A/N: The redoubtable Chellero has been demanding more... Okay then... here you go...
As Reese sat in the motel room glaring at Jen, Finch's voice came through his earpiece again.
"I've arranged an identity for Joss. And Dr Enwright has been able to clear her schedule for this afternoon."
"Good. Shaw and Fusco can take her there while I continue my little chat with Jen here."
There was a pause from Finch. When he spoke again he sounded resigned. "Mr Reese, please remember. We save lives."
"Her life's not in danger, Finch." Even though it damn well should be, he thought savagely. "But I need to find out what the hell is going on. Then maybe we can-" fix things, he had been going to say. But it didn't look very fixable right now. "-figure out what to do next," he finished.
There was a sigh from his earpiece. "Very well, Mr Reese. I'll keep you posted on how Joss is doing once we know."
"You do that, Finch."
The door to the bedroom opened, and Joss shuffled out, supported by Shaw. Fusco darted a concerned glance at his partner and moved across to help with her. Joss's breathing seemed a little less laboured than before, though as Reese watched she was shaken by another bout of coughing. He couldn't control his flinch. For a second he was caught up in a memory, a flashback almost, to the horrible days when her lung problems had threatened everything. But he schooled his features into an encouraging smile for her. She acknowledged it with a tiny nod, and as the group moved past him she reached out and touched his shoulder. A fleeting contact, but one that said "I'm okay. It's all going to be okay" as loudly as if she'd shouted it to him. Reese watched as the knot of people negotiated the doorway, Joss's head silhouetted against the bright sunshine, before the door closed on them. He turned his attention back to the woman in the chair in front of him.
There was a long silence as he considered the best way to approach this particular subject. He wasn't, in truth, the very best interrogator – at least, not when denied the more rough-and-ready ways of persuading someone to talk. As his anger ebbed away he felt a little less inclined to turn Jen inside out, and he was pretty sure that if he tried Finch would be on his case. But as the silence stretched it was Jen who broke it.
"You're in love with her, aren't you," she said abruptly, jerking her head to towards the door through which Joss had exited.
He favoured her with a long, cool look before inclining his head.
The silence stretched again.
"When did you realise you'd joined the bad guys?" he asked at last.
Jen drew herself up in her chair, as best she could. "The Agency isn't the bad guys. We protect people from the bad guys," she said stiffly.
Reese allowed himself a grim smile. There were so very many responses he could make to that one…!
"Yeah, that's what they told me too," he said softly. "But seriously. Less than an hour ago you were waterboarding a US citizen, on US soil, without any legal sanction at all. How do you justify that to yourself?" He found himself genuinely curious, although he had a very good idea of the thought process which led to such events.
"We needed to find you," Jen said. With just a touch less certainty?
"Which brings me back to my original question. Why am I such hot property? After all this time?"
She shifted in her chair, as much as the zip ties would let her. "I don't know."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Really. I don't know."
More silence. "Hunting traitors, or terrorists, that I was totally on board with," he said softly. "But the problem came when we were just treated as weapons. Pointed at someone and fired. Like a gun or a missile. Even that wouldn't have been so bad if the people aiming us had had some kind of, of moral compass worth a damn."
Jen had her eyes closed. Trying to shut him out, or listening really hard?
"Day came when the Agency turned on me. We really are just objects, tools, to them, Jen. The second you're past your usefulness, they'll cast you off. But even that I could live with if only I could have trusted that what they were doing was right. Except it wasn't – not for me then, not for you now. They're using you, Jen. And they're not even using you for a good purpose."
Jen took a long breath in, held it for a moment, and then let it out in a long, soft exhalation.
"Late at night a week or so ago Jim Shannon sent in a photo he'd taken out in Queens, at an aged care facility," she said quietly. "He was certain it was you, and when we ran the picture through the system it confirmed it. Julian Casey put me onto it, and I hunted down as much of your bio as I could. I wanted to bring you in pretty much immediately, but the DD nixed it when Julian took it to him. Said we should let you run for the time being. But when you suddenly dropped off the grid all hell broke loose upstairs, and I was sent to try to get a location on you out of your girlfriend there. I was authorised to use any means at my disposal. And that's all I know."
Reese looked at her for a long time. She met his gaze squarely, almost defiantly. At last he pulled out his knife. Ignoring her sharp intake of breath he began cutting her zip ties.
"Okay. You can go now."
She looked at him, confused. "What?"
"I said, you can go now. You've told me what you know."
"Um, an hour ago you were ready to kill me."
He stilled at that. "Oh, yes. And make no mistake, Jen. If you ever come near me or Joss again – I will kill you. My friend won't be able to save you a second time."
She stilled in her turn. "If the Agency really is like you say it is, you already have killed me. If I go back to them..."
He shrugged and continued to cut the zip ties. "That's your problem, not mine."
"Your friend said you don't kill people any more. You help them." She put a hand on his sleeve. "So help me now."
He froze at her words. Then he let out a long breath. Shaking his head slightly, he touched his earpiece. "Finch? I have a little problem here..."
POI*POI*POI*POI*
Harold was not at all pleased to see Jen at the safe house. He dragged Mr Reese aside and hissed in his ear, "Are you quite sure about this, John? She's from your old employers! A couple of hours ago she was waterboarding Joss!"
Mr Reese looked calm, as usual. "You heard her, Harold. If she goes back to the CIA they'll never trust her again. And that likely means they'll retire her, sooner or later."
"Trust. Trust! So that automatically means we can trust her?"
Mr Reese looked away from Harold and seemed to be staring into the middle distance. A muscle in his jaw worked. "We save people, Finch. We don't judge them, right? I'm trying real hard right now not to think about what she did to Joss." He turned back to face Harold. "I think she's for real. Yeah, I know I can't be certain, but… I think she gets it. How she's been used. I'm willing to take a chance on this one."
Harold gave a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "If you're sure, then, John..."
"Sure as I can be. Not certain, but sure enough. I'll keep an eye on her."
"You'd better," said Harold grimly. "We keep her at the safe house, and we don't mention the Machine."
Mr Reese twitched an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, yeah. I know the drill, Harold."
Harold gave him a hard look in return.
POI*POI*POI*POI*
It was very quiet in the safe house that evening.
Finch was sitting at the dining table with his laptop, typing and clicking away as usual. Reese had stretched out on the sofa, just back from a visit to Joss at the clinic where she was holed up under a false identity. He had been shaken to see her intubated and hooked up to every monitor in creation. Seemingly they had tried to tilt the bed downwards to help the gunk she'd inhaled to drain from her lungs, but she'd panicked and so they'd sedated her. After a couple of hours sitting holding her hand the staff had gently moved him on, suggesting that he come back in the morning when she was conscious again.
Jen was sitting in an armchair. She'd paced around a lot at first, and finally selected Pride and Prejudice from the book shelf and settled herself to read.
"Mr Reese," said Finch suddenly. "I've just noticed something rather peculiar. The Deputy Director of the CIA, Tom Talbot – he's accessed your file nearly fifty times in the last two days."
Jen looked confused. "But Julian Casey was running this case. Why would the DD be doing that?"
Reese sat up, staring into space. "Fifty times in two days – that's obsessive. This must be his own private project. Nothing to do with the Agency, really. It's personal."
"It's not paranoia if they're really trying to get you," murmured Finch, his mouth twitching into a humourless smile.
"Why the hell would the Deputy Director of the CIA be running some sort of personal vendetta against me?" Reese's brow was furrowed.
Finch was busy at his keyboard. "I am trying to ascertain exactly that, Mr Reese." There was a long pause, punctuated by the clatter of the keys. "This may take a while," he added abstractedly. Reese snorted to himself and pulled out his phone to check for any messages from Fusco.
POI*POI*POI*POI*
It was only after several fruitless hours that Finch finally threw in the towel. "There's nothing in any of the digital sources on Talbot which suggests the slightest connection with you, John," he said, taking his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose. "He was a White House lawyer for more than fifteen years, and he didn't even join the Agency until after you, um, left. There's nothing at all to link him to you, or any of your associates while you were there."
Reese greeted this with a frustrated grimace. "Well, that leaves us with only one option."
"What's that?" asked Finch.
"I'll just have to go ask him."
"You what?" Finch was staring at him in horror. "You're just going to walk into his office at Langley and sit down for a chat? Are you out of your mind?"
Reese was unperturbed. "Jen here can get me in, I bet. And I'm not too concerned with my ability to hold off some bureaucrat."
"It's not the bureaucrat which worries me, it's the building full of Agency personnel, some of whom will recognise you, and all of whom will be quite ready to kill you!"
"There won't be that many who recognise me, Harold. Mark and Kara are dead, Jen's here with us. I hospitalised Jim Shannon yesterday. I spent most of my time out of the country, more than five years ago. The HQ staff are very unlikely to know my face, and flattering as it is to the Agency, not everyone in HQ is a trained killer. That just leaves Casey. If I pick my time I should be able to get in and out no problems."
Finch was sitting with his head in his hands. "How are you managing to make complete insanity sound so reasonable?" he muttered plaintively.
Reese turned to Jen.
"If you're going to ramraid Talbot's office – speaking figuratively, of course – the best time would be a Tuesday morning," she said. "He's notorious for turning up very early that day – before dawn, a lot of the time. There's a Heads of Departments meeting at 09:30 each Tuesday, so he'll be in his office preparing for that."
Reese nodded. "So it needs to be tomorrow, or we have to wait another week."
"Talbot's office is only two floors up in the OHB – the Old Headquarters Building," said Finch.
Reese cocked an eyebrow at him. "I know what the OHB is, Harold," he said softly. "I used to work for them, remember?"
"Yes, and for some unfathomable reason you're suddenly eager to walk into their maw," said Harold peevishly. "Be that as it may," he continued before Reese could reply to this, "only authorised vehicles can even approach CIA headquarters so you will be dependent on Jen to get you down that road and into the building." He glared at the woman. "I can offer you a deal, Jen. I'll manufacture a new identity for you. You get John into the OHB, and out again safely, and you get a new start somewhere a long way away."
"You were the guy who generated that Riley identity?" Jen looked surprised.
"Actually, no," said Finch reluctantly. "That was someone else. But I can assure you, you'll have no cause for complaint at my work."
Jen considered for a moment. "Okay. You got yourself a deal."
POI*POI*POI*POI*
Under the trees overhanging the private road leading from the George Washington Parkway to the George Bush Center for Intelligence at Langley, the predawn twilight was dulled to almost total darkness. The journey from New York had been a silent one. Reese fingered the visitor ID for the CIA's headquarters which Finch had cooked up on such short notice, clipped to his lapel. Jen seemed to be concentrating on her driving. Of course, there was the possibility – the strong possibility if he was honest with himself – that she was about to deliver him up to the Agency. But he'd been observing her ever since he suggested the idea of going in here, and he wasn't picking up a single vibe to arouse his suspicions. So either she was very good, or he was safe. Or he was getting rusty and about to pay the price, he thought to himself wryly.
They emerged from the trees and drove around the perimeter of the complex to the parking lot. Exfil was going to be a bitch from over here, but Jen couldn't exactly park out the front. They'd played around with various plans involving taking to the woods and rendezvousing back on the main road. In the end they'd settled on a couple of plausible scenarios and agreed to leave it fluid. Hooray for detailed mission planning, he thought sourly. But there were too many possibilities to plan for, really. Maybe Finch had been right about this, but it was too late now, he thought as they got out of the car.
They made their way to a side entrance, and Jen swiped her card and nodded to the guard while Reese casually flashed his visitor ID. They were through in moments, and strolling down the corridor. Reese stuck his hands in his pockets and shortened his stride to match Jen's. After a few minutes they came to a bank of elevators and stopped.
"The DD's office is up that elevator, left and then right," said Jen. "If you can get out unseen, I'll meet you at the Kryptos sculpture. If things go sideways I'll collect the car and park off the road a hundred yards before the junction with the Parkway and wait till I hear from you."
Reese nodded and turned to the elevator.
"Good luck," he heard Jen say softly, but he pretended not to hear as the doors closed on him.
To be continued….