They planned it over three weeks in November.
Rick scouted the CIA's temporary headquarters in Foggy Bottom—a cluster of repurposed office buildings that would eventually be replaced by the Langley campus. Security was tighter than OSS had been, but not insurmountable. Multiple entry points, rotating guard schedules, areas where contractors came and went without extensive oversight.
Webb handled surveillance, sober for the first time in months. He mapped guard patterns, shift changes, the small windows of opportunity when attention would be elsewhere. His hands still shook sometimes, but his mind was sharp again, the professional investigator emerging from the alcoholic haze.
David analyzed everything from his sickbed. He'd been hospitalized twice in November—chest pains, arrhythmia, signs that his heart was failing faster than the doctors had predicted. But between hospital visits, he reviewed Rick and Webb's reconnaissance, found the patterns, identified the approach.
"Social engineering," David said during their final planning session in his apartment. "We're not breaking in. We're walking in as someone who belongs there."
"I'll pose as electrical contractor," Rick said. "After-hours maintenance. Get inside, find Korea desk files, photograph them, leave."
"And if you're caught?" David asked.
"Then I abort. Run if I can. Face arrest if I can't." Rick looked at him. "But this is non-negotiable, David. If it goes wrong, I'm not going to prison. My son needs me alive and free more than he needs me as a martyr in federal custody."
David nodded, but Rick saw the disappointment in his eyes. Morrison would have said damn the consequences, expose truth at any cost. David had inherited that certainty. But Rick was a father now, and that changed the calculation.
Helen knew something was happening. Rick couldn't hide the late-night meetings, the tension, the way he'd started checking windows before speaking in their own home. But she didn't ask for details, and Rick didn't volunteer them. Some knowledge was dangerous to share.
"Will you be safe?" she asked the night before the operation.
"As safe as I can be," Rick said, which wasn't really an answer.
Helen looked at their son, asleep in his crib. "Promise me you'll come home. Whatever you're doing, promise you'll come home to us."
Rick made the promise knowing he might not be able to keep it. But Helen needed to hear it, and he needed to believe it, so the lie served them both.
The operation was scheduled for December 5th. After hours, when skeleton crews staffed the building and contractors doing maintenance wouldn't attract attention. Rick had forged credentials—Webb's work, surprisingly good despite the shaking hands. Mike Stevens, Potomac Electric Company, called in to fix an electrical problem.
David would wait in a car three blocks away. Too weak to be useful inside, but refusing to stay home. Webb would be the getaway driver, sober and ready.
"If this works," David said as they reviewed the plan one final time, "we might actually prevent the war. Imagine that. Not just documenting the conspiracy but actually stopping it."
"And if it doesn't work?" Rick asked.
David smiled that ghost smile. "Then at least I die doing something that matters."
December 5th, 1947. 7 PM.
Rick entered the CIA building wearing contractor coveralls, carrying a tool bag that felt heavier than it should. Inside: actual electrical tools, in case he needed to prove his cover. But also: a Minox camera, the kind used by intelligence agencies. Small enough to hide in a palm, capable of photographing documents quickly.
The lobby security checkpoint was manned by a single guard—young, probably military veteran working security while going to night school. The kind of guard who'd seen hundreds of contractors and didn't question credentials that looked official.
"Name?" the guard asked.
"Mike Stevens, Potomac Electric. Got a call about flickering lights on fourth floor."
The guard consulted a clipboard. Frowned. "Don't have you scheduled."
Rick had prepared for this. "Emergency call came in this afternoon. Building manager said it's urgent. Here's my authorization."
He handed over the forged work order Webb had created. Impressive letterhead, official-looking stamps, everything that would pass casual inspection.
The guard studied it, and Rick felt sweat forming despite the December cold.
Then: "Alright. Sign in here. Fourth floor only. I'll need to escort you."
Shit. The plan hadn't accounted for escort. Rick thought fast.
"No problem. Though I should warn you, might take a couple hours. These old buildings, electrical problems can be tricky to track down. Last place I worked, took me three hours to find a single bad connection."
The guard's expression soured. "Great. Just what I wanted. Overtime babysitting an electrician."
They took the elevator to the fourth floor. Rick carrying his bag, the guard carrying his boredom. The floor was mostly empty—offices dark, only a few lights showing where late-working analysts were still at their desks.
Rick began his performance. Checking electrical panels, testing outlets, examining light fixtures. Making a show of tracing circuits, consulting wiring diagrams, muttering technical jargon. The guard watched for the first fifteen minutes, then gradually lost interest, his attention drifting to the hallway clock that was moving too slowly toward the end of his shift.
By nine PM, Rick had worked his way toward the Korea desk area, still pretending to trace an electrical fault.
"Found the problem," Rick announced. "Junction box in that storage room. Need to replace some wiring. Thirty minutes, tops."
The storage room was adjacent to the Korea desk offices. Perfect position.
"Fine," the guard said. "I'll be in the hallway. Don't steal anything."
Rick entered the storage room, closed the door to a crack, and waited. The guard settled into a chair in the hallway, pulled out a magazine.
Rick's watch showed 9:15 PM. The offices should be empty by now. Just needed the guard's attention to drift a bit more.
At 9:30, Rick slipped out of the storage room and into the Korea desk office area.
Unlocked. Security in 1947 CIA was tighter than it had been, but still relied on physical barriers and guard presence more than locks on every door. The assumption was that unauthorized people couldn't get to the fourth floor in the first place.
Rick found what he needed in the third desk he searched. A file drawer marked "Korea - Classified." Inside: Korea Contingency Planning. Phase 2 Operations. Border Incident Protocols. Everything David had said would be there.
Rick pulled out the Minox camera and began photographing. Each page, carefully positioned, the tiny camera clicking softly. His hands shook slightly—adrenaline, fear, the awareness that he was committing espionage and if caught would spend decades in federal prison.
Page after page. Intelligence assessments showing North Korean aggression. Equipment deployment schedules. Plans for creating border incidents that would justify American intervention. All of it framed as contingency planning, but the intent was clear once you knew what to look for.
Then: voices in the hallway.
Rick froze. Two men approaching, their conversation carrying clearly in the quiet building.
"—Hartley wants the assessment by Monday. Needs to show North Korean aggression is imminent, justify increased aid to South Korea."
"Even though it's not imminent?"
"Doesn't matter if it's true. Matters if it's believable. We create the intelligence that supports the policy, not the other way around."
Rick ducked behind a desk, camera clutched in his sweating palm. The voices were right outside the office now. If they entered, if they saw him—
The door opened. Rick pressed himself against the desk's side, barely breathing.
Footsteps. Someone crossing to a filing cabinet, pulling out a folder. Rick could see shoes—expensive leather, not government issue. Probably one of the political appointees.
"Got it," one voice said. "Let's get out of here. I have dinner reservations at eight-thirty."
"Already past nine, Jim."
"Then I'm very late and my wife is very angry. Come on."
They left. Footsteps receding, voices fading.
Rick waited thirty seconds, then emerged from behind the desk. Finished photographing the remaining documents with hands that now shook so badly he had to brace the camera against the desk.
Done. He had everything.
Rick returned the files to the drawer, checked that nothing looked disturbed, and slipped back into the storage room. Pulled out actual electrical tools and began genuinely replacing wiring in the junction box, creating evidence that he'd been doing legitimate work.
At 10 PM, he emerged and found the guard.
"All fixed. Bad connection in the junction box, just like I thought."
The guard nodded, clearly eager to end his shift. They descended to the lobby together. Rick signed out, handed back his temporary pass, and walked out into the December night.
Three blocks away, David and Webb waited in the car.
"Got it," Rick said, climbing into the back seat. "Everything. Korea planning, border incident protocols, intelligence manipulation strategies. Everything we need."
David's face, gaunt and grey in the streetlight, broke into a smile. "Then it was worth it. We can stop this. We can actually prevent Phase 2."
Webb drove them away from the CIA building, careful to obey every traffic law, doing nothing that would attract attention.
Rick sat in the back seat, camera in his pocket, and tried to believe that this time would be different. That this evidence would matter more than all the evidence that had come before.
But he'd been doing this too long to truly believe it.
They developed the film in Webb's makeshift darkroom—a bathroom in his Philadelphia apartment with blackout curtains and chemical trays. The photographs came out clear. Perfect images of classified documents showing exactly what David had said they'd show.
CIA memos discussing the creation of border incidents to justify intervention in Korea. Intelligence assessments being deliberately crafted to show North Korean aggression that analysts knew wasn't
imminent. Equipment deployment schedules for a conflict planned for 1950-1952.
And most damning: references to "Phase 2" using the exact terminology from the 1944 recording.
"It's perfect," David said, studying the photographs spread across Webb's kitchen table. His hands trembled as he held them up to the light. "This proves everything. They're engineering the war. Creating the conditions. Planning it years in advance."
"But it's all phrased as contingency planning," Rick said. "Scenario analysis. Preparing for potential conflict. Legally defensible even if morally bankrupt."
"We have proof they're engineering war," Webb added, "but it's phrased as preparation for war. How do you prove intent?"
"We publish everything," David said. "Let the public decide. Give them the evidence and let them see the pattern. Korea isn't an accident waiting to happen—it's a war being manufactured. The American people deserve to know that before it starts."
Rick thought about the Congressional hearings. About how the 1944 recording had been dismissed as "classified strategic planning taken out of context." About how every piece of evidence they'd gathered had been explained away or ignored.
But David's eyes held desperate hope, and Rick didn't have the heart to destroy it.
"I'll contact Eleanor Walsh," Rick said.
Eleanor Walsh was seventy-two years old now, her investigative journalism days mostly behind her. But she still had connections, still had editors who trusted her, still had the fire that had driven her to publish the original Prometheus Protocol exposé in 1945.
She met Rick in a diner in Georgetown, her hands spotted with age but steady as she reviewed the photographs.
"Rick," she said finally. "I thought you'd learned. Publishing truth doesn't stop power."
"Last time we published after the conspiracy succeeded. This time we publish before. Give people the chance to prevent it."
"And you think that'll work?" Eleanor's eyes held weary skepticism. "You think people will believe Richard Forsyth, the discredited conspiracy theorist who testified to Congress about a conspiracy they said didn't exist? You think this evidence will matter more than the last evidence?"
"I think it's worth trying. For David." Rick glanced toward the diner's window, where David waited in Webb's car, too weak to make the walk inside. "He's dying, Eleanor. Three months, maybe less. Let him die knowing we tried everything."
Eleanor followed his gaze, saw David's skeletal form in the passenger seat.
"Alright," she said quietly. "I'll publish. I have editors at three newspapers who'll run it if I vouch for authenticity. But don't expect miracles, Rick. The American people are tired. They just want to enjoy peace. They don't want to hear that another war is being engineered."
"They'll care when it starts. When American soldiers are dying in Korea and they remember we warned them."
"Maybe. Or maybe they'll forget we ever said anything, because that's what people do with uncomfortable truths." Eleanor gathered the photographs. "I'll publish it December 22nd. Give people something to think about over Christmas."