September 7, 1944
Five days before the summit, David Coleman sat in his War Department office trying to stop his hands from shaking long enough to type.
The report he was writing was his last as David Coleman—a routine procurement analysis that would be filed and forgotten. But hidden in the margins, in the spacing between words, was a coded message detailing the security arrangements for the Virginia estate.
Guard rotations. Checkpoints. Communication protocols. Everything Rick and Catherine would need for the infiltration.
David's hands shook so badly he had to retype the same paragraph three times.
"Coleman? You alright?"
He looked up. Captain Reeves stood in the doorway, concerned.
"Just tired, sir."
Reeves closed the door and sat down. "You look like hell. When's the last time you slept?"
"I sleep."
"Nightmares don't count." Reeves studied him. "I know what you're doing. Or I can guess. The summit, September 12th. You're planning something."
David's hand moved toward the desk drawer where he kept the pistol. "Sir, I don't—"
"Relax. I'm not turning you in." Reeves pulled out a flask, took a drink, offered it to David. "I've been tracking the same conspiracy you have. Morrison's investigation. Prometheus Protocol. The whole corrupt apparatus. I can't act officially, but I can help unofficially."
David took the flask with shaking hands and drank. Whiskey burned his throat. "How do you know about the summit?"
"I'm being transferred next week. Pentagon, procurement oversight. They're moving me where they can watch me more closely because I've been asking too many questions. But before I go, I saw Hartley's calendar. September 12th, Virginia estate, 'Protocol Summit.'" Reeves took back the flask. "Whatever you're planning, you'll need military extraction if it goes wrong. I've arranged assets. Vehicles positioned, safe houses established, people who'll look the other way."
"Why?"
"Because Morrison was right. Because I've spent two years watching good soldiers die from faulty equipment while the people responsible get rich. Because someone needs to act, and you're the only ones willing to." Reeves stood. "There's a general—Crawford, in logistics. He's sympathetic. Not enough to testify publicly, but enough to provide backup. I've briefed him on your operation. If you need military support on the 12th, contact him through this number."
He handed David a card with a phone number written in pencil.
"Good luck, Coleman. Or whatever your real name is." Reeves paused at the door. "Morrison died trying to do this the right way. Maybe the wrong way is the only way that works."
After Reeves left, David sat very still, looking at the card.
They had more allies than he'd realized. People who'd seen the pattern, who couldn't act officially but were willing to help covertly.
Maybe they weren't as alone as they'd thought.
Or maybe more people would die because they'd gotten involved.
David finished the coded report, filed it, and left the office. Outside, Washington was celebrating Paris's liberation with the same fervor as every other American city.
But David walked through the celebrating crowds feeling nothing but dread.
Five days until everything ended.
He went to a pay phone and called the number for the Baltimore safe house. Catherine answered on the third ring.
"It's David. Reeves and Crawford are providing backup. Military extraction if we need it."
"Can we trust them?"
"Can we trust anyone?" David's hands shook as he gripped the phone. "But we don't have much choice. If things go wrong on the 12th, we'll need all the help we can get."
"Then we accept their help. And hope they're genuine." Catherine's voice was tired. "Five days, David. Five more days and this is over."
"One way or another."
"One way or another."
David hung up and walked to his boarding house. Mrs. Chen's dinner table was full of celebration—the other boarders drinking, laughing, toasting to victory.
David ate mechanically and retired to his room, where he pulled out the letter he'd been writing. To his parents, who thought he'd died in December 1941. Explaining who he'd really been. What he'd really been doing. Why it had mattered enough to sacrifice everything.
He sealed it and added it to the envelope destined for the dead man's switch.
If he didn't survive September 12th, at least his parents would know the truth.
September 9, 1944
Three days before the summit, Webb drove from Philadelphia to the Baltimore safe house for the final briefing.
He'd been sober for forty-eight hours, the longest stretch in months. His hands shook from withdrawal, his stomach churned, but his mind was clear.
That clarity was almost worse than the alcohol haze. Because sober, he couldn't pretend anymore that they had a good chance of surviving this.
The safe house was already full when he arrived. Rick sorting equipment. Catherine reviewing maps. David hunched over communication gear, hands shaking worse than Webb's.
Donovan arrived last, looking haunted. He set down a briefcase and opened it to reveal the wire recorder—German design, captured from Wehrmacht intelligence, compact enough to hide in a hollowed-out book.
"I've been practicing," Donovan said. "Activation is silent. Recording time is two hours. If the summit runs longer, I'll need to change the wire, which means finding an excuse to leave the room."
"And if they search you?" Rick asked.
"The book looks legitimate. OSS briefing materials, reports I'm supposed to reference. Unless they open it and examine the binding, they won't find the recorder." Donovan's voice was steady, but Webb saw the fear underneath. "But if they do find it, I'll try to signal you before they take me. Two coughs. That's your signal to abort."
Webb pulled out the catering company uniforms he'd procured. "These are our covers. Catherine, you're assigned to the main dining room service. Rick, you're in the kitchen as dishwasher. I'm the driver for one of the catering vans. We'll have access to the service areas, which gets us close to the main house."
"Security checkpoints?" Rick asked.
"Three. Gate, house entrance, and interior security for the actual meeting room. We'll pass the first two with our catering credentials. The third is where it gets dangerous." Webb spread out the estate blueprint David had provided. "The meeting is here, second-floor library. Donovan will be inside. We'll be in the service areas below. If the recording works, Donovan extracts himself after the meeting, we leave separately, meet at the rally point twelve miles north."
"And if Donovan can't extract?" Catherine asked.
"Then we decide in the moment. Extract him if possible. Escape with the recording if he's compromised. Scatter if everything collapses." Webb looked at each of them. "No heroics. If this goes wrong, we save the evidence, not each other. That's the mission."
Silence. Then Rick said, "The mission is stopping Prometheus Protocol. Saving the evidence is part of that. But so is surviving to use it."
"Ideally, yes. Realistically..." Webb trailed off. "Reeves has positioned extraction vehicles at three locations. If we make it out, we drive to different cities—New York, Boston, Pittsburgh. Separate, regroup only if it's safe. The recording gets copied immediately, sent to Eleanor Walsh and two other journalists simultaneously. Congressional contacts get alerted. Crawford testifies if needed."
"And if none of us make it out?" David's voice was quiet.
"Dead man's switches activate. Evidence gets released automatically. Sarah Brennan has a backup package she'll mail if Catherine doesn't contact her by September 15th. Everything we've gathered for three years goes public, with or without us there to see it."
Catherine stood and walked to the window. Outside, Baltimore was settling into evening. Normal life continuing, unaware that in three days, five people would attempt to expose the conspiracy that was shaping their future.
"Morrison died trying to do this through official channels," she said. "Following rules, trusting institutions, believing the system would self-correct. It didn't work. So we're doing it without rules, without institutions, without any belief that the system will help us."
"We're committing treason," David said. "By any legal definition."
"Treason against a government that's been hijacked by war profiteers. Treason against people who engineered Pearl Harbor and sabotaged our own military for profit." Rick's voice was hard. "I'm comfortable with that kind of treason."
Webb pulled out his flask, looked at it for a long moment, then set it down without drinking. "Three days. Then we either expose the biggest conspiracy in American history or we join Morrison in the list of people who died trying."
"What are the odds we survive?" Donovan asked.
"Honestly?" Webb looked at him. "Maybe thirty percent. And that's optimistic."
"Thirty percent." Donovan laughed bitterly. "Yale Law School didn't prepare me for thirty percent survival odds."
"Nothing prepares you for this." Catherine turned from the window. "But we do it anyway. Because the alternative is watching them build their empire unchallenged. Watching Korea happen in 1950, and whatever comes after that, and the endless cycle of engineered warfare. Thirty percent odds of stopping that? I'll take it."
They spent the next six hours reviewing every detail. Timing. Communication protocols. Fallback positions. What to do if Donovan was caught. What to do if the recording failed. What to do if security was heavier than expected.
By midnight, they had a plan. Not a good plan, but a plan.
As they prepared to leave—returning to their fake lives for three final days—Rick pulled Webb aside.
"You sober?"
"Forty-eight hours."
"Can you stay sober for three more days?"
Webb wanted to lie. Wanted to say yes with confidence. But he couldn't. "I'll try. That's all I can promise."
"Try hard. We need you sharp on the 12th." Rick gripped his shoulder. "I know what you're going through. The weight of this, the fear, the temptation to escape into a bottle. But we're almost done. Three more days. Then it's over, and you can drink yourself to death if you want. But not before September 12th."
"And if I can't stay sober?"
"Then don't come. Stay away from the operation. Better to be short one person than to have someone unreliable."
It should have been insulting. Instead, it was honest. And Webb respected that.
"I'll be there," he said. "Sober. Sharp. Ready."
"Good." Rick released his shoulder. "Three days, Webb. We've been dead for almost three years. Three more days won't kill us."
"Might, actually."
"Then we die doing something that matters."
September 11, 1944
One day before the summit, Rick spent his last evening as John Martin at Mrs. Kaminski's boarding house.
She made pierogi, his favorite. The other boarders were there—the machinist from the Navy Yard, the secretaries from Agriculture, the pacifist professor. People who'd become familiar faces over three years. People who thought they knew John Martin.
They talked about the war ending. About going home, wherever home was. About what they'd do in peacetime.
Rick said he'd probably look for work in Cleveland, near where he'd grown up. It was a lie. John Martin had never existed. Would stop existing tomorrow.
After dinner, the secretary—Helen, who'd been kind to John Martin, who'd maybe had feelings for him—caught Rick on the stairs.
"John, there's something I want to tell you. Before... well, before things change too much."
Rick's heart sank. "Helen—"
"I know you're a private person. And maybe I'm reading things wrong. But I wanted you to know that I... that is, if you ever wanted to..." She trailed off, blushing. "Oh, this is coming out all wrong."
"Helen." Rick took her hand gently. "You're a wonderful person. You deserve someone who can give you what you need. Someone stable, honest, ready to build a life."
"You're all those things."
"I'm not. I'm—" Rick stopped himself. He couldn't tell her the truth. Couldn't explain that John Martin was a fiction, that he'd been lying to everyone for three years, that tomorrow he'd probably die trying to expose a conspiracy she didn't know existed.
"I'm not ready," he said instead. "Maybe someday. But not now."
Helen nodded, disappointed but trying to hide it. "Well. If you change your mind..."
"You'll be the first to know."
It was the kindest lie Rick could tell.
In his room later, Rick finished the letter he'd been writing. To Helen, explaining who he'd really been. Apologizing for the deception. Hoping she'd understand, eventually.
He sealed it with the others—letters to Mrs. Kaminski, to Danny Patterson, to people who'd known John Martin and deserved to know why he'd disappeared.
Then he packed everything essential into one small bag. Identification papers (forged). Money (not much). His father's photograph. The Colt .45, still seven rounds after all this time.
Tomorrow, John Martin would go to work at Packard, then leave during lunch break, and never return.
Tomorrow, Rick Forsyth would drive to Virginia, infiltrate a summit meeting, and attempt to record proof of the conspiracy that had killed his father.
Tomorrow, three years of careful preparation would either justify Morrison's death or add five more names to Prometheus Protocol's casualty list.
Rick lay in bed, not sleeping, counting the hours until dawn.
In the darkness, he heard his father's voice one last time: "Sometimes the right thing costs everything. You do it anyway."
"Alright, Dad," Rick whispered to the empty room. "One last time. Let's do it right."
The night deepened. Detroit slept. And Rick waited for dawn, when everything would end.