The Season Six Job, Ch.17
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
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***
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“Explain this,” Goon A motioned to Hardison who was lying still, with the mask on his face.
“He panicked,” Eliot shrugged. “I tried to tell you to stop the van - he’s claustrophobic, he had an attack and he fainted.”
“Get out.” He waited until Eliot stepped away from the van, and then two guys dragged Hardison out.
Onto the sand.
Sand was everywhere he looked. Eliot didn’t take his eyes from Goon A, but what was behind him looked just like the complex he imagined during the trip… in the middle of the woods, with a broad road, abandoned and huge, the largest buildings four stories tall. Behind the buildings were five silos, painted red, two of them leaning on each other.
He couldn’t guess what it had been before. Strange ramps near the van went inside the building through large openings; if the buildings were made of metal, it would look like hangars, but the ramps were clearly going down, into the basement level. Everything was made of old red bricks, and the windows were dark, dirty and mostly broken. He noticed in the first glance that the windows were huge, but made of many smaller panes, and he knew that type of construction - steel frames, unbreakable, and too small even for Parker to go out through the glass.
He turned around, checking the part of the complex that was behind the van. There was nothing there, just a wet meadow with a few bushes, and a couple of hundred meters away, something that looked like a sand excavation camp. The rain distorted everything at that distance, but the piles of sand, machinery and big trucks were visible enough. So it was the activity that he saw, two trucks were moving. The five didn’t make any attempt to move from the open space, and they had driven past that excavation, so it was likely that both complexes were connected; one for some sort of business, and this one for less pleasant business deals.
That meant that he couldn’t count on just five of them in play, reinforcements were only a shout away.
And he could barely stand on his feet.
“Where is your boss?” he asked with a confused smile, but he knew it wouldn’t work even before Goon A went to check on Hardison and shook his head when he saw the bruise on his temple.
“Spare me,” Goon A simply said. “It’s raining, it’s cold, and I don’t want to be here. Do yourself a favor and tell me what I need to know, and this will be quick and painless.”
“When you say ‘this’, what exactly do you mean?”
He knew what was coming and the hit didn’t surprise him; he even knew it would be Goon B who silently circled around him while Goon A talked, and he didn’t make any attempt to strike back or stay upright. He let the blow spin him around, and fell into the muddy sand, using that spin to ease the fall. It didn’t quite work, but hell, he had to give them something expected. Curling up protected his ribs and wound, the boots hit his forearms and back a few times. The last hit got him in the head and it was a very unpleasant one, but he just counted the seconds and stayed down. They might call it softening up, and it probably was very efficient on somebody else, but the only thing that worried him right now was that Goon A might not be deceived enough. When the beating stopped he did his best to look like a senseless heap, turning onto his back.
Damn rain was tickling his face, and Hardison’s jacket was positively ruined.
“Changed your mind?” Goon A hovered above him. “This is just an introduction, you know?”
He slowly blinked a few times, as if he had problems focusing on him, checking their position. Goon C was under the tin roof, more than ten meters away, with a gun, covering them all from a distance. The fourth guy - and no way was he calling him Goon D, that was so fucking stupid - was five meters away, too far away as well. The driver was nowhere to be seen, probably still in the van. Nope, still not good; he couldn’t do much, not with Hardison in the open and without any cover. He needed them to go inside, to have them all much closer, and the enclosed space was perfect for that.
He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped, rolled his eyes and went completely limp.
“Fuck,” Goon A sighed. “Ok, let’s move out of this rain… get them inside. Martin, prepare the third silo and then join us.” Okay, Martin was the driver.
He was hoping they would drag him on his back so he could see the interior, but they grabbed his upper arms and lifted him up on his feet. He immediately fell with all his weight, but they didn’t take a hint, they dragged him between them and he had to keep his head bowed. He could see the floor through his hair - corridors, smaller ramps, metal cages… and when they started to climb down, into the lower levels cut off from the dim daylight and lit only by rare yellow lights, he finally figured out what this shit was before… mainly because of the dark brown color of the ramps.
It was an abandoned slaughterhouse. The fucking irony. He would really like to see any CSI unit try to find someone’s DNA under all the layers and layers of old, dried animal blood.
He listened to their steps, waiting for them to come closer - Hardison was dragged to the end of the row, far behind them- but even the stairs and more rooms didn’t ease the cautious attention of Goon C. He would be the biggest trouble here, if his attention didn’t slip with time.
The problem was that time was something he didn’t have too much of.
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***
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Parker cursed her choice of car for the hundredth time as she went after the van onto a smaller forest road with no traffic at all. Her lights were off, the steady rain made a good veil to cover her, but her car was yellow, and completely visible from a distance. She had to give them more room, put at least two curves between them, and she drove slower, careful not to miss any junction, or smaller paths they could take.
Driving drunk was another part of the fun, and the car wasn’t listening to her sudden turns of the wheel, correcting and cutting the curves, not to mention sliding on the sandy, wet road.
For most of the last ten minutes she saw the van only briefly, far away ahead, and she almost missed them leaving the road. It was good she continued to drive for another hundred meters, thinking about where to stop, because she faced a fence, and realized she was much closer to the main building than the van. They drove carefully by a sand excavation camp, and she skipped that part and stopped before they did.
She hid the car, prepared for a tiresome and painful walk through the mud and cold rain. The only good thing was that all five of the mobsters were occupied with their prisoners and they didn’t look around.
She found a pile of garbage near the torn wire fence that gave her good cover, but it didn’t provide any protection from the wind and the rain. She was soaking wet, and she barely managed to keep the bomb dry, safely tucked into her shirt. She put the earbud into her ear.
“You’re already on the smaller road? Look for a mark,” she said to Nate.
“Ten minutes behind you. They stopped?”
“Stay on that course and stop when you see the sand excavation camp - they are in the huge ruins behind it. I’m on that side, you try to come from the other. They stopped right now, I’m watching them.” She crawled closer, not taking her eyes from the van and people getting out.
“Hardison is on the ground, they dragged him from the van, but Eliot is standing…he’s talking with one of them, he said someth-” she quickly put a hand over her mouth to muffle her sudden cry. “They knocked him down and they are beating him…he's not fighting back, I don’t think he can… he is just lying there… they are both down now, and they are dragging them into that building.”
“Stay put, Parker, Eliot is just playing them and buying time - they didn’t bring them all the way out here just to kill them right away, they’ll try to get everything from them first. Wait for us.”
“I’m going in, Nate, I have to see where they are, and be close if… I have to go.”
“Parker, we are just ten minutes-” soft crackling sounds covered Nate’s words and the line went dead - not dead as if he stopped talking, just dead. She quickly pulled out the earbud, checking it, and cursed quietly. It was wet, the damn rain soaked her hair and destroyed the earbud too.
She put it back in the pocket, hoping that the fabric would protect it and dry it out, and went to the other side of the building to find her way in.
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***
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Their way through the building lasted much more than it should. They passed through many rooms good for interrogation, some of them even with chains and hooks for dead animals, but they just kept going, climbing down one more level below the basement. Fuck, just the thought of returning all the way up made him more tired. The bruises and contusions were not troubling him, though they didn’t help him to feel better, it was his general shitty shape that made all of this deadly. He would be completely spent very soon, with no strength to even stay upright, much less fight.
Their choice of room was more bad news. They threw them into a large open space, dimly lit with only two bulbs on a very, very high ceiling - the other end disappeared into darkness. Two large grayish spots high above them showed that the space had windows, just dirty and probably covered with something. The space was divided by something that looked like broken boxes in three visible rows, more of them behind - they probably held cattle here. When he saw two giant pipes in the middle of all that, he knew why Martin had gone to prepare the silo. Under the pipes, an entire hill of rotten sand-like mixture was rising - a perfect place to bury the bodies under the tons of remaining cattle food from the silos.
“Wake up the other guy,” Goon A ordered and one of them went to Hardison. Eliot stood silent, watching his attempts to stir him, and he couldn’t tell if Hardison was faking it, following his words, or if he was still out. Before the guy tried harder, he moved and slowly got on his knees to draw Goon A’s attention away from Hardison.
Goon C was now fucking twenty meters away. And he had hoped that going into the building would force him to come closer. This shit definitely wasn’t going in a good direction.
And his mood wasn’t improving either.
Sending mixed signals to confuse Goon A might prove more difficult than he expected, but that was the only thing that he could do now. They weren’t coming near. Faking weakness…okay, not exactly faking it, more like letting it show, wasn’t working, maybe the opposite would change their behavior.
Instead of stuttering and frightened questions, he simply stood up and smiled at them.
“So, now comes the part where you scare the shit out of me, and I tell you everything I know?” he glanced around and smiled at Goon C. “Or you think that the scenery would do that before you even say the first word? Knudsen really has a nose for choosing low life thugs for the dirty work.”
Goon B and D - damn you, Hardison, you and your stupid name-calling - exchanged glances and took one careful step closer to him.
“If you want me to tell you anything, you must not shoot,” he smiled again, taking a few steps closer to them, putting more distance between himself and Hardison. Of course they could shoot, and they would, but at this point it wasn’t important what he was saying, but how.
“Ah, we’ll simply shoot you,” Goon A said, sounding almost bored. “We have the other guy.”
“Yep, but he doesn’t know anything, he just babbled to buy time. I was the one who chased you away, remember? He doesn’t even know how Florence looks, much less where to find the USB.”
“So, you’re saying he’s useless?” Goon A smiled. Fuck, he is good. But other two guys looked at their boss, waiting for orders, and he was two more steps closer to them.
“One more step and he gets a bullet,” Goon C lifted his hand with the gun, pointing it at Hardison. It seemed that even knocking him out didn’t work like it should have, even unconscious he was being still held against him. Eliot stopped, knowing very well he had just showed them Hardison’s importance. He had no other choice.
“You’ll kill him in the end, no matter what I do. It’s better for him to go not knowing that. Go ahead, kill him - and I’ll make sure you get nothing from me. I have nothing to lose either, and it’ll be a great pleasure to screw you. After all, the two of us are the last trace to Florence. With us, your search ends right here.”
“You only think you won’t tell us anything,” Goon A motioned to other two, and they moved a few steps away from him. He didn’t turn around, keeping an eye on Goon C who still covered Hardison. C for Cautious.
“In five minutes you’ll be a crying heap of broken bones that will beg to tell us everything,” Goon A continued pleasantly. A for Attentive. “Now, kneel, and put your hands on your head, or you’ll get two bullets in your knees.”
He should have done that immediately, instead of just threatening him with it; this guy knew a lot, but he wasn’t a real interrogator. Eliot glanced at other two that were coming closer - Goon B had a knife in his hand, and the other one had a nasty looking metal pole, torn from the animal pens. B for Bully.
Finally.
He barely suppressed a cheerful grin, slowly putting his hands on his head and kneeling as he was told. He needed just two quick strikes to get rid of the one with the pole and one more to have the knife in his hands. Goon C would turn the gun from Hardison to him, but he would have two live shields from the first bullets, and the knife would take care of that deadly distance. That left only Goon A and his gun and he would have a chance to fire a few bullets - but he was closer.
He had enough strength for this sudden outburst, but barely, and he had to finish it here and now - he wouldn’t be able even to stand on his feet after that.
He bowed his head so his hair would cover his face, and took one deep breath, preparing for-
A soft giggle echoed through the building.
Everybody stopped in their tracks, and he suppressed a curse.
Another giggle was followed by a girl’s voice, coming from somewhere above them, from the other rooms. “Look, Zoey, here’s another hole! Call Nick to come and see it!” Something clanged, and quick footsteps, followed by more giggles, faded away.
Fuck, Parker, this isn’t smart.
“Fucking teenagers again!” Goon A spat a curse and drew his phone. “Martin, leave the silo, we have intruders. Call five men from the camp, uniformed ones, and chase them away. See if they saw anything, and hurry the fuck up, we’re in the middle of business here!” He looked above them, to the ceiling hidden in darkness and the openings that led to other rooms and levels, and cursed again. “Move him out of sight,” he motioned to Hardison.
His knife and pole went away. Eliot sighed.
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***
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When Nate stopped the van on the main road near the sand excavation camp, hidden from the site by trees and bushes, Florence got up, ready to hurry out, but he didn’t move, he just watched the buildings in front of him.
“Do we have any weapons in the van?” she asked Sophie who was tying back her hair and buttoning a jacket.
“No.”
“Will he use that Lieutenant Webster again?” she asked.
“No. We’re not in town, in a public place, this is isolated. They would kill him and hide the body.”
Nate was still thinking.
“So, there’s six of us. Three women - one drunk and hurt, two unarmed and helpless. Three men - two down, maybe even dead, one unarmed. And five mobsters with guns. If I wrote this, it would definitely be a series finale. A tragedy. A van full of dead bodies.”
Nobody answered. Nate stopped watching the buildings, he lowered his eyes onto the road.
Florence shifted, not daring to look at the dark, foreboding building behind the hills of sand.
“Their road is newer that this one,” Nate said suddenly.
“What?”
He didn’t answer, just smiled.
“Nate, trouble.” Sophie showed him the five men that quickly moved from the excavation camp to the other building. Yes, they were going on the road that looked better maintained that this one they were on, but she couldn’t see why that was important. Five new guys, for god’s sake, and he smiled again when he saw them.
“Sophie, get behind the wheel, be ready to run. Both of you stay in Lucille,” he opened the door and got out, but stopped and looked at her. “Pixie, listen to Sophie. This is not an episode, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
He just left, with no explanation.
Sophie tapped her hand gently, and buckled herself on driver’s seat.
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***
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They were all too close to throw the bomb down, the explosion would kill them all, and Parker swore at the useless thing. She was hanging down from a cut off pole, very similar to the one that one of them was holding. It handled her weight, and she could only imagine what just one hit with that could do to a human body.
Hanging eased the pain in her leg, but it was difficult to keep her balance when it seemed that the very air around her moved, taking her with it with every sway. It wasn’t the bomb that was useless, it was her, she thought, biting her lip - she could barely walk, and her every action would only end by adding one more prisoner to the room she was observing.
She managed to stop those two from knocking Eliot down with those stupid giggles, but she heard the main guy who called for more men, and she was half crazy already - all she did was make things worse.
Staring at Hardison’s limp body was driving her nuts and she tried to read Eliot; he wouldn’t be this controlled if Hardison was dead or badly injured. He was just concentrated, not mad. At least she hoped so.
She slowly rose and let the pole go, hoisting herself to the upper level. She might draw that Martin guy after her and give Eliot more time to do something, and one less opponent.
And she knew exactly how much time she needed to get to the room she passed through while coming in there - and her bomb wouldn’t be useless then.
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***
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The wire fence was torn at the place where Nate entered the complex. It went completely around both sites, cutting through the woods pretty far behind the slaughterhouse. The main road went around it, following the fence, but he returned a few hundred meters from the place where he left Lucille.
He had an earbud in just in case Parker came back online, but he completely muted a quiet conversation between Florence and Sophie, leaving the grifter to deal with the frightened writer.
The road which connected the long abandoned slaughterhouse and the working sand excavation camp really was far better maintained than the main road that ran parallel with that one… and occasional interrogation sessions couldn’t be the main cause for that investment. There must’ve been something more to it besides a good and isolated place to bring enemies. Yet, now was not the time to think about that, he had work to do.
Going to the slaughterhouse would do no good, there wasn’t a scam or a grift he could try on five killers. He would just be a witness to get rid of.
He had to have faith in the three of them, and he did, but his mind was always too quick when trying out all the possibilities, and with every step he took, another way for them all to end up killed was forming in his head. Fortunately, it went in all directions, so every possible action had at least three of their reactions, and all of that was going in an endless circle. Killed, not killed, killed, not killed, killed… It definitely didn’t help him to concentrate on the things he could do.
The excavation camp was too near and full of people who would come to help in a matter of minutes, and he had to think in advance. Diversions in the slaughterhouse he had to leave to Parker… he should be creating a different one.
For the tenth time he cursed their ten minute delay in coming - it would be perfect if he could stop the five that had already gone into the ruins - but he reminded himself again to put some fucking trust in them… no matter how much the fear played with his mind.
The sand grinding machines had been spreading their huge metal hands all over the place, but they were silent now. Rain and late afternoon stopped the machinery; only three big trucks were moving, finishing the last loads of the day.
He went as close as he could, covered by the veil of rain, examining the tipper trucks and dump trucks parked in a row. It was normal to see them at this place, but at the end of the row were five closed ones, not suitable for a loose material such as sand. The parking place for the trucks was guarded by an electric fence, three meters high. Without any visible warning.
He knew nothing about sand excavation, but even he could tell there were too many of them, thirty five. They were shiny, bright yellow, glistening in the rain and under the strong lights that were already turned on, waiting for the quickly falling darkness.
He circled around the fence, and he was lucky - doors weren’t closed yet. He pulled out his phone and took as many pictures as he could, at the same time listening to every sound around him. The slaughterhouse was silent, and he tried to keep his eyes off of it, and to concentrate only on this site.
A small part of the parking lot, in the back and behind all the trucks, was covered, and there were no trucks, just one Ford pickup, loaded with bright colored packages. The place had been transformed into something like service station, or repair shop, completely open at the front.
He should be able to find everything he needed there.
He checked the direction of the wind and went closer, using the trucks as cover, counting the minutes that passed.
The silence from the warehouse was twisting his belly into painful knot of barbed wire.
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
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***
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“Explain this,” Goon A motioned to Hardison who was lying still, with the mask on his face.
“He panicked,” Eliot shrugged. “I tried to tell you to stop the van - he’s claustrophobic, he had an attack and he fainted.”
“Get out.” He waited until Eliot stepped away from the van, and then two guys dragged Hardison out.
Onto the sand.
Sand was everywhere he looked. Eliot didn’t take his eyes from Goon A, but what was behind him looked just like the complex he imagined during the trip… in the middle of the woods, with a broad road, abandoned and huge, the largest buildings four stories tall. Behind the buildings were five silos, painted red, two of them leaning on each other.
He couldn’t guess what it had been before. Strange ramps near the van went inside the building through large openings; if the buildings were made of metal, it would look like hangars, but the ramps were clearly going down, into the basement level. Everything was made of old red bricks, and the windows were dark, dirty and mostly broken. He noticed in the first glance that the windows were huge, but made of many smaller panes, and he knew that type of construction - steel frames, unbreakable, and too small even for Parker to go out through the glass.
He turned around, checking the part of the complex that was behind the van. There was nothing there, just a wet meadow with a few bushes, and a couple of hundred meters away, something that looked like a sand excavation camp. The rain distorted everything at that distance, but the piles of sand, machinery and big trucks were visible enough. So it was the activity that he saw, two trucks were moving. The five didn’t make any attempt to move from the open space, and they had driven past that excavation, so it was likely that both complexes were connected; one for some sort of business, and this one for less pleasant business deals.
That meant that he couldn’t count on just five of them in play, reinforcements were only a shout away.
And he could barely stand on his feet.
“Where is your boss?” he asked with a confused smile, but he knew it wouldn’t work even before Goon A went to check on Hardison and shook his head when he saw the bruise on his temple.
“Spare me,” Goon A simply said. “It’s raining, it’s cold, and I don’t want to be here. Do yourself a favor and tell me what I need to know, and this will be quick and painless.”
“When you say ‘this’, what exactly do you mean?”
He knew what was coming and the hit didn’t surprise him; he even knew it would be Goon B who silently circled around him while Goon A talked, and he didn’t make any attempt to strike back or stay upright. He let the blow spin him around, and fell into the muddy sand, using that spin to ease the fall. It didn’t quite work, but hell, he had to give them something expected. Curling up protected his ribs and wound, the boots hit his forearms and back a few times. The last hit got him in the head and it was a very unpleasant one, but he just counted the seconds and stayed down. They might call it softening up, and it probably was very efficient on somebody else, but the only thing that worried him right now was that Goon A might not be deceived enough. When the beating stopped he did his best to look like a senseless heap, turning onto his back.
Damn rain was tickling his face, and Hardison’s jacket was positively ruined.
“Changed your mind?” Goon A hovered above him. “This is just an introduction, you know?”
He slowly blinked a few times, as if he had problems focusing on him, checking their position. Goon C was under the tin roof, more than ten meters away, with a gun, covering them all from a distance. The fourth guy - and no way was he calling him Goon D, that was so fucking stupid - was five meters away, too far away as well. The driver was nowhere to be seen, probably still in the van. Nope, still not good; he couldn’t do much, not with Hardison in the open and without any cover. He needed them to go inside, to have them all much closer, and the enclosed space was perfect for that.
He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped, rolled his eyes and went completely limp.
“Fuck,” Goon A sighed. “Ok, let’s move out of this rain… get them inside. Martin, prepare the third silo and then join us.” Okay, Martin was the driver.
He was hoping they would drag him on his back so he could see the interior, but they grabbed his upper arms and lifted him up on his feet. He immediately fell with all his weight, but they didn’t take a hint, they dragged him between them and he had to keep his head bowed. He could see the floor through his hair - corridors, smaller ramps, metal cages… and when they started to climb down, into the lower levels cut off from the dim daylight and lit only by rare yellow lights, he finally figured out what this shit was before… mainly because of the dark brown color of the ramps.
It was an abandoned slaughterhouse. The fucking irony. He would really like to see any CSI unit try to find someone’s DNA under all the layers and layers of old, dried animal blood.
He listened to their steps, waiting for them to come closer - Hardison was dragged to the end of the row, far behind them- but even the stairs and more rooms didn’t ease the cautious attention of Goon C. He would be the biggest trouble here, if his attention didn’t slip with time.
The problem was that time was something he didn’t have too much of.
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***
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Parker cursed her choice of car for the hundredth time as she went after the van onto a smaller forest road with no traffic at all. Her lights were off, the steady rain made a good veil to cover her, but her car was yellow, and completely visible from a distance. She had to give them more room, put at least two curves between them, and she drove slower, careful not to miss any junction, or smaller paths they could take.
Driving drunk was another part of the fun, and the car wasn’t listening to her sudden turns of the wheel, correcting and cutting the curves, not to mention sliding on the sandy, wet road.
For most of the last ten minutes she saw the van only briefly, far away ahead, and she almost missed them leaving the road. It was good she continued to drive for another hundred meters, thinking about where to stop, because she faced a fence, and realized she was much closer to the main building than the van. They drove carefully by a sand excavation camp, and she skipped that part and stopped before they did.
She hid the car, prepared for a tiresome and painful walk through the mud and cold rain. The only good thing was that all five of the mobsters were occupied with their prisoners and they didn’t look around.
She found a pile of garbage near the torn wire fence that gave her good cover, but it didn’t provide any protection from the wind and the rain. She was soaking wet, and she barely managed to keep the bomb dry, safely tucked into her shirt. She put the earbud into her ear.
“You’re already on the smaller road? Look for a mark,” she said to Nate.
“Ten minutes behind you. They stopped?”
“Stay on that course and stop when you see the sand excavation camp - they are in the huge ruins behind it. I’m on that side, you try to come from the other. They stopped right now, I’m watching them.” She crawled closer, not taking her eyes from the van and people getting out.
“Hardison is on the ground, they dragged him from the van, but Eliot is standing…he’s talking with one of them, he said someth-” she quickly put a hand over her mouth to muffle her sudden cry. “They knocked him down and they are beating him…he's not fighting back, I don’t think he can… he is just lying there… they are both down now, and they are dragging them into that building.”
“Stay put, Parker, Eliot is just playing them and buying time - they didn’t bring them all the way out here just to kill them right away, they’ll try to get everything from them first. Wait for us.”
“I’m going in, Nate, I have to see where they are, and be close if… I have to go.”
“Parker, we are just ten minutes-” soft crackling sounds covered Nate’s words and the line went dead - not dead as if he stopped talking, just dead. She quickly pulled out the earbud, checking it, and cursed quietly. It was wet, the damn rain soaked her hair and destroyed the earbud too.
She put it back in the pocket, hoping that the fabric would protect it and dry it out, and went to the other side of the building to find her way in.
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***
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Their way through the building lasted much more than it should. They passed through many rooms good for interrogation, some of them even with chains and hooks for dead animals, but they just kept going, climbing down one more level below the basement. Fuck, just the thought of returning all the way up made him more tired. The bruises and contusions were not troubling him, though they didn’t help him to feel better, it was his general shitty shape that made all of this deadly. He would be completely spent very soon, with no strength to even stay upright, much less fight.
Their choice of room was more bad news. They threw them into a large open space, dimly lit with only two bulbs on a very, very high ceiling - the other end disappeared into darkness. Two large grayish spots high above them showed that the space had windows, just dirty and probably covered with something. The space was divided by something that looked like broken boxes in three visible rows, more of them behind - they probably held cattle here. When he saw two giant pipes in the middle of all that, he knew why Martin had gone to prepare the silo. Under the pipes, an entire hill of rotten sand-like mixture was rising - a perfect place to bury the bodies under the tons of remaining cattle food from the silos.
“Wake up the other guy,” Goon A ordered and one of them went to Hardison. Eliot stood silent, watching his attempts to stir him, and he couldn’t tell if Hardison was faking it, following his words, or if he was still out. Before the guy tried harder, he moved and slowly got on his knees to draw Goon A’s attention away from Hardison.
Goon C was now fucking twenty meters away. And he had hoped that going into the building would force him to come closer. This shit definitely wasn’t going in a good direction.
And his mood wasn’t improving either.
Sending mixed signals to confuse Goon A might prove more difficult than he expected, but that was the only thing that he could do now. They weren’t coming near. Faking weakness…okay, not exactly faking it, more like letting it show, wasn’t working, maybe the opposite would change their behavior.
Instead of stuttering and frightened questions, he simply stood up and smiled at them.
“So, now comes the part where you scare the shit out of me, and I tell you everything I know?” he glanced around and smiled at Goon C. “Or you think that the scenery would do that before you even say the first word? Knudsen really has a nose for choosing low life thugs for the dirty work.”
Goon B and D - damn you, Hardison, you and your stupid name-calling - exchanged glances and took one careful step closer to him.
“If you want me to tell you anything, you must not shoot,” he smiled again, taking a few steps closer to them, putting more distance between himself and Hardison. Of course they could shoot, and they would, but at this point it wasn’t important what he was saying, but how.
“Ah, we’ll simply shoot you,” Goon A said, sounding almost bored. “We have the other guy.”
“Yep, but he doesn’t know anything, he just babbled to buy time. I was the one who chased you away, remember? He doesn’t even know how Florence looks, much less where to find the USB.”
“So, you’re saying he’s useless?” Goon A smiled. Fuck, he is good. But other two guys looked at their boss, waiting for orders, and he was two more steps closer to them.
“One more step and he gets a bullet,” Goon C lifted his hand with the gun, pointing it at Hardison. It seemed that even knocking him out didn’t work like it should have, even unconscious he was being still held against him. Eliot stopped, knowing very well he had just showed them Hardison’s importance. He had no other choice.
“You’ll kill him in the end, no matter what I do. It’s better for him to go not knowing that. Go ahead, kill him - and I’ll make sure you get nothing from me. I have nothing to lose either, and it’ll be a great pleasure to screw you. After all, the two of us are the last trace to Florence. With us, your search ends right here.”
“You only think you won’t tell us anything,” Goon A motioned to other two, and they moved a few steps away from him. He didn’t turn around, keeping an eye on Goon C who still covered Hardison. C for Cautious.
“In five minutes you’ll be a crying heap of broken bones that will beg to tell us everything,” Goon A continued pleasantly. A for Attentive. “Now, kneel, and put your hands on your head, or you’ll get two bullets in your knees.”
He should have done that immediately, instead of just threatening him with it; this guy knew a lot, but he wasn’t a real interrogator. Eliot glanced at other two that were coming closer - Goon B had a knife in his hand, and the other one had a nasty looking metal pole, torn from the animal pens. B for Bully.
Finally.
He barely suppressed a cheerful grin, slowly putting his hands on his head and kneeling as he was told. He needed just two quick strikes to get rid of the one with the pole and one more to have the knife in his hands. Goon C would turn the gun from Hardison to him, but he would have two live shields from the first bullets, and the knife would take care of that deadly distance. That left only Goon A and his gun and he would have a chance to fire a few bullets - but he was closer.
He had enough strength for this sudden outburst, but barely, and he had to finish it here and now - he wouldn’t be able even to stand on his feet after that.
He bowed his head so his hair would cover his face, and took one deep breath, preparing for-
A soft giggle echoed through the building.
Everybody stopped in their tracks, and he suppressed a curse.
Another giggle was followed by a girl’s voice, coming from somewhere above them, from the other rooms. “Look, Zoey, here’s another hole! Call Nick to come and see it!” Something clanged, and quick footsteps, followed by more giggles, faded away.
Fuck, Parker, this isn’t smart.
“Fucking teenagers again!” Goon A spat a curse and drew his phone. “Martin, leave the silo, we have intruders. Call five men from the camp, uniformed ones, and chase them away. See if they saw anything, and hurry the fuck up, we’re in the middle of business here!” He looked above them, to the ceiling hidden in darkness and the openings that led to other rooms and levels, and cursed again. “Move him out of sight,” he motioned to Hardison.
His knife and pole went away. Eliot sighed.
.
.
.
***
.
When Nate stopped the van on the main road near the sand excavation camp, hidden from the site by trees and bushes, Florence got up, ready to hurry out, but he didn’t move, he just watched the buildings in front of him.
“Do we have any weapons in the van?” she asked Sophie who was tying back her hair and buttoning a jacket.
“No.”
“Will he use that Lieutenant Webster again?” she asked.
“No. We’re not in town, in a public place, this is isolated. They would kill him and hide the body.”
Nate was still thinking.
“So, there’s six of us. Three women - one drunk and hurt, two unarmed and helpless. Three men - two down, maybe even dead, one unarmed. And five mobsters with guns. If I wrote this, it would definitely be a series finale. A tragedy. A van full of dead bodies.”
Nobody answered. Nate stopped watching the buildings, he lowered his eyes onto the road.
Florence shifted, not daring to look at the dark, foreboding building behind the hills of sand.
“Their road is newer that this one,” Nate said suddenly.
“What?”
He didn’t answer, just smiled.
“Nate, trouble.” Sophie showed him the five men that quickly moved from the excavation camp to the other building. Yes, they were going on the road that looked better maintained that this one they were on, but she couldn’t see why that was important. Five new guys, for god’s sake, and he smiled again when he saw them.
“Sophie, get behind the wheel, be ready to run. Both of you stay in Lucille,” he opened the door and got out, but stopped and looked at her. “Pixie, listen to Sophie. This is not an episode, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
He just left, with no explanation.
Sophie tapped her hand gently, and buckled herself on driver’s seat.
.
.
.
***
.
They were all too close to throw the bomb down, the explosion would kill them all, and Parker swore at the useless thing. She was hanging down from a cut off pole, very similar to the one that one of them was holding. It handled her weight, and she could only imagine what just one hit with that could do to a human body.
Hanging eased the pain in her leg, but it was difficult to keep her balance when it seemed that the very air around her moved, taking her with it with every sway. It wasn’t the bomb that was useless, it was her, she thought, biting her lip - she could barely walk, and her every action would only end by adding one more prisoner to the room she was observing.
She managed to stop those two from knocking Eliot down with those stupid giggles, but she heard the main guy who called for more men, and she was half crazy already - all she did was make things worse.
Staring at Hardison’s limp body was driving her nuts and she tried to read Eliot; he wouldn’t be this controlled if Hardison was dead or badly injured. He was just concentrated, not mad. At least she hoped so.
She slowly rose and let the pole go, hoisting herself to the upper level. She might draw that Martin guy after her and give Eliot more time to do something, and one less opponent.
And she knew exactly how much time she needed to get to the room she passed through while coming in there - and her bomb wouldn’t be useless then.
.
.
.
***
.
The wire fence was torn at the place where Nate entered the complex. It went completely around both sites, cutting through the woods pretty far behind the slaughterhouse. The main road went around it, following the fence, but he returned a few hundred meters from the place where he left Lucille.
He had an earbud in just in case Parker came back online, but he completely muted a quiet conversation between Florence and Sophie, leaving the grifter to deal with the frightened writer.
The road which connected the long abandoned slaughterhouse and the working sand excavation camp really was far better maintained than the main road that ran parallel with that one… and occasional interrogation sessions couldn’t be the main cause for that investment. There must’ve been something more to it besides a good and isolated place to bring enemies. Yet, now was not the time to think about that, he had work to do.
Going to the slaughterhouse would do no good, there wasn’t a scam or a grift he could try on five killers. He would just be a witness to get rid of.
He had to have faith in the three of them, and he did, but his mind was always too quick when trying out all the possibilities, and with every step he took, another way for them all to end up killed was forming in his head. Fortunately, it went in all directions, so every possible action had at least three of their reactions, and all of that was going in an endless circle. Killed, not killed, killed, not killed, killed… It definitely didn’t help him to concentrate on the things he could do.
The excavation camp was too near and full of people who would come to help in a matter of minutes, and he had to think in advance. Diversions in the slaughterhouse he had to leave to Parker… he should be creating a different one.
For the tenth time he cursed their ten minute delay in coming - it would be perfect if he could stop the five that had already gone into the ruins - but he reminded himself again to put some fucking trust in them… no matter how much the fear played with his mind.
The sand grinding machines had been spreading their huge metal hands all over the place, but they were silent now. Rain and late afternoon stopped the machinery; only three big trucks were moving, finishing the last loads of the day.
He went as close as he could, covered by the veil of rain, examining the tipper trucks and dump trucks parked in a row. It was normal to see them at this place, but at the end of the row were five closed ones, not suitable for a loose material such as sand. The parking place for the trucks was guarded by an electric fence, three meters high. Without any visible warning.
He knew nothing about sand excavation, but even he could tell there were too many of them, thirty five. They were shiny, bright yellow, glistening in the rain and under the strong lights that were already turned on, waiting for the quickly falling darkness.
He circled around the fence, and he was lucky - doors weren’t closed yet. He pulled out his phone and took as many pictures as he could, at the same time listening to every sound around him. The slaughterhouse was silent, and he tried to keep his eyes off of it, and to concentrate only on this site.
A small part of the parking lot, in the back and behind all the trucks, was covered, and there were no trucks, just one Ford pickup, loaded with bright colored packages. The place had been transformed into something like service station, or repair shop, completely open at the front.
He should be able to find everything he needed there.
He checked the direction of the wind and went closer, using the trucks as cover, counting the minutes that passed.
The silence from the warehouse was twisting his belly into painful knot of barbed wire.