Prologue

Elena sat at the scarred table with the Ancients. It was how she thought of the men who sat across from her. Old wasn't descriptive enough of a word for them. Seniors didn't work as a description either. It was too clean of a word. Ancient was what they were. Their faces looked as if they had been cut from stone, craggy and rough, while their skin reminded her old parchment, thin and wrinkled. Like all ancient things Elena was sure they had endured harsh conditions during their lives. The fact these men were still alive spoke to their character, to their will to live past their expiration dates. Sitting with them Elena felt like a small girl, weak and insignificant. She supposed that whenever someone was in the presence of something ancient, they felt small and insignificant. She watched as the three men processed her proposal. Each had a pensive look on their face. Leo pinched the bridge of his nose, with his eyes closed. Heinrich fidgeted with the gold lion's head ring on his left hand. He twisted and turned it, again and again, all the time looking past Elena to a spot on the wall. Only Heinrich knew what he was seeing there.

Elena looked over to find Bernie's gaze locked on her. His eyes challenged her. They asked the question, can you really do this? Elena answered back with her own gaze. Her answer was yes, and do we have a choice. Bernie nodded and looked down. He rapped his gnarled knuckles on the table, and asked, "Are we ready?" Leo shook his head no. He still had issues to think about. Elena looked at the table. It reminded Elena of her childhood. It was scarred and burnt, and in places broken but it was still standing. It didn't match the interior of the room. Elena allowed herself a quick glance around the room. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling. The apartment had been painted recently. New hardwood floors ran throughout the apartment. Someone had even decided that crown molding would add a certain touch that western ex-patriots would like. As Elena looked around the room, she could see where contractors had re plastered before they had repainted the walls. They hadn't done a very good job. She could tell where certain area of the walls had been spackled, and new dry wall had been cut. Elena wondered how many of the holes that the contractors had spackled had been bullet holes. Had they removed the bullets first, or just left them? She knew it didn't matter how many updates were made to the place, it was just a shit hole tenement in East Berlin. It would always be a shit hole tenement in East Berlin, but this one had crown molding. Elena corrected herself, Berlin. There was no more East and West Germany. It was all one big happy country. Elena was sure the building had been one of the Staszi's safe houses. It should have been condemned, but if the Staszi had owned it then it would stand until it fell in on itself. No one wanted to tear it down for fear of what they might find hidden in the walls. Elena had spent too many years of her childhood in places like this with Yuri.

"There are a lot of moving parts. There are many places where things could go wrong. "Leo said. Elena was brought out of her reverie. "Yes, there are a lot of moving parts. But what other options do we have? War is coming, as we all expect. We need to know exactly who is on our side. We need to crush Sergei's power base now, rather than later. Later might be too late."

"You mean it would be too late." Bernie corrected.

"Yes, later would be too late." Elena chided herself for her error. She looked at each one. As she was about to speak, Heinrich interrupted. "I don't like that Katarina is involved. It's not that I don't think she can't do it, I just think she's done enough in her life." Elena nodded and looked at Leo, "So what do you think?" Leo looked at his hands, and then fiddled with his oxygen tube. "I can't tell her no if she wants to do it. What do you think Elena? Do you think she should be involved?" Bernie nodded at Elena to answer.

Elena started to speak, and stopped. She thought for a minute and started again. "The original plan did not have Katarina involved. But she's a grown woman and if she wants to be involved, I can't stop her. Her mind is made up." Good luck trying to change it Elena thought.

Bernie finally spoke, "So we either save Raymond Reddington, and bring him over to our side or we allow him to die, and possibly lose the war. And he might not want to come over to our side in which case we would have to kill him. Is there anything I'm missing?"

Elena shook her head. Heinrich cleared his throat and asked, "We're sure we need Reddington? There's nothing else we can do?" Elena shook her head again. "We could go to war with Sergei and his people without Reddington, but then he would die. His people would die. With our assets and resources combined with Reddington's…No. There's no other way, not that I can see." They all quieted for a moment, then Bernie asked the question no one wanted to ask, "Can Reddington be trusted to help, or will he decide to use us for his own interests?" The question had been asked of everyone, but Elena knew he had directed it to her. She took a deep breath before she answered, "Twenty-five years ago I would have said he would do it just for his own personal interests. My gut right now is saying the same thing, he's in it for his own personal interests but I just don't know. He might have changed. He's older, has lost some people he cared for. I just can't tell."

"What about the task force he works for or with?" Leo's voice dripped with venom as asked the question. "Can any of them be turned? Will they be a hindrance or will they help? I don't understand why he works with the government that turned on him. It's madness."

Heinrich spoke up, "Leo is correct. Its madness. It makes no sense." Elena smiled, "It is madness, and so why do it? To get close to the girl? Nah. He could have done that another way. I have my suspicions, but nothing concrete. I don't want to go into those now."

Bernie nodded then asked the second power question of the meeting. "So how will Reddington react when he finds out you're alive? Do you think he'll work with you?"

Elena rubbed her forehead. "Well since you asked, I don't know. I have an idea that he won't want to. Everyone here knows what Raymond thought of me before. Not to mention he thinks I've been dead for over twenty years, there's that. I think the word he would use for me would be untrustworthy. The fact I have the girl and the love of his life is probably not going to make me one of his favorite people. Like I said before I think we'll have to guide him." The Ancients all nodded their heads in agreement.

Heinrich spoke up, "Elena you know how dangerous he can be. Think of what he did to Berlin when that maniac had Carla." Elena took Heinrich's hand and looked him in the eye and said, "But Heinrich you forget how dangerous I am. Have some faith." The Ancients looked at one another and at Elena then laughed. The meeting had officially ended.

Elena stepped out of the apartment building, and breathed in the fresh air. It wasn't dawn yet. The sky was still dark, but soon it would change to that blue color Elena loved. She walked the two blocks to the trolley stop, or was it bus stop? She was never sure in Germany. Metro stop? She let her mind ponder the question, while she stopped at a newsstand. She read the headlines on the different publications. It didn't matter what country, or what political ideology one believed in, all of the headlines screamed the same thing. The world was regressing back to pre-World War II times. It was getting dangerous for everyone, especially for people in her line of work. Elena was thinking about it, when she smelled the coffee. It would be heavy with cream, with just a dash of cinnamon.

"Beautiful women should not stand on street corners alone." Tony handed her the coffee and smiled. Elena smiled back, "After all the time we've spent together that's the best Russian accent you can do?" Tony shrugged and opened the door to the SUV that had pulled up. He climbed in after her, but waited until they had pulled away from the curb before asking, "Well? What's going to happen with Redddington?" Elena sipped her coffee.

"Yeah boss. Are we going to have to kill Reddington?" Jonesy, the driver, asked.

"Not yet. However if he won't play along then yes. "Elena caught the shocked look in Jonesy's eyes in the rearview mirror. She looked at Tony. His look wasn't as wide eyed as Jonesy's but it was close. It hadn't been the answer they had been expecting. "Wait. It gets better. We're not allowed to tell Reddington and his people that they're in danger. We have to guide him."

"Guide him? Guide him how?" was Tony's next question.

"Well I'm glad you asked that because I have a very bad idea on how to accomplish it. The answer is we're going to piss him off. Make him so mad that he'll want to find us. Get Jace on the phone, I have something very specific for him to do. Also call Marcel. Let him know we're going to be needing Seamus' help on this one. "

"Ellie, have you lost your mind? Seamus?"

Elena looked at Tony, "You have little faith. I said we're going to piss him off. I didn't say how we were going to piss him off; anyway we may as well have some fun doing it. I think as soon as we make contact, the fun will definitely stop. Jonesy get us home. We have to make sure Raymond Reddington has a shitty day and soon."