"Oh, my God..."

Most "hidey-holes" are about the size of a walk-in closet. Usually, it has one exit, and even if it does have two, it's mostly just a hole leading to the waterway outside. This wasn't like that.

It looked like a surgery theater. Except, with a concrete floor instead of tile, what looked like a dentist chair from Hell surrounded by flatscreens and IV injectors and speakers and God knows what else. In one corner was a treadmill. In another was a fold-up bed. In another was a computer. In another was, in full view, was a toilet. At the end was what looked like an underground dock for mini submersibles. Two bodies in lab coats were lying in dark pools of blood.

"What is this place?" Cobry asked.

"Looks like something out of a sci-fi movie," Wolfe said.

Horatio looked around, and his mind began to picture it...

Restraints. There were restraints on the chair. Whoever sat there sat their unwillingly. They screamed in pain and terror as they were pumped full of drugs. The screens flashed images. Horrifying images.

When they were done, they dragged the subject to the bed. The subject fell into a fitful sleep. In a few hours, they would drag them again from the bed that offered no protection, to more horrors.

"Why would Pierce attack this place?" Tripp asked.

"If he's after these people..." Wolfe said, "Maybe he's the lesser of two evils?"

"We were told to find Pierce," Cobry said, "He went rogue. Killed his handler in Shanghai. Evaded the retrieval team."

"How possible is it that someone had infiltrated the US intelligence apparatus?" Horatio asked.

"Infiltrated? Not very," Cobry said, "Turned a low-level employee to give them a Trojan into the mainframe? So possible it's scary."

"How often does that happen?" Wolfe asked.

"Not often, but often enough," Cobry said, "Problem is, things like that are often hard to find until it's too late. If an organization is careful enough, they can operate for years on a single Trojan."

"What was Pierce's mission in Shanghai?" Tripp asked.

"No idea," Cobry said, pulling out his cell phone, "But I know someone who might."

Trev

While Lyn took a look at the hard drive, I busied myself with inventory. The first thing I did, was I burned the faces off of fake some of the fake IDs I had.

They weren't mine. Indeed, if I had one true friend, it would be Seeley Booth. My paranoia led me to create numerous fake IDs and passports with the plastic and cash not only for him, but every one of his loved ones. So, I took a blowtorch to their photographs. This place would eventually be burned. I didn't want any evidence pointing to the one man I could trust with my life.

Well, the one man I can trust who's left.

It was a tactic I developed after my family died. Work. Work the body. Work the mind. It got me through my PTSD. It got me through my life as a covert operative. It allowed me to lie. To cheat. To steal. To kill. Funny, it had been destroying my enemies, mentally and physically, that had brought me the most happiness. Now, after a raid that should have left me feeling elated, left me feeling... tired.

I was tired. So tired. I wanted to sleep without having the need to take a pill. To not have to keep gun both under my pillow and at my side. I wanted to go to the park with my daughter. I wanted to hug my sister and brother. I wanted them to know that I am alive. That I'm not under some plot in Arlington.

I want to know that the ghost that I see are worth it. I want payment for my sins.

I glanced over at the girl. She was no older than sixteen. When Lyn had come up the stairs with her on her shoulder, I had been part surprised, part furious. This was not meant to be a rescue operation. This was meant to be part of my revenge. Part of my retribution for them killing a man I had fought side-by-side with. But, I had pulled our escape. Now, however, I think different. Maybe she could be my salvation. If saving this girl from a life of death and darkness absolved one of my sins, them it is worth it a thousand times over.

She had yet to wake up. I had checked her heart and respiration and put ice on her head. It wasn't much, but it was better than letting her die from brain swelling. If she didn't wake in another twenty hours, I would take her to the hospital as a Jane Doe.

Damn, look at me, waxing poetic when I should be working. Maybe Sweets was right. Maybe I need to actually deal with my problems.

I shoved that thought to the corner of my mind. Mission mode, "Lyn, what do we got?"

"Medical jargon," she said, "I can't make heads or tails."

"Good sign," I said, "Might tell us why she hasn't woken up yet."

"Got a calendar," she said, "Looks like training schedule, over the course of three months."

"What does it cover?"

"Infiltration, weapons, dead drops, defensive driving, ..." she said.

"Over three months?" I said, "It took me nine to finish my Green Team training with the DEVGRU. And it only covered half the stuff listed here."

"Remember the Px?" she said, "You said that it could advance the learning process."

"Never thought by that much, though," I said, "Must have improved the recipe. Where would she be right now?"

"She's three weeks away from completion," Lyn said, "They almost succeeded in making her into a weapon."

"What's the final three weeks teach?"

"'Legend'," she said, "What does it mean by that?"

"When I training with the Tracker Team," I said, "They showed videos of an experiment done in the '80s. Scientists doped a subject with hypnotics and dopamines. They then played sound, video, smells, sensations. Everything from shiting to heavy petting as a kid. Built him a whole new personality that he reverted to in times of stress. Like interrogation. The perfect deep cover agent. If caught, he'd never reveal any secrets because the man they were interrogating didn't know any."

"They were building her a personality," Lyn said, "So... who I am now..."

"It could be that you had a natural immunity to the Px," I said, "None of the subjects in Vietnam ever showed any regression to the memories they had before."

"Yeah," she sounded like she was only half listening, "I wonder if they have a file on me..."

"Hey," I said. She looked at me, "They tried to break you. They failed."

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