- Carl Elias: So, John, your past finally caught up with you. Whatever the circumstances, it's lovely to see you again. Relax. Right here.
- [Gestures to a corner]
- Carl Elias: It's a dead zone. No cameras can see us. Can't have Agent Donnelly spying on our reunion, can we? I know all about his hunt for the "man in the suit". Personally, I think they could have come up with a better name.
- John Reese: Are you going to turn me in, Elias?
- Carl Elias: And lose Harold as a chess partner? I was pissed for a while, but the truth is, John, you'll always be the man who came out of nowhere and saved my life. I want you to think of me as a friend, and when I see my friends in trouble I want to help, so...
- [extends his arms]
- John Reese: Well for starters, don't protect me. Donnelly used to think I was working for you.
- Carl Elias: Hey, well, it's not for lack of asking on my part.
- John Reese: See that guy over there?
- [Points to Hersh]
- Carl Elias: Yeah. You want us to kill him?
- John Reese: I'm not so sure you could. I've got a hunch he's a lot like me. You want to help? Get a picture of him to Harold. If there's another player at the table, I'd like to know who we're dealing with.
- Carl Elias: You and me working together. Very exciting, John.
- Detective Joss Carter: Why did you leave the military?
- John Reese: It was time.
- Detective Joss Carter: Yeah, but a lot of people who felt that way wound up re-enlisting right after 9/11, but not you.
- John Reese: There's a point where if you stay a soldier any longer, you won't know how to be anything else.
- Detective Joss Carter: Do you have any enemies?
- John Reese: Well, I'm pretty sure the guy behind that mirror isn't a fan.
- Detective Joss Carter: Ever been in love?
- John Reese: Once. Allison West. There's your answer, by the way.
- Detective Joss Carter: To what?
- John Reese: Why I left the military. When the planes hit the towers, I was with Ally in a hotel room in Niagara Falls. I had just gotten out of the service. But as we sat together on that bed, watching it all go down, I knew I had to go back. And I looked at her. She was quiet, trying to be strong. I don't know, I - maybe I was scared. But when I looked at her, I saw this whole other life. A life I knew I'd never have if I went back. So I stayed.
- Detective Joss Carter: What happened?
- John Reese: I was an idiot. Let her slip away. I instantly regretted it, but it was too late. It's funny how the choices you make change who you become. Pick one path or the other. Hear an explosion at a bank and try to help, and suddenly -
- [Holds up his cuffed hands]
- John Reese: All these years later I still wonder if I had re-upped when the towers came down who would I be now?
- John Reese: I just want to say thank you. I couldn't have got through this without a friend to talk to.
- Detective Joss Carter: So was any of it true?
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: [Appears behind them] Oh, I sincerely doubt that. Congratulations, Carter. You just caught the man in a suit. Drop your gun. Hands in the air. It's over, John. Got your bracelets, Carter? Put them on your friend here. See? I told you we'd catch him. But I'm afraid that's the last collar you'll ever make. I trusted you, Carter, and you threw it away along with a very promising career.
- John Reese: [to Carter] I'm sorry. It was my fault.
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: Actually, John, it's not. This little game you two have been playing, you didn't give it away. She did.
- Detective Lionel Fusco: I mean, c'mon, you gotta need something. Are we gonna bust John out of there or what?
- Harold Finch: Oh, it sounds like such a bad idea when you say it.
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: Is the earpiece not working?
- Detective Joss Carter: I'm building rapport. That's how you get good intel. Would you rather I waterboarded him?
- Harold Finch: Right now I need your help in another matter. I'm sending you the name and address of a young lady in Brooklyn. She's about to be involved in a very bad situation.
- Detective Lionel Fusco: Let me get this straight. John's ass is on the line and I'm stuck dealing with some dumb -
- [Gets the file, the woman is a supermodel]
- Detective Lionel Fusco: Yeah, I got this.
- Harold Finch: It's a nice office, isn't it?
- Detective Joss Carter: When you cook up a cover, you don't mess around.
- Harold Finch: John Warren is our friend's clean cover. We never use it for work. It's the most complete identity that John has, and it most closely matches the details of his true past. But John Warren is still an illusion, the incomplete footprint of a man who doesn't exist. If we make a mistake, or if Donnelly spots a single flaw, we and the work that we do will be in very grave jeopardy.
- Harold Finch: Your name is Charles Bennett MacAvoy. Your lovely wife and two little girls live in a palatial estate just outside of Houston, Texas. Your monthly mortgage of $4,200 is easily affordable, considering that you have 6. 2 million in a Cayman Islands account. An account that I've just drained to zero. The money was payment for illegal mercenary activities, crimes that I doubt you were prepared to divulge to Agent Donnelly. So the question for you is who would you rather make a deal with, the FBI or me?
- John Reese: [after John is released] Looking for someone?
- Detective Joss Carter: No one in particular.
- John Reese: Fusco didn't want to celebrate my release?
- Detective Joss Carter: Finch has him tied up with something.
- John Reese: Can we just do this and go?
- Kara Stanton: Okay, John. If we're gonna be partners, you're going to have to lighten up.
- John Reese: It's my first triple-homicide. Didn't know I was supposed to prepare jokes.
- Kara Stanton: These aren't murder victims. These are enemy combatants. But yes, we are killers, John. That is our job. And if you want to be good at your job, you're gonna have to learn to love your work.
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: Everything he's said checks out.
- Detective Joss Carter: So you think we might be digging in the wrong spot?
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: No. To catch this man, Carter, I'd dig all the way to China.
- John Reese: [Observing a French couple] What did they do?
- Kara Stanton: Who cares? Orders are orders.
- John Reese: Just making sure we have the right target. They just look like two people in love.
- Kara Stanton: Maybe they are. Or maybe they're just better at playing their cover than you. Would it kill you to kiss a girl every once in a while?
- Detective Joss Carter: No backup? You're going it alone, huh?
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: Well, Carter, I don't know who to trust anymore. When the man in a suit - when John here slipped away the first time, I knew he had a mole, somebody on the inside. And then when his fingerprints went missing and his DNA got switched, I was forced to consider it might be you. And I'll admit, you played a pretty good game until I put him in the yard alone. And that's when I saw it in your eyes. Genuine concern. How did he turn you, Carter? What was your price?
- Detective Joss Carter: No price. Just helping a friend.
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: Then you've been played for a fool. Recruited as an asset by a private intelligence...
- Detective Joss Carter: You don't understand, Donnelly, he's a good man. We're helping people.
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: Oh, God. Is that what he told you? Wake up, Carter. Your friend is nothing more or less than a highly trained murderer. You don't wind up with that job by accident. He chose that life. He chose to become the monster he is. And now you've made your choice too.
- Kara Stanton: You have to decide which man do you want to be: the boy scout or the killer, 'cause I'm sick of working with both.
- Special Counsel: Where are we on the rogue operative you've been tracking?
- Hersh: In process. There's another player at work here.
- Special Counsel: I want them shut down. Find that operative and make him disappear.
- Hersh: I'm on it. He's a hard man to locate.
- Special Counsel: Not according to the FBI. They think he's one of four suspects being held at Rikers.
- Hersh: Then I'll remove all four.
- Detective Joss Carter: What the hell happened to you? You used to be good police. Ever since this thing started, you've been bending the rules
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: I believe that this country is under attack by an invisible enemy.
- Detective Joss Carter: This is not right, Donnelly. You are over the line!
- Special Agent Nicholas Donnelly: I will do whatever I have to do.