My name is Denny. For everyone's safety, I won't be using last names; simply giving any names is scary enough considering what has happened to me over the past seven years, but you need to know my story. You need to know why I did the things I've done.

I was born in an Eastern European country; I'm not at liberty to say which one. My parents were American. To be more specific, they were CIA agents on long term assignment. What exactly their assignments were, I've never been able to fully figure out, but it seems they were sent there to incite revolution against a government that was less than conducive to the interests of the United States government.

Whatever they were doing, they much have done a hell of a job of it, because it got them killed. I came home from the international school one evening to find my mother's body splayed across the staircase, blood flowing from the single bullet wound in her left temple. I called for my father, but there was no answer; running up to their bedroom, I found out way. He laid face down on the bed, over a red sheet that should have been white.

Something about the way my father's death happened didn't make sense to me, and despite my horror, I ran to him to see if there were any clues to how this had happened. It was then that I saw my father's final words, his message to me that sent me on a quest to exact revenge for the brutal murder of my parents.

CALL JOHNNY.

I immediately knew who he meant. My parents rarely talked shop around the house, but Johnny was one of their closest contacts in this foreign land, another CIA agent who could blend in perfectly with the local population.

I raced through my parents' rolodex searching for the name, and when I found it, franticly dialed. He picked up on the first ring.

"Johnny?" I screamed plaintively into the receiver, even before he spoke.

"Oh, hi Denny," he replied instantly. My sobs must have given the reason for my call away. "They're dead, aren't they?"

"What do I do?"

"Speak to no one," Johnny said. His voice always startled me; all the other agents I had met, even my own parents, struggled with the local accent, but Johnny had it down pat. Where he came from, he would never tell me, but he must have been from somewhere in the region. "I'll be around in the morning. Don't let anyone know what has happened. I'll do my best to find out who did this."

Terrified, I did as I was told. It may have been lucky that nobody came to the house that night, but in reality, my parents had never kept much company here. Their job necessitated secrecy, and they couldn't be seen in bed with the other Americans who made a living here if they were to be trusted as revolutionaries.

I barely slept that night, and what sleep I did have was interrupted by horrible visions of my parents being killed. In these dreams, my parents were killed by faceless assassins. I vowed that night to put faces to the ruthless killers who had taken my parents away from me.

As he promised, Johnny arrived early the next morning. He told me that he was unable to ascertain the identities of the killers, but that he did have a promising lead. Then, he paused for a moment before saying the words I will always remember.

"Denny, do you want to help find the people who did this?"

I knew the answer. There was only one answer.

"Yes."

Johnny had found out through backchannels that the killers were foreign spies who had masqueraded as locals – two people who had infiltrated the revolutionary movement in order to bring it down from the inside. After killing my parents, they were immediately located to their next assignment in the United States itself – in San Francisco.

That night, we took the first flight to New York, and by the following evening, we were in California. When we arrived in San Francisco, Johnny gave a few thousand dollars in cash, and told me the plan.

"I want you to be near me, Denny, but nobody can know about our connection. Stay in a hotel for two weeks, then meet me at this address," he said, giving me a scrap of paper. "I'll buy you an apartment in my building so that we can be in constant contact. Remember; tell no one that you know me already. We cannot trust anyone, Denny."

Taking his words to heart, I said goodbye. I booked a room at a swanky hotel in Nob Hill. I would always hold a debt of gratitude to Johnny for this. Together, we were going to find the bloodthirsty killers who had taken down my parents. I just had no idea how long it would take, and how high the cost of our success would be.