When the elevator doors opened again he emerged into a bland corridor – buff-coloured walls and a slightly darker carpet, subdued lighting and abstract art on the walls. He could hear a vacuum cleaner being run a long way off. He turned left along the passageway and then took the first right. The door to the Deputy Director's outer office was propped open – maybe by the cleaner who'd been through during the night. The sun was just rising off to the east, and a small breeze was stirring the branches of the tree outside the window. He took a deep breath, tapped on the door of Talbot's office, and waited for a noise from within.
"Come," came the man's tones. He sounded a little surprised. Reese opened the door. Talbot was seated at his desk, a manila folder open in his hands. He looked up and froze when he saw Reese. The combination of emotions which flickered across his face was very hard to read – surprise, rage, glee… grief?
He moistened his lips, put down the file and said, "Well."
Reese came a little further into the office. "You've been looking for me."
"Oh, yes," breathed the DD. His expression had settled down now. He looked avid, gazing at Reese like an alcoholic gazes at a bottle of Scotch.
Reese seated himself in one of the chairs in front of the desk. "I want to know why."
Talbot leaned back in his chair. "And I want to tell you, John. You have no idea how much I want to tell you." There was a tight little smile on his face. He paused a moment longer and then said abruptly, "In 2008 you and your bitch partner picked up a package in New York. A man who'd supposedly sold software secrets to the Chinese." Talbot opened a desk drawer and pulled a photo out. He passed it across the desk to Reese. "This man."
Reese took the photo. A big, blonde guy with piercing blue eyes grinned at him. He didn't really recognise the man – hadn't looked at his face much, though he remembered the mission.
"You rendered him somewhere, and I've never seen or heard from him again." There was grief in the DD's voice, unmistakably.
Reese looked up at him, his eyes narrowing. "You were lovers."
There were tears in Talbot's eyes. "He was smart, and witty, and kind. We'd been together for fifteen years. Very quietly, but we managed. And you people took him from me." His expression hardened. "No one knew I had any connection with a supposed traitor, so after he disappeared I kept working at the White House. Eventually I got appointed here. Got access to the files. And so I came across the whole story. I was pleased as hell when I read about the Ordos thing. Poetic justice. When you came back, well, I watched and waited. Mark Snow was on to you, I was going to let him take you out and then engineer some fitting end for him. In the end you both disappeared. The Feds thought you'd died in the explosion."
Reese sat quietly. He allowed his gaze to wander around the room: the framed prints on the walls, the morning sun flickering through the branches of the tree outside the window. Books on the shelves: Jane's Intelligence Watch Report, Combat Fleets of the World, Fundamentalisms and Society. Neat stacks of The Economist and Jane's Defence Weekly on a credenza at the side. A clock on the wall behind him ticked loudly. He'd always known his past would eventually catch up with him; somehow he'd always imagined it would be in a hail of bullets, not a quiet office in Langley.
There was the soft sound of a drawer opening. He glanced back up at the figure at the desk. Talbot was still sitting there, but rigid now. With a gun in his hand, pointed at Reese.
It was a stupid little gun. Talbot was one of those tall, gangling types with big hands, and the gun was too small for him, enveloped in his great paw. Reese couldn't even tell what it was at first glance. Some piece of crap with a two-inch barrel, so inaccurate it might miss even at this short range. He mapped out in his head what would happen next: a lightning lunge across the desk, left hand batting the gun aside before closing around Talbot's right wrist with enough force to fracture the bones, while the right hand went for… the eyes or the throat? The throat, he thought, probably; he would want Talbot in decent condition so he could...do what? He realised that he didn't know what came next. Hole up in the office of the Deputy Director of the CIA, with the DD as a hostage? Try to get him out of the building – to where? And for what purpose? As he sat there he noticed that the usual surge of adrenaline and endorphins which slowed time and allowed him to dance through a fight was absent. His heart was still beating in its usual slow, sure rhythm. He felt a dull lassitude, a kind of relaxation of all his muscles, steal over him. He realised that for the first time he had met someone who had a perfect right to kill him.
The Deputy Director was waiting for him to respond. Reese took a deep breath, and then let it out in a long sigh. "I was following orders. Not that that makes any difference. There's always a choice. Just not a very good one, sometimes." His voice sounded softly in his own ears. He found himself looking down, not at his hands or even his knees, focussing instead on some point in the air just below the edge of the desk. "I did a lot of bad things. Maybe I should have died in Ordos, or in the bomb blast three years ago. Since then I've tried to make up for it. Tried to atone. But I can't ever..." his voice trailed off. He raised his eyes to meet the DD's. "I never did have the guts to try and find anyone I'd harmed from those days with the Agency. Try to make amends directly. So I guess it's fitting. That I'm sitting here." He drew another deep breath and spread his hands. "So here I am. You can do what you like with me. I'm done running." He closed his eyes and waited.
The silence in the room became so profound that he could feel it pressing on his ears: an immense weight, like being at the bottom of the ocean.
There was a muted thump from the desk: the gun dropping onto the blotter.
"I really want to shoot you," came Talbot's voice. "I've wanted to for years."
Reese said nothing.
"But now I just can't. Is that weakness? But it wouldn't bring him back."
Reese said nothing.
"So I'm going to let you go. On one condition."
Reese opened his eyes again. The Deputy Director was gazing at him with a scorching intensity. "You find him. Bring him back if he's alive. Tell me what happened if he's not."
Very slowly Reese nodded, and let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.
POI*POI*POI*POI*
Jen was waiting for him by the sculpture, just like she'd said she would. They walked quietly back towards the parking lot. The sun was well up now, and the office staff were arriving to begin their day. Jen had shaken her hair loose from the pony tail and finger-combed the blonde mane so it lay partly over her eyes. Probably a fruitless attempt to disguise herself, but then she'd only been missing a day or so, and even if she was recognised she might be able to bluff her way out of it. But they made it back to her car without incident. Then it was back along the private road and out onto the Parkway. And heading north to New York. As he stretched his legs out Jen glanced across at him. "Find out what you needed?"
"Yup."
"Are you free now?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"So… I can take my ID and go."
"Yup."
There was a long pause as she negotiated a sweeping curve in the road and blew past a sixteen-wheeler.
"Wish I could go back, you know," she said suddenly. "Maybe it's not as bad as you say."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Your choice, I guess." He really didn't feel like talking.
There was another pause.
"I guess you can't go back, though. Can't unlearn what you've learned."
"Nope." He ignored her after that, and pretended to be asleep.
When they got back through the tunnel and into Manhattan he roused himself – that sleep had ended up being perfectly genuine – and directed her through the traffic to the safe house. Finch was waiting there, outside on the side walk looking anxious. Reese got out of the car and made way for Harold, who passed a thick yellow envelope to Jen. She tossed it onto the passenger seat without opening it.
"I guess it's goodbye, then," she said.
"Sure is," said Reese. He leaned back in through the window and said very quietly, "Remember what I said. Never come near me or Joss again."
Jen nodded, looking daunted. Reese backed out and straightened. She was pulling her car out into traffic again as he turned and followed Harold inside.
POI*POI*POI*POI*
There was good news when they got back indoors. Shaw had been in consultation with Dr Enwright. There was no sign of infection in Joss's lungs, and the aspirated material appeared to have all drained out during the last twenty-four hours. The consensus was that Joss was recovering well and could be released from hospital that evening.
But Harold listened sombrely to Reese's account of his interview with Talbot.
"Are you sure you can trust him? Will he really leave you alone if you return his lover to him? Or, as seems more likely, if you can only bring him news of the man's eventual fate?"
Reese gave a tiny shrug. "He sure had his chance there in his office. If he was going to kill me, he would have by now."
"So we now have to work out how to find the man, if he can be found, and how to bring him home." Harold was frowning.
"Well, you have a job, Mr Finch. Never said it'd be easy."
"Very funny." Harold was unimpressed. "Perhaps after you collect Detective Carter from hospital you should bring her to the subway. We can discuss things in more detail there."
POI*POI*POI*POI*
"His name is – or was – Daniel Marriott. He was rendered to Morocco. Rabat. And that's about all we know," said John.
"If the CIA had anything on him, Talbot would have found it," said Finch, leaning towards his computer and beginning to type. Bear was curled up on his bed while Finch sat at his computer station and John, Joss and Sameen nursed coffees, sitting in a loose half-circle around him.
"Morocco's digital record-keeping is patchy, but there might be something I can uncover." The other three exchanged resigned glances as Finch began his hack.
"Fortunately," added Finch, pausing for a moment, "their firewalls are...pathetic, really. Ah, I'm in." He leaned forward again.
"O-kay...an American prisoner arrives in 2008. Actually, a number of prisoners arrive in 2008. A busy year for your employers, John." He failed to notice Reese's pained look.
"Here he is, though. Daniel Marriott. Arrived July 24th. He enjoyed the hospitality of the Moroccans for only four days before he was transferred… another rendition, the lucky man. To Egypt." More typing. "Hm. The Egyptians have better security. This might take a minute."
Reese finished his coffee and stood up. He crumpled his empty paper cup and took it over to the trash, and then took a turn around the station. Bear raised his head to watch him, but evidently decided that there was no chance of a walk, and lowered his head again.
"Here we go..." said Finch. "He arrived in Cairo on July 28th. There he seems to have languished for...three weeks at least. Hm. A transfer to another cell block. Then to the prison hospital, that seems ominous. Back into a cell on September 12th. And that's where the log ends." He leaned back, absent-mindedly massaging his neck.
"Nothing else?" asked Shaw.
"No. Not from that source. And remember, developing countries are much less heavily surveilled than we are. I doubt there are many other sources existent, let alone accessible."
"So the trail goes cold in Cairo," said Carter thoughtfully. "Well, it could be worse."
"So Shaw stays here to take care of the Numbers and I go to Egypt. Guess I'd better get home and start packing," said Reese.
"I thought you were always packing," said Shaw.
Reese didn't dignify the joke with a reply, just reached for Joss's hand. "C'mon, Joss. I've got a plane to catch in the morning."
She shot an indecipherable glance at him, but only said, "Hm," in reply to this.
POI*POI*POI*POI*
"I'm coming with you."
"No, you're not," he said patiently.
"Oh, yes I am." Carter was standing in their living room with her hands on her hips.
"You just got out of hospital."
"Because I'm okay now."
He felt like tearing his hair. "You can't come."
"Why not?"
"Because… because I don't know where I'm going, or how long this will take. He's probably dead, but he might still be stuck in a cell somewhere. In which case I'm going to have to get him out. Carter, I can't be worrying about you as well."
"Oh, so I get to do the worrying instead, is that it? Thanks, John." She took one hand off her hip long enough to swipe a strand of hair out of her eyes, then prodded a finger into his chest. "Well lemme tell you this. You get on a plane, I'll be one flight behind you. You're not locking me out of this one, John." A slow smile. "You're stuck with me, remember? Two can play at that game."
He gazed at her in exasperation. "Okay, I'll make you a deal."
"Uh-huh?"
"If you can keep up with me, you can come with me." He went through to their bedroom and began changing into sweats. "C'mon, Joss. We're going for a run."
She glared at him, but said nothing as she followed him into the bedroom and began getting into her own running gear.
POI*POI*POI*POI*
He was leading by more than fifty yards by the time they made it back to the apartment building. He waited by the front doors, watching her jogging steadily along the side walk towards him. It was difficult not to admire the way in which she'd hung on doggedly, fighting hard and making him work for every yard of ground he'd gained on her. But his greater endurance had come to the fore in the last half mile. He held the door open for her as she came up the steps and she swept past him, taking a pull from her water bottle as she did so. He suppressed a smile and followed her toward the elevator.
Back up in the apartment she still wasn't talking, just pointed him toward the shower. But when he came out, towelling his hair dry, she had a suitcase out on the bed. "Three, four, five..." she was muttering under her breath as she placed brightly coloured cotton panties atop the pile of clothing taking up one side of the case. "Oh, good, you're out. Don't you mess with that, I'll be through in a jiffy." She started towards the shower.
"Hey. You're not coming with me-" he started to say.
"The hell I'm not." Her eyes flashed.
"We had a deal!"
"Oh no we didn't. You suggested it, but I never said a word. Just thought letting you run a couple of miles might improve your mood and make you more reasonable. I'm coming too, John. No more discussion necessary." She pushed past him and disappeared into the bathroom.
He stared after her and opened his mouth to say something, but she was gone. An immovable object, that's what she was. But since she couldn't see him, he allowed the corners of his mouth to crook upwards, just a little bit.
To be continued….