December posting 12: The Veneer Job, HL/Leverage/Undercover Blues
WIP! Um. Yeah. I got nothing, folks. Well, okay, I have one more chapter that isn't quite done and I know the final scene. I just have to figure out how this gets worse. (Yeah. Really. Y'all have seen Leverage, right?)
For Talitha 78, who asked for Matthew McCormick and Leverage a couple years ago!
Anyway. At the AO3 here, or enjoy the fic here under the cut! This will get finished, by the way. I just don't know when.
The Veneer Job
"Oh, hell no!" Hardison came up off the sofa, shaking the game controller in his hand for emphasis. "No, Nate. Y'all can work with the man, but I will be in the van or back here, and you will not bring 'Special Agent' McCormick back. Not just no, but hell to the no, and am I getting through to you yet?"
Nate first lifted an eyebrow, then his glass -- soda in the whisky at least -- and asked, "What did he do to you?"
"He's dangerous," Eliot said unexpectedly, while Hardison nodded vehemently and pointed at him, in 'See, what'd I say?' mode. Eliot sat up, smoothing his ponytail back over the collar of his flannel shirt. "Man hunts the psychos, he kinda has to be tough. But hand to hand, stick fighting, you name it -- McCormick's got a serious rep in the dojos."
"Damn right he does," Hardison agreed.
"He took my pretty bank notes away," Parker said unexpectedly from the kitchen. "He wasn't nearly cute enough for that."
"Hey, hey, can we focus on work here?" Hardison said indignantly. "The man is not cute, thank you--"
"Not even," Parker agreed as she came back with a bowl of Eliot's homemade granola in her hand. "That was half a million in unmarked bills." She looked cranky and sounded like someone had kicked her pet rabbit. Kinda scary.
Nate's face tried to freeze as he turned to look at her; he also took another sip from his whisky. "Parker? Who did you steal that from?"
Parker waved it off. "He blamed someone else." She gave Hardison a curious look. "When did he stop you?"
"He didn't, and I am keeping it that way." Hardison's indignation lasted even through four puzzled looks.
"Really, Alec, that's awfully vehement," Sophie began, giving him a solicitous look.
Nate contemplated her over his glass and asked unexpectedly, "Uh-huh. What'd he do to you, Sophie?"
Sophie stared at him. "I was talking to Alec."
"With that special soothing, 'don't look at me' voice," Nate said flatly. "If you've all got a problem with McCormick, I need to know."
"He's okay," Parker said helpfully. "He won't take lots of shiny money away this time."
"I'm cool with it." Eliot shrugged. "The man's law, but he ain't bent."
"I have a problem with it," Hardison said indignantly. "I am not getting shot down in my prime for hacking while brown!"
Eliot leaned back, crossing his arms, and frowned -- not at Hardison. "What do you know that we don't?"
"Hello? We are talking the same man who led the manhunt that shot Carl Robinson to bloody ribbons?" Hardison snorted. "Seventeen million in the bank and the politicians looking at him to run for governor and we're supposed to believe Robinson lost it and killed a man with a sword? I mean, if you're gonna do a frame, make it believable. A baseball bat, maybe, or hell a baseball to the skull. A sword? The hell. Unbelievable and unprofessional. And have you heard McCormick or looked at his background?"
Eliot nodded. "Yeah, I have." He relaxed a little and leaned in for his beer. "I've seen the tapes, Hardison. Crap quality, but yeah. McCormick tried to get Robinson to come in. Took along some civilian friend to try and talk to him, asked Robinson to put the gun down two, three times. Guy walks into a twenty man-wide line of cops and then points a shotgun at 'em.... I'm sorry, man. That's suicide by cop."
Sophie blinked. "And criminally foolish. Seventeen million can buy some very good lawyers -- or jailbreaks."
Parker nodded. "I'd do it for a lot less." She leaned back, smiling a little, probably already plotting how to break out a man almost a foot taller and easily a hundred pounds heavier.
Hardison just said, "There's tapes?"
Eliot shrugged. "They're never gonna put the tapes online, Hardison, but the locals took cameras, just in case. FBI ain't completely stupid, especially after the Rodney King riots. They were sending a white agent after a black major league athlete and rising political star, y'know? I broke in once, watched the tapes, came out and reported to my bosses. McCormick tried."
"I could steal the tapes, Hardison?" Parker offered. "If you need to see them?"
"Nah, I'm good, Parker, thanks," Hardison said absently. "Eliot saw it; that's enough. Thanks, man." He looked up at Nate. "I still don't want to work with McCormick if I don't have to."
Nate nodded at that. "I'd rather keep you away from him. He's never met you, and might not know about you. And he won't want to know what you're doing." His mouth quirked a little, as much apology as Hardison would get and as much thanks, too, for agreeing to work with the man.
"Does he know you?" Parker asked Nate curiously, scooting the granola in arm's reach of Eliot now that she'd had as much as she wanted. He promptly took a handful.
Nate nodded. "We met a few times in my last job. He may've heard I was in jail, too. We'll have to risk it." Nate glanced around to make sure no one else was going to object then clapped his hands together, rubbed them briskly, and stood up. "Right. Let's go steal an FBI agent."
# # #
Matthew McCormick rolled his neck right then left, grimaced at the noises his vertebrae made, and stood up and walked away from his computer. Five minutes of work straightened up the pizza box and beer bottle and brought iced tea back to the office. He glanced at his system (still working, still no results) and ignored it to tidy the place up some more. Towels and sheets dumped into baskets, bed remade, new towels out and a mental note that he needed to catch up on laundry on his next free night.
He checked his computer again, found no new results that looked remotely helpful, changed the search parameters and set it running again. He was going through his pantry and fridge to make a shopping list when that one hinge in the back door squeaked.
Matthew threw the plastic bin of flour at the door. Without looking to see what it had hit, he lunged for the living room, intent on getting out the front door rather than heading for the knife block.
The invader tackled him in the entryway, rattling the pictures on the wall. Flour puffed up around them, and they both ignored it. Matthew got enough of a look at him for an identikit later but he was much too busy to try to remember if he'd seen this man before -- mortal and an excellent fighter, quick, strong, and grinning from battle adrenaline. The narrow hallway cramped both of them, left it a close-in mêlée of fists, elbows and knees, strikes, blocks, and no maneuvering.
The man was far too good to take out in these confines.
The front door opened behind him. Matthew snarled, soaked up a hit on hip instead of gut and used a strike his opponent hadn't thought would land to get a lock on the man's arm. The joint lock didn't hold long but it was enough to let Matthew throw the man past him at whoever'd come in. It cost Matthew four pictures swept off the wall in a clatter and cascade of shattering glass, but he got his pistol out just as a light, curious female voice spoke up from behind him.
"Hey, guys, he's got blades everywhere. This one's really pretty." She sounded… cheerful?
"I can shoot both of them before you can kill me with that," Matthew said as levelly as he could, breath still heaving in and out of his lungs. Three now, two female, one male (his mind was making notes of height, weight, coloring, bearing, the accent from behind him), and he held the gun steady, hoping like hell she didn't know what to do with one of his blades. How the devil had she gotten any of them off the walls?
"I'll be really upset if you do." It was a flat warning, not a threat. Odd.
The woman in front of him he recognized: Sophie Devereaux, among other names. She frowned at her companion. "Weren't we supposed to try talking first?"
The man (five foot ten, one hundred eighty-five pounds, shoulder-length light brown hair, blue eyes, scar over his upper lip, fair skin, wrestler's shoulders) shrugged, "No one told him that. And the hinges on the back door only squeak when you close it." His attention hadn't shifted much from Matthew during the explanation and it came back in full as he added, "Nice. How'd you get it to do that?"
Matthew added Southern accent to the list -- north Texas or northwest Arkansas, maybe. "No comment. No, Ms. Devereaux, I'm afraid they didn't mention any such thing. You're all breaking and entering and I can't say I'm taking it well."
"And playing with swords," the woman behind him added helpfully.
The Southerner looked past Matthew and his eyes widened covetously before his skin paled. "How about you let me past and I take that away from her?"
"Can't say I'm inclined to let the trained fighter get behind me with live steel," Matthew drawled. He still had the gun level and was working on breathing through the adrenaline. Guns were lighter than swords; his never wavered. "So you're supposed to talk to me? Come to try and sell me a story, Ms. Devereaux?"
A fourth voice cut in from behind them: male, educated, sardonic, upper East Coast accent maybe. National broadcast television really was damnable in its effects on regional accents. Worse the voice was faintly familiar. "Well, talking was the plan, Agent McCormick. I know we've kind of made a mess here -- flour?" Their fighter shrugged a little, a clear Not my fault. "And glass. Right. How about we put the sword back, you put your gun up, and we all sit down and talk this over?"
Matthew said very mildly, "So long as he sits on the inside of the table -- by the window, thanks -- we can do that."
"We actually are here on the side of the angels, Matthew," Devereaux said lazily in that annoying, faintly superior tone that meant she was planning something.
"Just this once, I'm sure," he said dryly, then frowned when that hit a nerve he hadn't thought she had. She glared at him, aware he'd broken her skin and Matthew exhaled slowly. "Well, well. All right, then. Temporary truce it is. Watch for the glass shards, and kindly don't step on the pictures."
The fighter crouched and started piling them neatly out of the way. "Sorry, man. We did come to talk but I couldn't let you run, either."
Matthew snorted. "You broke in after nine at night and thought it would go well? And here I took you for a professional."
"Yeah, well, we weren't gonna try for you after you'd gone to bed. You'd sit up and shoot someone before you were awake." He moved the pictures to one side. "Sure. Inside of the table it is." A smile kept tugging at the corners of his mouth, probably from the fight.
The sarcastic voice from behind said, "And the saber's back on the wall. Should you keep your blades this sharp?"
"That's no business of yours. There's a first aid kit in the kitchen should you need it," Matthew drawled, holstering his gun and putting his back against the entry wall to watch the fighter go past him towards the kitchen. Devereaux followed him, hips swaying in that tight skirt -- it reminded him of Amanda; Matthew suspected that the two shared a surname deliberately -- and Matthew turned to the night's next surprises.
"Good God," he said and rubbed some of the tension out of his eyes before rumpling back his hair (and a dusting of flour). "Parker. That explains-- Damnation. Let's be clear, shall we? If you take any of my blades, at any time, I will take the matter personally, and I will hunt you down to recover them. Do you understand me?"
"But they're shiny," she said cheerfully.
"So are your lock picks, ma'am, and you'd like my taking them about as well," Matthew said flatly.
Parker's eyes narrowed at the thought. Then she got the comparison, which surprised Matthew; he'd expected to first have to explain it, then discuss it. "Oh. Fine. I won't. Unless you have any good knives? About so long?" She started measuring out what she needed with her hands, then the dirty look from Matthew and her fighting friend sank in. "You're still no fun. We are, though. We brought you something you want to help with."
"Did you?" Matthew looked over at the last man and raised an eyebrow as that faintly familiar voice registered at last. "Nathan Ford. Formerly of IYS, latterly of the federal incarceration system. You surely annoyed the agent-in-charge on that case. But then, she just as surely bungled that case to a fare-thee-well. I was surprised to hear you lost the trial."
Ford smiled a little and waved a hand towards the kitchen. "Yeah, well, that's because these are my people. She had to leave them out of things. So will you."
Matthew considered the mix of people, eyes barely hesitating on a glint of light in two ears. He chuckled despite himself. "Oh, odds are quite good I will, if only to hear this story." He crossed the kitchen to turn on the kettle and start pulling out glasses, teacups, and saucers. "The hell with it. Drinks? I'm offering tea, decaf coffee, milk, or juice."
"Juice," Parker said happily and came to raid.
"Coffee," Ford said, bemused. "I'd have sworn you wouldn't offer us any hospitality."
Matthew said mildly, "You, sir, have listened to too many reporters and not nearly enough of my fellow agents. Ms. Devereaux? And do tell me--" she shot him a look simultaneously annoyed and worried, "--that you aren't currently in league with the other Ms. Devereaux?"
She relaxed a little at that. "Tea for me, please. You make it properly." Matthew couldn't take offense at that, since he was warming the pot as she said it.
"Real tea?" The shooter looked interested. "Yeah, me too. Where's your broom?"
Matthew shook his head, amused. "Do we have a truce then?"
"For now, sure." He followed the indicated motion and retrieved broom and dustpan. "Besides, flour makes a damn mess."
"So it does. You, I don't know." Matthew filled the coffeemaker with decaf and flipped it on. When he turned back, Parker was happily drinking his grapefruit juice straight out of the bottle. "Glasses are in the cabinet over the dishwasher, Parker."
"It's good this way." She perched on the table, still drinking. "Your attic vents need better security."
"I'll see to that, thank you." Matthew glanced at Devereaux. "I meant it. Are you working with Amanda?"
"Why would I do that? And is she using the name lately? I haven't seen Amanda in, oh, four years now. I was starting to wonder if she'd retired. And try 'Sophie,' Matthew," she said sweetly. "Ms. Devereaux is going to get very tiring and it's already late for you."
Ford was already over pouring himself a whisky, which Matthew hadn't offered. He hadn't found the good single malt at least. "So, you know everybody except Eliot?"
"Hey, wait." Parker put the juice down. "She's Ms. Devereaux. Why am I just Parker?"
Matthew shrugged. "Partly because I've no idea if Parker is your first name or last, and mostly because you'd only be annoyed if I got it wrong."
"Oh. Okay." Parker shrugged and stood up to walk along the countertop, examining cabinet contents.
"And he's trying to annoy me with that 'Ms.', Parker," Devereaux added.
"Oh, I assure you, you'll know when I'm trying to annoy you, Sophie." Matthew poured hot water over the tea leaves and brought the pot to the table with the strainer. "And you're quite right -- it is late for me. What can I do for you?"
Ford sat down at the head of the table and waited for Matthew's lifted eyebrow before he moved to another chair. "Yeah, pardon me. Long day here too."
"Says the night owl," Matthew drawled and took his seat, glancing over to watch Sophie raid his refrigerator, probably gauging his mood and work level from the contents. "What 'fun' are you bringing me?"
"You're on mandatory rotation out from profiling," Ford started.
"So I am," Matthew agreed lazily. "I can't rotate back to NCAVC or teaching profiling for another six months, regardless of my wishes or their needs. Something about not burning us out. Your point?"
"And you're back with D.C. White Collar Crimes again?"
Matthew nodded. "I am. I can't imagine you broke in here just to confirm that, however. You were always better prepared than that." He leaned back and took the tea cup Sophie passed to him.
"Milk? Lemon? Sugar?" she asked sweetly.
Parker prowled over to sit next to Ford, tugging the sugar bowl towards her to investigate the contents.
"Milk, thank you." Matthew considered Sophie very thoughtfully. "Interesting. You aren't trying to con me yet."
Eliot dumped the spilled flour into the trash can and came back, dusting his hands off. "Yeah, she said it'd just piss you off."
Matthew chuckled and indicated the teapot. "Assam tea, sir. Hope that's all right. Lemons in the fridge, top drawer, if you want some. There's sugar on the table if Parker hasn't used it all yet."
Eliot snagged a packet of raw sugar out of the house she was building without toppling it. "No problem."
Ford said patiently enough, "What would you say if I told you that someone's planning a job at the National Portrait Gallery?"
Matthew frowned. "I'd ask why these three are helping you blow another thief's job."
Sophie brought back the milk and lemon and a packet of cookies Matthew had forgotten he had. She nibbled daintily on a shortbread before she said, "Well, you see, they annoyed us."
"Ms. Devereaux, I've seen you get irritated from someone using the wrong name to you in public," Matthew said mildly. "Kindly define 'annoyed.'"
She turned back from watching Parker carefully removing packets from the center of her structure. "Some people just don't appreciate art." Her voice hardened to the cold steel Matthew already knew made up her spine. "And it's wasteful to go breaking artists, especially ones who've done the job they were hired for. Done it superbly."
"You've seen the art?" Matthew asked, sitting a little straighter.
"We've seen the preliminary sketches." Ford's mouth was a little tight. "And the artist."
"Forger?" Matthew asked mildly. He nodded, however. "How badly is he or she hurt?"
"His hands are okay," Eliot said. "But both wrists are broken, both shoulders dislocated." He shrugged, but his eyes were angry. "Then they did the skull trauma. He's alive because he's got thick hair."
Matthew nodded, thoughtful. "They may've been willing to do time for assault but not for murder one. So you recognized the sketches?"
Motion at the back door drew the attention of every person in the room; Matthew signaled a 'stay put' as he recognized the teenager coming in.
"The lights were on, so--" She was a tall, honey-blond girl just starting to settle into some of her mother's beauty; she'd gotten her height from both parents, but she'd also gotten enough training that she was already comfortable with that. Jane Louise Blue looked up, startled, before her eyes narrowed at the sight of Eliot. She also dropped into a defensive stance. "Oh, come on. You are complete overkill, Spencer. I'm not even late yet."
"Ah, hell, kid," Spencer said, his hands coming up to show they were empty. "I ain't here for you."
So that was Eliot Spencer? Interesting. Matthew just said mildly, "They're here to see me, Jane Louise, not to bother you. Been dodging your minders again?"
"Good," she said and straightened up, ignoring Matthew's question, which he had to admit was pretty much a formality. She always evaded her keepers. Jane Louise nodded to Eliot, frowned a little at Parker and Sophie, and studied Nate every bit as blatantly as he was studying her.
Nate refilled his glass and said equally mildly, "Tomorrow might be a little late to wait on our matter, I'm afraid."
Matthew nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, Jane Louis and I likely feel the same way, seeing as she's here near her curfew. Do you need a ride home, cub?"
Jane Louise pushed her hair back behind her ears with a gesture of her mother's and went to raid the refrigerator. "You need to go shopping, again. And there's always the chance we're here about the same thing. If he's really here for something that important, anyway." She was blatantly fishing, but Matthew knew how insane matters could get around her family. She might not be wrong.
Eliot did have some history with her, apparently. He glanced up, appraising her, then said, "There's a chance, yeah. You know any reason--"
"Eliot." Sophie tried to interrupt but let him override her; she and Ford both looked too distracted to argue properly. Parker just looked amused and kept playing with her sugar packets… and one of Matthew's knives.
Matthew reached over and took his blade back, not even bothering to glare at Parker. So far as he'd ever been able to figure it out, she truly didn't notice when she was lifting items. She was far worse than Amanda or Cory about that.
Eliot shook his head. "Sophie. She's named after her mama. This is Jane Louise Blue, despair of baby field agents across the East Coast."
Even Nate blinked at that. Jane just said, "If they'd either quit following me or get good at it, it wouldn't be a problem." She sat down with a small glass of apple juice and promised Matthew, "I left you half for breakfast. So what are you guys working on?"
Nate raised an eyebrow at Eliot, got an exasperated look in return, and shrugged. "All right. We'll try this. Do you know any reason someone would be trying to steal paintings of American actors, musicians, singers, and composers from the National Portrait Gallery?"
Jane Louise turned a questioning look on Matthew. "And you're… okay, that makes sense. Can I tell them anything?"
Matthew said thoughtfully, "Let's find out." One hand still cradling his cup, Matthew turned to look at Eliot. "Who hired you to bring her home?"
Eliot grinned as he poured himself more tea. "Her mama. Her daddy's a little crazy even for me."
Jane Louise tried to make a disapproving noise, but it got lost in the giggle. "That's what he says about you."
Sophie was trying not to smile, but her eyes were laughing. Eliot just looked amused. "Yeah, he would. That help any, McCormick?"
"Only in worrying me," Matthew said mildly. "Jane Louise, would you call and ask your parents if the National Portrait Gallery could possibly be involved in that research problem your mother so kindly landed on me?"
Jane Louise had gone straight from smiling to worried. "Uncle Matthew," Matthew upgraded 'worried' to outright frightened if she was calling him uncle again, much less in front of strangers, "Mom was there tonight. She might still be. How bad is this?"
Two hours past closing time and the museum currently the focus of the head of one of the agencies whose initials never made the light of day? Matthew said calmly, "It could be bad enough. Call your father and give me the phone. Eliot, do you drive the way you fight?"
"Better me than Sophie or Parker," he said flatly; to Matthew's pleased surprise his team was standing up instead of arguing. Good. He didn't have time, and he'd prefer competent backup. "What's wrong?"
"Let's hope I am," Matthew said equally flatly. "There’s a good chance that whoever's behind this isn’t stealing art. They may be smuggling frames into the museum."
# # #
Jane Louise glared at them from the sidewalk in front of a store front calling itself Baron Saturday's. The name alone told Eliot not to mess with it, but Jane Louise was acting like it was her favorite after-school hangout. "Okay, two cars would spook anyone doing surveillance, but--"
McCormick managed to sound firm and reasonable at the same time, to Eliot's amusement. "If you so much as got scratched, cub, your parents would tag-team me into the ICU. No. Stay here with Ms. Devereaux, pass me any intel you two figure out, and try not to pick up too many bad habits from her until your father can tell you which parts to ignore."
Jane Louise looked from McCormick to Eliot, sighed, and nodded. "Right. If either of my parents calls me back, I'll let you know that too. Break someone else's leg."
Eliot grinned at her. "We'll do our best, sweetheart." He watched her fall in beside Sophie (on the left, next to the comm she had managed to notice; Hardison'd be annoyed about that later) and headed them back into the late night traffic.
Nate asked, "Why would someone smuggle frames into the museum, and why this weekend?"
McCormick said, "Parts of this I cannot address, Mr. Ford. That said, hypothetically speaking, I might have been saddled with a job I'm not allowed to discuss with my own Assistant Director, looking for some very powerful and almost equally unstable explosives."
Hardison spoke into their comms, his chair squeaking in the background as he moved - probably sitting up finally instead of sprawling everywhere. "Someone get me a name on that explosive and I will start trawling for gossip, 'cause you know someone somewhere just gonna have to brag about their boom-stick."
Eliot cursed. "You said you were doing a job for Jane Blue."
"If I were doing a job for either of the Blues," McCormick said, "I surely wouldn't have mentioned explosives and Paulina Novacek."
"Fuck." Eliot sped up; traffic was light.
"Eliot, translate for the rest of us?" Nate prompted.
"Novacek headed up the Czech secret police for twelve years, Nate. In '91, she bailed out ahead of a firing squad and set up shop doing freelance arms dealing, assassinations, and kidnapping. Somebody brought her in back in '92 -- word has it, Jeff and Jane Blue did that -- and she got shipped back to Czechoslovakia to face charges. Problem is, she squirmed out of getting shot -- they were trying to impress the West -- and landed in prison. Inside eight, ten years -- rumor changes depending on the source -- some of the Czech government decided the Russian mafia was enough trouble they needed her back."
McCormick nodded. "Eight years. Two years later, her MO was too clear on a few jobs to hold to the story that she was still in prison."
"Yeah, well, she's smart, sneaky, and word is, don't ever work for her: people who do, either get screwed on the pay--"
"Much like your forger," McCormick cut in.
"Or you end up floating down a river. If you're lucky." Eliot knew stories of guys who hadn't been that lucky.
"I'm on it," Hardison said, keyboard clattering in the background. "Pulling Czech and Czech-friendly passports now and hunting a picture of the woman to run through facial recognition."
McCormick added the last piece of bad news. "And yes. The Blues were responsible for Novacek landing in prison."
Nate nodded. "So, you're thinking the frames are full of your explosive, McCormick?"
"Why did you come to me about a forger, Mr. Ford? And the explosive in question is damnably unstable. Any earthquake over a 4.4 might set it off."
"That's worse than nitro," Eliot said bluntly. "Yeah, Novacek's crazy enough to play with that. She loves explosions. Liquid, solid, powder, what're we dealing with? What kind of detonator?"
McCormick pulled his phone out, saying, "It's a moldable solid somewhere between hard clay and cake frosting. Standard cap fuse will detonate it; electricity won't."
Eliot accelerated through a yellow light that held long enough for them. "You're saying C-30 isn't a rumor and you think there's some headed to the National Portrait Gallery."
McCormick said calmly, "If the police pull you over, let me deal with it. And I can't confirm anything about C-30, Mr. Spencer."
Eliot snorted, "Hell, man, word in Eastern Europe was that Novacek had her hands on C-22 for a while, which was more stable than this stuff is." McCormick had his phone out and was typing in some quick message. Eliot couldn't take his eye off the road to see it.
Sophie cut in over the comms. "Nate, Novacek is vain, arrogant, and treacherous. She will negotiate, but she'll be doing it to maneuver you into a better shooting position."
"Ah. Is she actually sharp?" Nate wanted to know.
"She's very smart, Mr. Ford," Jane Louise said seriously. "She's also insane, Dad says. He says not crazy, not skewed, not eccentric - insane."
"Yeah, well, your daddy'd know," Eliot muttered, then repeated for McCormick. "Apparently Jeff Blue says Novacek is insane."
"Simplified, but yes," McCormick agreed. "Fractured enough to go from coy to murderous in a heartbeat and back again, with the heart of a scorpion under that. She’ll sting you just because you’re there and she can. There's no chance of getting Jane Louise away from the comm, I take it?"
"What do you think? She's busy learning from Sophie and you know we're both gonna hear about that," Eliot muttered.
Matthew sighed. "So we are. Jane broke her left arm recently, by the way. Don't let her hit you with that fist; I don't think the arm should really be out of the cast yet."
"Got it," Eliot agreed, ignoring the disbelieving noise Hardison made.
Hardison said, "C-30, Eliot? Seriously, man? The conspiracy sites on this make tin-hats look tame. That stuff's supposed to be twelve times as strong as C-4, easily molded, no odor."
Eliot nodded and pulled over a block away from the National Portrait Gallery. "Mostly sounds right. Any word on who's got it, a bidding game for it, anything?"
"No buzz on C-30, but I'm hunting for that specifically now," Hardison said. His laptop keys sounded like a bad hailstorm; this wasn't one of the times where that was reassuring. "By the way, I got nothing on Novacek. I got some Czech passports - I'm sending pictures to your phone - and a couple Ukraine and Georgian passports that look hinky, but… Hell. I hate to say it, but ask McCormick for her aliases, whatever he can tell us."
Nate sighed and handed over a comm. "McCormick, here, put this in. And ignore the man behind the curtain."
"Surely. However you haven't told me why you came to me?" McCormick put the comm in without having to ask how to use it.
"Because three of us knew you, knew you were honest enough, and you're White Collar, so you'd have heard the art news."
"'Honest enough,' hmm?" McCormick shrugged. "That'll do. What can I do for you, Wizard?"
"Hell, you even get our jokes," Hardison complained softly.
"It is an old one," McCormick pointed out. "And you-- Jane says yes, she's still at the Portrait Gallery and will we kindly not let Jane Louise run wild. She thinks you're a target, cub, so stay with Sophie until someone safe collects you. Take the next left, Mr. Spencer, and pull up in two blocks."
Nate huffed a sigh behind them, but Eliot knew better. Nate was crazy enough to be looking forward to crossing words with Jane Blue.
# # #
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Given the new LJ 'design' decisions, please comment on DW if you can.
For Talitha 78, who asked for Matthew McCormick and Leverage a couple years ago!
Anyway. At the AO3 here, or enjoy the fic here under the cut! This will get finished, by the way. I just don't know when.
The Veneer Job
"Oh, hell no!" Hardison came up off the sofa, shaking the game controller in his hand for emphasis. "No, Nate. Y'all can work with the man, but I will be in the van or back here, and you will not bring 'Special Agent' McCormick back. Not just no, but hell to the no, and am I getting through to you yet?"
Nate first lifted an eyebrow, then his glass -- soda in the whisky at least -- and asked, "What did he do to you?"
"He's dangerous," Eliot said unexpectedly, while Hardison nodded vehemently and pointed at him, in 'See, what'd I say?' mode. Eliot sat up, smoothing his ponytail back over the collar of his flannel shirt. "Man hunts the psychos, he kinda has to be tough. But hand to hand, stick fighting, you name it -- McCormick's got a serious rep in the dojos."
"Damn right he does," Hardison agreed.
"He took my pretty bank notes away," Parker said unexpectedly from the kitchen. "He wasn't nearly cute enough for that."
"Hey, hey, can we focus on work here?" Hardison said indignantly. "The man is not cute, thank you--"
"Not even," Parker agreed as she came back with a bowl of Eliot's homemade granola in her hand. "That was half a million in unmarked bills." She looked cranky and sounded like someone had kicked her pet rabbit. Kinda scary.
Nate's face tried to freeze as he turned to look at her; he also took another sip from his whisky. "Parker? Who did you steal that from?"
Parker waved it off. "He blamed someone else." She gave Hardison a curious look. "When did he stop you?"
"He didn't, and I am keeping it that way." Hardison's indignation lasted even through four puzzled looks.
"Really, Alec, that's awfully vehement," Sophie began, giving him a solicitous look.
Nate contemplated her over his glass and asked unexpectedly, "Uh-huh. What'd he do to you, Sophie?"
Sophie stared at him. "I was talking to Alec."
"With that special soothing, 'don't look at me' voice," Nate said flatly. "If you've all got a problem with McCormick, I need to know."
"He's okay," Parker said helpfully. "He won't take lots of shiny money away this time."
"I'm cool with it." Eliot shrugged. "The man's law, but he ain't bent."
"I have a problem with it," Hardison said indignantly. "I am not getting shot down in my prime for hacking while brown!"
Eliot leaned back, crossing his arms, and frowned -- not at Hardison. "What do you know that we don't?"
"Hello? We are talking the same man who led the manhunt that shot Carl Robinson to bloody ribbons?" Hardison snorted. "Seventeen million in the bank and the politicians looking at him to run for governor and we're supposed to believe Robinson lost it and killed a man with a sword? I mean, if you're gonna do a frame, make it believable. A baseball bat, maybe, or hell a baseball to the skull. A sword? The hell. Unbelievable and unprofessional. And have you heard McCormick or looked at his background?"
Eliot nodded. "Yeah, I have." He relaxed a little and leaned in for his beer. "I've seen the tapes, Hardison. Crap quality, but yeah. McCormick tried to get Robinson to come in. Took along some civilian friend to try and talk to him, asked Robinson to put the gun down two, three times. Guy walks into a twenty man-wide line of cops and then points a shotgun at 'em.... I'm sorry, man. That's suicide by cop."
Sophie blinked. "And criminally foolish. Seventeen million can buy some very good lawyers -- or jailbreaks."
Parker nodded. "I'd do it for a lot less." She leaned back, smiling a little, probably already plotting how to break out a man almost a foot taller and easily a hundred pounds heavier.
Hardison just said, "There's tapes?"
Eliot shrugged. "They're never gonna put the tapes online, Hardison, but the locals took cameras, just in case. FBI ain't completely stupid, especially after the Rodney King riots. They were sending a white agent after a black major league athlete and rising political star, y'know? I broke in once, watched the tapes, came out and reported to my bosses. McCormick tried."
"I could steal the tapes, Hardison?" Parker offered. "If you need to see them?"
"Nah, I'm good, Parker, thanks," Hardison said absently. "Eliot saw it; that's enough. Thanks, man." He looked up at Nate. "I still don't want to work with McCormick if I don't have to."
Nate nodded at that. "I'd rather keep you away from him. He's never met you, and might not know about you. And he won't want to know what you're doing." His mouth quirked a little, as much apology as Hardison would get and as much thanks, too, for agreeing to work with the man.
"Does he know you?" Parker asked Nate curiously, scooting the granola in arm's reach of Eliot now that she'd had as much as she wanted. He promptly took a handful.
Nate nodded. "We met a few times in my last job. He may've heard I was in jail, too. We'll have to risk it." Nate glanced around to make sure no one else was going to object then clapped his hands together, rubbed them briskly, and stood up. "Right. Let's go steal an FBI agent."
# # #
Matthew McCormick rolled his neck right then left, grimaced at the noises his vertebrae made, and stood up and walked away from his computer. Five minutes of work straightened up the pizza box and beer bottle and brought iced tea back to the office. He glanced at his system (still working, still no results) and ignored it to tidy the place up some more. Towels and sheets dumped into baskets, bed remade, new towels out and a mental note that he needed to catch up on laundry on his next free night.
He checked his computer again, found no new results that looked remotely helpful, changed the search parameters and set it running again. He was going through his pantry and fridge to make a shopping list when that one hinge in the back door squeaked.
Matthew threw the plastic bin of flour at the door. Without looking to see what it had hit, he lunged for the living room, intent on getting out the front door rather than heading for the knife block.
The invader tackled him in the entryway, rattling the pictures on the wall. Flour puffed up around them, and they both ignored it. Matthew got enough of a look at him for an identikit later but he was much too busy to try to remember if he'd seen this man before -- mortal and an excellent fighter, quick, strong, and grinning from battle adrenaline. The narrow hallway cramped both of them, left it a close-in mêlée of fists, elbows and knees, strikes, blocks, and no maneuvering.
The man was far too good to take out in these confines.
The front door opened behind him. Matthew snarled, soaked up a hit on hip instead of gut and used a strike his opponent hadn't thought would land to get a lock on the man's arm. The joint lock didn't hold long but it was enough to let Matthew throw the man past him at whoever'd come in. It cost Matthew four pictures swept off the wall in a clatter and cascade of shattering glass, but he got his pistol out just as a light, curious female voice spoke up from behind him.
"Hey, guys, he's got blades everywhere. This one's really pretty." She sounded… cheerful?
"I can shoot both of them before you can kill me with that," Matthew said as levelly as he could, breath still heaving in and out of his lungs. Three now, two female, one male (his mind was making notes of height, weight, coloring, bearing, the accent from behind him), and he held the gun steady, hoping like hell she didn't know what to do with one of his blades. How the devil had she gotten any of them off the walls?
"I'll be really upset if you do." It was a flat warning, not a threat. Odd.
The woman in front of him he recognized: Sophie Devereaux, among other names. She frowned at her companion. "Weren't we supposed to try talking first?"
The man (five foot ten, one hundred eighty-five pounds, shoulder-length light brown hair, blue eyes, scar over his upper lip, fair skin, wrestler's shoulders) shrugged, "No one told him that. And the hinges on the back door only squeak when you close it." His attention hadn't shifted much from Matthew during the explanation and it came back in full as he added, "Nice. How'd you get it to do that?"
Matthew added Southern accent to the list -- north Texas or northwest Arkansas, maybe. "No comment. No, Ms. Devereaux, I'm afraid they didn't mention any such thing. You're all breaking and entering and I can't say I'm taking it well."
"And playing with swords," the woman behind him added helpfully.
The Southerner looked past Matthew and his eyes widened covetously before his skin paled. "How about you let me past and I take that away from her?"
"Can't say I'm inclined to let the trained fighter get behind me with live steel," Matthew drawled. He still had the gun level and was working on breathing through the adrenaline. Guns were lighter than swords; his never wavered. "So you're supposed to talk to me? Come to try and sell me a story, Ms. Devereaux?"
A fourth voice cut in from behind them: male, educated, sardonic, upper East Coast accent maybe. National broadcast television really was damnable in its effects on regional accents. Worse the voice was faintly familiar. "Well, talking was the plan, Agent McCormick. I know we've kind of made a mess here -- flour?" Their fighter shrugged a little, a clear Not my fault. "And glass. Right. How about we put the sword back, you put your gun up, and we all sit down and talk this over?"
Matthew said very mildly, "So long as he sits on the inside of the table -- by the window, thanks -- we can do that."
"We actually are here on the side of the angels, Matthew," Devereaux said lazily in that annoying, faintly superior tone that meant she was planning something.
"Just this once, I'm sure," he said dryly, then frowned when that hit a nerve he hadn't thought she had. She glared at him, aware he'd broken her skin and Matthew exhaled slowly. "Well, well. All right, then. Temporary truce it is. Watch for the glass shards, and kindly don't step on the pictures."
The fighter crouched and started piling them neatly out of the way. "Sorry, man. We did come to talk but I couldn't let you run, either."
Matthew snorted. "You broke in after nine at night and thought it would go well? And here I took you for a professional."
"Yeah, well, we weren't gonna try for you after you'd gone to bed. You'd sit up and shoot someone before you were awake." He moved the pictures to one side. "Sure. Inside of the table it is." A smile kept tugging at the corners of his mouth, probably from the fight.
The sarcastic voice from behind said, "And the saber's back on the wall. Should you keep your blades this sharp?"
"That's no business of yours. There's a first aid kit in the kitchen should you need it," Matthew drawled, holstering his gun and putting his back against the entry wall to watch the fighter go past him towards the kitchen. Devereaux followed him, hips swaying in that tight skirt -- it reminded him of Amanda; Matthew suspected that the two shared a surname deliberately -- and Matthew turned to the night's next surprises.
"Good God," he said and rubbed some of the tension out of his eyes before rumpling back his hair (and a dusting of flour). "Parker. That explains-- Damnation. Let's be clear, shall we? If you take any of my blades, at any time, I will take the matter personally, and I will hunt you down to recover them. Do you understand me?"
"But they're shiny," she said cheerfully.
"So are your lock picks, ma'am, and you'd like my taking them about as well," Matthew said flatly.
Parker's eyes narrowed at the thought. Then she got the comparison, which surprised Matthew; he'd expected to first have to explain it, then discuss it. "Oh. Fine. I won't. Unless you have any good knives? About so long?" She started measuring out what she needed with her hands, then the dirty look from Matthew and her fighting friend sank in. "You're still no fun. We are, though. We brought you something you want to help with."
"Did you?" Matthew looked over at the last man and raised an eyebrow as that faintly familiar voice registered at last. "Nathan Ford. Formerly of IYS, latterly of the federal incarceration system. You surely annoyed the agent-in-charge on that case. But then, she just as surely bungled that case to a fare-thee-well. I was surprised to hear you lost the trial."
Ford smiled a little and waved a hand towards the kitchen. "Yeah, well, that's because these are my people. She had to leave them out of things. So will you."
Matthew considered the mix of people, eyes barely hesitating on a glint of light in two ears. He chuckled despite himself. "Oh, odds are quite good I will, if only to hear this story." He crossed the kitchen to turn on the kettle and start pulling out glasses, teacups, and saucers. "The hell with it. Drinks? I'm offering tea, decaf coffee, milk, or juice."
"Juice," Parker said happily and came to raid.
"Coffee," Ford said, bemused. "I'd have sworn you wouldn't offer us any hospitality."
Matthew said mildly, "You, sir, have listened to too many reporters and not nearly enough of my fellow agents. Ms. Devereaux? And do tell me--" she shot him a look simultaneously annoyed and worried, "--that you aren't currently in league with the other Ms. Devereaux?"
She relaxed a little at that. "Tea for me, please. You make it properly." Matthew couldn't take offense at that, since he was warming the pot as she said it.
"Real tea?" The shooter looked interested. "Yeah, me too. Where's your broom?"
Matthew shook his head, amused. "Do we have a truce then?"
"For now, sure." He followed the indicated motion and retrieved broom and dustpan. "Besides, flour makes a damn mess."
"So it does. You, I don't know." Matthew filled the coffeemaker with decaf and flipped it on. When he turned back, Parker was happily drinking his grapefruit juice straight out of the bottle. "Glasses are in the cabinet over the dishwasher, Parker."
"It's good this way." She perched on the table, still drinking. "Your attic vents need better security."
"I'll see to that, thank you." Matthew glanced at Devereaux. "I meant it. Are you working with Amanda?"
"Why would I do that? And is she using the name lately? I haven't seen Amanda in, oh, four years now. I was starting to wonder if she'd retired. And try 'Sophie,' Matthew," she said sweetly. "Ms. Devereaux is going to get very tiring and it's already late for you."
Ford was already over pouring himself a whisky, which Matthew hadn't offered. He hadn't found the good single malt at least. "So, you know everybody except Eliot?"
"Hey, wait." Parker put the juice down. "She's Ms. Devereaux. Why am I just Parker?"
Matthew shrugged. "Partly because I've no idea if Parker is your first name or last, and mostly because you'd only be annoyed if I got it wrong."
"Oh. Okay." Parker shrugged and stood up to walk along the countertop, examining cabinet contents.
"And he's trying to annoy me with that 'Ms.', Parker," Devereaux added.
"Oh, I assure you, you'll know when I'm trying to annoy you, Sophie." Matthew poured hot water over the tea leaves and brought the pot to the table with the strainer. "And you're quite right -- it is late for me. What can I do for you?"
Ford sat down at the head of the table and waited for Matthew's lifted eyebrow before he moved to another chair. "Yeah, pardon me. Long day here too."
"Says the night owl," Matthew drawled and took his seat, glancing over to watch Sophie raid his refrigerator, probably gauging his mood and work level from the contents. "What 'fun' are you bringing me?"
"You're on mandatory rotation out from profiling," Ford started.
"So I am," Matthew agreed lazily. "I can't rotate back to NCAVC or teaching profiling for another six months, regardless of my wishes or their needs. Something about not burning us out. Your point?"
"And you're back with D.C. White Collar Crimes again?"
Matthew nodded. "I am. I can't imagine you broke in here just to confirm that, however. You were always better prepared than that." He leaned back and took the tea cup Sophie passed to him.
"Milk? Lemon? Sugar?" she asked sweetly.
Parker prowled over to sit next to Ford, tugging the sugar bowl towards her to investigate the contents.
"Milk, thank you." Matthew considered Sophie very thoughtfully. "Interesting. You aren't trying to con me yet."
Eliot dumped the spilled flour into the trash can and came back, dusting his hands off. "Yeah, she said it'd just piss you off."
Matthew chuckled and indicated the teapot. "Assam tea, sir. Hope that's all right. Lemons in the fridge, top drawer, if you want some. There's sugar on the table if Parker hasn't used it all yet."
Eliot snagged a packet of raw sugar out of the house she was building without toppling it. "No problem."
Ford said patiently enough, "What would you say if I told you that someone's planning a job at the National Portrait Gallery?"
Matthew frowned. "I'd ask why these three are helping you blow another thief's job."
Sophie brought back the milk and lemon and a packet of cookies Matthew had forgotten he had. She nibbled daintily on a shortbread before she said, "Well, you see, they annoyed us."
"Ms. Devereaux, I've seen you get irritated from someone using the wrong name to you in public," Matthew said mildly. "Kindly define 'annoyed.'"
She turned back from watching Parker carefully removing packets from the center of her structure. "Some people just don't appreciate art." Her voice hardened to the cold steel Matthew already knew made up her spine. "And it's wasteful to go breaking artists, especially ones who've done the job they were hired for. Done it superbly."
"You've seen the art?" Matthew asked, sitting a little straighter.
"We've seen the preliminary sketches." Ford's mouth was a little tight. "And the artist."
"Forger?" Matthew asked mildly. He nodded, however. "How badly is he or she hurt?"
"His hands are okay," Eliot said. "But both wrists are broken, both shoulders dislocated." He shrugged, but his eyes were angry. "Then they did the skull trauma. He's alive because he's got thick hair."
Matthew nodded, thoughtful. "They may've been willing to do time for assault but not for murder one. So you recognized the sketches?"
Motion at the back door drew the attention of every person in the room; Matthew signaled a 'stay put' as he recognized the teenager coming in.
"The lights were on, so--" She was a tall, honey-blond girl just starting to settle into some of her mother's beauty; she'd gotten her height from both parents, but she'd also gotten enough training that she was already comfortable with that. Jane Louise Blue looked up, startled, before her eyes narrowed at the sight of Eliot. She also dropped into a defensive stance. "Oh, come on. You are complete overkill, Spencer. I'm not even late yet."
"Ah, hell, kid," Spencer said, his hands coming up to show they were empty. "I ain't here for you."
So that was Eliot Spencer? Interesting. Matthew just said mildly, "They're here to see me, Jane Louise, not to bother you. Been dodging your minders again?"
"Good," she said and straightened up, ignoring Matthew's question, which he had to admit was pretty much a formality. She always evaded her keepers. Jane Louise nodded to Eliot, frowned a little at Parker and Sophie, and studied Nate every bit as blatantly as he was studying her.
Nate refilled his glass and said equally mildly, "Tomorrow might be a little late to wait on our matter, I'm afraid."
Matthew nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, Jane Louis and I likely feel the same way, seeing as she's here near her curfew. Do you need a ride home, cub?"
Jane Louise pushed her hair back behind her ears with a gesture of her mother's and went to raid the refrigerator. "You need to go shopping, again. And there's always the chance we're here about the same thing. If he's really here for something that important, anyway." She was blatantly fishing, but Matthew knew how insane matters could get around her family. She might not be wrong.
Eliot did have some history with her, apparently. He glanced up, appraising her, then said, "There's a chance, yeah. You know any reason--"
"Eliot." Sophie tried to interrupt but let him override her; she and Ford both looked too distracted to argue properly. Parker just looked amused and kept playing with her sugar packets… and one of Matthew's knives.
Matthew reached over and took his blade back, not even bothering to glare at Parker. So far as he'd ever been able to figure it out, she truly didn't notice when she was lifting items. She was far worse than Amanda or Cory about that.
Eliot shook his head. "Sophie. She's named after her mama. This is Jane Louise Blue, despair of baby field agents across the East Coast."
Even Nate blinked at that. Jane just said, "If they'd either quit following me or get good at it, it wouldn't be a problem." She sat down with a small glass of apple juice and promised Matthew, "I left you half for breakfast. So what are you guys working on?"
Nate raised an eyebrow at Eliot, got an exasperated look in return, and shrugged. "All right. We'll try this. Do you know any reason someone would be trying to steal paintings of American actors, musicians, singers, and composers from the National Portrait Gallery?"
Jane Louise turned a questioning look on Matthew. "And you're… okay, that makes sense. Can I tell them anything?"
Matthew said thoughtfully, "Let's find out." One hand still cradling his cup, Matthew turned to look at Eliot. "Who hired you to bring her home?"
Eliot grinned as he poured himself more tea. "Her mama. Her daddy's a little crazy even for me."
Jane Louise tried to make a disapproving noise, but it got lost in the giggle. "That's what he says about you."
Sophie was trying not to smile, but her eyes were laughing. Eliot just looked amused. "Yeah, he would. That help any, McCormick?"
"Only in worrying me," Matthew said mildly. "Jane Louise, would you call and ask your parents if the National Portrait Gallery could possibly be involved in that research problem your mother so kindly landed on me?"
Jane Louise had gone straight from smiling to worried. "Uncle Matthew," Matthew upgraded 'worried' to outright frightened if she was calling him uncle again, much less in front of strangers, "Mom was there tonight. She might still be. How bad is this?"
Two hours past closing time and the museum currently the focus of the head of one of the agencies whose initials never made the light of day? Matthew said calmly, "It could be bad enough. Call your father and give me the phone. Eliot, do you drive the way you fight?"
"Better me than Sophie or Parker," he said flatly; to Matthew's pleased surprise his team was standing up instead of arguing. Good. He didn't have time, and he'd prefer competent backup. "What's wrong?"
"Let's hope I am," Matthew said equally flatly. "There’s a good chance that whoever's behind this isn’t stealing art. They may be smuggling frames into the museum."
# # #
Jane Louise glared at them from the sidewalk in front of a store front calling itself Baron Saturday's. The name alone told Eliot not to mess with it, but Jane Louise was acting like it was her favorite after-school hangout. "Okay, two cars would spook anyone doing surveillance, but--"
McCormick managed to sound firm and reasonable at the same time, to Eliot's amusement. "If you so much as got scratched, cub, your parents would tag-team me into the ICU. No. Stay here with Ms. Devereaux, pass me any intel you two figure out, and try not to pick up too many bad habits from her until your father can tell you which parts to ignore."
Jane Louise looked from McCormick to Eliot, sighed, and nodded. "Right. If either of my parents calls me back, I'll let you know that too. Break someone else's leg."
Eliot grinned at her. "We'll do our best, sweetheart." He watched her fall in beside Sophie (on the left, next to the comm she had managed to notice; Hardison'd be annoyed about that later) and headed them back into the late night traffic.
Nate asked, "Why would someone smuggle frames into the museum, and why this weekend?"
McCormick said, "Parts of this I cannot address, Mr. Ford. That said, hypothetically speaking, I might have been saddled with a job I'm not allowed to discuss with my own Assistant Director, looking for some very powerful and almost equally unstable explosives."
Hardison spoke into their comms, his chair squeaking in the background as he moved - probably sitting up finally instead of sprawling everywhere. "Someone get me a name on that explosive and I will start trawling for gossip, 'cause you know someone somewhere just gonna have to brag about their boom-stick."
Eliot cursed. "You said you were doing a job for Jane Blue."
"If I were doing a job for either of the Blues," McCormick said, "I surely wouldn't have mentioned explosives and Paulina Novacek."
"Fuck." Eliot sped up; traffic was light.
"Eliot, translate for the rest of us?" Nate prompted.
"Novacek headed up the Czech secret police for twelve years, Nate. In '91, she bailed out ahead of a firing squad and set up shop doing freelance arms dealing, assassinations, and kidnapping. Somebody brought her in back in '92 -- word has it, Jeff and Jane Blue did that -- and she got shipped back to Czechoslovakia to face charges. Problem is, she squirmed out of getting shot -- they were trying to impress the West -- and landed in prison. Inside eight, ten years -- rumor changes depending on the source -- some of the Czech government decided the Russian mafia was enough trouble they needed her back."
McCormick nodded. "Eight years. Two years later, her MO was too clear on a few jobs to hold to the story that she was still in prison."
"Yeah, well, she's smart, sneaky, and word is, don't ever work for her: people who do, either get screwed on the pay--"
"Much like your forger," McCormick cut in.
"Or you end up floating down a river. If you're lucky." Eliot knew stories of guys who hadn't been that lucky.
"I'm on it," Hardison said, keyboard clattering in the background. "Pulling Czech and Czech-friendly passports now and hunting a picture of the woman to run through facial recognition."
McCormick added the last piece of bad news. "And yes. The Blues were responsible for Novacek landing in prison."
Nate nodded. "So, you're thinking the frames are full of your explosive, McCormick?"
"Why did you come to me about a forger, Mr. Ford? And the explosive in question is damnably unstable. Any earthquake over a 4.4 might set it off."
"That's worse than nitro," Eliot said bluntly. "Yeah, Novacek's crazy enough to play with that. She loves explosions. Liquid, solid, powder, what're we dealing with? What kind of detonator?"
McCormick pulled his phone out, saying, "It's a moldable solid somewhere between hard clay and cake frosting. Standard cap fuse will detonate it; electricity won't."
Eliot accelerated through a yellow light that held long enough for them. "You're saying C-30 isn't a rumor and you think there's some headed to the National Portrait Gallery."
McCormick said calmly, "If the police pull you over, let me deal with it. And I can't confirm anything about C-30, Mr. Spencer."
Eliot snorted, "Hell, man, word in Eastern Europe was that Novacek had her hands on C-22 for a while, which was more stable than this stuff is." McCormick had his phone out and was typing in some quick message. Eliot couldn't take his eye off the road to see it.
Sophie cut in over the comms. "Nate, Novacek is vain, arrogant, and treacherous. She will negotiate, but she'll be doing it to maneuver you into a better shooting position."
"Ah. Is she actually sharp?" Nate wanted to know.
"She's very smart, Mr. Ford," Jane Louise said seriously. "She's also insane, Dad says. He says not crazy, not skewed, not eccentric - insane."
"Yeah, well, your daddy'd know," Eliot muttered, then repeated for McCormick. "Apparently Jeff Blue says Novacek is insane."
"Simplified, but yes," McCormick agreed. "Fractured enough to go from coy to murderous in a heartbeat and back again, with the heart of a scorpion under that. She’ll sting you just because you’re there and she can. There's no chance of getting Jane Louise away from the comm, I take it?"
"What do you think? She's busy learning from Sophie and you know we're both gonna hear about that," Eliot muttered.
Matthew sighed. "So we are. Jane broke her left arm recently, by the way. Don't let her hit you with that fist; I don't think the arm should really be out of the cast yet."
"Got it," Eliot agreed, ignoring the disbelieving noise Hardison made.
Hardison said, "C-30, Eliot? Seriously, man? The conspiracy sites on this make tin-hats look tame. That stuff's supposed to be twelve times as strong as C-4, easily molded, no odor."
Eliot nodded and pulled over a block away from the National Portrait Gallery. "Mostly sounds right. Any word on who's got it, a bidding game for it, anything?"
"No buzz on C-30, but I'm hunting for that specifically now," Hardison said. His laptop keys sounded like a bad hailstorm; this wasn't one of the times where that was reassuring. "By the way, I got nothing on Novacek. I got some Czech passports - I'm sending pictures to your phone - and a couple Ukraine and Georgian passports that look hinky, but… Hell. I hate to say it, but ask McCormick for her aliases, whatever he can tell us."
Nate sighed and handed over a comm. "McCormick, here, put this in. And ignore the man behind the curtain."
"Surely. However you haven't told me why you came to me?" McCormick put the comm in without having to ask how to use it.
"Because three of us knew you, knew you were honest enough, and you're White Collar, so you'd have heard the art news."
"'Honest enough,' hmm?" McCormick shrugged. "That'll do. What can I do for you, Wizard?"
"Hell, you even get our jokes," Hardison complained softly.
"It is an old one," McCormick pointed out. "And you-- Jane says yes, she's still at the Portrait Gallery and will we kindly not let Jane Louise run wild. She thinks you're a target, cub, so stay with Sophie until someone safe collects you. Take the next left, Mr. Spencer, and pull up in two blocks."
Nate huffed a sigh behind them, but Eliot knew better. Nate was crazy enough to be looking forward to crossing words with Jane Blue.
# # #
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