Thanks to Lt. Reece's (and Jo's) connections, a sleek, teal blue, Lockheed-Martin Sikorsky helicopter with long, thin, red and white upswept stripings on the sides touched down on the building's helipad. The side door opened, signaling to Henry and Abe it was time for them to board and leave the Green, as General Austin called it. Austin shook both men's hands.
"Wish your stay could have been more ... enjoyable," Austin sincerely told them.
"I sincerely hope that your helping us won't result in too much trouble for you and the Captain," Henry said, recalling similar concerns he'd had long ago for Father Sullivan shortly before the defrocked priest had helped him escape from Southwark Prison by hanging himself.
"Don't worry about that, Doctor," Austin replied. "The Captain's not even here."
Henry and Abe smiled and nodded, understanding.
"Besides, I think you'll find that your Lt. Reece's reach goes far beyond even mine," he commented, looking at the snazzy helicopter then back at them. "Time I retired, anyway," he wryly chuckled.
Captain Ness stepped closer to Austin and hooked her arm around his. "Time we both did, Willie," she added. He hesitantly but with a pleasured smile, looked at her and squeezed her hand on his arm.
Henry and Abe shared a knowing look and the foursome parted with smiles and waves. Father and son quickly boarded the waiting helicopter. From their viewpoint, they could see another person seated inside but were totally surprised to see that it was Jo's former beau and billionaire hotelier, Isaac Monroe.
"Good evening, gentlemen," a beaming Isaac greeted them with his familiar raspy voice. "Someone told me that you two needed a lift."
They settled in and the helicopter lifted them upward into the night sky. "They, uh, make these for civilians?" Abe asked, impressed and grinning.
"They do for this civilian," Isaac proudly replied.
vvvv
"Ahhh, it's good to be back home," Abe happily exhaled. "Good to see they repaired the broken glass while we were away," he noted, impressed. And didn't steal anything, he cynically thought to himself. Looking at the unmarked police car parked across the street, he added, "Looks like our protection has arrived." He turned and caught up with his father as they both neared the stairs to the second level. "And how 'bout our Lt. Reece sending that Isaac guy to our rescue?"
"Our ... Lieutenant?" Henry asked, teasingly. "You don't work for her, Abraham."
"Technically, neither do you," Abe pointed out as they climbed the stairs. They entered the darkened kitchen and Abe flipped on the lights before saying, "But she's definitely our friend."
"You're right, Abraham," Henry agreed. "As is Isaac."
"Yeah, well, guess I'll add his name back to my list," Abe grudgingly conceded. "Long as he lets me zip around in that sleak job of his again - and that he stays away from Jo."
"Abe," Henry admonished him, grinning and shaking his head. He knew that Jo and Isaac had not been a couple since the end of their brief courtship in 2015. "What say we have some warm milk before sleeping in our own beds," he proposed. Abe nodded in agreement.
vvvv
The Hanson household across town was a bit less peacful. A lot less peaceful.
Mike's wife, Karen, sat on the foot of their bed, rigid and worried. Worried himself, he paced back and forth in front of her. She hadn't responded yet after he'd told her about him being a 'sleeping warrior' and how that connected him to the dangerous Immortal, Adam. Karen sat barely breathing, wringing her hands with her eyes shifting back and forth as if searching for some answers, trying to make some sense of what he'd just unloaded on her.
Finally needing a change up, he sat down next to her. When he reached for her hands, she kept them stiff and unyielding to his touch, side-eyeing him for a few seconds then staring straight ahead. The look of worry slowly became one of resolve.
"Honey. Say something, please," Mike begged her, reluctantly pulling his hand away from hers. "If I could change things, I would. Believe me. I didn't ask for this but ... it's just the way things are."
She took in a deep breath and blinked rapidly. He knew she was trying to hold it together, not to cry. It tore his heart out to scare her this way. But he knew that he had to tell her because of their boys. This curse or blessing or whatever it was, was going to be passed down to their sons and eventually, one day, he would have to tell them about it. Hopefully, his wife would help him tell them. That's one reason he'd chosen to tell her tonight. He didn't know how much longer he could keep the dagger or when he would have to use it against Adam. The man's death by his hand was just a matter of time, he felt. And he wanted her, the woman he loved and to whom he'd devoted the rest of his life, to know what they were facing. He'd hoped they would face it together. The way she was reacting, though, worried him.
She stood up and he nervously stood up with her. "We have to get the boys out of here," Karen said. "Take them somewhere safe."
"Honey, you and the boys are safest right here with me," he told her. "It'll only upset 'em to break up their routine."
"No, I'd feel better if we got them away from here," she adamantly replied.
"Okay. Why don't you guys just go visit your folks?" he proposed, acquiescing to her. "They live closer to the boys' school, anyway."
"Alright," she replied. She stood in front of him and then buried her face into his chest. "It seems like I'm abandoning you, though," she whispered and sobbed into his chest. She leaned back and looked up at him. "I'm not. But you have something to do. Something extraordinary. I understand that. It's just ... if the boys are gonna catch this after you, there's nothing I can do to stop that. They don't have to be warriors yet, though."
They shared a long, deep kiss and then hugged each other for several minutes. "Thank you for believing me," Mike whispered to her. Henry's words about his first wife, Nora, who hadn't believed it when he'd told her that he'd been transformed into an Immortal, came back to him. He hugged Karen closer and thanked his lucky stars that she had believed his fantastical sleeping warrior claim. It would have broken his heart if he'd been forced to endure this time without her in his corner.
"Believe you? I love you, ya big lug!" she told him. "You're not crazy and no way you'd make up such a thing." She lowered her eyes then lifted them to meet his gaze again. "And there's no way you'd walk away from this. You're not built that way." They kissed again and then headed down the hall toward the boys' room.
An hour and a half and several sleepy protests later from Mike, Jr., and his younger brother, Donnie, a cab drove them and their mother away from the house. Mike braved the chilly night breeze until the cab's tail lights were no longer visible. As he went back into the house, he held on to the knowledge of her supportive love for him and her promise to contact Reece if anything came up. Although he balked at letting anyone else know their personal business, they agreed that it might be better for now if they didn't have direct contact.
Real men don't cry, he told himself. But at that moment, he felt the dam giving way to a torrent of tears stirred up from sorrow, anger, frustration, and a bit of fear. His wife and kids, the very people he was supposed to protect first, were leaving him albeit temporarily. He trusted Karen to always do her best to protect herself and the boys but since he wasn't with them, the feeling of helplessness was beginning to overwhelm him. Although she had never left him, if she had, he would have thrown back a few brews and dealt with the hangover the next day, stubborn and unwilling to apologize first. This was different, though. He knew that he had to find a way to deal with his sorrow of suddenly being alone in the now too big house. There was no telling when he would have to whip out the dagger and deal with Adam. How this whole thing worked, he wasn't sure; but he felt, hoped he was going to find out pretty soon.
Earlier, he'd retrieved the dagger from its hiding place under the floorboards in the closet in order to show Karen and explain things to her. He hadn't questioned how he'd come to have this warrior status passed on to him, assuming that it was through his father.
"Could have been through your mother," Karen suggested. "We women are warriors, too."
Placing the dagger under his pillow, he laid down on top of the covers, planning less to sleep and more to be ready at a moment's notice in case of ... well, anything. He was a warrior trained as a guardian with a gun. Now, he had a dagger. Either weapon, he concluded, was deadly enough to deal with any situation that might arise.
vvvv
The next morning found Lt. Reece in her office with Jo, Mike, Henry, and Lucas. Just outside her office, the bullpen hummed with its usual activity. Only this wasn't a usual morning. Mornings, days, hadn't been usual ever since the presence of Immortals had been revealed to them only a few days ago. They warmly welcomed Henry and Lucas back and then Reece told Mike that an unmarked car had been sent to keep an eye on Karen and the boys last night while they were at her parents' home.
"I know this is a tough time for you, Mike, with them away from you," Reece told him. "She assured me that they're fine, though."
"That's, uh, good to know," Mike said uncertainly. "House feels so empty without them."
"At least you know where she is," Henry somberly noted. They all now knew that Henry's second wife, Abigail, had left him in 1982, hid from him in Tarrytown where she'd died three years later. The facts regarding her death were not revealed to him until 30 years later.
"Sorry, Doc, but that doesn't comfort me all that much," Mike confessed. "I'll feel better after this Adam is out of the picture and they can come back home."
"Can't argue with you on that," Henry quickly and strongly agreed.
"Turns out Tarrytown is one of Adam's strongholds," Mike said, turning to the facts that Jo and he had uncovered.
"Wouldn't exactly call it a stronghold," Jo said.
"We don't know who else there besides Halsey and his daughter, Lindsay, are or were under his thumb," Mike pointed out.
Henry tensed and frowned while Jo did the same. No one was willing to voice their other concern about what some of Adam's minions might be willing to do on his behalf if they were as crazed as Clarke Walker had been. They didn't want to add to the worried thoughts already rolling around in Mike's mind about the safety of his wife and kids.
"Let's not jump to conclusions," Reece warned them. "I've made a few phone calls. We should soon find out just how far Adam's influence extends in that small hamlet."
Turning her attention to Henry and Lucas, she told them both that although it was good to see them back, she wondered if their return to work was not a bit premature. Lucas responded that he felt fine and was anxious to get back into the fight. The others chuckled, prompting him to elaborate on why he categorized their present situation as a fight.
"This is a classic case of good fighting against evil," he told them. "Who wouldn't wanna be on the right side of that? I couldn't make this up any better for one of my short films." After a short pause, he added, "He tried to kill me. Yeah, I want to see Adam go down," he concluded.
Henry responded by saying that Abe had tried to dissuade him from returning so soon. "But as I explained to him," he added, "continuing to hide from what's happened is no longer an option for me. Because of how rapidly technology advances today, where is there for me to go and truly remain undetected? Might as well weather this storm by resuming my life here and work together with all of you to effectively contain Adam. And it would seem that someone else has been granted their 15 minutes of fame by being credited with saving Lucas," he said, dipping his head toward him and smiling.
Earlier that morning before leaving the shop for work, Abe had turned on the TV to find out what the current news stories were. That's when they'd discovered news footage of a young man fitting Henry's general description being interviewed about how he'd rescued Lucas and why he had been in the river naked at just that moment.
"Weird finding out that I was actually saved by a guy training to be a Navy Seal," Lucas chuckled wryly. "Luckily, he wishes to remain anonymous so I don't have to lie and pretend he's my hero for the rest of my life."
"Hah! I saw that! Where'd that fake news come from?" Mike chortled. "Not that it ain't welcome."
"Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Mike," Reece advised him.
"Just wish I could have done a better job of adding the sound of the gun discharge back onto the surveillance tape," Lucas said apologetically.
"Sorry you went to all that trouble, Mr. Wahl," Reece told him. With a smile playing at the corners of her mouth, she sat down at her computer and motioned for all of them to gather near, which they did. After a few pecks on the computer, she grinned and sat back in her chair, pointing to her monitor. "Is this what you were worried about?"
The surveillance footage presented was an even more sanitized version of the events on that day. It now showed the activity in the bullpen just as it had occurred from the time of Adam's call announcing that he had Lucas up until when the call had dropped. Henry's voice was heard on the tape as he'd tried desperately to negotiate with Adam but he and Abe were no longer visible. Then, miraculously, the footage seamlessly jumped to everyone in the bullpen clearing out. The playback ended and Reece activated the screensaver.
"Dude!" Lucas exclaimed. "That was f-g stellar!" He was so impressed by someone else's movie magic skills that he forgot who he was addressing (Reece) and where he was (in her office).
Jo, Mike, and especially Henry, however, did their best to bring him back to his senses and remind him that that was no way to address the Lieutenant or speak in her office. Embarrassed, he managed to sputter out an apology but Reece just grinned.
"Oh, it's okay, you guys," she assured them. "Never been called 'Dude' before but he's right. That bit of video editing is pretty - (she paused, glancing up at Lucas) - stellar. It helps to keep IA off of our backs. Not even our CCD (Cyber Crimes Division) could tell this wasn't the original footage."
"We have that gift horse to thank for this, too, I guess," Jo wryly remarked although with a healthy heaping of thankfulness.
Reece's desk phone rang and she answered it. After a few moments, she said, "Good God! Keep me posted." She hung up the phone and informed them that their worst fears had just been answered. "Adam's disappeared. They're searching the prison and the grounds for him now."
"An exercise in futility since Riker's is on the East River between Queens and the Bronx," Henry bitterly noted.
Reece nodded and said that the warden had already notified the NYPD's Cyber Crimes Division to access the DAS (Domain Awareness System) to locate the escaped Immortal. A BOLO was put out, as well.
"Please tell me they got him slinkin' outta the river," Mike pleaded with Reece. "Whichever one," he added.
Reece took in and released a sigh of frustration. "So far, it doesn't seem so. But - why not? How was he able to evade the patrols?"
"How long ago?" a worried Henry asked.
Reece shook her head slowly and fluttered her eyelids. "They're not sure but - "
"Not sure?!" Mike asked, interrupting her. "Those bozos!" he angrily condemned the prison staff. He worked to calm himself a bit before stating, "He knows about me."
"Well, I'd like to bitch slap the halfwit that told him," a confounded Reece said.
"Left or right cheek?" Mike deadpanned. Reece frowned in confusion then rolled her eyes after realizing that he meant he was the halfwit. But he continued to rant as he started to pace. "Surrounded by I don't know how many armed guards, surveillance cameras, other inmates - how'd he manage it?!"
"According to Warden Matheson, he went into the shower but never came out," Reece told them, obviously disgusted.
"Shower?" Lucas asked "What, he turned on just the hot water and scalded himself to death?"
"A person can drown on just a teaspoon of water, Lucas," Henry reminded him. "All that's needed is any amount of water in which air is blocked from getting to your lungs, even an inch of water."
"Okay, so he drowned himself and escaped," Jo said. "He also managed to evade the patrols like Lieu said."
"We can worry about how he did that later," Reece said. "Right now, we have to find out where he is. Techies are working on it as we speak," Reece added. "We have to be ready to move once they do find him."
Jo looked at Henry and realized something. "Let's say he was able to emerge from the river undetected. He'd then go somewhere he could get some help."
"He'd head to someone who could give him some dry clothing, food, shelter," Henry added, frowning slightly as his eyes darted here and there.
"Tarrytown!" Henry and Mike simultaneously exclaimed, reaching the same conclusion.
"Lindsay," Jo breathed out in a desperate whisper.
They'd barely noticed that Reece had been on the phone again being provided information on Adam's last known whereabouts from the tech staff. She hung up the phone and passed the information to them. Mike asked if the location he'd been spotted in was anywhere near the sleepy hamlet, Reece pecked on her computer and then nodded in affirmation.
"Alert Halsey and his daughter," she instructed the two detectives. "I'll contact the sheriff there. Now, go, you guys!"
vvvv
During the frantic drive over to Tarrytown, Jo rode shotgun, occasionally giving a concerned glance back at Henry and Lucas in the back seat. While Mike drove, a million thoughts raced through his mind but he wasn't quite sure it was wise to voice any of them. He was trying to keep everyone's fear level down. His own, especially. Today, he just might kill a man. In cold blood but ... for a good reason. He sighed inwardly, asking himself again if he was ready for this. Whether he was or not, he realized that both he and Henry were experiencing something quite extraordinary. And although their ... conditions ... were different, their paths had now led both of them to the psychotic Immortal, Adam. Lucas was right. You couldn't make this stuff up.
Despite Adam once again being free to roam around and wreak havoc, Henry felt encouraged by the fact that he was no longer alone in his battle against the troublesome Immortal. His son had been right when he'd told him that one day he would probably need the entire NYPD to help him against Adam. That day had come.
He was suddenly reminded of the time that he'd snatched his brother's bag of marbles from him. His brother, William, had then chased him through the house to pummel him and retrieve them. During the ensuing chase, Henry had knocked an hourglass over, shattering the glass and spewing the sand in it over a large area of his father's study. Months later, he and William were still being occasionally tasked with cleaning up each grain of sand that had spilled over a wider area than previously thought. But even years later, those tiny grains of sand had still been found, making him think that it an impossibility to have removed all of them.
This situation was much like that, he told himself. The hourglass that held the grains of his secret as well as those of Adam's and Mike's, had been broken. How far the grains had dispersed was yet to be seen. No matter how hard Lt. Reece or General Austin or any of them worked to contain the "spill", how successful would their efforts be? They could all possibly be picking up loose grains of sand from time to time for years, decades to come.
But back to Adam; he didn't fear him for his own safety for he would survive any manner of death put to him. But the added fact that Mike was capable of ending the man's life permanently admittedly bouyed his spirits. Could he and everyone else finally be rid of the psycho regardless of the symbolic hourglass having been broken? It was a comforting thought even if he was a physician sworn to an oath to heal people, not harm them. In this instance, he was gladly willing to break that oath.
Notes:
Slight references to "Forever" TV show S01/E11 "Skinny Dipper"; Sp1/E13 "Diamonds Are Forever", and S01/E22 "The Night in Question"
Information on drowning on small amount of water found at