His mind was racing.  His thoughts were confused and half developed.  It was as if his mind had just burst forth from the dam that had restrained it his entire life.  He wanted to rage around the room, but he was afraid to utter even a sound.  He wanted to go to Tonic and beat William with his bare hands, but he knew it was not all William’s fault.

William was vile; everything he touched was poisoned by his warped ideologies, but he knew that if one was stung by a scorpion, one did not blame it.  William was doing exactly what was to be expected. This was someone else’s fault; someone that was just as, or maybe more, nefarious than even Galleani.

This was the fault of someone he had trusted.

He set his cup of coffee on the floor by the bed and closed his eyes.  He ran his clammy hands through his hair.  He tried to clear his mind so that he could focus on what he should do.  Even with his eyes closed, the images from the television still tortured him.  He saw them all:  the cars that had plummeted from the bridges into the waters below, the wreckages of the planes that had been detonated, and the ashen-faced men and women who searched for their loved ones in the rubble of the buildings.  Every image haunted him.

He stood up and looked around the room.   Clothing was strewn about, and every piece of furniture in the room was stacked against the door.  When he had checked in, he had argued to no avail for a room with a balcony. At the moment, he was thankful to only have one point of entry.  His MP5 and Glock pistol were within arm’s reach on the bed beside him.  He paced in circles, recollecting the events once again.

There were undoubtedly numerous teams from his agency involved in Operation Fireproof, he reasoned.  He was the face of the operation, negotiating with William and the counterparty.  There should have been a second team that acted as a foreign group and supplied the supposedly inert explosives to the counterparty.  There were numerous teams that should have acted simultaneously across the country to apprehend the terrorists during the placing of the devices.

A strike against the counterparty should have occurred in at the same time as the other counterstrikes.  The group did not act as overtly as William, but their capture was just as important.   This was supposed to be a celebration, but instead it was wrought with uncertainty and paranoia.

As far as he knew, none of the other teams had even mobilized against the threats.  The answer had to be one of three possibilities:  his handler had not transmitted his intel to the agency, someone within the agency had received the transmission from his handler and had failed to contact the other teams, or all of the other field teams had refused to act.

He knew the field agents and his handler better than he knew anyone else.  By the nature of his profession, he trusted them with his life.  Since William had managed to obtain live explosives, he reasoned that the second possibility was most likely.  Somewhere in the Special Activities Division of the CIA, or SAD as it was referred to, there was a traitor, or perhaps traitors, of the highest order.

He sat on the bed and dialed his handler.  The phone rang four or five times with no answer.  As he was about to hang up, he heard a man’s voice on the line.

“Yes?”

His heart sank and his stomach turned.  There was no doubt in his mind that Sofia was dead.  He searched for words, but found none. He sat in silence.

“Reese, is that you?  Speak up, old boy.”

“I don’t know who you are, but I promise you I’ll find you; and when I do-“

The man laughed with derision and interjected, “You’ll do what?  How do you find a ghost, Reese?  How do you kill a specter?  I’ve lain down before you in the mud and watched you with labored breaths. I’ve whispered to your soul and dreamt of squeezing my trigger from a thousand yards away.  How do you win when you don’t know the players, or even the very game that’s being played?”

“I’ll find you.”

“You’ve no one left you can trust, and nowhere left to go, and I’m coming for you.”

Click.

Reese found himself staring once again at the television as the call abruptly ended.  The man was right; he had nowhere to go and no one to trust.  He was alone in a city full of liars and thieves.  He had to assume that every one of his contracts was either a traitor or dead.

Or, maybe he did have someone left.  He grabbed a separate, pre-paid phone that was lying on the floor in the far corner of the room.  He rubbed his thumb across the keypad and closed his eyes as carefully considered the action. Finally, he dialed the number.  Reese gathered his sparse belongings while the phone rang.

“Who is it?” the voice demanded.

Reese could hear the sense of victory in William’s voice, and it disgusted him.  “It’s me.  Can we talk?”

“You know, I’m kind of busy at the moment.  You should come over here if you’re still in town.”

“I don’t have time for that, Will.  I need to talk to you, in private, now.  Can we meet at Johnny’s spot?”

“Johnny’s spot?”

“I’m leaving now; I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Alright, alright,” William groaned, “give me thirty minutes.”

Reese hung up the phone and walked to the bathroom.  He washed his hands and face, and then stared blankly at the mirror.  His blue eyes blazed back at him from the other side.  Finally, he whispered, “He’s your only hope.  You can kill William Galleani later, but tonight, he’s all you’ve got.”

***

Reese nervously scanned the shadows from the highest point he could find, Lee’s mansion.  It had taken him nearly twenty minutes to travel the five short miles to Arlington cemetery.  He had doubled back a dozen times to ensure no one was following him.  Surely they would have considered that in his desperation he might contact William.  He had told no one of the locations where their meetings occurred, not even his handler, but that brought him little comfort.

The cemetery was once again free of any interlopers.  Countless crypts and monuments dotted the landscape.  It had seemed so safe when he thought he was in control of the situation.  Now, all he could see were the innumerable vantage points where someone could be waiting for him to step out of the shadows and into their crosshairs.

He continued to search the darkness for any adversaries until, finally, he saw William’s bike.  He first spotted solitary headlight on the front of the Ducati Monster as it was crossing the Potomac.  He hoped William would dim the light, or turn it off completely, but he never did.  Reese reasoned that, between the successful attacks and a night of celebratory drinking, William was likely feeling unstoppable.

William guided the bike to the center of the plaza, just below Kennedy’s grave.  He shut it off and casually strolled up the steps to the eternal flame.  Reese watched as William reached into his jacket and retrieved something.  He fumbled with the item for a moment before bringing it up to his mouth – his flask, of course; William was still celebrating.

William crouched down low and warmed his hands over the small fire, waiting for Reese to appear.  Reese alternated between watching William, the cemetery and the bridge for several more minutes before finally crawling out from under the bushes and carefully making his way down the hill to the flame.

When William saw him, he raised both arms in victory. Reese was too far away yet to see, but he could imagine the sickening smile that William had on his face.  As Reese reached the foot of the hill, William enthusiastically stepped forward to greet him.

“Excellent work, excellent work.   You exceeded all expectations.  I thought at least two or three of our devices would be discovered, but I was wrong.  Your planning was flawless!”