pants leg. She gently manipulated the knee back and forth, determining it was only bruised, with slightly stretched ligaments. It was the work of a few moments to wrap it with an ace bandage.

Smiling as she pulled Parker's pant leg back down, she took an ice pack out of her bag, snapped it to make the chemical reaction start, and set it on Parker's knee. "Nothing wrong an ice pack and a knee brace won't fix, but you don't need to walk on it too much until you stop by a pharmacy for an aluminum brace." She helped Parker stand up and then turned to Eliot. "Your turn."

Holding up a hand, Eliot turned to Nate and said, "Take the team back to the apartment. I want Vance to go with you, make sure you are all safe. Doc and I will be there as soon as we can, and we'll figure out a new plan."

"Are you sure that's necessary, Eliot?"

"I trust you to plan the jobs. When are you going to trust me to keep you all safe?"

Nate smiled slightly. "I already do. All right. We'll do it your way. Come on, gang." They all filed out silently, too shocked and worried to say anything. They were all loaded into Lucille in almost no time at all, and driving back toward the apartment.

Doc turned to Eliot and motioned to the stone seat.

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

Conrad knows we were somewhere on this property. If he was planning something, we'd be smarter to do this somewhere else. Are you up to taking a drive?"

"Sure, but to where?"

"The team has a safe house or two that are off the grid. I'm suggesting we go to one of them."

Doc nodded, and when they were safely in Eliot's truck, she said, "I'm sorry, Eliot."

"Sorry for what?"

"For calling in Jack Mitchell. When I knew him, he was a good man—a man who could be trusted. I just thought it would be a less-violent solution to let the CIA police its own."

"Don't beat yourself up, Kat. It was a good plan, with the information you had. We should have thought of it. Not your fault the information changed." He gave a short bark of a laugh. "Seems we all had a plan, and we all tried to implement, but yours was the only one that almost worked."

"No, mine was the only one to this point that has had a chance to be revealed. I think it's time to implement yours."

"Mine was to follow him, watch him, and eventually shoot him. I'd rather not have to do that, but do you really think he's going to give us any peace so long as he is alive."

"No, I don't."

"There you have it, then."

"Maybe you should see what Vance's plan is before you decide."

Eliot didn't answer, and they drove silently for another twenty minutes or so, and then Eliot pulled into a parking deck, parked and turned off the truck. Looking around for any sign of anything that shouldn't be there, the two made their way into the building. Eliot led her to a secret room built into the middle of the place, like a hidden library, but he had turned it into a treatment room of sorts. Kitty was impressed. No one would know it was there until they were invited inside, and he had it stocked with every medical supply anyone could possibly ever find useful. As he sat down on the cot, his cell phone rang.

He answered, listened for a moment, and then hung up and looked at Doc. "I'm afraid we're going to have to put this off again for a while."

"Why?"

"It seems Conrad and Mitchell overpowered Shelley, and they left him for dead on the side of the road. He'll need medical care, and I smell a trap. The team is bringing him here, as they weren't sure whether it was safe to go back to the apartment. How are your marksmanship skills these days?"

"As good as always."

(0o0)

Ten minutes later, the team pulled in to the safe house, and Doc went downstairs to check Shelley for any injuries that needed immediate attention before they brought him in. Shelley was only semi-conscious, and there was blood everywhere. Doc wouldn't even know what his injuries were until they'd had a chance to clean him up. Hardison was carrying Shelley's feet, and Nate had his arms, underneath his shoulders. Doc walked next to Shelley, watching him carefully. Sophie and Parker went ahead of them to hold the door. As the rest of the group made their way slowly to the door, three shots rang out in quick succession, and one of them hit Doc in the shoulder, destroying her ability to return fire. Vance drew his pistol, and fired off a couple of rounds, but quickly discovered the shooter was too far away for a pistol to do them any good. They started moving more quickly, trying to get into the cover of the building. A second bullet hit Sophie in the lower leg. The third ricocheted off the pavement, and hit Vance, who staggered, but managed to remain standing. Eliot immediately returned fire, and the shots stopped. There was no way to know for sure whether Eliot's bullet had found its mark, but it gave them time to get safely inside. Eliot immediately sent Nate to move the van to the back of the building, knowing they would have to leave before this ended, and he didn't want to put anyone in danger to do it later. Better to do it while those shooting at them were still regrouping.

When he returned, Eliot said, "This is a secret room that no one can find if they don't know it is here. It has a secret staircase that leads to an underground tunnel that will end out back. I brought you in here because I wanted Mitchell and his gang to see you all come in. They'll be coming in here soon, and I plan to have a little surprise for them when they do. We'll treat everyone in the van. Nate, Hardison, you carry Shelley. Parker, help Sophie. Doc, walk with them. Take this first aid kit with you, and prep the supplies we'll need when we start treating people. I'll need your assistance with their care. Vance and I will hang behind for a few minutes, and we'll be out shortly. If you see anything that looks suspicious, leave. Go to the other safe house, or somewhere they won't follow. Vance and I can take care of ourselves, and we'll meet you there. Be careful with communication by cell phone or earbuds. This is the CIA. They can hear what you say if it is electronic. You have to assume they can, anyway."

Nate started to protest, but Eliot cut him off. "It's my job to protect the team. Go." When the mastermind still didn't move, Eliot's voice grew deadly. "Now!" he growled, in a voice that sent shivers up the older man's spine and served to mobilize him.

They laid Shelley out in the back of the van, and Sophie sat on the small metal bench that ran along one wall of Lucille, her leg up on the bench next to her. Doc, though cradling her left arm to her body, started pulling out and readying supplies with the other. Hardison and Nate took the two front seats, with Nate driving, and Parker sat in the center seat by herself. Less than five minutes later, Vance and Eliot reached the van. Vance took the center seat with Parker, and positioned himself sitting sideways against the side of the van, so that he could defend all entrances to the vehicle as needed. Eliot climbed in the back, and yelled for Nate to drive. The mastermind backed out, turned around, and drove out of the parking deck as quickly as possible without calling too much attention to them.

Eliot started with Shelley, with Doc to assist and advise, since she only had one hand at the moment. The hitter determined pretty quickly that Shelley had a concussion, and he must have been in pain, because he tried to fight as his friend began probing for broken bones and internal bleeding. Speaking softly under his breath, Eliot gently caught the hand that was trying to fight, pretty sure the fight was a result of the concussion, and continued tending his injuries.

"Doc, he's got three broken ribs."

"Did any of them puncture the lungs?" She asked, as Eliot took out a stethoscope and began listening to the young man's chest.

"It doesn't sound like it, but we need to be sure they are stabilized." Deftly, he wrapped the young man's ribs, growling under his breath all the while. That was the best he could do for the man's ribs without x-ray equipment. He cleaned and dressed the scrapes the man had from the beating he took, rubbed salve on bruises, and covered him with a blanket to ward off shock. He hated that he couldn't give his friend anything for the pain, but with the concussion, together with the fact that the man wasn't really conscious, they needed to watch him closely and therefore, didn't need anything masking any symptoms he might show.

Vance was the next worst hurt, as they weren't sure where his bullet ended up, and as Eliot prepared to treat him, a thought occurred to the hitter. He said, "All right, listen up everyone. All electronics off, now. We don't want to make it easier for them to track us or call in backup. Hardison, before you turn off, I need you to tell me the location of our friends."

Hardison touched some keys on his keyboard. "Looks like they are in the hallway outside the room we were just in. They will be going in any minute and figuring out we aren't there." There was a note of uncertainty, even fear in the young man's voice.

"See if you can scramble their signal, and then I want you to turn it off, too. Tracking them isn't worth the risk that doing so will enable them to track us. Mitchell and his goons will soon discover that we are no longer in the safe house, and though we left a few surprises for them there, I want to make it harder for them to get an exact location or to call in backup. We don't need to give them any more of an advantage than we have to." He started to climb over the seat to get to Vance, but as he expected, Vance waved him off.

"Treat the others first. I'll be fine until you are finished with them," Vance said.

"At least let me check the wound, and make sure it isn't too serious."

"The bullet was through and through. It hit me in the hip, though I don't think it hit an artery. I don't appear to be losing a large amount of blood. I'll sit here and keep pressure on it while you treat your team." His voice held a note of warning.

Eliot understood what he wasn't saying. Someone needed to be able to keep a gun on the door in case Conrad and his friends decided to come busting through it. Since Doc was hit in her shooting arm, Shelley was unconscious, and Eliot was a tad busy, it made sense for Vance to cover the door, and be treated last. Eliot had seen Parker point a gun at someone once, during a con, but he wondered if she would actually be able to shoot someone if she had to do so. That was something far different.

Everyone was so focused on what they were doing that they didn't see Vance with his phone out, looking at something on the screen. He typed something in to the program on the screen, then turned it off and put it in his pocket before someone had a chance to notice.

Smiling, Eliot looked at Sophie, and said, "Soph, you're up. Let's get that gunshot treated." He moved over to where she had her leg propped up, knelt on the floor in front of her, gave her a shot of morphine, and gently went about the business of removing the bullet. She cried out once, when he pulled the bullet through the hole it had made, despite the morphine, and he winced in sympathy. Speaking softly to Sophie, he placed a row of neat stitches, bandaged her leg, and pulled a blanket up over her, to ward off shock.

Then he helped Doc scoot over until her back was to the storage cabinets that ran along the other wall of the van, and he made preparation to sew up her bullet wound. He filled a syringe with a local, knowing she wouldn't allow him to give her morphine, and waited a few minutes for it to take effect before he began sewing up her shoulder. When he was finished, he tore a strip off of the bottom of his shirt, and made her a sling.