October 1947 - Washington, D.C.
The two FBI agents weren't even trying to hide anymore.
Rick Forsyth stood at his living room window, watching them sit in their black sedan across the street. They'd been there since dawn, making no effort at concealment. One of them was reading a newspaper. The other was smoking, ash drifting from his window in the October morning air.
They wanted Rick to see them. Wanted him to feel the pressure. Wanted him to know that every move he made was being watched, documented, catalogued for the prosecution they were building.
"They're still out there," his wife Helen said from the kitchen doorway. She held their two-year-old son on her hip, the boy squirming to get down. "Rick, this has to stop. Tommy shouldn't grow up with government agents watching our house."
Rick turned from the window. Helen looked tired—the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that came from weeks of stress with no end in sight. She'd been patient. Supportive, in her way. But her patience was wearing thin.
"It'll stop when they give up or arrest me," Rick said.
"Those aren't the only options." Helen set Tommy down, watched him toddle toward his blocks. "You could apologize. Tell them you were wrong. Make this go away."
"I wasn't wrong."
"Then tell them you were mistaken. Confused. Whatever they need to hear." She crossed to him, took his hands. "Rick, I don't understand all of this. The conspiracy, the investigation, whatever you were doing during the war. But I understand that our son needs his father. And if they arrest you—"
"They won't arrest me. I haven't done anything illegal."
"You testified against the government. You accused important people of terrible crimes. Whether you did it legally doesn't matter if they decide to prosecute anyway."
Rick wanted to argue. Wanted to explain that truth mattered, that justice mattered, that some fights were worth the risk. But Helen's eyes held only fear and exhaustion, and he realized she didn't care about abstract principles. She cared about keeping her family intact.
"I'll figure something out," he said.
Helen looked at him for a long moment, then nodded and returned to the kitchen. Rick heard her moving dishes, the domestic sounds of a normal morning in a normal house. Except nothing about their life was normal anymore.
The phone rang. Rick answered it, still watching the FBI agents through the window.
"Rick." David Coleman's voice, barely above a whisper. "We need to talk. One more time."
David's apartment was in a building that had seen better days—peeling paint, creaking stairs, the smell of boiled cabbage lingering in the hallway. Rick climbed to the third floor and knocked on door 3C.
David opened it, and Rick tried not to react to his appearance.
In the four months since the Congressional hearings, David had aged twenty years. His face was grey, skin hanging loose on bones that showed too prominently. The tremor in his hands was constant now, not the occasional shake Rick remembered. He moved slowly, carefully, like a man afraid his body might betray him at any moment.
"Come in," David said. "Sorry about the mess."
The apartment was small—one room serving as bedroom, living room, and office. Papers covered every surface. Maps, documents, files scattered in a pattern that probably made sense to David but looked like chaos to anyone else.
"Are you eating?" Rick asked.
"When I remember." David gestured to a chair, sat heavily on the bed. "Doctors give me three months, maybe four. Heart can't take it. Stress, they said. Too many years of elevated cortisol, adrenaline, fear. Turns out living as someone else for three years while investigating government conspiracy isn't great for cardiovascular health."
"David—"
"Don't. I made my choices. But I'm not going to die having accomplished nothing." He pulled a folder from the pile beside his bed. "Phase 2 is real, Rick. Korea. Everything from the 1944 recording is happening right now."
He spread documents across the narrow bed. Rick recognized the format—War Department internal memos, procurement schedules, intelligence assessments. The kind of classified material David shouldn't have but had always managed to obtain.
"CIA's actively creating conditions for war," David continued. "Equipment being pre-positioned. Intelligence assessments being manipulated to show North Korean aggression. Border incident protocols being drafted. It's not contingency planning—it's engineering."
Rick studied the documents. Korea Contingency Planning. Phase 2 Operations. Border Incident Protocols. The same terminology from the 1944 recording, the same timeline. Prometheus Protocol's blueprint being implemented in real time.
"We exposed them," Rick said. "Published everything. Had Congressional hearings. It didn't matter."
"Because we exposed the past. What already happened." David's eyes were bright with fever or determination or both. "We need to expose the future. Prove Korea is being engineered before it happens. Then maybe people will care."
"They didn't care about Pearl Harbor warnings. They didn't care about equipment sabotage. Why would they care about this?"
"Because Pearl Harbor already happened when we exposed it. Korea hasn't happened yet. We have a chance to prevent it instead of just documenting it." David leaned forward. "One last operation, Rick. Infiltrate CIA headquarters. Steal the Korea planning documents. Publish them. Stop Phase 2 before it starts."
Rick looked at his friend. Dying. Desperate. Clinging to the belief that one more exposure, one more publication, would somehow matter more than all the others that had failed.
"David, you can barely walk. The FBI's watching me twenty-four hours a day. This is suicide."
"I'm already dead. Just choosing how to spend my last three months." David's voice was steady despite the tremor in his hands. "You're not dead yet. But you will be—in spirit if not body—if you let them win without one more fight."
"I have a son. A wife. If I'm arrested, imprisoned—"
"If you do nothing, Korea happens in 1950. Thousands of American soldiers die in a war that was engineered for profit. And your son grows up in a world where Prometheus Protocol controls everything, where permanent warfare is the business model, where truth doesn't matter because power decides what's true." David met his eyes. "What kind of world are you choosing for him?"
Rick thought about his father. About Morrison. About the three years he'd spent as John Martin, gathering evidence that ultimately hadn't mattered. About Helen's face this morning, tired and afraid.
"If we do this," Rick said slowly, "we do it smart. Minimal risk. And if it goes wrong, I walk away. My son needs a father more than he needs a martyr."
David smiled, the expression ghostly on his gaunt face. "Agreed. I'll do the dangerous part. You just get me access."
Webb was drunk when Rick found him in a Philadelphia bar at two in the afternoon.
Thomas Reed—the name he'd used during the investigation, the identity that had stuck even after coming out of hiding. He sat alone at the end of the bar, working through a whiskey that was definitely not his first of the day.
"Rick Forsyth," Webb said without looking up. "Come to watch me die slowly? Get in line behind my liver."
Rick slid onto the stool beside him. The bartender raised an eyebrow, and Rick shook his head. No drink for him. He needed to stay sharp.
"We need your help," Rick said. "David and I. One more operation."
Webb laughed, a bitter sound. "Operation. Listen to us. Still playing spy. Still thinking we matter."
"David's dying. He wants to try one more time. Stop Korea before it starts."
"Korea." Webb took a long drink. "Let me guess. Infiltrate CIA. Steal documents. Publish truth. Save the world." He set down his glass. "We tried that. Remember? Published everything about Prometheus Protocol. Had Congressional hearings. And the result? Hartley's deputy director of CIA. Harold Brennan's in prison. David's dying. You're being investigated. I'm drinking myself to death. Great success."
"This time we expose before the war. Prove it's being engineered. That's different."
"Different how? Power protects itself, Rick. Whether we expose past, present, or future doesn't matter. They'll dismiss it, discredit us, continue anyway." Webb signaled for another drink. "Go home. Be with your family. Let dead men stay dead."
The door opened. David entered, moving slowly, each step deliberate. He shouldn't have come—Rick had told him to stay home, rest. But David had never been good at following orders.
He sat heavily on the stool on Webb's other side.
"What are you dying for, Tom?" David asked quietly. "Liver failure and regret? Or something that might actually matter?"
Webb looked at him. Really looked at him for the first time, seeing what Rick had seen—the grey skin, the sunken eyes, the visible approach of death.
"Christ, David."
"Three months, they said. Maybe four. I can spend them in bed, waiting. Or I can spend them trying one more time to stop them." David's hand shook as he reached for Webb's glass, took a small sip. "I know the odds. I know we'll probably fail again. But I'd rather die trying than die surrendered."
Webb was quiet for a long moment. Then he pushed away his glass.
"Alright. One more time. But we do this sober. If I'm going to commit federal crimes, I'm doing it with a clear head."