Chapter Text
Hardison's hand hovered over the timer's start button, waiting until each member of the team was ready.
"And time begins…" the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place and he hit start, "now. Ok, Parker, you've got about two minutes before the alarms come back on."
Parker's voice came back over the comms, "Piece of cake."
Hardison switched from monitoring her progress to checking in on the others, who were all in the mark's mansion, making sure he stayed distracted. Nate and Sophie were playing leaders in an important US/UK conglomerate who were looking to increase their reach further by partnering with the mark's Brazilian company, and Eliot was working security detail. It was a cut-and-dried retrieval job, but, inevitably, as they looked into the mark they found his prints on numerous other schemes similar to the one their client had come to them about. So while Parker was gathering the client's documents from the company's off-site storehouse, Nate and Sophie were working on getting some compensation for the mark's other victims.
The con was going off without a hitch. Hardison was listening to Nate and Sophie close the deal with half his attention, while the other half of his attention was absorbed in an argument with Eliot about the NFL draft. Then Parker came in over the comms. Her voice was hushed and nervous.
"-ard-son. Har-son!"
Hardison cut off the argument abruptly and checked the monitors, noting the patchy signal on Parker’s earbud.
"Parker, there's some interference with your comm, wait a second while I check it out."
"Th- s-one -ere," her voice sounded more urgent this time, and the static was getting worse.
Hardison checked the security cameras, but, to his surprise, the room looked empty. "Parker, you're not showing on my camera feed. Are you still in the file room?"
"- h-ve guns, -n- - bl-ckin- m- exit," her voice was lowered to a whisper. Hardison was alternately checking the cameras and Parker's earbud, trying to figure out what was interfering with it, but everything looked fine on his end. Parker tried to say something again but by this time the signal was so bad her voice was impossibly garbled.
"Parker, I can't see you. Where are you?" Static. "Parker!" Hardison's heart plunged as he checked Parker's comm line and saw the blinking error message: OFFLINE.
By this time Nate had given some excuse and pulled away from the conversation he and Sophie had been having with the mark, and Eliot was already halfway to the nearest vehicle.
"Talk to us, Hardison," Nate prompted over the line. "What's happening?"
"I don't know!" Hardison said as he frantically switched from screen to screen, trying to find Parker. "Parker's earbud just cut out, and I can't see her on any of the cameras!"
"I'm on my way to the warehouse," Eliot notified them, already speeding away from the mansion and into the jungle. "You keep trying to get a trace on her."
It took a while to get there, but a little less than half an hour later Eliot pulled up to the facility and jumped out of the vehicle, already looking around for any trace of Parker. Tread marks crisscrossed the wet ground outside of the building.
"I got a set of tire-tracks here: standard issue U.S. military. That's what most of these guerilla armies use, so they could be anybody's. You found anything yet, Hardison?" There was a second of silence over the comms.
"Ok, ok," Hardison's voice finally came through. "Somehow whoever was in the file room with Parker looped the camera feed, but I found the actual footage, and –" he paused. Then: "Eliot, they got Parker!"
The other voices came over the comm line simultaneously, "What?"
"They carried her out with a bag over her head and drove off!" Hardison sounded almost frantic.
Eliot was already starting the truck when he yelled back, "Which way?"
"S-south, they went south!" Hardison finally managed. "About fifteen minutes ago!"
Eliot followed the tracks into the jungle, for once glad of the muddy road conditions. He continued down the track for some time without seeing anything, intermittently getting updates from Hardison, most of which were speculations on how Parker's kidnappers had gotten past him. Each time, the hacker sounded more and more tormented over the fact that Parker had gotten kidnapped on his watch. He was agonizing over yet another way that he had let the team down when Nate interrupted him.
"Hardison, calm down and work the problem."
"Calm down?!" Hardison was incredulous. "Nate, Parker has been kidnapped!"
"Yeah, and how much do you think freaking out is going to help her?" Eliot snapped. He was beginning to be concerned that he hadn't found anything yet, and the road was steadily disappearing into the undergrowth.
"Dude, I'm telling you, I can’t do anything! Her earbud's offline, so I can’t talk to her; she doesn't have her phone on her, so I can't track that; I don't even know who took her!"
"Then figure it out!"
Eliot tuned out the hacker's further ramblings as he spotted something up ahead of him—another vehicle, he decided. Slowing his truck to a stop a good distance away, he turned it off but left the keys in the ignition; he would need to get away fast if he was seen. He rummaged around in the stolen vehicle but was disappointed to not find any weapons. He shrugged off his stiff security jacket and pulled on a more comfortable one from the back seat. Then he got out of the truck and went to see if there was anything useful in the bed. Still no firearms, but his search did turn up a rather impressive hunting knife and a tire-iron. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing.
"I think I might have found something. I'm going to check it out."
"Eliot," Sophie cautioned, "be careful. We don't need you getting caught too."
Eliot moved silently towards the other vehicle, being careful to stay just far enough off the road not to be seen. Dusk was setting in, so it was getting more difficult to see, but as he peered through the trees Eliot clocked two SUVs parked next to each other in a small clearing. He didn't see a base right away, so he assumed that meant that there was a bunker.
"Hardison," Eliot said quietly, "what were the guys who took Parker driving?" Hardison rattled off a model number as Eliot crept toward the closest vehicle. He moved around to the back of the SUV, noting the empty space where a license plate should be. He circled around to the side and crouched, also noting the still-wet mud on the tires.
"Any plate on that?" the only response was static. "Hardison." More fuzz. He let out a frustrated sigh and reached up to adjust his comm, but then he froze. Without moving his head, he looked down at his chest and saw the tell-tale red dot. That means no going forward, I guess. If he moved quickly, he might be able to duck behind a vehicle and then make his way back to the truck he had stolen.
Click. He heard the metallic sound of a pistol being cocked behind him. Well, so much for that plan. The man behind him spoke in Portuguese, ordering him to lower his weapon (read: tire-iron) and get on the ground. Eliot's mind kicked into survival mode. He slowly raised his hands, one of which was still clutching the piece of metal, and calculated how far the person behind him was, based on the voice.
Eliot took a deep breath. One… two… three! Throwing the tire-iron behind him, he rolled under the SUV and heard the bullets ping off the side. He crawled out on the other side and dashed off into the trees. Almost immediately after he disappeared, angry shouts erupted behind him, and heavy boots crashed into the underbrush. From their yelling, Eliot gathered that they knew who he was, and what he had been known for, and that they obviously thought he had come to their base to sabotage them.
They ran for fifteen minutes—Eliot’s lungs began to burn. They ran for half an hour—his heart felt like it was going to burst. They ran for an hour. At some point during the hunt, Eliot felt his leg start to burn as sweat rolled into a cut that he wasn't quite sure when he had gotten, but still he ran on. The dusky light of the jungle soon faded and left the path pitch-black, the thick canopy of leaves overhead shutting out even the starlight.
After what felt like an eternity, the voices faded and Eliot collapsed against a tree. As he leaned there, gasping, he began to process the events of the day for almost the first time. Parker had been caught, he was separated from the rest of the team, and—he reached up to tap his earbud—his comm was out of range. Eliot dropped his head into his hands. Had it really just been that morning that they had all had breakfast together? It seemed like weeks ago. Too tired to contemplate much else, he climbed up the bole of the tree and situated himself in a stable position, falling into exhausted unconsciousness almost immediately.
SQUAWK!!
Eliot’s eyes shot open and he lurched forward, his quick reflexes the only thing keeping him perched on his branch instead of plummeting to the ground below. His sudden motion would have brought him nose-to-nose with the thing that had woken him, but the startled bird flapped its wings and alighted on a different limb a few yards away. Looking offended, the toucan squawked at Eliot again with disapproval. The sound—which reminded him more of a pig than a bird—grated on his nerves, and he glared at the bird. Still, he supposed he should be glad that it had woken him. Judging by the light in the forest, it was nearing midmorning.
Now that Eliot was awake, he took stock of himself. The first thing he did was examine the cut on his leg. Though it looked ugly, the laceration was shallow and wouldn’t cause him any trouble for now. Except for being incredibly stiff and ridiculously sore, he was fine. He counted himself lucky as made his way down the tree, muscles straining all the way.
Dropping to the ground, he realized that the most pressing issue for him right then was his lack of food and water. He wanted to find some water, but he also didn’t want to get any more lost than he already was. A shot in the dark, Eliot tried his comm. Nothing. Hardison was good, but Eliot knew that the even the earbuds had their limit. He then turned in a slow circle, scanning the area. If he had to guess, he would have said that he had run about five miles the night before, but he couldn't even begin to guess which direction it had been in, or if it had even all been in the same one.
After deliberating, he decided that his best bet was to try and track his way back toward the base and get to the truck he had left from there. Once he was there, he could try and get in touch with Hardison. If Parker was in that bunker like Eliot thought she was, there was no way they were getting in there without a plan.
Eliot started on his way, tracking his path back through the trees. It wasn't easy, but thankfully he had been less than careful the night before, so there were still traces where he had broken through the underbrush or left footprints in the mud.
He followed the track for the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. The closer he got to the base, the easier it was to see. From how trampled the ground looked, Eliot could see that quite a few men had been after him, and he was all the more thankful that he had been able to outrun them. His mouth was dry as a bone, so to distract himself, he fiddled with his comm to see if it was in range yet, but he wasn't surprised when the signal was still dead.
He was getting close enough to the base that he began to take care about how much noise he made, and he thought that he maybe saw the bunker up ahead, when something fizzled to life in his earbud. It was a brief noise, just enough for him to recognize Hardison's voice. Eliot froze. He went back a step: static. He stepped to the side: slightly more promising static. He maneuvered around, trying to find the signal, until he finally heard Sophie.
"-top blaming yourself, Hardison, this was a -"
"Hardison!" Eliot broke through.
"Eliot?" the hacker sounded uncertain. "Is that you?"
Eliot let loose his catchphrase, and it sounded like Hardison was about to cry.
"Eliot, man, I didn't know what happened to you an-and I was getting so worried. And Parker- Parker! Do you have Parker?"
Eliot was about to say something, but then the signal fuzzed out and he felt a blow land on the back of his head. His vision blurred and went black around the edges. He fell forward on his knees and tried to twist around to see his attacker, but whoever it was brought his foot down hard on Eliot's ankle. He heard a sickening crunch and pain exploded up his right leg, making him bite back a yell. At almost the same instant his arms were pulled behind him and zip-tied not once, but twice. He was then yanked to his feet and turned around. Through the lingering haze of his head trauma (not to mention the extreme discomfort radiating through his now-broken ankle), Eliot vaguely recognized the man in front of him as someone he had crossed a few years back while in Venezuela. Fantastic.
The soldier ripped Eliot's earbud out and stomped on in with a certain amount of satisfaction. At least a dozen other gunmen emerged from the trees as he did so.
"Well, well, well," the man said in Spanish as he took Eliot's knife and handed it to another fighter. "Looks like I'm going to get a chance to return a favor I owe you. I'm sure Cardoso will be very interested to find out what Eliot Spencer is doing scouting out his bunker. I think he'll have some very pressing questions for you."
As Eliot allowed himself to be pushed along (they all had guns, and he was sure there were more snipers perched in the trees), several thoughts were running through his head. One wasn't so much of a thought as it was a concentrated effort to not limp when he put his weight on his injured foot, but the other one was simply: Well this is going to be fun.
After the interrogation, during which Eliot hadn't answered any questions (more out of principle than anything else), his head was foggy as the guards pulled him up from the ground and half-escorted, half-dragged him through the maze of hallways to the door of a cell. The door looked like steel, solid except for two small, sliding hatches, one at eye level, and one near the floor. The first guard pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door, the bolt screeching as it slid out of place. The door ground open unwillingly, and the guards tossed Eliot into the cell.
Once the door had been shut and bolted once again, the cell was pitch-black. That was typical, though. If he had to guess, Eliot would have said he was in a 10-by-10 unfurnished concrete cell with no windows. He probably wasn't alone either; these types of armies usually had an overabundance of prisoners. He heard some muffled whimpering that confirmed his theory.
Eliot's head turned fuzzy again as he rolled himself onto his back and let out a soft groan. Based on his previous unconsciousness and current nausea, Eliot concluded that he probably had a pretty severe concussion—among other things. Those boys sure knew where to hit. He'd been through worse, though. He could handle this. He propped himself up against the wall and was about to begin assessing the rest of his injuries when he heard a voice from the other side of the cell.
"Eliot?"
He nearly lunged forward in surprise, but his cracked ribs got in the way, and he ended up flopping back against the wall with a sharp hiss and a curse. Parker was by his side in a second, and he pulled her into a fierce hug with one arm, bracing his injuries with the other. Parker seemed shocked for a moment, but then she put her arms around him as well and relaxed. He'd been worried about her—they all had—so he expressed it the only way he knew how.
"What happened?" he asked angrily. "Your comm cuts out, and we don't hear anything from you for two days? What the heck, Parker?"
"I know, I know,” the thief said. “I messed up."
The statement was simple, but Eliot could hear the regret in her voice as she continued.
"I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been, and then right after I pulled the files, these guys dressed in black came in, and they had guns, so I hid. They must have had signal jammers or something, because the closer they got to me, the more my comm started cutting out, and then I had nowhere to hide, and they flushed me out. When they saw me there was a lot of angry shouting, and they put a bag over my head and knocked me out." She paused. "I dropped the files, Eliot." Parker's voice was ashamed: she had gotten herself caught, and botched the mission in the process.
"Forget about the files, Parker!" Eliot said forcefully. "What happened when they got you back here?" Parker could tell Eliot was tense. If any of those thugs had laid a finger on her, she knew Eliot would bust out of this cell, cracked ribs and all, and do his job.
She answered him quickly: "Nothing. They just kind of threw me in here and then forgot about me." Eliot relaxed some, and finally let go of her. She took the opportunity to sit up and put her own back to the wall next to him.
"So who else is in here?" Eliot asked.
"Four other girls, all local."
"Who are they?"
"It took them a while to finally talk to me, but from what I could pick up, I think they were kidnapped like me. Well," Parker amended, "not exactly like me. None of them were in the middle of a heist when they got picked up."
"Trafficking?"
"Something like that. At least one of the girls told me that her father owed a lot of money to some guy named Cardoso. Does that sound familiar to you?"
"Yeah," Eliot rubbed at one of the many bruises on his face, "I know him. He's the leading boss in this area. The bosses down here operate pretty much like the ones up in the States, except these ones have armies instead of thugs, and if you owe them, they won't just ruin you, they'll take your family."
Parker seemed to mull over this for a minute. Then she asked simply, "So. How are we getting out?"
Eliot's face contorted. "What do you mean 'how are we getting out'?"
"I mean, what are we going to do so that we can get out of this cell, get these girls back to their families, and get back to Nate so we can take down Cardoso?"
"Parker, you don't just 'get out' of bunker like this! Let alone with four other unknowns! Speaking of which, do you really think they're the only ones in here? I bet there are at least half a dozen other cells just like this one full of girls like them!"
"So you think we should just leave them?" Parker accused.
"No!"
"Then what is it? It's not like you haven't broken out of places worse than this!"
"Not with four cracked ribs, a broken ankle, and a concussion, I haven't!"
Silence dropped between them. Eliot sighed and leaned his head back on the wall. He hadn't meant to come off that harsh. Besides, the guards might be able to hear them if they didn't quiet down.
"What happened?" Parker's voice was softer than it had been, and she almost sounded apologetic.
"I got caught,” he said more quietly. “They thought I was still in my old line of work—wanted to find out why I was here." How they had tried to find out hung in the air as an understood.
"How did you get caught in the first place?" Parker asked. Eliot sighed again and told her the short version of the story. He was just telling about his almost-conversation with Hardison, when Parker interrupted him.
"Wait, you know a spot where the comms will work?"
"Yeah, but it doesn't help much if we don't have one, does it?" Parker didn't say anything, but Eliot could hear her shuffling around like she was trying to find something.
"Aha!" she said triumphantly and she raised her hand like she was holding something up. There was a moment of blank silence.
"What?" Eliot finally asked sharply.
"It's my comm!"
"You still have your earbud?!"
"Obviously," Parker snorted. "The first thing you do if you get caught is hide your communications device. It doesn't work in here, but since you know where it will work, now all we have to do is get out of here and go there!"
"And again, how exactly do you think we're gonna do that?"
"I don't know; that's why I asked you!"
"Parker! You can't just-" Eliot cut off his sentence and gave a frustrated growl. He took a deep breath and let it out. Then there was a stretch of silence that Eliot finally broke. "Look, do they bring you food?"
"Yeah, they brought us something earlier today. They didn't open the door though, just slid the tray through the hatch at the bottom of the door." There was another pause.
"Ok," Eliot said. "I might—might—have part of a plan."
A satisfied smirk grew on Parker's face. "We can make that work."
So as evening gave way to night, and as the night wore on, inside a bunker in Brazil two thieves worked to free themselves. And others.