Dottie has a close call the morning after she gives Peggy the slip. She's at Union Station buying a one-way ticket to San Diego—from there, she'll waltz over the border into Mexico—and for a split second, she notices the ticket seller hesitate as he hands her the boarding pass. Dottie thanks him and starts heading towards her train. As she glances over her shoulder, she sees him pick up his phone, still watching her.
Once she rounds the corner, instead of getting on the train she turns the other direction to get back to the street. Keeping a normal pace, she ditches her valise and pink hat (a pity; but it's too noticeable) and snags a woman's brown coat off an unattended bench. Clearly, her description has already been circulated. Time for a change in plans.
Dottie hotwires a car and drives east into Arizona, eager to get some distance between her and Los Angeles. Eventually she swings south and crosses the Mexican border. At the beginning she's hypervigilant, and she spends the next several weeks hopping from town to town, never staying in any place for more than a couple days. But as the weeks turn into months and nothing happens, she starts to breathe a little easier.
Almost a year after her escape, Dottie is in a restaurant right off the beach in Loreto. She's just finished her meal when the serving boy comes over. "Senorita," he says, handing her a note. When she finishes reading it, she scans the perimeter carefully, though she knows she won't see them.
They've found her. She always knew they would.
"This is never going to work; she doesn't look anything like her," Sousa says, looking over Peggy's shoulder as she touches up the lipstick "sores" on Dottie's face. "It's too pinkish. It doesn't look right."
Peggy glares at him dangerously and thrusts the lipstick into his hand. "Oh, I see. Would you like to take over?"
He gives the lipstick back and sighs. "No, sorry. You're doing a great job, Peg."
"Great job, Peg," Dottie says, mimicking his inflection.
"You're really testing my patience tonight, Underwood."
She grins. "Would you feel better if you smacked me around a little? Come on, Daniel. Don't be shy."
"That won't be necessary," Peggy says, stepping back to view her work. "Now, we're all clear on what happens next?"
"Perfectly," Dottie answers.
Sousa nods. "Be careful." He turns to Dottie. "I swear to god, if anything happens to Peggy—"
"You'll kill me?" she finishes. "How sweet."
He throws up his free hand. "I'm going to check on Samberly and Whitney Frost. Underwood is all yours," he tells Peggy as he limps away. "You've got the radio and the detonator. Don't hesitate to use it if you need to."
Once he's gone, Peggy adjusts the blond wig on Dottie's head. "Enjoying yourself?"
"Very much," Dottie says. "But Peg, you never told me how you got engaged. I'm dying to know the details. How did he ask?"
Peggy flushes. "I'm not having this conversation with you."
"Come on, aren't we old friends? You can tell me. Did he get down on one knee? Did he make a little speech? Did you cry?"
"Actually, I asked him," Peggy snaps. "And no, I didn't get down on one knee or make a speech."
"Oh. So you cried?"
Peggy puts her hands on her hips. "I certainly did not."
Dottie knows a lie when she sees one, but she lets it go. "I think that's wonderful, Peggy," she says.
Peggy looks puzzled. "Really?"
"Of course I do," Dottie says. She's never had much of an understanding of love, and she finds the concept of marriage totally repulsive. Still, on some level, she's pleased for Peggy.
Peggy's actually blushing. She looks down and clears her throat, and the moment passes. "Let's get to work."
As the sun rises, three unmarked cars with tinted windows leave the SSR, heading west. Five minutes later, a fourth car pulls out from the SSR and follows the others, keeping its distance. At a particular intersection, the first three cars turn south. As the fourth car reaches the intersection, a green car pulls up behind it.
"There she is," Peggy murmurs, turning north and heading out of the city up a winding canyon road. The green car follows them.
Dottie turns to look from the back seat. "This is a terrible plan," she says, tugging at her blond wig. Sousa was right; even with a wig, the right clothes, and liberal amounts of makeup, she hardly resembles Whitney Frost. Though for their purposes, she just needs to look enough like Frost to lure the other spy into an ambush.
"Hm, that's strange. I don't recall asking for your opinion," Peggy says, watching the rearview mirror. She radios in to Sousa. "She's behind us. Green Ford. We're heading now for the rendezvous point."
"Good work," Sousa says. "Our guys are stationed up at—" His voice is suddenly drowned out by radio static.
"Daniel? Do you read me?" Peggy asks. "Daniel?"
Several seconds later, Sousa's voice comes in very faintly, his tone entirely changed. "If you've killed her, I swear—"
Dottie hears her own voice over the radio, much louder than Sousa's. "What would be the point of me bringing you a corpse? Of course she's alive."
Peggy looks over her shoulder at Dottie, realization dawning on both of them simultaneously: they're listening to a conversation that hasn't happened yet. The green car suddenly rams them hard from behind, jolting them both forward. Peggy slams into the windshield headfirst and bounces back, dazed.
"Sorry, Peggy," Dottie says almost regretfully. She loops the piece of cord she stole from the costume closet around Peggy's neck and pulls tight. The car swerves wildly as Peggy kicks and tries to grab her, but Dottie hangs on even though her injured stomach screams in protest. She lets go as soon as Peggy goes limp and the car skids to a stop. She performs a cursory search and pockets the radio, but she can't find anything that resembles a detonator.
The other spy is waiting for her outside the car, gun pointed at Dottie. "Where's Frost?"
Dottie raises her hands and smiles. "You have a couple options right now," she says. "One—you can kill me in accordance with your original directive, and figure out how to get to Whitney Frost on your own. It won't be so easy now that the SSR knows you're looking for her and your man on the inside is dead."
"I know who I can thank for that."
Dottie ignores her. "Option two—you and I make a deal. I go back to the SSR and trade Agent Carter here for Whitney Frost, while you go in and get the remaining documents you need. You take Frost and the documents, and I suppose at that point you can try to kill me, but why bother? You'll have everything you came for. And I disappear."
The woman takes a step closer to Dottie. She doesn't lower her gun. "Do you really expect me to believe that the SSR would hand over Whitney Frost in exchange for one agent?"
Dottie's smile turns positively fiendish. "Oh, they won't. But he certainly will."
