Catherine found him there twenty minutes later. She sat beside him, saying nothing at first. From inside the boathouse, they could hear the radio continuing its grim updates.
"They're saying over a thousand dead already," Catherine said quietly. "And that's just preliminary. The real numbers will be worse."
"My father knew," Rick said. His voice sounded distant, not quite his own. "He knew this was coming. He tried to stop it. And they killed him for trying."
"Yes."
"Coleman knew. Reed knew. They all died trying to prevent this."
"Yes."
"And I'm alive. I'm alive, and they're dead, and none of it mattered." Rick looked at his hands. They were shaking. "We failed. Completely. Utterly. Failed."
Catherine was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was hard. "Your father didn't fail. He documented everything. He gave you the tools to fight back. Coleman didn't fail—he saved your life, gave you time. Reed didn't fail—he chose loyalty at the end. They did everything they could."
"It wasn't enough."
"It's never enough," Catherine said. "That's the lesson, Rick. In this work, you almost never get to win cleanly. You almost never get to save everyone. Sometimes all you can do is save what you can, document what you must, and keep fighting."
"For what? Hartley's already won. Pearl Harbor happened. He'll use this to build his security state, his network, his—" Rick's voice broke. "He killed my father. He killed Coleman. He let thousands of Americans die. And he's going to profit from all of it."
"Only if we let him." Catherine grabbed Rick's shoulder—the good one—and forced him to look at her. "Listen to me. Pearl Harbor is happening. We can't change that. But Hartley's real plan isn't just Pearl Harbor—it's what comes after. The war. The expansion of power. The permanent security state your father warned about."
"So?"
"So that hasn't happened yet. That we can still fight. That we can still stop." Her eyes were fierce. "Your father's dead. Coleman's dead. Reed's dead. You can honor them by dying too, drowning in guilt. Or you can honor them by finishing what they started."
From inside, Webb called out: "President's about to speak to Congress. You should hear this."
Rick let Catherine pull him to his feet. They went back inside, where Webb and Winters were gathered around the radio. The announcer was describing the scene in Washington:
"The President is entering the chamber now. The joint session of Congress is standing..."
A pause, then Roosevelt's voice, familiar and grave, crackling through the speaker:
"Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."
Rick listened to the speech—the recitation of Japanese attacks across the Pacific, the declaration that a state of war existed, the call for Congress to declare war officially. Roosevelt's voice was controlled, righteous, certain.
And somewhere, Rick knew, Hartley was listening too. Satisfied. Victorious.
"The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us."
The speech ended. The announcer reported that Congress was voting, that the declaration of war was passing with only one dissenting vote, that America was now at war.
Rick looked around the small boathouse at the three people who remained. Catherine, hard-eyed and calculating. Webb, grim and professional. Winters, devastated but unbroken.
Four people. Against Hartley's network, Morrison's resources, the machinery of a government at war.
It should have felt hopeless. Impossible.
Instead, Rick felt something crystallize inside him. A cold, clear certainty.
"Alright," he said quietly.
Catherine raised an eyebrow. "Alright what?"
"Alright, we fight. Not the war everyone else is fighting—let the military handle Japan and Germany. We fight the war Hartley thinks he's already won." Rick looked at each of them in turn. "We document everything. We build our case. We find everyone involved in Prometheus Protocol. And when the time is right, we expose them all."
"That could take years," Webb pointed out.
"Then it takes years." Rick's voice was steady now, the shock burned away into determination. "My father spent years investigating before they killed him. I can spend years finishing his work."
"They'll be looking for us," Winters said. "Hartley thinks we're dead, but eventually—"
"So we stay dead," Catherine cut in. She was smiling now, a predator's smile. "Officially dead, legally dead. We get new identities, new backgrounds. The war's going to create millions of displaced people, refugees, migrants. We disappear into that chaos."
"And then?" Webb asked.
"Then we do what intelligence operatives do," Catherine said. "We infiltrate. We observe. We document. And we wait for our moment."
Rick nodded slowly. It was a long game. A patient game. Everything his father's rushed investigation hadn't been. But they had something his father hadn't—they knew the scope of what they were fighting. They knew Prometheus Protocol wasn't just about Pearl Harbor.
"We'll need resources," Rick said, thinking it through. "Money, contacts, safe houses. We can't do this living in boathouses."
"I have some funds," Catherine said. "Assets my service set up before the war. Not much, but enough to start."
"I've got savings," Webb added. "And I know people. Other veterans, other operators. Guys who won't ask questions if the money's good."
"We'll need to split up," Rick said. "Four of us together is too visible. But if we scatter, operate independently, we can cover more ground. Meet periodically to share intelligence."
"Someone needs to get close to Hartley," Catherine said. "Or Morrison. Someone they won't recognize. Someone who can watch them, document their operations."
They all looked at Winters. The youngest of them, the least known to Hartley's network. The one who could most easily disappear and resurface with a new identity.
Winters swallowed hard. "You want me to go to Washington?"
"Not yet," Rick said. "First we heal. We plan. We build our new identities carefully. But eventually, yes. We need eyes inside their network."
The radio was still broadcasting updates. Casualty numbers rising. Ships sunk. Planes destroyed. The scope of the disaster becoming clear.
Rick listened and felt the weight of every death. His father's death. Coleman's death. Reed's death. And now thousands more at Pearl Harbor.
All of it blood on Hartley's hands.
"We're going to need a name," Webb said suddenly. "For what we're doing. For us."
"A name?" Winters looked confused.
"Operations work better with code names," Webb explained. "Keeps communications secure. Gives us an identity separate from our civilian covers."
Rick thought about his father's files, about the conspiracy they'd uncovered, about the phoenix Hartley was trying to build from Pearl Harbor's ashes.
"Reckoning," he said. "We're the reckoning they think they escaped."
Catherine nodded slowly. "Operation Reckoning. I like it."
"Not an operation," Rick corrected. "We're not planning a single strike. We're in this for the duration." He looked at each of them. "We're Reckoning. That's who we are now."
They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the radio describe the war that was just beginning. The official war, the one everyone would know about.
And the private war. The shadow war. The one only four people knew they were fighting.
"When do we start?" Winters asked.
Rick checked his shoulder. Still painful, but healing. A week, maybe two, and he'd be functional. "We start today. Intelligence gathering, planning, preparation. In two weeks, we scatter. Webb, you head to New York—there's a Prometheus Protocol connection there we need to explore. Catherine, you work on getting us documentation, new identities. Winters, you start building a cover story that'll get you into Washington."
"And you?" Catherine asked.
"I'm going back to Detroit," Rick said. The decision crystallized as he spoke it. "Back to where Scott died. Back to where this all started. There are pieces of the puzzle there—Thunderbird, the incendiary devices, whatever else Scott was working on. Someone knows something. I'm going to find out what."
"Detroit's dangerous," Webb warned. "Morrison's people will be watching."
"They'll be watching for Rick Forsyth, fugitive. Not for—" Rick paused, realizing he'd need a new name. Something that could carry him through the war and beyond.
"Choose carefully," Catherine advised. "You'll be living with it for years."
Rick thought about his father, about the man he'd been trying to become, about the fight ahead. He needed a name that was common enough to disappear but strong enough to remember who he was.
"Martin," he said finally. "John Martin. Common, forgettable. The kind of name that gets lost in paperwork."
Catherine nodded approval. "John Martin it is. And the rest of us?"
They spent the next hour creating their new identities. Webb became Thomas Reed—a bitter irony, taking the name of the man who'd died beside them. Catherine chose Marie Chevalier, close enough to her real identity to remember but different enough to deflect. Winters became David Coleman, carrying their fallen friend's name forward.
By evening, they had the bones of a plan. By midnight, they had refined it into something workable. And by dawn the next morning, as America woke to its first full day at war, four people who were officially dead began the careful work of being reborn.
Rick—John Martin now—stood at the window as the sun rose over the Delaware Bay. His shoulder ached. His heart ached worse. But his mind was clear.
Hartley thought he'd won. Thought Pearl Harbor was his victory, his vindication, his path to power.
He didn't know that four ghosts were coming for him.
Four ghosts with perfect memory and infinite patience.
Four ghosts who would spend however long it took—months, years, decades if necessary—to bring Prometheus Protocol into the light and make sure everyone involved faced their reckoning.
Rick touched his father's watch in his pocket. Still keeping perfect time. Still ticking forward, second by second, toward a future James Forsyth would never see.
But Rick would see it. John Martin would see it. And when the time came, when they finally had everything they needed, Hartley would learn that some debts can't be escaped.
Some reckonings are inevitable.
Behind him, Catherine—Marie now—was already on the telephone, beginning the delicate work of building their new lives. Webb was cleaning his rifle, methodical and thorough. Winters was studying maps of Washington, memorizing routes and neighborhoods.
The war had begun.
Both wars.
And this time, Rick wasn't running. He was hunting.