Chapter 14

They stormed in like a small army, streaming across the fourth level from two stairwells, east and west.

The echoes of footsteps, shouting.

A windshield shattered.

His body begged out of the crouched position but Reese's grip on his arm was unnecessary- a locked vice, keeping him below the profile of the vehicle. He wasn't going anywhere.

Finch flinched. The gunshots, the breaking glass. He resisted the urge to plug his ears. He looked to Fitzgerald, who was doing just that, face red and shiny, his eyes squeezed shut.

Reese stood and fired, three times. Three sets of knees buckled, three men down. He squatted again, reloading with a slap, drawing a breath. Squinted, rubbing between his eyes. Saw Finch watching him and straightened.

They couldn't get cornered.

"We have to move." Reese tucked away the smaller gun. Thought about offering it to his employer, but already knew the answer. Grabbed the larger rifle with his left hand, yanked the strap of the duffel bag with his right.

Something tore in his side.

A yell from southwest corner of the garage.

They had to move.

He ignored the pain, keeping low as he moved toward Fitzgerald's position at the other end of the van.

They would have to separate.

The chubby man eyed him warily as he leaned in. "You were right on one thing." Reese's voice was low but even. "I'm not really one of the good guys."

"But-"

"So much as touch him and I promise you-I'll carve out your eyes with that butter knife."

Fitzgerald swallowed.

Reese felt Finch behind him now and stopped, gave Fitzgerald a forced smile. He turned, handing Finch the radio and then stood, firing twice. A spray of bullets in return, he sank down quickly.

A voice echoing through a megaphone: If he put down his weapon and came out, it would all be okay.

He resisted an urge to flip them the bird over the side of the car.

"There'll be a lot of smoke," he said. "In...-" a glance to a watch- "one minute." Pulling the strap of the bag over his shoulder, still squatting on his heels.

"Are you coming with us?" It was Fitzgerald asking.

Reese didn't answer.

"John?" Finch looked at him. You are coming?

Reese kept his gaze forward, not meeting Finch's eye.

An explosion in the northern corner of the garage, the vibration shook the concrete beneath their feet.

A chorus of car alarms.

"Hm. Little early." Reese almost sounded amused.

Finch gave him a look.

"That's your cue," Reese said, pushing at Fitzgerald. "Stairwell."

Smoke was billowing, an acrid smell was filling the level. They used it as cover, making their way to the south stairwell door.

He had laid a hidden trail of remote detonated smoke grenades along their path to the terminal span. The stairwells, the garage. Once there, it was just a matter of blending into the terminal, getting Fitzgerald to the security checkpoint.

Or whatever Finch decided to do with him.

Finch was too good, too kind. Finch would let him go.

Finch gave second chances. Deserved or undeserved.

"Hey, Harold?" At the door, Reese turned. Hesitated. Barely audible over the noise. "Thanks."

Finch frowned. The thank you sounded more like an apology.

"-Reese!"

Platt.

A bullet whizzed silently from the opposite corner of the garage. The three dodged behind a smaller sedan. The door was right there, the smoke was looming.

Reese pushed at them.

"Go." His eyes now trained to the northwest corner, toward the voice.

There seemed a hesitation behind him.

He glanced at Finch. Why aren't you moving?

The smoke was starting to dissipate, but he still couldn't make out figures. Reese let the duffle bag fall off his shoulder to the ground.

"Please," he said, and then regretted it, the hint of desperation in his voice. He squatted down, not looking back.

They were through the door, it slammed shut behind him. Reese stood up, firing a round of unaimed shots so that no one could follow.

Concrete crackled.

Car alarms still sang. A group yelled something and he could feel them moving in closer.

Well.

Fuck.

The anxiety he had felt earlier was gone, diluted out by a feeling of resignation.

So long as it was just him. He could be okay with this.

He knew the cost of things. Of each decision, weighted down by another.

Reese stood. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, finger soft on the trigger. Breathed in.

The haze, still thick in pockets, had cleared enough to make him a reasonable target.

He met Platt's eye. The blackness there, the hate.

He didn't hate anyone like that.

Not anymore.

He didn't even feel anything like that.

The shot rang out, an echo in the garage over the sound of alarms. A siren in the distance.

Platt fell to his knees, a red blooming flower on his shirt that grew and grew and he was dying, Reese knew, as he held his stare.

And he felt nothing.

Shots rang back at him and he moved quickly, pulling the safety on the rifle, shouldering the bag as the suits moved in, surrounding Platt. For the first time, he noted the lack of NYPD.

If there was one thing the CIA could do, it was clean up their own mess.

He had to disappear before the path of smoke fully cleared.

They would dissolve into the crowd as though they were never there. Just as he would.

His finger had never pulled the trigger.

His face still flushed, his eyes still darting around.

The bespectacled man in front of him wasn't military, wasn't law enforcement. No government agency.

But Fitzgerald was no longer trying to piece it together.

"We can never speak of this," he told Finch. The terminal buzzed around them, a world away from the parking garage.

There was extra security, maybe, but no one glanced their way.

Finch was watching him, evaluating his choices.

The flight would leave in thirty minutes. Not a lot of time to weigh the implications, to determine if he were making the right decision. To fabricate some explanation.

The man had been desperate, but perhaps not dangerous.

The crackle of the radio informed him of the agent down, the cease and desist for the NYPD.

After that, the airwaves were silent.

Finch felt tired.

"Clean passport, plane tickets, a bank card to a well-funded account in your new name. Please, Mr. Fitzgerald, go and live your life."

Later, Reese sat in the uncomfortable chair, the wooden one that swiveled, and alternated between staring out the library window and taking apart his Glock.

The third time he pulled the barrel out of the slide, he did it with his eyes closed.

He rolled the metal in his hands. Finch hadn't said much, hadn't looked his way more than once since he'd gotten back. Nor had he asked him to leave, to stop fidgeting, to stop taking his guns apart.

When Finch had come in and found him there, waiting by the window, he had stopped and stared a minute. A look on his face, something different, but no smile.

Reese looked over to the main desk again, swiveling in the chair. The seat was uncomfortable, yes, but he didn't have to twist his hurting body to change his vantage point.

Steady typing. There were lines of code on three screens now, not just two. The walkie-talkie from earlier sat on its side behind the furthest monitor.

Finch hadn't even asked what happened.

He swiveled back. Looked at the window. Snow was falling again, back-lit by the glow of the streetlights.

Finch always knew more than he let on.

The chair creaked as Reese shifted in his seat.

He was waiting for the inevitable.

Finch would no doubt maintain that manner of speech where he spoke slowly, deliberately. The way he talked when he felt the need to explain things. Enunciating certain key phrases. Rationalizing. Where he just … made sense.

There was a certain comfort level to how Finch sometimes just made sense.

He would probably find himself agreeing. There was nothing to defend, really.

Yes, Mr. Reese, you are quite stealthy and can work a gun, but if you anticipate getting yourself shot on a weekly basis, threatening our numbers, and having entire swat teams vying for your hide, then, well, this probably isn't going to work out.

All true, Finch. Roger that.

He would get drunk tonight. Very drunk.

He didn't know what the hell he would do with tomorrow.

"Mr. Reese."

Here it comes. His jaw set, a tightening in his gut.

His chair creaked. He looked up.

It didn't come.

"You didn't like him," Finch said. He was staring at the photo of Fitzgerald, still taped to the glass board. Protruding eyes behind those coke-bottle rims. "Or trust him."

Reese knew it wasn't a question. He looked at the photo too, wanted to take it down. The typing had paused, the room suddenly quiet.

"Yet you didn't question saving him." Finch looked to Reese but the younger man's gaze was guarded. He waited, but the expression gave away nothing. A trained blankness.

After the time spent with a loquacious Fitzgerald, the quiet of Reese was a strange contrast.

Finch went back to the coding. He hadn't planned on doing this, not tonight. But it was welcome busywork. A mental catharsis.

"Do you think he'll do it?"

He paused over the keyboard. "Do what?"

"Start over. Live his life."

Finch had mulled the same, the whole trip back. "It's a lot to ask of someone. To change their name, to give up the life they know." A sideways glance. Isn't it?

There was something raw about the smile Reese gave him.

"When we started this, I don't think I anticipated those particular nuances."

When Nathan had started this, saving the numbers.

He sometimes sensed they'd set off a domino effect of unknown proportion.

Reese let the words hang in the air a minute. Then, "We?"

"Mm." Finch's eyes were back to the screens. He was done now, his train of thought coming unraveled. He had begun checking his work.

He didn't need to check his work.

Shifting slightly to glance to Reese: Don't.

Reese didn't. He went back to swiveling in the old chair, letting it creak. Staring at the metal in his hands, rolling it absently. Tallying it away.

Nathan. Nathan Ingram.

Finch watched him in the reflection off one of the monitors. Thought about dismissing him, sending him home to rest. But after the past few days there was something reassuring about having him in sight.

"Besides," he said finally. "What's in a name?" Breaking the silence. "A rose by any other name, as they say." He twisted to look at Reese as though expecting an acknowledgment.

Reese blinked. "A rose?"

"Shakespeare, Mr. Reese." Finch gave him an unimpressed look. Gestured to the expanse of books surrounding them. "I don't suppose you'll ever take advantage? When you're not ... playing with your guns?"

"I know Shakespeare, Finch." Reese gave a look of his own. He did take advantage, starting with the ones he found already off the shelves. But Finch didn't need to know that. "Playing?"

Finch raised his eyebrows as he turned back to his screens. Just saying.

Reese watched as a series of windows were closed and minimized. Some typing, but minimal. He set the Glock to the side. "What's yours then?"

Finch shifted back to look at him. "My…"

"Your name," he said evenly. He waited, saw a flicker of a smile on his employer's face.

Maybe, he thought. Just maybe.

But no.

Almost.

The typing resumed.

"You know, Harold, sooner or later you're gonna have to trust someone."

Finch slowly swiveled in his own chair, facing him now. Really, his expression read.

Reese gave a small shrug. A tiny quirk at the side of his mouth, there and gone.

"Kettle black, Mr. Reese." A pointed look.

Reese said nothing.

I trust you, he wanted to say.

But he didn't.

He took his cue, standing slowly. As smoothly as he could manage. If Finch weren't there, he might have cursed.

It could be a whiskey night after all.

"You have an appointment tomorrow," Finch informed him, watching his movements carefully. "Mr. John Rooney had a skeet shooting incident."

"Skeet shooting." Reese turned slowly, making a face. "Finch."

"Tried to self-treat." A pause. "Unsuccessfully."

"Finch."

"9 am."

The gate clattered as it closed and Finch heard something muttered, unintelligible. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes.

"Trust, Mr. Reese." To an empty room.

A soft tone, a computerized bell. He opened his eyes, watching the screen and its blinking cursor.

Trust.