Legacy: chapter 28

Painful memories haunted Keith as he walked through the thick forest vegetation. He had left the trail, and Allie's near lifeless body behind only ten minutes ago, but the events of the evening seemed like they had happened years ago.

The look in her eyes… the obvious pain and fear in her voice! Keith had watched many innocent, and not so innocent people die and never felt the slightest stirring of emotion in his cold heart. But Allie had torn that cold heart out and showed it to him, letting him see his cruelty for the first time.

I'm a horrible monster!

Not just the idea of her death being his fault. No, there was much more. Allie was only the latest in a long line, and Keith still had one more to go.

So many terrible things! The only memories Keith could dig up all involved pain, either personal or inflicted on others. Hatred had been his driving force through out most of his life, from his days with the NYPD, to the CIA, and finally into the NSA's operation.

Keith could still remember the day clearly, the moment when he identified that deep, churning hunger for power that burned within him.

It was only supposed to be a small internal affaires matter. Simple revenge. Keith had been suspended on a trumped up charge of ticket extortion, soliciting cash payments in return for forgetting about whatever traffic infringement had been committed. His supervisor in the lower east end Manhattan precinct had secrets, too. So Keith blew the whistle. How was he supposed to know that his one good deed would expose one of the biggest cases of police corruption the United States had ever seen?

The brass of the entire department was involved, all the way up to the chief, and some suspected the mayor was even in on the drug and weapons smuggling ring. It was all being operated right out of New York harbor, under the noses of a lot of honest patrol officers whose objections were simply ignored and suppressed.

Keith chuckled as he remembered the firestorm of media attention, every report proclaiming him a hero. He had learned two valuable lessons from this. One was: doing the right thing can bring a great reward. Shortly after the investigation had broken, Keith was handed a personal invitation to a field position with the CIA. Someone upstairs at the agency had apparently overlooked the fact that what he had done was no heroic or brilliant act, but a complete accident. Dumb luck.

Of course, Keith took the offered job with no hesitation. Quickly he remembered the second lesson: never let anyone know your secrets. That was how his old supervisor had inadvertently toppled an otherwise perfect crime. He got careless.

Keith wanted power; he wanted to be just like the men whose lives he had just ruined. And he was determined not to make their mistakes. No one could ever get close enough to him to learn any secrets. Keith had had fleeting relationships with women, lowly bar sluts, but he never opened up enough to let anyone love him, or give love to anyone else.

Love was a foreign emotion, not anywhere nearly as useful as the law. Not that Keith ever really wanted to do the right thing. That was far from the case. But the power of even the most simplistic laws can make an honest man turn evil. Laws can be bent and twisted; there is a law to get just about anything one in the right position wanted. And Keith somehow always managed to get himself in that position.

He was recognized within the agency for this uncanny ability to break rules without bringing any consequences on himself. And thus it was that he moved up quickly. Until a special assignment sent him on an investigation of a shady operation in the NSA's upper ranks. Who says government agencies work together or otherwise like each other?

Keith's handlers managed to get him in under a cover as an analyst, named Eric Trent, who specialized in electronic surveillance. He spent three months under the name, and grew to like the life. Staring at a flickering monitor all day was not enjoyable, but the others who worked in this place… Keith could see a power, a terrible and absolute power in some of them. He wanted to be one of them! The men in the CIA were powerful, but these men! These were the type of men who controlled the course of history in dark, smoke filled rooms. Casually deciding what third world dictator should be assassinated next, over a shot of brandy and a Cuban cigar.

Keith acted. He knew how crazy it was to even attempt to blackmail people as powerful as these. But he did it. When the dark men were presented with the information that Keith had collected and were informed of the other existing copies and how simple it would be for him to get those copies to the people that had placed him on this assignment. Those men, the most powerful men in the country and possibly on the face of the earth, easily rolled over. Keith had impressed them highly with the display. Shown them just how capable and determined he was. And maybe even scared them a little with the thought that other men as ruthless and calculating as themselves existed.

Keith was quickly handed the "project" that no one else wanted. An apparent FBI screw up involving aliens and some pretty wild reports.

If I would have only stayed as Eric Trent! Keith pounded his fist against a tree as he came to a stop, none of this would have happened. None of it!

Yes, everything would have been better. Keith learned more about himself in the past 20 minutes then he ever dreamed was possible. And it filled him with a odd mix of terror, rage, and pure hatred for his bastard of a father. But even more anger was directed toward his grandfather.

What right! By what right do you gray bastards wreck lives? Keith turned his gaze toward the sky and vented his rage: "Why did I have to be one of your fucking play things! Why…"

Keith wanted to forget everything that Allie had told him, but he could not. He knew it was all true. In some strange way he felt that he had always known. Even when he did not know why, he had still known that he was not quite the same as every other person on the street. Something had always been 'off'.

In reality, nothing had changed. All Keith had to do is turn around, collect his half-dead lab-rat and run like hell to the drop sight. Collect the money for delivering Allie's body and jump on the next plane back to D.C., he could forget everything, it would be easy… Easy…

Things could never go back, though. Once a man gains knowledge such as Keith had gained, nothing could ever be the same again. He could act, just put on a show for his superiors. But he would still know he was living a lie.

My whole life, I thought all I wanted was power… all I really wanted was a father's approval… I wanted a goddamned father!

"But you sons of bitches wouldn't let me have one!" Keith yelled into the sky again.

Power was merely a surrogate, a comfort. Keith had felt this, but thought it nothing more then his unruly emotions trying to sneak out from behind the high stone wall he had blocked them behind to enable him to do the things he had to do. He saw now that power had only ever been a replacement for the confidence that he lacked as a child. His own personal way to get back at a world that hated him.

But now, Allie had completely torn that wall of hard stone down, unveiling Keith's weaknesses for all the world to see. At least that's how he felt.

She could see through me…she learned secrets that even I didn't know!

Secrets are the key, after all. No one had ever known anything about him! It hurt to keep it in but Keith knew that Secrets are the key to power. Never show your weaknesses! Secrets are a weakness… secrets can be used by a resourceful enemy.

Keith knew from experience just how powerful a deep, dark secret could be to a powerful man. Little things from such a mans past, small, youthful indiscretions, could be used to end careers or secure funds through blackmail.

Keith stumbled into a clearing in the thick forest. This had not been his destination, but a downed log in the middle of the clearing seemed to call out to him. A hard object dug into Keith's leg as he sat. His gun. He pulled it out and held it limply as he sat on the log.

So heavy… Keith held the small, black lump of death in his lap. Never before had he noticed just what the black of the frame meant, although it had been blatantly obvious for as long as he could remember. The steel incarnation of the grim reaper. With a scythe of hot lead.

This very weapon had ended so many lives; Keith could feel the angry ghost of every one of them seething within the cold steel frame. They had every right to hate him. Keith hated himself for all that he had done! But there was still one more…

Keith placed the gun on the log beside him and fished around in a pants pocket, pulling out a single cigarette and a lighter. Then probed into his other pocket to ensure that he had left Allie's necklace with her, along with his cell phone, turned on to allow Mary to track it, and his coat. Yes, the necklace was safely with the girl. As Keith wanted it.

Smoking was only a occasional thing for Keith, after a big score or bust, and in the case of this lone cancer stick, a celebration for his newfound wealth after turning in Allie's body. But that would not happen today, or ever.

Keith fought the urge to cough as the first inhalation of smoke hit his lungs. How could anyone get addicted to this? He wondered. Not that it mattered anyway. To each his own… Keith leaned forward in to a stooped position that should be uncomfortable, and he could remember (one of his few remaining early memories) his mother telling him not to sit like that. That was before his dad had run off and his mother had become a dirty alcoholic.

Keith chuckled quietly. He realized that he had forgotten, actually forgotten, his fathers name!

A testament to his remembrance! Keith laughed aloud. Rest In Obscurity, father! What ever the hell your name was… RIO…

Keith's mood sobered. 'RIO' was as good an epitaph for himself as it was for his father. Every accomplishment in his entire life had either been meaningless dribble, or so secret that those over him had already forced themselves to 'forget' who had carried the various tasks to completion.

My life is Obscurity! Keith managed a grin, I am my father's son then… he died at about my age. Keith looked to the pistol beside him; I guess I'll follow in his footsteps in that regard as well.

I wish… I would have never joined the Force in the first place! After all, what did it lead to? A life of shadows and murder in the name of national security. A laughable concept in the first place! If the People only realized how monstrous and overreaching their government has become! If they could only see how many "distasteful" acts are carried out by good old "Uncle Sam" on a daily basis!

Keith felt his stomach turn as the realization hit him full force. Every time he had pulled that trigger, he knew that he was ending a life, a life that "had" to be extinguished to "protect" the People. A part of him had always known how evil what he was doing really was, but they were just people, the planet is overpopulated as it is… now he could feel something new, or old, Keith honestly could not remember feeling this before:

Empathy.

How many of them had had a family? How many of them had friends, a loving wife, or halfway decent parents who were also hurt when he had pulled that damned trigger… how many children had to grow up without a fathers love?

Keith could only imagine how these people felt, the pain they faced as they laid a loved one whose life had been unjustly ended to rest. A pain multiplied just that much more for the families of the ones who "disappeared." Keith did not even want to fathom what it was like; always hoping that the loved one would be found, that daddy would come home. But inside, knowing that there really was no hope, that daddy was gone. No explanation, just gone!

Never! I'll never go back to that life!

There was only one escape. Thomas was a fool to think that running away would help him, all it did was sign his death warrant that much quicker. Even now, crews of agents, many more then the two bumbling idiots Keith had sent, were searching the man out. And there would be no prompting for an explanation when they found him. Thomas J. Richards was a dead man. That much was guaranteed. Maybe not today, probably not tomorrow, but someday he would drop his guard, wherever he had gone, and it would be his last mistake.

Once you are in 'the agency' this deep, Keith knew, the only way out is death. On duty, or as the victim of an interagency "cleanup". Keith smiled as he thought of the old man. Good luck, TJ. In the end, you are a braver man then I.

His smile still intact, Keith reached for the gun beside him and pulled the slide back, engaging a live round in the chamber.

If I were a stronger man, I would go back to Washington and fight the corruption… too bad… it's not my problem anyway…

A cold wind blew through the trees, kicking up what few leaves there were that littered the ground in this evergreen forest. The evening was turning into a peaceful night, and cold. A beautiful, almost full moon rose to a spot where its light cast a silvery glow over Keith's forest clearing, picking up a slight reflection of a tear in his eye, and the glint of polished gunmetal as he brought the gun up to his temple.

A single shot echoed through the night. Then… silence.

Keith sat on his log with the smoking muzzle of the gun pointed off past his forehead.

I am a stronger man, and this is my problem! I thought I was just like you, dad. But I'm not. I know I can fix my mistakes!