Reese heard the dogs rumble through the kitchen like a herd of small buffalo. They trotted into the study and circled the coffee table, greeting their humans as if they'd been gone for days. One of the bigger dogs ambled back to the kitchen and drank noisy from the water dish. Bear sat at John's feed and nudged his hand until he rubbed his ears. "Glad you're enjoying yourself."

The dog panted happily.

"I'm almost in," Finch reported from the desk. "If I can just …"

The Rottweiler in the kitchen barked, just once.

The dogs in the study immediately turned at way, at full attention.

The first dog barked again, and then barked repeatedly. It was a deep warning, a protective bark. Reese rose to his feet. The other dogs moved, out to the kitchen and then with the first dog to the front door. John followed them, with Kostmayer and then the others.

Mickey peered through the window. "I don't see anything."

All three dogs kept barking, insistent. Kostmayer slapped at a switch, and the yard was suddenly fully illuminated. Reese scanned the area, but nothing moved.

Kostmayer opened the front door and let the dogs out. They ran, still barking, down the driveway and out of sight.

"The gate's open," Mickey said.

The children ran up from the basement. "What's going on?" Robert asked.

"Where's Helen?" Elizabeth shot back. Then she turned and shouted up the stairs. "Helen!"

There was no answer.

Kostmayer pulled a weapon from the back of his waistband and handed it to Reese. Then he drew a second one for himself. "Weapon up," he snapped at the children. "But be damn sure of your target." He stepped into the yard. Reese followed him.

"Helen!" Elizabeth yelled up the stairs again. But this time she seemed to know there would be no answer.

The remaining children ran past her up to their rooms.

Finch took a step toward the woman, then stopped. She was coiled like a snake. Her hands opened and closed at her sides. She moved to the doorway and looked out over the starkly-lit yard.

The dogs barked at a great distance.

"Surveillance cameras," Finch said quietly. "Where are the monitors?"

She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dead, flat. Terrifying.

They looked exactly like the eyes of the boy who was about to die in the photo in Kostmayer's apartment.

"There," she said, lifting one hand.

Finch hurried to the door at the side of the kitchen.

As expected, the gate was open, only a few feet. There was no movement on the street, no sound of any vehicle nearby.

No sign of the girl.

The dogs were still barking, but they were circling on and around the street, aimless. They had no scent to follow.

Kostmayer whistled the Rottweilers back, and Bear came with them without command.

"You think it was the same guys?" Reese asked.

"She wouldn't have opened the gate for them," Mickey countered. He looked and listened for a moment more. "She knows better."

Reese caught an odd glint in the grass. He walked over and picked up the girl's phone. "So much for tracking her."

"GPS wouldn't be on, anyhow." Kostmayer took the phone and scrolled through the texts. His face, already concerned, grew thunderous. "Dylan," he pronounced.

"You think she ran off with him?"

"Without her phone? Not a chance."

"At least not willingly."

John looked around again. There was nothing to tell them which way they'd gone with the girl.

But there was a camera. And another. "Let's get back inside."

Kostmayer hesitated. "Helen?" he called loudly. "Helen!"

There was no answer.

They went back to the house.

"Anything?" Reese asked as they hit the door.

"Yes," Finch answered. He was in a little closet-like room off the kitchen. "Here."

The four of them crowded into the room. He showed them the feed from home system's surveillance camera. Three men in a white van. And a fourth, a skinnier man with his hands bound behind him.

"That's Dylan Kozlow," Reese said. "And that's the guy from the Institute."

"So they got the boy, too," Mickey said.

"Bait," Elizabeth said. Her voice was flat, tight.

There was no audio. On the screen they watched while one of the men held a gun to Dylan's head. Helen appeared at the other side of the gate. They clearly threatened the boy. He cowered.

Helen Zane opened the gate and went out. They manhandled her and the boy both into the van, slammed the door, and sped away.

The dogs appeared a very short time afterward.

"It looks like she dropped her phone on purpose," Finch mused.

"She didn't plan on the dogs," Mickey answered. "She wanted us to know where she'd gone."

"I'm going to get her," Elizabeth announced.

"We'll get her," Kostmayer answered. "But we need to find out where she is first."

"We know they went that way."

"They're to the highway by now," Reese pointed out. "And we don't know what direction they'll go from there."

She touched Finch's shoulder. "Can you find out?"

"Yes," he promised. "But it will take time."

Her hand tightened like a talon.

"I can buy us some time," Kostmayer said. He gripped her wrist until she released Finch, then moved her back into the kitchen.

"I don't care what time it is," Kostmayer snarled into his phone. "Get Cherkashin on the phone now. Tell him it's Kostmayer, and tell him he really, really does not want to keep me waiting."

He wrapped one arm around Lily. She was like holding a bundle of tight-stretched cable, but at least she let him hold her and didn't punch him in the kidneys.

The kids came down. They all had their weapons tucked behind their backs, their hands free. They all stood at what was basically parade-rest, waiting for instructions.

On the other end of the phone, a heavy, sleepy voice said, "Kostmayer. I thought you retired."

"I did," he snapped. He moved away from Lily so that he could pace. "Your goons over here, Gusev and his crew, just kidnapped a young girl in New York City. I want her back. Right now."

"I don't know anything of this …"

"Cut the shit, Cherkashin. I got a drone over your place right now. I can end you before you can hang up the phone. I'll do it, and you know it. So call Gusev and tell him to give the girl back. Now."

There was a long pause. "It's not quite that easy, I'm afraid."

"That's too bad. 'Cause it's real easy for me to push a button."

"The people I answer to. They have no interest in this girl. They want her mother."

Kostmayer looked at Lily. She was standing by the open doorway, looking out over the yard. He was glad the phone wasn't on speaker. "Why?"

"More specifically, they want her files."

"Fuck," Mickey said, but silently. "Why?" he asked again. "Those files are nearly twenty years old. There's not any actionable intelligence left in them."

"You're wrong, Mikhail. Most of the subjects are dead, it's true. But those few who remain, some have risen very high in your government now. Very high indeed."

Lily stared at him. At the mention of the word files she'd realized what was going on. Reese was still in the dark, but he was watching, listening too.

"So you get these files," Mickey clarified, "and we get the girl?"

"That is the arrangement that's been explained to me, yes."

Kostmayer nodded to himself. "It will take us a while to retrieve them."

"You'll be contacted shortly by my associate."

"Right."

"I'm pleased that you're going to be so reasonable about this, Mikhail. When I heard you were involved, I feared you would be difficult."

"There's no one in those files I care about," Mickey answered. "But I do care about the girl. So listen up, Cherkashin. If anything happens to her, if she comes back with so much as a scratch on her, I'm going to kill Gusev and all his people here. And then I'm coming to Moscow to kill you."

The Russian laughed. "Why don't you use your drone?"

"Because I want to watch you die."

There was another laugh, less convinced. "I will pass the word on, my friend. Not a hair on her hair is to be harmed. So long as we get what we want."

"Trust me," Kostmayer answered, "I'll make sure you get everything that's coming to you."

He clicked the phone off.

Lily said, "They know who I am."

"Yeah."

"You're Lily Romanov, aren't you?" Reese asked quietly.

She looked quickly at her children. "I haven't used that name since before Helen was born."

"Where is Helen?" Sarah asked.

"She's gone," Reese said. "But we're going to get her back."

Helen Zane surveyed the room as calmly as she could. They'd only driven about fifteen minutes from where they'd taken her, but they'd gone fast for half of that time, highway speed. They hadn't slowed for any tool booths, so she was pretty sure they were still in Brooklyn. They'd dragged her and Dylan up seven back steps to a back entrance of an empty school, then up two flights of stairs and down a long hall to a room. She guessed from the furnishings that it had been the teachers' lounge rather than a classroom; there was one Formica-topped table, a battered old couch, a couple chairs, a sink and a refrigerator. They had one overhead light working and four box fans. Everything smelled like old cigarette smoke.

There were four men, maybe twenty-five to fifty, Caucasian, casually dressed. The younger two didn't speak. The oldest was a hundred pounds overweight and he was clearly in charge. The next-oldest was his lieutenant. He was the guy who'd tried to grab her earlier.

All carried hand guns.

They hadn't blindfolded her, or Dylan. That was bad.

They hadn't searched her. That was good.

They had zip-tied her hands behind her back. Bad. But they hadn't bound her feet. Good.

They'd dropped them onto a thin, musty old gym mat that was shoved against the wall. Helen listened intently. There was outside noise, traffic and such, but nothing close. The building was abandoned and distant enough from houses that no one would hear her if she screamed.

Behind her, Dylan started to murmur, "Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God."

"Shut up," the lieutenant snapped at him.

Dylan stopped talking and just whimpered. Helen could feel his body shaking. "Stop," she said quietly. "We're okay."

"They're gonna kill us," he whispered hysterically. "They're gonna kill us."

Helen took a deep breath. That was probably true, actually. The lack of blindfolds told her that. But it was obviously a hostage situation, and until the men got what they wanted in exchange, she and Dylan were probably safe.

They hadn't hurt either of them yet, except for some scrapes and bumps from being grabbed and dragged. But it was hot and they were tense; that could change. "Dylan, breathe," Helen ordered firmly. "Just calm down and breathe. We're okay. Don't piss them off."

"You should listen to your girlfriend," the oldest man said.

"What do you want?" Dylan cried. "I told you I didn't have any money …"

The big guy punched him in the head, and Dylan fell back onto the mat. He was still moving, murmuring, but he was mostly out.

The man looked at Helen. "You're good, right?"

"I'm good," she promised. She scooted back on the mat so she could put her back against the wall and stayed quiet.

The man moved away to the others. They seemed to be waiting for something, or someone.

Dylan quieted.

Helen almost wished he was still awake, still panicking. Without the need to calm him, she had to fight down her own panic. And it was there, it was real. She couldn't deny that. She was in deep, deep shit. The men who had snatched her were pros. She was in precisely the kind of danger her mother had most feared. They will use you, and your brothers and sister, to get to us, if they can. It had never been explicitly stated that that danger had been greatly reduced when her father died, but Helen had known. He had been the spymaster. Her mother had just been his lieutenant, his right hand. They had always figured that it would be the U.S. government that came after them.

These guys weren't government. But they might have been hired by them.

But if this was the danger her parents had most feared, it was also the danger they had most prepared her for. So she shoved her panic into a little red box in her mind and concentrated on her training. One: Determine status. She had that pretty well covered. Two: Inventory assets and liabilities. Dylan was probably a liability; he wouldn't be any help and he might be in her way. Her feet were free, so she could run if she got the chance. Her captors were pros, so they'd be watchful, organized, and careful. But they would underestimate her because of her age and gender.

Helen leaned harder against the wall, until she could feel the hard touch of the leather hidden against her spine. That wasn't any help yet, unless she could get her hands in front of her or free. And she knew her training wasn't enough to let her take on four trained men with guns with one short blade. But surprise was an asset, and one knife in one gut would mean one less man chasing her.

Ascertain escape routes. She looked around the room. She knew they were on the third floor. There would be fire escape somewhere nearby, but probably not in the teachers' lounge. There would be multiple stairways, one in each direction down the hall. But there was only one door out of the room, and all four men between her and it.

Determine course of action. Helen felt her panic rise again. She didn't know what to do. Move now, surprise them and flee? She would have to leave Dylan behind if she did. And it felt like the odds of her getting away were very small.

She crammed the panic back into the box. The fact that move now made her so anxious told her that it was the wrong answer. There was no imminent danger. She could wait.

Wait, and see what developed. Wait and believe that her mother and her uncle were coming for her. Wait, stay alert, watch for opportunities.

The big guy's cell phone rang. He answered it in simple Russian. "Da?" He listened, then turned and looked at Helen. "I understand. Of course." He hung up and turned away again.

Helen took a long breath, counting to ten as she inhaled and ten again as she exhaled. Then she did it again. Keep breathing. Keep her muscles relaxed so they wouldn't be tired later. Keep watching. Keep her feelings boxed, keep her head clear. Watch, and wait.

"Mom," she said, very softly.

"How did they find us?' Reese wondered aloud quietly, when Elizabeth – Lily – had taken her children into the other room.

"They followed you from the Institute," Kostmayer answered.

John shook his head. "No."

"Perhaps young Mr. Kozlow told them where Helen lived," Finch suggested.

"He didn't know." Mickey looked at the stack of pictures. Burn-off shots, throw-aways. They hadn't found a single useful clue in any of them. "Son of a bitch." He held his hand out. "You still have the film case?"

"The …" Finch took the empty cartridge and canister out of his pocket. "Oh."

Kostmayer opened the canister, dropped the empty cartridge onto the floor and stomped on it. He bent and picked the tracker out of the rubble. "Any way to trace this back?"

Finch took the tiny device and studied it. "Not now," he said sadly.

"He knew," Mickey said grimly. "He knew Helen would watch him, and he knew she'd pick up the bait."

"And he timed it," Reese added, "so she didn't have a chance to put it back before the van left."

"That means that whoever orchestrated all of this knew about Miss Zane's very … unique … upbringing," Finch said. "I don't think most ordinary teens would have given this man a second look."

"Oh, he knows," Kostmayer confirmed. "He knows about the files. He knows whose kid she is. If he watched her for any length of time, if he knew what to look for – yeah. It's predictable."

"Even if you give them the files," Reese said, "they're not going to give the girl back."

"Really," Kostmayer returned dryly. "I wouldn't have guessed."

"Do you have them here?"

The older man smirked. "We never had them."

"I might be of more assistance," Finch said, "if I knew what files you were talking about." He sat down behind the desk and began to work on the wax museum cameras again.

Reese hesitated. "Go ahead," Kostmayer said. "The story you know is the same one the guys who took Helen will know."

"The head of intelligence," John began, "the real head, not the figurehead who reports to the politicians, is called Control. It's a woman now. I've never met her."

"You aren't missing anything," Kostmayer offered.

"Every Control supposedly keeps a set of files on his enemies and potential allies. Politicians, business men, military, anybody in a position of authority, all their dirty little secrets."

"Black files," Finch said.

"Yes. Back before I joined, the man who was Control got involved with an agent. Romantically. She was supposed to be just a courier, but there were rumors that she was actually his hammer. His personal assassin."

"Lily Romanov," Finch said. He glanced toward the open doorway. The fiercely protective mother as a ruthless assassin? He could imagine that easily enough.

"She got called in to testify to the Intelligence Committee about one of those killings," Reese continued, "and to cover her ass, and his own, Control married her and then claimed spousal privilege."

Finch nodded, still probing the museum's firewall for weaknesses.

"She moved in with him, and very shortly thereafter he had a conveniently-timed stroke while his home safe happened to be opened. She took his files and all his money and left him for dead. She told the Agency that if they came after her, she'd burn everybody in the files. Then she left town. When I was training, we were told if we ever saw her, we were to turn around and walk the other way. They were still scared to death of her, and that was years later."

Harold looked to Kostmayer. "What happened to the files? I assume you know."

"Sure I know," he answered. "She doesn't have them. She never did. She gave them to the next Control."

"Why?"

"Because he was in on it," Reese guessed. "He helped her escape."

Kostmayer nodded. "Partly."

"And where is he now?"

"Dead. We lost him in the Towers."

"But these men don't know she doesn't have them."

"No one does," Mickey agreed. "That's the story the Company was told, that's the story they bought. So whoever took Helen – they're connected, somehow. And they know who Lily is."

"But what's the true story?" Finch asked.

Kostmayer considered, then nodded to himself. "The Company doesn't like to let agents go." He nodded to Reese. "You already know that. They'd rather kill you than let you walk out with their secrets in your head."

"I know."

"So you can figure how they'd feel about letting Control go."

"Control leaves the office feet first," John answered. "Retired with extreme prejudice."

"He sure as hell doesn't get to elope with his favorite courier, buy a big old house on the ocean, and raise a pack of kids in peace."

Finch's hands paused over the keyboard. "Control didn't die."

"Nope. Well, not until two years ago. They faked the stroke. Lily took the files and the money. She told the Company not to come after her, and to stick Control in a fancy nursing home and take care of him for the rest of his life. And the CIA was scared enough to do what they were told."

"You swapped the bodies," Reese guessed.

"We found a vet with no family rotting in a VA hospital. He got to live out his days with the best care the Company could buy. And he got visitors. McCall, his kids, Yvette. Me. Hell, even his replacement drove up to see him a couple time a years."

"The new Control," Reese said, "got the files, so he had leverage to start his new job."

"And the money. Control needs a slush fund."

"And the former Control," Finch said, "simply left town, met up with his bride …"

Kostmayer nodded. "It was a little more complicated than that, but basically, yeah. The Company never looked for him because they thought they knew where he was. And they didn't look for her because they were scared she'd burn them."

"And that was twenty years ago?"

"Seventeen. Lily was pregnant with Helen. That's what kicked the whole thing off. She wanted out and some suit over Control wouldn't let her leave. Even after Bosnia. So they scammed the Company and split."

"And you helped," Reese said.

"Sure I did."

"The children all look alike," Finch said. "They all have the same father."

"I told you. They bought a big house on the coast and lived happily ever after. Until two years ago, when his heart gave out."

"Why on earth would she bring her children back here?" Finch asked. "She had to know this was the most dangerous city to bring them to …"

"She didn't think anybody would recognize her," Reese answered. "Especially not without Control. It's been a long time. And she looks even older than she is."

"New York is her home," Kostmayer said simply. "We convinced her that the kids needed to know how to live here. We didn't think …" He shook his head. "Honestly, we didn't think there was any real danger any more."

"But someone recognized her. Someone from her Company days."

"And not these Russians," Mickey said. "She did the Kessel run for a while early on – in and out of the Soviet Bloc – but Cherkashin wouldn't know her from Adam."

"I'm in," Finch announced. He scanned through the video of the World Leaders section. "Here's Helen."

The two former operatives leaned over his shoulders. He pointed to the screen. "There." He let the video run.

"That's Hailey Bright with her," Kostmayer offered, pointing to a young blonde.

"So where's the furtive man?"

"There." Reese pointed. "Dark, small – that's him."

"Can you get closer?" Mickey asked.

"Perhaps." Finch manipulated the view as well as he could. It wasn't particularly cooperative, but he managed a fifty percent zoom.

They could all see that the man was indeed acting, as Helen had said, shady. "He would have caught my attention," Reese said.

"Stop," Kostmayer said. "Go back, slowly."

Finch rewound the video.

"There. Stop there."

The frame froze on a half-way decent view of the man's face. It was still blurry and distant.

"Facial recognition won't be much use, I'm afraid," Finch said.

"Don't need it," Mickey told him. "Lily!"

She hurried into the room. "What is it?"

"Take a look at this guy. Tell me who you think he is."

He stepped back and let the woman take his place over Finch's shoulder. Then he put his arm around her, tightly. "Son of a bitch," she said as soon as she saw the image. "That's Peanut."

"Peanut?" Reese asked.

"We should have killed him," Mickey said.

"We should have left him in Bosnia," Lily snarled back. "Creepy little son of a bitch."

"You knew him in Bosnia?" Reese asked. "So he would have recognized you."

Finch leaned closer to the screen. "I think I might … it's hard to be sure."

"His real name is Pavle Racz," Mickey said. "We smuggled him out before the war got started good. He was JNA, but he wanted to desert in the worst way."

"Asset?"

"Supposedly. But really, his lover was high up in the Company and wanted him safe in a new home."

"Fuck," Lily said. She turned and paced away from them quickly. "He doesn't want the files. And he doesn't want Helen."

"He wants you," Mickey said calmly.

"Why?" Reese asked.

"Because I burned his lover on my way out the door, and the Company killed him."

"You outed him," Finch asked carefully, "for being homosexual?"

"I outed him," Lily answered, "because he tried to have my husband killed. So when the Company brass needed an example, he was my first choice. The fact that they were rabidly homophobic just made it easy to convince them."

Finch frowned and looked back at the screen. "You're sure this is him?"

"We're sure."

Harold worked an internet backchannel and managed to bring up a photo of the man from his time with the Serbian army. He was much younger, of course, but dark-eyed, dark-haired, olive skinned just as Helen had described. And also, he was familiar.

"I know this man," Finch announced.

"You do?" Reese asked, surprised.

"He's currently using the name Peter Prifti. He's the night auditor at the Coronet Hotel."

"The Coronet …" Lily's knees seemed to buckle and she sat heavily on the couch.

"You been there?" Mickey asked.

She nodded. She was pale now, her fear showing for the first time. "One night last week." She wrapped her hand around the big emerald she wore around her neck. "We went there once, Andrew and I. For a weekend. I just wanted to … oh, God."

"We'll get her back," Kostmayer said firmly.

"He doesn't want her. He wants me."

"But he had the Russian crew pick her up," Reese pointed out. "So he doesn't have people of his own."

"No. Without Masur's connections, he's probably just a working stiff."

"They want the files," John continued. "And they won't lay a hand on her until they get them."

"Files," Finch offered quietly, "are easy to create, if you remember the names."

"I remember," Lily answered.

Kostmayer nodded. "Then I think the first thing we do is take control of the situation." He looked to Finch. "Prifti. You think you can find out where he lives?"

Finch nodded in return. "I think I can manage." He glanced at Reese. There was no point in telling the others, at this point, that he had immediate access to such information because he owned the hotel where Prifti was employed. Unnecessary information.

"Good. I think I'll go shake him up."