Washington DC – September 2005
The file lies closed on the coffee table. Neither of them reach open it. The reality of the situation is that they know what they will find. And neither of them is ready to face the consequences of knowing. You can never unknow something once you know it. Sure, small facts can get lost in the sea of memory, but never life-altering ones. Whatever sits in the thick manila envelope will be life-altering information. It takes a certain amount of courage to start an investigation like this one. It requires so much more to finish it. Elizabeth isn't sure she has it in her anymore. There's a new kind of caution that exists inside her now. Her father had always told her, Euclid, knowledge is power. But her life experience has taught her that power is fleeting and knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially when you know something that a dangerous person doesn't want you to know.
"Where did you say this came from?" Elizabeth asks again. She wants all of her facts to be straight. She wants to ensure that the man who had given George this information wasn't playing him. She's been played enough for a lifetime. Her shoulder throbs (it always does anymore), and she bites down on the ibuprofen in her mouth, releasing the sick medicine taste, trying to put off the inevitable Percocet.
"I didn't. And I'm not." George says. It's the only response he has. He won't give her any more than that. It's safer that way for everyone involved. He had been approached by an informant he had in Nicaragua about the information in this file. "I do trust its authenticity." He says.
"I need to know, George. How am I supposed to trust you if you don't even tell me who the informant is." Elizabeth tries a different tactic. She's tired. She's so tired of fighting. So tired of not trusting anyone. And the thought of finally knowing the truth is almost enough to push her through the fear and anger. Almost. But she stays on the edge of that cliff. She is the queen of holding her ground.
"You don't. You're not supposed to trust anyone." He reminds her of the CIA motto. Trust no one. She's never been very good at that. Trust is something people have had to earn with her, yes, but so rarely has that trust earned been broken. Unless she was betrayed in the way she fears happened. In which case, she may never trust anyone again.
"You're a jerk," Elizabeth sighs.
"Bess. If we are going to do this, we have to play it smart. We have to keep our cards close. And we can't let our emotions get in the way." He says. His voice is a bit harsher than it should be, but it's not cold. He understands her wanting to know where the file came from, but if Conrad is responsible for this, he doesn't want his informant or his family killed.
"Our emotions? Right?" She sniffles as she feels a fresh wave of tears trying to wash over her. "You're not the one this happened to! I am. I'm the one who was chained up and beaten and starved and raped and tortured and held in a cage." Her hand slaps the coffee table hard enough that the file flutters.
"Hey," George says. "Hey. Stop." He can see the anger in her eyes. They are pure fire in a way he's never seen before. She's mad. Furious. He has a feeling that this is a good thing. He wants to hear her rage. He wants to know how angry she is. He can use her rage. It's better than her lying for hours on end in his guest room, staring at the wall. "It's okay. You're allowed to feel this."
"I'm tired of being angry." She admits, "I'm just... I'm just so tired." She doesn't realize the weight of the statement until the words leave her lips. She misses feeling alive. She misses laughing. She misses dancing. She misses the rush of adrenaline she used to get during a long run. She misses reading her kids bedtime stories and making them laugh with funny voices. She misses the way Henry used to hold her. She misses feeling safe and loved. And human. She's tired of being a ghost.
"I know you are," George says. He wants to help her. He knows there isn't much he can do. She keeps refusing therapy. She has to be willing to do the work. All he can do is offer her a space to try to recover—a place to try and find herself again.
Elizabeth is the one to bite the bullet and grab the envelope. Her hands tremble. She's afraid of what could be inside. And she doesn't like not knowing where it came from. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. She pulls at the seal and rips open the envelope. She pulls out the contents. Two thick files that, by the looks of it, are from the eighties and one much newer and thinner file. She opens the first old one.
"Operation Brown Phantom," She reads aloud, "I've never heard of it."
"Me neither."
"There is no brief. No objective." She flips through the papers, and her stomach turns. They're photos. Photos of villages destroyed and decimated. "Oh my god," she breathes. She flips to the next page. More photos. But these are bodies. Children and women. Innocents.
"This... this wasn't us. This is... this is a massacre. This isn't us." Elizabeth doesn't know why she is trying to defend the US government. Maybe because she doesn't want to believe they are capable of such horrors. George takes the file out of her, shaking hands. He examines the photos for himself.
"This... is not good," he says. He flips through the pages and finds the last page. "Agent in Charge redacted Code Name Moros, 1985."
"Moros, the Greek god of doom," Elizabeth whispers. It's a fitting codename for whoever sanctioned this. She picks up the second older file.
"Operation Bronze Hammer, 1987." She says. She opens the file and sees a face. A face that makes her whole body feel like it's being stabbed with needles. Her captor's young face stares back at her. Her mouth goes dry, and she feels sick. Her breath catches in her throat. "G-G-George." She gasps.
"Bess," he says, reaching for the file. But she doesn't move. Her eyes are wide and glazed. She can't breathe. Her chest is heaving. Her brain assaults her with memories of her torture. She hears her screams echoing through her head.
"Bess, hey," George says louder, taking the file out of her hands. He tosses it back on the table and reaches out for her, but she's lost in her mind. She stares straight ahead, unmoving. Her eyes are glazed over as if she's looking through him and into another time. A time he knows she would do anything to forget.
"Elizabeth." He calls her name, hoping it will bring her back to him. It doesn't. "Bess, come on, look at me." He gently touches her shoulder. Her eyes snap to his, and she sucks in a deep, shuddering breath.
"That's him." She whispers, her voice a hoarse croak. "George, that's him."
George picks up the file. He studies the photo she had been looking at. In 1987, the man was young. His smile was half-hearted, and his eyes were stone-cold. He's holding a rifle and looks a little too cocky. There's nothing in his file, just his photo and a code name: el diablo salvaje. George flips through the rest of the pages and finds one marked classified. It has a list of names and addresses, all in Bolivia.
"This one was run by Moros, too. And just so I'm clear when you said it's him, you meant the man that took you, correct?" George asks. He wants her to focus. He wants her to know she's safe. He doesn't want her to get lost in the pain again. He knows that it's hard for her, but he needs her to confirm the details.
"Yeah, George, that's him." Elizabeth swallows hard. She wants to scream. She wants to rip the picture apart. She wants to go back in time to before she knew what his face looked like, back to when she knew what happiness felt like.
"And the other file," George asks, picking it up. He doesn't open it. He doesn't want to make her look at her captor's face again. "Operation Liquidate Bluebird, 2004," He reads aloud. He's not surprised to find a photo of Elizabeth when he opens the file. Bluebird was her codename. He skims the pages and finds more photos. Photos of the house, her car, and the children. Her address. Everything. He sees a series of payments made to one of the best forgers in the country and the documents he made, including a DNA report—the DNA report that confirmed Elizabeth's death. The last page is stamped top secret. George flips the page. Agent in Charge: Redacted; Code Name: Moros.
"Moros, again," George says. He looks up at her, "Moros is the person that had you captured." He watches her closely. She nods her head. Her eyes are focused on the coffee table.
"Okay, so I hate to say this... The only person I know who has been at the Agency that long is Conrad. The codename for the op is the same as the one that was on the brown phantom and the bronze hammer. It's not a stretch to think that those are his operations." She trails off. The truth plays in her mind. She was set up by Conrad Dalton—her friend and mentor. Moros, the god of doom, is Conrad Dalton. Conrad Dalton worked with El Diablo Salvaje, the wild devil. She feels a tear roll down her cheek, and she doesn't try to hide it. She had read Dante in college. After she met Henry. Dante had reserved his final circle of hell for the sin of betrayal. Elizabeth thinks this is fitting; nothing quite hurts like betrayal.
"So what do we do now?" She asks, wiping away her tears. She doesn't want to cry anymore. She wants justice.
"Well, I think we need a plan," George says. He knows the two of them versus the Director of the CIA will land them both in the ground. He's not sure there's a way to do this without getting caught, but he has to try.
"A plan." Elizabeth laughs. It's a humorless sound.
"Yes, Bess. A plan."
…X…X…X…
Elizabeth chews on a Percocet while she adjusts the wire on her bra. The pain in her shoulder is constant, but today, it's worse. She's nervous. This meeting could go in so many directions. And the fact that Conrad had her taken makes her feel sick. But she has to get through this. She has to do this. Conrad had been the one to call the meeting. She and George had argued over whether or not she would go.
Ultimately, she decided it would be more dangerous for her not to go. Conrad would grow suspicious. Elizabeth is pretty sure he is already. He has not spoken to her at all since she was brought back. Not once. But she knows the Agency. If she doesn't show, he will know something is up. So she agreed to the meeting, and now here she is, wearing a wire and getting ready to have coffee with a traitor.
"You can't see it, right?" She asks George, walking out into the living room of the apartment they now share. She's wearing a navy suit. She looks like the Elizabeth McCord the world once knew. Only she's not the same. Not really. She's not sure if she ever will be.
"No. You can't." He assures.
"And you can hear me?" She needs the confirmation. She doesn't want to trust anybody with her life anymore, but, given the circumstances, she doesn't have a choice. She has to trust that George won't let anything happen to her.
"Yeah, crystal clear," George tells her.
"Okay." She takes a deep breath and swallows the medicine powder that was left under her tongue. She doesn't admit that she enjoys the feeling. Letting it dissolve under her tongue had been an accidental discovery. She likes the way the drugs dull the pain and make the world fuzzy. The more she's able to forget, the easier her life becomes. She wishes most days that her feelings didn't exist. Sometimes, she wonders if this is the true purpose of the pills. The physical pain never goes away, not really. But the mental pain can give way to numbness. That is the goal, she supposes.
"Elizabeth, are you sure you can do this?" George asks. He wants to give her an out, just in case she needs one. He doesn't want her to force herself to go through with this.
"Yeah, of course," she says, "I've got this."
"If you need an extraction, just say the word. Okay? I will get you out of there." George tells her. She smiles and nods. The fact that he has her back helps—a lot.
"Thanks, George." She says.
…X…X…X…
She's shaking on her way into the backroom of the coffee shop. Well, it's not really a coffee shop so much as a CIA front. It's the same one she had used in the past. She tries not to think about her previous trips here. Instead, she thinks about her meeting. Her shoulder is throbbing as if it's telling her she's in danger. She ignores it. She has to.
"Conrad," she says, sitting down at the table across from her old friend and mentor. He doesn't smile at her. His eyes are cold.
"We're in quite the predicament, Bess." He says.
"What do you mean?" She asks, playing the innocent. She doesn't want him to know what she knows. She's afraid of what he will do.
"Well, for starters, you're supposed to be dead." He smiles coldly, and she swallows.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're a dead woman, Elizabeth. It's only a matter of time before someone finds out you're still alive. And that's going to raise questions. And well, I can't have that." He shrugs his shoulders.
"Can't have what?" Elizabeth asks, "Are you threatening me, Conrad?"
"No. No, not at all, Elizabeth. I'm not threatening you. That would imply that I wanted you to suffer. I don't want that. I want you gone."
"Gone." She repeats. She doesn't like that word. In a sense, she's already gone. She died in 2004. He reaches into his jacket pocket, and she holds her breath. Her look of abject terror causes him to chuckle. He slides an envelope over to her.
"New ID, social security card, birth certificate, Health Insurance, and bank account. You have two hundred thousand dollars to get you started, Lisa." He tells her. The new name, the money, the new identity. She feels her heartbreak. This is his version of a threat. A bullet would be easier than this.
"Why are you doing this?" She hates that her voice betrays her. Her anger is there, and her hurt is apparent. Conrad doesn't seem to notice. Or he doesn't care.
"You are a liability. You can't be here. I know you're hiding in plain sight, and I need you to go. Elizabeth McCord is dead. She will stay that way. Bess, I told you. Henry doesn't want you home. He's moved on. Your children are fine. You being here is an unnecessary risk. You were an important part of my life, and I will miss you, but your work is done." Conrad doesn't even blink when he gives her the orders.
"I don't believe you. Henry leaves flowers on my grave." She doesn't mean to say it, but she does.
"Bess, I will kill your children." Conrad goes straight for the most extreme threat. She doesn't doubt his capability. She knows how easy it would be for him to send someone after her babies. She doesn't understand how she misread him for so long.
"You wouldn't." She scoffs, but the reality is he would. She's not sure what's left to lose. She's already lost everything. She has no power. She is a ghost—a ghost of his making. "Why did you do this to me?" She can't resist the question. She wants to understand how this man could do such a thing.
"I needed to." He says, standing. "Goodbye, Ms. Aldin."
"You're a monster." Elizabeth doesn't have time to regret the words because Conrad moves with lightning speed. She's stunned when his hand connects with her face, and her body is flung from the chair, landing on her bad shoulder. She can't breathe. For a second, the man standing over her is not Conrad Dalton, Director of the CIA. It's her captor. Her breathing is erratic. She closes her eyes.
"Do not fuck with me, Elizabeth. You won't win. I suggest you get on the first plane you can out of DC." His voice is cold as he towers over her. "I want you gone." He says, and then he walks away. She can't move. She lays on the floor, gasping for air. She doesn't know for how long, but then George is there.
"Elizabeth."
"Did you get it?" She asks, her voice cracking.
"Yeah. We got it. It's on tape." George tells her. He wants to help her, but she flinches when he reaches for her. "It's okay." He says, holding out his hand for her to take when she's ready.
"Take me home," Elizabeth whispers. She stands and takes his hand. George doesn't say anything as he guides her out the door.
…X…X…X…
Elizabeth pops two more Percocets and swallows. The bruise on her face is turning a shade of purple. Her body aches from being thrown on the floor. Her brain is in overdrive, and her thoughts are scattered. She doesn't know her next move. She can go public. That would be the only thing that offers her even a little protection from him. The best way to keep her kids safe from him is to take him down. And the best way to do that is by going public with everything.
George has already made copies of the files and audio from today. He's taken them to a safety deposit box. She has copies, too, just in case. They have copies of everything. And they have the tape from today. But she can't go public without her family knowing she is alive. She can't put her children through that. Henry either. She needs to see them first. She needs to let them know that she's okay. Then, she can go public.
