The head.
Christ, the head, Tanida's fucking head. Why had he not reported Reddington's gruesome little present the moment he received it? Why had he spent the evening looking at it, mesmerized by the mere fact of its existence: a box holding a head on his table, instead of calling it in and thereby, by delaying, making it harder and harder for him to do so, until it was impossible altogether? What on earth had possessed him to wait, one night, then two, and then a week, until handing it over to the FBI would come with the condemning question why he had not done so sooner? Why had he accepted the fucking box in the first place?
And what was he going to do with the head now?
Ressler wasn't all that worried about the three handguns and the automatic assault rifle he kept locked away in a drawer; he had a licence for all of them, apart, perhaps, for the automatic as carrying an automatic fire arm was, technically, prohibited. He could explain the guns.
He could not explain Mako Tanido's head, still tucked away in his second freezer—which he had bought, two days after accepting the head, especially for that purpose—beneath a family pack of frozen vegetables in a plastic bag like some kind of morbid cauliflower.
If the board would deem it necessary to search his house, say, for drugs, they would find the head, and if they found the head, he wouldn't just be fired. He would go to prison. And he wouldn't last a month in prison, not if the inmates found out he was FBI. He had to get rid of it.
But how?
He wasn't a criminal, damn it! Hadn't he proven that abundantly clearly over the last week? He didn't know how to make plans to get rid of damning evidence. He was just an idiot who happened to have a severed head stored in his freezer because he hadn't known what else to do with it.
His first impulse was to take it out of the house and bury it somewhere, but whenever he took the head out of the freezer with the intent to put it into a discreet backpack he imagined someone from the Bureau or the Board walking up to him and asking whether he could have a look into his bag and encounter Tanida's frozen smile. Another option was burying it, but he woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare in which a dog dug the head up again and all evidence lead back to him.
He thought about getting acid and dissolving the head, but how could he possibly explain why he needed to buy acid and a plastic bucket if anyone noticed, and asked him?
He reasoned he might simply take the head and throw it into the river somewhere, but what if he were under surveillance? He knew Havers' people were keeping an eye on him; not all the time, but there was an unfamiliar black car parked in the street he was convinced was occupied by people spying on him.
He deliberated burning the head, but he didn't have a hearth in his apartment, and so would have to take it outside as well and that, he'd decided, was not an option.
He didn't dare take the head out of his house nor do anything that might cast suspicion on him. And so he did nothing, and grew ever more anxious.
Being in quite a lot of pain didn't help. He took aspirin for his ribs and his hand, but he had a persistent headache that simply wouldn't go away and only got worse the more worked up he became, and for the first time since he'd played Aaron Stone he found himself craving a hit, not for the rush but for the clarity of mind it would bring. There was no way he could get his hands on a gram of cocaine, though. And he could not think of a way to get out of this mess.
For three days, he worked himself up into a frenzy of fear and panic and paralyzing indecision, until he was quite literally sick with it and spent hours on end lying on the couch, exhausted and delirious with stress, withdrawal symptoms and pain medication, dreaming up worst case scenarios while desperately trying to find a solution for this gruesomely surreal problem.
He could grind the head down to a pulp and dispose of it with the rest of his garbage.
("Agent Ressler, could you explain the presence of human bone fragments in this bag of waste we confiscated?")
He could bash it to pieces and flush it down the toilet.
("Agent Ressler, could you explain to me how these human bone fragments came to be in your toilet when we were searching the place for cocaine?")
He could buy a really big pot and a plant and put Tanida's skull into the pot below the roots of the plant.
("Agent Ressler, could you clarify why there is a human skull under this gardenia?")
He could boil the meat off the skull and keep the skull like a macabre press papier, and simply say he was eccentric and had bought it at a junkyard sale years ago.
("Agent Ressler, would you care to explain how this skull, which has the dna of Mako Tanida, has come to be sitting on this stack of bills?")
He could hack a piece out of the wall, hide the head inside and cover it all up again.
He could hide it, somewhere.
He could cook the head, invite people over and serve it to them with rice, glazed carrots and red wine sauce.
By the time he got to that last option, he covered his face with his hands, thinking he might really be losing his mind, and it was at this point that someone rang his doorbell. Immediately, his heart was in his throat. It took him a moment to force his body to obey his mental commands to get up and answer the door.
A skinny blonde preteen girl was on his doorstep. It was raining—it hadn't really stopped raining since Liz had dropped him off, and the girl was soaking wet. She protectively cradled a large rucksack to her chest.
Ressler stared at her.
She stared back at him.
"Yes?" he asked, after several seconds.
She swallowed. "I…I'm sorry but…could I please come inside for a moment? Until it stops pouring? My cookies are all turning into mush!"
Ressler's muddled cranium gave a painful throb as the surrealism went up another notch. He shook himself. Cookies. He noticed a badge on her coat. She's a girl scout. Jesus Christ. Of all people, she chooses me.
He didn't want this kid in his house, but hell, she looked like a bedraggled cat, so he stood back from the door and muttered, "Yeah, sure. Of course. Come in."
The girl skipped inside, thanking him, and he closed the door behind her, reminding himself not to lock it behind her back as he was used to in order not to creep her out. When he glanced outside, he noticed the black car again. It was parked diagonally from his house across the street.
"Shouldn't you be at school?" he asked mechanically, as the girl placed her backpack on the floor and started unbuttoning her sodden coat.
She laughed. "It's Friday. I always have the Friday afternoon off. I sold seven packs of cookies already. Shouldn't you be at work? Are you sick?"
Ressler blinked dry eyes. He felt as if he were in a Dali picture, or a Kafka story; nothing made any sense, least of all this conversation. "Something like that," he said weakly.
"That's good. I didn't want to have to come back. Mom will get suspicious if I keep baking cookies. Here, I'm supposed to give you this. You are Donald Ressler, aren't you? Not someone else?"
He stared uncomprehending at the small white envelope she held out to him. "No. I'm Don Ressler." She shook the envelope at him and he took it. Opened it. Read the note inside.
Some time ago you received a gift from me. If you still have it and would like to be rid of it, give it to Abby here. Please ensure she does not know what she is carrying. When my gift has returned safely, you will receive an Ikea folder.
R.
Ressler read the note five times.
"Hey mister," the girl said, "Are you ok?"
"Yeah," he murmured. "Fine." His head was spinning. Could he do this? Use this girl to cover up for his own stupidity, had he really sunk that low? But if he didn't, would he get another chance to solve this whole mess himself? Would he ever be able to forgive himself if that girl, Abby, ever found out what she would be carrying? And did he really want to be in Reddington's debt for one more thing? No. No! But could he afford to refuse?
Abby, in the meantime, had opened her backpack, taken out a single box of cookies, and was now tugging out a half-inflated beach ball. "You're supposed to give me something," she said, grinning conspiratorially. She let out the air of the ball and folded it up so it would fit into her coat pocket.
"Yes," he said faintly. He made his decision. "Yes. Wait here."
He gave the girl a towel so she could dry her hair, went into his back room, put the head into a second, opaque bag, wrapped it up in old newspapers and put the whole of it into a pillow case, which he secured with half a roll of industrial tape. Then he took Abby's backpack and put the head inside of it.
"Where are you taking this?" he asked through cold lips. He didn't think he'd ever hated himself this much before.
"I'm not supposed to say. Not far. It's a secret!" She smiled, showing braces. She handed him the damp box of cookies. "You can have these, if you want. They're five dollars."
Ressler paid her. "You can't unwrap what I've just given you," he said hoarsely.
She snorted. "Of course not. I have an agreement." She studied him for a moment. "Hey Mr. Ressler? I think you should really go to bed. You don't look so good."
Oh Christ, I can't do this, I can't let this girl walk around with fucking Mako Tanida's head…
But the next moment she remarked that the rain had lessened, and the moment after that she had done up her coat again, shrugged the backpack onto her back, opened the door and stepped outside. "Look! It's almost stopped. I can see a large patch of blue over there."
"Yes," Ressler said numbly. "It's cold, though. Don't stay outside in your wet coat for too long."
She smiled. "I'm all out of cookies anyway. See you, Mr. Ressler. Get well soon!" With a small wave, she skipped away. The black car remained where it was.
Ressler went back inside and sank down on the couch, holding his head in his shaking hands and wondering if he could die of self-loathing.
But when his mailbox clapped not ten minutes later and he stumbled into the hall in a haze to find an Ikea folder on his doormat, his relief was so overwhelming he didn't notice he had fallen to his knees until his ribs let him know in no uncertain terms that they did not appreciate him huddling on the floor like this. It took him a while to get up, though. It was as if all his strength had drained out of him—or maybe that was because he had hardly eaten anything for two days, hadn't slept apart from those short periods of nightmare-riddled unconsciousness, and was generally, both physically and mentally, at the end of his rope. But once he made it to his feet, he went into the kitchen where he burned Reddington's note, made himself a bowl of Campbell soup and a sandwich, and after he had scarfed that down, stumbled into his bedroom and slept for eighteen hours straight.
The head, that one bit that inexorably linked him to Reddington, was gone.
The rest of the investigation was peanuts compared to that.
While Ressler was going through his own little chemically-dependent and mentally induced hell, Liz spent most of her time interrogating people. Claus, again, but he knew nothing, and being in the same room with him made her feel dirty. She was happy knowing that he would spend the coming years in jail.
She interviewed Boscoe, who was still recuperating in a well-guarded hospital room, and learned that he had not known that Blofeld was the man he knew as Portel. El Atél had appointed Portel to him as the porter to Outside, but when she told him that they were the same man, Boscoe turned a sickly shade of green and begged her to protect his wife and son. He lent his full cooperation, not terrified to go to jail, but to leave Anasenko and Jamie to Blofeld's not so tender mercy.
"I know what he did to Skinny," he whispered. "I thought he would kill him, but I know what he did to him. I don't want Ana to end up that way."
Louanne got the woman and the child to a safehouse. Blofeld, however, seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.
One lead led to the other, though, and they kept finding more people who had come into contact with him. They tracked Blofeld to Washington, where he had changed identity again. They lost him there, and spent four days trying to figure out where he could have gone. The resulting arrests they made were interesting: a hitman who, after being manipulated long enough by Louanne, let it drop that he had worked for Blofeld, who he knew as 'Malroy'; an arms dealer who knew him as Malroy as well, and identified him as a drug lord in Chicago. Another thug, arrested after the hitman spilled the beans, pointed to Chicago as well. Lizzie sighed, bought a new blouse and had her clothes cleaned at the hotel, and took a plane to Chicago.
It was odd to be working with Louanne. She was likable enough, but she'd got used to Ressler, and Louanne wasn't Ressler. As a matter of fact, she was as unlike Ressler as was humanly possible. Her mind was like a razor: fast, cutting, sharp. Her sense of humour was the same and she made Lizzie almost choke on a drink with laughter several times. But sometimes that wit could be a little cruel, she could be evasive and calculating at times, was easily distracted by details, and strangely reluctant to draw, let alone use, her gun.
Lizzie figured she should be pleased not to have someone quite as trigger-happy as Ressler at her side, but the truth was that she felt safer with him having her six than Louanne. Liz was a profiler, not a field agent, and neither was Louanne; they could both hit a target as well as anyone graduating from Quantico, but they weren't specifically trained to shoot at people. Louanne may be smarter, more talkative and funnier than Ressler, but she was only 5'3", and they one time failed to catch a suspect because the man simply bowled the two of them over and made a run for it. Liz didn't blame Louanne—how could she, she hadn't been able to stop the man herself, but as she sat in bed nursing her bruises that night, she couldn't help wishing her partner had been male, 6 foot tall, had the determination and stamina of a pit-bull and took an intense pleasure in punching people in the face.
And, of course, Lizzie thought that same night, she had never had, and never intended to have sex with Louanne.
Not that Ressler would have crawled into bed with her during a chase like this one. He'd be too obsessively focused on bringing Blofeld down. But things had changed between the two of them, more than she had thought they had, and she only realized just how much now she was partnered to someone else.
Reddington spent most of the week after the container's arrival either airborne in his private jet, or on the road in a rental. First he delivered Shukran to her parents, receiving valuable information about a possible associate of Berlin's in return. He staid with the Sheik for one day, then flew back to America and, upon learning about the investigation into Ressler by the administrative board from sweet Lizzie, arranged for a quick pickup of any gifts the moron hadn't disposed of—such as a head, or a head in a box.
By the time Dembe put the cold backpack into the trunk and handed a boy a stack of Ikea folders to put into the mailbox of all residents of that street, he was already on the phone with Andrea Dionalotti, who was trying to get his funds cleared. That night he booked his usual room in the Sherridan, only to find an envelope waiting for him containing a handwritten letter on plain off-white stationary.
Mr. Reddington,
I thank you for your consideration concerning my brother. I do, however, have questions.
Kindly accept my invitation for a meeting at a place and time of your earliest convenience. If you accept, please leave your reply on this note and return it to your room's pigeon hole.
The note was not signed, but a single slim sewing needle was stuck through the paper.
Red smiled, intrigued.
A needle, huh? She must have appreciated the flowers and the coffin. Meeting this woman was playing with fire, though. She might kill him as easily as she might talk to him—but then she had left it to him to pick the place and a date, which showed some goodwill. And he desperately wanted to meet her.
As she was based in Chicago, he decided to make a gentlemanly offer in return, and proposed a dinner date in his favourite restaurant there, two days hence, on Saturday.
That Saturday, when Red made his way to Chicago, Ressler decided that if he wasn't allowed to be productive, he might just as well leave Washington altogether and stay at his cabin in Prince George's County instead. He hadn't been there in ages, only a couple of days last summer and then only to have it renovated.
Even though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders now Tanida's head was gone, he wasn't comfortable at home for so long. At first he tried to think of it as a holiday, and used his time to do some repairs in the house, carry out some maintenance, but apart from the fact that painting walls was a rather unpleasant business when one was bruised all over, doing odd jobs wasn't his kind of thing. He didn't find it relaxing, and he wasn't very good at it, either. Ressler hadn't been away from the office this long in years, and the black car across the street was making him edgy. Unable, because of his ribs, to do more than take long walks to burn off excess energy, he quickly became tired of this forced vacation. Not that he hit the streets often; all he seemed to do was sleep, nowadays. He was continuously tired. Maybe the smell of paint drugged him. In the end he sent Cooper a text that he was going to his cabin and that he would hand in the key to his house to Cooper in case the Board wanted to search it, but that he was leaving and that anyone who wanted to talk to him could reach him on his phone or at the cabin.
He received a rather dry reply back, in which Cooper told him that he hoped to welcome Ressler back into his team ASAP, but that he saw no reason for him to stay cooped up in the city.
Ressler packed his bags, tossed them in the back of the SUV and drove off.
The black car followed him. He was fine with that.
At a quarter to eight, Raymond Reddington walked into the Olive d'Or, impeccably dressed and pleasantly anticipative of what the evening would bring.
He greeted the Maitre d', whom he knew personally, was led to a table at the window and, when he said he was expecting company, left to himself with the promise that someone would come and take his order for a drink in a few minutes.
Red liked the Olive d'Or, even if he had only visited the place three or four times over the past ten years. The food was excellent, the service respectful yet convivial, and the building the restaurant was located in was a beautiful example of how tasteful faux-Art Nouveau could be. He especially liked the windows, all painted glass images of women from works by Alphonse Mucha. They watched the diners with their secretive little smiles, as if they had put something in the food—some delicate poison, perhaps?—and were waiting to see the results. Red could appreciate images like these.
Lizzie called him just as he took his phone out of his pocket to put it on silent mode. He checked his watch; he still had a few minutes. He answered the phone.
"Lizzie! I haven't heard from you in the longest time; how are you?"
He almost fell from his chair in surprise when she simply answered him instead of firing questions or accusations at him. "I'm tired is how I am. I've been following Blofeld all over the place."
"Where are you now?""
She sighed. "Chicago."
He smirked. "What a coincidence. So am I!"
"Really?" For once, she didn't sound doubtful. He might even think she sounded glad. "What are you doing here? Have you found him?"
"No. Why should I do your job for you? What are the chances he is here still?"
Another sigh, or maybe a yawn. "I don't know. This morning I was convinced he had to be here, but after today...I'm not sure. Why? Do you have any leads?"
"I'm just in town to have dinner with a dark and mysterious lady," Red said. "Blofeld is yours now, remember?"
She grumbled something. It sounded like something with the name 'Ressler' in it.
"He still isn't back on active duty?" Red asked.
"Red, they won't even let him enter the building. Cooper all but made me sign a waiver not to contact him. He's on administrative leave, and that is not half as nice as it sounds."
That was odd. Most of the time when someone of the FBI or CIA screwed up in public, they'd get a private talking-to, an in-organizational dressing-down, a few weeks of punitive desk duty and that was that. Now if Ressler had killed Boscoe, or accidentally shot one of the children in the container he could understand why they wouldn't want him back at the Post Office. But he hadn't, he'd just exploded, with some moderately good reason, even, and he had done his best to minimize the damage by providing the FBI with a face and a name. Why were Havers and his team so tenacious? Had Ressler managed to screw up even worse without Red's knowledge?
He frowned. Dear god, wasn't the man able to get out of any bad situation without his help? First the head and now this. He wasn't Lizzie; helping Lizzie further her career while grooming her for his own use felt good. Fulfilling. He had hurt her very badly but he would like to think she was happier now, and more importantly: safer. Having to rescue Ressler like he was the world's most unattractive damsel in distress was beginning to grate a little. He didn't have the time to waste on Ressler. "I'm sure he'll be back before you know it," he said. "And I'm sure you'll find Blofeld in due course. Perhaps you should take a closer look at the buildings his people operate from. They might tell you something. Let me know if you're still in Chicago tomorrow. We could have lunch, somewhere."
"Red, I'm hunting a criminal mastermind. I don't have time to do lunches."
"You have to eat, don't you? Call me." He hung up, caught a waiter's attention and ordered a prosecco. As he followed the waiter with his eyes, studying the people coming in, he noticed movement close by and looked back at his table. A diminutive Asian woman had approached from the back of the restaurant and was in the process of pulling back the chair opposite of him. Red hastily got to his feet and assisted her. "Allow me."
"Thank you," the woman said. She sat, keeping her clutch on her lap and her hands demurely below the table. She was small, with a rather beautiful milk-white face, a dainty pink mouth, slanted eyes traced with kohl and long black hair done up in an intricate coif. Her high-necked dress was simple, but the pale blue fabric was richly embroidered with gray, pink, white and light blue flowers and butterflies. "You are Raymond Reddington?" Her voice was soft and precise, with a trace of palatal r confusion.
"Yes." He wondered if the tiny woman was Lin Yin herself, or whether she had sent a handmaiden. Then he studied the accessories sticking out of her hair; at first he'd thought they were ivory sticks, but he now noticed that they were shaped like needles, with a small round jewel twinkling in the eyes. "Xian Lin Yin? I am honoured you chose to attend this meeting yourself."
She smiled, the expression like a doll's; perfect, sweet, cold as porcelain. "I had questions," she said. "I could let others ask them, but what were I to do with the answers if it were not you who gave them to me? They did not present me my brother's corpse in a cedar wood coffin."
Red refrained from answering as the waiter returned with his prosecco and the menus. Lin Yin ordered a brandy on the rocks. She opened her menu, but did not look at it, keeping her eyes on Red instead. He found it hard to return her gaze; her eyes were like black glass: shiny and dead. The whole woman was like that, almost lifeless, from her perfect white face to her slender fingers. She was not at all unattractive, but she made him feel slightly nervous. Red left his glass where it stood, deciding it would be more polite to wait until she had her drink as well. He raised his hands. "Ask."
"You know who I am. Yet you sent me my brother's body along with a note signed in your own name. Not many people would dare to do so."
"I figured you would see my action for what it was: a desire to pay you respect by paying the last respects to your brother."
"You sent me the dead body of my brother."
Ah. So his role in Shuo's murder confused her. He should have been clearer in his note. "I was not the one who killed him."
"I gathered that." Again that cold, perfect smile. "You would not have signed your name if you had. What is unclear to me, is how you got hold of his body."
"I know the man who killed him," Red said.
"Who is he?"
"No one particularly interesting. Your brother attacked him. He killed him in self-defense. Shuo's death w—"
"Don't speak his name," Lin Yin hissed, her thin eyes narrowed.
Red calmly finished his sentence, "...your brother's death was neither his intention nor his responsibility."
"This man cut open my brother's throat from ear to ear, and it was not his intention to kill him?"
Red shrugged. "Like I said. Your brother attacked him. I was impressed he survived at all."
The snarl left her face. "This is true. My brother was an excellent martial artist. I want to know who bested him."
"Unfortunately," Red smiled apologetically, "I am unwilling to tell you."
"Why?"
"Because he is one of my people, and I look out for my own. Suffice to say, he did not mean to kill your brother, and was provoked into action by your brother himself." He formed a steeple with his fingers. "I happen to know that not all was well in the city of Chicago, not when it came to the relationship between you and your brother."
"That is correct," she said, not impressed by his knowledge. "He had been a thorn in my side for several years. In all truth I must confess that even though I do mourn his death, I do not lament his absence. However, he was my brother and I would not let his death go unpunished." She smiled thinly. "I have a reputation to uphold."
"Ah," Red smiled, "But I think I can help you there. You see, there was a particular reason why your brother was in Baltimore."
The waiter returned with Lin Yin's brandy. Red ordered Salmon a la Fabricio, Lin Yin a plain Spaghetti Bolognaise. She waited until he had left, then raised her glass; Red clinked his against it.
"Speak," she said.
"Have you ever heard about a man with the nickname Blofeld?"
During his forced leave, Ressler called Lizzie twice, both times from a different phone. The first time she wasn't able to answer, and he left her a voice message asking how she was doing, whether she was any closer to Blofeld, whether she'd found the drug shipment yet and if she knew whether the Board had come to a decision yet. "I know I'm not supposed to contact you until I'm cleared," he ended his voicemail, "but please get back to me. I'm going stir-crazy without anything to do. I've already repainted all my rooms. If I see one more paintbrush I'll break open that fucking surveillance car and shove it into the bastard's mouth. Anyway. Be careful out there."
Breaking this rule must have been difficult for him, she thought, smiling to herself. She deleted the message and called him back on his house extension the next day, but apparently he wasn't home because he did not pick up. As his house might be watched and searched, she didn't leave a message.
The second time he called her, it was four days later—ten days after Havers had sent Ressler home—and Lizzie and Louanne had just arrived in Indianapolis. He called her while she was sorting through her laundry (the Post Office's main expenses were laundry costs, at the moment), and she felt a little surge of…something almost like homesickness when she heard his inflectionless voice.
"Hey," she said, and "Hey," he replied. She heard music in the background, people talking. "How are you?"
"Fine," he said. He would probably be fine with a hatchet stuck in his head. "You?"
"Fine, too. Tired. We got a lead to Indianapolis, so…that's where we're now."
"Indianapolis?"
"We thought he might be in Chicago first, but…I'm getting the feeling we're pretty close on his heels, but he's still at large. We'll get him, though." She sat down amidst the modest heaps of clean and dirty clothes on the bed. "Have you heard anything from Cooper yet?"
"No. Well, apparently they searched my house a couple of days ago. Havers is taking his time." And softer, as an afterthought, "I hope they didn't damage my freshly painted walls."
That made her laugh. As an echo, laughter sounded through the receiver. "Where are you? At St. Vincent's?"
"No, I've moved to my cabin for the time being. I'm at a café. It's nice; I get to be social, and we play darts. I've never been so good at darts before. And they play poker every other night here." There was an unspoken desperation in those words.
Poor thing, Lizzie thought, no one to hunt down or beat up. He must be so bored! "Sounds like you're having a better time than me," she said, grinning.
Ressler snorted. "I'd swap with you in a second. I'm going crazy in here." He fell silent.
Lizzie asked what his phone number for the cabin was, and he gave it to her. She noted it down on a piece of paper. Once she had, she paused for a few seconds, then said, "I miss you, you know."
"Yeah? How's working with Louanne?"
I miss you too, Liz. She rolled her eyes, but wasn't really surprised. Even if he did miss her, and she wasn't at all certain that he did, he would never admit it. "It's ok. She's funny."
"Yes," Ressler said coldly. "She is, isn't she?" One day she was going to find out why they disliked one another so much. "I've got to go. Good luck. And be careful."
"Will do. See you."
"Yeah," Ressler sighed. "Soon, hopefully."
Three days later, Liz and Louanne were called back to Chicago.
They met Detective Arthur Vance of the Chicago PD at the Cook County Morgue, and he led them inside.
"The victim was found yesterday evening at 11 pm," Vance said. They had worked with him during their fox hunt in Chicago the previous week. He was a decent man, overworked but competent. At the moment, a look of satisfaction relaxed his weary features. "He was discovered lying in an open grave in the Forest Home Cemetery."
Louanne raised an eyebrow. "In an open grave? That's apt."
"And you're certain it's Blofeld?" Liz asked.
Vance shrugged one shoulder. "All I have is that blown up passport picture you gave me. No, I'm not certain, but I think he is, and…the way he was killed, it's…interesting."
He showed his badge to a guard in a cubicle behind a security entrance, and they were buzzed in. Vance opened the first door on the left, where a pathologist was scribbling something down on a clipboard. A body covered up with a thin sheet was lying on the slab next to him.
"Hello, Frank," Vance greeted the pathologist. "Found anything interesting?"
"I've completed the autopsy, if that's what you mean,' Frank replied without looking up from his notes. Dark shadows beneath his eyes explained his somewhat sour tone. "All I need is a name and then I'll officially know everything about this guy."
"We might be able to help you with that," Louanne said, causing him to glance up sharply. "Special agents Plant and Keen."
The man smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware Art brought visitors." He tucked his clipboard beneath his arm, took off the rubber glove on his right hand and shook their hands. "I'm Frank Cline. I've been rummaging around in our John Doe here since two am this morning, so please excuse my less than charming appearance."
He moved to the slab and pulled away the sheet to show the man's face.
Lizzie eagerly studied the victim's face. No matter how ethically wrong it may be, she couldn't help smiling widely at the sight of the once-tan, now grayish face of the corpse. It was definitely the same face as the one she'd studied so often on the passport photo. She glanced up and met Louanne's eyes. Louanne nodded, eyes wide and bright.
"Yes," Lizzie said. With some effort she managed to tune down on the grin. "This definitely is the man we know as Blofeld, a.k.a. Portel, a.k.a. Malroy, a.k.a. Beliykot."
"I only need one name," Frank said.
"We don't know his birth name," Louanne said. "You took prints, I take it?"
"Of course. I've already sent them on to the police."
"Detective Vance said the way he died was interesting," Lizzie said. "Could you explain what he meant by that?"
In reaction, Frank pulled the sheet down a little further, baring the corpse's neck. A thin line of puncture marks, so closely together they formed a single pink scar, ran from one side of his throat to the other, neatly crossing his larynx.
"Is that a cut?"
"No," the pathologist said. "This scar was formed by twenty-seven needles stuck into his throat up to the eyelet." He picked up a file from a desk in the corner and took out several pictures showing the silvery line of needles sticking out of Blofeld's throat before extraction. "As far as I can determine, he was struck on the head, injected with a paralytic, and then used as a pin cushion. Whoever killed him simply kept sticking needles into his neck until he suffocated."
"Suffocated!?" Lizzie exclaimed. "You mean they closed off his windpipe with these needles?" She shuddered at the thought.
"Correct. They were inserted very, very closely together, especially around the trachea."
Louanne paled. "And you think he was conscious while they did this?"
"I have no way to tell exactly, but as this is his cause of death, I would expect that he was aware of it, yes."
"That's rather gruesome."
"Depending on where they started, yes. And horribly painful. And slow."
"Do you still have those needles?" Lizzie asked. Frank went back to his desk and gave her a small round plastic box containing a handful of needles. They were slightly longer than any needle she had ever used for sewing, but did not seem different in any other way. She opened the box and fished one out.
"I've studied a couple under the microscope," Frank said. "Couldn't find anything noteworthy. They're common gold eye embroidery needles. You can buy them at most supermarkets and stores. I couldn't find any prints, but even if they had any, the surface is so small, and they were imbedded in his throat so deeply that they wouldn't have yielded a complete print."
Lizzie put the needle back, closed the lid of the box and gave it back to Frank. "I think we know who is responsible for Blofeld's death."
"We do?" Louanne asked. Then she clacked her tongue and said, "Shuo."
"Who?" Lance asked, confused. He only knew the FBI wanted to catch a man the Chicago PD knew as Malroy, and very little of what had happened before.
Lizzie shook her head. "As you know, we've been trying to find this man for some weeks now. Two weeks ago, another agent went undercover to get involved with a couple of men who were trying to win Malroy's favour. One of those men was Xian Shuo. Shuo tried to kill the agent, do away with the competition. Instead, he ended up with his throat cut and bled to death." She gestured at Blofeld's body. "Xian Shuo has a sister. She is based here in Chicago. You may know her as Lin Yin. She leads a gang here, the Cult of the Needle. I've forgotten what it was in Chinese. Have you ever heard of her?"
This to Art Vance, who looked doubtful. "Maybe," he said slowly. "We have several Chinese and Japanese gangs, but they keep to themselves, most of the time. However, if this Lin Yin feels Blofeld is ultimately responsible for her brother's death…she sounds like the perfect candidate. What with the needles and all."
"Yes," Lizzie mused. "Is there any way we can find out where she lives so we can arrest her?"
"That shouldn't be a problem," the detective said with a smile.
When Lizzie called him to tell him that Blofeld was dead and found, her news made Red feel so charitable he employed one of his trusted 'tailers' to find out about the general habits of Nathaniel Havers. Even though the Post Office (unsurprisingly) functioned perfectly well without Ressler, it was clear that Lizzie hoped he would return to the Task Force soon, and Mr. Havers did not seem inclined to let that happen in the near future. If only for curiosity's sake, Red wanted to have a chat with him.
And so, three weeks after Nathaniel Havers had led his little administrative board into the Post Office, and four days after Blofeld's death, Raymond Reddington walked into the dining room of the Hilton in Washington, inclined his head at the two large men sitting two tables away from Havers, and sat down at Havers' table.
Havers looked up at him from his quinoa salad. A jolt went through him, but he immediately controlled himself and raised an eyebrow when Red placed his hat on the table.
"Mr. Reddington," he said.
"Yes," Red confirmed.
"To what do I owe this unexpected visit?"
"Does it truly come as such a surprise?" Red asked. "You're holding one of my agents an administrative prisoner."
Havers ate a spoonful of salad. "You're talking about Donald Ressler."
"Yes. I'd like him back on the team."
"We can't always get what we want," Havers said dryly.
Now that would not do at all. "Tell me, Mr…" He leaned over and pretended to study the man's briefcase, "Havers. That would be Nathaniel Havers, I take it? Do you really want to antagonise me?"
Havers steadily met his eyes. "Are you threatening me?"
"We're sitting in the dining room of the Hilton; your body guards," he waved at them, "are keeping me under shot—somewhat obviously, I might add—and one look of you would have me either arrested, killed or otherwise indisposed." He paused. "Yes, I am threatening you, but not personally."
A waitress walked by, asked Havers, "Are you alright, sir?" and Red took the opportunity to order a cup of coffee. The woman glanced at Havers, who inclined his head; she moved off.
"Now, where was I?" Red mused.
"You were threatening me in an impersonal way," Havers said.
Red appreciated his sense of humour. Him having one might make things easier—or harder. Men with an appreciation for dry humour were often smart (Ressler, he couldn't help thinking, had no sense of humour whatsoever, which was telling) and smart people, especially those in a position of power, were often hard to convince to change their point of view.
"Thank you. Yes. You see, I find that the FBI is staring itself blind on my own status and occupation…"
"You're a criminal," Havers provided dutifully.
"I would prefer the world 'entrepreneur', but technically you are correct," Red said. "However, think of all the infinitely more heinous criminal the task force has brought down with my help. Like that kid, who stole Ivan's name because he was in love—that was one of my better ones." He chuckled.
Havers presented him with a thin smile. "Mr Reddington, I don't refute the fact that you have been instrumental in bring down a number of dangerous criminals and have thereby helped save numerous lives. I am not opposed to the task force. My concern lies with Donald Ressler's performance, his conduct's reflection on the FBI, and the increasing damage both to the Bureau's reputation and in monetary value as a result of this conduct." He tilted his head, eyes cool. "You being here to defend him does not cast him in a more favourable light."
Red stared at him, disbelieving. "You believe he's switched sides…that he's working for me."
"Yes."
Red burst into laughter. Had Havers accused Ressler of working for him to his face? He would have loved to see those fireworks. "Surely," he said, grinning, "you must realize how utterly preposterous this accusation is? The man spent five years trying to hunt me down."
Havers nodded. "So Agent Ressler stressed as well. And I can answer you like I answered him: he and the original task force attempted to catch you for five years, yet they never succeeded. He was given detailed information of your whereabouts in Brussels, and nevertheless failed to assassinate you again."
Red snorted. No matter how often he had these kinds of conversations, he didn't think he'd ever get used to people discussing failed attempts on his life with such polite matter-of-factness over coffee. "And you believe that Ressler's inability to catch or kill me is caused, not by the fact that he's a thick idiot, or with me simply outsmarting him and his pathetic coterie, but by my secretly recruiting him into my service?"
"Yes," Havers said seriously. "That is what we believe. He claims to hate you, but he laid his life on the line for you without hesitation."
"Because he was responsible for my well-being as an informant in protective custody," Red said, irritated. "We've been over this before."
"It would have killed him…if you hadn't done your utmost to save him," Havers continued unperturbedly. "A few months later you saved his life again, in Mexico, after he took a bullet for you. You weren't in protective custody then."
Damn Ressler and his honest reports. "You'd rather I left him there to fall into the hands of the local weapons dealers?"
"You could have made sure he wouldn't fall into their hands alive."
Red blinked. "Are you seriously suggesting it would have served me and Ressler better if I'd just shot him through the head instead of treating him—not saving him, just treating his injuries—like a civilized human being? And you're calling me a criminal?"
Havers shrugged, a minimal gesture. The waitress brought Red his coffee. He stirred it, noting, with interest, that he was angry enough that his fingers quivered a little, waited until she had left and then stated, "Donald Ressler doesn't work for me. He works for the FBI."
"Why," Havers asked, "are you so protective of him if he's not your man, as you claim?"
Red allowed his mouth to quirk. Not long ago he had told Yin Lin that Ressler was his man; now he had to convince Havers that he wasn't. "I find a certain poetic justice in having Donald Ressler jump when I say jump." He said truthfully. "I like thinking that I am the one providing him with work—you are totally right, really. He does work for me. As does the rest of the task force. They arrest murderers and criminals because I give them the means to do so. And they're good at it." Havers said nothing, waiting. Red shrugged. He drank some coffee. Excellent brew, as usual, at the Hilton. "Believe it or not, but at heart, I am a creature of habit. Most of my life is spent in borrowed houses, different cities. I see no way to change that. The Post Office has been a constant—apart from Agent Malik's unfortunate demise, of course. Sudden changes in that team make me nervous. When I get nervous, I tend to disappear. And if I disappear…" He took a last sip and put down his cup, "my list disappears with me. Which brings me back to the number of people saved or the millions worth of property damage prevented by Lizzie and Agent Ressler because of me and my list."
"Yes," Havers said. "Liz. What exactly is the nature of your relationship with Agent Keen?"
"She's my agent of choice," Red said with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "I take an interest in her career. That's all I'm willing to tell you. Besides, this conversation is about Donald, not Lizzie. Now, here are the facts: Ressler and Keen work together well, and I have grown accustomed to working with them. Ressler doesn't work for me. Believe me, I would be vastly amused if he were, but he isn't. However, if you were to fire him, you would undo six years of the man's life—six years focused on me. Whether he was successful in catching me or not, I think you can safely say that Ressler is the only Reddington-specialist the FBI has. If you'd take away his study object you would, quite literally, undo him. Can you imagine the despair, the helpless rage, the truly epic temper tantrum he would throw? You've studied him, I take it; you know what he's like." He leaned forward, smiling coldly. "If the FBI kicks Ressler out, I will do my damnedest to snap him up, brainwash him and employ him against you. It shouldn't be difficult; like you already mentioned, I've saved his life twice. He's honourable enough to feel like he owes me, and I can be very persuasive if needs be. Besides, if the FBI would turn their back on him, he'd be so shattered all I'd need to do was collect the pieces of his psyche and glue them back together to my own personal preference."
Now that was actually a rather interesting idea. Red had no doubts that he'd be able to win Ressler over if the FBI abandoned him. A little less mockery, a bit more investment…it'd take time, but it wasn't impossible. He certainly had his uses for an ex-FBI agent and the information he'd soaked up over the years.
Havers, across from him, seemed to have come to the same conclusion; a dimple had formed between his eyebrows.
Reddington picked up his cup and drank the last bit of coffee, then got up and put his hat back on his head. "Think about that, and do whatever comes naturally to you," he said. "It seems that whatever you do, it will work out for me. I wish you a good day." He tipped his hat, first at Havers, then at his body guards, and left the building, smiling into the sunshine.
A/N
Ok, this is the official ending of the story, but I will post an epilogue to tie up some last loose ends and dot some romantic is :) Thanks everybody for reviewing. Haven't left a review yet? Go on, do so! With the epilogue, I've just written 200 pages, so let me know if you appreciated my efforts!