Chapter 24: in the middle of it all; "I have something to tell you";

Rome, Italy, January, 2015

Reese stashed the last of his gear into his duffel bag and zipped it closed. Shaw did the same, then swung her bag over her shoulder and headed for the living room. Reese stayed back, pulling his phone from his pocket, clicking through the L's until he got to Lionel.

Back home in New York, it was just before dawn, but he'd have to call and wake Fusco with the news about Root – and Fusco wasn't going to be happy about chasing the Zheng back to Queens. The last time he'd been there, Fusco had scraped Shaw and Reese off the floor – down in the basement of the hideout in Flushing.

And the two of them weren't a pretty sight when he found them: run off the road, kidnapped and beaten by the Zheng, then left behind in the basement for the rest of the team to find. The payback they'd arranged, with some help from Elias, took half of the Zheng off the streets. But this new attack on the team meant there was more work to be done, and soon. The Zheng answered to Greer, and it was time to stop them for good.

It would be half-a-day's trip before Reese, Shaw and Finch could get back. Fusco was the only one there who could handle this. He was still on leave from the NYPD – after the shoot-out with Greer's team in Manhattan. He'd stayed back in New York, while Reese and Shaw went after Harold in Rome. And Root had stayed, too. None of them knew what had happened. It seemed from the video she'd been lured somewhere by the Zheng before she was captured. Harold and the Machine were still tracking their SUV.

After three rings, Reese could hear a sleepy voice on the other end. "Yeah?"

"Lionel."

"Here."

"You need to wake up." He could hear Fusco on the other end, groaning and moving around. There were rustling noises, and the sound of a hand thumping against something heavy. Then the sound of a lamp switch clicking.

"What time is it?"

"O-four hundred, your time," Reese answered. He heard Fusco groan again, sitting up, trying to get his brain to work.

"What's happening?"

"Finch got a message just now from the Zheng. A video. It looks like they went after Root. They got her alone somewhere in Manhattan. It looks like she shot one of them before they grabbed her. Harold is tracking their SUV. It's heading for the Mid-town Tunnel. They may be taking her back to Queens."

It was silent on the other end. Reese didn't know if Fusco was thinking or if he'd gone back to sleep in the middle of the conversation.

"Lionel?"

"I'm here – so what's the plan? Where are you guys?"

"Packed and ready to leave from Rome. Finch has his private jet here, so we don't have to wait for a flight. It's gonna take some time to get there – we think the Zheng are using Root as bait. They beat her up pretty bad on the video."

"Just like you and Shaw," Fusco said. Reese heard more rustling sounds and then, "I'm getting ready. Finch can tell me where they are. I'll follow and see what I can see." Reese agreed, then Fusco spoke up again.

"If they take her back to that building in Queens, she could be anywhere in that whole block of stores. They're all connected underground by the tunnel we found."

"Wait for backup, Lionel. I don't want you going in there by yourself. Let me talk to Finch and I'll get back to you in a little while."

Reese listened for Fusco to acknowledge and then clicked off. He shouldered his duffel bag and caught up with the rest of the team in the living room. Shaw was packed and ready, drinking coffee and eating some breakfast. Harold's bags were there, but he was sitting in front of his laptop, writing notes on a small pad of paper.

Brody walked over to talk with Reese. "Four-eyes told us you're heading back to New York. Some kinda problem back there," he said.

"One of our people got ambushed – the same gang from Queens."

"That Chinese gang?" Brody asked. Reese nodded, looking around at Shaw and Finch.

"So, what are you gonna do?"

"I have a cop back there who can follow the car and keep an eye on things until we have more people in place."

"You can do all that from here?"

Reese nodded to Brody.

"Four-eyes. He's got eyes in the sky," Reese said in his whisper-voice. Brody crinkled his forehead, like he didn't really know what Reese meant. And Reese wanted to keep it that way, so he turned away to talk with the others.

Brody had a couple of his men take the luggage out to the van. The rest of his men were just finishing a meal, getting ready to get some sleep after their night shift near Grace's school. Since the raid on Greer's headquarters in Rome, Reese's men hadn't seen any activity around the school. But no one was letting down his guard. They were certain this was just a break in the action until Greer brought in another team. Grace and her school were soft targets, and Greer couldn't resist going after them. The only way to keep Grace safe here in Rome was to surround her with Reese's hand-picked men. These men were loyal, and they were good at what they did – ex-soldiers from their days fighting together in Afghanistan. Reese could trust them to do what needed to be done to protect Grace.

And so far, she had no idea that a small army of ex-soldiers were protecting her from Greer's mercenaries. Or that Harold was the one orchestrating the whole thing. Her memories of the lives they'd shared were all wiped clean; Greer had turned Harold into a monster in her mind. The sight of Harold would bring her only fear and distrust. So deep was the damage Greer had done.

And everything Harold had done to keep Grace safe – arranging the offer to teach art in Italy, finding the apartment near the Vatican – where she could live a quiet life, roam the city, enjoy the architecture, the museums, the art and music she loved. All of that was gone now. Grace had given it up. For the children; the refugee children she'd begun to teach and care for.

This wasn't meant to happen. He'd just wanted to give her another life, far away from New York and the danger of knowing him. But instead, she'd been drawn into the children's stories, the horror of the violence they'd seen, how they'd managed to survive, travel the Mediterranean in crowded dinghies and leaky boats, to end up there. Trapped. With no place to go, stacking up like cord wood in the yard. They were there by the tens of thousands all over Italy, blocked from moving past her borders. So, Grace had used the only weapons she knew to fight back. With paint boxes and paper, story books, and music, she'd fashioned a safe haven for some of their children, a school where she could teach art while she tended to their deeper wounds.

Grace had moved her school from the quiet old streets near the Vatican, here, next to the refugee towers – old decaying buildings on what had once been a college campus. The towers were home now to thousands of fleeing migrants from Africa, the Middle East, and beyond, squeezed in together in the towers, with many more coming all the time. There were precious few services, and the locals had turned away, afraid of crime and violence spilling out on their streets.

And there, in the middle of it all, was Grace.

Abuja, Nigeria, January, 2015

There were just two of them left in Olawale's car – the driver and the young man who'd stayed behind in the school. Adebisi stared at the bloody sleeve of his white shirt. That's where his classmate, Akeen, rested his head in his final moments. Adebisi shuddered. How could all of this have gone so wrong?

The two foreigners had come to Nigeria to make a deal with Olawale. But something had happened and Olawale said no. They'd attacked him, then, beating him in front of the students to make them talk. The foreigners wanted a name. A name for the most famous hacker in the country, maybe in all the world. Olawale tried to tell them there was no such person. It was a myth. But they didn't believe him. They kept beating Olawale, trying to get them to talk. He was an old man – at least they'd thought he was. They knew he couldn't take much more, but, they were scared. The woman had a gun, and they didn't know what they should do.

Akeen started it. He'd rushed forward to save Olawale and the foreign woman shot him. He fell right there in front of them. And then everything happened so fast. The two foreigners were in the room with Olawale. The rest of them went to help Akeen – but he got up from the floor, as if he was possessed, and with his last burst of effort, he attacked the foreigners. The gun went flying and one of the students picked it up. Akeen had tackled them and they were down on the floor. And then Adebisi heard himself promise he'd get rid of the foreigners with their own gun.

First, he told the others to get Olawale to his car. When they went to untie him, they could see the gray wig and the rest of his disguise. Olawale wasn't the old man they thought he was. They carried him to his car in the back, and left Adebisi to deal with the foreigners.

He had their gun, and he had them get up and move away from Akeen. He could see that his friend was dying there. He remembered looking around him and seeing the tiny closet where the electrics were stored, the servers and equipment that ran their computers. He made them go inside the closet, and he locked them in. He was afraid to tie them up – these were dangerous people who would kill all of them without a second thought. He just wanted to stay with Akeen until it was over.

He shuddered, thinking about it. There on the floor of the car was the gun. He couldn't look at it now. Instead, he looked at his classmate, Eke, who was driving the car. One by one, they'd dropped each of the other students in separate places, far from each other, just as Olawale had told them. He and Eke had kept their eyes looking forward, so neither knew who was left in the back and who got out at each stop. That way, if they were caught later on, neither could say where the rest had gone.

Adebisi shook his head. He should have done it when he had the chance. He could have shot the two foreigners. They deserved it for killing Akeen. But when he'd gone to the door of the closet and raised the gun to do it, to shoot through the door of the closet, he knew he couldn't miss. There was no place to hide in there. His heart started to pound, and he felt a buzzing in his head. He felt like his knees would buckle. He'd raised the gun. And aimed. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't pull the trigger.

He started shaking, and the gun went off in his hand. A wild shot. He realized the rest of them in the car outside would hear it. So, he fired another shot, in the air above his head – and then he just ran.

The ones who'd come to make the deal with Olawale, the ones who beat him, threatened all of them, and killed Akeen – they were still alive. Adebisi turned his head and told Eke to stop the car.

"I have something to tell you."