Bear had been out, but John hadn't, so he took the dog and made a quick jog around the perimeter of the large yard. He didn't see anything that alarmed him. He hadn't expected to; the security at the mansion was top-notch and he was very familiar with it from their earlier stay.

Back inside, while Bear noisily lapped water from his bowl, Reese checked the refrigerator. Finch had had time to stock the general basics. There were a dozen eggs; he decided to cook them all. There was also a package of bacon, but he decided against that. Ingram was feeling much better, but bacon was likely to come back up. There was butter, which he set out to soften. A loaf of good bread on the counter, sliced. He turned the oven on low and got out a baking sheet to keep the toast warm as he made it. Then he had to search through the cupboards to find the toaster.

If Christine got more eggs while she was out, he had everything else he needed to make pancakes tomorrow. But they would need to do something about lunch and dinner.

They would need to decide how long they were staying here, and where they were going when they left.

Reese swore gently when he discovered that there was no trash can. He put the eggshells in a separate bowl and whisked the eggs, humming softly to himself. Decisions to be made, but right now the situation was secure and stable. And the homeowners weren't expected home any time soon.

Christine came into the kitchen and put the two pots she'd been using for wash water in the sink. She dumped his eggshells into the trash can, took the bag out, and carried it to the garage. When she came back, he pointed her to the replacement bags.

"Nathan wants to eat at in the dining room." She opened drawers until she found the silverware, gathered enough to set the table.

"I'll go help him get into the wheelchair. Here, stir this."

She took over stirring the eggs. She was pale, with dark circles under her eyes. "You okay?" John asked.

"I'm fine. It's just early."

"Yeah." There had been a time when he would have accepted that as the entire excuse. But John knew her better now. He recognized the signs of a wounded introvert in retreat.

If he had killed Root when he'd had the chance, Christine would not be wounded now.

But now was not the time. Not yet.

He got Ingram into the wheelchair and pushed him to the dining room, then went back to finish the eggs.

"This is quite a place," Ingram said, looking around. "Tasteful."

Harold agreed. He looked like hell too, Reese noted. Limping more than usual, and tired-looking. He'd heard him get up with Ingram in the night, and quite a lot of talking had followed.

Christine helped with plates. Eggs, toast, applesauce. Nothing fancy or heavy. She brought more coffee for him and for Nathan; he noticed that the later was about half milk. He nodded approvingly.

"So tell me again – oh, God, these eggs are good – how we ended up in the Zaccardis' home. Start with the psychic."

"I'm not sure," Harold protested, "that I really believe she's a psychic."

His protest sounded half-hearted to Reese. He didn't weigh in. He didn't actually believe in psychic powers, either, but Becky Baker had undoubtedly saved his life, so he wasn't about to say so out loud.

Harold started to tell the story from where Becky Badger had entered it, but it became hopelessly confused. He stopped, and started back at the very beginning, decades before, with Control falling in love with Lily Romanov, who was a courier or maybe an assassin or both. Of the two of them scamming their way out of the Agency with the help of their friends and starting a new life in the north. Of their happy home and their four children. Of Control's eventual death of natural causes.

Reese knew the story. He watched the audience. Ingram was fascinated, and he was eating, quickly at first and then more slowly, but with appetite. Christine was also listening intently, thought she already knew most of it, and she was nibbling at her toast, barely touching her eggs.

Finch continued the story, from the family's trip to New York City to John rescuing Helen Zane outside her summer class and onto to him being taken captive by her mother when he drove her home.

"Wait, wait, wait," Ingram protested. He looked to John. "This woman tied you up in the garage – this garage, here? – and tried to kill you, and you're all friends now?"

"She was protecting her daughter," John answered simply. "I was, too, but it took a while to convince her of that. I can't blame her for being suspicious."

Ingram shook his head. "I guess, but … that's a lot. Okay, where does the psychic come in?"

"Right here," Harold continued. "She had called her husband, and he came to the house and told Lily that she had said she would bring dinner for the family and their guests."

"Which caused Lily to hesitate," John joined in, "and then Kostmayer showed up."

"Who's he?"

"High-level Agency operative. Retired. And friend of the family."

"He works with us now," Finch added.

"This guy was CIA and you trust him? Are you out of your mind?"

There was a brief silence.

"John was also CIA," Christine said quietly.

Nathan frowned. "Sorry. But that's different."

"So is Kostmayer," Reese said. "He never drank the Kool-Aid."

"Did you?"

John saw Finch stiffen at the bluntness of the question. But it didn't bother him. "I did. For a while." He shrugged. "Then I smartened up."

"When they finally stabbed you in the back?"

"Yes."

Ingram nodded. "Me, too. Alright, go on. Does this Kostmayer guy recognize you?"

"He does," John said, "but it's okay, because he and Mama Bear are pretty tight from way back, and him being there calms her down. So Harold shows up, and Becky brings dinner, and we all get straight. And then Helen sneaks out and gets herself kidnapped."

"Wait," Christine said, "you and Harold and two retired spies, and this teenage girl just snuck out of the house?"

Reese chuckled. "Go ahead, rub it in."

"To be fair," Harold countered, "she'd been trained since birth by a spymaster. She was really quite skilled, for a teenager."

"But you got her back, right?" Ingram insisted.

"We got her back. It took a little doing."

Nathan gestured, and Harold continued the story to the end. Christine leaned quietly and slid her eggs onto Ingram's empty plate. He ate, though much more slowly now. "And where were you," he asked her, when the story finished, "while all this was going on?"

"I was in Ireland. Spreading my father's ashes."

"I thought he died way back when you were at IFT."

"He did. It … took me a while to process."

Ingram reached over and patted her hand on the table. "You poor thing."

She gave him a little smile, shrugged. "Anyhow, I was completely useless to this whole story."

"She was safely away," Finch argued, "and I was glad of it."

His partner's gaze, Reese noted, lingered on Ingram's hand where it touched Christine's. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Ingram brought both hands back to his plate and picked up his toast. "So this old spy and her kids just went home then?"

"They stayed the rest of the summer," Finch said. "Kostmayer lives here."

"And you just, what, called him up and asked to use the house?"

"Basically."

"Huh." Ingram put his fork down. "Those really are delicious, but I can't eat any more."

"Probably a wise choice," John said. "I'll make bacon tomorrow."

"Sounds good."

Finch put his own fork down. "If you're feeling up to it now, Nathan, I'd really like to hear how you got away from the government."

"I didn't, exactly." Ingram drained the last of his coffee. "I think she broke me out."

"The Machine?"

He nodded.

"Where were they holding you?" John asked.

"I don't know." Ingram hesitated, then nodded to himself. "After the ferry, when I woke up, I was in some kind of hospital, but also a prison kind of thing. Barred windows, locked doors. I don't know how long I was there. When I woke up my burns were mostly healed, so it must have been weeks, at least. They had to teach me how to walk again."

"And then what?"

"They move me around some. Sometimes just down a hall, sometimes in cars, with a bag over my head. Twice in an airplane. Sometimes I was in like an apartment – with locked doors. Sometimes it was a cell. They wanted me to access the Machine for them. But I told them I couldn't, and I think they knew that was true. Most of the time they were – decent."

"But not always," Christine guessed.

"No. Not always." He took a deep breath. "Last spring, they were transporting me again. Some long car ride. They took the bag off. I had these shackle things on my hands, electronic, with like a bar between them." He looked to John, who nodded; he knew the type. "Anyhow. Three big guys in the car, and we're on the highway, coming into DC. I could tell by the road signs. There's a ton of traffic and it's pissing down rain, we're going like 20 miles an hour, but the windows are dark tinted, so there's no chance I'm going to flag anybody down or anything, even if my hands were free. We pass this sign for a rest stop coming up, and then the guy in the front seat, the passenger, gets a text message, and he tells the driver to pull off. Says they've got an order to hold in place until traffic clears."

John looked at Harold, who raised an eyebrow at him.

"So they park, and the passenger goes in to take a leak. And there's some commotion at the other end of the parking lot. The driver and the guy who's in the back seat with me get out to take a look, but they're right beside the car. And all the sudden the heads-up display on the dashboard comes on. It says, BE READY."

Ingram shrugged. "I figured it was for them, the driver or whatever, so I don't say anything. Then the screen flashes, same message. So I say, quiet, yeah, fine, I'm ready, but I'm not really going anywhere with these shackles. And the screen says TELL THEM TO SHUT THE DOORS. So I say, hey, guys, I'm getting soaked, do you mind? And they shut the doors. And my shackles unlock."

Harold leaned forward, listening intently. "And then?"

"And then the screen says GET UP HERE AND DRIVE. And the doors all lock. The guys outside hear it, they freak out, they grab the door handles and it shocks them. Literally, the car electrically shocks them. They both spasm and then they fall down. I don't think it killed them, they were still moving, but they were down. The engine starts. So I climb over the seat and throw the car in reverse and I drive. Like a bat outta hell, until I get to the end of the ramp and then there's all that traffic.

"The screen says WHERE TO. I say Green Bank. And a map comes up. I get on the shoulder, I drive to the next freeway exit, and then it takes me backroads out of the city. And the whole time I'm looking in the mirror, waiting for them to come after me, but they never do. I get almost to Green Bank and the screen says HIDE THE CAR and then it just stops."

"Out of radio range," Harold says quietly.

"I drive to the farm, I hide the car in the barn, I go in the house. Alicia isn't there, but I know she has been. Know she's been gone a while. So I get the shotgun and I sit in the front room and watch for them. I figure there's no way they aren't coming for me. Sat there for two days. Nobody ever showed up. And that's when I figure out, it had to be her. The Machine."

He hesitated. "If I'd know you were alive, Harold, I would have guessed it was you. But I was so sure I watched you die …."

"I know."

"After a while I settled down. Took a shower, changed my clothes. Went to bed. With the shotgun. In the morning I dug some nightcrawlers and went fishing in the river. I still figured they were coming. Figured I wasn't about to go back to their prison cells or apartments that were prison cells. I was going to make them kill me. But in the meantime, I could have some fresh fish. And they never showed up. I ordered groceries, I read books, listened to records, went for hikes in the woods." He shrugged. "It was nice."

"You never went into town?" John asked. "Didn't people think that was weird?"

"Not in Green Bank. There are a whole bunch of people there who are hiding out. They think radio waves give them cancer, or wi-fi lets the government track them, or Soviets have taken over the government, all kinds of nonsense."

"I mean, the wi-fi part is true," Christine pointed out.

"Yeah, but not the way they think. And there's a whole band of them that think the radio silence lets them communicate with aliens." Ingram shrugged. "One more hermit crank didn't even cause a ripple. And all the utilities and such were set up on autopay from way back, so that wasn't an issue."

"How long have you had this place?" Harold asked.

Ingram hesitated. "Alicia and I bought it in, um, in 2005."

"Right after the Machine came online."

"Right before, actually." He shrugged. "I never doubted that you could do it, Harold. It was just a question of when. And just like you wanted an off switch, I wanted a place where we could hide from it if necessary."

"And you never told me."

"I would have told you if we needed to go there."

Finch considered. "I suppose it was a wise choice."

"The plan was that if things went sideways, we'd get away together or separately and go there and wait. I think they must have told Alicia I was dead, or she would have tried to help me. If she got the chance. I know she went there. She was there for a while. She bought Christmas stuff. But then for some reason she left."

"Root killed her, too," John said quietly.

"Oh." Ingram shook his head. "I guess I'm not surprised. If she had been alive, she would have come back."

"I knew you were seeing her," Harold said. "Alicia. But I had no idea you were so close."

"We weren't, at first. It was just, you know. But the further the Machine went, when we were the only ones who knew about it, the only ones we could talk about it with. We got closer then."

"Sounds like you were secure there," John said. "Why'd you leave?"

Ingram picked up his fork, stabbed some now-cold eggs, put it down again. "I ordered all my groceries in, and sometimes I got some nightcrawlers, too. They had nice fat ones, better than I could dig up in the yard. They'd put them in a little plastic tub and then they'd wrap it up in paper and stick it in with the groceries. Usually it was the ads for the week, but this time it was an old newspaper. There was this article – well, half an article, it was torn off – and it had Will's name on it. Something about an American royal baby watch. I was so pissed. They'd killed my son, and they were using his name like he was still alive, they were weaving some kind of nonsense fairy tale around him, God only knows why, and I was just furious. I couldn't even see straight. So I grabbed all the guns I had and I started driving. I figured when I popped onto the grid they'd come for me, and I was just going to take down as many as I could before they got me."

"Not much of a plan," John said.

"It wasn't a plan at all. It was just rage."

"And then Root found you," Harold prompted.

"I knew her from a long time ago, when she was just a … well, never mind. But how did she know about the Machine? Who was she?"

"She was a disciple in search of a god. She found the Machine. And she went insane in her obsession with it."

Nathan nodded. "I stopped at a McDonald's and she was just there. I don't know how she found me. She wasn't surprised to see me. She said Alicia had sent her. That I needed to go back to Green Bank with her. So I did. I thought … she was one of the good guys. I'm an idiot."

"For what it's worth," Harold said, "she fooled us, too, when we first met her."

"Really?"

"Right up until she pulled the gun."

Until she shot Alicia Corwin dead, John thought, and until she took Harold captive and tortured him. He approved of the things his partner had omitted.

"And you're sure she's dead?"

"We're sure," John said firmly.

"Well. I can't say as I regret it."

"Nor I, sadly," Harold agreed.

Christine's phone vibrated and she jumped, then grabbed it from her pocket and glanced at it. "Um," she said, as it vibrated again, "it's Will." She looked steadily at Ingram.

He went pale, but he nodded. "I'd like … to hear him … if it's okay."

She put the phone on the table and stabbed the speaker button. "Bro, it is the crack of dawn."

"Yeah, and Angela's had us up for hours, so I thought I'd share the joy," Will answered. "Uncle Harold's not here, Scotty. Do you want me to feed the cats?"

"Sure. I was going to call Taylor at a reasonable hour and ask him to do it, but thanks."

"How's the site?"

"Meh," Christine answered. "It's nice flat land, and windy, but it belongs to four brothers whose father died without a will …"

She kept talking, riffing a story about an imaginary site she was pretending to visit. Reese kept a close eye on Ingram. The man was very pale, his hands pressed hard on the table, his lips a thin line. Steak, too soon, John thought, and hoped he would keep it together.

" … so I'll bring the papers back for Sam to look at," Christine concluded, "but I think we can find flat land without all these legal issues attached."

"Okay. When are you coming home?"

"Well … while I was here, I found this really cute bed and breakfast, so I kinda, um, called Harold and had him come out here and meet me."

Will chortled. "Wait, are you actually having an impromptu honeymoon that's more than twelve hours long?"

"We are," Christine agreed.

"Good for you. And let me guess, there just happens to be a bookstore next to this B and B."

"Nuh-uh," she protested, indignant. Then she added, "It's down the block. And there's another one across the street."

He laughed again. "Well, have fun. But for the record, Aunt Scotty, Angela has more than enough books for now."

Christine huffed. "I do not know these words, enough books. And if I did, I would tell you that you are completely wrong."

"Of course. I'll feed the cats. Let me know when you're coming back."

"I will. Thanks."

She clicked the phone off.

Ingram said, "Oh my God."

"Are you alright?" Harold was on his feet.

"I … I don't think …"

He began to tremble visibly.

"Let's get you back to bed," John said quickly. He was already moving to unlock the wheelchair wheels.

"Yes," Ingram agreed faintly. "Yes. I need … I need to … lie down … to …"

Reese was ready to sedate the man a second time, but Nathan calmed as they tucked him into the bed again, and within a few minutes he dozed off.

"John," Harold said quietly, desperate.

"He just got overwhelmed," John answered. "He'll be okay."