Alex and Nikita were silent as they rushed back to Division. They updated the team on their phone call with Amanda and the dangers Sean was facing, then they fell silent. Nikita wanted to comfort Alex, but she couldn't think of what to say that didn't sound cliché. And Alex didn't know how to speak without panicking. The car ride back to the bunker was full of weighted silence. Amanda was going to win. She had everything planned out. The FBI had the evidence they needed to hang Sean for her crimes. The team didn't have a chance in saving him. Nikita and Alex held each other's hands.
While the two women hurried to Division, the team tried to erase the evidence Amanda had created. Birkhoff used his hack into the FBI to analyze the fake psychiatrist notes. Hopefully, he could find a way to expose them for how fake they were. He could probably pick them apart if they were spliced or deep-faked. He could also analyze the doctor's voice to see if he was telling the truth or in a sound mind. That strategy worked the best. By the time Nikita and Alex returned, Birkhoff had Amanda's evidence unraveled, "Voice-stress-analyzer registers well above normal. Amanda was holding a gun to his head."
"Gun that killed the doctor was a Socom 45. Weapon of choice for Navy Seals," Reading the file the FBI had on Sean's fake psychiatrist, Michael informed the others. A great way to reveal the recorded notes were a lie would've been to have the psychiatrist testify. But of course Amanda killed him. And of course she found a way to pin it on Sean. She was determined to have him killed. Killing him on a mission would've been too simple and too unpredictable. Dragging his name through the mud, exposing Division, and creating hell, however, was perfect.
"There's gotta be a way we can scrub this," Alex finally spoke. Her voice was high pitched, and she could feel herself shaking. Yet she needed to speak. She needed to know that the team was doing everything they could to save Sean. Although Amanda had everything thought of- she had thought of things even the team hadn't considered- there had to be something the team could do. It couldn't all be lost yet. There were always multiple options. There was always something the team could figure out. Then couldn't be the exception. Sean couldn't be the one mission the team failed.
"Too late for that," Birkhoff apologized. He'd love to scrub the audio and send it to the FBI. But it was too late. The feds had had the recordings longer than he had. Their investigation had taken off, and there was no possible way he could reign it in. Amanda had delivered them everything with a neatly tied bow. She had made certain there were no loose ends. Birkhoff couldn't pull on anything to unravel the false evidence and expose it. Even if he could, the feds wouldn't want to believe it. They had everything they wanted; why would they look elsewhere.
"What can they charge him with?" Alex had to force herself to ask. She needed to know what exactly Sean was up against. She did know it was bad. She didn't doubt that the feds would crack down on Sean with everything they had. As far as they knew, he was on a killing spree- first his psychiatrist, then the director of the CIA. They had to stop him at all costs. Sean wasn't going to have a light sentencing or an easy trial; hell, he might be thrown right into jail. There were no possibilities of what the team could do to help him. It was all getting carved into stone. Sean's fate was sealed.
"Treason, domestic terrorism," The list went on, yet Ryan stopped himself from completing it. He didn't need to say more; those two charges were horrific all on their own. They were also impossible to fight against. The instant Sean was arrested was the second he was found guilty. The trial would just be for show. Amanda's crimes were going to get him killed. There were no other pieces of evidence or suspects to hand to the FBI. There were no other verifiable explanations to tell. Sean was dead, no question about it and no way to stop it.
Silence fell over Ryan's office as the charges sank in. Sean dying because of the story Amanda had created had always been a possibility. Yet then it was a surefire thing. The bitch was going to have him killed to teach some asinine message, and the team couldn't stop her. They could try. But what could they do when there were no options left. Amanda had thought about everything they could've done and destroyed any possibility of it. She just might actually win. But, to Alex, that wasn't as horrifying as the fact that her boyfriend would soon be dead and gone, "You're talking death penalty. There's nothing we can do?"
"There is. We can do what we do best: take Sean from the law. We bring him to Division the way I was brought in. But first, we gotta kill him," Nikita didn't want that to be the only solution. She didn't want the only way to save Sean's life to be recruitment. But it was all she could think about since she had heard his charges. Amanda had them in a bind. The team couldn't fight the feds, and they couldn't break Sean out of prison- he'd be branded a dangerous fugitive, and he'd be hunted down forever. The only way to stop Amanda's plans was to kill him. The only way Sean would be safe was in Division.
Nikita's words sank in deep. The team wasn't completely out of options; they were simply left with a terrible one. Just like they had sworn not to do government sanctioned kill missions, they had sworn not to recruit new agents. But also like the kill missions, they had to break that promise. The safety of their teammates- their family- was greater than anything else. Despite the fact that recruitment was the worst idea and it had damaging repercussions, they had to take it. Ryan sighed as he accepted the fate, "Okay. Now we only have a two-fold problem. Fake Sean's death, and extract him. Ideas?"
"Faking a suicide won't work. Sean can't hang himself in an interrogation room. And slipping him poison will raise too many questions," Michael ran through the different possibilities. He didn't like the idea to kill and recruit Sean any more than the others. But since it was their only choice to save him, he'd run with it at full force. They needed to be smart and careful as they brought him in. The FBI couldn't catch onto their plans, and Amanda definitely couldn't realize what they were doing.
"What about a don't look/don't touch gag?" Birkhoff suggested. If they could get Sean down to the basement morgue, they could switch his body with the radiation poisoning victim already on ice. No one would suspect anything. After all, they weren't going to double-check who was dragged out of the building- especially if he was already scheduled to be extracted, "I hacked the fed's forensic lab's inventory. There's a Russian informant who died of Polonium poisoning currently on ice in the basement. He's scheduled to be picked up by the CDC next week. No one wants to be near radiation."
"Don't look. Don't touch. That solves extraction. Now for the other problem," Ryan gratefully nodded to Birkhoff's idea. At least one of their problems was solved. There were still so many more. But not having to worry about how they were going to bring Sean's body to Division was a huge relief. One thing had worked out for them. If that was true, then the rest of their plan could fall into place as well. Maybe it was too soon to be completely optimistic, yet they could have hope.
"There's a third problem. Sean. If we recruit him, there's no turning back. He won't be able to see his friends or his family. He won't have his life. We're making a decision without knowing if that's what he wants. We're going to kill him without knowing if he wants to be saved that way," Although Alex wanted Sean safe no matter what, he might not want to. She was willing to risk everything to save him; she wanted him alive more than she wanted anything else. Yet Sean might not be willing to give up his whole life. He might not want to stop fighting and lose everything he loved. They couldn't make that choice without him. It wasn't fair.
No one disagreed with Alex. Sean should know about their plan to save him. He should know about all the risks and all the rewards. And he should agree with them. It was his life on the line; he should be the one to decide what happened to it. The only problem was how the team was going to relay the information to him. They couldn't just walk up and tell him. And, as Michael put, a black badge was completely out of the question, "Briefing him in the middle of the FBI beehive would be difficult. The tenth floor's too hot to use a cover. This isn't like Hong Kong when I was in holding and Sean played my lawyer."
"What if we use a real lawyer?" Nikita supplied. The team couldn't interfere themselves, but they could use a third party. She had done it before to avoid Division and Oversight. The team could pull the same trick to dupe the FBI. A real lawyer could pass off their message (that would obviously be encoded) to Sean. And to really make sure that nothing could be traced back to Division, someone else could hire a lawyer. All the team had to do was switch out the letters, "Alex, can you get in touch with Sean's sisters?"
Once Nikita shared all her thoughts with the team, Alex called Sean's sisters. She was going to ask them to write a letter to Sean and send a lawyer to deliver it. Alex and Nikita would then be at the FBI office to switch the real letter with their coded one and to bug the lawyer. As they waited for Sean's decision, the two women would prepare to fake his death, revive him, and extract him. As long as he decided in a timely manner. Sean soon had the letter, but he wouldn't respond to it. Watching and listening in Ops, Birkhoff begged him to, "Come on, man. First word. First word of every sentence. Article 134. It's right there in front of you."
"What's Article 134?" Sonya asked. The team had caught her up to speed as they rushed to put their plan into action. While Birkhoff talked Alex and Nikita through the revival process, she was to be the primary hacker. She didn't hesitate to accept the order. She might not have known Sean as much as the others, yet she wanted to save him just as much as they did. When he had been working for Oversight and she had been forced into the head hacker role, he had always been nice and kind to her. He didn't have to be, but he was. He had helped her find sanity in Division. She needed to return the favor as best she could.
"It's a military violation: self-injury with intent to avoid service," Birkhoff explained. The military violation was Michael's idea. When the team was thinking of ways to alert Sean of the plan, Michael suggested they tell him to commit an Article 134. If the FBI managed to decipher the code the team used in the letter, they wouldn't know what that message would mean. Yet Sean absolutely would. He'd understand the full extent of what injuring himself would mean. It was self-injury to avoid the death penalty; it was self-injury to save his life.
"I'm not sure I'd get that," A tad nervously, Sonya admitted. There was a chance Sean might not know what the team was trying to tell him. He was in a very stressful situation. Attempting to discern obscure meaning from a note was going to be next to impossible. He might never get it in time, and the team's small window to save him would close. Maybe there was some other way to communicate with him- some other way to tell him what was going on. There wasn't any room for error. Miscommunication couldn't affect the team then.
"That's because you were never a Seal," Birkhoff smiled softly. Honestly, he wouldn't have gotten it either had Michael not explained the idea; it was a very specific code. The important thing was, though, that Sean would understand. He'd know he'd have to steal a gun and shoot himself in order for the team to save him. He simply needed to agree to the idea. And, of course, find the hidden message. It was taking him far too long to get to the point, "Come on, man. The address is even wrong. It's a dead giveaway."
With all the commotion occurring in the FBI field office, it was easy for Alex and Nikita to sneak around. Nikita managed to bump into Sean's lawyer and make her switches without being noticed. And Alex was able to tamper with the emergency medical kit without interference. If (hopefully when) Sean took an agents gun and shot himself, the agent that would try to revive him would actually inject him with Division's famous cocktail that faked death. Alex and Nikita would then revive Sean in the morgue. It should work out perfectly. If there weren't any distractions like the one Alex saw, "What's Naomi doing here?"
"Earning her Bishop badge. How's the kit?" Nikita brushed off Naomi's appearance. She was just a nosey CIA analyst like Michael had been. There was no need to question her actions until she started to pay too much attention to Division. Fortunately, she hadn't started to ask too many questions just yet. The team could remain in the shadows while they faked Sean's death. That was far more important than Naomi snooping around the FBI office. Everything had to be perfect for his extraction. A mistake couldn't happen. He needed to make it out of there alive.
"Ready. It's up to Sean now," Shaking off her distracting thoughts of Naomi (Nikita was probably right; it was probably nothing) Alex prepared herself for Sean's move. The cocktail was in place, the meds to revive him were ready, and she and Nikita were all set to switch bodies and get the hell out of there. It was all on Sean then. Alex begged that he could find the message and accept it. She prayed to whoever was listening that she'd be able to save her love's life. Luckily, she soon received her wish. She just didn't like that it came with the sound of a gunshot.