"This is the job?" Alan queried, pointing slightly nervously at the school.

"You know that gavel that the headmaster that keeps on his desk?" she asked in response.

"The one that was a gift from Benjamin Franklin?" he asked, once again, in disbelief. "We're stealing that?"

Abby said nothing as she walked towards one of the side entrances to the school.

Thanks to Parker, the theft had been made easy.

Thanks to a handy button cam the thief had determined the code to the keypad guarding one of the janitorial entrances; Abby explained it to Alan as the janitors were sleazy with their information.

The cameras and sensors had also been taken care of by Parker and a simple cutting of wires leading to the central processing system (it wasn't a complicated system and, for a school, didn't really need to be). That was explained to Alan as the system being down for maintenance.

Next came the door to the headmaster's office, which had been pre-picked by Parker. To play it up for Alan, however, Abby pulled two bobby pins from her hair, untwisted them, placed them into the lock and fiddled them about for a second; it was easily enough to make him believe she was a teenage thief.

Then, like a trophy, there it was; sitting on the desk, just asking to be taken.

"Would you like to do the honours?" she queried, gesturing him to take the gavel.

Alan smiled as, his hands shaking with adrenaline, as he cautiously picked up the gavel.

"Let's go," Abby said, motioning Alan to lead the way out the door.

"Holy… wow…I just….whew! that was awesome!" Alan exclaimed in excitement as the pair walked purposefully towards the nearest bus stop. He was flying on adrenaline, never having done anything that actively illegal before.

Abby, who had similarly never done anything remotely close to that illegal before, had an odd, queasy feeling in her stomach. A feeling which made her certain that Parker's version of theft was not for her.

"Yeah," Abby replied nonchalantly, even though she was unsettled to the bone.

"You're doing good Abby," Nate praised, less than a block away in the van with the rest of the team, with Eliot being ready to strike if the moderately likely scenario arose where something went wrong. The hitter had been less than pleased when Nate had changed the con on him (and everyone)

~"You ready for the next bit?" Eliot questioned; Abby breathed in and out in preparation.~

"You still have it right?" Abby asked their mark who promptly pulled it from inside of his hoodie; Abby reached out to grab it. Alan took a moment to savour holding the acquired object in his hand then passed it over to Abby.

~"Now," Nate, watching through CCTV cameras, declared to Hardison.~

Like a perfectly in time Swiss watch, Abby's phone rang in her pocket as the gavel was being passed into her hand. She 'flinched' to grab it, expertly allowing the artifact to slip through her fingers. The gavel had now smashed into several hundred splinters.

The look on Alan's face was priceless and it took the reminders of Sophie and Eliot in her ear to remind her not to grin.

~"Stay in character Abby," Sophie gestured softly. "What did you do," she prompted further when still no words slipped from Abby's mouth.~

"What did you do?" she echoed to Alan.

"Me? You were meant to take it!" he defended.

"You dropped it!" she continued and then took a moment to pace around the splinters. "He's going to kill me," she muttered, running a 'worried' hand over her face.

"Who…"

"My boss!" she yelled. "He does not deal well with his assets being dropped."

~"She's a natural," Sophie praised from the van; Eliot let out a discerning growl. "Now, see if you can't umm, nudge him towards helping you," she continued, speaking directly to Abigail. "Don't say anything explicit, just sort of a suggestion."~

"What's the worst he could do?" Alan asked casually.

"If I don't pay him back for what it's worth?" she asked rhetorically in response. "Well we've never seen the last guy who lost an asset ever again; you do the math."

Alan snorted, either in nervousness of not knowing what to do, or in true indifference.

"That's not really my problem, is it?" he shrugged again and turned to walk away; Abby couldn't help but think 'asshole'.

"You think he won't hold you responsible as well?" Abby asked.

~"Good, keep going with that," Nate directed.~

"It's a gavel!" he yelled in disbelief that someone would care so much about a wooden hammer.

"Na-Simon is a control freak," Abby explained, but took a pause to recover from her almost slip of Nate's real name. "He tries to control everything and anything he can't control or is a threat to him, he destroys. And besides, it's actually worth a lot more than you think."

"So he's gonna come after me?" Alan questioned, worry growing slightly in his eyes. Abby nodded and Alan rubbed his face in nervousness. "Shit!" he swore. "Shit, shit shit!"

"Yup," Abby agreed.

"Hang on, you said if he got paid he'd let it go?"

"That only works if you have money,"

"How much money?" he asked quickly.

~"Kay, just give me a sec," Hardison said as he typed a few things into his computer.~

"Well?" Alan asked when she did not answer.

"I'm thinking!" she yelled back

~"200,000," Hardison informed her.~

"200,000," Abby said, partially relaying the info to their mark and partially questioning the massive number.

"I can get that," he replied, his voice calming slightly.

"Well, what are we waiting for?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They made their way swiftly to Alan's house (although a more appropriate term would be mansion) with the others tailing behind at a safe distance in the van.

To her surprise, Abby was not led into the main house to retrieve the money. Instead she was lead around the back and, in the dark, on a large property, surrounded by shrubbery; it did not build confidence or any sense of safety.

~"Nate," Eliot said worriedly; he was getting ready to pull her out at any moment's notice.~

"Right here," Alan said as he neared a large, ornamental urn. Abby let out a slight sigh of relief as she realised she wasn't going to get murdered.

"You keep your money in a giant urn?" Abby questioned.

~"Too easy," Parker noted. "But smart."~

"Safes and banks, they can get broken into but hiding your money," he explained as he reached his hand into the vase and pulled out a wad of cash. "Ensures security," he finished as he pulled out more cash.

"How is that you just have 200,000 dollars lying around?" Abby asked.

"I'm good with money," he explained vaguely as he handed Abby half the money. "After you," Alan suggested, pointing Abby back towards the driveway and following her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You lost my merchandise!" Nate yelled after Abby and Alan had returned to their appropriated base and 'informed him' of the 'bad news'.

"He lost your merchandise," Abby corrected, motioning her head towards Alan, who looked moderately terrified. "But he's got more than the necessary funds to pay for it." She nudged Alan in the arm, gesturing him to hand over the money. Alan did so, his arm shaking slightly in fear.

Abby couldn't notice the difference between the confident, cocky, man Alan had been at the school (when he had clearly been the big fish) to the terrified, shy and bumbling child Alan was now, when he was the tiniest fish in existence.

Nate counted the money and grinned a real, and not posed, grin of accomplishment; they had gotten what they wanted.

"That'll do," Nate said nonchalantly, still looking down at the cash. "But," he continued, looking up at Alan and staring him coldly in the eye, "you will never do business with us again; it's best for you if you forget this world."

Alan nodded fearfully.

Forgot to mention at the end of the last chapter that some of the dialogue was borrowed from the NYC Underground. Not an explicitly great movie, but it has some great dialogue and Clayne Crawford is gorgeous.

Anywho, about two chapters left for this little con, then onto some episode tie ins!

Ta Ta