Chapter 30: crack the silence; "...that won't be you..."; He was sure the Machine had noticed; So near, too far;
Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...
Safe-house, Manhattan, same day
They sat across from each other at the kitchen table, Reese staring into his coffee, while Harold made tea. He doused pale green leaves nestled in a mesh cup with barely-boiled water from a kettle. That familiar fragrance of his favorite Sencha tea lifted from the wet leaves. Delicate, inviting. Just the act of making the tea itself was calming. As it steeped, Harold's eyes raised up to his friend sitting there.
Was it his imagination? Or did Mr. Reese look pale, too – especially with a day or two of fresh stubble on his face. Of course, loss of blood from his life-saving transfusion was bound to take a toll. Fine lines around his eyes, and dark circles under them reminded Harold that none of the Team had been sleeping lately; running missions late into the night, up all day the next. And Mr. Reese had the extra weight of executing their missions, deploying their Team members, retrieving them when things went awry. Theirs was a merciless life at times, caught in the swells of Fate, lifted up and dashed on the rocks of Chance.
As much as they believed themselves to be informed, purposely interfering with the lethal plans of others, they were not immune themselves. A bullet. A run off the road. A dangerous encounter with a stealthy foe. These were the uncharted shallows, lying in wait under murky waters. Vigilance, constant exhausting vigilance, was all that protected them in the moment.
Harold lifted the metal sieve from the pot and swirled the contents inside. Pale green tea poured from the spout and filled his cup. He sat the teapot down in front of him and while his tea cooled for a bit, he placed the cover on the pot and slid a cozy over to keep it warm for a second cup. Through all of it, Reese had stared into his own cup, barely sipping.
"It's good to see Miss Shaw awake and standing," Harold said, raising his eyes to Reese. A little nod from him, but not much else.
"You know, it's odd – I have the blood types for all of you stored in the Machine – but two of them were wrong, Mr. Reese. If we had gone by those instead of the technique you used, Miss Shaw could have come to more harm." Reese raised his eyes to Finch.
"Where did you get the blood types, Finch?" He listened as Finch told him about their Service dog tags. He said he'd taken the information from them when they'd each joined the Team, except for Miss Rose, and Mr. Pierce who'd never served. Reese nodded.
"Old Ranger trick, Finch. We knew the tags were wrong sometimes – can't depend on 'em in combat – we always checked, ourselves." Harold settled back in his seat, nodding at this news. Inside, he smiled. He'd cracked the silence with Reese.
Reese leaned back and took a sip of his coffee. He knew what Harold was up to – and he'd let his friend crack the silence.
It was time to get back to the topic of the men in black, uniformed men who had stalked their Team, hacked Harold's phone, and perhaps had had a hand in wounding Shaw. There were leads to follow – the diner, a short drive away, and the Russians he had photographed inside it.
"Anything new about the two Russians, Finch?" Reese got up and walked to the sink, pouring his now-cold drink down the drain, refilling with hot brew from the urn. He sipped as he walked back.
"Vasiliy Petrov, and his son, Andrei. The father is a wealthy businessman in Russia. Ruthless, hot-tempered from my reading of the newspapers. He arrived here two years ago after the sale of the building. His son arrived a year ago. They keep a low profile here, Mr. Reese, but the Machine identified several agencies monitoring the location."
"Not surprising, Finch," Reese said in his whisper-voice.
"Oh, and I re-ran any available video of the diner for the last few months. Nothing that looked like a rifle went in or out in that time."
"What about deliveries? Maybe something moving that way?"
"The Machine is reviewing footage now, Mr. Reese. And there is the matter of the marker we used on our cellphones. It turned up inside the diner, according to Mr. Pierce. Concentrated around the front desk where the cash register is located, which suggests the men who handle all the money – Vasiliy and Andrei."
"It's time we pay another visit to the diner, Finch. After hours this time."
Safe-house, later the same day
Down the hall, a freshly-washed Shaw sat up in her bed, sipping her first cup of coffee in nearly two days. No wonder she'd been nauseated before – caffeine withdrawal. Not the first time she'd done it to herself; she'd hugged the bowl on a few occasions, deprived of her drug of choice. The dull sick headache she had would wind slowly to a mere annoyance, and tomorrow she'd feel like a new person. Such is the power of a good cup of joe.
"Are you hungry, Sameen?" Root asked, from her chair at the side of her bed. Shaw shook her head, no. Too soon for that. She'd settle for some coffee for now. She just wanted to be able to think clearly. This cloudy, stuffed feeling in her head made it hard to think – and that was not her. Her brain was always dependable, logical to a fault, some would say. But, she'd been through this before and it would pass – the sooner, the better. She had no patience for down-time. They had to get back to the mission – she realized she was blanking on their mission. She tried to rewind back to the start of things, but she drew a blank. Root could see it in her eyes, but before she could say anything, Harper spoke up first.
"I'll bet you need some fill-in-the-blanks time, right?" Shaw turned and gave her a tiny nod, her dark eyes cold and distant. For a second, Harper had a flash of memory – Reese's eyes the day before – unnerving, like something not quite human. It confirmed her feeling all along that these two were the most dangerous people she'd ever met. A chill went through her, and she held back for a moment so her voice wouldn't give her away. Root jumped in then, and Shaw turned her eyes there, leaving Harper to exhale through pursed lips.
"Do you remember anything, Sameen?" Shaw paused and recalled some antic of Root's in the diner. She remembered they'd gone there for breakfast after Root had shown up at her door and stayed the night.
"You were talking with a Southern drawl," Shaw said, and at that Harper's ears perked up. Root beamed.
"That's right! Remember we were in the diner, and that bitchy waitress came to take our order?" Root watched her eyes as Sameen tried to pull in the face of their waitress. She could tell Sameen was drawing a blank.
"Skinny Russian?" Root prompted.
Nothing. No sign of any recollection. It was going to take some time for her to get things back. Maybe it was better that Sameen didn't remember parts of it. Root decided she'd just cover the highlights for now, and bring her up to date. The rest she could tell her when Sameen wanted to know more.
For the next hour, the two women filled in Shaw with the story of the last two days.
Root covered the part in the diner, when they'd realized it was suddenly empty of people, and they'd run for the back door. Men in black had rushed in, chasing them into the lot and down an alleyway to the street. She described the two of them crossing, heading down the sidewalk on the other side. When Root looked back, Sameen had been shot. Sameen reached for her shoulder then, as Root went on with the story.
They'd made their way to an alley and jimmied a door leading into a warehouse to distract anyone following. Then the two of them climbed out to a rooftop and then down a fire escape a few buildings over. By then, Sameen was bleeding and they were on foot, so Root stole a van. She didn't want to take a chance that they'd be followed. That was why she didn't drive to the safe-house, directly. And they dared not reach out to the rest of the Team. Root took Sameen to a friend's home, someone she knew she could trust, and who would keep their secret. The family tended to Sameen, while Root got rid of the van so no one would connect it back to the two of them.
In the middle of the night, Harold and the Team traced them to the apartment and brought them out. Sameen was crashing from her wound, and they headed for the nearest trauma hospital. But, Harold's call to alert Reese was intercepted, and they were chased by men in two SUVs. The Team headed for the safe-house, instead. Reese took out the SUVs so they could get through to the safe-house.
Sameen took all of this in as though it had happened to someone else. Her expression stayed the same, unfazed through the telling. It wasn't until Root got to the part about how bad she'd looked, how scared Root was that she was bleeding inside, and what happened next. They could see something change in her eyes – as Root told her about Reese giving her his blood to save her life.
For a long minute they were sure that Shaw would say something, would acknowledge the act in some way. If there was a struggle, some emotional response inside her, there was nothing, no sign of it outside. Root and Harper exchanged glances.
Harper took over, then, and told Sameen about Joey and her finding the Russian waitress hiding in the bathroom stall; the rest of the staff and customers tied up in the storeroom; and then the waitress escaping when police arrived to investigate. She went on to tell her about tagging their cellphones - after Harold's phone had been hacked. And then Logan finding the same marker inside the diner. Someone there had found their phones in the trash where Harper had planted them. Handling them had transferred the marker to their hands and Logan had seen it all over the counter and the cash register.
"We need to get back into that diner," Shaw said. The two women exchanged glances again, and Root took a deep breath. In her most syrupy Southern drawl, she said to Sameen:
"Why, that won't be you, sweet thing." Shaw rolled her eyes and shook her head.
Safe-house, evening of the same day
In his room at the end of the hall, Harold sat at his desk. His chair was turned and he stared off in the distance, deep in thought. From the laptop, the Machine observed him. There it was again. That expression on his face – the one that defied its search algorithms. Millions of moments scanned and saved through their years of interaction. And this singular expression defied its analysis. The Machine had a collection of them now – but how to classify them, how to assign meaning. It was at a loss. If the Machine could have shrugged its shoulders, it would have.
Harold turned to face his desk. He needed to focus. Tonight he would press himself into service. He was the last of the Team who hadn't been seen in the diner. He would go there with someone Mr. Reese had contacted, a fixer who had years of practice in the art of deception. The two of them would create a small diversion, hopefully distracting any staff there in the middle of the night, so the Team could get in and get a better look. Perhaps they'd find the sniper rifle Reese had seen. Maybe they'd find out who had handled their marked cellphones. A trip back there was worth the risk.
His eyes fell on the date at the corner of the screen. He couldn't help but think of it. Christmas time. Always her favorite time of year. A heaviness settled over him, an ache so deep it took his breath away. He leaned back again, and turned away from the camera. He was sure the Machine had noticed. After so many years together, he was sure it could predict what he'd say, what he'd do – in any situation.
It's not that he minded the constancy of it. For years he'd wanted to serve as a model of human behavior – at least a defined measure of such. The Machine could observe and record, analyze and compare. It would do what it did best, and learn from the experience. And Harold would always make himself available, like a mentor, a father-figure. In that way, the Machine would have an experience of human behavior that could guide it. In his heart, Harold hoped that his devotion to this great experiment would come to keep this world a little safer.
His eyes lifted and he stared off in the distance, as evening light dimmed around him.
Rome, Italy, late December, 2014
When the last of the gifts were unloaded from the vans, Harold watched as the children carried them in. Through the window across the street from where he stood he could watch them. He was careful that Grace wouldn't see him standing there.
More children had spilled from their building - once word spread that something wonderful, and unexpected, had happened on their street. Their eyes danced, and they were rushing back and forth from street to inner courtyard, then back again. Arms full of presents. They'd never seen anything like this.
And Grace. Her eyes full of smiles, pleasure, watching them. This was unexpected, a sudden splash of color and whimsy in their gray existence. Grace's paintbox could stretch just so far. To heal such deep wounds, war wounds, with art alone. It would take more.
Wonder and imagination needed fuel to flourish. This surprise and these gifts would be remembered for a lifetime; and they just might be the fuel needed - to lift these children from a poverty of ideas and hope. She wondered about this unnamed benefactor. Who could this be, and how could she find him, or her, to extend their thanks.
For weeks now, she had had a sense of eyes on her, benevolent, but always watching. She couldn't shake the feeling. As though someone were watching over her and her children from the shadows - keeping them always in view.
Was this more of the same? These gifts? Was there someone in the shadows watching? A tiny voice inside wanted it to be yes, and it gave her this small sense of peace and safety to think of it this way. Her own private protector. Someone who would watch over her. It was like an echo from the past. A memory just out of reach. But tantalizing.
From his window, he could see the excitement, the glee in the children's eyes – heart-warming. So nourishing for Harold. Why hadn't he done this sooner?
His eyes filled again, and threatened to spill over. And his heart. Heavy suddenly. He knew why.
So tied up each day with the pull of crimes planned and thwarted, of victims and perpetrators. This calling of his, once begun, was impossible to leave undone.
Once Harold knew, really knew, what went on around him – how could he just walk away? The Machine, and his Team – they were all that stood between victims and those who would do them harm. Who could intervene if not for his Team? And which of them would just walk away?
Someone would die if they did. Someone would die. Knowing what he knew, it was impossible to leave – impossible now to have this other life.
So much to give up, though. He felt it now. Seeing her again. Seeing her again from this window. He heard himself saying her name out loud, reaching to the glass, touching her through it, as though she were there, an arm's length away.
So near, too far.
If only he could remind her - of their days together, of their past. If only she could smile again, and not shrink from his face. Somehow he would find a way. Plant a seed, watch it grow.
There was time. He could help her remember him. The real him - not the monster in her mind. He could find a way. There was time.