Chapter Four

When the work day was done, Eliot was escorted from his office to a small cell. Inside there was enough room to stand between the door and the bed. To the left was an open doorway to the bathroom, which had less breathing room in it than the bedroom of his prison.

His first instinct was to bolt. He had gotten rid of most of the claustrophobia as a child, but this was different than locking himself in the shed out back. This was being forced on him and there was no way out. Not one he was willing to pay the price for anyway. So he stepped into the room and waited until the door was closed and locked behind him to turn around and slam his fist into the door, causing it to rattle on its hinges.

He pulled off the tie first, then the button-up shirt, and finally let his hair down, beginning to feel more like himself and not some sleazeball lawyer. He looked around for the light switch and found none. "Oh come on, seriously? " He yelled, "Someone turn out the freakin' lights."

Nothing happened.

He flopped down on the bed and covered his eyes with his arm.

Lilah had never gone this far before. He had been forced to go out on missions. But he had always been left to his own devices. This was the first time he had been kept a prisoner. What the hell kind of law firm kept prison cells in their facility?

And why was Tara here? Running a scam of some sort, but getting caught at it in this place could get her killed so he had to be careful what he said around her, how he acted could bring the attention of others. There was no alone time. He was required to keep the damned ear bud in place at all times.

Unfortunately, that meant listening to Lilah do business all day. Half of it had to be just for his benefit. No one was that damned evil, and did she expect him to believe that demons and vampires existed? He might be off his game but he wasn't off his rocker.

He looked over at the door hearing the keypad. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the tones. Parker was trying to teach him a few things. He figured a few more times and he would have the number sequence figured out.

He sat up as the door opened and a tray of food was set on his bed. The guard silently exited the room and closed and locked the door. Eliot picked up his food, moving it around on the plate more than anything else. He wasn't hungry. He was angry and worried about Amie and his team. Not to mention he didn't want to risk whatever they might decide to drug him with.

*Eliot* Tara's voice came over the earbud. *can't hijack the system for long so just stay quiet. Follow my lead tomorrow and don't get involved whatever you do let me handle it. Amie is being protected so you just hang in there. We'll get you out of there. Bye.* and then there was nothing but white noise and feedback.

He swore at the feedback and eventually heard Lilah's voice over the com "Someone get this thing fixed"

"Amateurs" Eliot growled, shaking his head, doing his best not to smile just in case he was being watched. "Now if someone would turn out the damned lights in here I'd like to go to sleep." He set the tray of untouched food by the door and took the ear bud out setting it on the jacket he had discarded earlier.

An hour later the lights went out. He didn't know what time it was when they came back on again but he took his cue and got up and headed into the shower. He didn't know what Tara had in mind, but he hoped it worked. The fact that she had gotten protection for Amie made it possible for him to breathe easier.

He dressed in the clothes he found waiting for him and put the earbud back in as he had been instructed to do. "Has anyone ever told you you're boring as hell?" He said as he heard Lilah droning on in his ear. Not so much to him but to the people in the room with her. He knew this was part of his so-called training. Listening to how a lawyer handled their clients. Getting used to key phrases and words but it was beginning to give him a headache.

He nodded curtly to Ms. Dunaway and ordered his coffee and breakfast brought up to his office. He knew she was anything but a secretary and took great pleasure in ordering her around. She was the gatekeeper. the one keeping him from contacting the outside world. He smiled as she glared at him and walked into his office, slamming the door on the guard once more.

Tara entered carrying his coffee and a bagel sandwich. "Now don't start on me this morning I'm not in the mood."

"Woman, is it not possible for you to get even one thing right? Take this out and bring me black coffee."

"Yesterday you took cream and sugar." She handed him a hand full of papers to put in his ever-present file.

"Yesterday I asked for cream and sugar. I didn't ask for it today. "

"What am I supposed to do with this?" She asked.

"You can wear it for all I care." He winked at her and grinned a little as she put on her best indignant face.

"Well, I never!"

"Yeah that much is obvious. You want to go get that coffee now? Black... nothing in it. At least the sandwich looks edible this time. "

*stop taking it out on the help* Lilah said in his ear.

Tara was out the door cup of coffee in hand, and an excuse to return in a few minutes. "He's an animal!" She said to Emily. "I'm never going to get anything else done with all the running around he has me do. Do you think I could use your printer while you are on break? Maybe then I can at least get one thing done before he has me on the run again. You are so lucky to be out of the secretarial pool and up here, but I don't know that I could manage to go through an entire day without busting his nose for him. "

"He's having a rough week." Emily said "And sure, you can use my desk while I'm on break. Go get his coffee, and if you spit in it trust me no one will tell." She smiled at Tara liking her. Usually, the tall leggy blondes treated her like crap. Tara was nice. She wondered if there wasn't a closet geek in there somewhere. "When you get back I can go take care of a few things anyway."

Minutes later, and after a forced apology from Eliot, at Lilah's command, Tara took her seat at the woman's computer. She plugged in a flash drive and uploaded the virus that would allow Hardison to have a back door into the system.

She printed out a file careful to leave part of that file in the garbage, and gave a clumsy attempt at erasing the file on the computer, after altering the time stamp. "Would you like to go to lunch?" She asked the woman as she returned. "I had plans to meet a friend but they had to cancel at the last minute."

"Sure. I'll have to get someone else to cover the desk but that would be great."

Tara smiled at her "I'll see you in a couple of hours."

She hoped that the team arrived on schedule. This was going to have to be played tightly to get her into position.

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Eliot looked over the pages Tara had brought him and was more confused than when he had started. Praxis was a list of traditions that made no sense to him at all, at least not outside of some tribal third-world country. But it made no sense in L.A. He shook off the confusion and looked them over in depth.

He had more than a little experience with third-world countries and how easily control could shift from one faction to another based on little more than one man's interpretation of tradition so long as he had the firepower to back it up. And as usual, Eliot was that firepower, only this time they were expecting that power to be legal and contractual.

Where Lindsey would have looked at it as a contract, looking for loopholes for his client, Eliot was looking at it trying to get a grasp of the culture he was going to be dealing with. They were tribal, feudal, and aggressive. And if he read it right, honor bound and proud. But honor meant different things to different people.

"Hey, Lilah... this isn't everything you have on this ... negotiation... McDonald did this before for them ... I need to see his notes if I'm gonna pull this off. "

* You don't need to worry about what Lindsey would have done, you just do what I tell you.* If she had wanted Lindsey McDonald's interpretations she would have arranged for him to have a short vacation back in the land of the living.

"If they've never met the guy I can pull that off but if they have I need to know what his impressions were, things they had talked about in the past. I have the guy's face but that's it. These guys will smell a switch and I get the feeling if that happens we're both dead, so how 'bout a little cooperation."

*you begin to understand the situation. Good. I'll have his files sent up for you. You have 24 hours to get ready for the first meeting. Read fast.*

Five minutes later the first box of files arrived in his office, followed by five more through the course of the morning.

As he looked over the files, he not only became more familiar with the people he would be representing but with Lindsey McDonald himself. At first, he was completely disgusted. Then he began to read between the lines, putting together things that weren't plainly said but there to be seen if you were looking. "I'll be damned."

He took out a legal pad and began to make his own notes, things that he doubted Tara had access to since these files were buried. If Lilah was about to try what he thought she was, he had to find a way to stop her. And the only way to do that was to stay put.