Golden Pearl Resort & Spa
Miami

Two days later

Sam Axe walked towards the members' lounge of the resort, lost in thought. Javi had said the man who had arrived looking for him stated that he had important, urgent business to discuss - business involving a certain has-been spy: Michael Westen.

"Monsieur Axe, Jean Fournier," the tall, dark-haired man with two-day stubble extended a hand and introduced himself with a thick French accent. "Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure. Thank you for meeting with me." He flashed an ID with the stated credentials.

"Oh, it's no problem. Anything for a guy from the French Intel," Sam said, congenially shaking the offered hand. "But, I gotta be straight with you. I haven't seen Mike since last year." Which was the truth. The agency and every other defence community branch that had even the slightest connection to it had nothing to say about the man's whereabouts.

"Oh, well, perhaps it's worth a discussion in any case. It is a matter of great importance. My agency has been running a mission in the Dominican Republic and your friend, Monsieur Westen has been observed working with some men that we believe to be extremely dangerous. Now we need very urgently to know if he is there on official business."

Sam blinked. That was a claim out of left field. Last they had seen the man, he had given himself up to the CIA after murdering one of their own. The only conclusion they had drawn from all the blank walls they kept hitting about Michael's fate was that he was being held in one of the company's black sites.

Had Michael somehow managed to make another deal with the CIA to let him back into the fold? Could he really be out there, running undercover missions once again for the agency?

"Look," Sam said, trying to gain more information without giving out any. "I have no clue what Mike is up to. I mean, why would you even come to me about this?"

"Last resort, I'm afraid," Fournier shook his head, letting out a long-suffering sigh. "We've contacted our friends at the CIA, but… they will tell us nothing."

That sounded more like it. "Well, then there's your answer."

"Monsieur Axe, your friend's life is in danger," the man insisted, setting off a different kind of alarm in Sam's suspicious mind. "If Westen is working for the CIA, we do one thing. If he's not, we do something else. Either way, if you tell us the truth, we can protect him."

Sam was never one to ignore his instincts. So he decided to test the man from the French Intelligence in his own way. "Okay, look, have you spoken with Henri LaBelle?" He asked. "I worked with him back in '98 when he ran counter-intel for you guys. He's pretty tight with Langley too."

"Well, yes, of course," said the fake French Intel man, confirming Sam's suspicion. "Henri tried his best, but-" That was when he noticed the change in Sam's expression. "Hmm. Clever… Monsieur Axe. There's no real LaBelle, is there?"

Sam didn't give him time to react. He grabbed the man by his lapels and pushed him against the nearest wall, pinning him there with an elbow across his throat. "Why are you asking questions about Mike?" He growled, adding pressure on his forearm to cut off his air supply. "Who the hell are you, pal?"

"I'm the man with a knife to your femoral artery," the man wheezed. A quick glance down told Sam that the threat was real. There was a wicked looking knife very close to the parts he was dearly attached to. There was no way he could knock him out before he slid the knife in where it would definitely be fatal.

"Let me go, or your girlfriend's beautiful lounge will get very bloody."

Sam had no choice but to do as he was told. He took two steps back from the man and glared while he nonchalantly adjusted his tie.

"This isn't over."

"Thank you for your time, monsieur Axe." The man called out without even looking back as he walked out of the lounge. "Au revoir."

Carlito's Restaurant
Miami

The next day

15.23 Hours.

"Yup," Jesse said, taking a sip of the drink he had made Sam pay for. Sam had just finished retelling his own unpleasant encounter with the mysterious man with the knife. "I had the same visit."

They were seated outside at Carlito's, the seafood restaurant that used to double as their favourite client-meeting spot. They hardly ever met up there since Michael's disappearance. Sam spent all his days with Elsa at her resort while Jesse invested all his time and effort in his new business. Fiona did the same with her new squeeze on the other side of the city. Unless they bumped into each other at Maddie's, the shooting range or an occasional job, they never really met up to catch up for old times' sake.

"He didn't like it when I said I knew nothing about him," Jesse continued. "Our servers went down five minutes after the guy left…that is all starting to make sense now."

"At least, you didn't almost get stabbed," Sam griped over his mojito. "You think he was your hacker too?"

"Quite possibly. That ID was good. I had no idea I was looking at a fake, and I know my IDs. It was a job requirement back then."

"Why do you think he hacked your system?"

"Probably looking for what he could find on Mike," Jesse guessed, frowning. "We managed to get everything under control within the hour. Nothing was stolen, no viruses or anything like that as far as we could tell. Which means he didn't find what he was looking for."

"Or he found exactly what he wanted and was very good at covering his tracks when he left."

"Or that, yes." Jesse grimaced. "But if he was looking for info on Mike, he was fresh out of luck… because there was nothing there about him."

Sam sighed. That was the thing. He had nothing about him. So why was this mystery man suddenly looking into his business?

"What do you think, Sam?" Jesse put words to what Sam was thinking. "Do you think our man is back in the game?"

"I don't know, Jesse," Sam sighed. "For the first time since I've known him, I don't know how or what he's doing." It was a terrible feeling that sat heavily in his gut, a feeling he hated.

"You warned Maddie?"

"I did," Sam said. "She's busy with Charlie's custody case - all kinds of meetings and visits, still. I told her to keep an eye out for anyone who shows too much interest in the kid's uncle, and let us know the moment she's approached."

"Alright then, that's taken care of," Jesse nodded. "Is Fiona going to show up?"

"Well, I called her about a million times and left about that many voicemails. She'll show up just to kick my ass if nothing else."

Those words turned out to be prophetic. "Speak of the ass-kicker," Jesse said, nodding to point to the walkway behind Sam. "Yeah, I'd say she looks sufficiently pissed."

Sam turned in his seat. Sure enough, the speed of the woman's power walk was enough to scatter the rest of the pedestrians in all directions to avoid colliding with her. The stony expression on her face said she was ready to start throwing punches, and the laser-like look in her eyes had already honed in on Sam, the preferable choice for those said punches.

"Hey, Fi! Nice of you to grace us with your presence," Sam said with his most innocent voice and flashed his most charming smile when she careened to a stop, hovering over him. "Want a drink?

"I'll have this, thanks," she grabbed what looked to be a glass of whiskey on rocks from the unfortunate waiter who just happened to walk past her. Sam raised his hand towards the frightened kid in apology, and signalled to add it to his tab.

"This had better be important," she said after planting her ass on the seat next to Jesse and gulping down half the glass in one go. "I was busy."

"Yeah, well, thanks for coming," Sam said. "This is about Mike."

That set her off, just as he had expected.

"Oh, for the love of God! Really?" She yelled, attracting more than a few startled glances. "That's what got your panties in a twist? I wouldn't even have bothered coming if I knew this was about him."

"And that's why I forgot to mention it in the messages I left for you," Sam admitted pleasantly and watched her sharp features twist in renewed anger. He wasn't truly worried. Underneath the tantrum and the bluster, he knew she still cared and worried. Hiding it all under raging fury was just Fiona's way of dealing with everything that happened.

"Listen, Fiona–"

"I have a life now," she snapped, cutting off Jesse's attempt to get a word in. "A new business, new house… a new man. I don't need Michael's ghosts intruding on my goddamn life now. He wanted us to move on, remember? Well, I have, and I'm happy."

She spat the word out like it was poison. Sam sipped his mojito and wondered how long she was planning to keep up the charade of lying to herself.

"We know, and we totally feel you," Jesse said placatingly. "See, the thing is, there's a new player in town. He's making noises about Mike and lying about his intentions. Just take a deep breath, calm down a little and hear us out, will you?"

Fiona finished her drink and looked around the bar area to steal one from another waiter. They all gave their table a wide berth. Sam smiled at one of the waiters by the bar counter charmingly and lifted both his and Fiona's empty glasses, signalling for a fresh mojito and a whiskey.

"Fine," she said, sitting back with her arms folded across her chest. "Make it quick."

They took turns filling her in on their encounters with the mystery man, along with the story he had been telling to get them to open up about Mike's whereabouts.

"I knew it!" She declared the moment Jesse stopped talking. "All that talk about being done…" she let out a humourless laugh. "He's right back in it, isn't he? They've got him running black ops! I don't even know how he talked himself into getting back in the game! How long do you think it took him, hah? A month? Two at the most?"

"Fi," Sam said slowly when she wound down from her furious tirade. "We don't know if this guy was even telling the truth–"

It only served to set her off again. "It's Michael we're talking about here, Sam," she said bitingly. "How hard is it to believe that he got exactly what he wanted? Being a spy… it's his life. It's the most important thing in the world to him. You all know this - he said so in the same exact words. Of course, he's back in, Sam. Don't waste your time believing otherwise."

Sam took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. There was no point in arguing with her when she wasn't in the mood to be reasonable and listen. "Back in the game or not, this man's presence is a threat," he said instead, pointing out the practical issue they had in their laps. "We need to find out who he is and why he is looking for Mike."

"If Micheal is actually undercover on a mission, then this guy can jeopardise his cover and get him killed," Jesse added. "If not, then we can hand him over to the authorities and find a way in ourselves to learn where the hell he really is."

The blunt truth got through her anger and Fiona let out a sigh. "Fine," she said, sipping her whiskey again. "I get your point. This asshole hasn't shown his face to me yet, or to Carlos. So, what's the plan? You want me to shoot him when he shows up?"

"Not lethally, if you can manage," Sam urged. "And just maybe, do you mind hanging out with Maddie until we bag him? We don't want her and the kid in the middle of this."

"Fair enough," she agreed. "We can do that. I'll take Carlos and go visit for a few days."

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me," she snapped waspishly. "I'm doing this for Maddie and Charlie. I don't really care about Michael either way."

"Glad we have it sorted, then," Jesse said softly, watching her saunter away the same way she had arrived.

Sam sipped the last bit of his mojito, wondering how long it would take for her to dig herself out of her denial this time around.

Guantanamo Bay
Cuba

The Next Day

10:05 Hours

Michael received another visitor three days after Jason Bly's arrival.

"And we meet again, Westen," Andrew Strong said.

"Can't say it's a pleasure," he replied with a false smile.

"There's somebody, a bastard I've been hunting for a long damn time, surfaced from under the rocks," Strong continued, ignoring Michael's barely hidden disinterest. "It's your lucky day because you're going to help me take him down this time."

"Am I now?" Michael cocked his head to the side, taking in the smug smile and the easy confidence of the senior agent seated before him. Unlike the other agents he had managed to fend off, Strong's demeanour suggested that he had something up his sleeve that Michael couldn't afford to turn his back on. It made him uneasy.

"You bet," Strong said, opening a folder he had brought with him. "This man's name is Randall Burke. I'm sure you remember. You used to work with the son of a bitch."

He started to line up a stack of surveillance photos of a brown-haired, square-jawed man. Michael recognized him. He had worked with Burke once to dismantle a splinter group with connections to Al-Qaeda in the Middle Eastern region. He remembered Burke being a dangerous, unpredictable and ruthless operator with a penchant for sarcastic remarks.

"If you're wondering what happened to him after he vanished into thin air…well, he turned into a terrorist." Strong continued, piling up more photographic evidence of the said terrorist activities on the table before Michael. At first glance, it looked like Burke had been responsible for a lot of weapons thefts, bombings, assassinations and more than a few kidnappings. There were a lot of photos that remained in the folder, since there simply wasn't enough space on the table for Strong to spread them on.

"Now, I have tried for years to get somebody close to him, to take him down." The agent sat down and pinned him with a narrow-eyed look. "Very recently, a situation has presented itself for us to get someone closer to him… and you are going to be that guy."

Michael said nothing. While his gaze travelled all over the story the images represented of Randall Burke, his mind turned over the possibilities of why the terrorist would suddenly appear on Strong's radar all of a sudden, and what that appearance had to do with him.

"You've already set up a perfect cover I.D. by stabbing your old agency in the back for all the damned world to see," Strong kept talking, taking Michael's silence as an invitation to keep going. "That's– that's exactly what I need for this to work. It's time for old Michael Westen from before the burn notice, before this extended Miami vacation, the Michael Westen that got the job done no matter what - that guy to step up to the plate and take this scumbag down."

"He looks like he's been busy making trouble all over the world," Michael remarked placidly before looking up from the photos to face the agent. "Anyway, Agent Strong, this was an admirable pitch, what with the speech and the photos and all. But you see, the problem is I don't give a shit. I don't have to. I'm sure if you look hard enough, there are more like me still working for the company, and if this guy is as bad as you say he is, I'm sure any one of them would love to join your crusade and do what's needed…It's just not me."

Once upon a time, he would have surprised himself with that declaration, would have been horribly disappointed in himself even. But now, all Michael felt was the weariness that had seeped into his bones, to his very soul. He had no desire to get back in the game, to start fighting the good fight, and to do the right thing again and again, despite the cost to himself.

That drive had withered and died when the cost hadn't been to himself, but his family.

It was better here, where the only fight that mattered was for survival. He knew that those deeply ingrained instincts, the ones that still drove him to fight and survive, wouldn't last for too long. And that the day would come soon enough when he wouldn't even lift a finger to defend himself.

Michael had made peace with that the moment he had arrived at the camp. He saw no reason to change his decision to accept those facts just because yet another terrorist had crawled out of the woodwork and wandered into the agency's crosshairs.

Strong, however, destroyed all of his reasoning and rejection of the offer with his next few words.

"I knew you'd say that," he said, remarkably unconcerned. "Believe me, you would never have been my choice for a mission like this. Unfortunately for both of us, the situation I mentioned earlier involves you. Therefore, it makes you the man of the hour, whether you and I wanted it or not."

"What situation?" Michael asked, trying and failing to ignore the icy dread he could feel crawling down his spine.

"Burke's started looking into you," Strong revealed, spreading a new bunch of photos over the ones of the destruction the terrorist had caused. The icy dread turned to full-blown panic when Michael recognised the backgrounds and the people in the new set of surveillance photos.

The bastard was in Miami, and the other unfamiliar man who seemed to be his acquaintance, was talking to his family.

"See here, that's him and his new friend, Dexter Gamble, sniffing around your friends and family." Strong needlessly pointed out what Michael could clearly figure out for himself. "Now, I can drag you out of here and throw you out in the streets of Miami. When Burke moves in to pick you up, we take him down. I have the go-ahead from the agency to use you as I see fit. But I think this entire thing might go down better if you co-operated. Would also minimise the risk to your friends and family if Burke finds out and reacts badly to the situation."

"Why is he looking into me?" Michael asked, his voice faint. "I haven't had any contact with him since the early 90s, since that operation back in the Middle East. There's no reason for him to be looking for me now."

"And yet, there he is, risking his life and anonymity searching for you," Strong shrugged. "If we can find out what he's up to, all the better. But once we have him, it won't really matter why he was looking for you in the first place, would it? Now, tell me, Westen, are we doing this the easy way or the hard way?"

It really wasn't even a choice at that point.

"Tell me what you want me to do." Michael sighed.

Strong flashed a shark-like grin at him and started to do exactly that.