The agents saw Desmond as he stepped out of the car. He could see them looking out of the corner of his eye, their heads turned very slightly in his direction, the barrels of their weapons gently elevated as he approached. They may have seen him, but they didn't recognize him, and he didn't recognize them either. It had been more than two years since he had stepped foot on Earth, and in that time his government contacts had atrophied considerably, replaced with new, fresh blood.

he continued to walk forward, and the guards reacted in kind, stiffening up from their lazy stances, weapons pulled up into a low ready, "Stop there." One of them ordered.

"Not any closer." Another said

Behind them, the Fort Harmony gate was sealed shut, and the building behind was a towering structure of glass and whitewashed metal. There was triple security on the building today with president Hunt visiting. There were six guards at the gate in total, four on the ground and two in the guard towers, that was not to mention the electrified fences, DNA locked Turret guns, and he could have continued to list off the specifications, but it would have taken him all day.

He held up his hands, pausing a few yards from the nervous men.

Nervous men were dangerous men, especially when those nervous men had guns. He couldn't blame them of course, any slipup that could potentially result in President Hunt''s death or injury would likely result in immediate termination , so they weren't taking any chances. That was unsurprising after what had been happening In the past few years.

President Kelly had died not seconds after her inauguration, and it was nearly impossible for the GA, to keep their chairwoman's near assassination quiet , not to mention the Martian President, who had been in a sharply declining coma over the past few months as well. There wasn't much hope for his recovery, but no one was willing to let go just yet.

Despite his neural scans showing no signs of activity.

That was at least three major world leaders either dead, or having just avoided death, four if ou counted Adam himself who was now a big player on the political stage, but the man had been the target of attempted assassination since he was nothing more than a lowly captain. If Desmond were to run a statistical analysis that included Captain Vir, the results would have you thinking that attempted assassinations happened to world leaders every other week .

But clearly, Adam was an outlier and should not be counted.

"Its alright, I'm unarmed."

"Good, why don't you take your unarmed self and step back into your car." The soldier said

He sighed, "I work for Hunt, which you would know if you had run a DNA or facial scan on me."

There was a moment's pause and the group looked on rather sheepishly as two of them trudged forward to pat him down, one of them doing the honors while the other kept a gun nearby, if not leveled at him in case he tried anything stupid.

Desmond made no attempts at them, and with a call through the comms, the gate was open, and he was walked inside. A group of guards met him coming through the gate. Desmond acted during the switch, dropping the two small, ball drones down onto the ground.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that was easy of course. These small ball drones were possibly the only thing in the universe that was going to manage what came next, and he only had them because he worked for president Hunt in the first place. Only two of them had ever been handed out, and it was understood that they would be used to assassinate or capture Adam Vir.

If he was back, that should have meant they had already been used.

The two ball drones rolled away, completely unnoticeable against the black pavement as he was pushed up the road and towards UNSC headquarters. He was transferred through at least six other teams, patted down on every occasion, and then put through a full body scanner. None of that was any sort of humiliation in comparison to the cavity search they preformed on him as a last line of defense.

Desmond came out of it feeling that his privacy had been thoroughly violated and now restrained by energy cuffs before he was even allowed into the same building as president Hunt. From there he went through at least two more additional scans, mostly for biological weaponry before he was escorted down a hallway and through a set of triples barred security doors.

The Fort harmony bunker had originally been designed for emergency use , but sometime in the past year it had been refurbished into a suite of rooms and offices with president Hunt as the intended resident. Off to his left he saw a hallway that led into a large, comfortable bedroom, while another door led into a small side office with a big man's desk crammed tightly inside designed to show just how important the owner was.

Before him, the main room had the same general purpose it always did, a command station for presidential security . There was an entire wall of security and surveillance cameras all running DNA scans on anyone who came in range. Smaller computing consoles held analysts who were performing on the fly risk assessments on anyone who passed by.

And then there was President Hunt.

He sat on a big swivel chair in the center of the room, while everyone else was forced to stand. He was surrounded by several directors and secretaries. Despite this being a military base, there were precious few military officials present, and those that were had been crammed into the corners of the room, relegated to the furthest points from the president, and they didn't look happy about it.

They had one four star Admiral standing by the door like she was a secretary waiting politely to e noticed.

The look on her face made it very clear that she was aware of this face, and she did not like it.

Silence fell over the room was he was shoved inside, and the entire group turned to look at him. President Hunt was the first person to recognize him, "Everyone out!"

A chorus of protests was raised, but hunt didn't seem to give a shit about any of them, ordering his security detail to herd the protesters away if they wouldn't go voluntarily. Of course when he meant everyone out, that just meant everyone who was not privy to his dastardly underhanded dealings. Government sanctioned assassinations weren't technically legal. In 1981 two thousand years ago the then American government had set a standard that, little did they know, would be the framework for a worldwide government two thousand years in the future, in the same way that same American government had been based loosely on the Roman Senate and city state construction.

This framework was a small thing, mostly unknown and ignored by people of the day and historians that came after but executive order 12333 had established the precedent that government sanctioned assassinations were morally reprehensible, and would henceforth not be supported as a practice in the intelligence communities (at least not against government opposition leaders or as long as no one was likely to find out about it.)

IN later years this president had been adopted by the UN government when it rose to power. Government leaders were off limits for assassination to maintain diplomatic integrity. It was like a smaller version of mutually assured destruction, as soon as you tried assassinating someone else's world leader, there was nothing stopping them from trying to kill yours , so for a few thousand years everyone agreed to an uneasy truce.

President hunt was breaking that president in a big way, and Desmond was the proof. If anyone were to find out about his existence, it would be a massive blow to the administration.

The room filtered clear of people, and Desmond kept his eyes fixed on Hunt's face as the bodies passed him on either side. He could see the man was thinking along the same lines as him. They were in a delicate situation here. Desmond had all the ability to expose the man, and Hunt had the two reasons Desmond had for never exposing him.

A stalemate.

The door finally shut as the room cleared.

"I didn't expect to see you here, in fact, I specifically told you not to come back here until you had carried out your orders." President hunt was making no attempt at civility. He was a very good actor on paper, and had a creepy way of charming people into doing what he wanted, but he was a snake at heart. You spent long enough with him, and that was clear enough.

Desmond made a face, not bothering to hide his distain, "And I DID carry out my orders."

"Oh is that so?" The man didn't look convinced.

Desmond crossed his arms, 'You seen Admiral Vir on the news lately."

"Not Admiral, he lost that title when he committed Treason." Hunt snapped, "And no, but that hardly means anything. If he was dead it would have been announced by now."

Desmond sighed, "No, they won't, because they all think he's on a special mission to come rescue my family from you."

Hunt frowned, "What."

"Yes, there was a bit of a snag. I admit, but all I had to do was tell them my sob story about how you are holding my daughter and ex hostage in order to force me to kill. It was a good performance; I got a little choked up, and he just lapped it up." Desmond made a face, "He's a father now you know."

Hunt's mouth twisted up in an expression of disdain, "I heard."

"Yeah, you should see the kid, hideous little thing looks like soemthing out of P.T Barnum's circus, but of course he's all warm and fuzzy inside. Thinks he understands me because he would do anything for that thing, he calls a son." Desmond laughed, "Now of course, I couldn't exactly kill them outright. He had the Saint with him, and as ugly as the stupid beetle is, she'd get in the way, so I had to make it look like an infiltration." Demons turned his head to look at some of the men, one of them a tall, dark haired man he recognized as Hunts version of secret police. The man was like a detective but on steroids, and his only job was to make sure that no security threats got to the president, "I believe you have seen some of my work."

The man's mouth pulled into a thin line, "The coffins."

"Caskets actually, and yes, I had to get them in somehow, and I had to make it look like we were outsmarting you. Four of them all together Adam, the beetle, the sexual deviant, and the butch girl with the blonde hair."

Hunt almost looked amused at Desmond's characterization of Adam Vir's crack team of mixed aliens and marines.

Desmond looked off to the side of the room almost like he was bored, "Anyway, I suppose your teams can handle it from here. Dead alive whatever you want, but I did my job, and now you have to make good on your deal."

Hunt leaned one elbow against the side of his chair and examined his fingernails in the way another man might have examined a very interesting looking bug, "Of course, but only after the admiral and his friends are dealt with."

Desmond looked up slowly and watched as hunt got to his feet, "Tell us where he is?"

Desmond gritted his teeth but spoke, "The Fellow In room 1322, on North River rd

"Good, I will get back to you until this is all over, but for now." He nodded to the guards, and Desmond was grabbed roughly by the shoulders and pulled from the room.

He had taken one step out of the door when he skidded to a halt drawing the guards to a stop with him, "Oh, you should know. They've put together an impressive bit of firepower between the four of them. If you are going to go in, I suggest taking all the support you can.

Hunt said nothing, and Desmond was shoved forward, marched through the corridors, walked almost all the way across the compound until he was finally uncuffed and thrown into an energy cell deep within an outer building.

The guard barely looked at him before turning and walking away.

Desmond paused, head tilted and waited for a moment before softly engaging his throat comm. There was a sharp burst of static in his ear as the small ball drones did their work, destroying the radio jammer used around the UNSC compound. . it wasn't likely to be noticed as no one tried to call in or out, and the men o the inside had their own communication equipment independent of the jammer, even so it would be important to finish this all quickly.

"You in?"

"yeah, I'm in." Hold on a second. Desmond lurched forward, hand held awkwardly to his stomach. His body convulsed once, then twice before he opened his mouth and plucked a small ceramic disk from his tongue. He had learned that particular trick from a magician on Arcadia, though he had hoped never to use it.

Being able to regurgitate items at will was not exactly something he would want to demonstrate at a party.

"Knowing the government, I estimate we will have an hour or so to get this to work. Generally I'd give us two hours, but this is about YOU, so Hunt is going to make sure that this goes as quickly as he possibly can. And if I know him, he is going to send everyone. At best we have thirty minutes to get this done once that first truck leaves the front gate.

"Copy that."

Desmond gripped the little circle with thumb and forefinger, slowly pushing it closer to the fizzing energy barrier.

This was not going to be easy, but he kenw he could do it.

If only this once to save his daughter