Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated M. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Hi gang. Welcome to Chapter 10 of Terudom. In our last chapter, Max Hardy, to quote Rat Ranson, "pulled the pin on a freakin' grenade." This chapter it goes off.

My thanks to Stunspored for continued support, feedback, constructive criticism, and for permission to use the phrase "full Ryan". Thank you for everything. Terudom would be a lesser story without you.

Speaking of feedback, it's always welcome whether it's positive or negative. So if you have questions, comments, or criticism, fire away.

This chapter was originally going to be longer, but I've got some Holiday preparations to make and other real world commitments, so I probably won't be able to write any more until after Thanksgiving. We'll pick back up then.

Chapter 11 - We're Not In The Bureau Anymore

Gwen sat on the couch, Ryan Junior cradled in her arms. Of course Ryan Hardy Junior wasn't on the birth certificate, since she and Ryan had never been married. She wasn't really sure they ever would have been. Perhaps Ryan would have kept slipping further away had he lived, but she wanted and needed to believe that he would have somehow turned things round. She never had doubted his love, though she had, to the end, maintained doubts that he had it in him to help raise a child. She told Max and Mike that she had chosen the name Ryan for her son not long after his father had been declared dead. It seemed fitting at the time. Ryan had been protecting her and their child with his last breath. It seemed even more fitting after he was born, when she saw he had his father's eyes.

She thought back to the day he was born. Mike, still not fit for full duty, had left his desk and rushed to the hospital. Max was in the field, working a horrific kidnap murder case upstate, cursing her luck at missing the birth. As soon as the maniac she was hunting was in custody, she had come to the hospital, cold, tired, and excited, still in her raid jacket and jeans spattered with mud from a manhunt through the woods. Her first words, on entering the hospital room had been "Is this Ryan Junior?"

Her phone, lying on the lamp table at the end of the couch, began to vibrate. She looked at the display. It was Max. She gently put Ryan back in his crib, and picked up the phone. "Hi!" she said. "How's North Carolina?"

"It's nice," Max replied. "Warmer than New York, anyway. How are you? Is everything OK?"

"Yeah," Gwen said. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"No reason. I just had a few seconds free, and I wanted to check in. Listen, be really careful, Ok?"

"Sure. Max are you Ok? You sound a little off. Is something wrong?"

"No, everything's fine," Max replied. "I'm just tired. I didn't get much sleep. How's Ryan Junior?"

"He's fine. Hurry home. We both love it when you visit. In fact, I'd like to have the two of you over for dinner again."

"That sounds good," Max replied. "As soon as we finish here, we'll plan something. I just don't know how long it'll take. But yeah, I do want us to get together. Give Ryan Junior a kiss for me. Listen, I have to go. Work."

"OK," Gwen said. "Love to Mike"

II

Max pocketed her phone as the sheriff's deputy walked up. "We got a call from the sheriff," he said. "They found another one."

"Another one?" Mike asked.

"Another multiple murder," the deputy replied. "There's two dead outside the house. And inside is a God damn slaughterhouse. Body parts. People cut up. Like some kind of cult. And there's brains."

III

They sped towards the address the deputy had given them. They were alone in their car, and thankful for the privacy.

"You said something about stepping into the Twilight Zone," said Max.

"Submitted for your approval," Mike replied. "What the hell are we gonna do?"

"I don't know," she said. "But I know this. We're not in the Bureau any more. Not now. We've been betrayed. There's no calling for backup now. There's no backup to call for. We're it. You and me. And Ryan, if we can contact him."

"There's gotta be someone we can trust," Mike said. "What if we went to Shelby?"

"Even if we do, even if he can be trusted," she said, "he'd have to go to someone. If he goes to the wrong person..."

"What if we went to the Director?" he asked. "Could we get to Franklin?"

"The problem is that whoever we go to, we have no proof, and no hard evidence on Galen. No matter which way we turn, Eliza will find out as soon as we try to tell anyone, and that's all she wrote." She stared glumly at the road ahead. "We were so close. And I thought, maybe this is finally it. I can have my family back together. I can bring him home."

"What if we can't bring him home?" Mike asked. "What if we have to bring him in?"

She looked at him in open mouthed horror. "No," she said. "We can't"

"Hear me out," Mike said. "Unless we can prove that this organization is real, they've got every incentive to kill all of us. But if we bring in proof, then killing us wouldn't help them. Ryan has to know a lot about them by now. If we brought him in, if he talked..."

"Ryan covered for you! I covered for you! How can you even think about this?"

"You saw what they did to Ranson. What if that was Gwen?"

"He's got that flash drive," she said.

"Right. He's got it. We don't. And what if you can't break the encryption? Ryan made his choice. I know he covered for me. I know you did. Which is why this sucks. But he had a choice, and so did you. Gwen never got a choice, and neither did Ryan Junior. Look, I'm not going to do anything yet. It's a decision we have to make together. But I'm still waiting to hear your better idea."

"I don't have one," she said. "But I'm starting to understand how he felt."

"Is that why you say we're not in the Bureau anymore?"

She thought for a moment. "I'm not going full Ryan," she said. "I can't. We can't. We have people we're responsible to. People we're responsible for. We're not vigilantes. I know what it feels like now, when you don't know how to protect the people you love. When it seems like there won't ever be an end to it. But just because I know what he felt doesn't mean I'm going where he went."

"So what do we do?" Mike asked.

"Like you said, one step at a time. We start with this flash drive. There's got to be something there we can use. We get some burners. We call that number, and we set up a meet. And even if we don't go full Ryan, the fact is we're both of us dark side as of now whether we like it or not. Because they made that choice for us. And they have started a war with the wrong family."

"We're here," Mike said.

Ahead was the array of flashing lights and emergency vehicles, parked in the open grassy area in front of a frame house with an outside storage building and garage, and a dilapidated unpainted barn. They parked, got out, and walked under the yellow police tape to the two bodies lying in the driveway, covered with sheets. They were met by a paunchy man in his mid fifties, with a gray moustache, wearing a khaki uniform with five star General's insignia pinned to the collar.

"I'm Sheriff Hester," five star said.

"Weston and Hardy, FBI", Mike said. "What happened?"

"The neighbors heard shots last night. No one thought much of it at the time, it's not all that unusual around here. But this morning, these bodies were lying out here in the open. That one has his elbow broken, and his nose. The other one has what looks like a crushed larynx. Both were finished off with a nine. But not the same nine. There's two different brands of ammo here. These," he said, pointing to the spent cartridge cases lying near the young man Derek had killed, "are Cor-Bon. Over there, near the storage building, those are Magtech. So I think it was two shooters with two different guns. But we haven't recovered either weapon yet."

"What's this?" Mike asked, pointing at the broken zip ties on the ground. "Looks like they took someone who got loose. And they took the wrong person."

"A martial arts expert, maybe?" Max asked. "And whoever they took never called this in?"

"Unless he's one of the victims inside," the sheriff said. "And if he is, it'll be hard to identify what's left of him. I'll show you."

IV

Derek came awake slowly, lying on his side, staring at chocolate brown curtains behind two white upholstered chairs on either side of a lamp table. This wasn't the hotel room he had checked into yesterday.

Because this is the hotel room that Eliza checked us into last night.

He rolled onto his back and took stock of his surroundings. The window on his right was covered by heavy brown curtains. He could see what looked like a dining room table through the door facing the foot of the bed. To his left was another door that was closed. It all looked...expensive. Eliza could clearly afford much better accommodations than he could.

He remembered now. Roadside surgery, without morphine, and Eliza grinning from ear to ear at his pain. Eliza giving Stinnes and Kaminsky orders to collect his things and the rental car. The drive to her hotel in the Audi while he smoked a cigarette, surprised that she let him smoke in the car. Walking through the lobby in a jacket borrowed from one of her guys to cover his torn and bloody shirt. Falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow despite the soreness from his wound. He looked down at the black line of stitches. He had to admit that she did nice work. Better than some work he'd seen over in the Sandbox.

The door to his left opened, and Eliza stepped out, wearing a green silk kimono, barefoot, her hair damp. "Good morning," she said. "Welcome back among the living."

He regarded her appreciatively. "Somehow, I don't think guys who disobey your orders usually get this kind of treatment."

"They don't," she replied. She saw him looking at her and said "I was out in the cold most of the night on an ambush, so I took a hot bath. You might consider doing the same, although I'd keep those stitches dry. You want some breakfast? You look like you could use it."

"I could eat," Derek said.

V

They sat at the dining room table in the living area of the hotel room. Derek had ordered sausage with fresh biscuits and gravy. Eliza had an omelette with strawberries. Derek surveyed the room. There was a gas log fireplace, surrounded by marble, and above it a big screen TV. The bar was topped with granite. . "You travel first class," he said.

"I've earned it," she replied. "They call this the Magi suite."

"By the way, thank you," said Derek. "For sewing me up. And for not killing my ass."

"So how long have you known?" she asked. "About Theo, I mean"

"I didn't really know until I met him. I suspected for a long time. I said in your office that you were off the books."

"I thought you were drunk," Eliza said.

"I was. That didn't make me wrong."

"And you never ratted me out" she said. " And you came all this way...why? Because you thought I needed backup? Because you wanted to impress me? Or because you're attracted to me?"

"Yes. And because I really was worried about what happens to me if anything happens to you. As for off the books, it's where I've mostly lived. We've got that in common, at least."

"How did you come to work for me?", she asked. "You've never seemed the type."

"Our mutual friend introduced us, remember?"

"I mean how did you ever go so far off the books, as you put it, that you ended up here?"

"I'm sure you've read the file," Derek replied.

"I have," Eliza said. "But the file is not the person. I know the official version. I'd like to hear yours."

He took a sip of his coffee, and looked at her. He might have been wondering if he should answer, or what she looked like under her kimono.

"The first thing you should understand is that early on I lost all respect for the people in charge. They took us into a war, they didn't know how to win it, and they didn't understand the country or the people. They knew contracts. They knew oil contracts, and security contracts, and construction contracts. But when it came to fighting a war, especially that kind of war, they didn't have a plan and they didn't have a clue.

" So I went rogue. I had my crew. I recruited them myself. They were locals, and they weren't nice guys. They were tribal types, guys looking for a paycheck, or looking for payback, cutthroats, hustlers, and lunatics, but they were good. We were damn good. And we played a good game. We accounted for a lot of high value targets. I did unauthorized killings, from early on. The first one was a double agent. And then there was a guy providing explosive penetrators to AQ that could punch holes in our armored vehicles. And there were others. I had a don't ask don't tell kind of relationship with headquarters. I didn't tell and they didn't ask.

"Most people don't know this, but terrorists get paid. Not a lot, by our standards, but they get paid. They've got expenses. They've got to eat like the rest of us. Now, if they wanted to plant a bomb, they had contractors just like we did. There would be a guy in charge of a cell, and he would collect the money that someone paid him for the job, and he would pay his guys. There would be a recruiter, who would find the suicide bomber. Not all of those suicide jockeys were volunteers. We found a guy one time with Down's syndrome. They used him to drive a car bomb. They duct taped his hands to the steering wheel. There were handlers who got the bomber to the target, and saw too it that he didn't chicken out. There was the guy who wired the bomb. There was an audiovisual guy who took video of the bombing and put it out on the net for recruiting and propaganda, and to advertise for more business. And there was the money guy who paid for it all.

"Most of these guys were just mooks and not worth going after. My job was to hunt down and kill the guys with actual technical skills, especially the bombmakers. Not many guys know how to wire a bomb. Sometimes we could get the recruiters. The money guys were usually on the wrong side of a border, or they had political protection, and mostly we couldn't touch them."

"But there was this guy who ran a bombing cell. He was really into video games, so we called him Abu X-Box. Someone took out a contract on me. I had a rep by then. He gave the job to Abu X-Box, who proceeded to wire a twelve year old kid up with a suicide vest. He missed me, but he took out two of my guys. Turned them to pink mist, and I was lying on the ground with little bits of my guys and that kid all over me. I still have ringing in my left ear from that. I went after the assholes who did it. I killed the bombmaker, and the recruiter, and several of the mooks, and I took Abu X-Box. Alive. I wanted the money guy. They had issued a directive by that time. No more waterboarding. So I wired his balls up to a telephone magneto instead.

"The money for this job came from some Saudi kid. He was 25. His Daddy was someone in the oil ministry. The kid thought he was Osama Bin Laden 2.0, and he figured he'd make his bones by having me wasted. I wanted to go after him, but they said no. I got called in and got a talking to from some desk jockey who had never been in the field a day in her life. She told me that there were sensitive political considerations involved, that we had a vital strategic partnership to maintain, and that policy was decided at the highest levels. She told me that there were oil contracts at stake, that we were trying to sell them Block 50 F-16s, and she told me that we had to espouse the pragmatic view. I told her I was down to my last fuck, and I wasn't about to give it over any of that shit."

Eliza stopped her forkful of omelette halfway to her mouth and grinned. . "That wasn't in the file."

"I didn't think it was. Anyway, me and a couple of my crew tracked the kid to Dubai, and that's where we killed him."

"How did you kill him?" she asked.

"Well, normally I was very neat and professional. But in this case, I decided pink mist for pink mist. So we drove him out in the desert. I took a block of C-4, shaped it into something suitably phallic, and shoved it up his ass with a remote detonator. We drove to a safe distance, and I hit the switch."

"That," she said, laughing, "wasn't in the file either."

"You know, that's the first time I've ever heard you laugh. Anyway, to wrap things up, I didn't cover my tracks good enough. They said something about PTSD, and maybe some brain trauma from that bomb blast, and I had been out there too long, and I should take a desk job at Langley. So they gave me my one way."

"One way?" she asked.

"Agency expression. One way ticket home. It means you're done in the field. But somehow it leaked to the Saudis that I was behind that hit, and they were demanding my head. There was talk of a murder rap, but they didn't dare put me on trial. I was a serious embarrassment. Any discussion of what to do with me would end with the words 'extreme prejudice'. So I slipped away on a phoney Swiss passport and went independent. Big Daddy Oil Sheik sent some guys to look for me, but they're all dead. About three years went by, and I was contacted by our mutual friend. He said he had a job for me. He said if I took it, he could get the Agency to let bygones be bygones. I could come home, and I'd be well paid. The catch was I had to not care. I said 'Dude, I'm already there'. So he set up a meet, and he introduced me to you. And that's the first time I've ever told that whole story to anyone."

She smiled, and leaned forward in her seat. "Thank you for telling it to me. I think I understand you better now."

"What do you understand?"

"That I've misjudged you. That under it all, you're a disappointed romantic. That you're disillusioned because they didn't appreciate you the way I do. That you thrill in hunting an adversary who can hunt you back. It would have been fascinating to know what Doctor Strauss would have made of you. You might have been his masterpiece."

"I can't see myself as one of Strauss' kids," Derek said

"I can," Eliza replied. "You're afraid to say it, but you think that I kill because there's something wrong with me, and you think there's something wrong with you because you spent so much time killing. But we're both of us killers, and more alike than you realize. I need you to see that because I need your help. I'm under siege on all sides. Between Ryan Hardy, and Theo, and Sarah, I'm facing the loss of everything I've built. And I have dreams. I told you I was Strauss' most ambitious student. The Organization can be far more than what it is, and I'm the person to take it there. With your help."

"Explain"

"We supply our people with victims, cover, and protection. We have connected, influential people who help with that. We have tremendous access to the government's records and personnel database. This means we can compromise people. We know who can be gotten to, and how to get to them. And the House, besides just being a playground for our members, can be a place where carefully selected nonmembers can be compromised, and brought under control. We can use this to protect the Organization, but also we can buy and sell information, influence, and even people. But I've got to shut down Ryan Hardy, and I've got to shut down Theo."

He looked at her thoughtfully. "There's a fine line between ambitious and crazy. I read a lot of history, and I can name several people who crossed it. But let's focus on the immediate problems, starting with Ryan Hardy. You plan to take his niece. Using your contingency plan, I assume."

"Exactly," Eliza said. "I always think several moves ahead. Ryan Hardy went off a bridge, but no body was ever found. So immediately I started making plans in case he was alive. I'll admit that I didn't think he'd declare a one man war. I thought maybe he'd contact someone. Mike Weston was in ICU, and for all we knew he might never return to work, even if he lived. So by default, that left Max Hardy. She might work with Ryan secretly, as she did before. So I zeroed in on her."

"Now, the kidnap or murder of a Federal agent would be extensively investigated. But what if we framed her? At the least, we could get her fired, maybe sent to prison. That would certainly deprive her uncle of her help. But what if we framed her as a mole, working for some powerful, well funded, and secretive group? Perhaps a group capable of springing her from prison?"

" I had a bank account in the Cayman Islands opened in the name of Max Hardy before Ryan had time to change into dry jockey shorts. I've made regular deposits since, and it's now up to two and half million dollars. The killing of Gavin Leach was opportunistic. We framed him as a hacker so that we could frame Max Hardy for killing him. Her phone is tapped, so we knew when she'd be keeping Ryan and Gwen's little brat. The killing took place in a poorly lit parking lot at night. What did the witnesses see? The killer was White, female, brunette, twenties, and they aren't sure how long the hair was because mine was pinned up under a baseball cap. I'm five seven, Max is five eight, so the description will match closely enough. I killed him with a Glock like the one Max carries, but I used a replacement barrel threaded for a silencer. You'll plant the replacement barrel and silencer in her car. The barrel of a Glock can be swapped out in seconds without tools. Galen made sure that Max knew Gavin Leach was a person of interest, and he'll "discover" that bank account as soon as I order him to do so. A search will then find her in possession of the murder weapon. And then she's mine.

"One of our people on the inside will produce an executive order that whereas Max Hardy is now considered a highly dangerous threat to national security, she is to be moved, on apprehension, to a secure black site. The place is code named Site M. Once she's there, one of my teams will pick her up and move her to Fairfax International, and I'll have a hostage to use against Ryan. She'll undergo an intensive interrogation. I don't believe for a moment that she and Weston have reported everything they've learned to the task force."

"Gwen Carter is a much simpler proposition. Her abduction will not be considered unusual since Ryan Hardy is officially dead. If she has to be killed, then the motive for her murder can easily be disguised. I'll simply have her raped." Seeing his expression she added "Oh don't worry, I won't ask you to do it. I have guys on the payroll willing to do that sort of thing."

"And Weston?" he asked.

"He wouldn't have made a very convincing threat to national security while he was in the hospital. I can't move against him directly, since taking both him and Max would arouse suspicion. But with Max clearly a turncoat, he'll be suspended. And I may end up with him eventually as well. With the woman he loves in my hands, I expect him to do something brave, stupid, or simply pointless. In which case, I get to decide who I want to kill in front of whom."

"And Theo?"

"You found him before. You'll find him again, and kill him for me."

"He has followers, you know," Derek said

"You killed someone's followers. Perhaps not Theo's. I'm not sure he told you the truth. I think he's working with someone, but I don't know who. I think it might even be Sarah. I think she actually hates me that much. But whoever's working with him, or following him, I'm sure you're more than equal to the task."

"I never thought I'd say this," he said, "but there are times when I think that if we'd had you in command, we might have won that God damn war."

"I never would have fought it," she said. She finished off her coffee, rose and walked around to his side of the table. "Stand up," she said. I want to check those stitches." She pulled his robe aside and ran her finger gently along the line of stitches. He exhaled sharply. " "You're ticklish," she said, smiling.

"If I'm going to plant that barrel, then it would be better to get back to New York ahead of Weston and Hardy," he said, ignoring her statement.

"They're detained, she said. "Investigating the dead bodies you left behind."

He took his left hand, and lifted her chin gently, looking into her eyes. He caressed her cheek with his hand. "So we have some time to kill," he said.

"We do."

He leaned in for a kiss, running his left hand through he hair, and tugging ever so slightly. As he pulled away, bit her lower lip gently. "You know," he said, "This is all starting to seem just a little bit dangerous."

"You mean my plan, you going along with it, or where your right hand is?"

"Yes"

VI

The front of the house had two bay windows that would have given a lovely view of the tall cedar trees lining the road if they hadn't been covered over with heavy blackout curtains like every other window on the house. Either the residents were light sleepers or they liked their privacy.

The wooden porch was painted gray, its boards warped, and likely rotted in spots. The button was out of the doorbell, with bare wires hanging from an empty socket. Small window panes on either side of the door were covered over with what looked like pieces of cut up window shade held in place with masking tape. Inside was a living room on their right with threadbare green carpet, furniture that might have been salvaged from a dump, and a TV. To the left was a dining room with a kitchen table covered with dirty plates, empty glasses a the bare wood floor covered with stains and crumbs. The place smelled of dust, spoiled food, and a slight smell of formaldehyde.

"Who owns this place?" Mike asked.

"I'm not sure who owns it now," the Sheriff said. It did belong to guy named Cameron. He died last year, and it was sold it a couple of months back as part of the estate. I'm not sure who bought it. Right now there's a guy named Wayne Jarrett who lives here. He's not local, he moved here, and he has a record. Drunk and disorderly, nothing violent or serious. I don't know where he is right now." He started down the hall in front of them. "This way," he said.

In the back of the house was a bedroom that stank of sheets that had not been washed in living memory, a cluttered kitchen, a nook for a computer, and a bookshelf. Mike glanced at the bookshelf, and noticed that a lot of the books were on occult topics. There were two different books called Necrnomicon, one a small mass market paperback, the other a trade paperback. There was a massive hardcover of the collected works of H P Lovecraft, and next to it a trade paperback book called The Occult Philosophy Of H P Lovecraft. Another trade paperback was The Magickal System Of The Necronomicon.

"These people were freaks," Hester said. "You should see downstairs. "

The computer desk was placed facing one of the curtain covered windows. Behind it, a door opened on wooden stairs leading to the basement. Sheriff Hester led, the way, with Mike behind him and Max bringing up the rear.

In the center of the room was a heavy wooden work table covered with dried blood stains. There was a smaller table next to it with a tray of bloody surgical instruments, including a bone saw. There were shelves on the back wall. One of these held four large jars, in which floated organs.

Against the wall behind the stairs was a large chest style freezer, its door open. Adjacent to the wall with the shelves the cinder block had been painted black and covered with unfamiliar occult symbols in red and white. Against another wall was a large standing tool cabinet. Next to it, sickles, knives, axes, and other edged weapons and tools. hung from hooks.

"Brains?" Mike asked.

"Yeah," Hester said. These jars contain what look like drugs, chemicals, herbs...we haven't tested any of it yet so some of it could be illegal drugs. There's organs in some of the smaller jars too. And that freezer over there...", he pointed at the wall, "Christ almighty."

They walked over to the freezer. . It's door was open. Inside was the body of a man dressed in jeans and an insulated long sleeve T shirt. There was a bloody line of stitches across his forehead that extended the whole circumference of his head. They looked at each other with a mix of horror and astonishment. "Shiny?" Mike asked. Max nodded wordlessly.

"What's Shiny?" Hester asked.

"We've seen this MO before," Mike said. "But it was in New York. Either there's more of these people, or these guys got around."

"Some kind of cult, then," the Sheriff replied.

"Looks like it," said Mike. "What's that?" He pointed at the wall covered with symbols. In the center of it, the light from the incandescent bulbs in the ceiling reflected off of something that looked like smooth, darkly tinted glass. Mike waled up to it, and saw that in the center of the wall was a circular pane of dark glass about two feet in diameter like a mirror, held in a round wooden frame painted black. Red symbols were painted around the edge of the wooden frame.

He turned to Max. "Did you see the bookshelf upstairs?" he asked. "A lot of occult stuff. A lot of stuff about Lovecraft."

"Dennis said that there were creatures in Lovecraft who removed brains," she said. "He also said that Mister Shiny was the name of a monster from the Cthulu Mythos. So Shiny has a North Carolina end, and another end in New York." She turned to the Sheriff. "This Wayne Jarrett guy, was he into computers at all? Was he a hacker?"

"I don't know," Hester replied "I kind of doubt it. Jarrett didn't really seem smart enough."

"That Portland computer was hacked from public access wifi in a coffee shop downtown," she said to Mike. If none of the dead guys here was a hacker, and Wayne Jarrett, wherever he is, wasn't a hacker either, then there's at least one more person we haven't found. These were someone's followers. Maybe whoever is behind Shiny."

"Obviously I'm coming in late here," Hester said. "What the hell is Shiny?"

"A computer worm, " Max replied. 'A cyberweapon. Maybe launched by someone in your town. We've got to start finding out who those dead guys were, and where they came from, and we've got to find Wayne Jarrett."

VII

Derek stood in front of the dressing room mirror He almost felt human again. After his brush with death, everything was better. The breakfast tasted better than any food he'd ever had. The jetted tub, the hot shave had been especially luxurious. And sex with Eliza...

Was it that good because you nearly died last night, or because she's just that smoking hot?

Yes.

But was this really a good idea? Probably not. He thought back on his earlier conversation with Zack. It's beautiful, but it's still a snake. He remembered Eliza's answer when he asked, half facetiously, if Strauss had grown accustomed to her face. I doubt he was capable of the emotion. That answer, he decided, was true enough. And he doubted she was capable of the emotion either. OK, he thought. So she's using you. And you enjoyed being used. But no way does this end well.

Was he really like her? Maybe a little bit. Maybe more than a little bit. He was an accomplished killer, anyway. He'd better be, considering how much practice he'd had and the circles he was moving in. She needed him to track down and kill Theo, and to deliver Max Hardy. If he succeeded, he somehow doubted that they'd have a happily ever after. She'd said it herself. He possessed information that could lead to her death. Which meant that he possessed information that could lead to his. So what was he going to do?

They told me I had to not care. And I don't anymore. She was right that he probably wasn't the type who usually worked for her. He told himself when he joined the Agency that it was the good guys against the bad guys, and he'd never work for the bad guys. But here he was. He would never have believed it of himself. And then again, he would never have believed it of the people he worked for, either.

So here he was, and he had to be somewhere, and the Organization was a damn good gig, and probably his last chance. He'd enjoy it while he could. He'd enjoy her while he could. The ride would end, because it always did. A breakup with her was likely to be messier than most. He accepted the fact that at some point he might be sold out. It wasn't like that hadn't happened before. He'd help her, because there was no going back to the life he'd had or the person he'd been.

As he finished buttoning his shirt, Eliza stepped into the dressing room wearing a black sheath dress with long sleeves. "I just got off the phone with the Chairman. I'm expected at a meeting at the House with the Committee. So here's the plan. There's a plane waiting for us in Winston. We'll fly out, and land at Leesburg airport. There'll be a car waiting to take me to that meeting. You'll go on to New York, pick up that barrel and silencer at Fairfax International and plant them before Weston and Hardy get back. Stinnes and Kaminsky will deal with the vehicles. They'll return the rental cars and drive the van back to the ZR facility in Virginia. I'll send a plane for them once that's done. You call me as soon as that murder weapon is planted, and then I'll tell Galen to discover that bank account."

"You got it, Boss Lady."

"You can call me Eliza, you know."

"OK," he said. "Eliza. I'll take care of it."

"Good," she said. She looked at him as if deciding whether sparing his life had been a mistake. "You almost seem to be having second thoughts," she said.

"No," he replied, "it's just that when I started out from New York, the last thing I expected was to end up here. But then that's been the story of my life."

VIII

They stood in the driveway where the shooting had taken place. Sheriff Hester was supervising the removal of the body from the basement. Mike was looking intently at the spent brass lying on the ground.

"What are you thinking?" asked Max.

"Two guns, two shooters," Mike replied. "They took someone last night. They tied him up with zip ties. They put him in a vehicle. They drove him here. He broke the zip ties. He grabbed a gun from one of the guys who took him. One of the guys who took him got a gun out, and they shot it out. Now over here, near the zip ties, was someone shooting Cor-Bon ammo. That's probably the guy they took. Over there, by the storage building, was whoever was shooting Magtech ammo."

"The guy shooting Cor-Bon drove off in the vehicle they brought him in, and he took his gun with him. So if we don't see the other gun..."

"Then maybe the other shooter left on foot," Max finished.

"Right. Now if you were standing over there by the building, and there was a guy standing here in the driveway, and you needed to make a run for it, which way would you go?"

"Towards those woods," Max said, pointing.

They looked at each other for a moment, and began walking towards the woods, looking carefully at the ground as they went. Suddenly Max stopped and pointed. 'Look at that," she said, pointing at bloodstain on the grass. They quickened their pace, approaching the treeline. Mike noticed another bloodstain near the edge of the woods, stopped, and turned towards the house. "Hey!" he shouted at a deputy near the storage building. "We got a blood trail!"

VII

They moved through the woods, with guns drawn. They could see two other deputies about ten yards away on their right. One of them had a shotgun, the other a drawn pistol. On their left they could hear but not see the Sheriff and two other deputies , obscured by a tangle of dense growth. The Sheriff had called for a K9 unit, nut it was twenty minutes away. Hester had wanted to wait for the dogs, but Mike had told him that valuable witness might be bleeding to death, and he and Max were damn well going, backup or no. Mike held up his hand suddenly, motioning for Max to stop. She did do, a puzzled expression on her face. "You hear that?" Mike asked. "Sounds like a waterfall."

She nodded wordlessly, and then they started forward again. They trees ahead thinned out, and they could see a brick building in front of them, two stories, its windows all knocked out and the area around it overgrown. . The source of the waterfall sound was now visible. A broad creek ran through the woods. The waterfall was actually water rushing over a dam, and the brick building, which they could now see clearly was on the near side of the creek, was some sort of abandoned mill.

The deputies on their flanks began to emerge from the woods. "That's Dorsey's Mill," Sheriff Hester said to them, pointing. " It hasn't been used for years. There's a dirt road on the other side of the building."

Mike reached into his jacket pocket for his LED light. Max did the same. "Let's go," he said.

They entered through a wide double door that was ajar, the lock broken long ago by vandals. Inside, there were rusted machines with exposed belts that wrapped around large, spoked metal wheels. Mike turned to the Sheriff. "You three," he said, indicating the sheriff and the two deputies who had been with him, "check upstairs." He pointed at the other two deputies. "The two of you, check that end of the building, through those doors. Max and I will check this other side."

They split up, and Mike found himself walking slowly past a rusted machine and towards an open door that led towards what looked like it might have been an office. Max was close behind.

Mike stopped abruptly, and hunched down, his left arm coming off the butt of his Glock and sweeping back over his head. "Crap," he said. "Spider web. I hate spiders." Max silently nodded agreement, and they moved towards the door. Mike peered cautiously into the room, and saw a man sitting, propped against the wall. His eyes were closed and his head was slumped forward, as though he were asleep. But Mike saw blood pooled beneath him, and was sure he was dead. A phone lay beside him, as well as a small stainless semiautomatic He looked at Max, and held his left hand up, index finger in front of his face. He slipped quietly into the room and holstered his pistol. He took out a pair of nitrile gloves and a clear plastic evidence bag. He put the phone into the bag, zipped it closed, and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. He looked at Max. "We're not in the Bureau anymore," he said quietly.

Max stepped outside the room and shouted for the Sheriff. "Over here!" she said. "There's a body!"

VIII

A search of the mill yielded up nothing further. They stood at the side of the dirt road that led to it, watching the ambulance take Wayne Jarrett's body away. He had bled to death hours earlier. Max took out her phone. "Who are you calling?" Mike asked.

"Gwen. I want to check on her."

"You better not," Mike said. "I know you're worried sick. I am too. But right now we can't be there for her, and if we keep calling to check on her, we'll scare her. Plus, if they have our phones tapped, we might tip them off. We don't want them knowing that we suspect something."

She stared at her phone for a second and then put it back in her pocket. "You're right," she said.

"As soon as we wrap things up here, we'll get some burner phones," he said.

She nodded wordlessly. Sheriff Hester, who had been talking to a deputy nearby, came walking towards them. "I can give you a ride back to your car," he said.

"Thanks," Max replied.

What I don't understand," said the Sheriff, "is why he came all the way down here. I can understand that he was trying to get away from whoever shot him, but it seems like a long way to go just to bleed to death."

"I don't understand it either," she said. "But I want to start looking into the background of all three of these guys. We need to know where they've been, and whether they were involved in the killing we investigated in New York. And we need to start looking at missing person's reports, and trying to identify the victims, or what's left of them."

"We better get back to the crime scene," Mike said. "There's still a lot to do."

IX

Derek pulled into the garage at Fairfax International, killed the engine on his Acura, and got out. As the roll up door he had driven in through slid down, he walked through the double door at the back of the room. As he did, he saw Zack Coleman emerging from the server room to his left.

"Welcome back," Coleman said.

"What are you doing here?" Derek asked. "I didn't know you ever made it out to this place.."

"Sometimes I do. There's not a lot of people cleared to work on the systems here. If I get put in charge at RCS, they'll have to find someone else to take over some of this."

"Next time I see the Boss lady I'll tell her you're overworked."

"Yeah, I'm sure that'll help," Coleman said. "Did you get absolution?"

"I'm still breathing," Derek said. "So I guess I did."

"So how was your trip?"

"Full of surprises. Not much that I can talk about, and right now I've got another job. I'm just here because I have to pick up some equipment. . Maybe we can have drinks or something later."

"Sure," Coleman said. "Give me a call."

X

There was a room in the House just down the hall from the office Eliza used when she was there. It had been a library long ago, when the House was built. Now it served as a conference room. To thee extent that the Organization had a central nerve center, this was it. The Committee, the Organization's governing body, met here. Meetings did not occur on any regular schedule. The members met when there was something to discuss. Today there was something to discuss.

They had sent a Mercedes E Class to meet Eliza at Leesburg Executive Airport. At the House, she had her bags taken to the guest bedroom adjacent to her office, and she went straight to the conference room. In the center of the room was a darkly finished octagonal wooden table. The Committee had eight members, and they sat at an eight sided table. In theory all of the members were equal, and sitting at an eight sided table was supposed to emphasize this. In reality, the Chairman was the most equal, since his job gave him access to classified information as well as defense and intelligence resources. The Organization could not function day to day without the access and cover he could provide. So his word counted for a lot.

There were, counting the Chairman, five men and two women sitting at the table. One chair was vacant. That chair was for Eliza. She sat down, noting that Sarah Marloth occupied one of the chairs. She strongly objected to Sarah's presence, but for the moment held her tongue. At meetings of the Committee, the Chairman always spoke first.

'We will come to order," he said. "Our first order of business will be Eliza's report on the progress she has made in dealing with our unknown assassin."

"I was not given a chance to cast a vote on Adrian's replacement," Eliza said.

"The decision to seat Sarah was unanimous," the Chairman replied. "I'm aware that the two of you have differences, but this saves time. I'm sure that you will be able to work together in spite of any past disagreements you have had."

"Yes sir," Eliza said. "I've just returned from the field. I now have definite proof that Ryan Hardy is alive, and responsible for the recent murders of some of our senior members. I have positive proof that he faked his death. And I want to assure everyone that very soon he will dead in reality."

XI

They were driving from the Jarrett house to the Sheriff's office at Beaumont. Once again, being in a car gave them some privacy. Mike, who was driving, handed the phone they had found over to Max. "Here," he said. "Let's see who he was trying to call."

"With our luck, she said, "probably a burner." Her finger flew across the screen. "You ready for this?" she asked. "Zack Coleman. He's got to be the other end of Shiny."

"OK," Mike said. "So he was wounded. He needed attention. But shots had been fired and there were dead bodies to explain. So he called Coleman, but Coleman is in New York."

"Right," she said. "So he was calling for help. From someone local he couldn't contact directly. So he called Coleman and asked him to relay a message and send help. But help never arrived. Either whoever he was expecting couldn't get there in time, or they just hung him out to dry."

"So whose followers were these?" Mike asked. "Coleman's? Our local mystery guy? And who killed them?"

"I don't know," said Max. "But we can't go to Galen with this. He's a mole. But so is Zack Coleman. He's selling the Organization out. But who's he working for? If we take this to Galen, then we're doing the Organization's work for them."Eliza finds out, and Coleman is dead, and we get nothing."

"And if we don't take it to someone, we're never going to get anywhere."

" She sat in silence for a moment, staring at the phone in her hand. "So we flip him."

"Flip him?"

"Yeah. If he was involved in Jason Rickard's death, then he's double crossing Eliza. You said it yourself, we need proof. So he either helps us get it, or we threaten to feed him to Eliza."

Mike took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at her. "I thought you said we weren't going full Ryan," he said.

"This is not full Ryan"

"No? Well it's three quarters Ryan, anyway. You once said you'd play good cop bad cop, but only if it was an act. What if he doesn't roll over? Do we turn him over to Eliza's fingernail pullers?"

"It won't come to that," Max replied.. "He'll geek. He has to."

"Of course he'll geek. But what if he doesn't?"

"He will," Max said firmly. "Look, you said it yourself, they're going to come for us. So if you've got a better idea, now's the time."

"I guess it's like you said, then. We're just not in the Bureau anymore."

XII

Ryan Hardy lay in bed in a room in a hot sheet motel staring up at the ceiling, wondering what he had done to the people he loved most in the world. He had gone there to warn them off. But he had known all along, he realized, that they weren't going to listen. They wouldn't be warned off. They wouldn't quit. And they would never give up on him. Because they loved him.

And he had probably killed them.

He had tried to call Rat after fleeing the safe house. No answer. Of course not. Because Rat was dead. And Eliza probably knew he was alive now, and she'd come for the people he loved.

"Even you can't kill your way out of this," Mike had said. But he could. It's just that now there was no point. If his family was dead, then no matter how many of them he killed, it was all for nothing.

He kept waiting, hoping that they'd call. If they were still alive, then at some point they were going back to New York. So if they did, and if there was a chance that Eliza would move against them, then that's where he needed to be. So there were two things he needed to do now. One was start heading for New York. He could fly, and get there quickly. But he couldn't take a gun on a plane. But if he drove...

So get on the road. And along the way, take a detour, and go see Holman.

Holman sold guns. He was the dirtiest gun trafficker east of the Rockies. Holman supplied the Mexican cartels. He'd supplied terrorists. And at times, he'd supplied Ryan So Ryan could go see him, and see what he had in stock these days. "You needed to be with the people who loved you," Max had said. Well, maybe she was right. And maybe the people he loved needed him close by. So that was it. Get to New York, and make ready for war.

Ryan stood, threw on his coat, and headed out the door.

Musical Interlude - Automaton by Abney Park

The Story Of Mr. Hands

Derek's description of how suicide bombing operations worked in Iraq and how they could be taken apart is factual. Most terrorists lack technical skills, and efforts to shut down a terror campaign often have to focus on getting the ones who do have the most valuable skills and are therefore hardest to replace. Regarding the "Saudi kid" that Derek killed, the fact is that quite a few Saudis either join terrorist groups or contribute money. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on 9-11 were Saudi citizens.

America's official policy is to oppose, sanction, or in some cases use force against any government that supports terrorism, but that policy has significant exceptions. Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan support terrorism, sometimes actively and sometimes by simply allowing terrorists to operate from their territory while they look the other way. For various reasons I won't go into, America mostly tolerates this. Not wishing to turn this story into something overtly political, I shall avoid the details. You can read about this on your own if you wish. Two web sites I recommend are Global Guerillas and Strategypage. Both are dot com. Both talk a great deal about how modern wars are actually fought, and how terrorist groups actually operate. Both were used as research sources in writing Terudom. Errors or distortions here are my sole responsibility.

As always, readers are strongly cautioned against trying to infer anything about my political beliefs from anything that they read here, or anything that any character in this story says.

C4 is a plastic explosive like Semtex widely used by the American military. Like any other plastic explosive, it can be shaped easily.

Explosive penetrators, or explosively formed penetrators or EFPs use a special type of explosive charge to create a jet of metal capable of knocking out an armored vehicle when used in a roadside bomb. Al Qaeda, or AQ as Derek called it, obtained a supply of these in Iraq and used them against American troops to considerable effect. At one time these weapons accounted for a high percentage of American casualties.

I felt that at long last, Mr Hands should have some sort of backstory. When Terudom began, he didn't. He existed so that Eliza could function as a character, and that was about it. But a character has a backstory, and a character who plays a role as large as his should have his backstory revealed. I have from the beginning sought to treat the original show with respect, and in general that should serve to limit the role played by an OC. . But it is what it is. There can't be just one villain, and the Following was about the relationships between the villains, not just the heroes. I had only one canon villain to work with,(Two, counting Theo, but he and Eliza were on the outs), and have been forced to improvise. How well I have succeeded is for the reader to judge.

H P Lovecraft And The Occult

The book titles named in this story regarding H P Lovecraft and the occult are fictitious. The Necronomicon, the famous book of occult knowledge that H P Lovecraft created for his stories, is also fictitious, but it so captured the imaginations of readers that books purporting to be the Necronomicon have actually been published and sold to the gullible. One of the more interesting of these is a book called Necronomicon The Wanderings of Alhazred by Donald Tyson. It does not purport to be a spell book or grimoire, but rather a narrative left by the fictitious author of the Necronomicon, Abdul Alhazred. Tyson writes a lot of books about the occult, and while I would strongly discourage readers from developing an interest in such, his version of the Necronomicon is actually a species of supernatural horror fiction, and better than most. He even incorporates into the book the quotes from the Necronomicon that Lovecraft uses in his stories. He also wrote a novel called Alhazred: Author of the Necronomicon that turns Alhazred in to an interesting character and relates his early life and adventures. I loved it. Hollywood should discover this book and option it.

To my knowledge, no cult such as I have hinted at here has ever existed, I'm just making stuff up. I remember being rather excited when Theo used an H P Lovecraft quote in The Following to decode that book. I wondered what, if anything, it meant for the future direction of the show. It always seemed to me that Lovecraft was better to obsess over than Poe, but that's just me.

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