Disclaimer - I do not own Leverage, any of its characters or plot line. I only own my original characters and anything that isn't familiar with the show's storyline.
I started writing this after watching the series. I absolutely adore Christian Kane and truly believe that Eliot deserves to find love just as his teammates have.
The title is based on Daughtry's "I'll Fight" which I consider Eliot Spencer's theme song.
Reviews and comments are appreciated.
So without further adieu, here we go. Enjoy!
Three men grab a fourth and throw him on the ground, speaking Russian angrily as they stand over him. Another man steps up taking a drink from a silver flask. "I think he understands."
"Get up." One man orders grabbing the terrified man by his jacket sleeve and jerking him up onto his feet, then hands him a cell phone.
"This is a bomb?"
"It's a phone. Now you have two choices, either you do what we're asking you to do, or I have to pay visit to Natalia and little Sasha. Eh? They go to school same way every morning. Did you know this? Is not safe."
"Anything. I'll do anything."
"Okay. What I'm asking for you to do is…"
"…answer this phone." Andrei explains to the team members as he pulls out the phone and sets it on the table, which Hardison promptly picks up.
"What are you supposed to do when they call you?" Sophie asks.
"I do whatever they ask. Then destroy the phone and tell no one, or they'll kill my children."
"You, uh, install and repair telephone lines for a living?" Nate questions him.
"For 10 years. I have three major contracts right now. If I'm arrested, it all goes away."
"And you have no idea why they specifically targeted you?"
"No. I'm not perfect, but I try to be a good man. My parents came to Boston to get away from this kind of thing, Russians hurting Russians."
"And if you contacted the police?"
"The Russians will know. They say they're watching. This bar, I've been here before. It's probably safe. And you, you're no cop."
"No. I'm no cop."
"Cloned." Hardison announces handing the phone to Nate.
"This phone rings, I want you to answer it." Nate states handing the phone to Andrei. "We'll contact you."
"Thank you, Mr. Ford."
"We're not gonna let anything bad happen to your family." Sophie assures him.
"Thank you." Andrei says before getting up and leaving the bar.
"Okay, now, I put a tap on the phone, so if that thing rings, we'll know it."
"All right, good. What else?"
"There's one incoming call. These guys were thorough. They wanted to make sure if they called, Andrei would answer."
"Yeah, they, uh, they call it once to test it."
"Exactly. So if we just call them back…"
Pieter and another man are counting money inside of a warehouse while a third watches. A phone rings and one of the men counting money looks to his comrade with a raised eyebrow. "You going to get that?"
Pieter rolls his eyes setting down the money and walking over to the counter, picking up the phone and answering it. "This is Pieter. Hello?" There's no answer so he hangs up.
"Marco. Polo." Hardison chuckles, turning the laptop around to show Nate and Sophie the phone's location on a satellite map.
Outside of the warehouse, Eliot peeks around the corner, followed by Parker and Alexa; they had been tasked with surveillance of the Russians. Eliot steps out moving along the side of the building with the girls following him. "You sure this is the place?"
"I'm sorry, am... am I... am I sure?"
Hardison's tone is offended as he directs the trio from the loft. "Eliot, what is that Russian carrying? It's called a Smartphone, okay? Smartphones read e-mails, they have GPS maps, they link to an atomic clock on this little thing called the Internet. You ever heard of it? Come on, man. Look, a Smartphone has an operating system. If it has an operating system, you know I can hack it."
A computer beeps and the images on the monitor change.
"Okay. Think I may have just I.D.'d our bad guy. His name is Pieter Volokh. Him and his crew, they used to belong to the M-45s, ex-military hitters turned mafia boys. Now, they took a big hit in a bust last month." He whistles seeing the news coverage. "They lost $20 million in merchandise to the police. That's gotta hurt."
"Okay, so... so now look. We know what they're after." He says as Eliot, Alexa and Parker make their way along the side of the warehouse. "They're looking for a big-payout job So that they can get back on their feet. Now, I've I.D.'d the perp, I know what they want, and I know why. What did you do with your afternoon?"
"I'll tell you what I'm gonna do when I get back there." Eliot threatens the hacker, the two women smirking at one another. Eliot looks into the open bay doors and sees a large black SUV. He and both women enter carefully making their way to the end row of large steel tubing; looking around the corner they see an office where one of the men is counting money.
"Think he's involved?" Parker asks quietly.
"It's Russian mafia. They wear their tattoos like a résumé. See that cathedral on his neck? Three spires, three tours in prison. The stars on his arm means he's a Captain."
"So he's the boss?"
"I don't know. Probably. I ran into some of these cats in Petrozavodsk. They blackmail innocent people like Andrei into committing crimes and dropping off money. Then those guys get picked up by the cops or they end up dead. It's brutal."
"Want me to taser him?" Parker suggests.
"No tasering, Parker." Nate orders. He and Sophie are walking together, following Pieter and his men. "Not yet, anyway."
"Are they still in sight?" Hardison asks.
"I hate this kind of criminal." Sophie answers.
"What exactly were you doing when I chased you?"
"I stole art from rich people who could afford it. These guys? They terrorize their victims, they harm families, and the worst part? They make innocent people commit crimes."
"Oh, that's the worst part?"
"You blackmail an innocent man into breaking the law, the rest of his life he's gonna feel shame over how you made him helpless, or guilt over what you made him do. We chose crime. Andrei didn't."
Parker is searching the SUV while Eliot keeps watch on the man in the office, while Alexa watches outside to make sure they don't get any surprise visitors.
"Hurry up!" Eliot snaps.
Parker pokes her head out over the back door of the SUV. "I hurried! Then I hurried again! I checked it three times. It's clean."
"Check it again."
Parker ducks back into the SUV tossing things here and there. The man, Simakov, hears something and picks up a crowbar to go check it out. He finds Eliot standing outside of the SUV. "Hey! What are you doing?"
Eliot circles him stuttering as he tries to find a good explanation. "Sh—well… Ah..."
Simakov swings the crow bar, Eliot grabs his arm and throws him on the floor.
"Eliot!" Parker hollers to him before she throws a crowbar, it smacks Eliot in the back of the head.
By the door Alexa covers her mouth as she breaks into surprised laughter; while Eliot grumbles rubbing his head whilst glaring up at Parker. "Mnh! Mnhhh! Uhh!" Eliot gives her a hard look and picks up the crowbar, using it to block a blow from Simakov. They exchange blows, blocking each other. Eliot hits Simakov and pushes him away.
"You don't throw crowbars at people!"
"Sorry!" She tells him before ducking back into the SUV, mocking the hitter. "You don't throw crowbars at people!" Could have just tasered him."
Back out on the street Nate and Sophie as still following the men, the grifter growing angrier with the men as they go. "Promise me we're gonna take these guys down hard."
"I promise. Where are they going?"
"I want this to be exciting and dramatic."
"Well, it's already exciting. Look where they stopped." Nate tells her as Pieter and his men go down the stairs toward McRory's Pub. "They reversed the phone tap. We're blown."
"They're gonna kill Hardison."
Upstairs in the loft Hardison hears Sophie and his eyes go wide. "They gonna kill who?" He quickly gets up from his chair. "No, they ain't! I bet you they ain't! Nate, you better stall!"
"Yeah, come on." Eliot taunts the Russian.
Simakov swings the crowbar again, Eliot catches it with his own. They both tug for a moment, then Eliot grabs the end of Simakov's crowbar and swings the end of his up to his Simakov in the face, knocking him to the ground.
Hardison has his hands full of a laptop, money, and a liter of orange soda; he's heading for the front door when he suddenly stops. "Whoa. Wait... wait a minute. Look, my only way out is the front door. Are they coming through the front door?"
"I don't know." Nate admits as he and Sophie head for McRory's.
"What you mean you don't know? You better say something. I swear on my mama, I will blow a hole through your bedroom and spider-man out the side of this building. Tell me something."
In the back alley, Nate and Sophie are approaching the Pub's back door. "We'll tell you something in a second, Hardison. We're coming through the back door."
"Shh." Sophie whispers then opens the door and looks inside, then looks back at Nate.
"What?"
"You're not gonna like this."
"What?"
They walk into the back room to find every surface covered with papers and information.
"Somebody's been eating our porridge." Sophie states.
Nate walks into the pub to find Pieter and his men at the end of the bar talking to an older man, whom Nate regards quizzically, turning around to look at Sophie.
"Nate?" Hardison questions still ready to make his escape.
"Hold on, Hardison. They're not here for you."
Upstairs Hardison lets out a breath of relief. "Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I knew it. I mean— Nobody can reverse my phone taps. Come on, man. I don't see why y'all were getting all excited." He says trying to be casual as he moves back to the desk.
"All right, I'll do whatever you say. I still have the phone!" Simakov pleads as he holds up another red phone. "What else do you want from me?"
"The red phone again." Alexa says recognizing it as an identical match to their clients.
"Nate, this guy's not our boss. He's another blackmail victim." Eliot surmises.
"Yes, I know. I'm about to meet their boss." Nate says turning to Sophie. "Go on." Sophie walks back into the back room as Nate approaches the end of the bar. "Hello, dad."
"Nathan." Jimmy greets his son, then turns to Pieter. "Give me a moment. I want a word with my son. Go on." Pieter walks away with his drink while Nate takes a seat beside his father. "I got out a while ago."
"Yeah, I-I know. I knew you were out."
"I didn't see you at the prison gates waiting to pick me up."
"Yeah, I was, uh, visiting mom's grave. So, uh, what's a, what's a washed-up bookie like yourself doing with a Russian blackmailing crew?"
"I went to prison 'cause I took the fall for the three families. I did my time for them like a stand-up guy. You heard what happened."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was on the news. Yeah, I heard what happened. Artie Van, he turned state's evidence. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
"Gave up his ledger. 20 years of payoffs. The McTeague's, the O'Hares', the Donnelly's, all the big families are going down by law. Now, once upon a time, they would take care of someone who's gone inside for them. I went to jail for nothing. I want to get my piece."
"With these guys? These guys that-that threaten children?" Nate questions making Jimmy sigh. "What?"
"Geez, you always thought you were smarter than me, brighter, better than me. Everybody in the neighborhood always treated me with respect, but my own son..."
"What did, what did you do to respect, exactly?"
"My son, my altar-boy son. Well, hey, listen to you. Never broke the law, you never broke a rule. Look at you now. You're a thief. You've done time."
"If you know where I've been, then you know that this is my town now. And I don't want you running game in it."
"All your life you thought you were better than me. Now you're trying to be me? You can't be me. You don't have the stones for that. You're not tough enough. You're not ruthless enough. You don't have what it takes. You remember the first time I brought you into my office?"
Flashback
Jimmy holds up three cards, two jacks and one queen. "Queen and her court. Got that? Watching?" He turns the cards over. "Keep your eye on this. It's the lady." He shuffles the cards. "Now, pay attention. Which one?"
Young Nate touches one card. Jimmy turns it over to reveal a jack.
"You still don't get it, do you? You got to think this through, kid. You're just never gonna get it."
"You weren't good enough to know what I was doing then and you ain't good enough to know what I'm doing now." Jimmy states as he leans over and grabs a bottle from behind the bar. "By the way, I'm setting up, uh, in my old workshop in the back there. I'll be out by this weekend, so don't worry about it." He says walking back into the Poker room.
Upstairs the group is waiting by the table when Nate comes out of the kitchen carrying a glass of scotch. "Okay. Run it." He notices everyone looking at him uncomfortably. "Go ahead. Run it."
"You... you know what? Maybe we should just discuss first." Hardison offers.
"They feel weird about going after your dad." Parker states plainly.
"Well, I don't. Come on. Run it. Jimmy Ford. Hardison, tell us about Jimmy Ford."
Hardison hits the button on his remote. "All right. Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy Ford. Jimmy... your pop. He... he wore a lot of criminal hats, man. But, uh, he was, well-known in the neighborhood. I think people liked him. He, uh, helped some people get some money."
"Forget it. No, no. Come on, you can't sugarcoat it. Come on. It's all right. It's all right. All right. You got to tell it like it is, all right?" Nate says standing up and waving Hardison to go sit down while he took over. "Jimmy Ford, he was, uh, he started off as a bookie who worked for the McTeagues, all right? He ran every bet this side of Atlantic City. Once he had a fair amount of honest citizens in his debt, well, he made the transition into being a loan shark. Now, he used those contacts to become a fixer. So what he'd do is he'd take a bad guy that needed a job and a boss who needed a henchman, match them together. That-that's Jimmy Ford at his peak. King of the neighborhood."
"I don't know how this ties in with the whole cell phone/blackmail thing." Sophie says trying to find the connection.
"Well, we've got multiple victims. There's Andrei, the telephone repair guy. Then there's Eliot's friend Simakov."
"What does he do?" Nate asks the hacker.
"Shipping. Industrial clothing, uniforms. Nothing remarkable. Then, following Pieter's phone, we found a third red phone."
"Naw that's a dead end." Eliot implies. "We don't know who this guy is or what he does or why the Russians want him. And he's not gonna talk to us 'cause Pieter's boys already put the fear of God in him."
"What is Jimmy's game?" Nate asks turning around to look at Eliot.
"Well, I would imagine he has a chess board set up in the back room. Looks a lot like yours."
"No, dad doesn't like chess. No, his game is three-card Monte. Just keep the cards moving. Don't show you the queen until he wants you to see the queen."
"All right, so, we don't have enough information to run a con on this guy. Not yet, anyway. So, um, why don't we just sit this one out?" Sophie suggests.
"Oh, no, no. No, no, we're gonna keep at this. We're gonna gather information."
"Let me be a bit clearer. Why don't you sit this one out?"
"Look, you want us to go after the bad guys, we're gonna go after the bad guys! And we're gonna go after them hard!"
"Yeah, right. I said, "let's go after the bad guys." But not Jimmy Ford. You honestly think that you can put your own father behind bars?"
"You got to stop looking at him as my father. He's a mark like any other mark. He's hurting people. We can do this. It's what we do. It's our job to go after the bad guys."
"It's not your job to take down your own father."
"No. It's my pleasure."
"Hey, guys, Andrei, our first victim... he just got a call." Hardison announces.
"Okay. Let's go." Nate says heading for the door.
Behind him everyone looks uneasily at Sophie, all except for Alexa who stands up and follows Nate. "You heard the man, let's go." Never mind that the mark is his father, Nate is their leader and Alexa trusts him to know what he's doing without question.
After meeting with Andrei to learn what the call entailed, the group heads out in the van suited up to carry out their individual tasks. The hitter, hacker, thief and wildcard are all dressed casually in jeans and black leather jackets; Eliot and Hardison wearing police badges around their necks. They arrive at a police station and head for the front while Hardison tells them the plan.
"All right, Andrei's scared, but he's told us what they've asked him to do. He's been tapped because of his access. Now, he's supposed to get into the precinct on one of his routine maintenance calls and install a black box. With that, the Russians can spoof phone calls off the hardwired phone trunk."
"Can you turn it off remotely?" Parker questions.
"No, the system's too antiquated for a digital hack."
"So Jimmy can control which alarms reach the precinct and which don't." Eliot works out.
"Like silent alarms? From banks?" Sophie guesses.
"Or any building with a high security system."
"So if we can't hack it, how do we stop him, then?" Alexa questions.
"Unh-unh. No, no, no. We mustn't stop him." Sophie says reminding them what is at stake. "If Andrei doesn't do what they say, Then they're gonna go after his family."
"All right, so we don't stop him. We help him." Nate states as he walks away.
Sophie sighs and holds up a pair of handcuffs, "Eliot." He takes the cuffs as Sophie takes off her jacket and tosses it to Hardison. The trio heads into the police station while Parker and Alexa walk away opposite Nate to the other side of the building.
Hardison and Eliot lead a drunken Sophie into the precinct, her hands now cuffed behind her back. "Hey, hey, hey, bartender! Get me a drink!" She calls out in a thick Jersey accent to the cop behind the counter.
"Quiet down." Eliot scolds her then addresses the officer. "Hey. Detective Moffat. This is Detective Davies. We're with district eight."
"What do you got?" The older cop asks removing his glasses as he straightens up.
"Who the hell are you, cupcake? Huh? Huh?" Sophie rambles on. "You want to know who I am? I'm Viola. Viola Dagostino."
"Of the Dagostinos." Hardison states.
"We got her husband, we got a brother, and both uncles up at eight. Got her on a drunk and disorderly, heaven knows that's not gonna keep her away for long, we got to store her somewhere away from the press."
"Yeah, I got you. Let me call it in. All right."
Inside of the stations interior ducts, Parker, wearing a head-lamp with Alexa aiding her, is patching into some wiring. "Nate, incoming."
Outside of the station by the van Nate answers his phone. "Eighth district here. Ah, yes, yes. She's a handful. Yep."
"One little drink." Sophie coos to Eliot as the officer hangs up the phone.
"Okay, you're good. Just take her downstairs to the drunk tank. It's empty."
"Gotcha." Eliot thanks him before leading Sophie away down the hall.
In the basement, Hardison pulls a black box off the wall and takes another box from Eliot to replace it.
"Eliot! Come on!" Sophie calls out urgently. Eliot walks over to her, pulling a key from his pocket and flipping the keyring around before unlocking her cuffs. "Make it snappy! Being handcuffed in a police station is a recurring bloody nightmare of mine."
"Hang onto those cuffs Eli. I may have some uses for them after this is over." Alexa chimes in over the comms.
"Lexi, stop that." Sophie chastises her.
"Oh have some fun Soph." The wildcard retorts.
Eliot with a grin on his face looks over to the hacker. "How do we look?"
"This baby's a lot more sensitive than what Andrei has access to. See, we can block alarms, we can trigger alarms, but most importantly, we can track alarms. It should be synchronized. Nate?"
Nate checks the remote and confirms, "All right, we're good."
"Let's get the hell out of here, then. Sophie?" Eliot says holding up the cuffs.
"Unh-unh. No. My exit is with Parker and Lexi. See you on the outside, cupcakes."
Eliot and Hardison round the corner of the building but the van is gone. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Where's he at?" Eliot questions looking around. "He's gone!" He snaps as the girls come around the opposite side.
"Lucille! Lucille 2.0!" Hardison cries out angrily.
"He's off comms." Parker tells them.
"He's off the reservation." Sophie clarifies.
Sharing a look with Alexa, Eliot sighs gritting his teeth in rage. "I know what he's up to."
Inside the back poker room of the bar, Nate stands still as his father circles him; the Russians scattered throughout the room around the two. He explains that he has control of the black box, holding up the remote as proof and demands to be included in whatever his father is planning.
The team regroups back at the loft with Nate who ignoring their anger towards him, reports his Intel on what his father is planning with the Russians. He refers to maps on the monitors behind him as he talks. "First Boston Independent, State Street Branch of the Boston Bank, Commonwealth Loan and Securities. Now..."
Before he can get into the security measures of each building, Parker offers her expertise in the matter. "First independent's got a Glenn-Reeder alarm system, series f-900. Two guards in the front, (laughs) one guard in the back. Cameras record, not monitored. Daily turnover, $2 million. State Street, mostly commercial papers and loans, but they do have bearer bonds in a basement lockdown room. Just takes a key and a retina scanner. Commonwealth (laughs) they-their alarm system's a holdover from the '70s, But (chuckles) But it's..."
Everyone is looking at Parker, making her feel uncomfortable; she glances down at her clothing thinking she has something on her. "What? What do you guys do on your weekends?"
"There's something wrong with you." Eliot states.
"So, which one's he gonna hit?" Sophie questions.
Flashback
"None of them. But, see, since we control the precinct alarm system, the cops are gonna think they're being robbed. Now, think of this, Nathan. Three banks being robbed at the same time. They're gonna think it's Armageddon. Every cop in town is gonna be heading towards those three banks."
"Yeah. And away from...?"
"Away from what?" Sophie asks.
"I don't know. He won't tell me. Yet. He won't tell me yet."
"You realize how many banks there are South of the precinct?" Eliot says.
"67." Parker answers.
Flashback
Young Nate watching Jimmy shuffle cards. "You keep your eye on the queen. You learn this, you'll be in good stead. Now, pay attention."
Young Nate touches one of the cards.
"Are you watching at all?" Jimmy says as he turns card over to show a jack. "That's the best you can do?" Turns over another jack. "It's not the best you can do. What, are you being a wise guy with me?"
"Okay, guys, it's a three-card Monte, see? We got to find the red queen. Right now, we got too many cards in play."
"There's still the third phone." Hardison reminds them.
"That's for you, Alexa and Eliot. You're gonna find the guy, get his story, all right? Sophie, downstairs, that equipment in the back is used for the job. Go get us a look."
"Okay. I'll take Parker. What are you gonna do?"
"Me? I'm gonna go get my father to, uh, trust me enough to tell me the whole plan. I'm gonna go help him plan a bank robbery."
Sophie and Parker are standing together in the pub, Parker is looking at information on her phone. "Oh, Hardison got background on Pieter. Okay, ex-soviet army, three counts armed robbery."
"No, no, no. I want the good stuff. Give it to me." She says taking the phone. "All right. He's from Lipetsk. That is close to Penza. And his mother's name is Rada."
"Okay, so what are we thinking? The Berlin shuffle?"
"Unh-unh. Little orphan Annie."
A waitress walks past the women, "Excuse me." Parker reaches down and steals the woman's apron, holding it up. "Need this?"
"Thanks, Parker."
"Yeah." The thief smiles as Sophie puts on the apron and heads into the poker room.
Parker peeks in the back door, then closes it. Across the room, Sophie walks in from the pub, holding a tray of glasses and cups.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You cannot come in here!" Pieter orders standing up from his chair.
"Oh! Sorry. Sorry. I-I-I-I..." Sophie stutters as she turns back to the door, accidently dropping a glass and breaking it. "Oh! Ugh, chyort voz'mi!" She mutters in Russian as she crouches to pick up the glass.
"Vy russkaya?" Pieter asks her.
"Huh?"
"You're Russian?"
"Oh, no, no, no. Nuh-unh. No. That was, uh, something my father used to say. Is it bad?" She asks rising to her feet.
With the man occupied, Parker sneaks in the back door, looking in a large bag nearby.
"No, it's not so bad. Your parents are Russian?"
"Yeah, from, um... oh, uh... Penzo? I—"
"Penza! I'm from Lipetsk. What is your name?"
Parker takes pictures of items in the sack whilst Sophie lays on her charm thick.
"Rada."
"No, this is my mother's name... Rada."
"Shut up! I wish I did speak some Russian. You know, my mom and dad died when I was just a little kid, and she didn't want me speaking it, so..."
Parker moves further in and takes pictures of items on the table.
"And for you to say "my name's Rada," Menya zovut Rada."
"No, no, no, you got to go slower. Mañana- no! That's Spanish!"
Meanwhile at a park down from the police station, Hardison looks at his phone as the trio crosses the street, pointed at a coffee cart surrounded by police. "Yeah, next red phone is right ahead. We just got to figure out who has it."
"Hey, Moffat!" One of the officer hollers out to Eliot, it's the cop from the station when they brought in Sophie.
"Hey. How you doing?" Eliot says laughing.
"You got two partners now?" The man teases motioning between Hardison and Alexa.
"Ah no, this is my girlfriend." Eliot chuckles as he introduces her. "Detective Benetar, Homicide."
"Nice to meet you Detective." The officer greets her, she smiles in return. "What are you guys doing back in our district?"
"Oh, uh, I think you guys are holding a gun that was tagged in a case we caught."
"Hey, let me get you one here. This is the best coffee this side of town."
"All right."
"You know, you want to get in there before the shift changes. Yeah. 'cause that evidence, that ships out to Holyoke first thing tomorrow morning, and that is a drive you do not want to make."
Alexa sidles up next to Hardison, both of them noticing that the phone has pinpointed that the coffee vender has the red phone.
"I don't want to make that drive."
"No!" The officer chuckles as the vender hands Eliot and Alexa a cup of coffee. "There you go."
"Thanks." Alexa smiles.
"Thank you so much. All right, good to see you. Thank you so much for this."
The three move away from the coffee cart, Hardison showing the phone to Eliot. "You sure that's the same red phone?"
"Yeah. Look, is it me or does this make less sense every time we find something out?"
"Pretty much." Eliot says with a sigh as they head back to the bar.
The following morning Nate walks downstairs to where Sophie is seated at the counter. "You were up late." She observes.
"Yeah, I was out trying to get information from my dad." He says putting on his jacket.
"Oh, good. So you know what bank he's gonna hit, then. Today's the day."
"I know."
"Nate, this would be really hard on anyone. You don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do. I'm the only one who can." He goes out the door and downstairs to the poker room. "All right, dear old dad, you're now gonna tell me everything, because I..." He enters the poker room to find it clean of all of Jimmy's things. "No, come on." He quickly searches his pockets to find the remote control to the black box missing.
Flashback
Pieter punches Nate in the face, he falls back on his father. "All right, go on in there. Come on. I got your back." Jimmy takes the remote from Nate's pocket.
"Thanks, dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"There you go."
Hardison walks in to find the room empty. "Nate, what's the deal?"
"He cleared out. They're on the job, and we have no idea what the job is."
"We got the warehouse guy and the coffee guy..."
"No, no, we have no idea what he's doing."
"...already in play."
Sophie walks in unrolling a map, "Look what I found in the alley."
"Oh, great. A map that we've seen before."
"Hey, this is not her fault. You're the one who let your dad walk out of here." Eliot snaps at Nate's attitude.
"Hey both of you knock it off. We need to focus." Alexa states standing between the two.
"Oh, good, we got our room back." Parker says happily as she walks in.
"Nate, the plans you got were from the Hancock alarm company. We just need Hardison to figure out how many banks in this radius have got Hancock alarms." Sophie explains to him.
"23." Parker offers no one questioning how she knew that.
"Assuming it is a bank. Cause I don't know what you would be doing with one of these in a bank. It's the same one that Parker saw in Pieter's bag. A bar-code scanner. It scans a bar-code label and compares it to a remote database. But what are they doing with it?"
"We still got the coffee guy in play. What's he up to?" Eliot questions the hacker.
"It's a lot of cops, man. Uh, maybe he's drugging them. Slows down response time."
"That's a good idea. He could have drugged them. You think he'd drug the whole precinct? Come on!"
While the two men argue about who's right and wrong, Alexa notices a faraway look in Nate's eyes as he stares down at the table, almost as if he's lost in memory.
Flashback
"All right, which one?" Jimmy asks shuffling the three cards. Young Nate chooses the wrong card. "You're not paying attention. Pay attention."
Young Nate chooses the wrong card again. "Are you watching at all? We got the lady here. Which one?" And again. "We got to start all over again? Pay attention. Think about it. You're never gonna get this, are you? You're just never gonna get it." And again. "These are not queens! You understand me?!" And again. "Don't get me pissed off! Does it look like there's a queen in there?"
Jimmy turns over all three cards. None of them are queens. "You're never gonna get this, are you? You can't figure that out for yourself? I want an answer."
"What is it Nate?" Alexa asks as his eyes lift to meet hers.
"Guys, I know where he's going. What's the trick to three-card Monte? The queen's never even on the table. It's not a bank. Hardison, where do the police keep evidence, I mean the really valuable stuff?"
Flashback
"Yeah, cause that evidence, that ships out to Holyoke First thing tomorrow morning."
Nate circles them at the table as he continues explaining. "In the district, then they transfer it out. Russians. The Russians. Remember that big bust last month?"
Flashback
"They lost $20 million in merchandise to the police. That's gotta hurt."
"They got to get drugs, guns, and $20 million."
"It's on the move. Today." Eliot states.
"That's correct."
The Police officers driving the armored truck are getting coffee from the cart. Jimmy watches from a bench nearby, pressing a button on his remote, which triggers the black box.
The officer Eliot had made friends with startles inside the station as alarms start going off on the computer screen. "Whoa, we got a silent alarm call at first Boston independent. Oh, we got another alarm call. This one is at Boston bank at state. We got a third one! It's commonwealth." He picks up his radio. "Dispatch, this is district nine duty. We have got multiple code ones at the following sites... Don't just stand there. Roll out. Get some backup to the cruisers."
"Who do I bring?"
"Get everybody out there!"
Every officer begins scrambling to follow the first officer running toward the door.
"Yeah, I need every available unit rolling immediately. First Boston, Boston Bank State Street, Commonwealth Loan and Securities, a multiple code one."
The armored truck runs erratically down the road as the driver yawns, taking another drink of his coffee. Another officer walks out in front of it and holds up his hands to stop the van, its Pieter dressed as a cop. The Russian opens the door, "You okay?"
"I can't seem to keep my eyes open."
Pieter grabs a set of keys as one of his men climbs into the van. Pieter opens the back door to find the other two officers sleeping in the back.
Inside district 9 station, Jimmy waltzes through the front door holding up a file to the desk sergeant who is scrambling to get help out to the banks. "No, I can't get any confirmation. I told you, Boston Bank, First Boston Independent, and Commonwealth."
Jimmy waits to be acknowledged, then shows the file. "Evidence transfer?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're good." The officer tells him before returning to his phone call. "I just need bodies out there. Get the 2nd, the 4th, the 10th districts over there."
Outside of the station a police car drives away as Pieter and his men get out of the van. Jimmy opens the back door to the station to let them in.
Pieter speaks in Russian to one of his men. "If they wake up, kill them." The man nods and Pieter goes into the police station, followed by Jimmy.
"All right, you know the plan." Nate says as the team exits the van and heads for the station.
"Run and hack at the same time... sure." Hardison snarks.
"All right, wait, wait a second. Let's go over this, all right? Stop." Eliot says making them all stop walking. "Why don't you just tell the cops everything?"
"The Russians could start shooting." Nate states.
"Still, there's enough cops to handle..."
Nate cuts Parker off with a wave of his hand. "All right, we stick to the plan, the Russians will go down."
"And your father." Sophie reminds him.
"Oh, I've got him. I want to look him in the eye when I put him down."
Inside Jimmy and Pieter walk into the evidence locker. "Yeah, you're expecting us."
"Where's your transfer order?" The clerk asks.
"That's it." Jimmy says handing the file over.
"Let me see that."
Pieter clocks the man over the back of the head, knocking him out. Jimmy hits his remote and the alarm disengages. "All right. Start your timer. Five-minute grace, then the system resets." Pieter and his men enter the locker. "All the evidence is bar-coded. You'll find your stuff in here someplace, all your guns, all your drugs."
One man is using a bar code scanner while another accesses a computer, once they locate their stuff they begin gathering boxes.
Nate walks in with Sophie, who is pointing at the officer. "Oh, look at that! That's the one! He's the one!"
"Officer, my name is I'm Jimmy Popodokolos, and I represent Miss Dagostino here. Yeah."
"We're a little busy here. Every cop in the world is hitting the streets right now."
"Well, I am gonna sue you, and I am gonna sue the city." Sophie rants.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the thing, what we need to do is I want to see the department's legal counsel right now."
"Fine. Just wait over there. I'll have somebody escort you down to legal in a minute."
"You better listen to him, wise guy."
"You're doing the right thing."
"Rolling immediately to first Boston independent, Boston..." The officer continues on the phone whilst Nate and Sophie step away.
Jimmy walks up the stairway of a nearly empty building, looking for the organized crime division. He peeks in the door and walks inside. He notices boards representing the three big families. He sees the safe and walks over to it, cracking the combination and opening the door. He takes out a ledger.
"Artie Van's ledger." Jimmy walks away from the safe and the door closes behind him, showing Nate standing behind it.
"It's gonna end right here, dad." Nate states as he raises a gun and levels it at Jimmy's face. "You ready?"
"How'd you know?"
"Oh, you'd never take the money and run."
"$5 million's a lot of money, Nathan."
"For you, it's never about the money. I knew that growing up, watching you. It was about respect for you."
"Artie Van's ledger."
"Yeah, they made copies."
"Oh, you know that won't hold up. The original disappears, the case against the big families goes away, and who do they owe? Jimmy Ford, the biggest fixer in town. Let's join up. Together, we can run this town."
Nate sighs lowering the gun. "It's too late."
"What do you mean?"
"My people are gonna take down the Russians, and any minute now, the cops are gonna come through that door."
"I'm not going back to prison."
"All right." He raises the gun again. "Right here."
"You can't do this. I could, but you're your mother's son."
"Go." Nate orders lowering the gun again. "Go. Get out."
Jimmy walks out, blowing a kiss before closing the door. Nate sits down heavily, putting the gun down on the desk and rubbing his face.
Eliot edges along the side of the police van, easing around the back and knocking on the door. "Open up!" He calls out in Russian.
The door opens and Eliot hits the man in the crotch. "Oooohhh!" Eliot pulls the man half out of the van and knocks him out, then shoves him back inside and closes the door before moving away.
Down in the evidence locker things are not going to plan for the Russians. "Move, move, move!" Pieter calls out as he scans a bar code, then looks at the scanner in confusion. "Napkins?!" He scans another box, which shows stoneware. "This cannot be right! Time!"
One of his men holds up a phone that shows nearly two minutes remaining. "We still have time? I keep scanning. More boxes! More boxes!"
Hardison is hiding not too far away, working on his laptop, replacing the correct information for that of housewares.
Nate is still sitting at the desk when Parker pops in through a set of doors near the ceiling. "You let him go."
"Yeah. I had to."
"I know." She says before tossing down a rope which he ties around himself.
The security system in the locker suddenly beeps and the door closes. "No, no, no, no, no!" Pieter growls looking at his phone. "It's not time!" The clock resets to two minutes and counting. "No!" He runs to the gate and hits it hard. "Stupid thing!"
Hardison is standing in the open doorway, smiling at the men. "Age of the geek, baby. Stay strong." Hardison walks away as a number of officers enter the area, holding guns.
"Don't move! Hands in the air!"
"Well, look at this. You guys did everything but cuff yourselves." The desk sergeant says as he opens the gate. "Help 'em out, boys." The other cops move in to arrest the Russians.
Jimmy now is possession of the ledger is walking down the street calling members of each crime family; however none of the calls are turning out like he had hoped for.
"Aidan McTeague. J... yeah, this is Jimmy Ford. Damn straight. Say, I got some good news for you. Yeah, I got the ledger right here. What's that? What... what would you want to do that for? Hello?"
"Uh, Jimmy Ford for Bridgette O'Hare. It's a gift. Hello?"
"Ronin Donnelly, I worked for your father for 30 years. I wouldn't..." A black car drives up slowly. A man leans out the window with a machine gun pointed at Jimmy. "Well, no, no, I... Mr. Donnelly, it's not true." Jimmy sees the car and dives behind a brick pillar as the man opens fire. "Whoa!" The man continues to fire as the car drives past.
"Oh, God." Jimmy sinks to the ground. His phone rings and he answers it. "Geez. Nathan, what the hell have you done?"
Jimmy walks up to where Nate is standing, waiting for him. "Yeah, I called each of the families. I told them that you were the one who stole the evidence against them. They were grateful. Until I laid out the deal."
Flashback
"He wants $500,000 to destroy it. Otherwise, it goes right back to the evidence room. Not a Penny less, Mr. McTeague."
"You blackmailed them?"
"No. You blackmailed them."
"They almost killed me."
"Of course they did. Yeah, you've got a price on your head that's bigger than most of my team's scores. I mean, who wouldn't want that kind of scratch?"
"You want me killed, then?"
Nathan doesn't answer that question, instead poses one of his own. "See that boat behind you?"
Jimmy turns to look at the large freighter docked portside. "You're running me out of town? My own son?"
"Cheap passage booked under "Jimmy Logue." You'll be in Galway in two weeks."
"Logue. Your mother's maiden name. How sweet of you."
"Oh, you better hurry up. A man with no suitcase is likely to look suspicious, so try to act natural."
"You betrayed your own father. You're more ruthless than me. Crueler than me. Yeah. Maybe you are better than me, huh? I'm proud of you, son." Jimmy states as he turns and walks toward the boat.
"Hey, enjoy your retirement."
Jimmy looks back, then continues on. Nate watches for a moment, then turns to see the team waiting for him. He walks through them and they follow.
"That was... kind, what you did." Sophie tells him.
"So, uh, is Nate gonna be nice now?" Parker asks quietly.
"Don't count on it." Hardison answers. Behind him Eliot and Alexa both smile.