"They've asked me to poison Elena." "Push the release button right here." "You can't just let her die." "Watch it, Adam!" "Operations was very disappointed." "I don't know what's wrong with me." "Section must have gotten to her while I was on the mission." "Mommy." "Your daughter is ill." "She's in the hospital." "Why don't you come with me?" "Daddy, he says it's grandpa coming to see mommy." "Now, Adam will know his grandfather." "I think we should acknowledge... the personal sacrifice Michael has made... and give him some time alone." "This is Mihai Brevich, the man responsible... for the recent wave of terrorist attacks in the Ukraine." "He's affiliated with Red Cell... but he runs an extremely competent organization in his own right." "He's been recently joined by his son, Laszlo." "He's just a kid." "A kid... who's already showing signs... of being even more talented than his father." "One of their colleagues is currently in Warsaw." "His laptop contains the location... of the group's current safe house in the Balkans." "Michael, are you getting this?" "No." "We'll acquire the laptop... and the entire team will mount an assault on the safe house." "Pick up the profile from Birkoff." "There'll be a delay." "I'm making some changes." "Michael... in my office." "I'm pulling you and Nikita out of Phase One... substituting Van Haven and Quael." "I want you to assist Birkoff with tactical." "That way, I can keep an eye on you in case you drop the ball." "Fine." "Michael." "I know you've been through a difficult time... but Adam and Elena are being well provided for." "You need to get past it." "Get past losing my son?" "Yes." "How?" "However you can." "I didn't see my son grow up, either... because I was in a POW camp in Vietnam." "It wasn't pleasant, but life goes on." "Really?" "Yes, really." "Get over it." "Everything all right?" "We've been taken off Phase One." "Did we do something wrong?" "Not we, me." "I'll be on tactical here." "You're free to go if you wish." "I'll stay." "You know, just to observe." "Suit yourself." "Van Haven, you're in the clear." "Proceed to break point." "Okay, we're here." "Hold your position." "There's an anomaly in the east corridor." "How serious?" "Two hostiles." "They may have backup." "Cover me." "Got to leg down the hall." "This wasn 't in the profile." "I know." "Come on!" "Do we abort?" "Michael?" "Get down!" "Birkoff, do we abort?" "Proceed." "Proceed." "Van Haven stays in the hole." "Quael gets the laptop." "Van Haven, stay put." "Send Quael for the laptop." "He's got it." "Pull back, quickly." "Hostile contact." "Use the fallback route." "Fallback is blocked." "I'm coming in." "Birkoff?" "Change the pickup point." "Use the van as a shield." "New pickup, 100 meters north-northeast." "Two down." "We're on our way." "Michael." "I can't imagine what it must be like... knowing you're not going to see Adam again." "You can't be like this." "Not here." "If there's anything that I can do...." "There's not." "It might help to talk." "You can't keep this inside you forever." "Talking won't help." "If you change your mind, I'm here." "Thank you." "Walter, I got to talk to you." "I'm just going to make a run" "I was using Operations' access code to filter the mission." "When I went to log off, the directory wasn't empty." "Yeah?" "I think it's an umbrella file." "What did you do?" "What!" "Are you nuts?" "Walter, you've got to see this." "It's huge." "Not here and not now." "When?" "I'll let you know." "I'll get back to you." "I noticed that you altered the Brevich profile." "You don't approve?" "It's premature." "You saw what happened in Phase One." "Michael's on the edge right now." "We have to be careful." "Perhaps he needs some more time alone." "A chance to pull back." "There's no such thing as pulling back in our line of work." "You know that as well as I do." "Perhaps better." "Then what's your point?" "My point is if we push Michael too hard... we may destroy him and that would be a pity." "Would it?" "He's behaved erratically lately." "You know his potential." "Yes, but managing him is not without difficulty." "In my judgment, he's worth it." "I miss the cold war, too, Madeline." "It had clarity and structure." "We could bring our people along in a sane manner." "Nowadays, we don't have that luxury." "Michael keeps up or else he falls by the wayside..." "like everyone else." "We'll proceed as planned." "If Michael can't cut it, we might as well find out now." "Birkoff, there's two on the perimeter." "How many inside?" "Eight." "Focus on Brevich and his son." "We need them alive." "The others are incidental." "Go." "Gun it!" "Hold it!" "That's Laszlo!" "Turn him around." "Where's your father?" "You'll be hearing from him soon enough." "Just tell me where your father is and save yourself a lot of extra pain." "All units, any sign ofBrevich?" "No, nothing here." "Negative." "Birkoff, is this intel certain?" "Top of the grid." "He should be there." "All right, come over here." "Laszlo!" "Father!" "He shot his own son." "He's gone." "I need some help here." "Michael?" "I'm with you." "Don't shoot." "Latex." "Michael, this isn't Brevich." "Van Haven?" "Section wanted me to believe that Brevich killed his own son." "You wanted to show me something?" "I assume you've reviewed the Phase Two playbacks?" "Yes." "Van Haven's incompetence was mind-boggling." "It's possible the plan itself left something to be desired." "We needed to get Brevich and to restore Michael to his... normal capability level." "It was an attempt to do both, it didn't work, we move on." "I've already made the necessary adjustments." "Before you finalize those adjustments... here's a secondary tape you may not have seen." "One of Brevich's men... had the presence of mind to perform surveillance during the fighting." "I had the lab do a reverse angle generation." "This is what their camera picked up." "So they know what Michael looks like." "Doesn't mean they can find him." "We find people with far less intel than this." "What are you getting at?" "What I've said all along." "We're pushing the envelope too hard." "Trying to do too much." "You, of all people... aren't going to warn me against playing God?" "No." "Provided we do a decent job of it." "God doesn't make clumsy mistakes." "Nonsense." "Scientists say 90% of the species ever created on this planet... are now extinct." "That's a 10% success rate." "Ours is much higher than that." "End of discussion." "So... show me." "He was spying on Oversight?" "It has to do with Adrian." "Operations was cleaning up." "He must have forgotten about this file." "lf George knew about this..." "Operations would be stuffed and mounted in about 10 seconds." "That's what I figured." "What do you think?" "When you have an ace, you got to play it." "Meaning?" "We won't ask for the moon and the stars." "Just a planet or two." "Where have you been?" "What do you mean?" "I've been looking for you." "I had something to do on Level Four." "I heard Brevich had a recon photo of Michael." "Yeah." "Not to worry." "I ran a sim." "The chance of Brevich locating Michael... from a recon photo is less than 1%." "With all due respect to your sim, how would he go about trying?" "He'd have to cross-ref against other databases." "Most of the threads would dry up in a hurry." "I really wouldn't worry too much." "What's Michael's new location?" "You know I can't tell you that." "Where does Michael live?" "There it is." "So, what are you doing?" "Playing the cello." "Your security isn't engaged." "Sometimes he couldn't go to sleep at night... unless I played it for him." "It's his birthday today." "I bought him a present." "That you can never give him?" "Yes." "That I can never give him." "You're not well." "Who is?" "Brevich has a recon photo." "If he comes... he comes." "You shouldn't have done that." "Do you want to die?" "What's that to you?" "I'm your friend." "That would be a big mistake." "Why?" "Because people who care about me end up dead or hurt." "Simone." "Elena." "Adam." "Don't follow their path." "I follow the path of my own choosing... just as they did, Michael." "What choice did Adam have?" "I've caused you enough pain already." "Go while you still can." "Michael, I understand what they've done to you." "You have to find a reason to live." "Where?" "Wherever you can." "Brevich found you." "I was an easy target." "Would Brevich have missed?" "Maybe Section's playing some more games." "I don't know." "Michael... you have to do something." "Please." "All right." "Morning, Walter." "You still worried about Michael?" "Yeah, I am." "I'm worried about you." "There's no need to worry about me." "I think there is." "For example, it's not morning." "It's 6:00 in the evening." "There's going to be a briefing in a few minutes..." "I gotta get this finished." "You've been guarding him, haven't you?" "From time to time." "Does he know?" "And when do you get your sleep?" "Walter, when I can." "How long do you plan to keep this up?" "Till he starts caring about his life again." "And if he doesn't?" "He will." "I'll make him." "Wrong answer, sugar." "If I was a little younger..." "I'd probably follow you around and protect you... but as it is, all I can do is give you a little advice." "You can't give him a reason to live." "He has to find that for himself." "Birkoff." "You thought about...." "That's all I've been able to think about." "Walter." "Thank you." "I'll get it right to you." "Tonight?" "Yeah, we'll talk about it." "No." "We do it." "Tonight, right after the briefing." "You're sure he knows about the briefing?" "Yes." "I talked to him myself." "Nice of you to join us." "Thank you." "This is a warehouse outside Lecar." "It's used for the storage of toxic chemicals." "Brevich is going to be there tonight to pick up a shipment of Biothemite." "Michael." "This is Brevich's staging area." "It's about 20 kilometers to the northeast." "It's not the target... but an alternative egress route passes close by." "So familiarize yourself with the outer features." "The mission leaves in about one hour." "Michael." "I don't have to tell you that your performance of late... is unacceptable." "This might be the last chance to rectify that situation." "Birkoff, the truck's here." "Confirmed." "Birkoff, hostile positions?" "Five, counting Brevich." "Any in reserve?" "No." "Michael, should we attack?" "Michael." "Should we attack?" "Why not?" "All units, now." "Birkoff, you said there were no reserves." "That's the intel." "What's the problem?" "They're all over us." "They have Nikita." "Do nothing without instructions." "We need a snap profile." "We're not set up for an assault." "Do what you can." "Now." "Michael, stand by until I contact you." "Hold your position until we work up a profile." "Brevich is the target, not Nikita." "How does it look?" "Given our current configuration, the loss of surprise... our best bet is to set a 1 2-hour shelf." "Nikita might be dead in 12 hours." "It's the best we can do." "Even then, our chance of success is less than 30%." "It's not worth it." "We'll have to write her off." "Tell the team to abort." "Tell them." "The mission is aborted." "Return to base." "No." "Michael, it's a direct order." "The mission's over." "My men said a woman was on the raid which killed my son." "Was it you?" "I don't know what you're talking about." "Which one of your operatives killed him?" "Where is the prisoner?" "ln the hut." "Move." "Tell me what I ask, and it stops." "I told you..." "I don't even know who you are." "The man who killed your son is dead." "Birkoff, I have Nikita." "We will rejoin the rest of the team in 19 minutes." "Changing egress to Route 3." "Check." "Do you need a support team?" "Not unless the zone is dirty." "Scan it until we've crossed the perimeter." "Will do." "We came across something you might be interested in." "An umbrella file." "You called it G-4." "When did you come across it?" "Yesterday." "We thought you might like to have it back... but we'd like a little something in return." "In other words, you're blackmailing me." "No." "Just want to make a trade." "That's right, a trade." "Keep it." "In the first place... the file was planted 72 hours ago." "You should have detected it at least 12 hours before you did." "It's a test." "That's impossible." "It was layered in a Z-cubed function." "So it was made to appear." "Wouldn't be much of a test if you could see it coming, would it?" "Listen, this trade idea, it was all mine." "He didn't want to go along with it." "But he did go along with it." "You should have come straight to me the second you found it... and you should have told him that when he came to you for advice." "There was... another alternative." "We could have taken that directly to Oversight." "You would have been intercepted long before you made contact." "Down time is canceled for both of you for the next six months." "Understood?" "Absolutely." "Thank you." "Yeah." "Birkoff, I'm sorry." "I think it would be better if we didn't talk to each other for a while." "Like the rest of our lives." "Yeah." "I heard you." "Are you okay?" "Yeah." "You?" "Better." "Good." "Care for a coffee?" "Why not?" "Good." "Brevich dead." "Michael back in the fold." "Congratulations." "Thank you." "lt was a huge risk." "It could have ended very badly." "But it didn't." "I doubt if it's going to be that simple." "There's nothing keeping them apart now." "When I was a boy, my father and I were hunters." "We had two retrievers." "Good dogs, very fond of each other." "Being close kept them content and efficient... but occasionally it interfered with the hunt." "How did you deal with it?" "A system of rewards and punishments, as with any living creature." "Did it work?" "For a while." "Eventually... we had to put one of them to sleep."