"It's cleanliness everywhere I look." "It's very disorientating." "Don't worry, I did not touch your wall of crazy." "The idea that Irene was murdered by a shadowy kingpin that no one's ever seen or heard of sounded crazy to me too." "But there may be a pattern here." "A trail of bread crumbs that leads to a great criminal mind." "And how is Napoleon Bonaparte involved?" "By my fifth night without sleep, I may have been reaching." " What time is it?" " Uh, it's 9:30." "Wednesday." "You slept for two days straight." "That's why I'm so hungry." "I'm supposed to go out for a while, but if you're still feeling obsessed, I can stay." "No, I'm fine." "I've been neglecting my hobby." "I'm going to visit Swirl-Theory." "Com and discuss conspiracy theories." " Your hobby is conspiracy theories?" " No, of course not." "They're pure sophistry." "Large groups of people cannot keep secrets." "My hobby is conspiracy theorists." "I adore them." "As one would a barmy uncle." "Or a pet that can't stop walking into walls." "Have you ever heard anyone say the CIA invented crack cocaine?" " I have." " I started that." " That's ridiculous." " Mm." "Today, I plan to get in touch with Zapruder, that's the moderator's nom de plume, and share with him the results of a secret government study, which concludes that rising ocean waters will soon make a new coastline" "in the Appalachian foothills." "Plans are afoot to move the nation's capital to Omaha, and a cadre of elite billionaires is buying up soon-to-be beachfront property." "Okay." "Well, good luck with that." "Hmm." "Enjoy your errands." "Sherlock has made progress, but he's fragile." "Sebastian Moran upset the balance that we found." "He's finally ready to deal with his feelings about Irene." "He's only loved one person in his life, as far as I can tell, and she was murdered." "Your contract to work as Sherlock's sober companion expired a week ago." "And if Sherlock finds out, it could destroy the trust you've built." "Have you considered that you yourself could be the catalyst for a relapse?" "It's not forever." "It may not be forever but it does sound indefinite." "In the meantime, you're not being paid." "I'm not living paycheck to paycheck." "Nor are you obligated to spend your savings on behalf of someone who's no longer your client." "I should really check to see if everything's okay." "This thing with Sherlock, there are steps." "Captain Gregson suspended him from the N.Y.P.D." "That relationship stabilizes him." "I just need to reopen that line of communication between them." "Watson." " Wanna tell me whose house this is?" " Zapruder." "Oh, the guy you were talking about this morning?" "The conspiracy theorist?" "His real name is Len Pontecorvo." "He didn't rise to my bait earlier." "Most unlike the man." "I e-mailed several of his colleagues in Swirl-Theory." "Turns out, no one has heard from him since Sunday." "So you decided to break into his house." "Well, his compatriots feared the worst, black bagged by the KGB, taken to a secret NASA prison." "Please don't tell me you agree." "Of course not." "NASA doesn't maintain prisons." "Everyone knows that." "But I did think he may have had a heart attack or an accident." "Which is why I let myself in when he didn't answer his door." "Oh, this thing we're doing right now, it's called trespassing." "If you're worried about Mr. Pontecorvo pressing charges, you shouldn't be." "He's got much larger problems than us." "The department's taking a break from you." "You couldn't take him to the movies or something?" "I tried." "Would you have preferred we left Mr. Pontecorvo to rot?" "I would've preferred you laid low for a while, instead of digging up some autoerotic-strangulation case." " Auto?" "He did this to himself?" " You think he didn't?" "Hard to tell without removing the belt to examine the ligature marks on his neck." "What I did note is the belt itself was a 38." "Large for a man of narrow proportions, don't you think?" "Could've lost weight." "Or he could've been strangled by a much larger man and then hung on the machine like a Christmas ornament." "Also, notice the index finger on his right hand." "It appears to be fractured, just above the finger nail." "Hard to auto-eroticize anything with a broken bone in your business hand." "I'll tell the ME to take a close look at the victim's neck and finger." " Not necessary." "I already texted him." " You text him?" "Seems like you think you're a consultant on this case." " You're not." " Which is why I'm leaving." "Right after Watson and I examine the rest of the house." "Let you know if we learn anything." "Been through the man's things." "So far, none of the conventional ways of getting oneself killed apply." "Pontecorvo didn't owe anyone money, he wasn't sleeping with anyone's wife, wasn't sleeping with anyone." "Uh, don't you think the police are interested in looking at that?" "Police are interested in finding the killer." "They want any and all evidence in my possession." "Whether they admit it or not." "If all Pontecorvo did was fill these binders," " we should look through them too." " Hmm." "This one says that North Korea is actually the world's largest manufacturer of high school textbooks." "The Supreme Court has been infiltrated by Scientologists." "It's one of mine." "Yes, we may as well bring them with us." "Worth a laugh, anyway." "Although, I promise you, there is a conventional explanation for Len Pontecorvo's murder." "Information wants to get out, Watson." "Which is why..." "There's no such thing as conspiracies." "We've covered this." "Hello, Clyde." "Oh, are you taking Clyde?" "He will starve if we leave him here." " Oh, I didn't know you liked tortoises." " I love them." "They make an absolutely delicious soup stock." "What is that?" "It appears to be a listening device." "Someone was bugging the conspiracy nut." "You brought that all the way over here just to smash it to pieces?" "I turned it off." "I can't have it in the house." "Don't know who's on the other end." "I've confirmed from three different sources, this particular surveillance device is not commercially available." "You cannot buy it if you are a civilian." "What are you saying, the government was bugging Len Pontecorvo?" "I thought there was no such thing as conspiracies?" "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Watson." "The fact of the matter is, there was a bug in Len Pontecorvo's home." "One of my contacts in London just helped me find spyware on his laptop." "Someone was monitoring his every move." "Why?" "Was he on to something?" "Len Pontecorvo, rest his soul, was one of the laziest thinkers I've ever come across." "His ideas are insane." "Most of them, that is." "There's one that isn't immediately laughable." "I hadn't read about it until a short while ago." " "The Red Team."" " Yes." "The title refers to war games." "Every year, the Army War College stages a series of them." "The players consist of military personnel and civilian experts." "Those representing the United States and its allies comprise the Blue Team." " The Red Team are the bad guys." " Mm." "The players change every year, as do the scenarios being tested." "But every year, the results are published in trade journals." "Except for 2009." "Those were immediately classified." " Why?" " Nobody knows." "That year's game was designed to test the military response to the activation of a sleeper cell in New York City." "The Red Team's goal was to cause maximum destruction and chaos with minimum resources." "Now, Len Pontecorvo believes that they uncovered a flaw in national security." "Something so startling, it was immediately declared a federal secret." "That sounds scary." "It also doesn't sound as crazy as the other theories." "Yeah." "The identities of the Red Teamers are classified." "But Pontecorvo uncovered one of them." "A counterinsurgency expert called Martin Nagowski." "This says he died." "He was killed a year ago in a mugging." "Pontecorvo believes the mugging was staged and Nagowski was assassinated to prevent him from revealing the Red Team's secrets." "You had me until then." "The government doesn't go around killing people." "It's easy enough to test Pontecorvo's theory." "I'll identify the rest of the Red Team." "If they're alive and well, we'll move on." "Oh, it's that easy?" "You're just gonna find five classified names?" "Why not?" "It's my day off." "And how does the head of lettuce fit in?" "Oh, thank you." "I nearly forgot." "Can't make soup out of Clyde until I've fattened him up, Watson." "That's sick." "Sherlock feels terribly about what happened." "He'd tell you himself but you know how he is." "What would it take for him to come back?" "Is it a matter of sitting it out or do you want a formal apology?" "You sound like he took my favorite shirt without asking." "Holmes planned to torture and murder somebody." "Sherlock thought that Moran murdered the woman he loved." "Which makes it natural to think about paying him back." "An employee of this department does not act on those impulses." "Do you wanna know what Sherlock can do?" "Nothing." "And if I had to bet, I'd say he's not even sorry." "Now, I understand, you're worried about your client, you think that he needs this job to stay sober." "I understand that." "But he's broken, and he's broken in a way that has nothing to do with whether or not he's getting high." "Oh, speak of the devil." "Hmm." "Writing to say he's sorry?" "I'm sorry, I don't remember him." "It's all right." "You wanna tell me why we're in a long-term care facility in Queens?" "I spent the afternoon with Len Pontecorvo's notes, did a little research of my own, worked up a list of names, people that I'm convinced were on the Red Team." "Carlo Anillo is one of them." "He booked travel to the town that houses the War College on the dates of the game." "He has a PhD in civil engineering." "What's his diagnosis?" "He was admitted earlier in the year with early onset Alzheimer's." "By all accounts, his mind deteriorated in a matter of weeks." "Curiously, no one in his family has a history of the disease." "That's strange." "Almost every early onset case is familial." "One member of the Red Team killed in a mugging, one of them insensate in a long-term care facility." "It's enough to make one curious." "Well, you can't give someone Alzheimer's." "You said you're with the N.Y.P. D?" "Most of the time, yes." " You can talk to him now if you want." " Thank you." "Mr. Anillo." "My name is Sherlock." "This is my associate, Joan." "We'd like to ask you a few questions, if that's all right?" "Sure, if you want." "Do you remember anything about the time just before you came to the hospital?" "I'm sorry, no." "Anything about your work at Columbia?" "How about the Army?" "You participated in a war game." "My father was in the Marines, in Vietnam." "Mr. Anillo." "Mr. Anillo?" "I'm sorry, what did you ask me?" "Does he do this often?" "Space out?" " Sure." " I don't think he's spacing out." "I think he's having a micro-seizure." "I don't think so." "I asked the doctor about it." "She said seizures don't happen to people with that kind of Alzheimer's that Carlo has." "You're confident that was a seizure." "You cannot give someone Alzheimer's but you may be able to mimic its symptoms." "Alzheimer's patients, they don't have seizures." "People who've been poisoned with domoic acid do." "Domoic acid." "That's what you find in rotten shellfish." "It is also a neurotoxin." "It attacks the hippocampus, the seat of memory in the brain." "Give someone a large enough dose, they'd lose their entire memory." "They would appear to be an Alzheimer's patient." "You think someone poisoned Carlo Anillo?" "Why not?" "Murder is just one way to stop someone from talking." "This is much more creative." "The beauty is we can test to see if I'm right." "If Anillo was dosed, we'll know that someone was targeting the 2009 members of the Red Team, and that that person killed Len Pontecorvo." "We're talking an awful lot for two guys who aren't supposed to be working together." "Listen to me." "It is highly possible that Len Pontecorvo's murderer poisoned a man called Carlo Anillo and murdered someone named Martin Nagowski, maybe others." "We need to look into a war game that was conducted in 2009." "No, Holmes, stop talking." "We just arrested the guy that killed Pontecorvo." "I beg your pardon?" "Yeah, it's a guy named Gary Sullivan from the chat room he moderated." "They got into a flame war over some moon landing conspiracy theory." "Sullivan confronted him in person." "Things got out of hand." "The guy felt so bad about what he did, turned himself in." "I don't know where this poison stuff is coming from, but Sullivan didn't mean to kill Len Pontecorvo." "It was an accident." "Just so I'm understanding you correctly, neither of you believe that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon?" "Of course not." "That's not the issue." "The issue is who staged the fake landing." "Excuse me." "Well, it's obvious that that man is not the mastermind of anything." " What are you doing here?" " Trying to figure out what happened." "Pontecorvo's murder may have been happenstance." "That doesn't mean I'm wrong about the Red Team." "If Carlo Anillo was poisoned..." "I mean, why are you in this building when you're suspended?" "Captain, lives may be at stake." "We need to find the Red Team and warn them." "The department appreciates your tip in leading to the arrest of Gary Sullivan." "Concerned citizens such as yourself" " play a role in keeping this city safe." " Why are you talking like that?" " Are you listening to me?" " Lives are at stake every day here, and yet we had a department and a city before you got here." "You talk your way into that interrogation room again, and I will have you arrested for trespassing." "You okay?" "Punishment." "As if that accomplishes anything." "Does he really think that we need the N.Y.P.D. To investigate?" " Don't we?" " Of course we don't." "We'll just trace the surveillance device we found at Pontecorvo's home back to its source." "Bad enough you're making me sit in a rental car." "Okay, I am not gonna listen to static anymore." "It's my turn to choose the song." "You chose some abysmal racket, I choose static." "I find it conducive to thought." "Static is not a song." "It doesn't end." "How can you be sure the person who bugged Pontecorvo's house" " is gonna come back for it?" " If there was one bug, the odds are there are others." "Whoever left it won't want to risk someone finding it." "The place was in the hands of the police, so they couldn't fetch their things until now." "The TV satellite truck that pulled up 20 minutes ago." "Hmm." "He clearly isn't here to install anything, so it seems that he is posing as a worker." "When he realizes there is no surveillance device in the terrainium, we'll simply follow him back to whoever he works for." "Have you thought about maybe going and apologizing to Captain Gregson?" "Might go a long way." "The man is a practiced interrogator." "He knows an insincerity when he hears one." "There's no part of you that feels even a little bad about what you did?" " I don't wanna discuss this." " Sometimes you have to talk." " I won't feel uncomfortable, you will." " Why?" "I'm smarter than everyone I meet, Watson." "I know it's bad form to say that, but in my case, it's a fact." " Allowances have to be made." " Allowances?" "It's true I have wronged Captain Gregson." "It was the cost of revenge and I incurred it willingly." "The larger question is, how does my suspension benefit the city?" "If the role of the public servant is to keep an eye on the greater good, then, why keep me from my work?" "My work is the greater good." "See, you're uncomfortable." "Oh, fortunately, we will soon have driving to distract us." "What is this place?" "Howdy." "We mostly do business by appointment here." "Howdy." "Thought you might want this back." "What is this place?" "NSA?" "CIA?" "Army Intelligence?" "We do market research." "It's been slow." "So who are you guys, anyway?" "My name is Sherlock Holmes." "I am a temporarily suspended consultant for the N.Y.P.D." "This is Joan Watson." "She keeps me from doing heroin." " And you would be?" " Bill." "Bill." "Well, Bill, we know that the man who just walked into this office was surveilling Len Pontecorvo." "Bob?" "No, his sister works here." "They're going out to lunch." "I also suspect that this office is keeping an eye on the 2009 members of the Red Team." " Red Team?" " Yes." "Those it hasn't already attacked yet." "Lf, in fact, you are engaged in a plan to eliminate those citizens," "I would like you to know that I know who they are." "Veena Mehta, professor of anthropology, expert in Middle Eastern cultures," "Solomon Zyckner, probability and statistics guru," "Sheldon Frost, the cartographer," "Harold Dresden, mathematician," "Leland Tantowicz, weapons field expert, and, of course, Walter McClenahan, lieutenant colonel, retired." "Well, it sounds like they would make an interesting dinner party." "Mm." "I'm gonna make quite certain that nothing happens to them." "Good for you." "I gotta ask, though." "If the Army or the CIA or whoever wanted to kill a bunch of people who did something back in 2009, why would any of them still be alive today?" "It's the Army." "They get some helicopters, some rocket launchers and stuff, and take care of it all in one night." "That would be my advice, anyway." "And you can keep that." "Never seen it before." "Well, okay." "Well, that was either a waste of time, or I'm gonna be audited every year for the rest of my life." "Wasn't a waste." "I listed the names of some of the people" "I thought might be on the Red Team." "Our friend Bill ground his teeth for some names but not others." "You were testing him?" "Now I know the identities of all the team members." "Detective Bell, how can I help?" "So we just got the results of the tox screen we ran on Carlo Anillo." "He was poisoned with domoic acid." "Gregson wants to hear everything you know." "Happy to oblige, as long as you'll get me a visitor's pass." "Walter McClenahan, systems analyst" " and lieutenant colonel, retired." " What do you want?" "You're a hard man to find." "Six addresses in two years." "Would you come with me, please?" " Something wrong?" " Who are these people?" "That's Veena Mehta, Harold Dresden," "Sheldon Frost, but I suspect you know that." "Gentlemen, Miss Mehta," "I know that I'm addressing the 2009 members of the Red Team." "Those of you who are well enough to be walking around, anyway." "I'm a free citizen, I'd like to leave now." "Nobody's holding you here, Mr. McClenahan." "Walt." "These people aren't with the Army." "Let's just, uh, calm down." "Sit down." "Hmm?" "Let's hear what they want." "I believe that you're all in danger." "Now, some of you may know that Martin Nagowski is dead." "I believe that his murder was planned." "I know for a fact that Carlo Anillo was poisoned." "You're here because the four of you were brilliant enough to help develop a plan that paralyzed the Army with fear." "I'm hoping that you might be able to provide some insight as to who's trying to harm you." " We should talk, I'm not going first." " We took an oath, Sheldon." "If we all talk, nobody can report anyone else." "Saying a single word to these people is treason." "I'm not comfortable with this." "This is not something you walk away from." "I'm very sorry." "We warned them, at least." "Maybe one of them will change their mind, tell us something later." "I think maybe one of them just did." "I'm pretty sure you shouldn't use Clyde as a paperweight." "Hardly think he minds." "You shouldn't refer to it by its name." "It'll just make it harder to enjoy the soup." "Take a look." "I've been reviewing past Red Team exercises." "Came across that photograph quite by accident." "It's the man we met earlier." "He introduced himself as Bill, but the caption lists his name as Todd Clarke." "First lieutenant when that was taken." "Could have been captain by 2009." "Think he had something to do with the exercises?" "He worked at the Army War College." "He was surveilling Pontecorvo." "I think we may have already found our Yossarian." " What do you think they found?" " Haven't thought about it." " It's my job to find the murderers." " But you live in New York." "Their plan to attack it was so good they made it a national secret." "The world is balanced on a knife edge of destruction every single day." "You accept that and you can just get on with things." " Sherlock Holmes?" " And you would be?" "Curious if you know a man named Todd Clarke." "You mean Bill?" "We were just talking about him." "Are you in market research too?" "You did level a series of accusations at him earlier this afternoon." "What's this about?" "Colonel Clarke was shot and killed outside his home earlier this evening." "We're gonna need you to come with us." "You accused Todd Clarke of masterminding some sort of plot to kill citizens who allegedly took part in Army war games." "And by 1900 hours, he's dead." "You have to admit, the coincidence is striking." "It's not striking." "It's not even a coincidence." "I suspect that your Colonel Clarke was killed by the same person who poisoned Carlo Anillo." "Question is, why?" "Carlo Anillo is a private citizen." "His poisoning has nothing to do with this." "Yes, so you've said." "Clarke was not a member of the Red Team, but he was Army Intelligence and he did teach at the War College." "Which leads me to believe that he was "Yossarian,"" "their liaison during the exercise." "That means Clarke knew everything that the Red Team did." "That makes him dangerous in the eyes of the killer, who may have been affiliated with the government." "Speaking of which, where were you two at 1900 hours this evening?" "I'm sorry." "Do you think this is funny?" "I assure you, I find no levity in the death of Clarke." "Why are you spouting nonsense about government assassinations?" "You know what?" "We're taking you to INSCOM in Virginia for further questioning." "What about my alibi?" "There are half a dozen security cameras concealed in my home." "If the two of you would be kind enough to collect them, you'll see that I was at home at 7:00 this evening." "You told me you were getting rid of those cameras." "Though you'd be glad I'm not on my way to a secret prison." "You should have just given them the tapes at the house." "Then I would not have had to bring them down here." " We could've avoided the whole trip." " I wanted to take the trip." "I wanted them to interrogate me so I could counter-interrogate them." "It worked." "Whoever's killing the Red Team does not work at that field office." "They thought that I killed Todd Clarke." "They obviously haven't got a clue what's going on." "No cabbie is gonna stop if you blow a whistle at them." "Cabs have been hailed this way because this is the most efficient way to hail a cab." "The murder of Todd Clarke makes me more certain than ever that someone is killing anyone with knowledge of the Red Team's plans." "I'm just not certain it's Army Intelligence anymore." "Well, who else knew the names of the Red Team?" "See?" "Not stopping." "The list could've worked its way up." "Could have leaked to another agency." "Then, of course, there's the Red Team themselves." "Why would they pick themselves off?" " No obvious reason." " Who are you calling?" "Time for police to take the rest of the team into protective custody." "Taxi!" "Mr. McClenahan?" "Mr. McClenahan?" "Mr. McClenahan?" "Are you in there?" "Mr. McClenahan?" "How's Polk and Mahone?" "They're lucky those shells were filled with rock salt." "They're gonna be laid up for a while, but they'll be okay." "Super too." "That contraption's not the only weapon we found in the place." "Assault rifles, knives and a 9-millimeter pistol." "Todd Clarke was killed with a 9 millimeter." "We're gonna run a ballistics test, but I'd say we found a suspect." "Holmes says he's on his way." "Now I didn't call him." "Who's texting him pictures of the crime scene?" "He probably called in a favor from one of the CSU guys." "I'll figure it out." "We put a BOLO out on McClenahan." "Hopefully..." "Hopefully, he hasn't left town yet but..." "Sorry." "Says he found McClenahan." " What?" " Yeah?" "How'd you find him so fast?" "I didn't." "I just needed you to answer the phone." "Are the others safe?" "Yeah." "Mehta and Frost are at the hotel already." "Dresden has taken a while to pack, but he's got our people with him." "I'm not coming there any longer." "Don't wait for me." "We're not waiting for you." "Probably be easier to fire the guy if we ever actually paid him." "I was surprised to hear that you hadn't gone to the hotel." "Oh, I'm..." "They said we're okay for a bit." "L..." "There isn't much we can do quickly these days." "Uh, she has a limb-onset ALS." "Two years now." "We're here because Walter McClenahan has emerged as a suspect in the Red Team murders." "You think Walt did this?" "I noticed that you and he had a certain, uh, connection." "He seemed to listen to you." "Please." "Yeah, sure, I got to know Walt." "Uh, he's weird, but he's brilliant." "We stayed in touch." "I guess we became friends." " I think I may be his only friend." " Then help us find him." "If he's not the killer, he's in danger." "If he is, we need to get him into custody before he hurts anyone else." "I noticed you didn't exactly howl in protest when I mentioned he was a suspect." "Without, uh, going into specifics, the plan we came up with back in '09 was disturbing." "It's a lot to live with and it did different things to all of us." "I got back in touch with my brother." "I started going to church again." "Walt went in a different direction." "See, there are people who want to know what we found out." "Bad people." "And Walt was convinced that someone was gonna sell our secret." "He used to joke that he might as well be the one to do it." "And after Nagowski got killed, Walt told me to look on the bright side." "Every time one of us dies, there are fewer people to sell the plan." "That makes it worth more and more." " I thought he was kidding." " He was trying to drive up the price." "With the Red Team dead, any potential buyer would have to come to him." "He could charge a fortune." "You have an idea where he is, don't you?" "Yeah." "He bought some land out in New Jersey." "He built a bunker there." "McClenahan may be in a bunker in New Jersey." "No, he's not." "We just found him and he's definitely not our killer." "A homeless guy found him a little while ago." "He was shot once in the back of the head about 24 hours ago." "Then the killer dragged him over here, left him like that." " Where's your shadow, anyway?" " Harold Dresden's wife is sick." "She's helping him get her ready for travel." "What are these aquamarine fibers on his shirt?" "Oh, yeah." "The killer draped a blanket over McClenahan's face and torso." "A patrolman removed it to check his vitals when he arrived on the scene." " He covered his face?" "You're sure?" " Mm-hm." "That's more care than he took with any of his other victims." "Suggests an element of shame here." "McClenahan was killed by someone he knew." "Guy didn't seem like a social butterfly." "He had one friend." "Need to get to the hotel where Red Team's gathered." " Why?" " I think the killer may already be there." "Well, it ain't much, I know, but it's safe." "Detective, any word on whether they found Walt?" "I don't know how long Sheila can stay here." "No, I haven't heard anything yet, but, uh, we're on the case." "The others already here?" "Yeah." "The department took the whole floor." "That works perfectly." "Thank you." " Mr. Dresden!" "Freeze!" " Aah!" "Everyone all right?" "We think so." "After you called in the warning, one of our guys interrupted Dresden just as he was about to shoot Veena Mehta." "We got the rest of the Red Team out but he nabbed one of our detectives, is holding him hostage in the room." "If Harold Dresden intended to sell the Red Team's plans, the motive would be money." "He planned to kill the other two team members in a hotel full of policemen?" "That's not something one typically walks away from." "Doesn't sound like he plans to go anywhere." "Our negotiator called the room phone." "Dresden gave us his demands." "Usually, a guy wants a helicopter or a bus." "He just wants the rest of the surviving Red Team delivered to him." "Then he'll let our guy out." "A suicide mission." "I need to speak with him." "That guy is holed up with one of my detectives." "I'm not putting this in the hands of a suspended consultant." "Captain, I know why Dresden is doing this and I know what to say to make him stop." "I understand what's at stake here." "I'll get your man out safely." "Are they here?" "I think not." "Why are you calling?" "Can you keep a secret, Mr. Dresden?" "Most people say yes when you ask them that but all they really want is for you to give them the dish." "In your case, though," "I say you'd earned the right to answer in the affirmative." "I have no idea what this is about but I already told the police what I want." "Bring me Veena and Frost or I shoot this detective." "I think we both know that you won't do that." "Just as we both know the only person presently in that room that you intend to harm is yourself, Mr. Dresden." "How could you possibly know that?" "Let me in." "Let's talk about it." "If you hear what I've got to say and you're still in the mood for violence, then I'll leave you to your standoff." "I'm quite unarmed." "That's better." "I prefer a face-to-face, don't you?" "Mind if I get something from the minibar?" "N.Y.P.D.'s buying." "Hmm." "My, uh, sober companion couldn't make the trip up here." "But I suppose I should forgo alcohol all the same." "You said you wanted to talk, so sit down and talk." "I judge people by their behavior." "And your behavior can only lead to one conclusion." "You're clearly not interested in profit." "You just want to be certain that no one learns the plan the six of you came up with." "You're convinced it's gonna get out." "And that when it's enacted, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of deaths will result." "But if everyone who knows the plan is dead or stripped of their memory, that can never happen." "The math's really quite straightforward." "Six of you, plus your Army contact, seven lives versus thousands." "You worked slowly at first, you disguised what you were doing." "Then I start asking questions, you have to speed things up." "Fortunately, for you, after Todd Clarke was murdered, we brought all of your remaining targets to this hotel." "One thing I can't work out, though, is why you became so certain the plan would leak." "You didn't start killing for two years after the war game." "Two years ago." "That's when Sheila woke up one morning and told me she felt this twitching in her hand." "You know much about the progression of ALS?" "You lose about 2 percent of your body's functions every month." "Two years in, all I can do is try to keep her from getting bed sores." "I'd been approached before about selling our plan." "I think we all had cryptic e-mails, strangers coming up to you in the subway." "Who'd they represent, they never said." "One of them did say he could help Sheila if I talked to him." "That was two years ago." "Yeah, right when she first got sick." "I knew he was lying, of course." "But even so, I spent days thinking about it." "If he'd been able to do a thing for her," "I'd have told them everything I know." "See, everyone's got that one thing, don't they?" "Some weakness that could lead you to betray every principle you ever had." "The thing we created had value." "And I realized it was only a matter of time until someone put a price on it." "So you made arrangements for your wife's care, got down to business." "So you figured out my plan." "Congratulations." "And thank you for helping me enact it." "When I only had one policeman in here, I had no leverage." "Now, once I shoot you, they'll realize I'm serious about killing that detective." "They'll give me what I want." "Eight lives versus thousands." "The math still works." "I'm amazed you still haven't worked it out." "There really is no such thing as a secret." "Your plan, it's in a memo." " It's been e-mailed back and forth." " It was labeled "for eyes only."" "No one but the White House Situation Room has access to it." " I know what it is." " You do not!" "I do." "I worked it out hours after taking the case." "And before you pull that trigger, you should know, I told a colleague." "I wrote it down." "Your secret is out." "If you're telling the truth, that's checkmate." "So, what's the plan?" "Don't move." "All right, hands behind your back, now." "Target secured." "Stand down." "Detective okay?" "You're gonna wanna clear it." "All good." "You okay?" "How did you get Dresden to come out?" "Well, I knew the Red Team's plan and then I told him that." "How'd you figure that out?" " I thought very quickly, very carefully." " You mean you guessed?" "Well, I had a notion as to the Red Team's strategy," "I just chose the most likely one." "Gun to one's head, very powerful stimulus." "Captain, I think that you and I owe each other a conversation." "I gotta deal with this." "There's a place called McNabb's at 43rd and 12th." "Meet me there in an hour." "I'm not really supposed to be spending much time in bars." "Well, tonight is not about you." "If I'm gonna have this conversation, I'm gonna have a drink to go with it." "I regret that circumstances caused me to endanger our relationship." "It was a price I was willing to pay for revenge." "As was the likelihood of going to prison." "As it turns out, there was no revenge to be had." "Given that, it serves no one's interest for you to keep me from my work." " Who the hell are you?" " I beg your pardon?" "Because, obviously, you're not the person I thought you were." "I don't know how to answer that." "You don't let anyone into your life that's not constantly concerned with you." "What kind of mood you're in, whether you're getting high or not, whether you're gonna work like an adult or throw a temper tantrum." "You know what?" "Most of the time, you're worth it because you are special." "Damned if you don't know it." "But you are." "You wanna work cases?" "You're right." "I can't say no." "Don't think for a minute that I'm ever gonna forget that you were planning to murder someone on my watch." "And don't think that I'm ever gonna really trust you again." "You don't need to trust me to benefit from my intellect, do you?" "No, I don't." "But I do need to get something out of my system." "Welcome back." "I didn't hear you come in." "How'd it go?" "Well, I've been reinstated." "Well, you don't sound too happy." "You eating soup?" "I was hungry." "Please tell me you didn't cook Clyde." "The soup is split pea." "These are magnificent creatures." "Clyde will likely outlive both of us." "You didn't really think I would eat him, did you?" "I don't know." "I guess it's hard to know what you're gonna do." "You wanna tell me what happened with Gregson?" "All right." "Good night."