Reese looked up at the nondescript grey apartment building: the second place of residence listed for their newest number, according to Finch's computer. The front door was unlocked, so he entered the building and took a set of stairs, too brightly lit for his liking, down to the lower floor. At the end of the sickly-green hallway, he found the apartment number he was looking for. He approached slowly, looked around to confirm there were no witnesses, then picked the lock and flung the door open.
Inside the cave-like bachelor apartment, rock music was playing over tall speakers near the back wall. A couple of designer lamps struggled to illuminate the corners of the room. Since the windows were curtained with heavy material, the glow from several large computer screens on a desk near the middle of the room was the only other source of light, and it disappeared as soon as Reese stepped in the door. He flipped the switch for the overhead light, and saw two startled figures sitting at the desk which was cluttered with cables and assorted electronic equipment. Reese recognized the person closest to him - a skinny and tall man with ruffled blond hair - from the driver's licence picture Finch had dug up.
"Hey what the -"
"Haagen Eggebraten?" Reese demanded.
"Can you believe this guy, breaks in here and then butchers my name!" Haagen said to Leon.
Leon Tau came out from behind the desk.
"Oh no, am I in trouble again? Because I didn't do anything!" he rattled out.
Reese swung the door closed and two strides took him to the desk.
"Leon? What are you doing here?" His tone was that of scolding, not of surprise.
"You know this guy?" Haagen asked Leon, but Leon was focused on Reese.
"Doing here - wait, you're not here for me?" Relief entered Leon's demeanour.
"No, I'm here for him." Reese pointed at Haagen.
Leon turned to Haagen. "Oh man, what did you do? I bet it's that guy you're working for, I told you it didn't seem safe. But don't worry, John here is gonna protect you, isn't that right John?"
"Tell me about the guy you're working for, Haagen," John demanded. His tone of voice didn't sit well with the younger man.
"I don't know who you think you are man, but you're trespassing and if you don't leave right now I'm going to call the p-"
Reese grabbed Haagen's arm and bent it painfully behind his back. Leon, skittish as he was, jumped back a couple of feet.
"Listen, I don't have time for this. Tell me about the guy you're working for."
"Settle down, here." With Reese focused on Haagen, Leon found a bit of courage and came closer again to turn on the dark screen in front of them. The three were presented with the paused video from one of the surveillance cameras at the airport, dated the day before. Reese dropped Haagen's arm and stared at the screen.
"Fullerton. Is this who you're working for?"
"You know the guy?" Leon asked.
"Answer my question." Reese demanded of Haagen.
"I don't know!"
Reese went to reach for his arm again.
"It's the truth! Someone contacted me online, they are paying me to alter camera footage of that guy, I don't know who he is or if he's the one who hired me. All I know is I get a place and a date and they pay me to be ready to tamper with the footage as soon as it is taken."
"This image is from yesterday."
"Yeah well ... I was a bit .. eh .. busy yesterday, didn't get around to it."
Reese turned away from the screen and the new number and tapped his ear.
"You get all this, Finch?"
"I did. You're sure the video footage is of Fullerton?"
"Positive."
"It kind of makes sense, if he's trying to hide from the machine ... . You realize what this means! All we have to do is wait for him to contact Mr. Eggebraten and we'll know where he'll be."
"Yes, if Mr. Eggebraten doesn't get himself killed first."
"That is NOT how you pronounce- wait, get killed?"
Reese turned back to the computer and, under protest from its owner, pushed a flash-drive into the USB port.
"You ever consider that the people who have you deleting surveillance camera footage may not want to have any witnesses around, for the long term?"
"I'm not deleting it I'm running a modifi-"
Reese's stare conveyed a bucket-load of irate impatience.
"Well, maybe, but the pay was really good ..."
"Hey no worries man, John has it under control, right John?"
Annoyed by Leon's forced enthusiasm, Reese let some of that stare spill over onto him before assuming a more harmless demeanour for the purpose of eliciting cooperation.
"When do you expect another .. assignment?"
"You mean after the one I got today?"
Reese perked up.
"Where?" he demanded.
"Where what?"
"Where are you supposed to tamper with the surveillance footage today?" Reese said in a slow staccato.
"Nevin's street subway station, 6:20pm."
Reese checked his watch. "That was 5 minutes ago."
"I'm sending Shaw," Finch informed Reese through the earwig.
Reese addressed Haagen, "alright, pack up everything you need. I'm taking you to a safe house."
"Okay, uh, and who are you again? Police?"
"It's cool Haagen, do what he says, Dude."
"Oh yeah, I don't know, looks to me like if anyone's gonna kill me today, it's your friend here."
"He's right man, you know," Leon said to Reese, "you may want to check those vibes you give off, it's disconcerting."
"I won't kill you," Reese's voice was like the hum of an approaching missile, "but torture is not out of the question."
Haagen shoved a laptop and some accessories into a neon green messenger bag pulled out from under the desk, never taking his eyes off Reese for more than a few seconds, grabbed a sweater from a chair and was ready to go. 'Scare them straight, works every time,' Reese mused and took a hold of Haagen's upper arm to pull him toward the door.
"What about me, man?"
"What about you, Leon?"
"Well ... should I come?"
"No, ... you should leave. But stay out of trouble. I'm too busy to pull you out of one of your messes right now."
Reese pulled Haagen out the door after him.
"Are you sure? I mean, I may be kind of a little bit involved with that Fullerton guy as well."
"Kind of a little bit involved?" Reese turned around again and fixed the smaller man with his stare.
Leon took a small step back. "I may have, you know, hid some money for him ..."
"Grab your stuff."
The trio left the apartment led by Reese. They were about to step out the front door when Reese stopped and motioned for them to stand against the wall, out of sight. He surveyed the street through the partially open door, then tapped his ear.
"Finch, I think this place is under surveillance, can you give me alternative exit options?"
"Surveillance?" Haagen went to walk toward the door to see for himself. "You're nut-"
Reese pushed him hard against the doorframe and pointed towards a grey Toyota.
"Oh, that guy's been sitting in that car somewhere around here nearly every day for over a- holy shit."
"I'll send Officer Carter to check it out. In the meantime, I found an alternative exit through the basement."
With instructions from Finch, the three men left the building undetected and proceeded to the house where Finch had first met Glenanne and Westen.
Finch and Westen's crew in the meantime were on their way there as well.
.
.
"Ms. Farrow. Or should I call you Ms. May?"
"You can call me Root," she sing-sang, never taking her eyes off the man sitting across from her on the only other chair. She looked harmless enough, but she knew how to inject her voice with just the right amount of edge to make the dissonance between her words and her looks grate on the nerves of anyone paying attention.
She sat leisurely, as she had in Dr. Carmichael's office, though she was cuffed to a chair which in turn was bolted to what was once a tiled floor, but now consisted of a patchwork of mostly broken tiles with large patches of bare cement showing through. They were in a long tunnel-like hall with a low vaulted ceiling that showed vestiges of painted-on artwork and stucco. There were no windows. The air was cold and humid and smelled stale, with a hint of mold and refuse. Her gaze followed the power cord of the single floodlight that provided light; it trailed the wall and disappeared up a wide staircase.
"Root. You may call me Anson." He leafed through a stack of papers in a beige folder. "I had a very interesting conversation about you with Dr. Carmichael. I have his files right here, too. Interesting, like I said, but I disagree with his diagnosis and with his treatment plan. Let me, if I may, provide a second opinion."
Root cocked her head and smiled. "As you wish, Anson."
He took a moment to look at her, the way a man may regard a strange dog facing him in an alley.
"To begin with, I don't think you're delusional. I think you do in fact have access to an extensive computer surveillance system and that you should stay in contact with ... Her. I can make that happen. Any issues you had relating to your breakdown - we can work out. The violent tendencies won't be an issue. I think I can help you. We can help each other."
Root suppressed a chuckle. "I don't need your help."
"I can protect you from the people who created the identity of Ms. Farrow and committed you to the Stoneridge facility."
"I don't need your help, or your protection."
"I broke you out of the mental institution."
"To handcuff me to a chair in a place that is, frankly, at lot less pleasant."
"Your accommodations here are temporary. Pending the outcome of our conversation."
"We'll see. Either way, I didn't need breaking out."
"So you agreed to stay at the mental institution?"
"It was best for me, at the time, to be there."
"I disagree, and I don't think you really believe that, either."
Her smug voice turned pensive. "It doesn't matter what you think, or what I think."
"Whose opinion matters, then?"
It seemed, for a moment, like Root's mind had left the room to find something better to do, but then her eyes came to life again and she smiled.
"Hers," she said in the self-satisfied manner of a schoolyard tease, "and she doesn't like you."
"Why doesn't she like me?"
"You're trying to sabotage her. She won't let you."
"Maybe we can change Her opinion of me. I'd like us all to work together. How can I talk to Her."
"She won't talk to you."
"Maybe you can talk to her on my behalf. How do you communicate?"
"I talk, She listens. She talks, I listen. It's fairly basic, really."
Fullerton sensed a dead end, so he changed direction.
"Did you ... build Her?"
"You have a lot of questions. I think I'm done answering them for today."
Another dead end, and yet another topic he would have to come back to.
"Why does She listen to you?"
"She's a better listener than you are."
Fullerton tried one last approach.
"I think She wanted us to meet. I mean, what were the chances of me running into my old buddy, and learning about you?"
"4.3%, give or take."
"Hmm. That makes me a pretty lucky guy."
"We'll see about that."
"Yes, yes I suppose we will."
.
.
Shaw bought herself a hotdog at a stand by the subway station entrance while scrutinizing the area. Coming up empty, she descended into the concrete rabbit hole that was the station entrance and merged effortlessly into the crowd of people there. A grumpy Fusco took the other entrance when he arrived a while later, and they trolled the station for any sign of psychopath or sociopath activity.
.
.
Reese and his two charges arrived last at Finch's safe-house. Reese dropped his coat on a chair in the entryway next to some others already there, and was greeted by a tail wagging Bear. He took a few steps, crossing the hallway, and reached the wide entrance into the living room, where Glenanne was again sitting on the black leather sofa. Finch sat across from her on the armchair, laptop on his knees. Sam Axe and Jesse Porter were sitting with their backs toward the room, focused on two computer screens on the desk by the wall, which showed the views of the surveillance cameras from Nevins Street subway station. Westen stood between the sofa and a large whiteboard, looking vaguely surly. Reese understood where the other man was coming from and nodded at him.
Finch looked uneasy in the soft cushions - although Reese suspected he was the only one picking up on it. Reese imagined that Finch would have preferred the company of complete strangers to these people with their badly-defined ties to him. Ties that could pull him into unpredictable circumstances. But such was his life now, a consequence of the choices he had made.
"Ah good, Mr. Reese, please join us. We have just started compiling a timeline of when and where Mr. Eggebraten altered surveillance camera footage." Finch nodded at the whiteboard that had a short list of dates and locations written on it. "Maybe Mr. Eggebraten would like to join the effort."
Reese gave Haagen a push in the direction of the whiteboard and took a few more steps toward the center of the room himself. Leon stuck close to Reese's side. Haagen's gaze dashed around the room, never making eye contact with anyone. He walked past the sofa, took a wide girth around Westen and picked up a dry erase marker from the bottom of the whiteboard.
"Sure, why not, that Fullerton guy's just gonna kill me if he finds out, kill all of us, probably."
"Oh don't fret it. He was going to kill you anyway," Glenanne said.
She seemed in better spirits. Now that Reese was aware of her precarious circumstances, he had to admire her tenaciousness. Working in the field often took all you had to give, and that's when you were not emotionally involved in the mission, and had a safety-net - even if it was full of holes - in the form of some organization backing you. Doing it with personal stakes so high, and without fall-back option, was a whole different kind of nerve-wracking.
.
"This isn't going to be big enough. Got a second whiteboard?"
Haagen had started scribbling dates and locations in tiny, near-illegible handwriting. Silent glances went from him to the whiteboard and back.
"What? I got a good memory." He resumed writing out the information.
"I'll see what can be done about the impending whiteboard shortage. Oh, by the way, this is Jesse Porter, another one of Mr. Westen's associates," Finch said to Reese.
Porter looked from one surly ex-op to the other, unsure for a moment, but then stood up and held out his hand.
"Hey, nice to meet you, have heard a lot about you."
"Porter." Reese nodded at him and out of a sense of obligation shook the hand offered.
"And who might this be?" Glenanne asked, looking at Leon.
"That's Leon -"
Leon partially raised his arm in an attempted greeting gesture while his gaze bounced around the room.
"- he may have a line on Mr. Fullerton's money."
Glenanne raised an eyebrow. "Okay then, if we're done with introductions, lets come up with a plan of action."
"I just finished downloading all the original footage, which Mr. Eggebraten helpfully saved on his hard drive. I'll transfer it to the computer on the desk, if you two want to see if anything stands out."
"It's what we live for." Axe said, slapping Porter on the shoulder.
There was a knock on the door, causing all the ex-ops to reach for their firearms, tucked into waistbands and purses. Finch set his laptop on the side table and struggled to his feet.
"Pizza," he announced and gave a stern look to the the gun-slingers until they hid their guns away. He then proceeded to the door and paid for a stack of six large pizzas. Porter and Axe simultaneously jumped to their feet and, walking past Reese and Leon, went to help Finch carry the boxes to the coffee table.
"Plates. In the kitchen, if you wouldn't mind," Finch said to Reese.
Glenanne caught on and moved the flower arrangement to the side-table to make space for the food. Westen pretended to be studying the whiteboard, and only turned to give Porter and Axe one of his own disapproving looks.
"What man, it's pizza." Porter responded while opening a box. "Or, something pizza-like, anyway. What is that?" he pointed at a pale-green leafy thing.
"That is a quartered artichoke heart. It's authentic Italian pizza."
Porter shrugged and pulled a flimsy slice onto his hand, which reminded Finch that they were still missing plates. He made his way to the kitchen, where Reese was lingering in front of a cupboard.
"Pizza, Finch?"
"I considered going for Chinese, but decided on pizza as the least objectionable option, considering I didn't have time to look into what dishes everyone preferred."
"Root is loose and probably teaming up with a psycho at least as dangerous as her, and you're worried about dinner?"
"Food brings people together, Mr. Reese, and we may as well eat while we wait for their trail to become hot."
"You still think we should all work as a team."
Finch wanted to say 'the Machine thinks so', but that would have made him sound like Root. So instead he went with, "you don't?"
Finch inviting everyone here, without consulting him first, didn't sit right with Reese. And on top of it all, the Machine, Finch's Machine, was playing games with them again. Entangling them with Westen's team. It clearly hadn't been designed that way, and Finch wasn't in control of it anymore, if he ever was. Finch, of course, seemed oblivious to Reese's concerns. They'd have to have a talk about this, at some point. Right now, though, they had a fire to put out.
"I think we should get Root back."
Finch nodded, then said, "after you".
Reese pulled the plates from the cupboard and carried them to the coffee table. Then he started studying the dates and places on the whiteboard. Finch was right behind him.
"Eat, everyone," Finch commanded. Everyone but Reese and Westen helped themselves to some pizza. Finch looked at Westen. "Even you have to eat."
Glenanne backed Finch up. "Michael. Sit."
With a sigh, Westen shed the mood he was in and joined them at the sofa table. Reese, too, relented and ate. The atmosphere didn't quite make dinner party level, but it was better than the glum tension that filled the air before. Team building, the Finch way.
.
"So, say we find Anson, what then?" Axe said after sitting back down at the desk chair with a slice of pizza in his hand.
"Yeah, I mean, we can't just grab him. Not as long as he has the incriminating evidence against Fiona," Porter said between bites.
"So we tail him, find out where he's hiding it, then move in. Shouldn't be that hard, now that we get live updates on where he is," Westen suggested, looking at Haagen.
"You mean we tail him." Reese said.
Westen pressed his lips into a thin line.
"Yes, you tail him. How many people have you got?" He looked from Reese to Finch.
"Two, maybe four, depending, to — Bear can't have- if you feed him that, it is your obligation to take him out later," Finch frowned at a shrugging Leon and turned back to Westen, "to tail Mr. Fullerton, should it come to that."
"What about your girl, Root?" Axe asked Finch.
"I expect we'll find her when we find Mr. Fullerton. We need to get her back as soon as possible; she's not ... stable."
Finch's cell phone rang.
"It's Ms. Shaw," he announced before answering.
"Ms. Shaw. I'm putting you on speaker with, well, everyone."
"Someone's guarding a side door on the west side of the station. Don't know where it goes. Don't think we've been made yet. If you've got the camera feed up, middle seat on the bench under the station sign, black tuque, dark grey trench-coat, concealing at least two firearms, pretending to read the newspaper. Been on the same page for the last 40 minutes. Amateur."
Finch was typing rapidly on his laptop during Shaw's report.
"There he is," Porter said, pointing at one of the camera feeds on the screen in front of him, "don't have an angle on the door."
Finch looked up from his laptop. "That door leads to an unused lower level of the station."
"Hmm. Sounds like something I should check out."
"No." Westen interjected. "We can't risk tipping him off. I say we wait him out."
"Finch?" Shaw asked.
"Confirmed, Ms. Shaw. Do not go looking for him."
"Fine. But if we hang out here much longer, we'll get made."
"Can you wait outside the station?"
"You gonna buy me a steak for this later?"
"Certainly, Ms. Shaw."
"Alright, Fusco and I will be street-level."
She disconnected the line.
"He comes out of that door, we'll be on him." Axe said, then looked back at his screen.
"That should be in about 5 minutes." Haagen held up his cell phone. "Just got a new assignment."
.
.
If there was one skill Fullerton excelled at, it was getting into people's heads. He liked doing it, too. Most people's motivations were easy to pin-point, and manipulating their actions was just as easy. Not Root. Her girlish exterior hid a hard to pin down, and even harder to break, core. Her intelligence made her elusive; and she wasn't just sitting there for his probing, either. Her intimidation tactics were good, they'd work on lesser men. It was clear to him that she drew her strength from the connection she had with that computer system. Taking this connection from her was the obvious way of breaking her, and Fullerton would have relished doing just that, if the details about said computer system were not precisely what he was after. He would have to find a way to appeal to her conceit, her need to be connected, maybe her desperation, to gain access to it.
Maybe spending a night cuffed to a chair by an abandoned subway track would tenderize her, leaving her more vulnerable to his tactics. But then, maybe not. In truth, it was he who needed to rest and re-charge. He had been gathering information on this computer surveillance system for a while, - ever since his Organization was hired to retrieve that computer disk, - and this was his lucky break. If he could actually gain control over the system, rather than just disable it …
His investment in the outcome made him vulnerable. He couldn't risk getting tired and inadvertently giving her a handle on his motivations.
Fullerton walked through the door to the active part of the station like it was his business to come out of there, barely acknowledged his operative at the bench, and took the No. 4 train north. Shaw just missed him by a few seconds.
She jogged back up to the street level and demanded the keys to Fusco's cruiser, seeing as her car was two blocks away. The cop was about to say 'no' but the look she gave him made him change his mind in a hurry. He just barely made it into the passenger seat of his own car before she drove off, roughly following the No. 4 subway line. She tapped her ear.
"Finch. Where am I going?"
"There is no way you can keep up with the subway, Ms. Shaw."
"Wanna try me, Finch?"
"He's going our way," Reese interrupted before grabbing his coat and heading out the door.
"Ms. Shaw, I think now may be a good time to explore the lower levels of the subway station. I'm sending you the blueprints. But remember: we don't want to tip Mr. Fullerton off."
Axe and Porter did not take their eyes off the screens, which cycled through the camera feeds of all the stations where the No. 4 train stopped. It took all the willpower Finch had to focus on hacking the transit system's servers with so many people around him.
"Haagen, any new asignments?" Westen asked.
Haagen held up his phone. "Nothing so far."
"Well, he has to get off somewhere," Glenanne said.
Finch looked up from his laptop. "There are two stations on that route that have no surveillance cameras - yet." He dialled Reese.
"Mr. Reese, he may be exiting the subway at 170th Street or at Fordham Road." Finch was looking at a map of the city. It also showed the locations of his assets. "Officer Carter is close to Fordham, I'll send her there."
"Got it, on my way to 170th."
Finch dialled Carter's cell next and sent her to the Fordham Road station with a picture of Fullerton.
.
.
Fusco and a uniformed officer approached Fullerton's operative on the subway station bench. Two more officers approached from the other side.
"Excuse me Mister; would you come with us please," the officer said.
"What for?"
"Sir, please stand up right now."
Fullerton's operative stood, looking around for an escape route - to a bystander, the action may have seemed to stem from confusion.
"Slowly open your coat."
"Excuse me?"
"Do it now."
The other two cops had come to a halt about 4 m behind the bench and were ready to draw their firearms. The operative, having no way out, relented and in opening his coat, revealed two handguns.
"You got permits for these?" Fusco asked.
The operative remained silent, so the cops arrested him and led him out of the station. Fusco made brief eye contact with Shaw when his group passed her on the way up the stairs.
Shaw went up and down the platform twice more to verify that no one else was watching the door. Then she skillfully picked the lock and entered the abandoned part of the station without anyone noticing. She stood and listened for a moment, waiting for any indication that someone had noticed her entrance, and giving her eyes time to adjust to the near-darkness. All she could hear was water dripping into a puddle somewhere, and the faint tapping of tiny feet on wet cement. Weapon drawn but forgoing a flashlight, she moved like a spectre through the abandoned structure. The air grew increasingly stale the further she went from the door. Instinct and some stray beams of light from the station above helped her navigate around black indistinct shapes that may have been construction materials or discarded station furniture.
The faintly illuminated opening to a wide staircase drew Shaw in. She slowly approached and followed the stairs down all the way, then carefully looked around the corner. About 15 m away from where she was standing, Root was looking bored, cuffed to one of two metal chairs. Shaw tapped her ear, but her phone did not have a signal. She carefully looked up and down the abandoned platform once more, and seeing no one else there, approached Root.
"Hmm, I was wondering when one of you would show up," Root said, even before lifting her head to look at Shaw.
"What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for the train."
Shaw looked up and down the desolate platform once more.
"Think you've been off your meds for too long."
"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"
"Let's get you back where you belong."
Shaw picked the handcuffs holding Root to the chair, and quickly re-attached them to Root's wrists. They followed the station blue-prints on Shaw's phone toward a disused exit off the abandoned part of the station.
.
.
Reese parked his car and walked up to 170th street station. A quick look around the elevated station, supplemented by a satellite image he brought up on his phone, informed him that there was only a single entrance and exit. He had about 7 minutes before the train Fullerton had boarded would stop there, so he looked around for cover. A food truck still busy with dinner patrons seemed like an excellent excuse for his lingering, so he got in line and soon sat on a bench by the little park at the station exit, eating a desert-like thing called an 'elephant ear'. The sun had set a while ago, and the dirty orange light of dusk was replaced by the spotty yellow illumination of the street lights coming on. Reese didn't stir when Fullerton came into view at the station exit. Once his target had crossed the street and disappeared between two buildings, he started tailing him.
After only a few minute's walk, Fullerton entered a red-bricked apartment building. Reese managed to get in the door thanks to an older lady going out to walk a small dog, and just caught a glimpse of the elevator going up. He ran up the stairs, stopping at each level. The elevator stopped on the third floor, and he watched Fullerton enter unit 15. Reese lingered for a few minutes, then went back out on the street. He saw Carter's cruiser parked in the shade midway between two streetlights, and got into the passenger seat.
"So, we're after some sort of master criminal tonight."
"It would appear so. I tracked him to this apartment building, unit 15," he pointed at a window on the 3rd floor. "Did you get anything on the man surveilling the other apartment building?"
"As a matter of fact, he wasn't surveilling the apartment building. He's one of Elias's men, and was tailing the man who is surveilling the apartment building."
Reese raised an eyebrow.
"There are two of them, taking turns, and they are part of some sort of anti-technology group, operating out of several big cities. Elias' men have been keeping tabs on their movements in New York."
Carter reached for a manila folder on her back seat and handed it to Reese.
"Called in some favours; these are all the reports, country-wide, linked to suspected members of the group."
Reese leaved through some twenty police reports.
"You don't do things half way, do you?"
"Hey, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right."
"Hmm. Would you mind watching the building while I retrieve my car, and then take this folder to Finch?"
"Sure," she said, in that tone of voice that warned him that there better be a good point to all the trouble she was going to, all without asking questions.
"Thank you."
.
Reese drove up in his car and parked in the nearest badly-lit spot with a good view of the apartment building entrance. He nodded at Carter as she drove off.
.