Reese knew he was too late before he turned the car in the empty lot. But for one bare minute, he wasn't sure what he was too late for. One woman on the ground, face down, her hands bound behind her, red at the head and center mass. The other woman standing, calmly dropping the remaining rounds out of a handgun and tucking them into her pocket.

The blood pounded in his head. He jammed the car into park before it had quite stopped and threw himself out, his knees bent, his own weapon in his hand. Christine looked up and met his eyes.

He took a deep, relieved breath. His pulse quieted, slowed bit by bit.

The woman on the ground was undeniably dead. One in the heart through her back, one in the crown of her head, sharply downward. Execution style, clean. He kicked the body over. The exit wound had destroyed the lower jaw and chin, but it was undeniably Root's face.

He put his gun away.

Christine dropped her weapon beside the body. Her face was expressionless. Her whole body was cool, taut.

John did not try to hug her, though he wanted to. Later.

He glanced toward the other car, then back at her. She raised her hands briefly to show the black latex gloves she was wearing.

"How'd you get her out here?" he asked.

"Anthony helped."

Scarface. His anger flared in cold flame. "You should have called me."

"You had your chance. You didn't pull the trigger."

That cut deep, and deeper because he could not deny it. His anger died as quickly as it had sparked. If he had killed Root when he'd had a clean shot – "How did you find her?"

Christine glanced at a camera on a pole at the corner of the parking lot.

Reese followed her gaze. The red light blinked sedately.

He glared at it. He'd driven much too far, much too fast, to get here. The Machine would have calculated his arrival and given Christine enough time to accomplish the killing before he could stop her. Given her enough information to plan it all with Anthony Marconi.

The Machine, too, had observed that he had declined to kill Root when he'd had the opportunity. So it had given the assignment to someone else. To Christine. And she had accomplished what he had not.

John Reese was furious. At the Machine, at Christine, to a lesser extent at Marconi. At Root, who had kidnapped a child – Grace Hendrick's husband's child – to provoke all of this. But mostly, at himself. All of this could have been avoided if he had been willing to weather Finch's silent disapproval and pull the damn trigger as he'd done dozens of times before.

He pulled his weapon and put two more bullets into Root's chest.

Christine raised an eyebrow.

"I thought I saw her move," he explained. "Now we can't be sure which one of us killed her."

"I'm not worried about it."

"Finch can never know," he said flatly.

"I know." She grabbed a dark backpack out of Root's car, then walked towards his. "We've got to go. Got someone else to save."

"Grace and Gregg are already there-"

"Not Elizabeth." She got in the passenger seat and pulled out her phone. "Alright, tell me where we're going."

She wasn't talking to him, John realized. The Machine was still talking to her.

He got behind the wheel. "Where to?"

"West Virginia, apparently."

Reese sighed. "For my sins."

At legal speeds, it took six hours to cover the 340 miles to the outskirts of Green Bank, West Virginia. Reese drove it in four. They stopped once, to use the bathrooms and grab snacks and coffee. The Machine told them when there were speed traps ahead, routed them once around traffic caused by an accident.

They spoke very little.

"Why Green Bank?" Reese asked.

"It's the national radio quiet zone. No wifi. No cell phones."

"No way for the Machine to see what's going on there."

"There's some visibility. Hard-wired computers. But it's limited."

"That's why she can't tell us exactly where he is."

Christine nodded. "She has an address where she thinks he might be."

"And if he's not there?"

"Then we go door-to-door, I guess."

"Wish I'd brought a clean shirt."

"We can buy you a new one."

"Maybe in a color. I used to have a blue one I really liked."

"What happened to it?"

Reese frowned. "Bloodstains, probably."

"Ahh."

Twenty miles later, he said, "I would have come with you."

"I know."

And twenty miles after that, she added, "She made me shoot Dominic."

"I know."

There was a lot, John thought, that they could have argued about. But neither of them had the appetite for it. Root was dead, and though Harold would not agree, Reese considered that a good thing. How it had happened, and why, they both understood. He didn't like any of it. But it was done.

And this trip might very well be a fool's mission, or a trap. But neither of them could even consider not going.

He drove in silence and speed.

The man who had been Nicholas Donnelly was seven cups of coffee into a case when the small text window opened in the corner of his screen.

SAMANTHA GROVES AKA ROOT IS DECEASED

He glanced up. He'd finally turned his desk around so that he faced the doorway of his tiny office months before; no one could see the screen over his shoulder anymore.

"How?" he asked quietly.

INJURIES LISTED AS MULTIPLE GUNSHOT WOUNDS

"How did she escape?"

SPECIFICS UNAVAILABLE TO SURVEILLANCE

"Huh. Are they sure it's her?"

VISUAL IDENTIFICATION DENTAL FAST DNA MATCHES ENTERED

"That sounds pretty conclusive."

AUTOPSY CURRENTLY ONGOING

Donnelly sighed. "If they're doing an autopsy, they must be pretty sure she's dead."

VERIFICATION OF DECEASED STATUS BEFORE COMMENCING PROCEDURE IS MANDATORY

"As it should be. Well, keep me posted."

He clicked the chat window shut and went back to proving that a Russian ex-pat was attempting to smuggle nuclear arms components in a truck full of goats.

Reese turned off the headlights and let the car coast into the farmyard. There was one weak overhead light at the road next to the driveway, and another over the faded barn door. Neither illuminated much, but the moon was nearly full. He turned the car around so that they were positioned for a quick exit and shut off the engine. They got out, and he waited until their eyes fully adjusted to the dark.

The farmhouse itself was apparently abandoned. The windows were boarded up with plywood, and the doors blocked with nailed-up 2 x 4s. The paint was badly faded. The porch sagged. These was silence from inside.

Reese weighed waiting until morning, when he could better see what he was walking into. But that also presented greater possibility of being seen. "Stay behind me," he commanded.

Christine nodded.

John pulled out a small, very bright flashlight and circled the building twice. These was a slender electric cable that ran out from under the front porch and off through the field toward the next house, a good five hundred yards away. He traced it out to a utility pole and found where it had been spliced into a cable box. Unlike everything else about farmhouse, the cable looked new.

Also new was the steel door to the storm cellar. It had been scuffed up and covered with strategically casual leaves and branches, but the original had almost certainly been made of wood. The padlock was new, too.

Reese picked it easily, but he paused before he tried to pull the door open. "Step back," he said to Christine. "Booby traps."

She walked off five paces and stopped. He shook his head, and she backed up another five.

John pulled the heavy door open an inch and scanned the light beam along the edges. He didn't see any trip wires. He opened it a little further and felt a tell-tale pull. He stopped again and looked. There, at the bottom of the door. He put his foot under the door to hold it open, then slid his hand along the wire until he found there it was clipped on. He opened the clip and felt the wire fall away. Then he waited.

When the door didn't blow up in his face after ten seconds, he straightened and pulled the door fully open.

The air in the cellar was cold and dank. There was a mild scent of mildew, but behind that, much stronger, was a smell Reese knew too well – the smell of human decay.

But it was not, he noted with relief, the smell of a rotting human corpse. It was the smell of filth and sweat and desperation. Of dying, not of death. If Nathan was down there, he wasn't dead yet.

Or else he was freshly dead.

There was a light switch just inside the door. It looked old, basic. John looked back at Christine. She was about six feet away, off to his right. Out of blast range. He took the chance and clicked the light on. Two bare bulbs came on along the ceiling of a long unfinished hallway. Nothing exploded.

"Stay here," he said to Christine. He checked the stairs, then went carefully down.

There was another tripwire across the bottom of the stairs, and a third a few feet later.

At the far end of the hallway, there was another staircase, probably up to inside the house. To the right there were two wooden doors. One of them stood open. The other was secured from the outside with a rusty hasp and a shiny padlock. To the left a third door, similarly padlocked, and then an open space near the front stairs.

Reese moved very slowly all the way down the hall, using his flashlight to check the rooms as he went. The room with the open door was a storage room, lined with boxes on neat shelves. Christmas decorations. Camping gear. Mismatched suitcases. Blankets. It was all dusty. The open space was a utility room, with a battered washer and dryer, a stationary sink, and a refrigerator that was yellow with age. Its motor hummed unevenly. To one side there was a long stainless steel table. Beside it there was a shelf of fishing gear, and further still a rack of fishing rods. Reese took a step closer. It was light-weight gear. River fishing. There was even the customary battered canvas hat.

He moved back to the first locked door. When he'd checked it for traps, he picked the lock and opened it. Within there was a desk made of a door laid over two low filing cabinets. There was a big old tower computer on it, with a box screen. It was turned off. Near the door there was a stack of staples – bottled water, canned stew, tuna in foil packs. Diet supplement shakes. Wet wipes and a half-empty bottle of mouthwash. The bare essentials for keeping a prisoner.

Reese went back into the corridor. He was annoyed, but not surprised, that Christine was there, looking at the last unlocked door.

She pointed to the tripwire at the top corner. Reese disabled it, and also the less noticeable one at the bottom. Then he picked the lock.

The smell was much stronger here. "Go back outside," he said.

"No."

His mouth tightened to a thin line. He opened the door.

The light from the corridor left the room dim. The air was heavy with odor. Human waste, mostly, and human sweat and blood and infection. Human desperation. John scanned his flashlight around quickly. A second makeshift desk, with another ancient computer, also silent. A kitchen chair in front of it. Two unopened bottles of water on the far corner.

A five-gallon bucket with no lid.

A cot. A huddled form, sitting upright, under a gray blanket. Heavy shackles, stainless steel but dull with grime, around bare ankles. A thick chain hooked to a ring in the center of the floor. Two more water bottles under the cot, a Boost bottle and a tuna packet, all empty.

Christine moved. He shifted to block the doorway and keep her behind him. He snapped off the flashlight and let his eyes adjust again while he studied the figure on the cot. Only its feet were visible. They were dark with dried blood. Grotesquely swollen. The toenails were very long, twisted and sharp-looking. This person had been held prisoner for a long time.

"Ingram?" John said softly.

The shape flinched. The man – if it was a man – did not look up. He moved his foot slightly, enough to make the chain scrape on the floor.

Reese took several steps closer. There were more chains, he realized. A ring set in the wall, a chain to the figure's waist.

Christine moved up beside him. "Mr. Ingram?" she called, also softly. "Nathan?"

The figure twitched again. Then a hand emerged from beneath the blanket and stretched toward the desk. The fingernails were as long as the toenails, yellow in the dim light and gnarled. The skin looked thin, fragile. The bones beneath were clearly visible. "Water," the man said in a raw whisper.

Christine moved. Reese grabbed her arm. "Let us see you," he said clearly.

The hand stretched for the water again. The chain jerked; it was too short for him to reach the water. The man had been slowly dying of thirst since whenever Root had last been here.

It was just like the psychotic bitch to leave water where he could see it and not reach it.

Christine moved again, but Reese continued to restrain her. "We're not going to hurt you," he said clearly. "Take off the blanket."

"Please … water."

"John …" She was whispering now, too.

The huddled figure pushed the blanket away.

His hair was long, matted, filthy. His eyes were sunken, his skin stretched over bone. The lower half of his face was covered with a ragged beard, his mouth lost beneath a mustache, both as filthy and matted as his hair. What little of his lips could be seen were parched white and cracked. He was barely recognizable.

But if John squinted just right and used a little imagination – yes, he might be Nathan Ingram.

He had a high-tech collar around his neck. The lights flickered, yellow and red. Reese couldn't see the triggering device, but he had no doubt there were explosives in it.

Root, you fucking psychotic bitch, Reese thought bitterly.

He was glad she was dead. He was sorry Christine had killed her, but he was glad she was dead. She'd already tortured Harold. She would do it again if she got the chance. Like this, in chains and dying of thirst …

Christine pulled out of his grip, picked up one of the water bottles, and went to Ingram's side.

"Don't …" Reese began.

Ingram moved with surprising speed. He grabbed the woman and pulled her against him, twisted her onto his lap and got one hand on her throat from behind.

Reese drew his weapon out of reflex.

Christine brought one hand up and tried to pull his hand away. She was wildly frightened – for one instant. Then she recovered, faster than Reese could have hoped. She relaxed, slumped back against his chest. His grip on her throat loosened only marginally, but she could breathe again.

"Put the gun down," Ingram rasped.

Reese hesitated.

"I will snap her neck," the prisoner warned. "I've got nothing to lose."

He probably couldn't, in his condition. Nathan Ingram didn't have any formal military training, as far as John knew, but he'd clearly learned some tactics in the years since his death. Still, he was terribly weak. On the other hand, John had no clear shot. He holstered his weapon. "We're here to help you, Nathan."

"Who are you?"

Reese cast for an answer that would make sense to the man. Before he came up with anything, Christine spoke. "My name used to be Chrissy Buchannan. I was a Redshirt at IFT. You bought me new glasses."

Ingram went still. He continued to gaze at Reese, but John could see the sudden confusion in his eyes. It was a surprising answer, completely incongruous to the situation, and yet perfectly non-threatening. The situation shifted. Ingram still had the woman by the throat, but he was no longer certain he wanted to kill her or die trying.

"What?" Ingram's voice was still a tortured whisper.

Christine let go of the hand on her throat and twisted the top off the water bottle she still held in her other hand. She held it up over her shoulder to his mouth.

Ingram turned his head away. "You first," he croaked.

She didn't argue. She took a swig of the water. Then she offered it to him again. He drank several gulps.

"Not too much," Reese warned, and she pulled the bottle away before the prisoner could make himself sick.

"What did you say?" Ingram demanded, only a little stronger.

"Chrissy Buchannan. IFT Redshirt. I was the short one. You sent Ms. Watts to take me to your ophthalmologist. In your limo. She bought me new glasses and she took me to lunch."

It was the perfect answer, Reese thought. Full of innocuous details, details that no one who wasn't there would know. Convincing without being overboard. Building rapport. Trust.

It hadn't gotten the hand off her throat yet, though. "Let the girl go," he said.

The hand tightened instead. "Water," Ingram insisted.

She lifted the bottle and gave him a second drink.

"I remember you," he said finally, almost sadly. "You were going to be a rock star." He went silent, as if that many words in a row had exhausted him. Reese wondered how long it had been since this man had spoken to anyone. "Instead you ended up one of them."

"We're here to help you," Reese said. "Root's dead. We're going to take you home."

"Home." Ingram scowled; the hand on Christine's throat tightened again. "I have no home. You killed everyone I cared about. What would I go home to?"

"To your son," John said. "To Will."

"Will's dead!" Ingram snapped. His hand tightened again. "Alicia's dead and Will's dead and Harold's dead – you killed them all! You killed them all. And you might as well kill me right now. I won't help you get it."

"The Machine?" Reese guessed. He took two steps toward the cot, stopped when Ingram twisted Christine's neck a little.

"The government, Root, whoever you are. You can't have it. None of you. I won't." He eased his grip on Christine's throat. "You were going to be a rock star," he said mournfully. He looked back at Reese. "Take your gun. Shoot me now. I won't help you."

"We're not going to hurt you," Reese repeated. "Let her go."

Ingram closed his eyes, took a deep breath through his nose. "You smell good," he said quietly. "I must smell awful."

"You could use a mint," Christine agreed. "Let us get you out of here."

He sighed. "There are explosives in the collar."

"We can deal with that," Reese assured him.

"I won't help you get the Machine."

"We won't ask you to."

Another sigh. The man was clearly exhausted; grabbing Christine has used up the last of his reserves. "So you're the good cops. Well. That will be a nice change." He took his hand away, released her. "Go."

Christine scrambled to her feet. Ingram slumped back against the wall. She immediately sat down next to him on the cot and held the water bottle for him again.

"At least I won't die thirsty. That's a pleasant surprise." He drank, then closed his eyes.

Reese moved to his side and examined the collar. He knew the type, but it was older, CIA surplus. He didn't even want to think about how Root had gotten her hands on it. "Five digit code," he said. "Any guesses?"

"She said," Ingram supplied without opening his eyes, "that if I left the room it would blow my head off." He lifted his hands enough to rattle the chains. "Not that that was an issue."

Reese looked around. Over the door there was a small control box. It would have to be a very weak radio signal, to not attract attention in this town. Maybe a five-foot range, just enough to trigger if the collar passed under it. Which meant it had a tiny battery. He straightened and handed his lock picks to Christine. "Get started on the shackles," he said. "Feet first."

She dropped to the floor and began to work. Reese dragged the chair over to the doorway and climbed up on it. The control box wasn't even screwed down, just set on top of the door frame. He lifted it carefully, checking for trip wires, but there were none. He brought it down gingerly.

Christine eased the first cuff off Ingram's ankle. "Your feet are so swollen," she said.

"She ground pieces of glass into them," he answered, still without opening his eyes. "So I couldn't run away. I tried to pick it out, but I couldn't get it all."

John turned. The woman lifted the foot gently. It was grossly swollen; the cuff had left a deep crease around the ankle. There was dried blood everywhere, and also darker lines where the glass had gone in. White and yellow pus oozed thickly over her fingers.

"I can't …" Christine began. She lowered his foot gently, rocked back to stand up. "I'll be right back." Then she turned and fled past him and out the door.

Ingram opened his eyes. They both listened to the woman down the hall, vomiting in the laundry room.

Reese looked at him squarely. "I know you've been through a lot, Ingram. You don't know who to trust, what to believe. But believe this. You lay hands on her again, and your life ends here."

Nathan grinned weakly. "There's nothing I'd like better."

It wasn't bravado, John knew. It was true resignation. Wherever Ingram had been, whatever had happened to him, the man was at the end of his endurance. He was truly ready to die. He would welcome a quick death over the slow one he'd been trudging toward.

That made him dangerous as hell.

He heard water running in the mop sink, and then Christine came back into the corridor. She was pale, a little shaky, but she was functioning again. "Sorry," she said.

John gestured to the control box. "See if you can find me a tiny screwdriver in the store room, would you?"

"Upstairs," Ingram called. "In the desk. Middle drawer on the left."

She started off. "Wait." Reese touched her arm, handed her the box. "Stay right here and hold this. I'll get it."

Christine started to protest, then stopped when he drew his weapon again.

Reese nodded. "Don't get any closer to him. I don't know what the range is."

She leaned against the doorframe and waited.

He went up the front stairs to the silent house. It was dim, the boarded windows keeping out most of the moonlight, but his eyes were adjusted enough to let him navigate. He did not turn on the lights up here. From what he could see, it was a perfectly normal house. Too well-furnished to have been abandoned.

John found the desk in the living room. There were papers, flyers, a grocery list. It was all dusty and yellowed. As if it had been left in the middle of an ordinary afternoon. Like Pompeii.

He opened the second drawer, found a small gray plastic case of tools. Harold had one just like it for computer equipment. He slipped it into his pocket.

Reese wondered again what had happened to the people who had owned this home. Knowing Root, they were in a shallow grave in the back yard. He stood and looked around again. Then he picked up one of the flyers. It was a coupon from a local oil change shop.

It was addressed to Nate and Alice Williams.

He looked around the room again. Nathan and Alicia. This had been their home. That was Nathan's fishing gear in the basement, Alicia's Christmas decorations. They had lived here together. Or had planned to. And Root …

Christine was alone in the basement with Ingram, and he'd been away too long. He went back downstairs.

She had not moved. Ingram hadn't either. He seemed to be dozing, but Reese was certain he was simply saving his strength for whatever came next. He didn't blame him. John gestured for her to hold the control box while he selected the right tool, then loosened the battery cover. He drew her out of the room, pulled the door mostly shut, popped the cover and yanked out the battery.

Nothing exploded. He pushed the door open. The lights on the collar were out. "Good," he said. He let Christine back into the room.

"Seriously?" she snapped.

"Now we can move him. Take him out without blowing his head off."

"You didn't know that. You could have killed him." She moved to the cot and dropped to the floor at Ingram's feet again.

"He said he didn't care." Reese shrugged. "We'll get somewhere with signal, get Harold to help us crack the collar later."

"That won't work," Ingram answered mildly. "I know Harold's dead. I saw him die."

Christine dropped the second ankle shackle and moved up to sit on the other side of him. "At the ferry?"

He nodded.

"He saw you die, Mr. Ingram," she said. "Saw them pronounce you, cover you with a sheet, carry you out. A bunch of government guys."

"Your guys."

"Ingram," Reese said, "listen. You don't have to trust us. Just don't fight us. Let us get you out of here, get you some help. We can sort out everything else later." He peeled one cuff away. "But Harold's not dead."

"Whatever you say," he answered flatly.

Christine looked at him, a question in her expression. John shook his head. "We need to find a doctor, get those feet treated."

"I'll see what I can …" Christine reached for her phone, then stopped. "Damn it."

John considered. The water was still running in the house; he'd heard Christine run it I the laundry room. Ingram was in bad condition, but he wasn't likely to die in the next few hours. Moving him in his current condition was problematic. He smelled awful and looked worse. Thirty minutes of clean-up would likely save them hours of explanations when they found a doctor.

And the man would probably feel better.

"Let's get him cleaned up first," he said. "But you try anything, I'm putting those cuffs back on."

"Sure," Ingram said.