Chapter 12

"I must admit given everything that happened between, you're probably the last person I ever expected to come and see me," Ben said the next day.

Locke gave one of those enigmatic smiles everybody on the island had often found maddening. "I'll admit there's still a fair amount of reluctance among any of my friends for any of us," he looked at Claire, "other than her to visit you going forward. Even the idea of protecting you is repulsive to a lot of us. But I think all of us know what its like to be in a situation spiraling out of control. That goes for you as much as any of us."

"And I guess is Claire is hear to babysit us?" Ben wasn't entirely joking.

"Considering that the two of you notoriously brought out the worst in the other, you definitely need a mature head watching you."

"I'm pretty sure both of us were just insulted," Ben actually sounded amused.

"It's better given the alternative," Locke told them. "Try not to make me lock you in the closet."

Ben took a deep breath. "Better than anyone else you know to take the things I say with a grain of salt. So I don't expect you to believe when I tell you this. I'm genuinely sorry for all the misery I caused you on the island. I was jealous and bitter and I took that out the same way I always did. By manipulating a person's weak spot."

"Were you trying to get all of us killed?" Locke asked.

"Which time?" Ben said dryly.

"The button. You knew it was real, you knew how dangerous it was, and you made me doubt myself so much I could have destroyed the island," Locke said bluntly. "Which, by the way, would've killed you too? So why did you try so hard to convince me it wasn't real?"

Ben thought for a moment. "I don't have a good reason," he finally said. "At the time I wanted to crush your faith. I thought you might be a good candidate for recruitment, so I needed to see how deep your belief truly was in the island. But that's barely a plausible excuse, let alone a justification. It comes back to being jealous and bitter. I knew that the island had healing you and two days before your plane crashed the island gave me a spinal tumor. I'd been loyal to the island for thirty years and it gave me cancer. The instant you arrived, you were walking from a four year paralysis. When I saw how desperate you were about the timer and the button, I knew you really believed in it. I wanted to hurt you. So I lied." He actually looked sad. "It's what I do best."

"And given a chance for your freedom, you chose not to run away because…" Claire asked.

"I had a tumor on my spine. Running wasn't exactly easy," Ben reminded Claire. "Besides until my people convinced Michael to agree to his deal, there wasn't any point." Ben looked at them both. "I know it doesn't make any difference and I don't expect it to make Michael feel any better, but I never for a moment thought he'd kill anyone. "

"You'd kidnapped his son. You didn't think that might make him desperate?" Locke genuinely sounded angry now.

"He'd had a chance to kill you and Jack when he went chasing after Walt in the first place," Ben began.

"After you pretended to be Walt to manipulate him into running into your arms," Claire countered.

"He'd come after you with a rifle and a gun. Did you really think he wouldn't do whatever he thought it would take?" Locke pointed out. "He nearly killed himself after he came back to civilization, by the way. That's how big a number you did on his head. So don't use that line that you and your people were 'the good guys'."

"You isolated yourself from everyone else in the name of the island," Ben pointed out.

"And I was wrong then." Locke countered. "Just like you were. We both have to acknowledge that point going forward."

Ben was silent. "Did you tell them what I did to her?" he finally asked.

Locke didn't have to ask what this was about. "Not until I realized that she'd taken James' gun," he said softly. "That's why we were all rushing back to the hatch. By then it was too late."

"I really thought I was going to die," Ben admitted. "All the threats I had faced in thirty years I thought I was going to be killed trying to escape. I could've said something to save my life – told her I knew where her people were, told her about my daughter, hell, told her I had cancer – and instead, I just kept baiting her. It was like I was begging her to shoot me. That was my lowest point. I knew what a horrible person I was and my last act was making the person who killed me feel like they were the monster."

"All due respect, Ben, you didn't exactly seem like you'd hit bottom when I saw you again," Locke countered. "If anything it seemed like you were determined to keep digging."

"I said it was my lowest point. I didn't say I learned anything from the experience," Ben acknowledged. "Sometimes you need more than one lesson. I like to think I finally learned it."

"I guess that's the real reason I'm here," Locke told him. "To see if a tiger really can change his stripes."

Ben was quiet. "You have the footage I asked for?"

Claire nodded and handed him the tape.

It had been less twelve hours since Juliet had learned about Arizona Robbins' 'interview' but in that period a lot had changed. She'd gone to Robbins' office and found a business card. It had been for Mittelos, the same company Richard and Ben had used to recruit here nearly six years earlier, but Richard's name wasn't on it.

Matthew Abaddon's was.

Juliet had the good sense to call the number even though she wasn't surprised to find that it had been disconnected. There was no need for it; they had what they wanted. Still possessed of the ability to keep her head in a crisis she had called Jack, told him what she knew and that they needed to try and retrace Arizona's correspondence with 'Mittelos' as best as they could. To that end, they used their best resource: Penny.

It took the tech staff of Widmore less than an hour to figure out what had happened: five days earlier, Matthew Abaddon had reached out to Dr. Robbins' with a 'recruitment opportunity involving science particularly in regard to pediatrics." Abaddon hadn't gone anywhere near the hospital, so he'd sent an address for a meeting place two days earlier in a business complex in Tacoma. It didn't take much digging to find out that the complex had been bought by Widmore Industries six months previous – which was interesting because Penny hadn't authorized it. She was in the process of tracking that down.

The good news was because it was a Widmore property Penny had access to all the security footage. She was going through it on her end to see if there was anyone familiar to her. Claire had pointed out that they also should go at this from the 'Other' end and see if Ben knew anybody on it.

"I hope you can handle eye strain," Claire told them as they walked over to the machine. "It's been pared down significantly just to the relevant people, but even so there's well over eleven hours of footage."

"That's all there was?" Ben asked.

"Right now, we're focusing just on the last week," Locke told him. "One crisis at a time."

"I assume you've been circling around the interview with Robbins," Ben pointed out.

"Starting an hour previous and ending an hour afterwards," Locke said. He put the tape in. "At the very least it's got to be better footage than the kind you were used to on the island."

"It's not like we could call for tech support," Ben mentioned that last almost distractedly; he was already focused on the screen.

There was silence for more than ten minutes before Ben said anything: "That's Dr. Robbins coming out of the elevator, I assume?"

"According to Jack and Juliet yes," Claire told him. "Why?"

"There's a woman in the corner of the screen," Ben said. "Is there anyway you can enhance the footage?"

"We can do better than that," Locke pushed a button. The picture isolated the woman, zoomed in and enhanced.

"I guess there are more advantages to technology than I was willing to admit," Ben said with the faintest note of admiration.

"I'm guessing you know this woman," Claire said.

"I know who she represents. And it's not my people."

"Who is she?"

"The name I know her under is Elsa Glaus." Ben said slowly. "Her cover story is that she is the personal assistant to an economist who works out of Berlin."

"And none of that is true," Locke said.

"She is an assistant in the sense that she gets things done for him," Ben told her. "And the man is only an economist in the sense in the sense that he is very vested interest in certain people's money."

"Let me guess. He's the man who helped Charles Widmore go from an Other to a billionaire industrialist," Claire said.

Ben actually blinked a few times. "You know, I honestly wondered when any of you were going to ask this particular question."

"To be fair Hugo asked it first," Locke said with a smile. "As he put it: 'I doubt the island has a paper route when you start there and I seriously doubt Jacob was nice enough to give Widmore a winning lottery ticket."

"I always underestimated Hugo," Ben said with a small smile. "And indeed he's right. One of Widmore's first contacts when he started leaving the island was with this particular individual. What makes it even strangers is one of the men this economist worked with."

"Alvar Hanso," Locke said. "You can stop speaking in vague terms, Ben. We may not know much as you, but we have caught up quite a bit. Though it does seem odd that Widmore would do business with someone who financed Dharma considering he spent so much time on the island trying to kill the end result."

"Charles was a very practical man. Ruthless, but practical nevertheless. He convinced this economist – and I genuinely don't know his real name, so I can't help you there – that since his interests involved the island, it would be helpful for him to have another connection."

"Good old capitalism. Really does make strange bedfellows," Claire said, more to herself than anybody. "What about Eloise Hawking? Was she part of that connection?"

"This is one of the few areas I can't answer," Ben told them. "I only knew her by reputation. By the time I was in a position of leadership among my people, she'd been gone for years. The only person who really talked about her was Richard. I know I'm a cold man, but Charles had known her for more than twenty years and after she left, I don't think he ever mentioned her name."

The Oceanics had made the decision not to reveal Daniel's connection to Widmore or the island unless Ben revealed he knew. "Is she one of the people you were going to reach out to?" Locke asked instead.

"You made contact with her two years ago, correct," Ben said almost casually.

"Yes, but since then we've never seen her," Locke said slowly. "And just to be clear, we weren't looking for at the time."

"She has a habit of being where she thinks she needs to be," Ben said.

"And how do you think that's possible?" Claire asked.

Ben then went back to that maddening habit he had of not answering the question he'd been asked. "If Elsa and Abaddon are involved in this 'recruitment' of Dr. Robbins, it seems clear that the people behind this new search are Widmore's former associates. I'll go over the rest of the footage to see if there's anyone else I recognize, but for now I think it's relatively clear that these people are going to making another expedition to the island in at most a matter of days."

"How much time did it take Widmore's people to assemble a team before?" Locke asked.

"Getting the personnel probably took a week at the most. Preparation was probably more advanced than that." Ben didn't have to imply the major part of that 'preparation' had been.

"Well they can't use the cover of trying to find a plane crash," Claire reminded him. "So what kind of cover story are they going to use? It's not like they have the same name to provide them cover with."

"Much as I'd like to think otherwise, these people aren't idiots," Ben told them. "They do learn from their mistakes. They tried a freighter full of mercenaries and it not only went nowhere, the man in charge is in prison. So they'll have to try something that completely looks above reproach even to the people they send."

"The people on the freighter didn't know anything about the true nature of the island," Locke reminded him. "How much more clandestine can you get?"

"There's only one way I can think of. And even by the standards I've seen it's pretty insane," Ben told them. "None of the people involved can truly know they're even on search for something."

"Like, say, getting them on a passenger plane heading over the Pacific," Locke said simply.

"They may believe lightning will strike twice," Ben said.

Claire wasn't paying attention any more. "John, would you mind playing the footage forward a little," she said in a tone that wasn't nearly as placid as usual.

Locke looked concerned but did as he was told. Claire asked him to focus and enhance the footage on a man in the corner of the screen. "Do you recognize him?"

Claire didn't answer immediately. Instead she looked at Ben. "How detailed was my file?"

"Which detail do you have in mind?" Ben asked.

"Did you know why I was on the plane in the first place?"

"To give your child up for adoption," Ben told her. "We weren't sure why you'd turned down the offer the Stewart family had made the day before you got on the plane but the assumption was that it had something to do with the death of your father. Your mother was still in her coma, so we thought it possible that you wanted to talk with whatever family you had left before you made any decisions."

"So the name Richard Malkin didn't show up in my file."

A look of what seemed to be genuine surprise appeared on Ben's face. "How do you know Richard Malkin?"

Locke's mind was still on the footage. "The man in the building with Dr. Robbins is that Malkin?" he asked.

Claire nodded. "I'd recognize the bastard who put me on that plane anywhere."

Ben looked for a second. "What's your connection to him?"

"You really didn't know I had one?" Claire was understandably suspicious.

"I'm not denying we knew who he was," Ben told her. "But it's not for the reason you think. He was the reason another survivor got on the plane. Someone you both knew."

This was clearly a shock for all three of them. "Tell him what you know," Locke told Claire.

So Claire did, starting with the trip to the psychic a friend had gotten her, the reading he had given, the phone calls that had followed for weeks leading to him giving her a plane ticket to LA and insisting it had to be Oceanic 815,

Ben looked stunned to hear all this. "I knew, of course, that there were people in the world with this kind of gift – I'd always assumed Jacob had it – but I never thought for a minute that this man was anything other than a charlatan."

"What connection did he have with the plane?"

Ben actually looked a little dismayed. "I paid less attention to his file than I should have," he said slightly downcast. "It was my own jealousy that got in the way. I was inclined to dismiss Goodwin's lists and notifications even though his intelligence was far superior to Ethan's."

Locke instantly knew who he was talking about. "Malkin had a connection to Eko," he asked Ben.

"Given everything you told me – and considering his own devotion to the island – he probably would have been a better candidate for recruitment," Ben acknowledged. "When I was your gun cabinet, he was the only one of you who was genuinely apologetic for what was happening to me and for what he'd ended up doing to our people."

"What did Malkin have to do with Eko?"

"Like I said, I didn't check at his file that closely." A look of sourness and remorse appeared on Ben's face. "But another of my people studied it intensely." He took a deep breath. "Do you think Juliet still hates me enough that she wouldn't tell you the truth?"

"No, but she'll tell us."

SHEPHARD RESIDENCE

TWO HOURS LATER

"Blondie, much as I love you it's things like these that make me honestly wonder if you're still following the Others very long con," James told his wife.

Juliet to her credit looked genuinely ashamed. "I'll be honest. Until Claire recognized Malkin in the footage I wasn't sure it mattered. Eko was dead and she told us that after she got back to Sydney with some very pointed questions and found his home empty, Claire wanted to put it behind her."

"This is the bloody island," Desmond said resignedly. "You should've known better."

"All right," Jack said calmly. "We clearly have to deal with it. Do you remember what Eko's connection to Richard Malkin was?"

"It wasn't to Malkin. It was to his daughter, Charlotte," Juliet looked at them. "Under the name of Father Tunde Eko was called from his parish to investigate for the Vatican the possibility of a miracle."

"What kind of miracle?" Locke asked.

"A resurrection," Juliet said. "A month earlier Charlotte Malkin had been going swimming in deep water and drowned. When the paramedics pulled her body out, she was declared dead. Which came as an immense shock to the coroner and the orderly as they were preparing to perform her autopsy two hours later and she stood up screaming."

Locke considered this. "Not to sound like Jack here, but there could have been a medical explanation," he said gently. "If the water had been cold enough and her temperature slipped below freezing, she could have appeared dead to the EMTs and regained consciousness when she warmed up."

"Keep talking like that John and we'll make a man of science of you yet," Jack said.

The laughter lightened the mood, which was Jack had hoped.

"That's essentially the explanation her father gave when Eko went to interview her daughter," Juliet paused. "He also said her mother had done this in order to shame him. To Eko he said he only pretended to be a psychic in order to earn money. Eko didn't press it."

"So either he was lying to Eko or to Mamacita," James pondered. "And since they both ended up on our plane because of something he said, either way he knew what was coming."

"Charlie told me he believed Claire about Malkin," Hurley said suddenly. "She told him just before Ethan…you know." Even now he was being considerate of Juliet's feelings. "And I don't know about the rest of it, but Charlie believed that there were people who had that kind of gift."

"What about you, Hugo?" John asked.

"I think that if the Others had a psychic working for them, it would explain how they knew how to grab Arizona Robbins before we even knew she was in danger," Hurley pointed out. "And it's not like it's the most unbelievable thing we've heard about anything involving the island."

"Doesn't even crack the top ten," James agreed.

Just then Sayid and Penny reentered the room. "You find what we needed?" The two of them had been going through the records and trying to make matches between the lists Ben had given them and the ones Penny already had about her father's former associates.

"We finished cross-checking the lists. Under the name Eleanor Glass, the building that was used for the meeting with Dr. Robbins was rented last month," Penny told them.

Hurley was puzzled. "They only reached out to Dr. Robbins a week ago. What were they doing before that?"

"Classic long con," James said with just a hint of admiration. "You have to make certain your backstory is so good that by the time someone tries to punch a hole through it, there are only phantoms left."

"Also classic Others," Juliet admitted. "I'm guessing the building's deserted with no sign anyone even lived there."

"Not even a trace," Sayid acknowledged. "Whether it was because they had what they came for or they knew their cover had been blown, there was no sign of any obvious evidence anyone worked there a week ago."

"They had your family's kind of bucks, last thing they probably did was hire a cleaning crew," James guessed. "They probably weren't dumb enough to use bleach, but my guess is we wouldn't find fingerprints or hair either." Everyone looked at him. "In my old line of work, I knew a couple of teams that worked that way."

"Do we have anything that might give us a hint what happened to Robbins after she ended up at the storefront?" Jack asked, almost in desperation. "Or should we just start searching passenger manifests for all planes heading out over the Pacific?"

"There were four other names on that list," Kate said slowly. "Do you really think they're just going to leave without them?"

"Not a chance," Sayid took a deep breath and looked into the distance.

James got it right away. "We're there, aren't we?"

"It's really going to be hard to avoid it," Sayid agreed.

"I'm pretty sure I know what 'there' means, but pretend I'm still the dope you all think I am," Hurley said slowly.

"You were never a dope, Hoss, we just treated you like one sometimes," James was more than willing to acknowledge his flaws. "Doc, you led us into battle before, you wanna do the honors?"

"This is where we have to decide how far we're willing to go to stop these people," Jack said slowly. "Up until this point we've operated within the law. On the fringes of it, to be sure, but nothing really illegal. If we go any further, there's no way this ends without a lot of violence. And when it does, there will be consequences that we all managed to avoid when we did basically the same things on the island."

"The kind of things that not even Alan could get us out of?" Hurley asked.

"Alan's a brilliant attorney and I'm sure he'd be willing to go to bat for us," Kate admitted. "Hell, we might even be able to get his entire firm to help us. But at the end of the day, the story would still be the same. A group of survivors of a plane crash engaged in a series of violent actions that ended up with a lot of people dead."

"And at that point the question becomes how many of us end up going to prison," Locke acknowledged.

"There's no 'if' about it," James reminded him. "Freckles and I, we're both ex-cons. We both end up in jail just for being there. Jin, I honestly don't know how closely the American prison system will try and track down what you did working for Sun's father, but the best case scenario is the two of you end up getting deported. And having heard some of the horror stories out of Congress the last few years the best thing Sayid can hope for is a life sentence in a good old American jail."

All of them had known this but it didn't make it any easier to hear. "Not to sound all cynical or anything, but doesn't being rich and famous count for something?" Hurley asked.

"There's a good chance the rest of you might be able to walk away unscathed," Kate admitted. "But it's not that good. Best case scenario for Jack and Juliet, conspiracy charges and it can be a lot easier to prove those than some of the more complicated ones. It's possible that you and Claire could walk away completely clean if you did nothing to help us at all, but you'd spend the rest of your life with people giving you dirty looks."

"You really think that bothers me?" Hurley asked.

"That's the best case scenario," James hesitated. "Knowing Alan, he'd probably have you try to plead some kind of diminished capacity."

"You mean say I was crazy," Hurley finished.

"It might be the one good thing your little stay in Santa Rosa ever did for you," Jack told him.

"And the rest of us?" Claire asked. "The ones who came back later?"

"Wouldn't make a difference," Locke pointed out. "They'd ask more question as to how we got involved in this, but the end result would be the same. Throw in the fact that in the addition to all my other problems I was suffering from severe depression, they could say I was easily manipulated. And we all know how well the justice system works for people like Michael on a good day."

"So unless we do this perfectly – and even if we do – there's a good chance we end up behind bars," Jack told them. "This is not the way I really wanted 'live together, die alone' to play out."

Hurley took this in. "You really don't think this kind of speech is going to talk us out of doing the right thing, do you?"

Jack gave a small smile. "Just because it's the right thing doesn't make it any less criminal. And I'm not entirely sure if we use that as a defense at our trials that it will help us much, even if Alan is the one saying it."

"We do get that much, Jack," Locke pointed out. "Everyone knows in this room that for doing what we did on the island all of us would be facing prison in civilization. So I guess the question is: are we sure that what we're considering doing is truly the only path forward?"

Jack thought for a minute then turned to Sayid. "We are about to go to war again," he said simply. "You're the soldier. Is there a way we can do this without going into battle ourselves?"

Sayid understood the deeper meaning of the question. He was married, but unlike the rest of them his wife was someone not directly involved in this battle. He had struggled the longest to be reunited with her and to find happiness. In that sense he had far more to lose than the rest of them.

"There are no good solutions," he finally said. "If we do this, then I really do think life in prison is the best case scenario for all of us. If we send other people to fight for us – and where we'd find them is a question I'm not sure any of us can answer – then we are no better than Widmore or Ben Linus or the people we're fighting right now."

"It was a lot easier to deal with moral dilemmas when survival was day to day," James agreed. "You know, when we could pretend we weren't in the real world."

That James was admitting as much said that he basically denounced his old mantra of 'every man for himself'.

"This is the last chance to get out," Jack told them. "And I don't think any of us would be upset if anybody else decided to."

There was a long silence. In a sense all of them had made up their minds already but they needed someone to put into words. So in a way, it was fitting when Locke ended up speaking.

"I'm not going to start talking about destiny, in case anyone was worried," he said slowly. "Even after everything that happened to us, even after what I saw in that lighthouse, I believe that at some point we decide what happens to us. That was true even on the island. We were brought there, but once we were there the force that brought us there stepped away. I was right about us being brought there, but I was wrong about why."

Everyone knew what a huge admission that was from Locke.

"At some point we decide what happens to us," Locke continued. "And I think the choices we make – the ones we have to make – are the ones we can live with. Otherwise, there really isn't much point to life at all."

"So you've made your decision, John," Jack asked.

"I think we all have," John said. "The only question left is: what's the best way to do it?"

Sayid shook his head. "You were right about being there, James," he said slowly. "And there is a way to do it that might result in protecting the people we care about and maybe even fewer people dying. It's just not something any of us – myself in particular – want to do."

Again they all knew what Sayid was talking about and no one was disagreeing. No one was particularly happy about it but the solution – like so many of the ones they had made when they were on the island – was ultimately the most pragmatic.

Locke again put it into words. "We can still try and operate the way we have before," he told them. "There's no reason we have to all share space with the man."

"It's not like it hasn't been working," Claire pointed out. "None of us have ever trusted Ben, but you have to admit he's been more open and honest with us the last week than he ever was with anyone else on the island."

"I appreciate your offering, Claire," Sayid acknowledged, "but I think we all knew that at some point we were going to have to engage with that man more than we wanted. We've been delaying it because the situation remained fluid, but like everything else, we have reached that point."

"That being said I still think you need to reduce as much contact between you two," Jack said. "For all the growth both of you have made over the years, I remember how easily he brought out the worst in you."

Sayid had no intention of debating that. He couldn't deny how just before he'd begun his 'interrogation of Henry Gale' how calmly he had said: "My name is Sayid Jarrah and I am a torturer." All the vows he had made to put his old self away after he had attacked James nearly two months earlier had gone out the window in an instant. The fact that Henry Gale had indeed been 'one of them' didn't change certain facts. That he had not felt the least bit bad for what he had done afterwards. That he had been able to turn off the compassionate part of himself as simply as flicking a light switch. And most of all the fact that he just felt this was always who he would be. For all the change that had happened since leaving the island, a part of him was genuinely afraid what might happen if he was in a closed room with Ben Linus for more than a few minutes.

"He had a habit of doing that with all of us," he said. He looked at Locke. "You spent more time with him than the rest of us. Do you think he's changed?"

"The thing that's changed about him is he's not on the island anymore," Locke reminded them. "He was a big fish there – or at least he pretended to be – but in the real world his powers gone and he knows it."

Claire nodded. "Stevens and Karev knew it in just five minutes," she agreed. "It might actually help if one or both of them were in the room with us at all times."

"They really have that kind of power him," Sayid asked.

"No question," Claire acknowledged. "Izzie because she has empathy and a mystical connection he didn't have in the real world and Alex because he doesn't take any crap from anybody and he is completely devoted to Izzie. Together they can tear him to ribbons in a matter of seconds."

James noticed a look on Sayid's face. "You feeling guilty or jealous?" he asked.

"A little of both," Sayid admitted.

"The reason what you tried didn't work is the same reason why what they did worked," Claire told him. "On the island, he had all the power and he knew it. Here, he has none and he knows it too."

"In my experience – and I knew this long before I got on the plane – just because someone has no power doesn't make them any less dangerous. If anything, it can make them far more so."

None of them denied that. "Do you trust my judgment?" Claire asked.

"I wouldn't have let you go to him in the first place if I didn't," Sayid acknowledged.

"I know how dangerous he can be," Claire reminded him. "But right now he needs our help as much as we need his. It doesn't mean he might not turn us if it suits his interests, but right now the only power he has is his mouth."

"Which is considerable, but if he ain't got an army to listen to him it's worthless," James pointed out.

Sayid considered this for a long moment. "I think you're right about not being in the same room with him," he said slowly. "But I think we need someone else there who's known him longer than the rest of us. Someone who has an idea how his corkscrew mind works."

A smile that they had never seen on Juliet's face was slowly forming. "Someone who really didn't mind when she saw how you'd put him through the meat grinder when he rejoined us."

Even James, who'd killed Tom in cold blood before he left the island and loved his wife despite the secrets she'd kept, was a little scared when he saw the grin on her face. "He put a gun to your head the last time you were in the same room," he said slowly.

"I was there James," Juliet said in an eerily calm voice.

"We do need him right now, much as it pains me to say it," James said in a more reasoned tone. "So if you have to shoot him, aim somewhere that won't kill him." He hesitated. "Right away."

UNDISCLOSED SITUATION

"I told you it was a mistake to get Robbins off the board this early," Elsa said angrily.

"You know about the time issues involved," Matthew Abaddon said in that far too calm voice.

"You had issues last time, and you managed to recruit an entire team without raising an eyebrow."

"And you remember how well that went. We had to change our approach."

"And instead you alerted them to the level of our surveillance. We wouldn't be in this bind if it weren't for your brazen approach," Elsa was practically snarling. "You may think because of your gifts you're indispensible. Let me remind you, in the service of the island, no one is. Remember your place."

Without waiting for a response she hung up. "That goes for the rest of you. Even those of you who think they know better."

"Then we'd better hurry." Everyone, even Elsa, looked at Malkin. "Because they know almost everything now."

Elsa knew of the man's powers but was still doubtful. "How?"

"Linus recognized you. He's already told them who you represent and what we're planning."

"Impossible," Avellino said. "Linus would never work with the survivors."

"He wants to find the island as badly as we do," Elsa said reluctantly. "He's a realist. "

"He's been off the board for two years. How accurate could –"

"Never underestimate that man," Elsa instructed. "We have to accelerate the timetable."

"But the window doesn't open for another week!"

"We don't have a choice. We have to get to the rest of them."

"And how do you suggest we do that now that they know of our presence?" Avellino demanded.

"We go after the one person that would force the other people on the list to come to us," Elsa said solemnly.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Come on. Whenever Ben and Locke were in the same room led to some of the series greatest moments. It was inevitable they were going to be together soon.

I always wondered about Ben's actions in Lockdown. Why didn't he run away when he knew his lie would be exposed? What was the real reason he had for saying he hadn't pushed the button when he of all people knew how important it was it kept getting pushed? I'm trying to give reasons into the corkscrew mind of Ben. I hope I did a good job.

I think Ben had every reason to think Ana Lucia would kill him at the end of Two for the Road. And let's be honest: how many people might've lived had Ana decided not to solve this problem with her gun? Hers, certainly.

Yes that's the Elsa we met in Sayid's flashforward. A lot of people who Sayid killed in Season 4 are still alive now and they're going to be a problem.

I've always wondered how Charles Widmore made all his money and I figured the other millionaire on the show might well have asked the question before anyone else.

Claire's psychic – one of the great unanswered mysteries of Lost. What did he know about the island and was he telling the truth to Claire or to Eko? He's going to be a big player going forward.

I may be going out on a limb about Ben not knowing about Malkin's involvement in Claire's story but we never did get the idea as to just how deep those files went. They didn't know she was pregnant. That said, they would definitely have known about why Eko was in Sydney so its hard to imagine they wouldn't have heard about him.

I do think its possible Ben would have dismissed the people in the tail section simply because he'd sent Goodwin there more to resolve his jealousy than for any real recruits.

Juliet in the same room with Ben. We've been waiting this for years.

I think readers of the last chapter know who the last sentence refers to. If you don't, I'm not giving it away.

Keep on reading and reviewing.