On the helicopter, Liz strained her eyes down through the fog, attempting to see what was happening on the deck of the small boat. Someone was down with others leaning over them. That much she could see. And knowing her reckless partner, it was likely him on the deck she surmised.
"Damn it, Ress…" she whispered to herself while still straining to see as the fog swirled below them. "I needed you to be careful."
Descending to the beach, sand sprayed as the rotors whipped it up, adding to the white mist that currently enveloped them. As the stark white searchlight illuminated the beach, the now vacant command tent came into view. Under their rotors the blue canopy leaned significantly, in danger of being pulled loose from its stakes. As they touched down onto the beach the chopper bounced then dropped down on its wheels, settling in the sand as the rotors slowed.
Unbuckling her belt and impatient to disembark, Deeks called back to her from the cockpit. "Ma'am, wait for us to open that door!" He told her as he flipped switches off on the console above him.
Agreeing impatiently as the cabin crew quieter she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed her partner, almost terrified he wouldn't answer. As soon as he did, she interrupted him. "Are you okay? Who is down?!" she asked, leaning forward to look out the helicopter window toward the barely visible vessel bobbing on the waves.
The despondency evident in his voice, he replied. "I'm fine."
"Who-"
It was his turn to interrupt her. "We just lost Conrad, Liz. We were too late."
"Oh my gosh! Oh no!" holding her hand over her phone she looked to Deeks as his eyes darted back to her in concern from the cockpit. "We've lost one of our group!" she informed him.
"What happened?!"
"He just…" he stopped, closing his eyes as his stomach churned. "Look, I'll be over there in a little while," Ressler told her quietly, then hung up before she could reply.
Grimacing in frustration Deeks unbuckled his seatbelt, having finished their landing procedure and jumped out onto the sand. Coming around to her side, he unlocked then slid open the heavy chopper door and helped her down. She was feeling a little better, having received some medication, but her entire body was stiff and sore. With her head still aching somewhat she joined Deeks on the sand. Limestone rocks and debris lay nearby, piled either side of the ragged opening in the cliff side. Being intimately aware of how it had looked and felt inside the tunnel, it was her first sight of the explosion from this angle. She shivered, and not from cold.
The rotors dipped slightly above them and ground to a halt as the engines wound down to silence. Holding her arm, Deeks led her away from the chopper and across the sand. Eyes drawn to the boat bobbing indistinctly in the fog, she walked toward the waves that were lapping gently at the shore.
Deeks looked to her as she stood at the edge. "Let's not have an encore performance of you hurtling into those waves, okay?" he asked, smiling at her yet ready to grab her if she decided to ignore him.
Assuring him she wouldn't be doing that again, her gaze momentarily lifted to the beam of the lighthouse above them in the fog. Ghostly and surreal, it shone above its almost invisible white column in a white misty halo. Below it, the sound of waves washing against the unseen rocks came to her in the dark.
"They have a dinghy they'll get everyone off with," Marshall told her, coming up to join them, a two way radio squawking in his hand. He stepped aside to answer Shanks.
"We're ready, bring him over first," replied Marshall. He looked to Liz. "They'll be bringing your partner over first ma'am."
She nodded to Marshall. "Thanks…" If Ressler was coming off first, she knew he was doing badly. Running her fingers through her hair, she slowly paced at the shoreline waiting for the dinghy. Her partner hadn't sounded right. She should have insisted he get on the chopper with her hours ago, but there had been no stopping him.
Barely able to make out the activity on the boat through the dense fog, she again swore at her wayward partner. "Damn it, Ress..."
###
Ressler sat across from Red and Conrad as the lighthouse illuminated Conrad's '108' on the deck on each rotation. In too much pain to contemplate what the numbers meant, still he was drawn to them. The final message of a dying man, etched in his own blood. Across from them the beach was filled with airborne sand as the chopper descended and came to a halt. As the roar of the helicopter engines died down, returning the boat to relative silence, he dragged his eyes from Conrad and his cryptic numbers. His phone rang, lighting up with Liz's caller ID and with eyes on the helicopter he answered her.
On the deck below Ressler, Shanks was looking into Red's eyes, stethoscope still on Conrad's silent chest. "He's gone!" But Red already knew. "I'm sorry," he told Red, letting the stethoscope fall from Conrad. "Damn it…"
Hands on his dead friend, Red closed Conrad's remaining good eye, forever shutting off his final image of the lighthouse. Leaning down, Red whispered into his friend's ear - a final goodbye and promise given to him in a few quiet words. Beside him Dembe was still softly praying. As he finished he transferred his hand to Red's arm.
"Raymond. I am sorry."
"So am I, Dembe. So am I."
Aram had snapped a photo of Conrad's numbers as the helicopter searchlight had illuminated them. Phone in his hand he looked at the image as his mind raced. It was a number. 108. He loved numbers. But what did it mean? One hundred and eight what? Days? Hours? Seagulls? His brain was good at numbers yet he was drawing a blank. His eyes left his phone and took in the sight of Mr Reddington's bowed head over his dead friend. And turning away, Aram realized the number puzzle could wait a little.
His patient dead at his feet, Shanks stood up and tossed his stethoscope into his kit. Cursing, he turned to look up at the lighthouse. The man had died under his watch. He'd missed it. He hadn't seen the internal bleeding until it was far too late. Dropping his eyes, they settled on Ressler. The FBI agent's belly was currently stuck together and already bleeding again. He was now his priority.
"Aram." Shanks motioned to him, and as Aram stowed his phone he came and saw what the medic was struggling with. While attempting to lower the inflatable dinghy from its cradle on the back of the boat, the uncooperative hoist was refusing to budge. Giving it a good ole Fonzie whack, it groaned under Aram's hand then started moving, lowering the dinghy to the water.
Sliding with difficulty along the bench seat to give them room, Ressler rose unsteadily to his feet as he finished talking to Liz, dropping his phone back in his pocket. He really wasn't too feeling good and leaned on the railing, afraid he was about to throw up. Gasping as he leaned forward, Shanks was suddenly beside him.
"As soon as we get this dinghy in the water, you'll be first off, okay?" said Shanks, "We'll get you on board and taken care of," he added, motioning with his head back to the chopper on the beach.
Ressler shook his head, pointing back to Reddington sitting on the deck. "No, let Red-"
Shank wasn't taking no for an answer. Not after he'd just lost one patient, with the stark reminder of that fact lying inches from his feet. "You'll be first off this boat," he told the agent as the inflatable hit the water. "No more arguments. Got it?"
Red looked up from Conrad as Dembe helped him to his feet, hopping over to a seat. "Oh, he's got it. Haven't you Donald?"
Ressler didn't argue any more as he turned back to the deck, his stomach settling a little as he eyed Reddington and then Shanks. He understood where the medic was coming from and nodded to him silently. Partly because he felt for the guy. But mainly because he wasn't sure how much longer he could stand on his own two feet. Leaning against the railing and really not liking the bobbing of the boat on the water, he looked toward the helicopter again. Figures were visible in the fog. One of whom was Liz. The emptiness in the pit of his stomach lifted a little at that thought.
"Come on, let's get you to shore," said Shanks, as the dinghy dropped overboard. Stepping quickly and confidently down into it even with one hand, he turned back and motioned for Ressler to climb in. With Aram steadying him from above, Ressler slowly lowered himself down into it, gritting his teeth against the flare of pain across his belly as fresh blood oozed from under the makeshift dressing. Taking Shank's offered hand on his arm he sat on the small seat toward the front of the craft, breathing faster as the pain rippled through him anew.
"You too," Shanks called over to Red as he now balanced on one foot leaning on the handrail beside Dembe. "There's room."
"I'd like to see to Conrad first," Red replied.
"We'll get him sir. We'll take good care of him," Shanks told him, meeting Red's eyes from the dinghy.
Ressler's eyes shot to the medic. Déjà vu swept over him. Images of a cold roadway, a bleeding fiancé and an understanding coroner were before him. He pushed it aside and looked up as Red stepped carefully into the dinghy, coming to sit on the middle seat while favoring his left leg. With both men safely secured, Shanks gunned the small engine and took them the small distance to the shore, beaching the small craft beside Liz and Deeks.
"Oh my gosh!" cried Liz as she saw Red's bleeding bandaged lower leg and Ressler slowly standing with Deek's offered assistance. Her eyes immediately zeroed in on the blood seeping down Ressler's front, fresh and wet and clearly visible in the searchlight of the helicopter. "What did you do?"
As Ressler was helped onto the sand by Shanks and Deeks he came to stand quietly beside Liz, ignoring her question. It was obvious what he'd done. He'd ignored doctors' orders and was bleeding.
As soon as Deeks got all three of them ashore, he left Shanks with them and pushed the small craft back out into the waves and returned to the boat. Standing beside them, Liz was looking from Red to her partner. Ressler was slightly hunched over in pain, while Red tried not to put too much weight on his left leg.
"Okay, let's get you guys up to the chopper," Shanks told them, looking pointedly at Ressler. "And we're not running off on any more little adventures or hanging off any more cliff faces, got it?"
"What?!" Liz turned quickly to her partner. "What is he talking about?!"
Ressler hunched forward a little more in pain as he looked up to Liz. "He talks too much. We're fine."
Red smiled on the other side of her. "Oh, you should have been there, Lizzie. You'd have killed your partner yourself at his sheer knuckle headedness. Or given him a medal," he shrugged. "But right now we need to get Donald to that helo before he falls over," he told her as Marshall joined them.
Shanks was already at Ressler's side, putting his good left arm around him and supporting him as he turned the agent on the sand and pointed him toward the waiting helicopter. Silent, standing over them in the sand, the orange and white helo was clearly illuminated in its own searchlight as well as the steady rotation of the lighthouse.
Behind them, Marshall assisted Red as he limped across the sand, blood dripping from his leg and leaving a small red trickle in the soft ground.
Ressler could feel his legs giving out. Shaking as he walked slowly to the chopper, he was leaning further.
"Hang in there," Shanks hissed at him, unable to support him more with his other hand.
Suddenly Liz was at his side, positioning herself under his shoulder and supporting him.
"No," he gasped, mindful of her own injuries.
"Did anyone ever tell you that you are your own worst enemy?" she asked him quietly, holding up his weight as best she could as he trembled against her.
"Don't believe so," he gasped, then slipped and would have fallen if it weren't for Marshall grabbing him from behind them, leaving Red balancing on one leg in the sand.
"We've got you, sir."
Ressler leaned heavily on Marshall as Liz let him go. The ground was spinning. The orange and white chopper in his field of view was tilting precariously. Unable to stop it, he shut his eyes against it. Crying out as Marshall helped him on board, pulling at his open belly; he felt them laying him down on one of the cots at the back of the chopper.
Shanks was beside him laying a blanket over him. "Once the others are on board, we'll get you to the hospital up in Bangor. Be about 30 minutes and we'll be there, okay?" he told Ressler, leaning down to him. Shaking under the blanket as Shanks turned away to see to Red, Ressler suddenly reached up to Shanks arm.
"I'm sorry I've been such a stubborn prick," he said quietly.
Shanks grinned down at him, and spoke in a hushed tone. "Are you kidding me? Don't tell your partner this, but I am actually in awe of you. Sure, you've irritated and frustrated the heck out of the medic in me, but you sir, are something else," he told him, leaning over Ressler and patting his chest. "It's been a pleasure."
Ressler nodded and closed his eyes. "Glad to be of service..."
Behind them, Marshall helped Liz and Red on board and as Red sat down in one of the seats, Liz moved to the back and sat beside her shaking partner. Her hand found his forehead as his eyes opened at her touch.
"Ress...why did you do this?" she asked, yet she already knew the answer.
He closed his eyes against her question. It had needed to be done, and the fact that he wasn't 100% hadn't changed that fact. And that was all that mattered. The job had needed to be done.
"Because no one else could," he told her, sweat breaking out on his forehead under her hand now with the pain as warm blood trickled down his belly under his jeans.
Shanks returned with his kit. "Okay, I have this final dose of the pain meds here. And I would strongly suggest that you let me give it to you," he told Ressler as he leaned over his patient.
"No. Don't need it now..." Ressler panted.
Shanks looked at Liz as he shook his head. "Right. He doesn't need to save the world now, so he's not going to take it just to ease his own pain," he told Liz as she smiled faintly at him.
Ressler smiled faintly. Liz knew that. She might complain and nag, but she got him. But what made him smile even more was that Shanks got him too.
###
Shanks left them for a little while to assist with securing Conrad as they brought him on board. At the sight of the dead man lying on the cot at the front of the chopper, Liz went to stand by him. His beaten face met her; swollen and unrecognizable, torn and bleeding skin was what remained of his face. Tears pooling in her eyes as she gazed at him in the open body bag, she placed her hand on his cold forehead. Already cool under her touch, his blue skin stood out starkly against her pale hand.
"Conrad..."
Red was suddenly beside her and she turned into him, unable to hold the tears back. She hadn't known Conrad very long, yet the sight of him now was heart breaking.
"Why did they do this to him?" she sobbed, her voice hitching as she looked down at the body.
"Because he never gave up the information he had, Lizzie," he told her, holding her to him. "Come on, let's get you seated so they can get us out of here," he told her.
Behind them, Aram was climbing on board, their compliment now complete. The chopper door was closing and as Liz drew herself away from Red, she looked quickly around. "Where is Dembe?"
"I asked him to take the 'borrowed' boat around to the west side of the island and retrieve the speedboat," he told her. "He'll meet up with us later."
Nodding to Red, she found her seat at the back of the chopper beside her partner while Red sat down heavily in his seat, taking in the sight of his friend's body bag in front of him.
Sitting in her seat and still sniffling as Red leaned forward and zipped up Conrad's body bag, she felt a hand land on her arm. Her partner lay with eyes closed, yet his shaking hand had sought her out. "It will be okay, Liz…" he whispered to her, unable to give her more than that.
Taking his offered hand gratefully from under the blanket, his skin felt cold and clammy to her touch. The rotors fired above them as the engines roared to life, chasing the silence of the cabin away. The orange and white helo with its cargo of living and one dead, bounced a little, then lifted off from the small beach.
Turning to face the ocean as the fog swirled around them, billowing in the downdraft of the rotors, Liz looked out the window as her trembling partner held her hand in support. Through her tears, her last view of the island as they took off over the foggy ocean was of the lighthouse shining into the night, standing stalwart in the fog. She didn't take her eyes off it until they turned for the mainland as the helicopter searchlight shut off and the dark, foggy night closed in around them.
###
Shanks had been correct in his time estimation. Thirty minutes later the helicopter landed on the helipad of the hospital, the red perimeter lights dancing in a light rain as orderlies approached with two gurneys. Her hand now held that of her sleeping partner. As his grip had dropped from her as he'd fallen into an exhausted sleep, she had taken his hand in hers and didn't let go.
Ressler woke with a start as the chopper door was slammed open by the orderlies coming to take their patients. "It's okay," Liz told him as a large white coated man with wet hair loomed over him.
"We've come to get you safely inside, sir, okay?" the man told him, his kind manner belying his large imposing frame.
Shanks was beside them now, lifting the blanket from Ressler and unbuckling the safety straps holding him on the cot. Moving aside to let them get her partner on the gurney, Liz came to stand by Red who was being helped up.
"Gentlemen, as much as I admire your safety protocols, I will not need a gurney. A wheelchair will suffice," he told the orderlies. One tried to argue his point, but the other, wilting under Reddington's glare quickly went and got the wheelchair.
As Ressler and Red were taken from the chopper, Liz and Aram walked behind in the rain before reaching the canopy and a dry walkway. When they split at the ER and each were taken to separate rooms, Aram and Liz looked to each momentarily. And in an unspoken understanding and quick nod to each other they each left for one room. Aram to sit with Red, and Liz to sit with Ressler.
Shanks was standing back as the orderlies loaded Ressler off the gurney and onto the examination bed.
As the orderlies left, the nurse was all business and began cleaning Ressler's left hand in preparation for an IV. He pulled his hand away from her. "I don't need that," he panted.
"It's standard protocol for delivering fluids and medications while here," she told him primly. For a moment, Liz imagined Mr Kaplan standing there with her partner.
"Won't be here that long," Ressler told her, and beside him Shanks chuckled and looked up at the nurse. "Meet my stubborn patient," he told her shaking his head at Ressler before leaning down to him. "I suggest you let her do it. It will go quicker for you," he told him, as Ressler shook his head. "Trust me, Nurse Ratched has nothing on this woman," he added, lowering his voice.
Beside him, Liz smiled as Ressler gave his hand back to the nurse. In just two days, Shanks had learned how to handle her partner perfectly. He turned to her now. "We need to get him set up for his second surgery in 24 hours, so I'll help him get undressed and into this lovely gown here," he told her then pulled the curtain around Ressler as the nurse left them for a few minutes.
As Ressler's clothes were handed out to her one by one from behind the curtain, she folded them and placed them in the provided bag. As his jeans and t-shirt came out, she gasped at how much blood was on them, before folding them and placing them in the bag. As Shanks drew the curtain back, she approached her partner lying white and pale against the hospital gown. Instinctively she took his still trembling hand as blood was already seeping through onto the sheet covering him.
As he stood at the side of Ressler, Shanks looked at them both. "Well, I'm going to have to head out now and get back to base. The chopper is waiting, and duty calls. Actually, my bed calls. I've effectively just worked 48 hours straight," he grinned.
Ressler held his right hand up and shook the medic's hand. "Thanks for putting up with me," he told him, as Liz came around and hugged him. "I second that. Thank you," she smiled, then let Shanks go as he leaned down to grab his kit. Heading for the door, he stopped and looked back at them as Liz returned to her spot to hold Ressler's hand.
"You guys take care of each other, okay?" he smiled at them, then slipped out the door.
###
The doctor entered the cubicle ten minutes later, striding in, white coat flapping behind him and stood over Ressler. "Doctor Lance Gregory. I understand you had a field surgery and now your incision has opened up. Let's have a look shall we?" he said, then looked squarely at Liz. "But I'll need you to step outside first, ma'am."
Wondering briefly if the guy was an ex drill sergeant, Liz faced him. "I'm staying here with him."
"I don't think so. I need to examine him, sedate him and re-suture this wound. You can't be here."
At the mention of sedation, Ressler spoke up, his tired eyes holding the doctor. "You're not knocking me out."
"Sir, I need to stitch you back up. You can't be awake for that."
"I was the last time," he told the doctor, who tilted his head a little, narrowing his eyes.
Liz stifled a smile at her partner's logic.
"Sir, I need-"
"Give me a local, that's all," Ressler told the doctor.
Exhaling heavily, the doctor shook his head. "I'll do that, but if you can't keep still under me, I will sedate you, got it?" Ressler looked silently at the doctor. "Got it? I will sedate you." Ressler nodded.
"Now you need to leave us to it here, ma'am," he again told Liz, snapping on latex gloves.
Liz gripped her partners hand a little tighter. "If he's going to be awake during this procedure, I'm staying right here," she told the doctor firmly.
The nurse came back in at that point, hearing Liz's comment. "Ma'am, the doctor will need you to leave."
"I'm not leaving him."
Ressler looked up at the doctor, tired of the blood trickling down his belly while the doctor argued. "She stays. Let's do this."
Liz squeezed his hand at that.
Addressing Liz, the doctor spoke up. "You will not get in our way. You will sit at his head. We will shield the surgery from your view. Got it?"
"Got it," replied Liz as Ressler met her eyes. The doctor had never stood a chance.
The nurse was handing Liz a mask and gloves. "Wear these," she told her, then rolled a small stool around with her foot. "Sit on this and do not get up." Sitting on the stool, Liz was at head level with her partner as the nurse drew a small curtain across to block their view of his belly. Ressler looked at her, rolling his head to the side. He didn't need to say anything. She saw the nervousness creeping in behind his eyes.
The doctor had the shot with the local sedative at the ready as the nurse leaned over the curtain to Ressler. "Okay, little prick here," she said, then looked back down at his bleeding belly as the doctor injected the medication.
"Well, that's a confidence booster," whispered Ressler to Liz, who cracked up, stifling her laughter with her gloved hand under her mask.
And meeting his eyes as she wiped away tears of laughter, she settled down. "I'm glad to see you haven't lost that dry sense of humor…it's been a rough few days for you…"
He breathed in sharply as he felt pressure as the doctor began to clean and sterilize his wound. "It has been for you too," he told her quietly.
"All over now though," she said, glancing at the curtain.
"Well, not quite," he said and again flinched, gasping at the feeling in his belly.
The nurse looked at him over the curtain. "We will need you to try and keep perfectly still. I know that's difficult."
"You can feel that…you shouldn't be able to, Ress," Liz told him, meeting his blue eyes, both knowing exactly why he could feel it.
"I'll be fine, it's not too bad," he told her, closing his eyes momentarily as another jolt of pain tugged at his belly as the doctor worked.
This time the doctor looked over the curtain. "The initial incision is clean, no problems there. But these two areas either side need some sutures under them to close it properly. Try and keep still here."
Liz leaned closer, leaning her elbows next to his pillow as he flinched again, feeling the procedure. As the doctor opened the incision more to clean and sterilize it with a saline wash, Ressler moved involuntarily. His nerves were jangling inside him and he couldn't keep still, no matter how much he tried.
"Sir, I need you to keep still, or I will sedate you."
"Damn, I'm trying," he whispered.
Panting at the pressure and pain on his belly, Ressler grimaced beside Liz. "Ress, let him sedate you. It will be easier for you," she asked him, reaching her gloved hand up to wipe his forehead.
"No."
The doctor was moving the lower levels of the skin apart to get a good suture in. As the needle pierced his belly, Ressler moved again, dislodging the needle right into the doctor's thumb.
"Okay, that's it. Nurse, if you can prepare the sedation shot."
"I said no," Ressler hissed.
Liz leaned forward to him, her hand still on his forehead. "Ress, you can't keep still. You've been through too much, so just let them do this."
"I don't want to feel that again," he whispered to her, but she was right, he couldn't keep still. And clenching his teeth as the nurse prepared the shot to go in his IV, he held Liz's eyes. "I'm sorry," he told her, feeling the first warming in his hand as the meds were injected.
"For what?" she asked him, holding his other hand.
"For all of…th…is…" he whispered as the meds ran through his veins, knocking him out quickly.
As she watched him fall unconscious under the fast acting medication, she held his hand to her cheek, cradling it against her. He didn't need to be sorry. During the flight, Shanks had come and sat by her and told her what he'd done. He'd saved Red's life. He'd been right in what he'd said. No one else could have done it at that moment when Red was shot and went over the cliff.
She smiled under the mask, watching his pale, sweaty features relaxing. "My stubborn boy scout…you have nothing to be sorry for."
###
Rain was still falling, the sound of it drumming steadily on the window. Liz sat looking out at it as the city of Bangor slept behind the pane of glass, the lights blurring in the wet streaks. Behind her, Red and Aram sat at a small table hunched over his laptop. Ressler slept in the bed near her. They had been at the hospital for three hours now since entering through the ER. The hospital room was doubling as their hotel room for the night after neither Liz nor Aram had wanted to leave Ressler and Red once they had been seen to.
Drawing her gaze from the window she faced her sleeping partner. Still pale from the sedation while they had sewn him back together, he was sleeping off the effects. Having vacated the second bed in the room - or actually, never having got in it in the first place - Red was sitting up and talking to Aram. Fingers flying over the keyboard, Aram ran searches on anything that had the number 108 in it in the surrounding area. But they were still coming up blank.
"This isn't how we're going to find it. It has to be something to do with Conrad's personal effects," said Red, leaning back in the chair.
After lightly touching her partner's arm, Liz came over to join Aram and Red. Easing herself into a chair beside them, Red laid his hand on her arm. "Lizzie, you're exhausted. Get some rest and Aram and I will keep at this.
"I will. But first I want to know what happened to Conrad," she told them quietly.
Red was looking into her tired eyes, knowing she wasn't going to rest until she'd heard. "He was beaten to death. He just didn't know it at the time," he told her, eyes looking downward at the mental image of his friend now resting in the morgue three floors below them. "He never gave the Cabal what they wanted and paid the ultimate price for it."
As Aram paused in his search and listened, Liz looked to Red. "What did they want from him?"
"His list of names, basically. Conrad had years' worth of information of who the Cabal had killed - and who carried out those killings. He noticed a pattern in the bodies that crossed his coroner's table in Boston. He began to realize that the random killings were anything but. And as the pattern became clearer, he did some digging. The way he told it to me, he was contacted by someone else who had noticed it also. He'd only touched the tip of the iceberg. With this informant's help, Conrad amassed a list of names of Cabal victims all over the country. And all over the world."
"Wow...no wonder they were after him..." said Aram quietly.
"Indeed. Political playing fields were being manipulated at the highest level. Heads were being toppled on Wall Street and in the financial districts worldwide. We saw it on a small scale with the Kingmaker. But the Cabal wrote the book on it, so to speak, and they didn't want that information falling into anyone else's hands. As they closed in on Conrad he couldn't escape in any other way than to make up a multi layered cover story that he'd been killed."
Liz shook her head in disbelief. "So he hid out for years until he was found again…"
Aram spoke up. "But what of his informant? Do we know who he was? Or is, assuming he's still alive?"
"No, we do not," said Red. "Conrad's informant did more than point him to the growing pile of bodies. He gave him the names of the killers. It became clear to Conrad that his informant was on the inside. A double agent, so to speak, giving him information from inside the Cabal. And that is the number one piece of information the Cabal wanted from Conrad. They want the name of that informant."
"So he died rather than give up that name. If it was on his computers, it's gone," said Aram, recalling the power outage that had fried the computer hard drives during the surgery.
Red sighed, nodding. "Yes, but we still need to get your FBI guys onto that and back into that cave to-"
Aram interrupted Red. "Oh, um, already onto that. I called Samar, who spoke to Mr Cooper and then I talked to Osborne - Freaking Osborne - the computer genius, and got them onto that. They'll have a unit out there at first light, digging the last of the rocks out of the way and securing the main entrance to the cave and its contents, as well as sealing the escape hatch we came out of."
Red leaned back in his chair. "Agent Mojtabai, I'm impressed. Good man," he told him, smiling. "We need to get you out into the field more often." Aram grinned from behind his laptop as Red continued.
"But any search will likely be in vain. When I asked Conrad about the information they wanted, he said some was in the cave, which we assume is the now defunct computer, and then he pointed to his head. What information remained was in his mind, safely locked away. And that information likely died with him, I'm afraid."
"But what if it didn't? He was telling us something." Aram prodded.
"And all he said was 'one hundred and eight'?" Liz asked them.
"Not exactly... he wrote the number right before he died," clarified Aram, looking quickly up at Liz. "He wrote it in his own blood... See?" He held up his phone and as Liz took it, she shook her head as she viewed the photo. It didn't just show the number on the deck. Conrad lay to one side of the image, his bloody face evident. "Oh, Conrad…" she whispered.
"As hard as it is Lizzie, he died knowing he was a free man who never gave up what he'd held onto for a dozen years," he told her, "And he died among friends, not at the hands of those who had finally caught up to him."
"He shouldn't have died at all. He should have lived out his life on that island, or some place just as… beautiful," she told them, her voice husky with emotion.
"Agreed, Lizzie," he told her quietly. Exhaling and sitting up straighter in his chair, he put his hand back on her arm. "Now get some sleep, and like our illustrious Mr Shanks would say, I'm not taking no for an answer."
Pulling herself up from her chair, she stepped over to the empty bed, then looked to her sleeping partner. Walking to him again, she placed her hand on his forehead. He felt warmer now, no longer trembling as his body rested.
His eyes opened and held hers.
"I didn't mean to wake you, I'm sorry…" she told him quietly.
"You didn't," he replied softly. "I was listening. And when we get out of here, we need to go back to Conrad's cave and find out what he's trying to tell us."
"Ress, you need to rest up," she told him.
"No. Liz, he gave us a message. The job isn't done."