Chapter 3

The Westen Residence
South Miami

A few hours later…

"Eddie, man," Sam Axe interrupted the tirade of his friend before he could get into it. He had no time to listen to the man's complaints just then. "I just need a location, that's all–"

"I don't know."

"How could you not know?" He snapped back in frustration. This was the third call he had made during the last hour. He was getting tired of how everyone suddenly seemed to know absolutely nothing about anything. "Your precinct is handling the case–"

"Listen, Sam, I told you already," the detective on the line muttered with a sigh that sounded like a small gale trapped inside the phone. "Everything - the evidence, witness accounts, lab work - all of it goes through the bunch of suits the dragon lady left behind. And they are keeping it all under tight wraps. I don't have to tell you how messy it is when there are too many alphabet soup agencies involved. I can get into trouble just by taking your call."

"But Eddie–"

"All I can say is they are not looking into the rest of you yet. So my advice is to lay low until the heat dies down and then get on with your lives. Your friend is gone. Do yourselves a favour and move on. Also, don't call me again."

"Eddie…Eddie–"It took him a moment to realise that the call had already been cut from the other side.

"That face says it didn't go well," Jesse commented from where he was seated by the dining table. They were all at Madeline's since there had been no need to regroup at the emergency spot as they had planned earlier.

Fiona sat next to Jesse, disassembling and reassembling her handgun for what looked like the tenth time. Her movements were short and erratic, her simmering fury seeping into the ritual that should have been calming and centering. Jesse, he noted, had wisely moved all the bullets away from her grasp, and it spoke of her own emotional turmoil that she hadn't noticed the fact.

Sam took a sip of his lukewarm beer and grimaced. It tasted vile. Somewhere between the calls he had been making, the beverage had gone flat. He chucked it in the bin and leaned against the kitchen counter with a despondent sigh.

"My buddy can't say anything other than we're in the clear for the moment," he reported his latest worthless update. "I guess Mike kept his word."

I'm going to make sure none of this blows back on any of you, he had said.

"Where is he?" Fiona asked, her attention fixed on the sliding hammer.

"Nobody in the station knows," Sam muttered before plucking another cold one out of Madeline's fridge. "Jesse, any luck?"

The former counterintelligence agent had been making his own inquiries. But the less-than-pleased expression in his face said all Sam needed to know before he even opened his mouth.

"They took him to the local FAA building at first," the man said quietly, "But transferred him out within the hour. No clue about where they went from there."

The Federal Aviation Administration building located at 58th street, Miami Dade county, had several corner offices on the 12th floor where they did nothing related to the sign on the board. It was not the only one. Most government offices everywhere around the country had such offices, which they usually kept reserved for the agencies that couldn't really put up a plaque advertising what they did. Those intelligence agencies most of the time had to strike adelicate balance between blending in with the rest while they handled their classified operations. Piggybacking on other more frontline agencies and their security was the easiest and most efficient way to go about it.

That was all they had. The CIA field office was where the trail ended before Michael seemed to have vanished without a trace.

Meanwhile, on the television, the story of Michael's arrest was the main focus on Prime Time News.

"...the take down at hotel Intercontinental this afternoon…" the news host carried on gravely. "Although the identity of the perpetrator has not been disclosed by the authorities yet, we do have some footage of the incident we have received from our viewers…"

The footage of Michael walking down to the lobby and his subsequent arrest played in a continuous loop in the background. It wasn't a professional video by any means, but a series of clips from multiple sources that had been hastily strung together into a sequence.

Sam took a sip of his fresh beer just as one of the CIA goons wrenched Michael back to a kneeling position once his hands were tied securely behind his back. Even on the wobbly, low quality video, the insolent smirk the man flashed at the senior agent on the scene was quite obvious. They now knew the woman as Olivia Riley.

The cold brew tasted like sewage water and burned Sam's throat on the way down. He glared at the bottle, irritated, trying to figure out what kind of a curse had befallen Miami's beer supply to make them all go so bad all of a sudden.

"Sam, you were there," Madeline said softly, finally turning her attention away from the muted TV screen to him, "What happened?"

"Maddie–"

His bid to slink away from a potentially hard conversation was shot down before he could even begin framing the response.

"Spare me the bullshit and give it to me straight, Sam," Michael's mother, whom he was sure had invented the highly effective 'Westen Glare,' used it on him like a blue-eyed laser with full power. "And, for the love of God, stop throwing away my damned beer."

He wanted to protest. The beer was not good. Something was terribly wrong with all of it. But it was her house, so she had the final say in it. Sam placed the useless brew on the counter and walked out of the kitchen to find a seat next to Jesse. It was a strategic choice. Fiona's empty gun could still be turned into a projectile weapon, and Madeline… Well, he knew he would never see her attack coming if or when she decided on one.

"Yeah, Sam, what the hell happened?" Fiona rounded on him with a narrow-eyed glare of her own, finally breaking her unnatural silence. "You never gave us the details."

"Alright, fine," he sighed. "I'll tell you what happened. When we went in, the door to Card's suite was closed. Mike wanted me to keep a lookout while he knocked the door down and confronted Card. I never heard what they were saying, and only ran in when I heard Mike's gun going off–" he closed his eyes then, trying to banish the image of Michael and the lost look in his eyes he had seen, "I found him kinda frozen, staring down at two bodies on the floor."

"Then what?" Jesse prompted him.

"It was not good," Sam grunted. "Tyler had a gun in his hand. There were two bullet holes on the wall and Card had his own inside the holster. Mike had his in his hand. You see where I'm going with this?"

"Michael broke in while Card and Gray tried to kill each other and Card was quicker?" Jesse took a guess and then shook his head, frowning. "Hmm, that doesn't sound right, man. At point blank range? Nah, Gray wouldn't have missed."

"Yeah. no. He wouldn't have," Sam said, agreeing with him. "According to what Mike told me later, in between all the running and hiding, Card shot Tyler and made it look like Tyler drew on him. The shots from his gun were fired by Card himself. I never heard it because the gun was suppressed."

"He did all that while Michael just…watched?" Fiona burst out, glaring at him incredulously.

"I don't know what happened!" Sam snarled back, angry at her, at himself, at Michael, at the shit beer…the even shittier world. "He looked like he was in shock when I found him. He never told me why he shot Card after he put the damned gun away!"

"He did though, didn't he?" Jesse pointed out quietly. "While we were in the car, he said something about another leash… something along the lines of Card having it all figured out and having things in place to force Mike into continuing his dirty work–"

Fiona scoffed and started dismantling the Beretta with a renewed vigour. "Like that explained anything."

"What aren't you saying, Sam?" Madeline's quiet voice held a warning. Damn the woman and her intuition!

"I couldn't believe he had killed a man in cold blood," Sam admitted quietly, trying not to let the guilt add to the frustration he was already feeling. He failed. "That's just not the Mike I know. It was a shock to me too. So, I kinda reacted in a way maybe I wouldn't have, otherwise. Said things I shouldn't have…things I now feel kinda sorta bad about."

"Don't we all…"

Maddie's words were so quiet, he almost didn't hear them. He remembered then how anxious Michael had seemed when he showed up for the surveillance. Sam knew he had gone to see Maddie. He wondered what things she had said to him to make him that upset; things now she also seemed to be wishing she could take back.

"I'm sure he thought he was doing the right thing, just like you did when you handed yourself in after blowing up that despicable man," she said to Fiona after a moment.

"But that was different, Madeline."

"How?"

"While it was Anson's interference that killed those two innocent guards, I planted my explosives that day to take Larry out," Fiona said, looking like she wanted to blow up the bastard's grave for good measure. "He was blackmailing Michael, and we all thought he was going to kill him. I felt no guilt about killing that man, and I'd do it again if I had to. I handed myself in only because Anson was using that to keep Michael doing his bidding. I had to free him from that man so he could go after him. But, what he did today…"

"You think Card was trying to do the same?" Jesse asked, glancing around a little desperately, trying to put meaning to Michael's unexpected actions. "He was the one who had Anson killed after all. Maybe he had plans to branch out Anson's enterprise."

"I can't wrap my head around the fact that he just gave up…" Fiona shook her head, unwilling to forgive Michael for what he did.

"You know, Tom Card said something to me the other day–"

Sam jerked back in his seat. Did he hear that right? "You met him?" He glared at the older woman, "When? Why? How?"

"Not important," she said, releasing a plume of Morleys' smoke. "I wanted to speak to him about Nate…and Michael. I asked him how they both turned out so different, despite growing up in the same house with the same set of problems. I think he told me the truth, the way he saw it at least."

'Madeline, you know you can't trust anything that man–"

"He told me to imagine dropping two bottles on the floor and breaking them. He told me the way they broke was important. He said that while one bottle could crumple into a pile of glass, the other could shatter into a jagged-edged weapon…"

Her voice went low and the look in her eyes grew distant. Sam knew she was thinking about Nate, and the less-than-stellar childhood both boys had shared.

"Anyway, the point was, in the exact same situation, when two people broke, they never broke the same," Madeline continued, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself rather than anything else. "And I guess the same can be said about the same man breaking in different ways in different situations."

Sam could see where she was going with it. Card, the traitorous bastard that he was, had made her see a point she hadn't really considered before.

"Maybe whatever happened with this man today, a man who Michael admired a lot, treated like a mentor, broke him in a way that he couldn't come back from," she let out a weary sigh before turning to him, "You said so yourself, Sam, what you found in that room was not the Michael you knew, not anymore."

Sam didn't like the defeated, borderline fatalistic tone underlying her soft words, not one bit.

"Maddie, no," he said, resolutely, "Mike isn't - he's not… he hasn't given up, not by a long shot." He had to believe that. He just had to. It was much better than the direction Maddie's thoughts seemed to have taken. "We are going to figure this out, one way another."

"I'm all for Sam's plan," Jesse said, breaking the unsettling silence that followed. "But, look guys, this is getting us nowhere. Maybe let's just wrap up for the night and come back at this in the morning, when all of us have gotten some sleep and are firing on all cylinders, yeah?"

He received a round of despondent nods, Sam's included. The man had a point. They weren't doing anyone any favours sitting there, trying to figure out a 'spy brain' that functioned in the most ridiculously complicated ways in the best of days.

"Maddie, I can drive you to the airport," Jesse continued, glancing at his wristwatch. "We have to leave within the hour if you want to catch that flight of yours."

Sam hung his head. Mike had asked them to make sure she got to her sister's place safely, after all. He had completely forgotten.

"Jesse, thank you, but don't worry about it," Madeline said. "I called Jill already, and cancelled my ticket. I'm not going anywhere just yet, not until you three figure out what is going to happen to my son."

"Fair enough." Jesse heaved a relieved breath. Sam could relate.

"Madeline, can I crash here?" Fiona asked, letting out a loud yawn and stretching like a jungle cat. "I'm in the mood to shoot someone or blow something up. Which is not the best mindset to sit behind a wheel, if I'm honest."

"Of course.'

"Wow," Sam said, grinning half-heartedly, unable and unwilling to let the chance to take such an easy dig at her pass through his fingers. "That's very mature of you."

It spoke to her exhaustion and worry when she flipped him off without a biting retort.

"Give me a ride to Elsa's?" Sam asked, following suit when the younger man got up to take his leave.

"Sure, man."

They had a long day waiting for them when the sun rose again, Sam sighed, closing the door quietly behind him as he left Michael's home. The worrying thing was that they had no plan of attack to tackle all the troubles it would bring with it.

Undisclosed Location

Meanwhile

An interrogation typically began with deprivation and discomfort. That meant the thermostat cranked all the way up, uncomfortable furniture, dim lights that strain the eyes and if there was food, not much of it. It was all about making sure the subject was exhausted and vulnerable before the interrogator even set foot in the door.

That tried-and-true process of conditioning started the moment Michael put himself under Olivia Riley's mercy.

The journey from the hotel to the CIA field office in Miami – the small office located in a restricted access area of the FAA – had been short, as had the quick and efficient processing under Riley's hawk-like glare. Michael had been stripped of all his personal belongings, his phone, earpiece, clothes and shoes. Then he had been given a set of grey, prison scrubs and canvas slip-ons to put on after a quite thorough full-body search. The process had been a bit harsh and over the top even for an uptight bloodhound like Riley, in Michael's personal opinion, but he had borne the treatment without a complaint.

Things had gotten a little murky after that. He had noticed Riley excusing herself to answer a call in private. She had returned after fifteen minutes with an expression blank enough that Michael had known it spelled trouble. His suspicion had been confirmed when instead of handling his arrest report and initial interview then and there, Riley wordlessly bundled him off to another tinted SUV with a curt, highly uninformative, "See you later, Westen."

The ride had taken what felt like a couple of lifetimes. Michael had absolutely no idea where he was being taken. He had understood the subtly employed tactics. The isolation and disorientation were meant to weaken his mental resolve and have him in a fragile state when the actual questioning happened. Understanding that hadn't really been much of a help to resist the effectiveness of it, however.

By the time Michael found himself seated in a steel chair bolted to the floor, with his cuffed hands secured to a metal bar attached to the steel, equally bolted table before him, he was beyond exhausted. He was more than ready to say or do anything just to get them to stick him in a cell so he could finally get some sleep.

That was exactly the state they wanted him.

There was not one, but eight of them, including Olivia Riley. She had earned herself the invite on the virtue of being his Arresting Officer. Five of them identified themselves as senior agents, whose names promptly got lost somewhere in the muggy cloud that had wrapped itself around Michael's mind. The other two were regional directors thrown into the mix to liven up the panel.

It was not the formal interview Michael had hoped for, with someone sitting on his side to at least pretend to have his best interests at heart. No. For all intents and purposes, it was a one-sided trial, and the eight people who sat behind the long, wooden table facing Michael were the judge, jury and executioner of his fate.

"State your full name for the record." The bald one, the one that seemed to be the lead interrogator, said in a monotone.

Michael leaned in towards the microphone which was set up before him and did as he was told. "Michael Allen Westen."

"Age."

"Forty-two."

"Employment status."

He had to take a moment to think about that. Five years ago, the answer would have been simple; he was an active operative. But that was before the burn notice sent everything to hell. Then he was a freelance spy who did whatever work that came his way in order to stay alive, sane and out of the streets. He had initially believed that being out of work, discarded and forgotten by his own people, had been the worst thing that could have ever happened to him.

Funnily enough, looking back, those years didn't seem that bad at all. He had, in fact, enjoyed using his rather unique skillset to help regular people.

Then of course, he had taken down The Organization, the rogue cabal within the United States government and various other positions of power. It was a professional black operations syndicate, their assets including, and not limited to, private armies and operatives stationed throughout the globe. That hadn't been enough for the agency to lift the burn notice officially, but it had been enough for Michael to gain an 'unofficial asset' status. Yet, it had been a step in the right direction to clearing up his name and becoming an official operative again.

Now, after what he had done today, Michael was right back to where he had started, or quite possibly, in a situation even worse.

"Mr. Westen?"

The agent's voice snapped him back from his spiralling thoughts.

"Unemployed." He replied.

The preliminaries designed to verify that Michael was mentally sound to proceed with the questioning taken care of, the agent turned his head and nodded minutely at the agent to his immediate left.

"As you know, we're here for your official debrief on the murders of Senior Agent Tom Card and the ex-marine sniper Tyler Gray," the blond man with a deep, gruff voice said. "You will answer all the questions truthfully and to the best of your ability, leaving nothing behind. Is that understood?"

"Yes."

The CIA had its own set of egregious issues, but it never looked kindly at murder, especially when it was one of its own, well-respected senior agents. Only Michael knew exactly what kind of a monster lay beneath the well-crafted persona. And knowing Card, Michael knew the chances were next to nothing that he had left anything incriminating about his involvement with the Organization or Anson behind.

Michael had no delusions about being able to talk his way into justifying his act of swift judgement. With Gray gone, he had no evidence of Card's treasonous activities. It was just going to be his words describing his actions - actions Michael had committed based on Card's last words, the insincerity and cold calculation he had glimpsed in his eyes, the ruthlessness the man had displayed when it came to covering his tracks, and the way he had tried cajoling Michael into giving up everything he had ever believed in.

Card had counted on Michael's own need for validation, and his deeply ingrained need to do the 'right thing,' to convince him into following him. He had thought Michael would turn a blind eye to his dangerous, self-serving ideals. Had thought that Michael would agree to go down the path paved by destruction that only served Card's own purposes.

Card had thought Michael would join him, just because he had been willing to work with Gray, the very man who had shot and killed his brother. He had assumed that Michael would forgive him for Nate's death, discard the incident as an unfortunate collateral damage, forget about it and move on.

That Michael would break yet another promise to his mother.

How wrong had he been. Michael hadn't even given Card time to feel surprised by his grievous miscalculation, his fatal error.

Michael knew he had no way of proving any of that. Strangely enough, it didn't really worry him as much as it should have. He had absolutely no regrets.

"We'll start with Tyler Gray. Tell us all about how you became acquainted with him, from the beginning."

"I backtracked the shot that killed my brother - the gun it came from led me to a private security company that hired his services from time to time–"

"Left out a few details there, didn't you?" One of the directors interrupted with a scoff. "Such as stalking and pulling a gun on an FBI agent and then making a deal to pull the sealed file of Nathaniel Westen's investigation. And let's not forget orchestrating an illegal blackmail attempt that permanently damaged the government's relationship with an important defence contractor, the same incident which got one of our best agents transferred permanently to some backwater country because she crossed a line for you."

"You mean the same investigation that was closed and sealed due to the orders that came from Tom Card?" Michael asked offhandedly, observing the man for his reaction, "That investigation?"

It was a shot in the dark. Michael didn't know if that was the case, but his tired brain had decided to throw the dice and see where it landed. Judging by the frown the director was not quite quick enough to hide, Michael figured he had guessed that one right.

"Name of the private security company, Westen," the blond asshole snapped, bringing the questioning back on track, "We need all the details for the record. That's what leaving nothing behind means."

"Pryon," Michael said, shuffling in his seat. The rattling of his chains was amplified by the microphone to painful levels, causing his interrogators to wince and flinch back. "It's called The Pryon Group."

"Did you make contact with this group?"

"Yes."

"Then what happened?"

"I made certain inquiries with the company," he went on, trying and failing to purge the memory of yet another unsuspecting victim of Gray's, and by extension, Card's. "Gray learned that I was looking into his activities. He shot the CEO of the company, Jack Vale, when I was meeting with him at a restaurant."

"How did you find Tyler Gray's location?"

"I didn't," said Michael. "Card found him for me. He sent me and my associates to Panama to bring him in. We made contact with another agent, Brady Pressman, who was supposed to be our field contact." He had to admit that Sam, Fiona and Jesse had been with him on his trip to Panama. Even the off-the-books missions had certain records and trails that couldn't just be erased.

"Describe what happened in Panama, from the moment you arrived in the country until you left."

Michael did as he was told. He told them about the veritable army Gray had hired to take them out the very next day, their escape, and the subsequent plan they had executed to capture the sniper. He told them how he reported his mission success to Card and how Grey revealed he had been working for the same man. He told them how Card had tracked his location through the call and sent an F-18 fighter jet to take them out. He told them how Brady sacrificed himself to facilitate their escape.

Throughout the long, exhausting recount, Michael made sure to keep the details of his friends' involvement to a minimum. Since there were no written mission reports or records, he had room to tell the story with a few minor changes.

"So, by the time you managed to steal the drug trafficker's plane, for the second time, Gray had done a complete mental one-eighty and had agreed to help you expose Tom Card's alleged actions," this time it was Riley who snorted, shaking her head. "Is that it? Is that what we're supposed to believe?"

"Hey, going through torture together does things to people," Michael said with forced charm, "Even the trained ex-special forces soldiers. We came to an understanding."

The clock kept ticking and questions kept coming. He had no idea how long it had been. He had a suspicion that, while the SUV had been taking him around the country in circles, Riley had made it to wherever this was in a leisurely manner and had probably had time to enjoy a shower, a meal and a fresh change of clothes. The rest of the panel all looked as if their workday had only just started.

Michael, however, was feeling the toll the day had taken down to his bones. His body had started to tremble hours ago from exhaustion, and his eyes continued to burn. The last time he had eaten anything was more than fifteen hours ago, if his mental clock was accurate. The single bottle of water he had finished in about three long swallows had been given to him before the long ride. Now, the constant talking was pure hell on his parched throat.

It was all part of the conditioning, he knew that. He stubbornly refused to give any of them the satisfaction of seeing him falter in the face of it. So he gritted his teeth and kept an unconcerned smirk on his lips, determined to get through this farce of an interrogation to its bitter conclusion.

"So you returned to Miami with Gray. How did you proceed with this plan of yours to obtain Tom Card's admission of these allegations?"

"I worked with Gray to feed misinformation to Card…" Michael said, launching into a succinct account leading up to the meeting earlier that day…the meeting that should have ended with Card's recorded confession instead of two dead bodies and him facing a bleak future spent imprisoned…or worse.

"Card told me about his plans, the plans that had nothing to do with the CIA's mandate – a future he was carving in his own vision and image–" Michael said softly, his mind flashing back to the confrontation…the imagery of his former mentor and his final moments playing in muted, blurred colours. "He wanted to continue what Anson Fullerton started, to revive the Organization and take over as the leader. He offered me the chance to become a part of it... I refused."

"So, this invitation, what you believed went against everything we stand for, was what led you to pulling the trigger?" another agent inquired.

As a rule, an interrogation was all about finding a person's vulnerability and exploiting it. The intellectually-challenged ones got tricked. The scared ones got intimidated into admitting things they never wanted to admit in the first place. The emotional ones got riled. The trained ones, the ones who lost sight of their purpose and broke their oaths, such as Michael himself… well, they got questioned point blank.

That was when there was nothing else left but telling the truth.

Michael took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Out of all the questions that had come his way, that was the one he needed to search deeply within himself to find that truth before answering.

"Yes." admitted Michael, knowing those were the words that were going to seal his fate. "And the fact that I knew he was lying. He would have gone after my family and friends before killing me at the end."

"This was all a very fanciful tale, Westen," said another agent. All of their faces and voices were starting to blur in Michael's vision. "Do you have any shred of evidence that would lead us to conclude that your accusations and allegations have any merit?"

Michael sighed. "No. I don't."

"Very well, then."

Michael was granted a small respite from the questioning after that. They left the room as one to discuss the next step elsewhere. Michael let out a long sigh and slumped over the table, letting his forehead rest on the horizontal steel bar where his hands were restrained. The cool sensation felt wonderful against his all-too-warm skin, and he was relieved at the chance to hide away from the world for a minute.

It didn't take that long for them to come back. The verdict, when delivered, didn't surprise Michael in the slightest.

"You will be transferred to a holding cell in Guantanamo Bay for the time being, until the investigation is concluded…"

Michael didn't even bother listening to the details of his transfer, and the list of things he could look forward to in the near future. It was nothing he hadn't expected. He knew the worth of his career, and the opportunities his very existence represented. He would be held in Cuba as a bargaining chip, or the useful tool that he was, until those opportunities arose where he could be used.

His head continued to swim while one of the directors continued to lay out his punishment. His mind and body felt oddly disconnected, all aches and pains dulled beneath the weight of the fog that had draped around his mind, making him slow and dissociated.

All that mattered was that it was all over. He was now an enemy of every American intelligence organisation. He would be dumped in the most feared hellhole the planet had to offer and forgotten by the rest of the world.