Chapter 21: "No worse, Mr. Reese."

Mid-town NY, same day

Harper swung the van over to the curb, watching in her rear-view mirror for anyone following. So far, no takers. She hadn't seen anyone since dropping the Team off back at the safe house. There was something she needed to do now if they were going to flush out the ones who were chasing them.

She hopped out on her side and ran around to the curb. A few brightly colored bins sat together on the sidewalk, and she fed coins into the top of one of them. The handle released and she swung the front down to pull out the newspaper. Then on the passenger side of the van she opened the door and spread the paper over the front seat. On the floor mat in front of the seat were the cellphones from everyone who'd been riding with her when they were chased. Those men in the SUVs had locked onto someone's phone in their van and tracked them. So, now they were going to see if they could return the favor.

Harper grabbed the phones and spread them out on top of the newspaper so they weren't touching each other. Then she reached into a pocket of her jacket for a small unmarked canister. Finch had handed it to her from his briefcase back at the drop-off. She pulled the cap off and aimed it at the phones. A fine mist sprayed out over the top of the phones and she moved the canister around to cover as much surface as she could. Then she capped the canister and slid it back into her pocket.

Harper fanned the phones with her hand, drying the clear spray a little faster. Then she picked up the whole newspaper with the phones on top and walked it over to the corner trash bin. She tipped the newspaper and the phones slid off into the bin. Then she folded the paper and dropped that in, too, like anybody's discarded Daily News. If someone was still tracking one of the phones, they'd find them all together in the trash, as though the Team had tried to escape by dumping them. Handling the phones would transfer the marker in the spray to the handlers, and for the next few weeks it would be detectable on the skin, on clothing, on anything that touched the phones. Harper smiled as she jumped back into the van and drove off. She'd circle around for a little while longer, then head back to the garage near the safe house.

Meanwhile, Reese had pulled inside and parked the truck, leaving the key in the console between the seats. The rifle went back inside the zippered case and he stowed it with the ammo box inside the bin. There was no time to reset it now – he needed to get back to the apartment.

Reese kept thinking about Shaw; it bothered him. He couldn't remember a time when she'd been down like this. She'd been injured before, but it was always at the same time he'd been hurt, too. Never by herself. She was tougher than any of them, and it was hard to think of her like this. He left the garage and turned into the wind swirling around outside. Long legs like his could eat up a lot of territory with each stride, and he made it down the back way to the street in no time. After that, though, he had to slow down and pay attention to his surroundings. The main street offered no cover for him over the next block and a half. He stayed in shadow as much as possible and surveyed everything within visual - it reminded him of nights on patrol in Afghanistan. The hair prickled at the back of his neck.

The last 50 yards were the toughest. Each step felt like an invitation for someone to take a shot. He looked into every dark doorway, every alley space between shops, any place that someone could hide. His eyes swept the buildings, too, on the far side of the street. When he got to his building, Reese stabbed the code into the panel next to the door. In the wind, he wrestled it open, stepping in and pulling it closed right behind him. Then he stepped deeper into the lobby, away from all the glass at the front. It was empty at this time of night and Reese kept moving to the back of the lobby. He didn't want to stand there in the open, waiting for the elevator; he'd take the stairs. The door to the stairwell was just past the elevator bank, and he checked through the glass before he opened it. There was an overhead light at the bottom of the stairs, and it was dim, flickering and buzzing. He could barely see around him with the door shut.

Reese leaned back against the wall inside the door. It was just too much distraction with the darkness, the light flickering and the buzzing. He needed to assess his situation before he went any further.

The air was cool - and in a small space like this, a warm human would heat the air pretty fast. It smelled stale and flat - no telltale sign of someone passing through. No dust kicked up, either, inside the stairwell. He started to relax a bit. A minute passed. Nothing. Reese took the stairs three at a time and got to the second floor landing. Through the small glass window in the door it looked empty in the hallway. Reese pulled his gun and held it upright as he swung the door open. Then he raised it up in front of him as he pivoted to the hinge side, aiming down the hallway. No one there that he could see.

The apartment was down at the far end, plenty of time to find out if anyone was there who shouldn't be. Reese stepped forward into the dim hallway, thick carpeting muffling the sounds of his footsteps. He passed the elevator bank and sighted down the rest of the hallway. Still nothing. At the doorway of 222, he tipped toward the scanner to present his eye, and the latch clicked. The door opened from the inside, and he stepped in.

Logan was there inside. He pointed his chin toward the kitchen and the wing behind it with all the bedrooms. Reese wasted no time and strode through to the room he'd set up earlier for Shaw, not realizing that it would be Shaw herself as the patient. Harold met him at the door when he got there.

"Mr. Reese, they are working on Miss Shaw right now." The lines in his face showed his concern.

Reese sidestepped Harold and looked inside for himself. There was an IV bag hanging over the bed, clear fluid inside it. He could see the liquid streaming down through the clear drip chamber below the bag; wide-open, running in as fast as it could go into her right arm. Joey and Root were just backing up after taping the tubing in place. Reese craned to see around them to take a look at Shaw, and his breath caught when he saw her. Harper was right. She looked bad.

"What happened?" he said in his whisper-voice. Root looked stricken. She couldn't tear herself away from staring at Sameen. Reese grabbed her arm and whirled her around to face him.

"Talk to me,"he said, in a terser whisper. Root shook her head to clear her thoughts and then started.

"We were at our diner, early. It was a little busy, but then, all of a sudden, everyone was gone, and we knew something was wrong. We ran for the back, and men in black uniforms came running in from the front. We blocked the back door and ran down the alley into the street. Sameen was a little behind me and when I looked back, she was hit. Top of her shoulder. Shot," she said, reaching for her own left shoulder to show Reese.

"Who?" Reese interrupted.

"I don't know. We couldn't see anyone. I dragged her around a corner into an alley. We had to climb our way out, but we made it. She lost a lot of blood, though."

"Where'd you go?"

"I stole a van and took her to a safe place I know in the Bronx - as far away from you and Harold and the team as we could get. I didn't wanna take a chance that they could find the rest of the team," she said, and turned away, looking back at Shaw.

"She looks terrible! I'm afraid she might be bleeding inside," Root said.

Reese looked back at her lying there. He'd seen enough of it through the years – people in all kinds of bad shape. And he'd made a lot of them look that way himself. It went with the job.

Reese had seen enough to know Shaw was going to need more than they could do for her here. Unless she turned around pretty fast after getting this fluid, he didn't think they could fix what was wrong.

He turned back to Harold at the door. Logan was there, too. The three stepped away and down the hall to the kitchen. Reese pulled a couple of mugs down when they got there and filled two with coffee from the urn. Harold waved off anything for himself.

"I want to show you something, Reese," Logan said. He slid his laptop in front of them on the counter and started his video loop. It showed the two women, Root and Shaw, running down the alleyway at the back of the diner that morning. Then the camera switched to another view from across the street at the end of the alley. You could see them stop at the end and look both ways for hostiles, then run across the street. Root was ahead of Shaw at that point. Then Logan reached over and hit a key that slowed the video speed.

"Watch this," he said. Reese leaned in closer to see. In the middle of the screen he could see the moment of impact. At the top of Shaw's left shoulder there was a sudden ripple and spray through her jacket. The force threw her forward, and she nearly lost her footing. He could see her face react in pain, and she grabbed for the left arm, turning.

"Watch her eyes," Logan said. And in slow-motion Reese could see her turning to her left, looking upward – where the roof line would be, not straight back behind her. She must have known that the shooter was higher, shooting down at her.

"Single, clean shot from a rooftop. What does that sound like to you?" Logan said.

"Sniper? She'd be dead – unless the point was to wound, not kill," Reese said. He starting thinking through a number of possibilities.

"What happened tonight, on your way back?" Reese asked. He needed to start putting some of the puzzle pieces together. Harold explained:

"We tracked Miss Shaw and Miss Groves to an apartment in the Bronx and surveilled the location. When we expected that everyone would be sleeping, the team entered the apartment and found them. Miss Shaw was already in this state, and we planned to divert to the Trauma Center instead of coming here. I elected to inform you, Mr. Reese. The individuals who did this are still out there. We needed reinforcements if we were changing our plans. Apparently, they have devised a method to track my phone. Within minutes, we had company, and decided to return here, instead."

"Your phones?" Reese asked.

"Miss Rose took them with her and is setting them up for a tagging maneuver right now." Reese nodded to Harold, picturing Harper tagging the phones and leaving them in a location where only the ones chasing the Team could find them. He pulled out his own phone and handed it to Harold.

"I'll destroy this one, Mr. Reese, and I'll have replacements ready for all of us later today." Reese nodded, then raised the next point.

"We need to talk about Shaw. She looks like she's gonna need more than what we can do here, Finch." Reese looked at Harold, who was hesitating, staring down at the floor.

"I came to the same assessment myself, Mr. Reese."

"If we run into trouble on the way – " Logan said, looking from one to the other. Neither said anything out loud. Reese drained his coffee and slammed the cup down on the counter, heading back to Shaw.

Joey was gone, and Reese could hear the shower running down the hall. Root was sitting on a chair on the far side of Shaw's bed. She was leaning forward with her hands circled around Shaw's hand. Reese stepped closer, and reached out to check her skin. Cool, pale. He slid his fingertips down to her wrist and felt for her pulse. It was hard to find it. Weak and fast when he finally located it. He reached across to her left shoulder and lifted the front of her shirt to see the dressing. It was high on the shoulder, and he could picture the angle the shot must have followed to hit there. He looked at Root's hands next, and noticed how pale Shaw's skin looked against hers. Reese said to himself she needs blood. Now.

He turned away and went out into the hall and down to the walk-in closet where Shaw had her supplies. Inside, he started looking through packages of tubing, Y-connectors, stopcocks. In a little while he'd filled a deep, pink plastic basin with everything he needed and headed back to the room. He laid a few things out on the metal tray next to her bed. Root watched him.

When he was set, he thought of one more thing he needed. Back out to the kitchen. It was in there somewhere. He remembered seeing it, but didn't recall exactly where. Reese swept his eyes around the whole kitchen, then again. He closed his eyes, trying to visualize where he'd seen it. Drawer. It was in a drawer. He started opening and closing them, one after another until he found what he was looking for. It was a small ceramic tile about the size of his palm. He didn't know what it was used for, but it was the right color: white. He gathered everyone and walked them down to the bedroom. He handed each one a wrapped needle, the kind they used on the end of a syringe.

"Open it up and have it ready," he said. Then he moved close to Shaw and lifted up her right hand, rubbing it hard between his hands, especially at the tips of her fingers. When her fingers were warmed from the rubbing, he pulled the ceramic tile over next to her hand, peeled the wrapper off another needle and stabbed one of her fingers with it. Root jumped. "What are you doing?"

He didn't answer, but milked the finger until a drop of blood formed, then dripped onto the tile. Then another, another, and one last one – four drops of her blood spread out on the surface of the white tile.

"OK, each one of you stick yourself with your needle. I need a drop of blood from each of you. Do it fast," he said.

Reese watched them prick themselves and squeeze their fingers. He moved the tile next to each one of them, showing them where to let the drop fall. Each one added a drop of blood to one of Shaw's on the tile. Reese went last, and then he laid the tile carefully on the metal tray, checking his watch. He swung the bright procedure lamp over to the tray and flipped the switch on. A few minutes later, he leaned in close, inspecting the blood spots. One after another, there were tiny darker red dots floating in the blood spots, except for one. Only one was clear of the tiny dots. His. He was a match. Joey stepped in next to him and looked down at the tile.

"Who was it?" he asked.

"Me," Reese said in his whisper-voice. He started rolling up his sleeves, looking at his veins.

"What's going on, Reese?" Root said. Joey spoke up instead.

"Walking blood bank." Root looked confused for a moment, and then seemed to catch on. Joey went on.

"In combat, in an emergency, if we're cut off from supplies of blood, we can donate our own to save a brother's life. Only one of us can donate to Shaw. The others don't match. That's what he was doing – testing to see which of us could donate. If little specks form when the blood is mixed together, it's not a match. Reese is the only one that matched."

They all looked at him. But he was busy figuring out how he was going to set up the tubing with the Y-connectors, stopcocks, and a large syringe. Once he had it in his mind how he was going to arrange everything, he went into the bathroom and took off his shirt. He washed his hands and arms twice with soap and rinsed the skin carefully, drying them as he walked back.

Joey had rolled up his sleeves and was opening the packages of tubing. Then he donned sterile gloves and started fitting the parts together. Reese sat down on a chair near Shaw's bed, dragging a waste basket over with his foot. He held his right arm over the basket and told Root to come around and pour the brown antiseptic on his skin. She doused him with the liquid and then looked at the label. It smelled like iodine, and that's what was in the bottle. She put on gloves, too, and rubbed the iodine all over the inner side of Reese's elbow; then she doused it again and wiped it down with new sterile gauze. Reese talked through the steps with Joey. He'd been able to get the IV started on Shaw on his third try. So now he needed to connect Reese up to the tubing as the blood donor.

"Haven't done any of this for a while," he said when Reese asked him about his training. "But it's just like riding a bike, right? You never forget," he said, grinning at Reese. When they were ready, Joey sat facing Reese on another chair. He would use a big bore needle on Reese to get into the vein, connect it to the tubing system they had fashioned, then fill a large syringe with his blood, and send it back out to Shaw by turning a stopcock. It would flow out through the other leg of the tubing into her arm. In combat situations they had a special bag that collected the blood and it had a blood thinner in it so it didn't clot. They had nothing like that here, so they would need to be quick and keep things moving.

Joey was poised to do it, and Root was ready to tape the needle in place once he was in the vein. She circled a stretchy band around Reese's arm above the elbow and pulled it tight. Joey leaned in and Reese steadied his arm in a spot where Joey could get a good angle. He took a deep breath, and noticed Joey doing the same thing. Then he watched the needle pierce his skin and enter the bulge of the vein. He tried not to flinch with the stick. Blood started flowing through the tubing toward the end where the syringe would attach. They needed to get the air out of the system so the syringe wasn't attached yet while the tubing filled.

Seconds later, the leading edge was at the far end of the tubing and Joey attached the syringe, while Root finished taping the needle in place. Joey drew back on the plunger of the syringe, filling it as fast as it would go. Then Root opened the stopcock the other way and Joey pushed the plunger this time, sending the flow out the next piece of tubing heading to Shaw. Once the tubing on that side of the stopcock was filled, Root detached the tubing from the IV, and connected the blood tubing, instead. Now they had a full circuit, from Reese to Shaw. Joey pushed with steady pressure until the syringe was empty, and all the blood had gone into Shaw. He looked up at Reese.

"We need eight more," he said, running the math in his head. Root switched the stopcock to let blood flow from Reese into the syringe again.

"Finch, how does she look?" Reese asked. He couldn't see Shaw with everybody around him. Finch had gone around the far side of the bed to keep an eye on Shaw during this procedure. There was still a possibility of a transfusion reaction. If so, they'd have to stop. Finch looked at the pale form of Shaw on the bed.

"No worse, Mr. Reese."