Scene: Barry's house, living room, after midnight on a Sunday night. He is watching a movie. His cell phone goes off. He looks at it, then runs to a bedroom. The one with keypad/fingerprint entry. He looks at several security monitors. He switches views, and can see a van parked across the street, and can tell that there are a couple of men inside the house. Audio determines that a woman is pleading for the men not to hurt her or her sleeping daughters.

Barry: "Uh-oh."

(Typing)

Barry: "Code Red. Send team ASAP. At least 3. Will try to stop them."

He dresses in "black ops garb", then puts a robe over it to make him look more like a suburban dad. Picks up a knife, a gun with a silencer, two spare clips, and a dog collar. He then heads outside.

(cut to exterior view)

Barry (calling softly, looking around bushes, waving collar, etc.): "Ginger! Where are you, girl? Ginger!"

Barry (muttering): "Stupid mutt. Never stays in the yard."

He gradually makes his way around to the van.

Barry (to driver, with one hand under the robe, as though cold): "Excuse me, did you happen to see a little white dog come by here a little while ago?"

Driver (threateningly): "Go back in your house. Go away or I hurt you." (Driver opens the door of the vehicle.)

Barry turns, hand still inside the robe. He fires, hitting his target, then takes the gun out and fires again.

Barry (checking the body): "Teach you to take that tone with me."

Barry (looking at the robe): "I don't think my dry cleaners can get out bullet holes. Oh, well, they'd ask too many questions, anyway. You can hold my robe while I check out the party inside."

He takes off the robe and kicks off slippers, tosses them and the dog collar in the van. Now dressed in all black. He sneaks behind a row of bushes and heads toward the back yard.

(Cut to back door of house.)

Barry has a key and very quietly lets himself in. Voices can be heard in an upstairs bedroom. A man is talking, a woman is distraught. There are two men; one in a child's bedroom and one in the master bedroom at the end of the hall.

Bad guy #1: "That's it. No screaming and crying. I promise you will die quick."

Barry takes out the knife, sneaks behind bad guy #1, and slices his throat. Two little girls look on in horror. As one is about to scream, Barry puts his hand over their mouths.

Barry (whispering): "I need you to be very quiet while I try to help your mom. Go and hide under the bed. OK?"

Little girls nod, they get under the bed. Barry heads for the other bedroom. A man is toying with the mother, talking about what he will do to her or her girls.

Barry tries to be as stealthy as possible as he approaches, gun in one hand, knife in the other. The woman sees him, however, and misinterprets his intention. This tips off the man inside that something is amiss, and he turns in time to fire a gun at Barry at the same time as Barry fires at him. Both are hit, both go down. The woman screams.

Neighbors hear the gunshots and screaming and call 911. Police show up. Not long after, some black SUVs pull up. Guys start getting out of them. About this time, Megan Hunt shows up.

Fed guy (in charge of the group): "What's going on, officer?"

Policeman: "Sorry, sir. You'll have to keep back. This is an active crime scene."

Fed guy (flashing a badge): "It's my crime scene now. Department of Homeland Security. We'll take over, here and across the street."

(Megan arrives, starts to go around police tape.)

Fed guy: "Excuse me ma'am. No one is allowed in."

Megan: "I'm Dr. Megan Hunt. I'm with the medical examiner's office. I'm here because a possible homicide was called in."

Fed guy: "You will not be needed here."

Megan: "Who are you? What do you mean I won't be needed here? Someone from the coroner's office has to sign off on the case when there is a suspicious death involved."

Fed guy: "I'm with the Department of Homeland Security. We're taking charge of this scene."

Megan: "Homeland Security? What are you guys doing here? What's going on?"

Fed guy: "I'm not at liberty to discuss events here tonight."

Megan: "I'm with the coroner. You can't keep me out."

Fed guy: "Yes ma'am, I can. By force if necessary."

An ambulance arrives. Two bodies under sheets are being loaded into the ambulance. Two more are being loaded into one of the SUVs. A box truck arrives and some guys start unloading cleaning equipment and moving equipment.

Megan: "Wait. You guys can't start cleaning until we've cleared the scene. You'll destroy evidence."

Fed guy: "We're not particularly concerned with the local DA's conviction record. There isn't going to be a trial, and we already have everything we need to know about what went on here tonight."

A woman and two little girls emerge from the house. They are being led to one of the SUVs.

Woman: "It's all right girls. We're going to be OK. I know it was scary, but Mr. Gray stopped the bad guys from hurting us."

Megan: "Mr. Gray?"

She turns, sees a familiar mini-van in the driveway across the street.

Megan (to woman): "Hey! Mr. Gray? Barry Gray? What happened?"

Woman: "He lives across the street. Some men broke into our house tonight and threatened to kill us. Then Mr. Gray..."

Fed guy (loudly): "Get them out of here! In the car, now!"

The escort hustles the woman and children into an SUV, which quickly leaves.

Megan: "Was there a man named Barry Gray involved here tonight?"

Fed guy (harshly): "I can't disclose details..."

Megan: "You're going to tell me. Barry Gray worked in our office! I want to know! Now!"

Fed guy (much less stern, and more slowly): "Oh yes. I'm very sorry ma'am. I really cannot disclose situational details. It's complicated. I know the local police normally handles these incidents, but people could get hurt if too much information gets out. A mother and her two daughters barely escaped with their lives tonight. Their safety could depend on secrecy. More than that I can't tell you. You might try to contact your co-worker. If he was here tonight, though, you may not see him at work in the morning."

(end scene)

Scene: a few weeks later. Kate's office. Megan, Kate and Derek Ames.

Megan: "Barry seems to have disappeared. Thanks for looking into this. What have you got for me, Derek?"

Derek: "This was not easy. How much did you know about this guy?"

Kate: "Not all that much. He said he was recruited to a federal agency out of college, did some sort of computer security work. His wife is deceased, I think he has three kids, one still in college."

Derek: "Ever think about what it takes to be actively recruited to agencies like the NSA out of college?"

Kate: "I don't know anything about that."

Derek: "It's pretty unusual. Before there were pc's, guys like that used to spend all their time in terminal labs, accessing mainframes and mini-computers. I talked to somebody who hung out with him back in the day. He said that Barry once managed a successful escalation of privilege attack against a university mainframe."

Megan: "What's that mean?"

Derek: "Apparently, it means he was able to gain the ability to bypass every shred of security. I talked to an FBI guy who works with those kind of computers. He said that kind of attack wasn't possible on a mainframe because the hardware was designed to prevent that. It's why they still use them."

Kate: "But if it's impossible..."

Derek: "College buddy said Barry did it anyway. He programmed around the hardware security, which apparently is pretty interesting. He discussed the technique with a professor, who tipped off the black ops recruiters."

Megan: "What does this have to do with anything?"

Derek: "Just letting you know what kind of guy you were dealing with. Word is that he was just one of those people who would just come up with a weird attack nobody else had thought of. It's why they wanted him."

Megan: "We had a pretty good idea that he was somewhat unusual already."

Derek: "And he worked with some real secretive folks. Ever ask him how he ended up in Philly?"

Kate: "No. He just moved here after he retired."

Derek: "Are his children nearby? Other relatives?"

Kate: "Not that I'm aware..."

Derek: "A guy just up and moves, doesn't land anywhere near anybody important to him, and you never asked why? He owns a house in Virginia. Why move at all?"

Megan: "It never occurred to us to ask. He has a very distracting way about him."

Kate: "Like that time he spouted Latin while Curtis and Ethan snuck out of the lab. I've seen him do this. He told me that the easiest way to keep from having to answer uncomfortable questions is to distract people from asking in the first place."

Derek: "It's all smokescreen, and he was apparently very good at that. But I wondered why he came to Philadelphia, and what it had to do with whatever happened that night. I think the reason for his being here had a lot to do with the folks across the street."

Megan: "What did you find out?"

Derek: "I was able to track the woman from utility records and such. She was the widow of a guy who used to go on classified missions in other countries. I couldn't find out when he died, or where, or why, but the family seems to have moved here at almost the exact time Barry did. She has a sister nearby. The house is a rental, owned by some real estate shell company. I am sure not coincidentally, the same company owned the house Barry was living in."

Megan: "So what was Barry doing here?"

Derek: "I'm getting to that. Ever hear of signal analysis?"

Kate: "Barry mentioned that once."

Derek: "Know what it is?"

Kate: "The way he explained it, it was like being able to tell a lot about you just from knowing who you called and texted on your cell phone. You didn't need to hear the conversation or intercept the text. Sometimes just knowing the contacts is important information."

Derek: "Exactly. There is a faint whisper of a rumor that a small group of intelligence guys used signal analysis to play the stock market. If you have access to phone records, you might be able to tell when a company is ripe for a takeover, for example, and trade in their stock."

Megan: "Sounds illegal."

Derek: "I couldn't find out for sure if it was or not. Call it a gray area."

Megan: "Just what we need."

Derek: "What?"

Kate: "We've been around Barry too much. Calling it a 'Gray area' sounds like he's taking credit."

Derek: "Ah. Anyway, supposedly these guys made and hid several million offshore. They traded options on foreign markets, to keep out of sight from the SEC."

Megan: "So Barry was a millionaire?"

Derek: "Not exactly. The money, if it exists, is well hidden in accounts owned by shell corporations. It would take years to track it down. What's interesting is how it gets used."

Megan: "Certainly not on stylish clothes and fancy cars."

Derek: "No. It never shows up in significant amounts for the guys who dreamed this up. Part of what keeps them from getting caught. It gets used as a widows and orphans fund."

Kate: "What do you mean?"

Derek: "Near as I can tell, the money is disbursed to take care of the families of folks who get killed in action on secret missions. Keeps them housed, fed, educates the kids. Probably a factor in why it's still secret. Even if somebody finds out, nobody wants to rat out that kind of operation."

Megan: "So the family across the street was part of their benevolence program."

Derek: "Exactly. One hitch in this case was that whatever Dad did, he got somebody mad enough to come after the family after he was dead. I think the intelligence guys suspected they might be in danger, and Barry was picked to be their sort of guardian angel."

Kate: "Why him? He didn't seem to have field experience."

Derek: "He was able to take retirement and move here without much disruption, since his kids were grown and he wasn't married. The shadow corporation found two houses, one for her, and one for Barry on the other side of the cul-de-sac. He had the perfect strategic view to keep an eye on them."

Kate: "Barry was running some sort of surveillance operation?"

Derek: "The cleaners got rid of it fast, but I think that her house was surreptitiously wired for video and sound before the family moved in. He had line of sight, so he could track everything in the house. There are banks that aren't that well protected."

Megan: "Sure he wasn't just some pervert with a fetish?"

Kate: "Megan!"

Megan: "Somebody had to ask..."

Derek: "DHS doesn't show up in force for a Peeping Tom case. I think he was primarily there to keep an eye on things, and he was really just supposed to call it in if trouble showed up, since he only held desk jobs prior to this. Maybe he received some weapons training, just in case."

Kate: "That explains the deal with the cell phone shot. I thought that looked mighty good for an amateur."

Derek: "Yeah, all the police were impressed that he made that shot. I was intrigued by the kind of person who, under fire, would come up with the idea of using his cell phone camera in the first place. Most people would be panicking. He was not only calm in an emergency, he came up with a totally off-the-wall plan. A plan that worked. That was one weird guy."

Megan: "No argument here."

Derek: "Well, a lot of this is guess work and hearsay, but I think it's about all we're going to get. If I'm right, the guys who run this op don't want any news of it getting around."

Megan: "But what happened to Barry?"

Derek: "Don't know for sure. I tracked the ambulance with traffic cameras. Did you know there are seven level one trauma centers in the Philadelphia area?"

Megan: "Yeah, yeah. Great place to be if you get shot. What happened to him?"

Derek: "Don't know. We might never know. The trauma center lists two John Does from that night. Both were pronounced during the night. Only one ever made it to the hospital morgue, though. Body was not identified before cremation, but it was too small to match Barry."

Kate: "What are you saying?"

Derek: "There is a slight chance your guy survived, was treated at a trauma center, then pronounced dead so that they could transfer him elsewhere without leaving a paper trail."

Megan: "He might still be alive?"

Derek: "It's an outside chance. Not likely, but possible. They might just be concealing evidence of their operation. Do not dig into this. Do not talk to anyone. It could get very uncomfortable for you very quickly."

Megan: "Well, thanks, Derek. This was very interesting."

Derek: "If anyone asks, I just stopped by to see if there was any way for us to go out again."

Megan: "All right, that's the cover story."

Derek: "Speaking of which..."

Megan: "I'll think about it. I suppose it would help the story if we went out once or twice."

Derek: "I'll call you."

(he exits)

Kate: "Apparently, our Mr. Gray went a lot deeper than we thought."

Megan: "It's a shame. I was just learning to tolerate him."

Kate: "You were?"

Megan: "In small doses. When he wasn't being a pig."

(Her phone buzzes slightly. She looks at it.)

Megan: "Why are you texting me? I'm right here."

Kate: "I didn't text you. I turned my phone off when Derek came by. I think I'm starting to go through withdrawal."

Megan: "Well, it says I have a message from you. It says 'U refer 2 me as the most famous Notre Dame football player ever, but U R dyslexic.'"

Kate: "I certainly didn't send that."

(Peter walks by outside the office. Megan gets up and calls to him from the doorway.)

Megan: "Hey, Peter!"

Peter: "Yes, Megan?"

Megan: "You like sports. Who's the most famous Notre Dame football player ever?"

Peter: "Tough call. I think they have like 7 Heisman winners. Joe Montana has won 4 Super Bowls, so he's pretty well known. Going back a ways, there's the Four Horsemen. Most famous ever though, I'd say it was George Gipp. Ronald Reagan played him in a movie. He's the guy the 'win one for the Gipper speech is about'."

Megan: "I wonder what that... Wait! Gipp backwards, the way a dyslexic might read it, would look like – pig!"

Kate: "And?"

Megan: "I may have referred to Barry as a pig a few times. Not that he didn't deserve it."

Kate: "I had him clean up my phone once. He might have cloned it. If he copied my sim card, he could have sent you a text and had it look as though it came from me."

Megan: "Maybe he's alive, and this is how he is letting us know!"

Kate: "He might be in hiding. Maybe he did this to give us a hint that he's OK."

Megan: "This is so great! Now I just have to find him!"

Kate: "Why?"

Megan: "So I can kill him. Shame on him, letting us worry like that..."

Kate rolls her eyes.

(end scene)

#This would take things about to the end of season 2. If there is a season 3, maybe he'll be back. And since you've read this far, here is the where the name came from: Barre Gray (pronounced like Barry Gray) is the trade name for the grayish, black-and-white speckled granite from a quarry in Graniteville, VT. It is often used in memorial stones and grave markers because it is durable and highly resistant to weathering. So a guy who works in a morgue is named after tombstone material.