Chapter 26: A heavy burden, indeed; sight-line;

Mid-town Manhattan safe-house, same afternoon

Reese took a new phone from Harold, as he walked through the apartment handing out replacements to the Team. The first thing Reese did with his was to call Lionel. It rang a good five times before he heard Lionel pick up. The voice was tentative.

"Yeah?"

"It's Reese."

"Another new phone number – I almost didn't answer. What's goin' on?"

"Finch had to ditch the old ones. Look – we'll fill you in later. We need you to meet Logan and go back to that diner in Mid-town. How soon can you meet?"

"What is it now – " he said, glancing at his watch. " – 1:30. I need half an hour. Where?"

"Logan will pick you up. Where are you?" Reese jotted down an address on a scrap of paper, and then hung up. He walked down the hall toward the living room, passing Harold heading back to his room. He passed through the kitchen, then into the living room where Logan was getting ready to leave.

He was already sliding a heavy coat on over jeans and a shirt. Even dressed in jeans, Logan was the kind of man who reeked of money – and privilege. Nothing close to a soldier. Reese wasn't so sure he was sending the right one to the diner, but he couldn't send Root, Harper, or Joey. They'd already been there – Fusco, too, but he was backup, in case anything went down when Logan was inside. Reese handed him the paper scrap, the address where he'd find Fusco waiting. Logan took a quick look at the scribble and then stuffed it into his pocket. This was going to be slow-going in heavy traffic. Thankfully, just a dozen blocks or so.

Just then, Harold limped over to the two of them and reached out to Logan. In his hand was a pair of glasses – heavy, black-rimmed like some kind of egghead's in a university. Logan looked at them, grimacing.

"No sense of style, Finch?" he complained.

"Well, yes, I suppose we could have made them more in line with your personal style, Mr. Pierce, but then they wouldn't have been able to do this," Harold said as he handed the glasses to Logan. Harold gestured for him to put them on, and then he held up a small cloth he'd sprayed with the clear marker spray Harper had used on their old phones. Logan's brows lifted as he looked at the effect. The cloth phosphoresced green when he looked at it through the glasses. He tried lifting them up to see the cloth without the glasses, and then dropped them back down on the bridge of his nose to look at the cloth again.

"I know better than to ask you how it works, Finch – I know you'd tell me," he said, grinning. Finch frowned.

"We're just looking, Mr. Pierce. I'm not certain if we'll find anything, but it's worth it to learn what we can. Put them on once you arrive in the diner and look for any traces of the marker. Detective Fusco will stay outside, but if you run into any difficulties, signal him for assistance."

Logan folded the glasses and put them into his shirt pocket, then he nodded to the two men and headed for the door. Reese turned to Harold after Logan had gone, his brow furrowed. Harold knew that look.

"What are you contemplating, Mr. Reese?" Reese looked down toward the floor.

"I'm gonna do a little surveillance work, myself, Finch" he said, without explaining further. Harold ran through some of the possibilities in his mind, but didn't press Reese. Reese would do what he needed to do. They had to get to the bottom of this. Men in black uniforms had attacked his people in broad daylight. They'd been tracked, chased and shot at in the van the night before. Were these the same people? Who were they, and what was their goal? Who did they work for? And where were they now?

When he looked up again, Reese was strapping on his weapon. Harold noticed that Reese had his bullet-proof vest on under his white shirt. The thin ribs of the vest showed at his open collar. Harold frowned again. He hadn't noticed if Mr. Pierce had gone out with the same protection. He made a mental note to let everyone know this would be standard dress from now on for anyone venturing out.

Reese slid into a heavy leather jacket and pulled a hat and some gloves on. Then he, too, headed for the door. He could have taken one of the others with him, but Harold knew Reese preferred to work alone most of the time, especially for something like this – surveilling a site, attending to the details that would escape most of us untrained in the art.

Harold watched the door close, and it gave him a sudden sense of remorse. There were things that he had done – things he wasn't proud of now. These men and women who comprised his team had come to dedicate themselves to his cause. Several had given, or nearly given, their lives for it. Some, including himself, had suffered permanent damage as a result. A heavy burden, indeed. Harold turned and limped back through the kitchen toward Shaw's room.

Mid-town Manhattan, same afternoon

Reese had gotten there quickly. He stood in the shadows in a storefront doorway. Plenty of people were on the streets today, a weekday. So he wouldn't seem out of place, looking around. Across the street from where he stood was the section of street he recalled from Logan's video, the spot where Root and Shaw had been escaping from the diner when Shaw was shot.

After scouting the area first, Reese crossed over, heading the opposite way Root and Shaw were moving in the video. He walked slowly, as though he were window-shopping, stopping to look in windows then starting up again. His eyes tracked the roof-lines as he walked. He wanted to see for himself which ones were in the right sight-line. If a sniper had really been up there on one of the rooftops or shooting down from a high window, could he isolate the spot?

When he was at the exact spot he recognized from the video, he stopped and took a little more time searching the roof-lines. Reese twitched, involuntarily. Something about the light this time of day, and the cold, and looking up at roof-lines. For a moment he felt just like he was back in Afghanistan, sweeping a village for insurgents with his men. He pushed the thought from his mind. This wasn't the time to lose focus.

Reese stepped into the sheltered doorway of the storefront. Someone inside, a salesgirl, looked up and waved, but he turned the other way, looking first at the display, then gradually around over his shoulder, up to the roof-lines across the street.

The diner.

The roof of the diner was directly in the sight-line. There wouldn't have been much time, though. Maybe just one shot, then Shaw'd have been out of range, and the shot could never have happened. It would have taken a damn good sniper's shot from this angle.

Logan made his way slowly down the street, choked with cabs, cars, buses, and throngs of pedestrians. This was the final week before Christmas, and all of humanity was out on the streets. And then he saw a man step out off the curb and wave. The chubby figure of the man hadn't changed since the last time he'd seen him, but something else had. Logan slowed next to him, and Fusco opened the passenger-side door and dropped into the seat. Logan looked at Fusco's profile but didn't say anything for a minute. He'd forgotten all about it.

Fusco didn't say anything either. This was always the hard part. When people who knew him from before saw him for the first time. They stared for a moment, then realized they were staring and tried to look away. He could see their minds working. Should they ask? Should they just ignore the black patch over his left eye?

"How's the eye?" Logan asked, finally. Fusco stared ahead with his good eye. He really didn't want to get into it all – not now when they were working. He shrugged with his thick shoulders.

" – Bout the same," he said, and that was the end of it. Logan kept silent until they were passing the diner. Parking this time of day in Manhattan would be impossible. Logan pulled down a side-street, weaving around delivery trucks double-parked on the street. He drove back one block and pulled down the street that ran the opposite direction, next to the diner. Just before the corner, Logan stopped the car, double-parking it. Horns started to blare behind him, but anybody who lived, worked or drove in Manhattan knew this was par for the course. Deal with it or move someplace else.

"I'm gonna be a while. Want me to bring you back some lunch?" Logan said, looking at Fusco. He turned his head so Logan could see his entire face now. Logan looked at the black patch, but not with any pity, or even empathy, in his expression. The moment passed.

Lionel grinned, in Fusco fashion, and grabbed his gut. "You don't get like this by missing any meals," he said, and Logan chuckled. He reached for the door handle, and Fusco spoke up.

"I'll be able to hear you in there, but if anything goes bad, gimme a shout, okay? Don't try to take these guys down by yourself."

Logan smiled. "Why, Detective, I'm just an unarmed citizen heading in for some lunch. What could go wrong?" The two fist-bumped, and Logan got out to a chorus of car horns and rude shouts behind him. He made his way to the corner, then disappeared around it, heading for the front steps. Logan swung one of the heavy glass doors open, into the little foyer, then another glass door into the diner itself. For this time of day, it was pretty busy inside. The waiter behind the counter stepped around and walked toward him, grabbing a menu from a stack near the cash register.

"Booth or table?" the man said to Logan, with a heavy Greek accent.

"Table is fine," he answered, and they threaded their way among tables in the middle of the space, and up a full step to an elevated area with more tables and booths. The waiter indicated a table, and Logan nodded.

"Perfect," he said, noting the vantage point above the crowds that he'd have up here. He sat down and the waiter slid the menu over to him and dropped a glass of ice-water and a plastic basket of challah bread on the table in front of him. Logan hadn't noticed he'd had them in his other hand. Efficiency. He admired it.

"Do you know what you want, or I give you a minute?" the waiter asked with the heavy accent.

"I'll need a minute," Logan said, lifting the menu, and then making a little show of trying to read the small print. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the glasses Harold had given him. The waiter rushed off to another table, and Logan put his menu down, taking a quick glance around the place. There were so many people there that he couldn't really get a strong signal from anything. Until he looked back near the front door. The cash register and the counter near it lit up like a Christmas tree through his glasses. He checked it, then looked away, and then back again. There was clearly a signal there, weaker than the cloth Harold had showed him in the apartment, but the same kind of green signal. He tapped his earpiece.

"Yes, that looks good," he said out loud, looking down at the menu.

"You talkin' to me?" Fusco said, leaning back in his seat, with a smirk.

"Yes, that's what I'm talkin' about," he said, and folded up his menu, as though he'd made his decision. A waitress walked up to his table and stood there, leaning on one leg, with her pad open to take his order.

"What happened to the other guy?" Logan said.

"He busy wit' boss," she said, and waited for him to say what he wanted. Russian. Logan looked more closely at her face and realized who she was. It was just a small mistake. Hardly anything at all. The way his eyes flew open for just a nanosecond when he recognized her. Not enough that anyone would notice, he said to himself.

"Cheeseburger deluxe, no pickle, cheddar cheese," he said, staring at her while she calmly wrote the order on her pad. She couldn't have looked less interested.

"Drink?"

Logan lifted his water and shook his head. Then she twirled around and sauntered away. He sat there for a moment re-playing the exchange in his head.

"Did you hear that?" he said to Fusco, finally.

"What happened?"

"I think she made me," Logan said. A pause.

"Get outta there." Fusco said, leaning forward then, a hint of pressure in his voice.

Logan looked up and around at the diner. Nothing looked amiss so far. He stood up and walked to the edge where the step was, then down onto the main level, threading through the tables toward the front. He made his way to the register, and stopped briefly, looking more carefully with his glasses. Unmistakable. It was the same kind of phosphorescence he'd seen at the apartment; smears, and even some handprints on the counter and the keypad of the register. Someone had handled their cellphones and transferred the marker spray to their hands, then to some of the surfaces in the diner. He glanced to his left just as he got to the front door.

His waitress was standing in the little alcove, speaking in Russian into her cellphone. She seemed agitated, and then she noticed him there at the front. She slipped her phone into her pocket, and started walking his way, her eyes dead cold, like she was ready to shoot him for skipping out on her. Something attracted his eyes for just a second as he pushed through the front door. Her hands. They were green.

Logan high-tailed it out of the diner and around the corner to the waiting car. Fusco was in the driver's seat, and Logan jumped in on the passenger side, folding himself into the space before he could release the seat enough to fit. Fusco took off, to another chorus of car horns.

"Step on it. They definitely made me," Logan said. Fusco accelerated around a stopped car and blew through the cross-walk and then into the intersection, forcing himself between and around a gaggle of cars there, then to the left, heading upstream away from the corner diner. Logan felt the exhilaration in the pit of his stomach. Fusco was a good driver, even with only one eye. He'd gotten them through the knot of on-coming traffic and up the street, out of harm's way. Logan leaned back, realizing he'd been leaning far forward in his seat. They could both relax a little now.

The back window exploded into a million shards, spraying glass over the two of them. The dashboard in front of Logan deformed and popped in the same instant. They both flinched with the sound and sudden spray of glass pelting them.

Fusco swerved the car side to side then, weaving as best he could in traffic, and then he tried to pull across more on-coming traffic into the side street on his left. More horns and people yelling obscenities at them – as they forced their way across the intersection. Handsful of glass slid and rolled off the flat trunk surface in the back, tumbling onto the pavement like glistening jewels.

Reese looked up. He'd heard a sound up ahead as he walked the sidewalk - in the sight-line of the shot that hit Shaw.

A gunshot. He was sure of it.

Reese took off, running, for the diner.