Chapter 11
Two operatives waited in a black sedan. A Crown Victoria, government plates. Platt slipped into the back, exchanged a nod with the man in the passenger seat.
He glanced at his watch, pulled out his phone. Dialed a number he had memorized.
"Carter was it? Yes."
He waved to the two up front. Start the car.
"That man you're after." A pause. "Yes. That one."
The key turned in the ignition, the sedan grumbling to life.
"How would you like to bring him in?"
The two men in the front of the car exchanged a look.
The fifth level of the airport garage was emptier than the other four, but not by much.
A car door echoed across the expanse, nothing visible from their poorly lit vantage point. Footsteps, the sound of rolling suitcases and a child's laugh. A faint ding of an elevator.
"This is the fastest I travel, I'm afraid." Finch kept his voice even, careful of each word. Walking with him awkwardly, Fitzgerald had pulled at his arm, his try at a quicker pace.
It was a slight exaggeration, Finch's lopsided even-paced gait. But it needed to buy time.
Fitzgerald, obviously displeased. His thick fingers traced a serrated knife in his pocket, one he had pulled on Finch only moments earlier, just outside the car. Ending his conversation with Reese.
"I don't like violence," Fitzgerald had said. "But sometimes, it's the only way."
The call to a reporter on speed dial, one of his blog subscribers, another try at the NSA. It's happening, he had said. Then, a call to the police. Goading, a threat.
He wanted everyone's attention.
"I don't know why I hadn't thought of it," he was saying now, nervous, still agitated with Finch's pace. "Last year I had five subscribers to my blog. Then three. Then one. They started to disappear- a heart attack, a car accident." A glance to Finch, a shake of his head. "We were too small, too vulnerable. It wasn't the right venue."
Another car entered the parking level, its engine rumbling as it pulled up the ramp. Fitzgerald paused as it drove past them. A young family, two children in the backseat.
"And I didn't have you. You're good with computers. I know you think I'm crazy. I don't think I am, but-"
"Mr. Fitzgerald, I think you're crazy to do this." Finch swung around to face him. "Mass panic has never been an answer. To anything."
Fitzgerald rubbed a hand over his balding head, a rueful laugh. "People deserve to know, Harold. Know that their own government is-"
"Is protecting them?"
"Is spying on them." Fitzgerald spun back, considering Finch's words. Shook his head. Pushed at him. "Protecting them? Do you really believe that?"
Finch gave him a hard look, his lips pressed together tightly. "Yes," he said finally.
Fitzgerald smiled sadly. Another shove. "Keep walking."
2007
Domodedovo airport.
No baggage. A long deserted corridor, their footsteps echoing.
Reese held Kara's arm, gently, a finger to his lips.
There.
A door, closing. Softly.
Deliberately quiet, not the echoing slam of normal travel.
He held up a hand. Wait here.
The stairwell, empty. Gun in hand, another .22 tucked in the small of his back. Reese listened, thought he heard a shuffle.
He might have been paranoid, on edge from Kara falling back in lead. Her injury. His own, barely healing. A reminder.
"John."
Something in her voice.
Back in the corridor. A curse catching in his throat.
Shit.
Kara met his eye. Come on, John.
A chokehold around her neck, a young female agent staring him down. Green eyes. Barrel of a gun to Kara's temple.
Shit.
He lifted his own gun. Slowly, running through scenarios in his head.
A voice from behind. "Where is it?"
Keeping Kara in his peripheral vision, he turned just slightly.
The operative from the Square.
"Where is it," the man repeated.
Reese could still hear the words hissed in his ear. Do you even know what side you're on?
His eyes flickered back to Kara.
"Shoot me," she was whispering to her captor. The woman was young, her finger trembled on the trigger. "Come on. Do it." He knew Kara said it for his benefit: We're not what matters.
"Do you even know what you took?"
Reese looked back to the man, focusing on his hands, his stance. Keeping his own weapon trained to the right. Stepped toward him, boldly, staring down the older man's pistol.
He knew what he had taken. A small metal case containing an encrypted drive.
As for what was on the drive?
Not a fucking clue.
The man smiled, a thin scar next to his eye deepening. "You don't, do you?" It was patronizing. "Who'd you give it to?"
Reese cocked his head to the side, holding the man's dark gaze, keeping his own expression neutral. What was he, CIA? DIA?
It didn't matter.
"John."
He glanced at Kara, held her eye. A second passed in slow motion.
She blinked.
He moved.
Looked right, stepped left. Grabbed the pistol aimed for his chest. Twisting with his left hand, forcing a shot, its fire hitting no one. His right arm swung around. A bullet in the man's one leg, a kick to the other to take him down, and then he shot the light above his head.
Glass shattered.
Kara had already twisted herself free in the distraction, throwing an elbow, a well-placed knee. The gun went off, plaster exploding, but the female operative had missed her chance.
The two struggled, breaking apart. The other weapon raised, a split second before Kara's. Instinct. Reese pulled the trigger of his silenced .22 and watched the body crumple to the ground.
Seconds had passed. The scene slowly registering.
He and Kara stood face-to-face now, both with weapons raised. She stepped out from the fallen woman's legs. Her gun lowered.
The man at his feet. His eyes, even darker now, focused on his fallen partner and the crimson pool seeping slowly under her.
Kara muttered a curse, irritated at the scene. There was a faint stain on her own shirt, bleeding through the fabric. She holstered her weapon. "Kill him too."
Reese didn't, but he slammed the butt of his gun into the side of his skull.
A crack.
The man drooped sideways, unconscious, and Kara shook her head. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, watching Reese. He was staring at the two American operatives, his face blank.
"That's why you don't get attached."
He turned his head at the words, looking at her. She smirked.
"Makes you sloppy. He was looking at her the whole fucking time."
Reese's expression didn't change.
She was moving away when he blinked, his frown seen only by the back of her head.
An unmarked side door. They dissolved into the crowded terminal.