Now

The Island

The whole comp was up and out, their slumber interrupted by the yells of Forrest Gump Jr., at last revealed to be the League's agent within the opposition. Within five minutes, the turncoat was under guard, and the four Captains were on the spot to officiate. Priest's tent had been seized by Sayid and Barnes, where they set to work interrogating Gump, in the most violent sense of the word.

In the medical tent, Priest's wounds were being tended to by Doctor Robert while Mona and O'Brien looked on and listened as Priest explained everything.

"Nemo thought that the League's operative would try and take out MacGuffin, or Talbot or whoever the fuck that guy is. Nemo also figured that would be the best chance at flushing him out. So, he has MacGuffin brought to the tent next to mine, leading the mole to think that to take MacGuffin out, he'd have to eliminate me first, since I wasn't the guy you wanted next door while you were carrying out an assassination. The plan was that I would take out the guy as soon as he tried to go after me."

"And why didn't you?" asked Mona.

"Because... Ow! Oy, watch it!"

"Shut it, you big baby." said Doctor Robert.

"Prick. Anyway, the guy was better than I thought, plus he had a gun and nigh-vision. Luckily, Nemo did his prep, he kept a dossier on me laying around in his office, a fake one, it was less than accurate in listing my weaknesses. It said that I could be killed by a stake through the heart, which isn't true, not unless it was made of silver."

"And the fight on the beach, with Aisha?"

"Did you notice how I got my ass handed kicked? I took a dive, so that I would look un-intimidating to whoever the Agent was, so that they'd hurry up and attack me already. Of course, Aisha beat a few more shades of shit out of me than I had initially bargained for. Damn, that girl can hit!"

"So, she was in on it?"

"No."

"Then...You really did grab her ass?" asked O'Brien.

"Well, I had to, didn't I?"

Mason and Barbossa listened to the blunt sounds of battery and torture as Barnes and Sayid had their way with Gump.

"Do you think he'll talk?" asked Barbossa.

"Everyone talks." said Mason as he smoked his pipe.

"You didn't."

"Well, I'm a hard case. And I wasn't in the kind of shoes he's in right now."

One and a half days Later

"He's a special agent with the Gotham branch of the League," explained Barnes to Jenny and the four Captains, while Sayid stood at his side, wiping the blood from his hands, "He was recruited in M.I.T. years ago, they trained him and covered up his history, so that it looked like nothing had happened. They then let him loose, so that he could establish a reputation as a noted computer cracker, at the same time he caught up with Will Hunting, whom he knew since college, to get his foot in the door. It took a few months until we recruited him, the rest is history. Gump did some sabotage, tipped the league off every time he got knowledge of a significant operation."

"We recruited him over a year ago, how is it that nothing had ever happened?" asked Mason.

"The League wanted the four of you, so that the opposition would be rid of for good. He never got all the intel they needed at the same time, so they just waited."

"How?" asked Barbossa.

"Gump and Hunting provided system-support for the intelligence wing," explained Sayid, "He planted software in their computers that would intercept certain messages and communiqués and store them in a hidden directory within the computer system."

"Exactly." said Barnes.

"That's how they must have found the Gotham cell that came before Sax and Priest." said Mason.

"And the Korean cell, both which communicate with the Yellow Submarine." said Nemo, "I'll have to reboot my systems."

"Are we certain that he's the only one?" asked Raimus.

"We're as certain as we can get." said Sayid, "The only reason the League has attacked now is that they learned we were close to locating MacGuffin. They needed to shut us down instantly, so they had to risk failure and wasting years of undercover work."

"What's he doing now?"

"He's with Priest and Lucy. She's reading him."

"Did he tell you exactly how he managed to find what we were looking for?" asked Nemo.

"Yes, he did." said Barnes, "He said that Sands gathered them all one day and told them what to look for."

"That's impossible!" said Nemo as he got up and walked out of Barbossa's tent. The other six followed him.

"Why is that impossible, Hector?" asked Jenny.

"Because Sands only told his people to look for MacGuffin only after he knew that the League knew that we were after MacGuffin." explained Barbossa, "We knew that the League had twigged when he found out about the death of Tom Vercetti, one in the line of people that Mister Sax and Miss Priest had questioned in pursuing MacGuffin. The assassination was the work of a professional, using a weapon that the League uses when resorting to such urban assassinations."

"What is it?" asked Priest as he stood crossing his arms on his chest that was healed by now, While Lucy leaned over Gump, who sat battered, bloodied, bruised and bound to the chair that he sat on, his head hanging limply on his chest.

"It's amazing," said Lucy, "Unlike Talbot, he doesn't have a psychic barrier, but some kind of psychic repellent."

"What do you mean?"

"It's like... I can read him if I want, but when I'm around him I feel... uncompelled, and slightly distorted. Come to think of it, I don't remember reading him before."

"What about now?"

"I can read him, he's told Robert and Sayid the truth... He feels angry, he craves vengeance... He doesn't like you very much."

"I'm not too crazy about it, either." growled Priest.

Nemo, Raimus, Mason and Barbossa walked in.

"He's telling the truth, Nemo." said Lucy.

"Good," said Nemo, "Now get out, both of you."

The two of them obeyed the rather rude request and got out, where a crowd had gathered. Mona, Gaum-Ja, Shaun, Costas, the Cairo cell, the saints, Dr. Robert, Sgt. Pepper, Eel O'Brien and a few others.

Inside, the four captain encircled Gump.

"Get up." said Barbossa.

Gump's head remained limply hanging, so Barbossa pulled it up by the hair and gave him a slap that woke him up.

"Oh fuck... Just shoot me and get it over with." said Gump with an extremely tired voice, raw from screaming, distorted from missing teeth and a bruised tongue.

"How did you learn we were seeking MacGuffin?" asked Mason.

"Sands told us. Got us all in his apartment, the intelligencers... made a big speech about that being the moment of truth and shit. Told us to dig up all we could on a Cayman islands bank account, the name Oliver Warren and cross-reference everything with the name MacGuffin."

"Sands wouldn't tell you anything about MacGuffin unless he knew the League already knew." said Nemo.

"They didn't. Sands fucked up."

"No, they killed a man who had aided MacGuffin, shortly after we had questioned him. They knew we were getting close and so ordered a strike."

"I don't know what you're talking about, but that's the way it went down."

The four captains exchanged a look.

"Forrest Gump, you have betrayed us." said Raimus, "Thirty of our men are now dead, not to mention an innocent woman who was not in anyway associated with the opposition. The punishment for your treachery is death."

"Oh, cry me a river, Ivan!" scoffed Gump, "All of you can go to hell. I might have spilled my guts, I might be a dead man, but that still doesn't mean you've accomplished anything. What have the four of you, or any of the men and women you have in your hire ever did to make this world a better place, huh?

"Judas Priest, that asshole in your employ has killed three of his superiors and amputated an Intelligence agent's leg in Vietnam! That's why the hell he went AWOL! The Iraqi guy that broke my fingers tortured dozens upon dozens of Shiite civilians when he was with the national guard! How about you, Barbossa? What kind of shit did you get up to in your pirating days? How many towns have you pillaged, how many women have you raped? Are you trying to tell me that any of you are better than us?"

"Yes," said Mason, "We are. In our fight against you, we have never harmed the innocent to pursue our own goals! The League can not make the same claim."

"Big whoop." said Gump, the ferocity of his voice rekindled by his rage, "So the League murders a thousand, but it does so so that a million others will go to sleep a week later with something in their bellies. The League will create a civil war to weed out the hard-cases and the extremists so that a country has a chance at lasting for another decade or two..."

"It is not up to the League to use such unquestionably devious methods!"

"Yes it is, Nemo. Face it, you four, Mankind are weak, greedy and barbarous by nature, they need someone to give them a kick in the pants once in a while, so that they don't burn the whole world down. So that there will be no more Big Brothers or Adenoid Hynkels.

"The four of you can run all around the world, playing with your little submarines and little cells, playing war against the League. You can't win. There are less than three-hundred of you, including the crews of the three submarines, but the League numbers over a million, they control everyone else with power. Even if by some fantastical way you manage to win, all you will have succeeded in doing is putting a stop to the only thing in this world that still does a damn for mankind."

"Mister Almasry," called Raimus, "You are needed."

"Go ahead, let your button man shoot me." said Gump with a stiff upper lip, "I'll go to my maker with a clear conscience. I will leave you to your doomed, petty vendetta."

"You're going to hell." said Nemo as Almasry, the elderly Egyptian assassin entered.

"Don't worry, Captain. I'll be sure to give the Devil your thank-."

Almasry shot Gump in the chest, the chair and the body fell backward. Gump was dead.

Hearing the gunshot, the crowd outside shuddered. Hunting walked away from the crowd toward his own tent, angrily mumbling to himself. As Almasry and the four Captains walked out, two crewmen from the Black Pearl got in to remove the body. The surrounding crowd parted to make way for the four.

"Nemo." said Priest, but got no one's attention.

"There's someone else." said Nemo, "Someone else on this island is a traitor."

"Lucy read everybody-" said Barbossa before he was interrupted.

"She read everybody, but some could not be read, just like Talbot. One of them is a traitor."

"Nemo, calm down."

"Someone told the League we were looking for MacGuffin before Gump did." said Nemo loudly, "That's how they killed Tom Vercetti before Gump learned. I want that person found!"

"Nemo." said Priest.

"You don't believe what he said, do you?" asked Barbossa.

"He told us everything! Why would he lie?"

"To mess with your head."

"Jack, I don't..."

"Nemo." said Priest for a third time, loudly and firmly.

"Priest, can't this wait?" Nemo barked.

"No, it can't." said Priest, "There's something you have to know."

"What is it?"

Priest hesitated for a second.

"There was no one else," he said, "And if there is, then they weren't the ones who told the League about Vercetti."

"How do you know that?" asked Raimus.

"Because it wasn't the League that killed Vercetti." said Priest, "It was me. I killed Vercetti."

A cold, stunned, silence befell them. Nemo's dark eyes glimmered as he looked upon Priest, who scowled as he hung his head, at a loss for words.

"You...You killed him?" asked Nemo in disbelief.

"Yeah."

"Thirty-one people are dead, because the League knew we were about to capture MacGuffin. The League knew that because Sands told their agent. Sands did so because eh thought the League knew."

"Nemo.."

"Sands made that assumption only after learning that Vercetti had been killed, in a manner fitting that of the League."

"Nemo, don't loose your calm." said Mason quietly.

"Priest, thirty-one people are dead, because of you!"

Priest raised a hand, ostensibly to scratch his forehead but meaning to avoid Nemo's eyes.

"I'm...I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" asked Nemo with disbelief.

Raimus put a hand on Nemo's shoulder.

"Nemo, don't do anything you'll..."

Faster than anyone can notice, Nemo reached into Raimus's coat, where he knew Raimus kept a holstered gun. He pulled the pistol out and aimed it.

All eyes widened in the second before Nemo pulled the trigger. None was more surprised than Priest himself.

The shot was fired, and Priest fell to the ground, blood pouring from a hole in his throat.

The infiltrator may have been denounced and disposed of, but with this new revelation, life on the island isn't going to get any more relaxed.

Next Chapter: Everybody hates Judas. Shaun signs up for a new class.