Objectives

You, Agent Benford. You will kill Agent Noh.

Mark Benford sat in Wedeck's office, but his mind was somewhere else. He could hear his boss speaking, but it was all background noise to the mess of thoughts whizzing through his head.

It will be your gun, Agent Benford, and you will pull the trigger. And then again, and then again.

If Mark had been sure, 100% sure, that the woman's words had no chance of ever coming true, things would probably be different. He wouldn't be here. He would still have a badge. But he wasn't, and that scared him. It scared him because everything was slipping out of his control. Everything was playing out as it was meant to, no matter how hard he tried to fight against it, and it was all beginning to overwhelm him. He was losing focus on his objective, because every move he made seemed futile, as if he was fighting the current, knowing he was going to drown anyway.

''Just out of curiosity, what were you thinking?''

What was he thinking? Maybe he was thinking about his partner, his best friend, and how he had suddenly become Demetri's ticking clock, hidden away in the shadows, unreachable, unstoppable. He was thinking of his wife, in the arms of another man. Thinking of himself, drunk and alone, grasping at straws, still trying to piece the puzzle together.

''Can I go see my wife? She was just nearly kidnapped.'' His voice was barely a whisper, but he hardly noticed. He just wanted to leave, forget about the mess in Hong Kong. About the murder he was destined to commit. He just wanted to hold his wife in his arms while she was still his.

''What...were... you thinking?'' Wedeck repeated slowly, ignoring Mark's request.

Maybe he hadn't been thinking at all. Maybe it had all become clear then, in that restaurant. Maybe he'd finally seen the full picture for the first time. How it would all play out. How he couldn't stop it. Maybe pulling the gun on Nhadra, dragging her out onto the streets, was nothing more than the desperate actions of a desperate man whose time was running out. Whose future had become all too real.

He glanced over at Olivia across the corridor, as she went over Lloyd's kidnapping with Janis. Lloyd Simcoe. The man who, in less than five months, would be sleeping in his bed.

He took a breath, cleared his head. Taking the therapist's card from Wedeck, he left his boss' office, and made his way to his own. He'd go see the therapist. He'd do whatever the hell Wedeck wanted him to do.

Because he was going get back on track. He was going to take control once again, and this time, he'd see things through. Making sure no one could see him he took out his phone, and began snapping photos of his mosaic board. He was going to figure it all out, no matter what it took. He was going to save his partner; he was going to save his marriage. Because October 6th, 2009, brought with it only one objective.

Change the future.