Chapter Text
“You want us to… what?” they say in unison.
“You heard Dylan the first time. Pretend to be a married couple,” Merritt says, as if it were the simplest, most obvious thing in the world. “Husband and wife. Partners in crime and life. Hold hands and pretend to be completely enamoured and united till death do you part and not like you have a forty percent chance of ending up signing divorce papers. Use your imagination.”
“That’s not happening,” Danny says tersely.
“You have got to be joking,” Henley says, hands on hips.
“Hey, let the man speak,” Jack protests. “I wanna hear the rest.”
Glaring at the bickering Horsemen, Dylan spreads out a manila file on the flimsy folding dining table and stabs a finger at a photo of an elderly gentleman in a three-piece suit.
“Frank Taylor, alias the Spider. Mastermind behind a worldwide criminal network, dealer in jewellery and antiquities of questionable provenance. Corrupt former gemstone mining executive who now runs a line of legitimate stores, but suspected to be a front for trafficking and money laundering. You’ve heard of blood diamonds, this is an equally sordid story. Every conflict gemstone that somehow makes it onto the open market despite sanctions, every centuries-old artefact that mysteriously goes missing and later resurfaces in an unscrupulous connoisseur’s collection – most likely it’s passed through the global web he’s woven.”
“So, an all-round upstanding guy then.” Danny picks up the Tarot card that slips out from between the pages, identifiable by the familiar stylised eye printed on one side. On the obverse, a seated figure brandishes an upright sword in one hand and a pair of scales in the other. “Where do we come in?”
“We’ve been trying to take him down for years,” Dylan admits. “Unsuccessfully, I should add. Every time we’re close, every time one of my agents gets a lead, the guy gets a tip-off. He’s probably got a mole in every agency at this point.”
“‘We’, as in your friends in the Bureau?” Jack asks. “Or the Eye?”
Dylan makes a noncommittal sound in a way that suggests the answer is both. “Let’s just say my superiors have seen the light and are more accepting of… more unorthodox methods. Which is where you come in: you’re the last people they would expect. Take down the Spider’s network, and in exchange, the authorities turn a blind eye to whatever means you use to accomplish that goal, and we work out a deal. A generous one, given your chequered history with law enforcement.”
The Horsemen exchange looks.
“So let me get this straight,” Danny says slowly. “We do this, accomplishing through not-quite-above-board means what you haven’t been able to do legally in years, and not only do we get away with it, but suddenly we’re looking at a chance of our other charges being dropped too?”
Dylan spreads his hands. “Now, of course I can’t guarantee anything, but a very generously reduced sentence could be on the table here. Best case you could be free to live out the rest of your lives without fear of repercussions – as long as you agree to continue cooperating with the Bureau when needed, for as long as they choose to retain your services.”
Danny’s eyes narrow. “What’s the catch?”
“Uh, hold up, hold up,” Jack interrupts, hand in the air. “Did everyone else miss the part where we’re supposed to be double-crossing a literal money launderer? You don’t think a guy who associates with people like that won’t have 24/7 personal security? Like, the competent kind with actual bullets?”
Henley crosses her arms. “He does have a point.”
“I mean, I want to clear our names as much as all of you, but there’s got to be a way to do that without getting killed.” Jack frowns. “Take it from the guy who’s already gone through death once: would not recommend having to do that for real.”
“No one’s getting killed, okay?” Danny snaps. “We make a plan and we stick to the plan, same as every other show. Besides, once we take him down, every government in the world that’s had to contend with a criminal organisation that he’s financed will be clamouring for his head. We might not get a chance like this again anytime soon” – he turns to the other Horsemen – “and I don’t know about all the rest of you, but I’d rather not spend the rest of my life in hiding, thank you very much.”
Merritt is still busy flipping through the file, wetting a finger on his tongue to flip through page after page, so Danny takes this silence as agreement. Jack and Henley exchange glances but, hesitantly, one by one, they look to Dylan.
“So what’s our in?”
Dylan tosses a glossy flyer onto the table, featuring a constellation of dazzling gemstones in all shapes, cuts and colours, photographed against a dark velvet background. “Frank’s sixtieth birthday party. He’s inaugurating the new wing of his hometown museum – where coincidentally his wife sits on the Board – and which they’ll be renaming in his honour.”
Merritt lets out a low whistle. “And here I thought Daniel’s ego was out of control.”
Danny shoots him a dirty look.
Dylan ignores them both and continues: “To celebrate the occasion, Frank has agreed to allow a selection of his personal collection – all perfectly legally acquired stuff, of course – to be displayed as the museum’s new centrepiece, as a permanent loan. Now, as you’ve probably guessed, said collection is currently locked away in his highly fortified private vault, so this will be the first and likely last time they’ll be transported outside their secure environment.”
Dylan gives the Horsemen a meaningful look and they pick up the hint.
“Danny?” Henley instinctively turns to him, like second nature by now. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Danny nods. “If this guy’s security is as good as Dylan’s making it out to be, there’s only three weaknesses in the system.”
He reels them off on his fingers as he counts:
“One: they’ll have to open the vault to remove and transport the legitimate gemstones to the museum. Jack, Henley – you’re our experts there, you know what you have to do.
“Two: Frank will want to make sure his is the biggest party in town that night, so all eyes will be on the museum and that’s where security will be tightest. But of course, we won’t hit him where he’s expecting it.
“Three: the guest list and staff for the museum event. A party of this size makes it difficult to accurately vouch for every single person in that venue – and the longer that attendee list, the more degrees of freedom we have.”
“Four weaknesses in the system,” Merritt corrects, piping up from where he’s still poring through the rest of the file on Frank. “Wife number four” – he explains, tilting his head to read a caption, peering peers at glossy photos of glamorously dressed party-goers – “or soon to be ex-wife number four, if you believe the gossip pages.”
Henley’s eyebrows arch up into her fringe. “Surely you’re not thinking…?”
“Oh, but I am.” Merritt grins. “Mrs Gina Taylor, fourth of her name, has all the signs of being the perfect mark. Marriage on the rocks, narcissist for a husband… now, what if she were to meet a devastatingly charming, irresistible mentalist in an anonymous Miami hotel bar? Maybe invite him for a drink and perhaps even something more irresponsible?”
“TMI, dude,” Jack protests. “I did not need that mental image.”
“Hey, just describing part of the plan here. An evening of the Merritt McKinney magic and she’d believe anything: even think it was her own idea to invite, say… a reclusive but outrageously wealthy donor no one’s ever met before. Who just happens to have made a very generous contribution to the museum hosting Frank’s eponymous collection.”
Here Merritt looks meaningfully between Danny and Henley.
“And said donor’s lovely wife, of course. Which brings me back to what I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.”
Danny and Henley open their mouths to protest, but Merritt silences them with a hand.
“And you two can stop pretending you’re not a couple. For the record, Jack and I already know – and at this point it’s really not funny any more.”
—
Several weeks later…
“I just hate it when Merritt’s right,” Jack grumbles as he watches Merritt and Gina disappear into the hotel elevator.
“Tell me about it,” Henley huffs.
“Henley.” Jack tugs off his clip-on bow tie and waiter's waistcoat. “How are you feeling about all this?”
“I’m not sure,” she admits. “Something about this all feels like it’s going too smoothly.”
“I know what you mean.” Jack looks uneasy, some of the old doubt from the Horsemen’s earlier days creeping back in. “We’re magicians, not superheroes. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt for real, right?”
“Think of what it would be like, though, not to have to live in hiding any more. Go back to the lives we led before.”
“You mean, stiffing unsuspecting tourists on the Brooklyn ferry?” Jack says with a crooked grin, holding up Gina’s wallet to prove a point.
She smiles wryly. “Touché.”
“Henley…” he hesitates. “What about your life, before? What would you be doing right now, if you weren’t here?”
“Most likely creating and rehearsing a new trick for my show, and resisting the temptation to doomscroll through videos of all those other amazing acts out there,” she admits. “Or visiting my brother to see his new baby, who’s probably almost a year old now, and still wondering what he sees in his partner and wondering how long it’ll be before they break up again. Or going on awkward first dates and calling up my girlfriends afterwards to vent about how the guy wouldn’t stop talking about his ex the whole time.”
“Sounds like this lifestyle was made for you then,” he teases, half-jokingly. “No social media, no uncomfortable family reunions and definitely no dud dates.”
She shrugs. “I miss the choice of being able to hate doing those things, you know? But I made my decision all those months ago – same as all of you – and now I have to live with it.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs distractedly.
She catches him rifling through the folded photos tucked in the inner sleeve of Gina’s wallet and gives him a withering glare. “Jack.”
“Okay, okay, mom, you win,” Jack sighs, raising his palms his surrender and handing over the wallet. “I’m a reformed man working for an honest living, from here on out I’m sticking only to targets approved by our overlords in the Eye. Happy?”
Henley rolls her eyes. “Did you get the phone?”
“Yeah, piece of cake." Grinning proudly, he fishes the device from a pocket and tosses it over. “Time to get to work.”