Chapter 22: hellcat (rated T); legend (rated T); Asset intercepted

Manhattan, January, 2015

As Fan nodded back to her mother, she began to turn, lifting her phone from her pocket. There was another step in their plan. Another thing that she needed to do before they left. She raised her phone in front of her, and pushed open the hotel room door. But, just at that second a shot rang out – and Fan's arm jumped from her startle. The picture wobbled.

In the darkness, there was the sound of a struggle, and a woman's voice crying out. Fan slapped the light switch, and a lamp lit next to the bed, where a man's body sprawled. In the corner, three more men struggled to hold a woman. She flailed and kicked at the three of them, while Fan recorded the action on her phone. Then one of the men pulled a rumpled sheet from the bed and wrapped it around her like a snarling, slashing animal, yanking the ends together over her arms and legs. She swung her body, then, trying to escape, and the men struggled to hold her.

Fan watched her lean and reach an arm holding her, biting down on the bare arm, drawing blood. They could hear the curse, in Mandarin, of its owner, pulling back and then swinging his fist in to strike her across the head, spraying his blood over the white sheet. She struggled, swinging her body, trying to throw them off her. She snarled like a wild animal.

Fan barked a command, and one of the men pulled a long wooden stick from his side, and slashed it across her with a thud. Root moaned. Then another strike and another, until there was no more moaning, and Root's body went limp in their arms – wild animal subdued.

Fan stopped recording then, and looked up at the men. She spoke in Mandarin, and the men put Root down on the floor and re-wrapped her in the sheet, more securely this time, then lifted her and carried her out to the hall. Madame Huang stood at the doorway, and she watched Fan gather Root's clothing, the gun she had fired, and the leather tote bag she'd used to carry it in with her. When Fan searched the tote, she smiled, and lifted a second weapon, Root's taser, from the bottom of the bag. She dangled it in front of her mother. This little hellcat was full of surprises, Madame Huang thought to herself. She told her daughter to check their man lying across the bed.

Fan reached over to his neck and felt for his pulse. She moved her fingers a bit each way, and then looked up to her mother, shaking her head, no.

"Leave him," she said in Mandarin. And without a look back, the two women walked from the room, down the hall and out into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. The men were loading Root into the back of an SUV. Madame Huang climbed in on the passenger side, and Fan climbed in with Root in the back. One of the men took the phone from Fan, and waited while the driver pulled the car up under the streetlight, next to a security camera watching the street. Its red eye blinked silently.

The man with Fan's phone climbed the bumper, and then scaled the front of the car and the windshield up to the roof. He stood up straight, facing the camera, with the phone in his hand. Pressing buttons on the glass, he reset the phone to play the movie. Then he turned it to face the eye of the street camera, and started the movie.

The camera eye recorded Fan's movie, red eye blinking as the images fed into the Machine's eye, too. It watched the movie until the end, then watched as the man lowered the phone, peered into the camera and smiled, then climbed down off the top of the SUV, speeding off then, with Root inside.

Abuja, Nigeria, January, 2015

Kara stood first, then Greer, and she watched him for signs of how he wanted to proceed. He leaned forward, reaching his hand out toward Olawale.

"Too bad, my Friend. I thought we could help each other – " Greer started to say. Olawale moved around from the back of his desk, leaving Greer's hand in the air. Kara shot a look toward Greer – a snub like that was bound to lead to trouble. Greer's eyes narrowed, and he looked at his outstretched hand. That was enough for Kara. She pulled her weapon from under her jacket. Time to take control of this situation.

She swung around, with her gun on the group of men at the door, then back at Olawale. She pulled a chair up, and motioned for him to sit down there. And she motioned for the men at the door to back up, and sit on the floor where she could see them. She held her gun on them as they backed themselves away from the door, at Olawale's urging. He raised his arms in the air, lowering his hands over and over to tell the men to sit. Kara walked into the room with them, then past them to the far side, turning to face back toward Greer and Olawale, with the group of men between them.

"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this, my Friend," Greer said to him, as Olawale leaned back on the wooden chair. He said nothing to Greer.

Greer stepped to a lamp standing on the floor by the desk, and pulled the cord up from its base, snapping it away from the lamp. He took the cord to the back of Olawale's chair, tapping on his shoulder to make him extend his arms back behind the chair. Greer wrapped the cord around his wrists, then around the back of the chair, knotting it where Olawale couldn't reach.

"We need a name. Someone here knows what it is. Tell us, and you can all go free," Greer said, his voice low and quiet in the sudden silence of the room. He looked from one to the other of the young men. He could read their eyes, wide-open, staring at him, then at Olawale, then back again.

"No?" Greer moved to the side of Olawale's chair, standing there with a look on his face, as though they had disappointed him. They shifted themselves on the floor, eyes down.

"No one?" Greer said, staring around at them one more time.

"I've told you – this is legend. He does not exist – " Olawale started to say, but Greer struck out, slapping across the side of Olawale's head, knocking the glasses from his face, and skittering them across the floor. The young men looked away, shocked at the sound of the slap.

"Things can go quite badly tonight," Greer said. Olawale straightened himself in the chair, as though he were signaling to the young men to be strong like him. They looked up at his face, and in the dim light of the room, they could see the slight motion of his head, back and forth, no. He was telling them not to give in.

And in the young men's eyes, Greer could see the change, how fear and confusion had just switched to something else – hope. He stepped to the door of the room, and swung it nearly closed, so the young men couldn't see what he was about to do, but they could still hear it.

He rolled up his sleeves.

Rome, Italy, January, 2015

From the top floor of the cantina, he could see down to the street, to the courtyard where she would often sit, reading a story out loud to the children gathered on the benches in front of her; or sitting at the side of one of the children, guiding the drawing, encouraging another color, singing sometimes when the children were restless.

He watched her for hours in his dreams, re-cycling these few scraps of memories from the window to keep her with him. He would often imagine that she would look up one day, look up from her reading, to see him there at the window. And he wasn't fast enough to move out of sight. She could see him watching her; but instead of rejection in her eyes, and disgust, she would pause instead. In slow motion, her eyes would roll up, as a memory gently returned, fluttering in like a welcome breeze, and bringing a smile as warm as Spring.

Harold would often wake at that moment, with tears in his eyes, and look for her there. Only to realize it was just a dream. Just a dream.

Something was different tonight. A light was flashing. He could see her face, looking up from the book, about to smile, but a light was flashing. What was it?

Harold opened his eyes, and in the darkened room, his monitor was flashing at him. Flashing a message. He lifted his head from the bed. He was surrounded by stacks of paper he hadn't bothered to move when he climbed into bed, exhausted. He felt for his glasses, and then slid them up on his nose, to see the message flashing on his screen.

Harold read it, and lifted himself quickly, the stacks of papers sliding away to the floor as he swung up to read it again.

ACTION REQUIRED...

Asset intercepted

Harold rolled to standing, more of the stacks sliding overboard to the floor. He adjusted his glasses, and limped stiffly to the chair in front of his monitor. He stared at the camera above the screen and a moment later, the screen changed to grainy footage of a street scene. A dark SUV rolled up under the camera, and Harold could see a man, climbing up the front of the SUV, then onto the windshield, and up onto the roof, balancing himself as he stood up to face the camera. Harold could see him holding a cellphone in his hand, and he pressed a few buttons, then turned it to face the camera.

Harold watched as a door lit up on the cellphone screen, and a hand reached to push it open. There was a bright flash for a second, and the phone jumped, losing the signal. And then a light came on, showing a room with a bed in the foreground, a man in jeans and a denim jacket sprawled out on the bed, and then the picture focused upward, to a group of people fighting.

He could see arms and legs, and men trying to hold a woman fighting to get free. Then he could see one of them reach for something white, trying to wrap the woman in a sheet from the bed to restrain her. She kept fighting and then caught one of them by the arm, biting down so hard that he was bleeding.

Harold watched, sickened, as they brutalized the woman with a long stick, hitting her until she stopped fighting. Her head fell forward then, toward the camera, and Harold could see who she was. Root. They had captured Root.

The cellphone pulled back, and a face appeared in the streetlight camera, smiling. A Chinese face. The Zheng? Then Harold watched as the man retraced his steps, back down the front of the car. And a moment later, it drove off into the night.

Harold looked at his watch. He had gone to sleep just after 6:00 in the morning. It was 9:45 now on his watch. There was a knock at his door, and the door swung open. Reese and Shaw were standing there, cellphones in their hands, looking up at him.

"What's going on, Finch?" Shaw asked.

"Miss Groves. We need to go back."