>HEATHER LAINE RESIDENCE, STAFFORD COUNTY, VA 
>18OCT2019
>1030...///

Laine folded the clothes she had washed for Donnelley, standing in the small utility room next to the garage. She could almost hear him walking around that old Indian, checking the condition of the bike before taking it on the long cross country trek. Slowly she put his shirts and jeans together, smoothing her hand over the faded Fear logo. It was the same shirt he had worn in West Virginia when UMBRA had first been assembled. 

The team was different than that night in the cabin, after they had raided Clyde’s apartment to rinse away anything related to the Program. Before they went to his cabin and the world changed forever. Of those there that night, only she and Donnelley were still in the fight. Jason was somewhere else, doing who knew what. Laurie and Tom were dead but there was Gomez. She got out, somewhere after the showdown with Mrs Baughman’s reanimated corpse and the finding Maria’s body, the SWAT officer had gotten out of the Program. 

At least as far as Laine had heard, she left. It had to be possible then and Laine grasped that thread, putting down the clothes before heading to the garage. Stepping through the door, she saw Donnelley there and the mixed emotions rekindled into a dull pain at him for how careless he had been with Ava. Not to mention how the  tense quiet had strained them since that night in Texas.

“You think the old bike will make it that far?” Laine asked, letting the door close behind her. 

Donnelley stood beside his Indian, the bike older than he was. His father’s old bike. Whatever metaphor was over his head, the bike had done him more good than his father ever did. He could take a punch and keep going, he guessed, but that was about it. He didn’t take his eyes away from it when Laine spoke to him. He’d lost Queen- [i]Billy[/i]- as a lover, and as much as he tried to fool himself that their friendship would be just like it was, he knew it wouldn’t. “Made it once already.” He said to Laine, like he was talking to a stranger, a yawning gap between them that made him feel like just another face on the street to her, “She’ll hold.”

The rider was still a question, though. To tell the truth, he was fearful he’d ruined everything with Laine, not to mention Ava. And whatever Dave would say. Fucking up. Maybe that was another thing the old man taught him, but then again that seemed like a cheap way to shirk responsibility.

Laine stepped closer, running her fingers over the seat and along the fuel tank then let her hand fall away. The weight on her chest was heavy, the words she wanted to say to make it all go away and pretend for a little while longer that they were just happy lovers. But if he was no liar, neither was she, at least she would like to think so. 

“Why did you do it?” Laine asked, looking up at him. “Don’t give me that shit about telling the truth. What really compelled you to crush that little happiness she was holding onto and then walk away?” 

“Fear.” Donnelley frowned, “Hurt. At everything. Everything about this, the Program, the future.”

“[i]Our[/i] future. I had my dreams chewed up in the meat grinder of the life I lived the second I said yes to Foster.” He shook his head, sticking his hands in his jean pockets, “Shortsighted and angry. When he found me, I was drunker’n shit in a motel in Eastern Washington along the highway.”

“The only things I packed was a [i]gun[/i] and a bullet.” He muttered, eyes getting distant, “I was on about my sixth shot of whiskey when he knocked on the door. And then eight years later I’ve done things that would surely put me in hell.”

“When I met Queen, it was in Langley and about that time I was back at square one. I’d lost my team in Chechnya. I thought it was an accident, just a little fuck up with op-sec.” Donnelley let that lie or else he’d end up just spiraling back down, “I wanted to leave. I didn’t tell anyone, I just walked out one day. They found me in another no-name, cheap motel.”

“Foster said it took Ghost [i]and[/i] Maui to get the gun out of my hands and drag me out by my wrists and ankles.” Donnelley sighed, “And then we got an assignment to throw a retirement party for someone one day.”

“Didn’t know what it meant.” He said, “Ghost was excited. Which I’d learned a long time ago, that’s never a good thing. We caught the guy in a Kentucky gas station at midnight, put a bag over his head, drove twenty miles and then blew his brains out.”

“The whole time he was sayin’ he couldn’t do it anymore, how he’d lost his wife and kids, and he just wanted to go home. A young homicide detective from New York.” Donnelley’s frown turned something dark, not sad, but almost a snarl, “I remember thinkin’ at the time, what a fuckin’ [i]weak piece of shit.[/i] Everyone in that van, in THUNDER, had lost so fuckin’ much. But here we were the past two years doin’ [i]our fuckin’ jobs![/i]”

Donnelley’s fists were at his side and he didn’t even remember moving. He swallowed, slipping them shamefully back into their pockets as if they’d come alive and strangle him, “But, I remember thinkin’ when we got back how after all this time I’d spent doin’ these things, I forgot what it was to not be. Thinkin’ how maybe some men just like me and THUNDER would snatch me up while I was gettin’ gas and do what I never got to do to myself.” Donnelley closed his eyes and hung his head, “And when Ava talked about retirin’, it struck that same chord, like I just hadn’t gotten around to tellin’ my daughter I loved her after all the years I spent away.”

“Because, I was a piece of shit who was jealous of someone who hadn’t fallen low as me yet.” Donnelley looked at Laine and his lip quivered, “And I left, because that’s what I… It’s all I could do. I didn’t want to look her in the eye and tell her I’m what’s waitin’. I’m your future.”

“But you made me fuckin’ do that in Texas, because that’s what you do.” He said, like he had any reason to be angry at her, and it wasn’t all the other way around at all, “Better’n anyone, is gettin’ me to tell the fuckin’ truth, and [i]I’m sorry.[/i]”

Laine stayed silent, listening even when the story about Ghost and THUNDER made her stomach turn, her instincts about that team had gone from whispers to screams over the last few months. How she had tried to see Donnelley as different from them but there was that part that would always be THUNDER. That part of him she could never truly touch. 

She looked at him for a long moment after he fell silent, then crossed her arms, “Do you think that hope is just another evil, something that will just extend our torment? Hm, maybe you read Hesiod’s thoughts on Pandora’s Box and why hope was left inside it. Doing Ava a favor by eliminating that in her life or was it really just petty jealousy. Let her suffer like you do, teach her that lesson she would have learned anyway if it’s as bleak as you say it is. But you had to do it,” Laine said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice before she paused. “You are going to make it right with her, but we’ll talk about that later.” 

Leaning forward, she peered at him, “I need you to tell me something. Where is Serena Gomez? The SWAT officer, she never came back. She’s the only one I don’t have an account for and it was implied she was allowed to leave when the work did not suit her tastes.” 

“I don’t know.” Donnelley shrugged, “But, I hope she got away while she could.”

“Even if you retire from the FBI, the calls don’t stop.” Donnelley shook his head, “I don’t know if I can ever make it right with Ava. I don’t know if anythin’ can be the same. You don’t learn and see everythin’ you do in the Program and just [i]leave.[/i] We’re a commodity, Laine. A weapon, a canary, you last long enough in this shit and they’ll never let a good thing go to waste.”

“Not until you’re used up and somebody comes to take out the garbage.” He muttered, “You should’ve just never came when they called.”

Laine looked at him, then shook her head slightly, "I think that's something they didn't have in the brochure. Maybe none of us understood just what we were giving up. I didn't think I had that much to lose, all I wanted was to know more."

She fell silent for a moment, "You did warn me about that."

“Maybe I should’ve pushed harder.” He said, shrugging, “Fudged the paperwork. Lost the reports. I don’t know, or maybe you’d still be in this and I’d be havin’ this conversation with some other team.”

“I don’t know how you will either but we have to find something,” Laine said, “You know what this is coming to, where we’re going.” 

She stepped a little closer to him, “Dr. Levy and the rest, Foster and March Tech. I know we have a chance to stop them all and a very good chance of dying while doing it. I can’t say I have come to terms with that, logically I know but I have to believe we can come out the other side. If I don’t, then what is this all for?”

Laine looked at Donnelley, at his scarred face, the lines showing his age and the strain of a life of violence and regrets. Her heart ached but she held herself away. “The work I do for the Bureau, so many times I wanted to walk away, it was chipping away at my soul but I knew that I had the talent for it. And if I didn’t do it, who would? Put the burden on my colleagues, I already did that once when I left Unit Three.” 

Despite her own rules about smoking inside, she found herself hunting for the black box of Djarums in her pocket. It was the garage that didn’t count. She opened it and used her lips to pull one of the black cigarettes out and looked at Donnelley. “You’re gonna make it right with Ava, she’s already got abandonment issues and anxiety and we need her in the game. And more importantly, she’s our friend, our family.” 

Her green eyes met Donnelley’s blue as she searched for her lighter, “Right? I know you’ve had other teams and maybe one day you’ll have another but right now we’re all we have.” 

“I won’t have another team, Laine.” Donnelley spoke matter of factly, easily finding and pulling his lighter from his pocket and offering it to her, “Only way I’m leavin’ this one is in a body bag.”

The recent proof not withstanding, he had that same look of seriousness he had when there was something needed doing, “I’m not lettin’ everyone down like Alaska. Never again.” He said, flicking the lighter on, “I owe it to you.”

“To Ava.” Donnelley breathed, hesitant even to speak her name with the same mouth he’d torn her down with. “I’m a Team Lead. I can’t afford to fail any of you.”

Laine nodded, feeling her lighter as she closed her fingers to pull it out when she saw him offer. She hesitated, a momentary thought of pushing him away, making it easier for the hard work that was coming. Pushing him away for being that bearer of bad news yet again. 

She looked at the flame then leaned in, lighting the clove as she drew in a deep breath. Laine held her own lighter, flipping the lid to it as she considered her next words. Slowly she blew out a fragrant plume then met Donnelley’s eyes. 

“Promise me something,” she said, her voice husky from the smoke. “If it’s possible, even a slim chance that some of us can get out, we get Dave and Ava out. They’re...not like us. They got a real chance to live a life after this.”

He looked at Laine as he slipped his lighter back in his pocket. He considered her words, though if any of that was within his power, he didn’t know. He searched her eyes, those same eyes he’d looked into a hundred times and every time he felt that need to hold her close. He doubted she’d let him now. “And you don’t?” He asked, “You don’t want to walk away from all this and maybe one day forget there’s people like me out there doin’ things you’d rather not think on?”

Laine looked at him, a sad smile forming on her lips, “But I think on those things everyday. I can never forget what people can do to each other. I swore an oath, to help rid the world of monsters and that’s what we’re doing. It’s just a lot deadlier than I assumed it would ever be.”

She raised the cigarette to her lips and took a drag, trembling slightly. “I’ve been tainted too much to ever move on.” 

Donnelley took a breath and sighed it out through his nose. Who was he to judge Laine worse or better, her soul heavy or light. One thing Donnelley did know, Laine had never crossed that unforgivable line like he had in Libya. Nor would she ever know he did so long as he could keep the secret. He gave her a tight frown and shook his head as he swung one leg over his bike, “You’re still alive, Laine.” He said, “And you haven’t done the things I have. Nothing’s too late for you.”

Laine shrugged, folding her arms tight against herself. “So you’re the barometer of behavior that can’t be forgiven? Maybe it’s not what I’ve done but what I’ve seen that’s enough.” 

She flicked the ash on the concrete floor and looked at Donnelley, “You know why I didn’t marry Alex?” 

After a moment, Laine put the cigarette to her lips, “Because he wanted a normal life, to have a wife and kids. I couldn’t do that, after seeing what I’ve seen I can’t ever bring a child into this world and especially keep doing the job I was doing. And that was before I knew all this evil shit existed. My purpose is to fight it the best way I know how, I don’t know how to not do that. Or how anything else could be as important.” 

Donnelley nodded, slipping his Aviators on and readying himself to stomp down on the kick-pedal. He looked at Laine through the impenetrable tint of his lenses. She was right, in the end. They both would probably endlessly flounder in domestic normality and end up going right back into the dark when normal wouldn’t be enough. Donnelley knew that much. For a while, it was the only thing keeping him going, “Fine.” He shook his head and snorted humorlessly, “I warned you about stickin’ with me on this. Don’t say I didn’t.”

He softened then, at least wanting some feeling that wasn’t shame or anger, or hurt to hang over this goodbye of theirs. “I’ll be seein’ you.” He spoke, “I love you, Laine.”

Laine looked at him for a long moment, unable to see his eyes but she studied the set of his shoulders and how he gripped the motorcycle. “You did warn me,” she admitted, taking a drag. She blew the smoke out and stepped a little closer, “And I love you, too.” 

Part of her wanted to jump on the bike behind him, wrap her arms around his waist, and let go wherever he might take her. Laine held herself still instead and added,  “Call me when you stop somewhere.”  

“I will.” He said, then stomping down on the kick-pedal and drowning out any other noise between them, like a final end to the conversation ushering him out. He walked the bike around and took one last look at Laine, waving to her before he revved the engine and took off away from her apartment.

Laine watched him go, standing in the open door of her garage until long after Donnelley had vanished from sight. She finished her cigarette before heading back inside. The apartment was quiet, the unsettled feeling Laine had only magnified. After a moment, she turned the stereo on and changed her clothes, putting on work out clothes. Training with Ghost was just around the corner and that would not change, no matter what happened between herself and Donnelley. 

>LEXINGTON, KY
>18OCT2019
>1830…///

“What’s your fuckin’ problem?” Were the first words from Frank Gamble’s mouth that greeted Donnelley. In Frank’s defense, Donnelley wasn’t too much in a smiling mood and he could feel his brows were knit together and a frown set deep in his face.

“You got a place for me, or what?” Donnelley asked, not entertaining Frank’s casual lack of manners either way.

“Ain’t gonna be here.”

“Fine.”

“Ain’t gonna be comfortable.”

“Okay.” Donnelley’s brows knitted together, “So, where the [i]fuck[/i] is it?”

Frank Gamble looked Donnelley up and down in silence, then his lip turned up with something closer to a sneer than a smirk as he snorted and shook his head, “Don’t worry ‘bout your bike, Michael’ll take care of it.”

“He gonna slash the tires and shit in the gas tank?” Donnelley quirked a brow, recalling how Michael Baughman hadn’t given him the warmest of welcomes the last time he was here.

“Not unless he wants my boot in his ass. Long as we’re workin’ together, we’re friends.” Frank Gamble closed the door behind him and stopped to stare at Donnelley. He wondered if he’d ever smiled in the last decade or if he forgot what those felt like, “But that don’t mean we’re [i]friends.[/i] I know who you folk are, and I ain’t got no good opinions. You’ll have a ride.”

“So I hear.” Donnelley stared back, giving Frank a once over for himself, “I’m not the government conspiracy, I’m just [i]the government.[/i]”

“Hm.” Frank just stared back, and they stood like that for a few moments until Frank turned his head and walked to his truck, an old green Ford Ranger. When Frank unlocked the doors, Donnelley slipped into the passenger seat after tossing his duffel bag of clothes and guns in the back, keeping his plate carrier in hand. 

“You expectin’ a gun fight comin’ here?” Frank asked as he shifted into reverse, then first gear as they ambled away from the homestead and towards wherever Frank had set them up at, “‘Cause it’d be a hell of a waste to give you all those files to just blow your head off.”

“I don’t think I know what to expect anymore.” Donnelley muttered in response.

“Them’s the times.” Frank muttered back, “Shit, can’t remember when them’s [i]weren’t.[/i] You spend this long at it, you start to forget what normal feels like.”

“Mm.” Donnelley grunted, not quite enticed by talking shop with anyone, much less talking at all.

It took about an hour to get to with Frank driving like he was trying to get to this place before he finally died of old age any minute. There wasn’t much else to be had in the way of conversation. It was a quiet drive the whole way, nothing but the hum of the tires on the road out of the outskirts of Lexington and towards somewhere north. Passing trees in the fading sunlight were the only things watching them. The occasional house passed, the people out here not quite wanting neighbors if they could help it this deep in the country.

Frank slowed down when they’d gotten to a stretch of fence only broken up by a locked gate. Frank got out of the truck, rummaged in his pockets for a second before pulling free a set of jingling keys. He slipped one of them into the thick padlocks and brought them both out, pushing the gate open. He got back inside the truck and they continued on down the road, trading asphalt for crunching gravel and potholes. It was obvious Frank didn’t spare a thought to visitors on this road’s upkeep. Something told Donnelley that Frank didn’t come here often anymore.

“Used to use this place as a little club house. Get together after an Opera and knock back a few drinks before goin’ our separate ways again.” Frank grumbled, “Jen don’t leave the house much no more. Not these days. Saul’s dead. Ate one of his bullets.”

“That’s the official story, at least.” Frank glanced at Donnelley, then looked back at the road just in time for another big pothole to rock the truck, “After that, Clyde got that look in his eye.”

“Same kinda one you had on my Goddaughter’s porch earlier.” Frank said, “And then he died too.”

“How far did he get?” Donnelley asked, wondering if Clyde really was close enough to threaten Foster, or if he was just lucky enough to be next on Foster’s list.

“Close enough to take those pictures and videos I gave you. Clyde just wouldn’t stop. I let him do it all alone, and now look what’s happened.” Frank growled, shaking his head. “I’m too old for this shit. I got no one else, or I’d be gunnin’ for Foster myself.”

“You’re lucky you got me.”

Frank side-eyed Donnelley and snorted, “Fuckin’ better be.” Frank said, not too impressed with Donnelley’s bravado, “Home, sweet home. Ain’t she a beaut?”

Donnelley could see the tiny shack illuminated in the headlights of Frank’s truck. A small cabin built more like it was supposed to fit in an alleyway and not a sprawling property, “This?”

“Oh, sorry, the palace is out back.” Frank grumbled, “Yes, [i]this.[/i] You need a place to lay low, this is it. I’d tell you to sleep tight, but… well, you ain’t really got a choice.”

Donnelley sighed. He’d stayed in worse places. Tiny huts about the size of this one in Afghanistan with no running water or plumbing. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about Frank pointing the way for Taliban to come chop his head off while he slept. Donnelley opened the door, but stopped when Frank spoke, “What’s your next move?”

Donnelley kept his eyes on the house as he thought for a few moments. He dug his pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and lit it, “Let me worry about that.”

“Oh, I can tell I’m in good hands.” Frank sneered, handing over the keys to the tiny house, “That was Clyde’s dossier, everything he could gather on Foster. Make sure it does its job, and do my friend justice. Get the fuck out of my truck.”

Donnelley flashed a look at Frank and then closed the truck door, grabbing his duffel out of the bed and lugging it in one hand with his plate carrier in the other to the door of the little cabin. He set his duffel down and unlocked the door, pushing it open with the toe of his boot and stepping inside. There was no magic to the place, it wasn’t the interior of a mansion squeezed into the confines of an illusion of an unassuming shack in the middle of nowhere. It was just hyper efficient use of what little space there was. There was a kitchen, a tiny living room with no television, and a ladder that led up to a bed so close to the ceiling he’d be picking roof shingles and drywall out of his teeth if he woke with a start.

“Alright.” Donnelley set his duffel down in the corner and the plate carrier on top of it.

He slipped his phone out of his pocket and let himself fall into the small couch situated in the excuse for a living room. Scrolling to Laine’s contact, he pressed it, hearing the trilling dial tone before it went to voicemail. He rolled his eyes and sighed, half expecting it already, but just as hurt if hadn’t been. He couldn’t blame her. “Hey, Laine. I can’t really tell you where I’m at, but I made it alright. I, uh… I’ll see you.” He said, opening his mouth and finding himself at a loss for words for once, “I love you.”

He hung up, then scrolled to another contact. One he hadn’t called or talked to in years. He pressed it, and waited for the other end to pick up, “I’m cashing in that favor. I’ll tell you where soon.”

He hung up, tossing his phone next to him and slouching over onto his elbows resting on his thighs, just staring at the floor. He’d pushed about everyone he could away with just a few words and some ill-timing. But, if anyone could get the files on Foster to the right place, it’d be the man he hadn’t called in years. He just hoped he could still trust him, and hoped more that he could trust anyone in the Program. He hadn’t felt this alone against the tide in years. He had to say, it wasn’t something he missed. He laid back across the couch, his legs dangling over the other side it was so small. He sighed the only thing he could out onto the dusty air.

“[i]Fuck.[/i]”

He tucked his hand beneath his head and closed his eyes, but he knew sleep wasn’t going to come easy tonight. Like it ever did. He growled and sat up, getting to his feet and searching for a light switch in this dusty shack. His boots made the floor creak in his search, but the only thing he found was a camping lantern. He switched it on, pretty much the entire little shack being illuminated in a sickly blue light where he could see the dust stirred to life by the first visitor in years, but shadows still pressed themselves into the corners and hid behind counters and the tiny dinner table.

It was on the table that he saw it. A picture of four people, taken a long time ago. He could see a young Frank Gamble next to a young Clyde Baughman. He assumed the other two were Jen and Saul. Written in sharpie and flowing, looping cursive were the words, [i]Bad Company[/i]. Next to the picture was a bottle of Jack Daniels, still half full. He grabbed the bottle and screwed the cap off, sitting at the table and looking at Clyde’s face frozen in time with a smile. He toasted the man in the picture and tipped the bottle up, taking a long pull, and then another. He wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand and decided to light a cigarette.

“We’ll get ‘em.” Donnelley said to Clyde, cigarette between his lips as he flicked his lighter on, knowing he was far past caring about smoking inside. “Every single one.”

As time went on, just sitting at the table with no one but Clyde’s picture and a bottle of Jack for company, he just drank, smoked, and read the dossier that Clyde had compiled before it all caught up to him. Mostly drank and smoked. Couldn’t find a good reason not to.

>CIA HQ
>GEORGE BUSH CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE
>LANGLEY, MCLEAN, VA
>29OCT2019
>0830…///

His ID still worked. That was a good sign, although the guard at the gate gave Donnelley a good, long stare while he rolled past in the Saturn, the car painted a drab and lifeless tan. Hardly the sporty type of car Donnelley usually hotrodded into the parking lot on those sparse occasions he was required to check in at Langley. Make sure he hadn’t gone native out there. He found an empty space and stepped out, shutting the door as he scanned the vast parking lot.

He was dressed in the usual business casual, hidden under the pea coat he’d decided to throw on, persuaded by the chill. He wasn’t lucky enough to park near the entrance to the CIA Offices, so he had to make the trek all the way from the back rows to the front door. He scanned his ID at the security stand, but the glass gate wouldn’t slide open, flashing red and giving him the denial tone. Three low hums. He tried again and the guard at the camera monitors finally noticed. He got up from his seat and stood behind the glass doors, “Can I help you?”

“Joseph Donnelley.” He said, “My badge isn’t working. Haven’t been here in a while.”

“Uh huh.” The guard eyed him wearily before turning back to his desk and tapping on an unseen screen before the gates opened manually. “Visit the front desk, get that sorted out before someone else isn’t as nice as me.”

“Sure thing.” Donnelley muttered, nodding his thanks and continuing on. He walked through the large entrance hall, but stopped at the sight of the CIA memorial wall. There were two more stars there, fresher than the rest. Probably no one knew who they were for. Probably no one knew one of them was for the man staring right at it, like he was looking at his own headstone.

He swallowed, ripping his gaze away about as easily as looking away from a car crash and continued deeper into the building, heading for the front lobby desk where a black woman sat filling some form out. She scribbled whatever sentence she was working on before turning to face Donnelley and she put on a smile, “Hello, sir, what can I do for you?”

“I need my badge updated. Didn’t work at the front gate.”

“Well… how did you get in?”

“The guard opened the gates for me.” Donnelley shrugged.

“Oh, Miller, that-… okay, alright.” She chuckled, though her hands threatened to snap her pen in half, “Can I get your name?”

“Joseph Donnelley.”

“Okay, I’ll have to look your ID up in the system. Can I see your badge?”

He handed it over and the receptionist took it, tapping away at her keyboard until she stopped, her brows went up, “Says here you’ve been, uh…”

“Yeah, screw up with the system.” Donnelley smirked, trying his best to be nonchalant.

“Huh. Well, okay then. Take a temp badge, it’s a blue, so you won’t have full access. It’s for contractors, but that’ll give you good enough access, I hope.” She said, “What section?”

“Operations. SAC.”

“Alright.” The receptionist rifled through a card organizer at her workstation and handed over a blue badge, “Have a good day.”

“Thank you kindly.” He turned from the desk and headed for the elevator vestibules. He scanned his badge through side door with a placard that read simply Security Studies Group. A single freight elevator waited inside and he stepped inside of it, scanning his badge and pressing one of two buttons that were on the panel. Down. When the elevator door opened to the Black Floors, the Program’s offices within the CIA offices, he walked to the front desk and the chipper young blonde looked at him with a smile. Different one than last time, “Hello, may I assist you, sir?” She asked in a beautifully rehearsed tone.

“I need to set up a meeting with someone, any rooms available?”

“It looks like room three is available from nine to twelve. Does that work?”

“Excellently.”

“Good,” The intern smiled with her pearly white teeth, red lipstick. Her hair blonde and put up in a bun, blue eyes kind and untouched by the worst parts of what went on in this very building. Almost had the urge to ask when she was off, but nothing was really truly ended with Laine, “What name should I put down in the reservation list?”

“Joseph Donnelley.”

“Okay, I’ll just put that down, make sure the card scanner only gives you…” The intern stopped with her mouth open, mid-sentence, “Joseph [i]Donnelley.[/i]”

“Yes.”

“Your ID card should’ve been… it says you’re…”

“Yeah. Mistake in the system, it happens.” Donnelley frowned, knowing full well what it said about him in the system.

“Okay…” The intern cleared her throat, continuing on hesitantly, but continuing, “Who else is attending? I need to give them access too.”

“Is Steven Foster still at the offices?” He asked nonchalant, both hoping he was and wasn’t at the office. It’d be an awkward reunion.

“Let me see.” She tapped on her keyboard and clicked a few times on her mouse, “It says he’s on assignment.”

Donnelley nodded, brows furrowing, “Okay.” He shrugged, “Rich Creecy, Intelligence.”

The intern went back to tapping and clicking before she smiled again, “He’s here. Okay, there we go.” She looked at Donnelley, “Anything else, Mister Donnelley?”

“No, that’s good enough. Thank you.”

“Okay, have a nice day!”

He wished he was, or could, but he simply smiled back, “You too.”

>0920…///

Donnelley sat alone in the meeting room. The screen on the wall wasn’t even turned on, so the small room with a long table and chairs enough for ten people sat completely dark. Donnelley found it a bit more relaxing than the noise of the office’s outside. He hadn’t been sleeping much, just reading Clyde’s dossier on the conspiracy that threatened the Program. Of backroom deals, double agents, secret projects. Majestic 12, Project DREAMGATE, March Technologies. There was a rot in the deepest parts of the government, the military, the intelligence community.

As the door beeped, opened, and the motion-activated lights came on, Richard Creecy stepped in and closed the door behind himself. His big eyes, deep set with dark bags, cast themselves over the room and all the empty space framing Donnelley. He was a younger guy, narrow shoulders and twig arms more used to digging around in servers and computer towers than taking apart rifles. He was on permanent loan from the NRO and shoved into a dark operations center using SIGINT and IMINT from satellites and relays monitoring the world on the NSA and NRO’s dime for hypergeometric threats and unnatural incursion vectors. Scientific, official words for what Donnelley knew as those writhing, gnashing things from beyond.

He was also a drug addict from West Virginia. Amphetamines. It was an open secret that a lot of the Program’s shooters were not exactly role models, but those outside of the Office of Operations liked to crack down on people who thought they could get away with the cowboy shit that happened on the Working Groups and Wetwork Teams. Donnelley spoke, “Richard Creecy.” He said it with an air of finality, like the judge reading his name out of the list of those sentenced for the headman’s axe, “Office of Intelligence, Imagery Analyst and Targetin’ Officer.”

“Um, yeah.” Richard swallowed, “Can I ask why I’m here?”

Donnelley slapped two things onto the table. A bag of adderall he’d gotten from Queen back in West Virginia. And a set of photos taken with a high quality camera zoomed in from a teal Saturn parked down the street from a drug house in Sterling. The same drug house that Richard Creecy had visited three days ago. “Take a look at those.” Donnelley said. Richard just stood there, and Donnelley smirked, “I won’t bite.”

Richard took a few steps forward, awkward and slow in his short sleeve button up and tie. He took one of the pictures and saw himself going into a house after receiving a patdown from a very scary looking individual. “How… why?”

“Because, I need somethin’ from you, and I need you to make sure nobody finds out what that thing is or who asked for it.” Donnelley smiled, reaching up and plucking the picture from Richard’s hand. “You either leave here with that bag as a partin’ gift, or I give those pictures to CI and let them run all over you. I’m sure John would love an easy case like you.”

Richard swallowed again, “Wh-what do you need, man?”

“I need a dossier on every Tadjbegskye Bratva syndicate on the east coast from New York to Florida.” Donnelley said, losing the smile. “Can you do that for me… [i]friend?[/i]”

Richard stared long at Donnelley, then nodded a couple times, “Yeah, I know some people who can do that.”

“You’re goin’ to make sure it finds its way to the name I send you in a text. And give them this note.” Donnelley slid a piece of paper he pulled from his coat pocket towards Richard, “I know you’ll be able to do this, and I’ll be very thankful for it.”

Donnelley grabbed up the photos and pushed the bag of pills towards Richard, “Now, what do you say?”

“Uh,” Richard eyed the bag suspiciously, before taking it and pocketing it, “Thank… you.”

“Good boy. Now git. I got this place for a few more hours and I’m pretty fuckin’ beat.” Donnelley leaned back in the office chair and then spoke to Richard just before he opened the door, “Oh, and Richard?”

“Yeah?”

“If you think of turnin’ me over to CI, there’s a man named Ghost I know who’d be more’n happy to make sure your body’s found floatin’ face down in the Potomac.” Donnelley closed his eyes and put his hands behind his head and his feet up on the table, “If they find it at all. Especially if you run. He likes that.”

He heard Richard gulp, “Okay.”

“Turn the light off, will you?”

And Donnelley was alone in the dark again.