Escapes and Returns
- Milligan dumps Mr. Curtain on the shore and helps Rhonda and Number Two get the kids onto a waiting motorboat. While they're doing that, Mr. C awakens and runs. Milligan tries to get him with a tranquilizer dart, but misses.
- He insists on getting everyone else to safety as Mr. Benedict instructed him, and they leave in the boat.
- Back on shore, they all hop into the station wagon and Milligan tells Rhonda to drop him at the guard house on this side of the bridge—he's going back for Mr. B.
- Kate, having just discovered he's her father, really doesn't want to lose him again, but Milligan says he has to go back for Mr. B. He also takes a moment to explain how his memory returned to him. It was the combination of being trapped in the Waiting Room, feeling an overwhelming urge to get back to the children, and escaping into the cold water of the bay. Together all of these things reminded him of the last time he'd seen his daughter (Kate), and the promise he'd made her that they could go swimming in the cold, clear water at the mill pond again. "Yes, we can go to the mill again," he'd told her then, which is why, when asked his name after being brainswept, the only thing he could come up with was Milligan. Get it? Milligan. Mill again. Pretty cool, huh?
- That heartwarming story explained, Rhonda drives to the bridge, where they see Mr. Curtain racing toward them in his chair, flanked by an entire troop of recruiters.
- Milligan is about to get out of the station wagon and shoot Mr. C with his tranquilizer gun, but Reynie tells him to wait.
- As Mr. C approaches, he instructs all of the Recruiters to head back to the island. These people in the station wagon are obviously decoys.
- The Recruiters, confused but obedient, do as he says, and then Mr. C, who turns out to actually be Mr. B, gets up and hops in the car.
- By the time the Recruiters realized they've been tricked, the MBSers are out of there.