—Don’t stop!

—Apologies. I was distracted by the gas approaching your shoe.

—Oh my God!

—Perhaps we could continue our conversation on this desk, once we liberate it from all its…Dr. Franklin, you are trembling like a leaf.

—We’re gonna die, aren’t we?

—We were always going to die, Dr. Franklin. Would it be terribly inappropriate if I placed my arm on your shoulder? There. Where was I?

—You were dead.

—Oh yes. My body was never found. I watched my own funeral from a distance. Having so few people attend made giving up my former life that much easier.

—How did you end up working for…? You never told me who you work for.

—I was not entirely sure myself, but it soon became clear I worked for the senator. He had his own private agenda and I was to help him advance it in any way that I could. My bank card gave me access to a CIA slush fund the senator had tapped into. He told me to find a quiet place to stay. I chose the small town in Northern Virginia where my wife was born. It took almost a year before I heard from him again. Several of the rebuilding contracts he had helped secure after the Iraqi Kurdish Civil War were getting some unwanted attention from the Defense Contract Audit Agency. He wanted me to “convince” the DCAA to look the other way. I refused, of course, but it was made abundantly clear to me that I did not have a say in the matter.

—What did you do?

—I bought a better suit. Then I met with the director of the DCAA.

—You just sat down with him.

—I thought I could persuade him.

—And?

—My powers of persuasion were not all that I thought them to be. He had me arrested, by the FBI this time.

—Was the senator able to get you out again?

—Indeed, he was. The director of the FBI came to see me personally. He took me out for a walk and asked if he could be of assistance. I told him I could use his help with the DCAA. The next day, the DCAA director was caught in some prostitution scandal and had to resign. After that, people in law enforcement and the intelligence community seemed to know who I was. I tried to find out what had happened at the FBI several times, to no avail. Years later, I was told that the director of the FBI received a call from the Oval Office saying that I worked for “an organization that has the best interests of the United States at heart.” I have heard it worded in various ways, but that is the one I like the most.

—I assume you don’t work for that senator anymore.

—Oh no. He died not long after that. Bone cancer.

—So who do you work for now if it’s not him?

—Well, he was the only person who really knew anything about me. I had no name, a growing reputation in the intelligence community. I had a bank card. I traveled for a few months, then it occurred to me that, perhaps, I was in a unique position to effect some positive change in the world.

—It can’t be just you. Are you telling me there’s no secret worldwide organization pulling strings all over the world?

—I can tell you that if such an organization does exist, I have never heard of it. I certainly never worked for one. Over the years, I have made numerous connections all over the world, and the means at my disposal are considerably greater now than they once were, but I do not work for anyone, if that is what you are asking. I am what you would call…self-employed.

—I’m…That’s insane! And it works? People believe you?

—Why would they not? I have what they want most.

—What’s that?

—I offer tranquility of the mind. People choose to believe I am part of a greater entity because it lets everyone sleep better at night. The world we live in is terrifying. There is war, global warming, disease, poverty, terrorism. People are scared. Everyone is. That is especially true of powerful people. They are scared of the world and the part they play in it. They are petrified, paralyzed by responsibility, unable to choose for fear of making the wrong choice. I offer exoneration, peace of mind. I peddle God in the form of an all-knowing, all-powerful global institution that will right every wrong and keep the world safe.

—Why this project?

—Ah! In 1999, an incident on an archeological site in Turkey was brought to my attention. Evidence found onsite, though inconclusive, led me to believe that technologically advanced beings might have been present in the area several millennia ago.

—You knew? Who else was aware of this?

—I knew nothing. I suspected. When the NSA granted funding to your research project in Chicago, I became aware of your childhood discovery and I immediately took an interest.

More than anything, I saw this project as a potential legacy. What I do, it is…It takes a particular mindset. It is not unlike law enforcement in that regard. I started out thinking I could remove the bad from the world one piece at a time until there was none left. The world, unfortunately, does not work that way. Perhaps it needs a certain equilibrium to function properly. Whatever the reason, it soon became obvious that what I had set out to do was very much like digging a hole in the mud. Remove a bad man from power, and a year later the person you put in his place is just as corrupt. If a policeman stops a drunken man from beating on his wife, what are the odds he will never have to go back? Can he really prevent anything, or is he just delaying the inevitable? I came to realize that good and evil were out of my reach, that time was the only thing I had any control over. I could buy time, create intervals. I could not truly make the world a better place, but I could make part of it a better place for a short while. I came to peace with that. Some cannot. As I said, it takes a particular mindset.

But as you grow older, you realize there will come a time you cannot keep digging, and the idea that your hole in the mud will fill itself completely, as if you never existed, becomes harder to bear. Permanence is the Holy Grail in my line of work. I saw this as an opportunity to leave a mark.

—If you could go back in time—

—Perhaps I could.

—That’s true. Do you wish things had been different?

—Besides the world coming to an end?

—That’s not what I meant. Would you rather have lived a…normal life?

—I wish my son had never died. I wish my wife were still here. If I could not change that, I would probably choose the same path. It has not always been easy, but overall, I believe I have done more good than harm.