Author's Note: early update! I probably won't be able to post for a week or so, because work is kind of hectic.
So I decided to post today - a weekend treat of sorts. Hope you enjoy.
As always, thanks to DancingInTheDark85. She gave me precious insight, and made sure I didn't kill Reese with smoke inahalation...
Fair warning: there's a bit of swearing in this one - as always, whenever Fusco comes into play. Not my fault though - he tends to curse a lot when John is around. But, well, let's be honest, we can't really blame him for this...
Chapter 8
Fusco was not having a good day. Quite the contrary, in truth – a godawful, helluva shitty day – no, scratch that, more like a helluva shitty whole week - and all thanks to a certain vigilante…
A dull, bothersome ache had taken residence in his head, throbbing in time with his heartbeat as he mulled over the day's events. He just couldn't believe he had let Mr. Sunshine bully him into working undercover with HR. Again.
And yet he had; and so he had spent the morning and the best part of the afternoon and the previous couple of days too running errands for Simmons and with Simmons – smartphone turned off, battery taken out because evidently the corrupt cop didn't trust Lionel that much. Not that Fusco cared much about what Simmons thought about him – in truth, Fusco was positive that he didn't give a damn about the corrupt agent's opinion. But such blatant lack of trust didn't make things any easier for Lionel and it had definitely made the last couple of days look interminable.
And, cherry on top, his prolonged absence from the precinct hadn't gone unnoticed. On the contrary, as soon as he'd gone back to the station the captain, clearly not believing a single word of the botched explanation he had concocted, had all but ripped him a new one and sent him on a stakeout in what was obviously meant as a punishment. An assignment that the Detective was sure was not going to do his aching head any favors.
Fusco muttered a few choice words under his breath – words that were better not be repeated in public – as he trudged along the station parking lot, sliding his cellphone back in his pocket and fishing out the keys of his car.
As soon as he had turned the device on again, he had found several missed calls – mostly Carter's, Mr. Sunshine's and even one from his ex-wife.
He had returned Carter's call (to no avail), postponed his ex's and blatantly ignored John's.
Because really, Mr. Tall, Dark and Deranged's goal might even be good and noble in the long run, with his whole Dark Night crime-fighting bit, but Fusco was a bit tired of being his pet dog. Even more so since Reese was always rather reticent when it came to sharing his plans, especially the ones concerning HR – and so more often than not Fusco found himself at his beck and call without even having an idea of the whole picture. And this had to stop.
He got inside his car, still muttering under his breath, and slammed the door shut with more vehemence than necessary.
In hindsight, he should have expected it – such a lousy day couldn't be complete yet – but when the usual, raspy tone suddenly spoke up from the backseat of the darkened car he couldn't help but jump in scare.
The streak of expletives reached a whole new level of coarseness.
"Jesus Christ, how many times I told you not to do this?"
"And how many times have I told you not to turn off your phone?" was Reese's immediate answer. Despite the even, low tone in which the remark was delivered, there was a threatening undertone to it that was unmistakable – an undertone that had been very common in the first weeks of their acquaintance more than a year ago but that had grown less and less frequent in more recent times. Until today, apparently.
"You fucking kidding, right?" Lionel sputtered. "I spent the morning with Simmons because you asked – if he says to switch it off, I switch it off! And besides, you got a death wish or what? You know there's half FBI around here these days, looking for ya?"
He threw a withering look to his passenger through the rearview mirror – without much success, in truth, because all he could see in the dark was Wonderboy's silhouette.
"Yeah, whatever, Lionel."
"I don't have much on Simmons yet," Fusco said, going straight to the point. Annoyed as he was, he still had work to do – he had no intentions to spend the night arguing with Reese. "Couple of names of people I heard him talking to while –"
"Right now, I don't give a damn about Simmons," John impatiently cut him off. He said it like that, like he couldn't care less, completely dismissing the fact that Fusco had just spent the day helping the same corrupt cop that had tons of evidence against him. Blatantly disregarding the very fact that Fusco's ass was on the line whenever Reese decided to send him undercover with HR and that it wasn't exactly easy to keep Simmons from suspecting that he had a hidden agenda – a hidden agenda, on top of that, that was actually a mystery to Fusco too, since Batman was never too willing to share his plans with him.
Fusco saw red.
"What the fuck? You wanted me to do this and now you don't give a damn?"
"There's something else I need from you – urgent."
"No you don't," Fusco seethed. He couldn't believe it. He had yet to finish Reese's last assignment, and there he was, spouting orders. Deep down he knew there must be something wrong with Reese, because as unbearably bossy and condescending and sneering as he could be, this was a tad too much even by his standards. But Lionel's righteous indignation won over rationality and he burst out in what would have likely grown into a rant, had John not stopped him mid- sentence again. "I'm sick and tired of –"
"Yeah Fusco, that's too bad. I need you to play babysitter for me."
"What? I don't – not again that dog of yours, is it? Because if it is, I'm telling you –"
A sigh from the backseat, then the umpteenth interruption.
"No Lionel, it's not Bear," Reese retorted impatiently. "Will you do it or not?"
Fusco felt he would have laughed at the question hadn't he been so angry. "Ha! Like I have a choice," he huffed bitterly instead.
The silence that followed his resentful retort was a surprise. He was expecting one of the usual reactions from Mr. Sunshine – sarcasm, mockery, a biting comment. Instead, a long, weary exhale. When he finally spoke, Reese's tone held none of the previous bitchiness, nor the usual nonchalance – he sounded just…exhausted. Spent. So un-Reese.
"Yes Fusco – you do have a choice." A brief pause. "There's always a choice."
Fusco was at a loss for words, his anger suddenly dampened by worry. There was something very wrong, there was no denying that. But what?
A car rolled by in the parking lot, the bright headlights finally giving Lionel the first brief but clear view of his passenger through the review mirror, and Fusco's eyes widened at the sight. The other man was a mess. Pale, with bruise-like circles under his eyes, a trace of something that suspiciously resembled dried blood on the left cheekbone and the Detective could have sworn he'd caught a glimpse of a dark stain on his shirt too. But the thing that Fusco found most unsettling was the look on his face – exhausted, helpless. Hell, in his experience, Reese just didn't do helpless.
"Whoa, what the hell happened to you? Will you tell me already what's going on?"
Silence from the backseat. For a moment Fusco thought he was not going to get an answer but then Reese finally spoke.
"Finch was helping someone, a few guys with a van took them both and I had an accident."
Fusco blinked, perplexed, trying to decipher the cryptic account. As explanations went, it was rather obscure – for one thing it completely lacked context, not to mention the necessary cause-effect concatenation of the reported events.
"You – you what? Wait – you're telling me you lost the Professor?" he surmised.
"Yes Fusco, I lost him – that's why I need your help, and we're wasting time," Reese growled, that feral, angry tone back. But now Fusco saw it for what it really was – fear.
"OK, OK, I'll do it. I'll watch over this guy," the Detective hurried to say. "But I'll need to go on a stakeout, or the Captain'll have my ass."
"I don't give a damn where you babysit him – he has a laptop with satellite connection and he's going to be doing some research for me," John shrugged off Fusco's objection, and opened the car door. "He's in my car – well, my in a loose sense. Anyway, I'm going to bring him here."
"But wait – what the hell did that mean? And who is this guy?" the Detective asked – in vain, because Reese had already disappeared outside the car and the door had already slammed shut. A horrible suspicion crossed Fusco's mind – he just hoped it wasn't the Asian guy again. The last time Wonderboy had asked him to look after that trouble- magnet, they had ended up in the hands of a group of crazy Nazis with that fucking dog gag in his mouth…a memory that was better off being left alone. But the point remained - he had no intention whatsoever to end up like that ever again.
Before he could further ponder the matter, the backseat door was yanked open again, and someone was pushed inside – none too gently, as far as Fusco could tell.
"Fusco, you remember Leon, right?"
It figures.
A whistle, a thud, an oofing sound, then some very canine-sounding panting, and the car door slammed shut again. Fusco didn't need to turn to know that Reese had just dumped on him his damn dog too – and the fleabag had evidently landed on the Chinese guy, at least judging by the indignant – and quite breathless – muttering coming from his newly- acquired human passenger.
"Hey," Lionel shouted in annoyance, sticking his head outside the car window. "You said I wasn't going to babysit your dog again!"
"And you're not," Reese replied, unfazed. "It's Leon you have to take care of – Bear will help you. Call me as soon as he finds something." The tall man leaned towards the window, this time staring coldly – threateningly – at the blabbering man on the backseat, who was still complaining about the dog. "Remember Leon – no info, no protection."
This sent Fusco's inner alarm bell screaming. "Protection from whom? Not the Aryans again, right?" Reese straightened and turned to leave. "Hey, Wonderboy! – I have a right to know! I'm the one who's risking his ass!"
"Don't worry, Lionel," John drawled, the corners of his lips twitching slightly in a smirk. "No Aryans this time – just a few guys from the Serbian mob."
Serbian mob? Just great. The Detective turned towards the darkened backseat, throwing a narrowed-eyes stare in Leon's general direction. "What kind of mess did you get yourself into this time? Ah – never mind, I probably don't even wanna know," he reconsidered, waving a hand. If Reese was involved, it was better not to ask questions – especially considering the vigilante's current state – mental and physical.
Speaking of which…
"But Wonderboy, wait a minute," the Detective asked. As usual, he was struggling to keep up with Reese's world – full of mobsters and weapons and threats and undisclosed plans and irritating accountants to protect – but one thing he now knew for certain. Right now, Reese was not fine. "Are you sure you're -" The question died on his lips as he turned back to the front of the car. Reese had disappeared into thin air. Again.
What the hell.
In the backseat, Leon was still mumbling under his breath – some nonsensical gibberish about money-eating dogs, carpal tunnel and never-ending databases. He must've turned on his laptop because a bluish glow was now partly lighting the car, reverberating through the rearview mirror and doing nothing to help Fusco's migraine.
He gunned the engine, resisting the urge to swear at his annoying charge. Or shoot him, which actually sounded like a more satisfying alternative.
He shook his head in annoyance as he pulled away from the parking lot, quite more abruptly than necessary, and tackled the ramp that led to the upper level with an equally brusque swerve that almost shoved Leon off the seat. He couldn't help the small amount of perverse satisfaction he felt at the Asian's squeal of outrage at the rough treatment.
It was going to be a long, long night.
Reese rubbed an icy hand over his aching temples as he considered his next steps. He was sitting in the stolen car in a dark alleyway not far from the precinct, eating rather unenthusiastically a tasteless, pre-packaged sandwich he had just bought along with a Gatorade in a 24-hour convenience store. Now that he was alone again, he needed a few minutes to think, to regroup. He was glad he had found Leon and dumped him in Fusco's care, and more than glad at the notion that the accountant would be working on the participants' list, leaving Reese free to follow other trails, but the whole ordeal of locating and collecting him and then delivering him to the Detective had taken him more than an hour – an hour that could have been otherwise used to look for Finch.
In truth, there weren't a lot of further trails to be followed – or maybe there were, but none had occurred to Reese yet, except for checking the hotel security footage.
So, for lack of better ideas, this was his next destination. The problem being that, late as it was, he definitely couldn't charm his way (or, more precisely, Detective Stills' way) inside the hotel management office and legally obtain the recordings he needed. Well, almost legally, anyway. He seriously doubted he had any chance to fool anyone at the hotel desk with a sudden, urgent investigation that needed to be carried out by a lonesome cop in the middle of the night. Besides, if he looked even half bad as he felt (and judging by Fusco's previous reaction upon seeing him, he feared he did), there was no way he could pass for a legit NYPD Detective without a hidden agenda.
No, definitely no front door approach tonight.
He washed down the last remnants of the awful sandwich with some Gatorade – its sugary taste equally unappealing – then swallowed a couple more pain pills. The thankfully brief confrontation with Leon's business partners had reawakened the fire in his shoulder and he didn't need to check it to know that it had bled again at some point during the last hour. He must've torn a couple of stitches.
He crumpled the now empty paper bag, shoved it on the passenger seat and started the car.
It was a quiet night, the traffic mercifully scarce, and it took him less than expected to get to the hotel, so before long he was in the underground parking lot of the building.
From there he retraced what must have been Finch and Carson's steps before the kidnapping, taking stock of the few surveillance cameras located in the parking lot and carefully making sure to keep his face hidden from them.
He tried - and failed - not to take notice of the fact that, just a few hours ago, he had tried to lead Harold and his number to safety through the very same corridors and, no matter how hard he tried to banish the thought, he couldn't help but picture the scene as if it were happening now before his eyes. He could almost see them – Finch and Carson, hurrying along the hallways, he could envision Harold's limping gait, he could feel their anguish while they were slipping inside the staff area and stumbling to the parking lot, only to be captured at the very last moment, a mere few meters from safety.
Lost in his frustrated musing at he was, he almost failed to notice the approaching figure - a member of the cleaning staff, carrying an overloaded cart full of what appeared to be dirty kitchen linens to the laundry – and it was basically a stroke of luck that the door at John's left was unlocked, as it was the fact that the other man had been deeply engrossed by something on his smartphone. Reese managed to slip inside the room at the very last second, avoiding being detected, but just barely.
He leaned his back on the closed door, heart hammering in his chest as the heavy cart rolled away at the other side of the wall and stood like that even after the clanging noise had died down in the distance.
It had been a close call – a very close call, one he couldn't afford.
He mentally kicked himself. What a stupid, stupid, rookie mistake he had been about to make. Never, ever let your emotion interfere and cloud your vision, it was rule number one when going in the field.
He remained still, taking slow and measured breaths, trying to focus, and let his eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. He tentatively felt the wall beside the door for the light switch and turned it on. He was in a small room, stuffed and dimly-lit, evidently used as an extra store room if the cleaning supplies scattered around and the array of plastic bottles messily arranged on the few metal shelves on the right wall were of any indication.
An idea was slowly beginning to take shape in his mind. When checking for cameras in the hotel basement and staff area, Reese had noticed something else on the ceiling, something that, perhaps, could come in handy: smoke detectors.
He looked around again, more purposefully this time, now that he knew what to look for. He got closer to the shelves and began to rifle through the bottles, looking for the most flammable chemicals. He selected a couple of them, perused the labels with more attention, then discarded one. He wanted to make some smoke, not an explosion.
Some more rummaging and he had all he needed. He folded a couple of dry mops, put them in a bucket then doused them with the chemical. He threw the makeshift smoke-bomb a considering look, hoping that it was going to produce the desired effect without unwanted consequences. It wasn't by far the first time he'd had to make do with what he had available, but he had never tried this specific trick and he could only hope it wasn't going to backfire. Literally.
Only one way to find out.
He fished the lighter from his coat pocket and set the mops on fire. Flames immediately rose from the bucket, and an acrid, white smoke soon followed, but Reese lingered in the room, a relatively clean cloth draped over his mouth and nose, afraid that the fire could die out before due time.
A couple of seconds were enough to prove that he needn't have worried – thick smoke billowed freely from the bucket, and John estimated it wouldn't take much more time before the smoke detectors would spring into life, so he left the room, eyes watering, and headed towards the service lift.
And sure enough, a few minutes later the loud, piercing wail of the fire alarm broke the relative quiet of the hotel.
Safely ensconced between a large – and rather incongrous – pot plant and the sofas in the seating area of the hotel lobby, from his vantage point he could observe the commotion the alarm had caused without being spotted and wait for the best chance to sneak into the offices area.
The earsplitting siren was still wailing, adding to the confusion generated by dozens of alarmed hotel guests in various state of undress, who had hastily come down from their rooms to look for the source of the noise and demand explanations. The two young men on shift as concierges were evidently rather confused themselves, almost on the verge of panic, and it was painfully obvious from the way they tried, and blatantly failed, to reassure the increasingly agitated guests that they had no idea on how to proceed.
The arrival of the firefighters, sirens blaring, gave John the perfect occasion. In the added chaos he managed to slip unnoticed in the corridor leading to the management and security offices.
Once there, it was child's play. Wasting no time, he connected his smartphone to the laptop, used Finch's app - one he had personally designed - to hack into it and downloaded the surveillance feeds. A few more clicks and he deleted the night's footage, almost as an afterthought. He was sure he had kept his face clear of the cameras' radius, but better safe than sorry.
He got out, as quick as he had got in, and a couple of minutes later he was back in the lobby. The firefighters had taken charge of the situation and the alarm had been mercifully turned off.
Reese considered the situation. He couldn't retrace his own steps – he had little doubt that, by now, someone must've located the source of the fire alert, so the staff area was off limits. Besides, there was the chance that by now the stolen car he had been using all night long had been reported. Going back to the parking lot was not worth the risk. No other choice than trying to blend in with the throng of guests and then leaving the hotel by the main entrance.
And yet, the hotel was the last place where Finch had been before being snatched along with the number, and Reese wasn't ready yet to give up on his search for further clues. Maybe Finch had left something – anything – for him to find, a trace to follow.
As chances went, this was rather slim, more like wishful thinking than anything, and deep-down John knew it. But he wasn't about to let anything untried.
Both the emergency personnel and the staff were having a hard time trying to convince the guests that they couldn't go back yet to their rooms and that safety precautions still needed to be taken. John purposefully strode towards one of the firefighters, snatching a master key from the concierge's pocket along the way and hiding it in his own coat.
He flashed Stills' badge, feigned the façade of the concerned law officer, volunteered to cordon the emergency stairs as professional courtesy and a couple of minutes later was free to roam the hotel. He went straight to Finch's room, his heart hammering in a way that had nothing to do with the flights of stairs he had just tackled.
The room was in perfect order, the only traces that it hadn't been unoccupied being the jacket neatly draped over a chair and the laptop sitting on the desk with its lid closed.
A quick but thorough search of the room didn't provide any further clues. No objects left for him to find, no hastily-scribbled messages, no nothing. It wasn't a surprise – really, it was the predictable outcome of a search born out of an irrational, unreasonable hope – and yet Reese couldn't shake a spark of disappointment at the realization.
The helplessness, the exhaustion, the pain all hit him back in full force and he all but collapsed on the chair in front of the desk. He rested his head in his hands, trying to get a grip on the sudden wave of pessimism, but it was easier said than done. The long day was beginning to take its toll.
What if it had all been for nothing? What if there was simply no way to trace Harold? The drive in his pocket seemed to weigh tons. He had put a lot of hope in the hotel surveillance footage, but what if it proved to be the umpteenth dead end?
On impulse, he opened the laptop lid and powered it on. He didn't really expect it to work – it was one of Harold's personal laptops, one he used in the field. While Reese was more than sure that, cautious as Finch was, there was surely nothing on the disk that might lead to them should the computer fall in the wrong hands, he had no doubt that it was protected by a password that only Finch knew. So, he wasn't really surprised when the lock screen appeared and none of the usual passwords he used on the Library computers worked.
What did surprise him was the fact that, after few more seconds, the login screen disappeared all of a sudden and the operating system loaded on its own. He hadn't touched anything.
Reese blinked, taken aback, and his eyes flew to the tiny red dot blinking over the laptop screen – the webcam. Oh.
"Well, thanks, I guess," the ex-agent said out loud with a one-sided shrug. If the greatest A.I. ever created was willing to cooperate, he definitely wasn't about to complain.
He plugged the drive and set to work. He perused the folder containing the previous two days footage – several gigabytes worth of videos. He studied the file names, trying to find a semblance of logic in the way they were organized. There were several folders – one for each floor and one labeled lifts/stairs - but aside from that the order of the cameras wasn't clear.
He perused the third-floor folder – the one where Finch and Carter had been attending the talks – but there were too many videos. He clicked on one of them, watched it for a couple of minutes, then closed it and selected another one, and then another one. He saw Finch in one of them – sitting in one of the last rows of a spacious conference room – and focused his attention on the video for a while, but soon had to capitulate.
He had hours and hours and hours of footage – most of which consisted of people sitting basically unmoving for never-ending talks. Even with someone helping him, it would take him days to watch all the videos – and perhaps to no avail.
It wasn't the right approach.
Think, he scolded himself. Think.
He pressed his palms over his eyes, forcing himself to relive the previous day's events. Finch's frantic call, John giving him directions. Forbidding them to use the guests' lifts. Trying to guide them to the service lift instead and then to the parking lot. He straightened with a jerk as a sudden thought struck him. The service lift had been plan B. Reese had told them to use the stairs, and they had - but then Harold had said that someone was coming and that was why the ex- op had suggested the alternative escape route through the restricted area.
Reinvigorated, his hands flew to the laptop, frantically searching for the stairs' footage. It took him a couple of tries to select the correct file and then to fast-forward it to the right moment but then, there it was. Two men, running up the stairs, gun in hand, before disappearing behind the first floor door.
He couldn't be sure, but one of them apparently shared some resemblance to the picture in the fake driver's license Carter had given him.
He played the short sequence again and again then finally noticed it. One of the two guys – Fake License, as he mentally dubbed him – was wearing the small tag that all the conference participants had to keep on them during the events. He leaned forward as the video played once again, this time at a slower pace, his face so close to the computer than his nose almost touched the screen. Only the upper portion of the conference tag was visible, the part with the picture and something that resembled a string of numbers – maybe the registration code – the digits so small they were almost unreadable but, as far as Reese could see, not the name.
No such luck.
And yet, if only he managed to read the number, it would be a huge step forward. Another replay in slow-motion, and then another one, again and again, until his vision doubled and his eyes watered. He lost count of the number of times he had looped the video but, after a while he was almost sure that the last two digits of the code were 7s or 1s, and the third to last a 3 or an 8. Not very precise, but better than nothing. It definitely reduced the number of names to check.
He slammed the laptop lid shut and fished his smartphone out from his pocket. It was time for him to reunite with Fusco and Leon.