After laying the groundwork with Beckett at the police station, preparing a trap for Montana Senator Charles Hahn and his lackey Johnson, Castle watched with satisfaction as Beckett quietly went off to organize everything. However, as he sat there reflecting on the details, something didn't quite sit right with him. He started to recall the movie he had seen in his previous life and realized something seemed off.
Castle didn't know that the current situation was the result of two worlds merging, blending the plotlines of Shooter and Red into something strange and mismatched. Over the past couple of days, his excitement at finally stirring up trouble again had distracted him from noticing, but now that he was calmer, he started to recognize the differences. Compared to the movie he remembered, the scenario he was in now wasn't quite the same.
The biggest difference was that, due to Castle's interference, the current situation was no longer just like the plot of the movie he had seen. In the original story, Senator Charles Hahn and Johnson weren't involved in a political battle to kill the vice president. Their goal had been to assassinate a visiting archbishop from Africa, who had been investigating a massacre five years earlier that had claimed over 400 lives. Bob Lee Swagger had retired from the military because he was abandoned by his superiors after providing cover for Johnson's men during that massacre, which resulted in the death of his spotter. The massacre, led by Johnson's men, had been carried out because they wanted to build an oil pipeline through the village's land, and the locals had refused. Afterward, with Bob's unwitting help, they had managed to escape.
Bob had narrowly survived and, after avenging his spotter by killing his commanding officer, had retired. The original story took place in Philadelphia, about 150 kilometers from New York, not in New York itself. And Nick Memphis, the rookie FBI agent who had helped Bob during his wrongful pursuit, hadn't appeared either. The spotter's girlfriend, who played a key role in the original movie, also seemed to be absent from this version of events.
As Castle reflected more deeply on the movie, he realized the situation had changed drastically. Instead of the senator trying to cover up his crimes and protect his interests by killing the archbishop, the focus had shifted to a political battle between Senator Charles Hahn and Vice President Andrew. Castle couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't just a power struggle between the two men. There was a strange sense of familiarity that he couldn't quite place.
That familiarity wasn't a figment of his imagination. What Castle hadn't realized was that the merging of the two worlds had brought together elements from Red and Shooter, which is why this new plot felt so strangely familiar. But Castle wasn't thinking along those lines yet.
While Castle pondered the strange shifts in the plot while sitting in the 12th precinct, Frank Moses, the bald ex-agent, had just arrived in the Florida swamps with Sarah, his newly acquired girlfriend. After disembarking from a powerful speedboat they had stolen from a dock, they met up with an eccentric old man wearing camo and sporting a head of white hair—Frank's former partner, Marvin Boggs.
After a humorous exchange, the three of them made their way to Marvin's safe house, located near his swamp-side villa. The entrance to the safe house was cleverly disguised as the hood of a broken-down car, and Sarah, who had lived a relatively mundane life up until now, was awestruck by the setup.
It was in the cluttered safe house, among the mountains of documents, that Frank finally uncovered the connection between the attack on him and the current vice president, Andrew. Frank recalled that years ago, a team of eleven agents had been sent to South America to extract Andrew, and it seemed that mission had now come back to haunt them.
But who was Frank Moses? He was a top-tier CIA agent, so secretive that even the agency didn't have electronic records on him. After being attacked, there was no way he'd let it slide. He immediately decided to head to New York with Sarah and Marvin, intending to confront Vice President Andrew and "have a little chat." What Frank didn't know was that his moves were playing right into the hands of Senator Charles Hahn and Johnson, who had orchestrated this entire scheme.
Neither of those two schemers, however, had anticipated that the situation would unfold so smoothly only because of the discrepancies in intelligence between the involved parties. Their advantage was temporary, built on incomplete information, and the moment all sides shared the same intelligence, their plans would fall apart. Especially with Castle involved—once he connected all the dots, Senator Hahn might not even survive with his life.
Due to Castle's interference, what had originally been a plot hatched by Congressman Robert Hahn and arms dealer Alexander Dunning had now turned into a conspiracy led by Robert's father, Senator Charles Hahn, who had pulled retired R.E.D. agents Frank Moses and the erratic Marvin Boggs into the fray. The vice president in the original story, who had been innocent, was now replaced by Andrew, a figure involved in both an African massacre and another slaughter in South America.
With his usual omniscient perspective, Castle had already noticed that many things were amiss. However, because Frank was still in Florida with Sarah and hadn't yet arrived in New York, Castle hadn't yet pieced everything together. Only once Frank and his team of retired operatives showed up would Castle be able to connect all the dots.
Regardless of how the pieces fit together, Castle and Beckett were already standing on solid ground. As long as they quickly apprehended Johnson's men after the assassination attempt, those two clowns wouldn't be able to stir up any real trouble. Castle's plan had even received the backing of Moz and Neal, both seasoned schemers themselves. After carefully assessing the strength of all the players involved, they assured Castle that as long as he and Beckett were cloaked in the authority of the NYPD, they were practically invincible in their home turf of New York. Not even the Secret Service or the FBI could interfere with the NYPD, especially when the department had the glory of apprehending the suspects immediately after the incident.
The NYPD was, after all, the most powerful and largest police department in the USA, and once they caught the suspects, they'd be in the driver's seat.
With the stage set, the players on all sides began mobilizing their forces. Soon, the morning of Vice President Andrew's meeting with the African envoy arrived.
Beckett was the first to set out for Times Square, where she took charge of the security arrangements around the venue. Quietly, she also ordered Esposito to lead an elite team of officers, armed with gear donated by Castle, and park two unmarked utility trucks in an alley beneath the building Bob Lee Swagger had chosen, 1,800 meters away from Times Square.
Since they arrived early, no one paid attention to the two trucks. The only person who noticed something was amiss was Bob himself, but he mistakenly assumed they were government agents there to support him—thus creating a beautiful misunderstanding.
Meanwhile, Colonel Johnson, in an effort to distance himself from the operation, had refrained from making any direct contact between his men and Bob. As a result, Esposito's presence, which should have been noticed, was overlooked by both sides.
As Castle was about to leave his house, he unexpectedly received a call from his father, Sean, who was in North Africa. Through that call, Castle learned that Frank Moses, one of his father's trusted R.E.D. agents, had been attacked three nights ago. All signs pointed to a connection between the attack and Vice President Andrew, who was scheduled to make an appearance in New York's Times Square today.
Finally, all the pieces fell into place for Castle. No wonder his system had hinted that this mission's reward would be something special…
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