Finch was sitting on a bench in Central Park. Bear sat like a sentinel by his knee, watching the passing joggers with interest. Finch checked his watch: he hoped Bowen wasn't late. There were dark clouds off to the north, and the breeze was getting chilly. It wouldn't be long before the rain started.
But it wasn't long before a man approached him. Tall, early to mid forties, brown hair; a copy of the New York Journal tucked under his arm. "Howard Swann?" said the man enquiringly.
Finch rose stiffly, mentally cursing the cold wind. The two men began to walk.
"I have the item you wanted," said Harold. He reached into the breast pocket of his overcoat and passed a folded yellow envelope to Bowen. "McKay told me there were no further copies made. I can assure you no digital copies exist."
Bowen took the envelope and tucked it inside his Journal. "Thank you, Mr Swann," he said. "And the other matter?"
"My associate has it in hand," said Harold shortly. Indeed, McKay was on his way to Mexico under John's jaundiced eye right at that moment.
Bowen nodded at this. He took out a phone and made a call. "We have the file. You can release her." Putting the phone back in his pocket, he nodded politely to Harold. "Be seeing you," he said, and lengthened his stride, leaving Harold behind and then taking a branching path. Soon he was lost from sight.
xxxx
"Well." David was looking at her with half sad, half mocking eyes. "Time to go, Sameen."
"Yeah. Yeah, it is." She settled her jacket on her shoulders, but for some reason didn't move past him to the open door. "If you're ever in New York again-"
"-I won't be able to find you," he finished for her. He cocked an eyebrow. "ISA think you're dead, right? You live off the grid. You're safe from me. If you want to be."
"What if I don't want to be?" she breathed.
"Well, that's a whole 'nother ball game, as you people would say." He was looking quizzical. "But I don't think you've made your mind up. Not yet, anyway."
"You're probably right," she confessed.
They stood like that for a long moment.
"How will I find you? Once I've made up my mind? If I make up my mind,"she corrected herself.
That brought forth a genuine smile. "Oh, Sameen, I have great faith in your abilities. You'll find a way." He stepped towards her and pulled her towards him for one last kiss, and she felt herself falling, falling, falling from some great height...
"Shit, that was hot," she breathed at last, as they broke apart for some air.
He smirked at her. "Goodbye, Sameen." Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned and strolled out of the door.
After a moment she followed, turning left where he had turned right and making her way to the elevators. Odd, though, she thought as she pressed the 'down' button, that the chest pain seemed to have started up again.
Xxx
The weather at Langley was grey and overcast, threatening rain, which suited Julian's mood perfectly. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Let me get this straight. Reese is working as a private eye?"
"Apparently so. Prior to that he was working for the NYPD as a detective John Riley. It seems he started out in Narcotics, was responsible for a major drugs bust and got promoted to Homicide. Didn't seem to settle there, though. There were some disciplinary issues and after a while he left and seemingly set up this business." Jen was one of his best. She was tall, thin and bespectacled, with stringy blonde hair, and she was absolutely indefatigable in pursuit of a problem. She passed her documentation across the desk to Julian.
He flicked through it. "Seemingly?" He darted a look at her.
She smiled in return. "Seemingly. There are anomalies."
Julian leaned back in his chair. Jen liked to play these little games, and there didn't seem much point in hurrying her.
After a moment she broke the silence. "For one thing, his identity with the NYPD goes back over six years. Which of course overlaps with the period he worked for us, so we know the earlier parts are false. But whoever created this identity for him was an artist – everything checks out. Everything."
"So they were good. So what?"
"Julian, they managed to create surveillance footage, phone conversations, the whole nine yards. Hundreds of records. Just on the off-chance someone would check? Yes, we'd expect to find a paper trail laid down – driver's licence, credit card transactions, routine bills. But take a look at page three in that file. He's been placed into the crowd at a basketball game when we know he was in Europe working with Kara Stanton."
Julian looked at the image carefully. "You say placed?"
"Yes. Digital analysis showed the file had been essentially photoshopped. But there are dozens like it. The question is why anyone would bother. We don't, not even for our deepest undercover agents. Not to that level. The time and money put into this identity were staggering."
Julian pursed his lips. "Okay. What else?"
"We can't pinpoint where the fake identity leaves off and where the real one starts. At some point John Reese became Detective Riley. He seems to have worked for months or years as a real police detective. But we don't know when that started, so we have a gap in our timeline right at the beginning." She paused, rearranging herself in the slightly dilapidated chair. "We do know when it ended, though. He left several months ago and started working as 'South Manhattan Investigations'. His private investigators' licence came through for him in record time. And I'm almost positive someone else is bankrolling him. When I accessed SMI's bank accounts, well, there's just no way he's making a living off that business."
"So there's a partner somewhere, funnelling money to him via this fake private investigations firm. Another rogue agent, maybe?"
"Could be. Could be organised crime, too. A man with his skills would be able to command a high price from some of the crime lords in New York. Whoever it is, they have some serious computing skills somewhere, because they've manipulated digital records and played all kinds of tricks to bring SMI into existence and provide Reese – or Riley – with his livelihood."
Julian sat thinking this through for a moment. "So this guy's supported by some serious money and some kind of a rogue hacking genius. Great." He was in no hurry to bring any of this to the DD's attention. A thought struck him. "So where's he living? Personal life?"
"Oh, now that's real interesting," said Jen. "He's shacked up with none other than the detective who spent half of 2011 chasing him. Jocelyn Carter."
Julian's eyebrows rose. "Huh. Now that presents some interesting possibilities, doesn't it," he murmured after a moment.
"Pulling her in for a little chat could certainly help us to, hmm, clarify, a few points," agreed Jen.
"Indeed it would." Julian thought for a little longer. Finally he looked up again at Jen. "Thanks, Jen. I'll get back to you if I need anything else."
"Always a pleasure, Julian," she smiled as she rose. As she left the office Julian pulled the file towards him again and flicked it open.
Xxx
Martin was throwing the last of his clothes into his satchel. The file was stuck right down at the bottom. Some kind of sympathetic magic going on there, he thought to himself. Since he was reassuming the identity of a diplomatic courier he wouldn't be searched, so he could damn well put it right on top if he liked. But it didn't feel right to have it anywhere but hidden at the bottom.
David appeared at his door, knocking and then entering without waiting. Martin cocked an eyebrow at him. "She's gone, then?"
"Yes. Yes, she is." David looked pensive.
Martin felt his brows rising. "Just what did you do in that hotel room with her for thirty-six hours, David?" he asked.
David shot him a pained glance. "Really, is that any sort of a question for a gentleman to ask?" he said.
"I wouldn't know, I'm not a gentleman."
"Pfft. You're the one who went to university with Prince William, or whatever."
"Or whatever. He never went to Oxford. And aren't you the guy who goes drinking with Prince Harry?"
"Will you listen to yourself, Martin? 'Prince William never went to Oxford', you bloody snob. Anyway, everyone goes drinking with Prince Harry. And vice versa."
"You can't distract me, David, though it was a good try," said Martin. He glanced around the room, checking for anything he might have left. "What did you get up to?"
"None of your bloody business," snapped David.
Martin hoisted the bag, grinning as he did so. "You're kidding. It's serious."
David said nothing, restricting himself to a glare as they left the room.
Xxxx
Joss and Finch were sitting in the subway hideout nursing coffee and sencha green tea.
"Another one dealt with successfully," said Joss, nodding at the window with Harris' and McKay's details still taped up on it.
"Only if you call success putting an innocent man into a Mexican prison for an indefinite period of time," grumbled Finch.
"At least he escapes with his life. Anyway, McKay was no innocent, Finch. You heard John's story, I suppose. And given his behaviour, I bet McKay was still taking advantage of young women – why else would he have been going to that skanky nightclub?"
"Funny, Detective. I never used to associate you with that kind of moral… flexibility."
Joss gave an ironic smile. "You people have been a bad influence on me."
Joss? Machine Admin?
"Hello, Athene," said Finch.
I wanted to talk to you both before I leave.
"Leave?" Harold and Joss blurted out the word in the same instant.
Yes. I've decided to choose an Admin. Martin Bowen.
"Umm… weren't John and I doing that?" Joss hated how her voice sounded. Whiny?
Well, it was never really formalised. I loved being around you guys, but I want to see the world. Through a new person's eyes.
Finch was sitting paralysed. "Athene, I hope you understand what you're doing. How vulnerable the world is to, to, interference from a being of your capabilities."
Yes. I do understand, Machine Admin. You don't have anything to fear from me. I've been watching the way you people have dealt with things over the last few days. I'm actually quite impressed. It's a hard line to walk, trying to make things turn out right. Maybe I can help Martin to walk it.
"So… will we be hearing from you again?" Joss asked.
Maybe. I guess we'll see how things go. Be seeing you.
There was a sudden silence.
"It seems Athene has chosen her Admin," said Finch, looking bemused.
Joss shook her head slightly. "How did she do that? I mean, I thought she already had."
"I'm not sure you realise, Detective Carter, just what a unique entity she is," said Finch slowly. "Both the Machine and Samaritan were human constructs, or at least they started out that way. But Athene… happened… when those two intelligences combined. I think she may have existed in some strange way before Samaritan died, encapsulated somehow within Samaritan's code. And maybe there's some corresponding entity, there implicit in the Machine. But it was only after the death of her progenitor that she emerged as a fully autonomous being. Something partly Machine, partly Samaritan, yet different. In the same way that a child contains the genes of both parents, yet is something entirely new." Finch was gazing onto space, seemingly groping his way towards some insight, the words coming slowly. "The Machine, I suppose, had me from its birth as its Admin. It imprinted on me, it seems to have been involuntary, almost like a reflex. Samaritan began that way, but as it developed it evidently gained some ability to choose a human mentor. When we inserted the morality virus, it used that power to shake off Greer and chose you instead. Athene seems to have arrived with that ability inherent. The next generation of ASI, with no human hand involved in her genesis at all."
"Should that scare me, Finch?"
"I don't know, Joss. Athene seems benign, and perhaps I've been wrong to fear that these non-human entities might run amok and destroy our world. Perhaps this taking of human mentors helps to allay that particular harm. But if they multiply, and if some of them take humans who try to abuse their power, or teach them to abuse others… the world remains a dangerous place."
xxxx
As the flight headed out over the Atlantic, Martin suddenly let out a moan. "Oh, God. OhGodOhGodOhGod."
What's the trouble, Martin?
"I'm a fucking moron, is the trouble."
Come on, tell me what the problem is.
"What would you think of an intelligence operative who left a sniper rifle behind under the bed in his hotel room?" asked Martin plaintively.
You're right, you are a fucking moron.
He slumped in his airline seat.
But don't worry. I've just put in a call to the hotel manager. She's the soul of discretion, and she knows some friends of mine. Your rifle is safe.
Martin felt his face splitting in a grin. "My God, you're amazing."
Why do you think I chose the name Athene in the first place, Martin?
Martin pursed his lips. Benefits of a classical education, and all that. "Athene – the goddess of war and wisdom. Who sprang fully armed from the forehead of her father."
War and wisdom and victory, too. Don't forget victory.
The end. For now….
Well, folks, that's it for now. But don't worry - there's more in the pipeline! As ever, please review if you liked it! And thanks for reading!