Chapter Twenty-Five
Tom didn't try to force her to talk on the drive from Ilya's apartment to the airport or even as they moved through security. It wasn't until a cup of coffee appeared in front of where she sat brooding in the terminal gate that she knew it was coming. Liz heaved a sigh, took the drink, and thanked him as he plopped into the seat next to her.
"It wasn't a total loss," he said softly, his dark blue gaze focused on something in front of him rather than on her.
"How's that? All we really got were a few confirmations of stories others told and Tolliver's real name. If she were alive, that might be useful, but she's the least of our worries now."
"Koslov recognized Bauer. Maybe not the name, but definitely his face."
Liz turned to look at him. Interesting. She had been so worked up that she might have missed it. "What do you think that means?"
"That he's tied to it all, but you saw him. We're not going to get any further with that one. He got out, he's not going to give that up to help us." He sighed, leaning back in his own chair. "We need someone else tied to all of this that isn't…. Reddington, Katarina, or Scottie. Those three are in so deep that we can't trust anything they say."
Liz blinked hard, the answer slamming into place so clearly that she wondered how it hadn't crossed her mind before. "Howard."
"Howard?"
"Your dad."
"I thought he was…. unstable?"
"Maybe, but that doesn't mean he can't be useful. Cooper'll be able to find out where they're holding him. Maybe get us in. We can get something at least."
"Worth a shot."
Okay, she could work with this. It was a path forward. That's all she needed to help slow the frustrated spiral.
A voice over the intercom called out a boarding announcement for their plane and Liz grabbed her phone to send a quick text.
Need to find out where Howard Hargrave is being held and get in to see him.
She hit send and stood, starting towards the line to board the plane with Tom at her side.
Donald Ressler leaned back in the chair he had claimed in the bullpen outside of the office he shared with Keen, blue eyes skimming the details of Howard Hargrave's trial, sentencing, and eventual work-release to an Army base in central Texas. It would have taken anybody else weeks to have gotten the unredacted files, but one call from Cooper had sent the DOJ scurrying to send over anything they had. He must have called in a favour with Panabaker. Keen was going to owe him one when she got back in.
"Uncle Donnie?"
Ressler glanced down to find a pair of dark blue eyes focused on him as their owner rocked back and forth on her heels like she did when she wanted something she knew she had to really butter someone up for. "What's up, kiddo?"
"Can we go to the park?"
"Your mom and dad are on their way back," he told Agnes. "Maybe they'll take you when they get here."
"Oh," she answered, pouting just a little.
Ressler turned back to the file just in time for Agnes to tap him on the arm to get his attention again. "Uncle Donnie? I'm hungry."
He grimaced, wracking his brain for what they might have stored away in the small kitchen. It wasn't like the Post Office was designed to be kid-friendly, but they were bound to have something. They couldn't just send her home with a babysitter right then. Not with everything going on.
A loud alert screeched out from the computer systems. Agnes jumped and covered her ears at the sound while Ressler looked to Aram who was scrambling to get it switched off. "What is that?"
"Not good," Aram answered distractedly as he worked.
Park straightened at her desk and Ressler heard Cooper's office door open and the sound of his footsteps echoing as he started down the stairs.
"I have an algorithm running, checking feeds and an alert is set to go off if anyone is caught entering the US that I have flagged."
Ressler watched the main screen on the wall flicker to life as Aram mirrored his own computer to it. A photo from what looked like a train terminal showed a man and a woman, both mid sixties. It appeared to be the woman who had set off Aram's alarm. Next to the photo was a closeup that showed points of recognition marked on her face next to a set of photos pulled from Mike Weiss' jumpdrive he'd given Ressler on Emilia Schmitz along with a photo that had been aged up to what the computer predicted she would look like now. It matched the photos from the terminal almost exactly.
"Holy shit," Ressler breathed.
"Holy shit!"
He jerked back around to the small voice that had echoed him and Agnes had an impish grin plastered across her face. Ressler stared at her in horror. "Let's not say that when your mom gets back, okay?"
Somehow that grin only grew. "Holy shit!" she announced again and Ressler knew that wasn't going to end well. He reached over, ruffling her hair with a frustrated sigh as he turned back to the case at hand.
"Who's that with her?" Park asked, motioning to the man.
"Not sure. I'll have to run him through facial recognition," Aram answered.
The sound of the lift coming down from ground level caught Ressler's attention, but he didn't look around until Agnes squealed, "Hi, Mr Red!"
Their CI paused as the little girl raced across the War Room towards him, chattering the whole way. His expression softened and he offered her a smile, taking his hat from his head and setting it on hers so that it tilted over her eyes and pulled another high pitched, squealing laugh from her. That poor kid had way too much energy to be stuck in an FBI blacksite.
Reddington's gaze flickered back up and landed on the screen, instantly darkening at the images of Schmitz. "She's here."
"Do you recognize the man with her?" Cooper asked.
Reddington tilted his head to the side, studying it. "No, but that doesn't mean I don't know who he is." His gaze didn't waver as he moved closer, Agnes watching him from beneath his fedora. The Post Office had gone silent as they all waited.
Ressler pushed a frustrated breath out his nose. "Feel like sharing?"
And just like that the spell was broken and the older man shook his head a little, as if breaking himself from it. He flashed that smug smile of his. "I'd wager a considerable amount of my immense fortune that that -" he motioned at that man - "is the ever illusive Neville Townsend."
"Townsend?" Park echoed. "Like the Townsend Directive that Liz was talking about?"
"One in the same. He has representatives here, but rarely travels this far west himself." He glanced around. "Where is Agent Keen?"
"On her way in," Cooper answered vaguely.
"From?"
Cooper's lips stretched at the corners, his smile not exactly friendly. He and Reddington stood sizing each other up for a long moment before Reddington was eventually the first to give. "Very well. Where she's been is not nearly as important as where she is."
Ressler tensed ever so slightly as his boss' gaze flickered to him, but Reddignton didn't look around. "I understand. You're welcome to wait here for her. She should be in at any time," Cooper offered and Ressler slipped out of the chair and eased his way off to an adjacent hallway. He pulled his cellphone from his pocket and hit the first number on speed dial.
The phone rang once, twice, and a third time before it connected to background noise and what may have been someone fumbling with the phone. "Keen."
"Hey," Ressler said quietly, slipping a little deeper into the hall. "Reddington just showed up."
"Everything okay?"
"We flagged Emilia Schmitz crossing into New York across the Canadian border with a man he's saying is Neville Townsend."
His partner loosed a breath on the other end of the line. "If we come in now we're never getting back out to get to Howard."
"That's why I'm calling. We have the details on where he's being kept and I'll call ahead."
"Agnes…"
"Is fine. She's here with us."
There was a beat of silence from the other end. "I owe you."
"Honestly, Keen, I've lost count on who owes who anymore. I'm sending you the intel on Hargrave. Just... watch your back, okay?"
"You too."
He ended the call and looked over, finding a set of dark blue eyes on him again. Agnes studied him, all of her earlier excitement put away. "Mommy and Daddy?"
Ressler put a finger to his lips. "Our secret, okay?" he said as he sent the file and punched in the number that had been listed as the point of contact for Hargrave's case.
Agnes nodded solemnly and didn't say anything else as she walked forward and took his hand, content to hold on as if it made her feel a little safer somehow.
They hadn't left the airport yet when Liz had talked to Ressler, so the turnaround to catch a flight down to Texas wasn't bad. They flew into Austin, rented a car, and drove up to Killeen. By the time they arrived the sun was starting to dip in the sky and the lack of sleep the night before was starting to weigh on Tom.
Liz flashed her badge and they received an escort onto base to a small lab where a man that Tom only recognised from a photo was working. The man didn't bother to look up until their escort said, "Hargrave, you have visitors."
Howard turned as if he were ready to argue, but stopped immediately at the sight of them. His clear blue gaze didn't linger on Liz, but snapped over to Tom.
Liz took a step forward. "Howard, I know this is —"
"He was telling the truth," Howard breathed, still staring at Tom. "You're alive."
"We were hoping you could answer some questions for us," Liz said and their escort told them that he'd be outside if they needed him. Now it was just the three of them.
Howard stood slowly from his seat and crossed the space, never taking his eyes off Tom. Slowly, as if in awe, he reached up to the side of his face. Tom didn't dare move as the older man's hand traveled up and his thumb ran along his hairline. "There. That scar. You fell off your tricycle when you were three. They wouldn't replicate that. They wouldn't have known." His words tumbled out quickly, almost as if he were trying to convince himself rather than explain his odd behavior. His fingers lingered just a moment more before he finally pulled his hand back. "Red said you had lost some memories."
Tom felt his temper flare at the casual reminder of just how much Reddington had taken from them. "Reddington's the reason why," he answered tightly and watched surprise - real, he thought - flash through Howard's eyes.
"He was here not too long ago trying to drag me back into his war," Howard murmured. "How much do you remember of your time with Halcyon?"
"Nothing," Tom answered.
"But I filled him in on what happened," Liz added, drawing Howard's attention back to her.
Tom squared his shoulder a little. "I know what you did to Scottie-" Howard snorted - "and I know that you used me to get to her. That's why you're here."
"Just because they found me guilty doesn't mean your mother is innocent, Tom." He glanced back at Liz. "What questions did you have for me?"
Tom watched her study him, her lips pursing together. From what she had told him she had a complicated opinion on Howard. She didn't trust him - she'd been very careful to avoid saying that she did - but she did think he was useful and she certainly thought he'd be willing to share against Scottie. The biggest question between them had been if what he shared would have any truth at all mixed into it. If the so-far brief conversation was anything to go by, there was little love left between his parents.
"Let's start with what Reddington came to see you about," Liz said, pulling up a seat and settling in.
Howard nodded slowly. "You know your mother is back in play?"
"I do."
"How does Scottie know her?" The question left Tom's lips without permission, and now it hung heavy in the air between the three of them only to be met after a moment by Howard's rough chuckle.
"That has been the puzzle of a lifetime," he said, following Liz's lead and reclaiming his own chair. Tom remained standing, his posture rigid and he couldn't take his eyes off of Howard as he waited for an answer to his question. Howard sighed. "You were taken when you were four. I'm sure Liz has filled you in on the details there." He pauses until Tom nodded. "At the time I was certain it was my fault. For years, really. There was an organisation - one that Red had ties to - that had been trying to work their way into my company through any means they could for years and your disappearance had every sign of a ransomed kidnapping gone wrong. They'd been lurking, pressuring…. to the point that your mother and I fought about what she called my obsession with it the night you were taken. I went for a walk on the beach to cool down and when I came back, you were gone."
Tom found himself focused in on the story, every muscle tensed. "There was a video, wasn't there?" he asked uncertainly as an image flickered through his mind and he looked to Liz for confirmation. "A man confessed to killing me."
Howard made a small sound of acknowledgement. "A paid actor to stop us from looking. Or to stop me from looking, more likely."
"Who paid him?" Liz asked.
"The money traced back to a shelf corporation. Despite my digging, I was never able to link it back to the organization. I believe you call it the Cabal."
Tom felt a chill run down his spine. "Scottie knows Katarina through your association with Reddington then?"
"I thought she did. She would have you think she did, but no. I believe Scottie worked with Katarina before we ever met. I believe that the Cabal inserted Scottie into my life to take control of my company."
"The plane crash," Liz breathed.
Howard nodded. "And the attempt to throw me out of my own company so that she could finally take hold of it for them. Scottie always has known how to play a long game."
"She said she needed to tell me something before Liz and I left," Tom said quietly. "I think… that must have been it."
"Whatever it was, it wouldn't have been the whole truth," Howard said bitterly. "The woman is incapable of honesty. There's always an angle with her."
"You too." Tom met Howard's sharp gaze and he could feel the headache creeping into place as pieces of memories trickling across his mind's eye like water leaking through cracks in a dam. "You weren't honest with me either. Why should we believe you now?"
Howard stood slowly and there was something sad in his gaze. "Everything you went through following you abducted- the Phelps', your training with St Regis, the jobs you were placed in, everything - do you really think that was by chance? No. In the four short years she had with you, your mother made sure to… embed certain skills to be honed later. She was making sure that you would be useful to her later."
"How?"
"I don't know for sure, but I found traces and whispers of contacts that I believe were hers. Training that -"
"Could be triggered by words? Like nursery rhymes? Tongue twisters?"
"Certainly possible."
"Tom?"
Tom looked over to his wife and it felt like someone had punched him in the gut. He couldn't breathe for a moment, but as she stood and laid a careful hand on his arm he finally dragged in enough air to push the words out. "Katarina. Right before we left. She said… she was trying to get me to remember the beach as something Scottie had left with me. Something important."
"To her," Howard growled. "They used you. Both of them. You weren't their children, you were their legacies. Why do you think Red took you, Liz? Why do you think he tried to save you from her?"
Liz shook her head. "Red didn't. My father —"
Howard's dark brows drew together. "Has no one told you? 'Course not. That's how they work." He paused again as if for dramatic effect before the words slipped out with utter certainty: "Raymond Reddington is your father."
It was getting late and there was no way that the paperwork to temporarily release Howard into FBI custody would ever be finished in time to fly him out that night. They grabbed a motel room to reset before the paperwork came through in the morning and they had to hit the ground running again.
As Agnes' voice filtered through the phone, telling her about all the fun she'd had with Uncle Donnie and Uncle Adam that day, how Mr Red had let her wear his hat until he'd left, and how she was spending the night at Uncle Donnie's, Liz desperately tried to focus. It was when Agnes asked her when she and her daddy were coming home that she nearly lost it. Tom was right there though, and fractured memories or not he'd always been better at smoothing over worries. "Soon as we can, kiddo," he promised, sliding the cell phone from where Liz had been holding it so they could both hear it on speaker phone. She gave him a thankful nod and he returned it with a strained smile. Neither of them had left that meeting unscathed.
Liz let Tom's voice fade to the background and her thoughts wander. DNA tests could be faked, that much had become painfully obvious over the years. It all boiled down to trusting the source. The source that had delivered the news that Raymond Reddington was her father was Harold Cooper, a man she trusted with her - and her family's - life. The bones - the test Tom had nearly been killed for - had come back saying that they belonged to Raymond Reddington. The logical conclusion was that Raymond Reddington was her father, but that the man that had dropped into her life wasn't actually Raymond Reddington. Now Howard, a man that supposedly knew him well at one time, was claiming Red was her father. It was enough to give her a migraine to rival the ones Tom had been suffering through. Liz curled up in a chair next to the window to watch the nearly empty parking lot below, hoping to focus on that and let her raging thoughts sort themselves out.
"Hey."
She turned, Tom's soft voice pulling her back around and she reached back for his hand, trying for a smile. "Hey."
Tom took her hand and knelt down next to her chair, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. It was a good kind of strange how he was acting more and more like himself every day. Each memory fitting back into place brought them a little closer, even if the world around them felt like it was falling apart. "Agnes is good. She told me to tell you she was going to have a glitter party."
That pulled the smallest of smiles from Liz. "Poor Ress."
"Hey, he volunteered." She leaned her head back against the chair and Tom tightened his hold on her hand. "You okay?"
"Just processing… or trying to. How about you?"
He shook his head and she saw his jaw clench in an agitated manner. "I just keep going over what Howard said about Scottie and Katarina and -"
"What my mother said before we left?"
"Yeah."
"You think that's why my mother found you? Why she brought you back?"
"Probably."
"Do you think…." She sighed, shaking her head as if it would banish the question that was trying to make its way off her tongue.
"No bad ideas right now," Tom murmured, his voice flat.
"Do you think that's why Reddington took your memories?" She hated how pained her own voice sounded and she hated that, even after everything they'd been through, somehow her mind was still trying to find a way to make sense of what Reddington had done to them.
Tom shook his head. "No. I think he was trying to keep me from remembering something about him, not Scottie or Katarina."
"But you don't remember what?"
"No, but they will."
"I thought you said you didn't trust them."
Her husband sighed. "Everyone keeps talking about this war we're at the center of, but no one'll tell us what it is. Now we have someone willing to help us that knows enough to make him dangerous. Stick Howard in the middle of it and I think something real will fall out."
"Or explode," Liz said quietly.
She looked over to see a little bit of mischief in Tom's eyes. "I'm counting on that. It's crazy how honest people accidentally become when you spark the emotional powder keg."
Liz hummed softly, a small smile of her own tugging into place as he lifted her knuckles to his lips again. She stood slowly and he held onto her hand as long as he could without following her on her clear trajectory to the bathroom. Her fingers slipped free reluctantly and she pulled her shirt up and over her head, risking a glance behind her. "You coming?"
Tom was on his feet in half a second, following behind her. As they crossed through the doorframe he caught her, pulling her into a kiss. Her hands dropped, fingers working deftly to undo his belt while he had a hand pressed to either side of her face, holding her in the kiss.
Somewhere along the way they managed to get out of their clothes and turn the shower on, stumbling into it together. Their hands slipped and their kisses became messy, and in the rush of it all he stopped, holding her gaze like it was his own personal lifeline. "I love you," he breathed, leaning his forehead to touch hers as his hands drifted down her bare back, fingers teasing the skin along her spine. He leaned in, the kisses a little more gentle now and he made his way down her jaw and her neck and to the crook of her shoulder and her collar bone. Liz felt a soft breath leave her as he moved, the hot water pouring down around them.
Her hands traveled down his ribs, finding the scars along his right side and she felt the pain from the memory. She'd missed him. Even having had him back, she would never forget how badly missing him had hurt. "Tom?" she whispered, and for a moment she wasn't sure he heard her until the roaming kisses stopped and he was looking directly at her. "Don't ever leave me again."
"Never," he swore and she wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck, pulling him in again.
A while later they were both showered and had made their way out of the bathroom. Liz watched her husband saunter over to the bag they had with them, clad only in a towel around his waist, and he held out fresh clothes for her first. She smiled, feeling a sense of peace at the center of the storm around them, until Ressler's ringtone cut through the quiet of the room. She frowned and moved towards it, answering. "Everything okay with Agnes?"
"Agnes is fine," her partner promised, "but she's with Cooper at the Post Office."
Liz's brows drew together. "I thought she was with you?"
"We had a team tailing Schmitz and Townsend. They didn't check in." A cold knot started to form in the pit of Liz's stomach at his tone. "They're dead. All four of them."
"No," Liz breathed and she could feel Tom's questioning gaze on her. "Any idea where they are now?"
"Still in DC."
That wasn't good. "When did they get to DC? What haven't you said?"
Ressler loosed a breath on the other side of the line. "Liz, is there any reason why the Cabal would… need or want something from Tom?"
Her gaze darted over to the man in question. He had gotten dressed while she was on the phone, head tilted curiously. "Yes," she managed.
"Something having to do with his memories?"
"Yes," she repeated, her voice somehow smaller than before. Then it struck her. She knew how Ressler had gotten there. "Selma."
"They took her. Metro PD is on site and will transfer her to the Post Office for questioning." He stopped, and Liz could almost feel him cringing. "Reddington knows. He's on his way and wants to fly you, Tom, and Howard back on his jet."
"Tell him to call me when he lands," Liz said and she thought she heard her partner heave a sigh of relief.
"Watch your back, Keen. Both of you."
The call ended and she turned to look at Tom. "We have a problem."
Sometimes it was difficult to pinpoint just when his life had become the nonstop roller coaster that they all seemed to share these days. It had been normal once. Well, normalish. Top of his class at MIT, recruited by the NSA, and it wasn't like Aram hadn't seen some crazy cases working for them, but he was sure things hit a whole new level of strange sometime after Mr Cooper drafted him into the Task Force. Everything that had happened to him and around him since then had left him at least partially numb to the fresh batches of chaos. So why wouldn't this woman whose death certificate was at least twenty years old pop up stateside just to kidnap Selma Orchard, opening up a whole new set of questions about the Cabal potentially looking for Liz's not-really-dead husband who was missing large chunks of his memory? Just another night at the office.
Aram perked you as Ressler stepped out of his office from where he'd been talking to the Keens. "Was Agent Keen upset we told Mr Reddington?"
Ressler shook his head. "She gets it. We have an ETA on Park and Orchard's patient? Rebecca Abbasi."
"They should be here anytime now."
As if on cue the lift made a loud, terrible sound of old gears creaking and groaning as it brought its passengers down from ground level. Aram risked one more look back at his current project and jotted a quick note.
"Aram."
"Just a sec," he answered Ressler without looking up.
"Aram."
Aram's head finally jerked up at the tone of Ressler's voice and he was fairly sure his heart sputtered to a standstill in his chest. Rebecca Abbasi was the name that they'd been given for Orchard's patient that was being brought in, but there was no question that the woman standing with Park, dark eyes wide and fixed on him, was Samar Navabi.
TBC
Notes: It's a little later than usual, but I wanted to make sure to do another read through this one before posting. A lot happened and a lot is about to happen. I had a nice 10 or so chapter buffer before the move and I have definitely eaten through that, but as we get closer and closer to the end, I'm really excited to start dropping answers into this. Heaven know the Keens and team deserve a few answers.
Also, anyone spot the Tom 3 Liz on the park bench blonde Katerina was sitting on in last week's episode (8.02)? Several people pointed it out and I'm still obsessed lol
For those that celebrate, I hope you had a happy and safe Thanksgiving yesterday!
Next Time: Nez Rowan goes on the warpath, Aram gets a chance to speak with Samar, and Liz asks Reddington for the truth on who he is to her.
