At Walter Hayes Conrad IV's fortified Adirondacks fishing lodge, Spencer Booth arrives under heavy security for a private meeting. Booth, one of the senior figures behind Arrowsake, confronts Walter about helping Joe Hunter and Desmond Rington instead of supporting Arrowsake's effort to recapture or kill Jason Mercer after the failed hostage exchange.

As the two men argue, Booth makes the larger danger explicit. He says Mercer knows the truth about an old Sierra Leone operation in which Arrowsake used Mercer to assassinate a Libyan operative and create confusion by murdering additional civilians, then later disavowed Mercer and arranged for Hunter and Rington to execute him to protect wider intelligence interests. Booth insists that if Mercer talks, Arrowsake and everyone involved, including Walter, could be destroyed.

Booth tries to pull Walter back into line by appealing to self-interest. He warns that Mercer cannot be allowed to stay alive, predicts that Hunter and Rington will also become targets once they know the truth, and proposes that Walter persuade them to hand Mercer over. In return, Arrowsake would supposedly grant Hunter and Rington reward and amnesty for finishing the kill they once began.

Walter rejects the idea of betraying the men he helped raise and train. After appearing to concede that he has no other choice, Walter reveals that his real conclusion is that Arrowsake would only keep killing to remove every loose end. He then smashes his glass into Booth's neck and fatally wounds him.

Booth staggers outside calling for his bodyguard, only to discover too late that Walter's men have already killed both the bodyguard and the limousine driver. Standing over the dying Booth, Walter says he has just declared war. Knowing there is no safe return from that decision, Walter orders his loyal guards to hide the bodies in the panic room, prepares to dispose of the limousine, and plans to abandon the lodge while helping his men vanish into new lives.