Donovan spread documents across the conference table. Rick recognized the classification markings, the bureaucratic formatting, the weight of official paper.
"This is an OSS internal memo," Donovan said, pointing to the first document. "Post-war intelligence consolidation. Proposes creating a permanent peacetime intelligence agency to replace OSS. Organizational structure, budget projections, legislative framework."
Rick scanned it. Professional, thorough, exactly the kind of planning any competent organization would do for post-war transition.
Except for the names on the proposed leadership list.
"James Hartley," Rick said quietly. "Director of Plans."
"You recognize the name."
"My team has been tracking him since before Pearl Harbor. He's at the center of Prometheus Protocol." Rick looked at the other names. War profiteers. Men whose companies had benefited from sabotaged equipment and extended battles. "They're embedding themselves in the post-war intelligence structure."
"That's what I thought. But I needed confirmation that I wasn't being paranoid." Donovan pulled out another document. "This one's worse. Bretton Woods Conference planning—happens next month. Proposals for World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Post-war economic reconstruction."
Rick read through the proposal. On paper, reasonable. The world's economy had been shattered by war. New institutions for rebuilding, for preventing future economic collapse, for international cooperation.
But the advisory committee...
"Same names," Rick said. "Different titles, same network."
"And this." Donovan's hand shook slightly as he presented the third document. "United Nations planning. Dumbarton Oaks Conference, scheduled for August. Framework for international peacekeeping organization. Security Council, General Assembly, the whole structure."
Rick read it carefully. The proposals had been leaked to newspapers—plans for a "United Nations" to prevent future wars, to create mechanisms for international cooperation. Noble goals.
But underneath the noble goals, the same network positioning itself for control.
"Some of this is legitimate," Rick said slowly. "The world does need new institutions after this war. International cooperation, economic reconstruction, collective security—these aren't bad ideas."
"That's what makes it so insidious." Donovan sat heavily. "I joined OSS because I believed in something. Believed America stood for democracy, for freedom, for making the world better. And these institutions—UN, World Bank, NATO when it comes—they could do good. They could actually prevent another world war."
"But not if they're designed by people who profit from war."
"Exactly." Donovan looked at him. "Morrison wrote something in his files. He said the real conspiracy isn't about controlling governments. It's about building the systems governments depend on. Build the right systems, embed yourself in them, and you don't need to control elections or assassinate leaders. You just control the infrastructure of power itself."
Rick thought about the production schedules he'd been copying. Equipment for wars that hadn't happened yet. Facilities being built for conflicts not yet engineered.
"I have something to show you," he said.
He pulled out his notes—encoded, but Donovan would understand the implications once decoded. Production quotas, delivery schedules, equipment specifications.
"These are from Packard. Post-war contracts, 1945 through 1947. Military specifications, quantities that make sense only if there's ongoing conflict."
Donovan studied them, and Rick watched his face change as the pattern registered.
"1950-1952," Donovan said, pointing to a delivery schedule. "Korea theater specifications. But Korea isn't..."
"Isn't a war zone. Yet." Rick pulled out more notes. "I've been tracking this since April. Every major defense contractor has similar contracts. Post-war production assuming elevated threat levels. Regional conflict specifications for areas we're not currently fighting in."
"They're not just planning to maintain wartime production levels. They're planning the next war."
"Phase 2," Rick said. "That's what David found in the War Department files. Prometheus Protocol's planning has phases. Phase 1 is this war—profiteering, sabotage, building power structures. Phase 2 is the next war. Korea, probably. 1950-1952 timeline."
Donovan was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "When I found Morrison's files, I thought I was looking at a conspiracy to profit from World War Two. But this... this is a conspiracy to make warfare permanent. To engineer a world where conflict never really ends, just shifts theaters."
"Permanent warfare as a business model."
"With institutions like the UN and World Bank and CIA as the management structure." Donovan looked sick. "And I've been helping them. Analyzing intelligence, writing reports, supporting operations that feed into this. I thought I was fighting fascism. But I've been building the framework for the next fifty years of American imperialism."
Rick understood. He'd felt the same sickness when he realized what John Martin was really doing at Packard. When he understood that every day he signed off on inspections, he was complicit in the deaths of the men those engines would fail.
"The question is what you do now," Rick said. "You can walk away. Pretend you never saw Morrison's files. Go back to being a good OSS officer. Maybe you'll convince yourself that the ends justify the means, that these institutions will do more good than harm."
"Can you do that? Convince yourself?"
"No. That's why I'm here." Rick gathered the documents. "But I'm already dead, officially. Already committed. You're not. You still have a life, a career, a future. If you help us, you'll probably lose all of it."
Donovan looked at him with those old-young eyes. "Morrison was my mentor. I never met him—he died before I joined OSS. But I read his files, his analysis, his warnings. He saw this coming. Saw how Pearl Harbor was just the beginning. And he died trying to stop it."
"And his death didn't stop anything. Just made them more careful."
"Then I owe it to him to finish what he started." Donovan straightened. "I'm in. Whatever you need. I'm inside OSS, I have access to planning documents, I can track Hartley's movements. Tell me what to do."
Rick made a decision. "There's a summit. October 15th, originally, but we think it's been moved up. Prometheus Protocol's leadership, finalizing post-war plans. If we can infiltrate it, record the discussions, get them on record planning the sabotage and the future wars and the corruption of these institutions—we'd have proof even skeptics couldn't deny."
"Where's the summit?"
"We don't know yet. That's one of the things we need you to find out. You're inside OSS, you have access to secure communications. Someone in that building knows where the summit is."
Donovan nodded slowly. "I can do that. What else?"
"Verification. Cross-check everything we find against OSS documents. We have pieces—production data, financial records, procurement files. But we need the intelligence side. The strategic planning. The foreign policy implications."
"You want me to steal classified documents."
"We want you to document the conspiracy to hijack the post-war world order. Think of it as evidence collection."
"For a trial that will never happen because the judges are all compromised."
"For a trial in the court of public opinion. That's the only venue where we might win." Rick stood. "There's a journalist. Eleanor Walsh. She was investigating war profiteering in 1942, got her story killed. Catherine thinks she's still digging. If we can give her undeniable proof, she might be able to publish it in a way that can't be suppressed."
"Might."
"Everything's might. We might succeed. We might die. We might change history or we might be forgotten footnotes." Rick extended his hand. "But we try. That's what Morrison would have done."
Donovan shook his hand. "How do I contact you?"
Rick explained the dead drop system. Complicated, paranoid, but necessary. Catherine had refined it after the Baltimore meeting—multiple drops, rotating schedules, codes that changed weekly.
"One more thing," Rick said. "Your cover story. War Production Board efficiency audit. Actually do the audit. Interview people. Write a report. Make it real. Because if anyone checks, it needs to hold up."
"And if they check deeper? If they realize I'm not who I say I am?"
"Then you run. We all run. That's the protocol. First sign of compromise, we scatter. The mission continues but the team breaks apart." Rick paused. "We've been doing this for two years. We know how to disappear."
"I'm not sure I do."
"Then learn fast. Because the people we're investigating make people disappear permanently."
After Donovan left—after he'd conducted his fake audit, interviewed three other inspectors, collected enough material to write a plausible report—Rick stayed in Conference Room B, thinking.
Four people had become five. The conspiracy they were fighting had expanded from Pearl Harbor to the entire architecture of the post-war world. The stakes had escalated from exposing war profiteering to preventing permanent warfare.
And they had maybe three months until the summit. Three months to find its location, plan infiltration, gather final evidence, and prepare for the moment when everything would explode into public.
Three months to save a future that was already being sold.