The Season Six Job, Ch.14
Title: The Season Six Job
Characters: Nate Ford, Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison, Parker, Sophie Deveraux, Patrick Bonnano, OC
Fandom: Leverage
Spoilers: None - takes place before Season 4 finale, they're still in Boston
Warnings: None for now. No network presidents were harmed during the writing of this fic.
Disclaimer: I do not own blah blah blah
Author's note: A sequel to 'The Occam's Razor Job', following cca one week after. (Parttwo in The Texas Mountain Laurel Series). After all this shit TNT put us
through, there was only one way to deal with it - see what The Team
would do when faced with TV Network. No need to read TORJ first, all you
need to know will be explained.
Special, special, special, special thanks to trappercreekd for Betaing :D
Chapter 14
***
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When Parker ran into the bathroom, Eliot’s first thought was to go to the corridor and drag Hardison in without a word, but he abandoned that tactic knowing the hacker would bitch, argue, kick and scream, and be of no use for Parker. If he was able to drag anybody anywhere at all… maybe it would be better for his mental health not to check that. He paced in front of the bathroom, not knowing if he should go in or not - the sounds of vomiting were unmistakable, and he knew no woman who would be glad to have a witness to that. Though, it was Parker. Drunk Parker.
While he was waiting, he might as well go get that idiot in; much to his surprise, he was calm and peaceful… so fucking peaceful that even Orion rubbed at his leg and purred. The beast was obviously planning another attack on George.
He had to keep himself in this state, to remain completely calm; again, he was the worst person for this sort of shit, dammit. He forbid himself to growl, to get unnerved, angry, pissed off, and especially to slam Hardison’s head into the wall, for whatever reason. Just when he counted everything he had to forbid himself from doing, he realized he could write him a text message as well. It wasn’t him.
Though his peacefulness was in full force, his patience was nonexistent, and if Hardison tried any childish shit, he just knew he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself from reacting. He walked around aimlessly for one more minute, until he started to remind himself of a wind-up toy with a broken string; one more minute and he would start stuttering.
What the fuck could he use to get Hardison into the apartment, without further arguing? He used the diamonds as a distraction for Parker, what he could use on Hardison? He knew shit about his geeky things, fairies and gnomes, and all that space crap. Maybe to tell him that his laptop was acting strange because of the thunderstorm? He doubted the hacker didn’t have every kind of protection on that thing.
Okay, Google will help.
He went to his bed, where his laptop was still on the table, and for a moment just looked at the ducks placed by the pond with flowers… he even put a turtle near them to keep them company. For much longer than one moment he couldn’t believe what creepy shit his life had turned into; Jesus, when in doubt, his first thought was Google. Maybe Hardison was right, maybe aliens had replaced him in that hospital, he definitely had no idea what his brain was doing most of the time.
He just sighed, typed into the laptop, listening to the sounds from bathroom, and scanned through the results. Orion followed him and sat innocently on the bed, licking his paw, eyeing George. He glared at the cat. The cat blinked lazily.
“Parker, are you okay? I’m going to get Hardison.”
“Go,” she mumbled. “I’m ‘kay… I’ll come out soon.”
She did sound better, without slurring, but he took the bottle from the sofa with him, just in case. Almost half of the whiskey was missing, and he had no idea how she was able to stand at all, not to mention talk. If his luck held, he would manage to get Hardison drunk too, and all of them would get peace and quiet for the rest of the day.
He remembered, at the last moment, to erase the smirk that the thought brought to his face, went into expressionless mode, and opened the door.
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***
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Florence could hear Nate and Jules Brewer exchanging pleasantries through her earbud, but she quickly stood up and turned her back to the secretary that was looking at her. “Sophie, you there?” she whispered. “What is he doing-”
“I’m in Lucille, we decided there’s no need for two police investigators, and it’s better to have someone who has not been introduced to anybody yet, in case we need a new face later.” Sophie’s voice was quiet and light, and Florence bit her lip, remembering that Nate was listening to them as well, and that their conversation might disturb his concentration. She was, however, sure that they were all used to more voices in their heads at the same time.
“Okay,” she whispered back. “I’ll be quiet.”
She turned around, knowing that the secretary heard her murmuring, and she quickly pulled her phone and started pressing random numbers, as if she was cursing the damn thing for not working.
Right on time, Nate went straight to business.
“Mr. Brewer, there are a few suspicious activities apart from your employee being accused of a child pornography, that we have to discuss here, and it’s connected to all of C4.”
Florence gasped and went to the window. “Nate, Jules is an okay man, he is fair to all the employees - his only mistake is a lack of control over his vice presidents,” she whispered. “He is nice.”
“What do you mean?” Jules said calmly.
“I can assure you, C4 is not in any way connected with his pornographic activities, and we understand the negative publicity you want to elude.” Nate made a significant pause. “Yet, there is something that alerted our White Collar Crimes Unit, that might be connected to C4.”
Florence could almost hear Jules’s gasp. That was the news dreaded in every business circle.
“Our usual practice is to call you to informally talk to the Central Police station,” Nate went on. “I understand that members of your Board are here too, right?”
“No, they are not all in town- we planned to have conference call later in the evening to discuss this situation. Lieutenant Webster, that would be extremely-”
“But I do understand how it would look on TV when the press finds out,” Nate cut him off with a pleasant smile in his voice. “We are not unreasonable, Mr. Brewer. Even the Massachusetts state police have Sensitivity and Public Relations courses, we are improving in every field. We avoid public humiliation as much as we can.”
“Are you trying to say that we have something to be humiliated by?”
“You will have to tell me that. Let’s put aside the child pornography accusations. Here I have documents and contracts that caught the eye of our investigators, though it’s not connected, apparently, with the main accusations.”
The sound was so perfect that Florence could almost see Nate pulling papers out of the binders. “We found these documents on the suspect’s computer. Can you tell me what this is?”
“This is a part of the contract with the LiveSurvival producers; Michael was negotiating with them and set the preliminary deal. They will soon become a part of our family here on the network. There’s nothing suspicious-” The rest of his words were lost in a sudden burst of static just when she was thinking how good the connection was - the thunder was messing with the transmission. It lasted only a few seconds, and she could hear Nate speaking as a response to Jules.
“But when we add these pages to it, the pages we found not on the computer but in the suspect’s safe, the combination makes a completely different picture. Pay attention to the last clauses. Michael Winslow acquired ownership rights of the show he was pushing into programming on his network. So, is that something normal in the TV business, or we should start digging deeper? If there is a possibility that ‘ownership rights’ is just some code for another link in the chain of child pornography, we have to start immediately.”
“Wait, wait…” Florence listened breathlessly; Jules’ voice was upset.
“Sure, take a good look.” Nate confirmed that he was scanning the documents to see all the clauses written in small letters.
“No, I’m sure this had nothing to do with any pornography,” Jules said after two minutes. “This is, however, a very serious violation of our house policies.”
“Oh? How? A simple bribe or something more serious?”
“It’s unheard of, Lieutenant. There’s nothing simple in this particular bribe. I built this house on the right basis, and we are doing business without any spots on our careers.”
“It seems to me that you’re more upset with his dishonesty in business, than with his main accusation.”
“I am. The child pornography is too unreal to even think of it and I’ll wait to see if accusation will be charged… but this, this… this is internal, and very close to home. Is there more of it?”
“Bank account the Cayman Islands - we traced the numbers and found out that three reality shows he was pushing into programming paid a significant amount of money. I can’t show you those, it’s a part of the evidence that’s confidential for now. We are still trying to find if that is connected to his other charges.”
“I understand.” Jules’ voice was quieter now and Florence sighed, feeling almost sorry for him.
“We also suspect that this recording, in which he mentions ‘shows’ and ‘money for them’”- Florence heard her own recording of Winslow and Knudsen from the set as Nate played it for Jules - “is just a cover up and code for eventual child abuse, or even something worse, maybe organized trafficking. Now that you know he was taking a bribe, can you tell me does this look as if he was talking about that, or it was something in cipher, more ominous?”
“It surely sounds like a confirmation of his deals, nothing more,” Jules murmured, tapping his fingers on the table; when Florence heard that sound she knew the amount of rage he was going through, she had seen it before.
There was the sound of a chair being pulled, and Nate’s voice changed, as if he was leaning back in a relaxed manner. “Can you help me and clarify a few things for me, Mr. Brewer?” His voice was pleasant and professional. “I would like to close this line of investigation so I don’t have to bother you anymore. Those three shows… they paid him to be put on the air, but they seem good and successful. Why did they have to pay to assure the deal? He did something else with your programming schedule, right? I don’t envy you. You’ll probably have to go through his every deal, every decision, thoroughly, and pay attention to every move that seems even a little unusual.”
“Well, I can think of few of his decisions that were doubtful, but I let it be his way because I was sure he was doing it in the best interest of the company.”
“Ah, I see… to make room to air the three new shows, some of the old ones had to go, right?”
“Precisely. Decisions like that are never easy, but now that it seems he made up everything he told us, we’ll have to reconsider everything he has done… how long do you suspect he’s been doing that?”
“I can’t be sure yet, we’re still collecting the evidence, but at least six months. If you didn’t suspect anything, that means he did it very thoroughly and convincingly, maybe for an entire season.”
“He was convincing. And you’re right, preparing the field for this kind of scam on a respectful network is something you do slowly, step by step, and for a long time,” Jules sighed heavily. “In fact, I have the author of one of those shows that was the first to get canceled, she’s waiting for an appointment. I’ll have to cancel that, I can’t talk to her right now, not before we see what’s going on.” He paused one second, and Florence could hear a click on the secretary’s table. “Sandy, tell Miss McCoy that I’ll be busy with police the whole day, and I’ll call her later, okay?”
“Yes, Mr. Brewer,” Sandy said and Florence could hear her in the room, and in her earbud; a very confusing experience.
Sandy repeated his words and Florence just nodded and left - she missed a few important sentences that Nate and Jules exchanged while she was listening to Sandy.
How did they manage to hear every simultaneous thing that was going on?
She hurried to Lucille, parked one street down from the C4 building, still unable to completely comprehend that it was possible, and unable to erase the grin on her face. If Jules really went through all Winslow’s decisions, now that he'd been pushed in the right direction, he might reconsider the cancellation and simply decide they would let it live. Just like that. Jesus, it was too much, she didn’t know if she should start to hope, or calm her expectations down. She only knew she had an unbearable urge to bounce all the way to the van.
That urge faded when the first heavy drops hit her, and in only a few steps the sky just broke in half, pouring water in rivers. Her hair transformed into sticky, overcooked spaghetti noodles that stuck to her face like glue, and she crawled into the van, completely soaked, and cursing like a sailor.
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***
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Eliot was ready to be faced with yet another wall in the form of a stubborn, sulking, childish hacker, but when Hardison raised his head and looked at him from his place on the floor, something very close to relief went over the hacker’s face.
“Say something,” Hardison said cautiously.
“What? Why?”
“No growling, good. I wasn’t looking forward to calming you down, knowing how much you enjoy being in a permanent state of pissed off. Man, you took the art of pissitivity to an entirely new level. You nurture the damn thing and cultivate it, adding new variables-”
He growled. He simply couldn’t help it, it was an instinctive reaction when Hardison’s speech sped up, becoming a fast forward mess of irritating blah blahs. Don’t smash his head into the wall, Spencer.
“See? I knew it,” Hardison went on. “You were just pretending to be calm, to lure me into your liar again, but I’m too experienced to fall for those tricks of yours, no man, this one’s not gonna fall for-”
Hardison continued on inertia, and Eliot watched his mouth moving, muting the sound completely. The man must have had some disorder in language center of his brain. Yeah, his shit filter broke. Maybe the slight impact of his head with the wall would actually improve… nope, the way his luck was going lately, it would only make him more eloquent.
But, something was different in Hardison’s way of uncontrollably pouring that shit out; damn you Sophie, why did she have to put that in his brain? Yesterday he wouldn’t have noticed, he wouldn’t have paid attention, but now he clearly saw that Hardison was only reciting his words, without thinking, without any fire in them. Just like he wasn’t listening to him, really, the hacker also wasn’t in his speech.
He should just tell him to shut the fuck up, and get into the apartment, but he stayed, watching him.
Hardison stopped talking.
“You're gonna just stay there and glare at me?” Hardison asked after ten seconds of silence.
“Nope,” he sighed. He knew he would regret this, he just knew it - but he went two steps closer and slowly sat on the floor two steps away from him. The damn idiot was still pale, and his eyes were bloodshot. He pushed the bottle into his hands and crossed his arms, trying to soften the glare, without any success.
“You were drinking? Betsy would-”
“Nope, Parker. She’s throwing up in the bathroom.”
He saw his hesitation and struggle in one glance at the apartment, then at him, then to apartment again, then back to him; his urge to run to Parker was almost overwhelmed by… shit, Hardison wanted to talk to him.
No, no, no, not two confidential conversations in less than an hour, he couldn’t handle that. Damn these sensitive people and their need to share their damn feelings… He gritted his teeth and smiled. Whatever was troubling Hardison had roots in That Night, or more simply, it was something that he had done. He could at least listen to him, if not entirely able to help.
But, first of all, a few minor things, that might mess up their work - they could slowly move on to the heavier subjects.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Hardison gasped. “What did Sophie tell you?” He sounded upset, so maybe that wasn’t just an introduction to a serious talk, and he accidentally pressed the wrong button. Or the right one.
“Nothing. You drink coffee, and you've been tired for days now. I guess you’re not playing those stupid gam-”
“How’re your pumpkins coming, Eliot?”
Fuck. He squinted under Hardison’s smile, pretending not to notice how quickly it faded from his face. Damn, the kid was troubled. This time removing the glare wasn’t so hard.
“What’s going on?” he sighed.
“Naah,” Hardison gulped the whiskey and avoided his eyes.
He waited. He could do the two-idiots-sitting-on-the-floor-in-silence for hours, and he knew Hardison wouldn’t be able to endure that silence even two minutes.
It took only forty-five seconds to break him. When Hardison finally spoke, it was a hesitating whisper. “I have nightmares about the van, when we were parked in the park around Estrella.”
“So, taking you to Estrella for dinner is out of question then?” he said. “I’ve heard great things about that restaurant-” he shut up when Hardison shot him a nasty stare. Okay, no joking. For now. “What, exactly? There’s an entire set of potential nightmare plots in there.”
“The moment when we watched you preparing to kill Villacorta and get yourself killed, knowing we were too far away to stop you, at the same time watching the Mexicans surrounding us all. Those… those seconds are constantly repeating, that fear, the horror… it drags on endlessly, and there’s no relief, just that awful dreadful panic that grows and grows until I wake up jumping,” Hardison stopped, swallowed and went on. “And a few other things.”
“No happy endings?” he asked lightly.
“Nope.”
“Cool.” He gave him the bottle again and Hardison took a long sip, like he was drinking water.
“Cool?” The hacker cast him a sideways glance. “What about: it will stop, don’t worry, or do this or that and it will stop, or-”
“It will ease, eventually, with time. Or stop completely when you sort it out in your head. No one can tell.” He took the bottle and stretched his legs, resting his head on the wall. “There’s only one way to stop a particular nightmare, but I wouldn’t suggest it,” he added after some time.
“Drinking?”
“No. Replacing it with a worse one.” He felt his eyes on him, and his silence after that made him sigh. Well, he asked for it. He knew this wouldn’t be a one way conversation when he decided to sit, and he was aware that he would have to… ah, damn.
“Sometimes, it’s like surfing through different channels,” he said quietly. “The program stops, and you say: ah, this one…and then you wait ‘til it goes through ‘til the end. That night gave me a few more channels to choose from. New actors in new roles. Right now, I’m having an audition - all of that in one long, constant flow, without cuts. It’s all too fresh. With time, only the few worst moments will remain. I have finalists already. I have the one that wakes me up every time, the only one, and sometimes it takes minutes before I stop wishing I was dead, or thinking about taking a gun and blowing my brai-” Fuck. He stopped, returning the bottle to Hardison, not liking the sudden thought about finishing it to the bottom. “Figuratively speaking, of course,” he added.
The hacker withdrew from him to the other wall and sat almost facing him now - his eyes were clouded and shut, and one muscle in his jaw was tilting.
“Don’t. I’ll deal with it, it’s just a few seconds of disorientation. Just… don’t.”
Hardison opened his mouth to speak, but shut it with a sound almost like a snap. It was clear he had shifted his mind with effort - but at least he had knocked it off.
The silence spread for an eternity while they stared at each other.
“Passing out, instead of sleeping, stops it?” Hardison finally asked.
Damn, they knew him too well. “Nope. Just pushes it to the end, instead of a whole night of that shit, over and over again in a loop, waking up every ten minutes in-” He took one deep breath, chasing the feeling away. “When I pass out, that shit only wakes me up once,” he explained. “Want to try that?”
“Maybe I should try drinking first,” Hardison said lightly.
“Doesn’t work. You only feel sick during the nightmare, and everything spins.”
“Okay, I’ll think of something,” Hardison murmured and started to study picture that hung on the wall above his head. Eliot felt conflicting emotions running through Hardison, but the younger man gave him a hint of a smile that he found deeply frustrating. Part of him understood exactly why Hardison was thinking of avoiding the rest of the talk, and he even thought about letting him duck and run away. For a two seconds.
“Spit it out,” he said almost gently.
Hardison sighed and shook his head. “Those few other things that I mentioned before…” he took a deep breath before he continued. “I tried to stop Nate going into Estrella, to get you out. It seemed pointless. I told him we can’t lose you both.” His eyes drifted from his - he had nowhere to look, so he finally settled on his hands. “It was just a few seconds in reality - but at night, I managed to stop him, he stayed, and we watched you killing him on the recording, and getting killed… and it lasted long enough to realize that he could get you out in time if I didn’t stop him.”
The hacker’s head was bowed, and Eliot quickly hid his smile, hoping he wouldn’t raise his eyes to him and see - damn, Hardison flinched and looked at him with an aghast stare.
“You’re fucking laughing?!”
“No, it’s just…” he managed to erase the smile, but barely. “A simple nightmare is not good enough for you… you made an extended edition and director’s cut?”
“Have you heard what I did?” Hardison didn’t look amused by his smiling. “I did try to stop him from getting you out!”
“And I’m quite impressed by that. Couldn’t believe you would do the right thing in that panic.”
“What?!”
Now he completely erased his smile - Hardison wasn’t able to look at it from the light side, he had no experience with that sort of horror. “It was the right thing to do,” he repeated slowly. “Your point of view is still slightly romantic - you think you shouldn’t do it - but the truth is, your assessment of the situation, in that moment, was way better than Nate’s. I would do the same.”
Hardison raised one eyebrow.
“Okay, I would think the same thing, knowing it was the right call, but I would go in there nevertheless - just because I’m crazy, and that’s my job. Don’t try to think like a hitter. What I’m really trying to say, is that I am impressed with your decision. It’s comforting to know you’re able to think that way,” he blinked innocently. “You must have some Vulcan blood in you.”
“Nice try.”
“What? It was logical. The needs of many…”
Hardison vented an exasperated sigh. “You googled Star Trek quotes right before you came out here, didn't you?”
“Well… yes,” he squinted.
“I knew that allowing you to go online will end in disaster.”
“Now you’re simply being rude. Give back that bottle.” He swirled the drink, watching the light in the amber liquid, buying time. It was expected for Hardison to feel guilty about every damn step he took, and he didn’t know how to make him stop. He didn’t know if he did want him to stop; his innocence was a rare gift. He was paying for it with nightmares, but his horrors would fade when he processed all this. He would heal. “Your nightmares are your fears, and a bunch of what ifs, spiced with guilt,” he said slowly. “They will pass. Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything that would torture you for a long time. Only deeds count, and you’re safe.”
“You don’t have what ifs?” Hardison hesitated. “You have only… deeds?”
Now it was his turn to look at his hands. “The one that wakes me up is the only one that didn’t actually happen. Which is a strange thing, when you think about it, considering everything that I’ve done.” He fell silent for a moment, feeling an invisible fist closing around his heart - breathing became difficult for a second. “When I told you I don’t regret shooting Parker, I wasn’t lying to you. But I wasn’t lying when I told you I was paying for that, either.” He held a hand up to forestall his words, and Hardison shut his mouth, letting him continue. “I had a panic attack and hallucinations from the overdose during one of the shootings. One Irishman transformed into Nate… it was freaking real. He told me you were late, that the surgeons couldn’t save her. That I killed her. It lasted only a few seconds, I recognized the gun the Irishman was carrying - but at night, it isn’t a hallucination, it’s fucking reality… and it doesn’t have a happy end. She’s dead, over and over again, and I killed her.”
“Shit, man, that’s brutal.” Hardison was watching him with a strange mixture in his eyes, and he searched for the signs. No pity, just understanding… and it was shame. He could fight pity, and knock it down, but the understanding was making him growl.
“Notice a pattern there?” Hardison continued. “We both dream about causing someone else’s death.”
“That’s because the others became more important than ourselves. Nate’s bits of wisdom.”
“He’s right, what’s wrong with that?”
“He said that’ll kill us all. And he is right about that, too. Apparently, I have to work on it.”
It was really a strange coincidence that they touched that subject only ten seconds before they found themselves on the wrong end of four guns with silencers.
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***
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“Good day.” The first one politely said.
One of them was the guy that had held a knife to Sophie’s neck, the other three were unknown - but they were damn good. Eliot didn’t hear one sound of their approaching, they climbed up the stairs like ghosts and just materialized in the corridor.
All four of them stopped more than three meters from them, which wasn’t important at all - he was still sitting, and simply getting up would take at least three seconds.
Hardison immediately took over, raising both his hands into the air, forcing them to look at him when he flailed around. “I guess they didn’t get the memo… that recording is irrelevant now.” The hacker glanced at him and went ashen, but he still managed to keep only surprise on his face.
Eliot just smiled.
Fucking professionals. They slowly spread out, keeping the distance from them, without a word.
The moment he was on his feet - and he knew they would allow them to get up - he had exactly four sequences of moves that would keep their guns away from Hardison; one of them included knocking him down as well, to remove him from their fire.
The only problem with all those scenarios was that he would be dead when he finished with the last one. With Hardison alive, and Parker out of their reach, that was a good outcome, knowing the odds were so poor that they were almost incalculable.
But their last words were still stinging in his brain - damn you, Nate, you and your logic and reason - and he knew, now more than ever, how right Nate really was. He wouldn’t hesitate a second. But Nate had told him that a hitter who didn’t protect himself first is of no use to anybody, and this fuck up was a good example - they would be left without a hitter right in the middle of this job.
For a heartbeat he thought he wouldn’t be able to stop, all his instincts were screaming to attack now, every second was giving them further advantage - but he managed to slowly exhale all the turmoil and rage. There weren’t just four of them - he had to think about all the rest that the team might face after those four. Getting killed while saving Hardison and Parker meant there would be no one who would stop the next attacks.
“Get up.” The second words that one of them said were calm, without any tension.
Hardison was on his feet in a second, and he made a show of carefully helping him get up, with a worried huff, attentively staying close. The hacker knew it was better to seem weaker than he was.
Wait and watch, he reminded himself again - after all, if necessary, he could start at any time, no matter their change of position. But they needed him alive.
Hardison correctly read his invisible grasp on his hand while helping him up, and he turned to the one that spoke, spreading his arms in a peaceful manner, and with a fucking smile.
“So…” hacker's smile grew smug when he flashed his teeth. “Parley?”
Characters: Nate Ford, Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison, Parker, Sophie Deveraux, Patrick Bonnano, OC
Fandom: Leverage
Spoilers: None - takes place before Season 4 finale, they're still in Boston
Warnings: None for now. No network presidents were harmed during the writing of this fic.
Disclaimer: I do not own blah blah blah
Author's note: A sequel to 'The Occam's Razor Job', following cca one week after. (Parttwo in The Texas Mountain Laurel Series). After all this shit TNT put us
through, there was only one way to deal with it - see what The Team
would do when faced with TV Network. No need to read TORJ first, all you
need to know will be explained.
Special, special, special, special thanks to trappercreekd for Betaing :D
Chapter 14
***
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When Parker ran into the bathroom, Eliot’s first thought was to go to the corridor and drag Hardison in without a word, but he abandoned that tactic knowing the hacker would bitch, argue, kick and scream, and be of no use for Parker. If he was able to drag anybody anywhere at all… maybe it would be better for his mental health not to check that. He paced in front of the bathroom, not knowing if he should go in or not - the sounds of vomiting were unmistakable, and he knew no woman who would be glad to have a witness to that. Though, it was Parker. Drunk Parker.
While he was waiting, he might as well go get that idiot in; much to his surprise, he was calm and peaceful… so fucking peaceful that even Orion rubbed at his leg and purred. The beast was obviously planning another attack on George.
He had to keep himself in this state, to remain completely calm; again, he was the worst person for this sort of shit, dammit. He forbid himself to growl, to get unnerved, angry, pissed off, and especially to slam Hardison’s head into the wall, for whatever reason. Just when he counted everything he had to forbid himself from doing, he realized he could write him a text message as well. It wasn’t him.
Though his peacefulness was in full force, his patience was nonexistent, and if Hardison tried any childish shit, he just knew he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself from reacting. He walked around aimlessly for one more minute, until he started to remind himself of a wind-up toy with a broken string; one more minute and he would start stuttering.
What the fuck could he use to get Hardison into the apartment, without further arguing? He used the diamonds as a distraction for Parker, what he could use on Hardison? He knew shit about his geeky things, fairies and gnomes, and all that space crap. Maybe to tell him that his laptop was acting strange because of the thunderstorm? He doubted the hacker didn’t have every kind of protection on that thing.
Okay, Google will help.
He went to his bed, where his laptop was still on the table, and for a moment just looked at the ducks placed by the pond with flowers… he even put a turtle near them to keep them company. For much longer than one moment he couldn’t believe what creepy shit his life had turned into; Jesus, when in doubt, his first thought was Google. Maybe Hardison was right, maybe aliens had replaced him in that hospital, he definitely had no idea what his brain was doing most of the time.
He just sighed, typed into the laptop, listening to the sounds from bathroom, and scanned through the results. Orion followed him and sat innocently on the bed, licking his paw, eyeing George. He glared at the cat. The cat blinked lazily.
“Parker, are you okay? I’m going to get Hardison.”
“Go,” she mumbled. “I’m ‘kay… I’ll come out soon.”
She did sound better, without slurring, but he took the bottle from the sofa with him, just in case. Almost half of the whiskey was missing, and he had no idea how she was able to stand at all, not to mention talk. If his luck held, he would manage to get Hardison drunk too, and all of them would get peace and quiet for the rest of the day.
He remembered, at the last moment, to erase the smirk that the thought brought to his face, went into expressionless mode, and opened the door.
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***
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Florence could hear Nate and Jules Brewer exchanging pleasantries through her earbud, but she quickly stood up and turned her back to the secretary that was looking at her. “Sophie, you there?” she whispered. “What is he doing-”
“I’m in Lucille, we decided there’s no need for two police investigators, and it’s better to have someone who has not been introduced to anybody yet, in case we need a new face later.” Sophie’s voice was quiet and light, and Florence bit her lip, remembering that Nate was listening to them as well, and that their conversation might disturb his concentration. She was, however, sure that they were all used to more voices in their heads at the same time.
“Okay,” she whispered back. “I’ll be quiet.”
She turned around, knowing that the secretary heard her murmuring, and she quickly pulled her phone and started pressing random numbers, as if she was cursing the damn thing for not working.
Right on time, Nate went straight to business.
“Mr. Brewer, there are a few suspicious activities apart from your employee being accused of a child pornography, that we have to discuss here, and it’s connected to all of C4.”
Florence gasped and went to the window. “Nate, Jules is an okay man, he is fair to all the employees - his only mistake is a lack of control over his vice presidents,” she whispered. “He is nice.”
“What do you mean?” Jules said calmly.
“I can assure you, C4 is not in any way connected with his pornographic activities, and we understand the negative publicity you want to elude.” Nate made a significant pause. “Yet, there is something that alerted our White Collar Crimes Unit, that might be connected to C4.”
Florence could almost hear Jules’s gasp. That was the news dreaded in every business circle.
“Our usual practice is to call you to informally talk to the Central Police station,” Nate went on. “I understand that members of your Board are here too, right?”
“No, they are not all in town- we planned to have conference call later in the evening to discuss this situation. Lieutenant Webster, that would be extremely-”
“But I do understand how it would look on TV when the press finds out,” Nate cut him off with a pleasant smile in his voice. “We are not unreasonable, Mr. Brewer. Even the Massachusetts state police have Sensitivity and Public Relations courses, we are improving in every field. We avoid public humiliation as much as we can.”
“Are you trying to say that we have something to be humiliated by?”
“You will have to tell me that. Let’s put aside the child pornography accusations. Here I have documents and contracts that caught the eye of our investigators, though it’s not connected, apparently, with the main accusations.”
The sound was so perfect that Florence could almost see Nate pulling papers out of the binders. “We found these documents on the suspect’s computer. Can you tell me what this is?”
“This is a part of the contract with the LiveSurvival producers; Michael was negotiating with them and set the preliminary deal. They will soon become a part of our family here on the network. There’s nothing suspicious-” The rest of his words were lost in a sudden burst of static just when she was thinking how good the connection was - the thunder was messing with the transmission. It lasted only a few seconds, and she could hear Nate speaking as a response to Jules.
“But when we add these pages to it, the pages we found not on the computer but in the suspect’s safe, the combination makes a completely different picture. Pay attention to the last clauses. Michael Winslow acquired ownership rights of the show he was pushing into programming on his network. So, is that something normal in the TV business, or we should start digging deeper? If there is a possibility that ‘ownership rights’ is just some code for another link in the chain of child pornography, we have to start immediately.”
“Wait, wait…” Florence listened breathlessly; Jules’ voice was upset.
“Sure, take a good look.” Nate confirmed that he was scanning the documents to see all the clauses written in small letters.
“No, I’m sure this had nothing to do with any pornography,” Jules said after two minutes. “This is, however, a very serious violation of our house policies.”
“Oh? How? A simple bribe or something more serious?”
“It’s unheard of, Lieutenant. There’s nothing simple in this particular bribe. I built this house on the right basis, and we are doing business without any spots on our careers.”
“It seems to me that you’re more upset with his dishonesty in business, than with his main accusation.”
“I am. The child pornography is too unreal to even think of it and I’ll wait to see if accusation will be charged… but this, this… this is internal, and very close to home. Is there more of it?”
“Bank account the Cayman Islands - we traced the numbers and found out that three reality shows he was pushing into programming paid a significant amount of money. I can’t show you those, it’s a part of the evidence that’s confidential for now. We are still trying to find if that is connected to his other charges.”
“I understand.” Jules’ voice was quieter now and Florence sighed, feeling almost sorry for him.
“We also suspect that this recording, in which he mentions ‘shows’ and ‘money for them’”- Florence heard her own recording of Winslow and Knudsen from the set as Nate played it for Jules - “is just a cover up and code for eventual child abuse, or even something worse, maybe organized trafficking. Now that you know he was taking a bribe, can you tell me does this look as if he was talking about that, or it was something in cipher, more ominous?”
“It surely sounds like a confirmation of his deals, nothing more,” Jules murmured, tapping his fingers on the table; when Florence heard that sound she knew the amount of rage he was going through, she had seen it before.
There was the sound of a chair being pulled, and Nate’s voice changed, as if he was leaning back in a relaxed manner. “Can you help me and clarify a few things for me, Mr. Brewer?” His voice was pleasant and professional. “I would like to close this line of investigation so I don’t have to bother you anymore. Those three shows… they paid him to be put on the air, but they seem good and successful. Why did they have to pay to assure the deal? He did something else with your programming schedule, right? I don’t envy you. You’ll probably have to go through his every deal, every decision, thoroughly, and pay attention to every move that seems even a little unusual.”
“Well, I can think of few of his decisions that were doubtful, but I let it be his way because I was sure he was doing it in the best interest of the company.”
“Ah, I see… to make room to air the three new shows, some of the old ones had to go, right?”
“Precisely. Decisions like that are never easy, but now that it seems he made up everything he told us, we’ll have to reconsider everything he has done… how long do you suspect he’s been doing that?”
“I can’t be sure yet, we’re still collecting the evidence, but at least six months. If you didn’t suspect anything, that means he did it very thoroughly and convincingly, maybe for an entire season.”
“He was convincing. And you’re right, preparing the field for this kind of scam on a respectful network is something you do slowly, step by step, and for a long time,” Jules sighed heavily. “In fact, I have the author of one of those shows that was the first to get canceled, she’s waiting for an appointment. I’ll have to cancel that, I can’t talk to her right now, not before we see what’s going on.” He paused one second, and Florence could hear a click on the secretary’s table. “Sandy, tell Miss McCoy that I’ll be busy with police the whole day, and I’ll call her later, okay?”
“Yes, Mr. Brewer,” Sandy said and Florence could hear her in the room, and in her earbud; a very confusing experience.
Sandy repeated his words and Florence just nodded and left - she missed a few important sentences that Nate and Jules exchanged while she was listening to Sandy.
How did they manage to hear every simultaneous thing that was going on?
She hurried to Lucille, parked one street down from the C4 building, still unable to completely comprehend that it was possible, and unable to erase the grin on her face. If Jules really went through all Winslow’s decisions, now that he'd been pushed in the right direction, he might reconsider the cancellation and simply decide they would let it live. Just like that. Jesus, it was too much, she didn’t know if she should start to hope, or calm her expectations down. She only knew she had an unbearable urge to bounce all the way to the van.
That urge faded when the first heavy drops hit her, and in only a few steps the sky just broke in half, pouring water in rivers. Her hair transformed into sticky, overcooked spaghetti noodles that stuck to her face like glue, and she crawled into the van, completely soaked, and cursing like a sailor.
.
.
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***
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Eliot was ready to be faced with yet another wall in the form of a stubborn, sulking, childish hacker, but when Hardison raised his head and looked at him from his place on the floor, something very close to relief went over the hacker’s face.
“Say something,” Hardison said cautiously.
“What? Why?”
“No growling, good. I wasn’t looking forward to calming you down, knowing how much you enjoy being in a permanent state of pissed off. Man, you took the art of pissitivity to an entirely new level. You nurture the damn thing and cultivate it, adding new variables-”
He growled. He simply couldn’t help it, it was an instinctive reaction when Hardison’s speech sped up, becoming a fast forward mess of irritating blah blahs. Don’t smash his head into the wall, Spencer.
“See? I knew it,” Hardison went on. “You were just pretending to be calm, to lure me into your liar again, but I’m too experienced to fall for those tricks of yours, no man, this one’s not gonna fall for-”
Hardison continued on inertia, and Eliot watched his mouth moving, muting the sound completely. The man must have had some disorder in language center of his brain. Yeah, his shit filter broke. Maybe the slight impact of his head with the wall would actually improve… nope, the way his luck was going lately, it would only make him more eloquent.
But, something was different in Hardison’s way of uncontrollably pouring that shit out; damn you Sophie, why did she have to put that in his brain? Yesterday he wouldn’t have noticed, he wouldn’t have paid attention, but now he clearly saw that Hardison was only reciting his words, without thinking, without any fire in them. Just like he wasn’t listening to him, really, the hacker also wasn’t in his speech.
He should just tell him to shut the fuck up, and get into the apartment, but he stayed, watching him.
Hardison stopped talking.
“You're gonna just stay there and glare at me?” Hardison asked after ten seconds of silence.
“Nope,” he sighed. He knew he would regret this, he just knew it - but he went two steps closer and slowly sat on the floor two steps away from him. The damn idiot was still pale, and his eyes were bloodshot. He pushed the bottle into his hands and crossed his arms, trying to soften the glare, without any success.
“You were drinking? Betsy would-”
“Nope, Parker. She’s throwing up in the bathroom.”
He saw his hesitation and struggle in one glance at the apartment, then at him, then to apartment again, then back to him; his urge to run to Parker was almost overwhelmed by… shit, Hardison wanted to talk to him.
No, no, no, not two confidential conversations in less than an hour, he couldn’t handle that. Damn these sensitive people and their need to share their damn feelings… He gritted his teeth and smiled. Whatever was troubling Hardison had roots in That Night, or more simply, it was something that he had done. He could at least listen to him, if not entirely able to help.
But, first of all, a few minor things, that might mess up their work - they could slowly move on to the heavier subjects.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Hardison gasped. “What did Sophie tell you?” He sounded upset, so maybe that wasn’t just an introduction to a serious talk, and he accidentally pressed the wrong button. Or the right one.
“Nothing. You drink coffee, and you've been tired for days now. I guess you’re not playing those stupid gam-”
“How’re your pumpkins coming, Eliot?”
Fuck. He squinted under Hardison’s smile, pretending not to notice how quickly it faded from his face. Damn, the kid was troubled. This time removing the glare wasn’t so hard.
“What’s going on?” he sighed.
“Naah,” Hardison gulped the whiskey and avoided his eyes.
He waited. He could do the two-idiots-sitting-on-the-floor-in-silence for hours, and he knew Hardison wouldn’t be able to endure that silence even two minutes.
It took only forty-five seconds to break him. When Hardison finally spoke, it was a hesitating whisper. “I have nightmares about the van, when we were parked in the park around Estrella.”
“So, taking you to Estrella for dinner is out of question then?” he said. “I’ve heard great things about that restaurant-” he shut up when Hardison shot him a nasty stare. Okay, no joking. For now. “What, exactly? There’s an entire set of potential nightmare plots in there.”
“The moment when we watched you preparing to kill Villacorta and get yourself killed, knowing we were too far away to stop you, at the same time watching the Mexicans surrounding us all. Those… those seconds are constantly repeating, that fear, the horror… it drags on endlessly, and there’s no relief, just that awful dreadful panic that grows and grows until I wake up jumping,” Hardison stopped, swallowed and went on. “And a few other things.”
“No happy endings?” he asked lightly.
“Nope.”
“Cool.” He gave him the bottle again and Hardison took a long sip, like he was drinking water.
“Cool?” The hacker cast him a sideways glance. “What about: it will stop, don’t worry, or do this or that and it will stop, or-”
“It will ease, eventually, with time. Or stop completely when you sort it out in your head. No one can tell.” He took the bottle and stretched his legs, resting his head on the wall. “There’s only one way to stop a particular nightmare, but I wouldn’t suggest it,” he added after some time.
“Drinking?”
“No. Replacing it with a worse one.” He felt his eyes on him, and his silence after that made him sigh. Well, he asked for it. He knew this wouldn’t be a one way conversation when he decided to sit, and he was aware that he would have to… ah, damn.
“Sometimes, it’s like surfing through different channels,” he said quietly. “The program stops, and you say: ah, this one…and then you wait ‘til it goes through ‘til the end. That night gave me a few more channels to choose from. New actors in new roles. Right now, I’m having an audition - all of that in one long, constant flow, without cuts. It’s all too fresh. With time, only the few worst moments will remain. I have finalists already. I have the one that wakes me up every time, the only one, and sometimes it takes minutes before I stop wishing I was dead, or thinking about taking a gun and blowing my brai-” Fuck. He stopped, returning the bottle to Hardison, not liking the sudden thought about finishing it to the bottom. “Figuratively speaking, of course,” he added.
The hacker withdrew from him to the other wall and sat almost facing him now - his eyes were clouded and shut, and one muscle in his jaw was tilting.
“Don’t. I’ll deal with it, it’s just a few seconds of disorientation. Just… don’t.”
Hardison opened his mouth to speak, but shut it with a sound almost like a snap. It was clear he had shifted his mind with effort - but at least he had knocked it off.
The silence spread for an eternity while they stared at each other.
“Passing out, instead of sleeping, stops it?” Hardison finally asked.
Damn, they knew him too well. “Nope. Just pushes it to the end, instead of a whole night of that shit, over and over again in a loop, waking up every ten minutes in-” He took one deep breath, chasing the feeling away. “When I pass out, that shit only wakes me up once,” he explained. “Want to try that?”
“Maybe I should try drinking first,” Hardison said lightly.
“Doesn’t work. You only feel sick during the nightmare, and everything spins.”
“Okay, I’ll think of something,” Hardison murmured and started to study picture that hung on the wall above his head. Eliot felt conflicting emotions running through Hardison, but the younger man gave him a hint of a smile that he found deeply frustrating. Part of him understood exactly why Hardison was thinking of avoiding the rest of the talk, and he even thought about letting him duck and run away. For a two seconds.
“Spit it out,” he said almost gently.
Hardison sighed and shook his head. “Those few other things that I mentioned before…” he took a deep breath before he continued. “I tried to stop Nate going into Estrella, to get you out. It seemed pointless. I told him we can’t lose you both.” His eyes drifted from his - he had nowhere to look, so he finally settled on his hands. “It was just a few seconds in reality - but at night, I managed to stop him, he stayed, and we watched you killing him on the recording, and getting killed… and it lasted long enough to realize that he could get you out in time if I didn’t stop him.”
The hacker’s head was bowed, and Eliot quickly hid his smile, hoping he wouldn’t raise his eyes to him and see - damn, Hardison flinched and looked at him with an aghast stare.
“You’re fucking laughing?!”
“No, it’s just…” he managed to erase the smile, but barely. “A simple nightmare is not good enough for you… you made an extended edition and director’s cut?”
“Have you heard what I did?” Hardison didn’t look amused by his smiling. “I did try to stop him from getting you out!”
“And I’m quite impressed by that. Couldn’t believe you would do the right thing in that panic.”
“What?!”
Now he completely erased his smile - Hardison wasn’t able to look at it from the light side, he had no experience with that sort of horror. “It was the right thing to do,” he repeated slowly. “Your point of view is still slightly romantic - you think you shouldn’t do it - but the truth is, your assessment of the situation, in that moment, was way better than Nate’s. I would do the same.”
Hardison raised one eyebrow.
“Okay, I would think the same thing, knowing it was the right call, but I would go in there nevertheless - just because I’m crazy, and that’s my job. Don’t try to think like a hitter. What I’m really trying to say, is that I am impressed with your decision. It’s comforting to know you’re able to think that way,” he blinked innocently. “You must have some Vulcan blood in you.”
“Nice try.”
“What? It was logical. The needs of many…”
Hardison vented an exasperated sigh. “You googled Star Trek quotes right before you came out here, didn't you?”
“Well… yes,” he squinted.
“I knew that allowing you to go online will end in disaster.”
“Now you’re simply being rude. Give back that bottle.” He swirled the drink, watching the light in the amber liquid, buying time. It was expected for Hardison to feel guilty about every damn step he took, and he didn’t know how to make him stop. He didn’t know if he did want him to stop; his innocence was a rare gift. He was paying for it with nightmares, but his horrors would fade when he processed all this. He would heal. “Your nightmares are your fears, and a bunch of what ifs, spiced with guilt,” he said slowly. “They will pass. Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything that would torture you for a long time. Only deeds count, and you’re safe.”
“You don’t have what ifs?” Hardison hesitated. “You have only… deeds?”
Now it was his turn to look at his hands. “The one that wakes me up is the only one that didn’t actually happen. Which is a strange thing, when you think about it, considering everything that I’ve done.” He fell silent for a moment, feeling an invisible fist closing around his heart - breathing became difficult for a second. “When I told you I don’t regret shooting Parker, I wasn’t lying to you. But I wasn’t lying when I told you I was paying for that, either.” He held a hand up to forestall his words, and Hardison shut his mouth, letting him continue. “I had a panic attack and hallucinations from the overdose during one of the shootings. One Irishman transformed into Nate… it was freaking real. He told me you were late, that the surgeons couldn’t save her. That I killed her. It lasted only a few seconds, I recognized the gun the Irishman was carrying - but at night, it isn’t a hallucination, it’s fucking reality… and it doesn’t have a happy end. She’s dead, over and over again, and I killed her.”
“Shit, man, that’s brutal.” Hardison was watching him with a strange mixture in his eyes, and he searched for the signs. No pity, just understanding… and it was shame. He could fight pity, and knock it down, but the understanding was making him growl.
“Notice a pattern there?” Hardison continued. “We both dream about causing someone else’s death.”
“That’s because the others became more important than ourselves. Nate’s bits of wisdom.”
“He’s right, what’s wrong with that?”
“He said that’ll kill us all. And he is right about that, too. Apparently, I have to work on it.”
It was really a strange coincidence that they touched that subject only ten seconds before they found themselves on the wrong end of four guns with silencers.
.
***
.
.
.
“Good day.” The first one politely said.
One of them was the guy that had held a knife to Sophie’s neck, the other three were unknown - but they were damn good. Eliot didn’t hear one sound of their approaching, they climbed up the stairs like ghosts and just materialized in the corridor.
All four of them stopped more than three meters from them, which wasn’t important at all - he was still sitting, and simply getting up would take at least three seconds.
Hardison immediately took over, raising both his hands into the air, forcing them to look at him when he flailed around. “I guess they didn’t get the memo… that recording is irrelevant now.” The hacker glanced at him and went ashen, but he still managed to keep only surprise on his face.
Eliot just smiled.
Fucking professionals. They slowly spread out, keeping the distance from them, without a word.
The moment he was on his feet - and he knew they would allow them to get up - he had exactly four sequences of moves that would keep their guns away from Hardison; one of them included knocking him down as well, to remove him from their fire.
The only problem with all those scenarios was that he would be dead when he finished with the last one. With Hardison alive, and Parker out of their reach, that was a good outcome, knowing the odds were so poor that they were almost incalculable.
But their last words were still stinging in his brain - damn you, Nate, you and your logic and reason - and he knew, now more than ever, how right Nate really was. He wouldn’t hesitate a second. But Nate had told him that a hitter who didn’t protect himself first is of no use to anybody, and this fuck up was a good example - they would be left without a hitter right in the middle of this job.
For a heartbeat he thought he wouldn’t be able to stop, all his instincts were screaming to attack now, every second was giving them further advantage - but he managed to slowly exhale all the turmoil and rage. There weren’t just four of them - he had to think about all the rest that the team might face after those four. Getting killed while saving Hardison and Parker meant there would be no one who would stop the next attacks.
“Get up.” The second words that one of them said were calm, without any tension.
Hardison was on his feet in a second, and he made a show of carefully helping him get up, with a worried huff, attentively staying close. The hacker knew it was better to seem weaker than he was.
Wait and watch, he reminded himself again - after all, if necessary, he could start at any time, no matter their change of position. But they needed him alive.
Hardison correctly read his invisible grasp on his hand while helping him up, and he turned to the one that spoke, spreading his arms in a peaceful manner, and with a fucking smile.
“So…” hacker's smile grew smug when he flashed his teeth. “Parley?”