3 Tower Center Blvd, East Brunswick, New Jersey, 08816. May 15th, 2016.

Working at the Hilton has never been as mundane and exhausting as it was this past night. The constant calls at the front desk, the incessant amount of time spent on my feet (just to name a few) have become redundant as ever. I even had to fire two of my employees, and the thought of having to go through a rigorous hiring process grinds my gears. Kane O’Brien, my name tag read. If only every ounce of my 6’2’’ frame could believe that was who I am. I spent the last several years on the run, and despite my complaints towards my job as it lacked any excitement and thrill whatsoever, I was happy that I finally found peace and solidarity in my life. After a lengthy and tedious shift, I just wanted to go home, eat dinner, and hit the hay. However, on a seemingly uneventful May 15^th night, everything would change, and for the worse, I might add.

I made my way up the last level of the parking garage after clocking out, adamant on returning to my run-of-the-mill apartment off of Route 18 in the comforts of my 2013 Honda Civic, only to encounter a stocky, shady figure walking from the opposite direction.

As I walked past him with my head down towards my Blackberry with my HP laptop bag, the strange man asked in a cockney British accent, “Kane O’Brien? Boy do I have great news for you.”

Taking him for a petty promoter, I said, “Look pal, I’ve had a long day. Do us both a favor and buzz off.”

I proceeded to hurry towards my Civic. Suddenly, I felt a firm, callous hand forcefully grab my shoulder.

“I don’t take too kindly to being brushed off. And I have the means to make you pay dearly for such etiquette, or lack thereof. It’s that simple when you’re in a position of power. Wouldn’t you agree…Colton Donovan?”

I dropped my bag and phone, and subsequently paused. No, not that name. I thought I got rid of “him.” I slowly turned around and saw the man wearing a black suit and tie, Armani dress shoes, and a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses. I immediately threw a sucker-punch with pair of quick-fire jabs and shoved him into a wall as I locked his arms.

“Not in a rush anymore now, are we?” he asked condescendingly. “Call it a hunch, but it looks like your schedule has last minute opening.”

With my hands firmly fastened on his bulky forearms as he faced the wall, I curiously asked, “What do you want?”

A brief, yet tense silence immersed the desolate parking garage.

“Quite the impressive maneuver,” he remarked. “Ex-military? Or say, a former CIA operative?”

He seems to know something about me. He doesn’t seem like a petty thug. My grip loosened as my curiosity intensified.

“Tsk, tsk,” the man sneered. “Weren’t you taught to stay on guard in the face of any situation? You clearly have gotten rusty since your time in the field. I’m disappointed.”

The man struck me with a quick, backwards blow to my abdomen. I tried to counter, but was instantly deadlocked by his hand-to-hand combat skills. Soon I found myself floored by the stranger’s fighting aptitude.

“And I’m just spit-balling here,” he teased while his foot crushed my chest, “but were you perhaps a black ops officer? You know…one who is tasked to carry out covert operations by the United States government abroad?”

This can’t be real, I thought to myself in a state of panic. How does he know who I am, and how was he able to acquire such information?

“It looks like I hit the nail on the head, Hilton Front Desk manager Kane O’Brien,” he chided. “I mean, Officer Colton Donovan. How does it feel knowing that you betrayed your country and everything that you stood for?”

Enraged by his taunts, I escaped from his grasp and attempted to subdue him without any hesitation.

“TELL ME WHO YOU ARE!” I demanded as I proceeded to punch him.

Once more, the strange man was able to counter my maneuvers via long knee and ax stomp as I found myself stunned and slammed to the concrete pavement by his close range competencies. How is he so adept at hand to hand combat? My years of training and field experience shouldn’t succumb to a lousy thug like him, and yet I was overwhelmed by the precision of his maneuvers. Just who in the world is he?

“I’m known by many names, but you can call me Divac”, he said, “and you’d best remember it. There’s a bounty on your head by the U.S. government and the criminal underworld, and while you’ve been able to conceal your original identity from the general public for so long, I’m afraid this charade will have to come to an end. I can easily divulge this information to the U.S. government at any given moment, and will do so. You’ll be ruined. You could be charged for a myriad of things-treason, assault, and manslaughter, just to name a few. It would really be unfortunate if you had to spend the rest of your life behind bars, wouldn’t it?”

I glared angrily at Divac. As much as I wanted to thrash him repeatedly, I knew I was helpless given the situation.

“Maybe you wouldn’t even have to go to prison,” Divac thought aloud. “You may even be penalized by the death sentence, and everything could just end here.”

I could not believe something like this was happening. I always knew there was a risk to returning back to the United States after the atrocities I had committed whilst abroad. And yet, I thought I took all the necessary measures to erase any trace of my original identity, Colton Donovan.

“Look on the bright side,” he chuckled, “There is a way that both of us can end up unscathed and for this all to be water under the bridge.”

“What would that be?” I asked.

“You become my newest hit man,” Divac replied. “You will do my very bidding, and will carry out all assigned tasks. As long as you work for me, your secret will be safe with me.

“Just to make sure you don’t go about causing trouble, you will be tracked at all times by my crew,” he said smiling maliciously, revealing his tobacco stained teeth.

After so long, the fear of having my secret identity surmised has finally reached fruition. I never thought that my past life would come to haunt me. My hands were tied, and at that very moment, I felt there was no choice but to oblige.

“You won’t get away with this,” I snarled.

“Glad to have you on board, Colton,” Divac grinned. “Not that I am giving you much of a choice.”

I got up and wiped the dirt off of my wrinkled Calvin Klein button down as Divac disappeared into the darkness of the night. I was able to leave the Hilton Tower Complex and return to my apartment, but I was already dead inside after tonight.

***

Heliopolis Palace. Cairo, Egypt. January 30^th, 2008.

I was a member of Zephyr, an elite covert black ops arm of the Central Intelligence Agency. We were in charge of spreading American democracy while also being politically active in the affairs of other nations. Reason being, the U.S. government could only operate efficiently in foreign affairs if other countries around the world cooperated with us. Anyone who stood in the way of the goals and interests of the United States were eliminated. Graduating from West Point, I was honored to be in charge of a black ops team as I felt I was making my country. My team and I were stationed on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt preparing for the mission, which was to assassinate the Egyptian President as his radical regime and anti-American policies started to spread to countries throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Our government wanted to end this hostility and transfer the presidential power in Egypt to someone who was pro-American.

At approximately 3:00am, my team and I snuck into the Heliopolis Palace. We headed for the presidential chamber where our target was, making sure to remain undetected in the process. Once we approached our destination, I proceeded to take aim at the Egyptian president. I was about to pull the trigger on my Remington 870, but then I noticed something over the sofa.

“What are you waiting for?” asked the Zephyr superior through my earpiece from Washington, D.C. “Finish the job.”

I peered over to see a young girl with a worried expression on her face, clutching her teddy bear in fear.

“C’mon man, pull the trigger,” Dawson, my second-in-command, whispered. “You’ve done this many times before.”

“Yeah, finish the job so we can return back to base,” another operative added.

It’s true that I have eliminated many of our political enemies in the past. Never once did anything hold me back, nor did I ever feel any regret doing so. However, this time was different. For the first time in my career as a black ops officer, the thought of family ringed through the back of my head. What would happen to this little girl if she saw me taking the life of her father? How will the president’s family ever be the same?

“Donovan,” barked my superior, “eliminate the Egyptian president!

I froze. The thoughts I had about taking the life of the little girl’s father still lingered. Should I do this? Can I live with myself executing these orders? I could not.

“Abort, abort,” I ordered. “Return to base.”

My men looked at me confused.

“We can’t abort,” one of them said. “We have to finish the mission.”

“Donovan!” bellowed my superior. “Pull that trigger or you will be charged with insubordination! Do I make myself clear?”

I slowly removed the contact lens camera from my eye.

“DONOVAN! DONOVAN! DONO-!”

My transmission was cut off from D.C. as I grabbed my ear piece and crushed it with my bare hands. The squadron stared at me in disbelief as I defied orders from our superior for the first time.

“If you won’t finish the job, then I will,” said Dawson as he drew his Mossberg 590A1.

With my eyes closed and in a rush of blood, I pulled out my Remington 870 and opened fire on Dawson and the three other officers accompanying me. I open my eyes to see my four subordinates slain by my hands, and blood splattered on the carpet and walls through my night vision goggles. There was no time to repent, however. The secret service of the Egyptian president was fast approaching, and I had to make my getaway. Barely fitting into the dusty ventilation shaft, I managed to escape as the entire nation of Egypt was awoken by the discovery of four wounded CIA operatives that were promptly arrested in the chambers of the Heliopolis Palace the following morning. They were put on trial and executed the next day by the Egyptian government, and the U.S. government bore their fangs towards me. Although I was able to deactivate the GPS tracker given to me by the CIA, news of my treachery spread vastly throughout the world, and I soon became a fugitive on the United States’ Most Wanted list.

One moment I am serving country, and then another moment I am betraying it. While that is true, I could not help but feel remorse over the number of lives I have taken for the sake of the U.S. government. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters -- they were all put to rest by the pull of my trigger. I began to ache from the sheer, intense burden that propagated my shoulders, and my head begun to spin and my vision became foggy as I tried to regain my senses. Despite my newfound remorse, I knew that the clock was ticking before the Egyptian secret service would show up, so I knew what I had to do. Without being traced, I made it back to my secret quarters in Cairo in one piece. I proceeded to erase all information concerning my existence in this world as I became a wanted fugitive. From this moment, Colton Donovan was dead. My new identity, Kane O’Brien, would be born from the ashes as I traversed the rest of the world trying to lead a normal life. I never wanted to take, or traumatize, the life of another innocent ever again.

After recalling this tragic memory, which Divac threatened to expose, I received a text message on my Blackberry:

225 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10286
United States

Raid the headquarters and transfer $50 billion into the following offshore account: 110819942505.

***

The Bank of New York Mellon headquarters was a cataclysm of mayhem, wreckage, and carnage as the floors of the once impenetrable establishment. The “lucky” ones were those who survived and escaped, but I wouldn’t fancy them to be fortunate at all. While they managed to avoid meeting their ends, these innocents had most likely witnessed the most vicious armed robbery ever executed in front of their eyes. The fear, panic, and trauma that were inflicted into their very beings will live on forever. The unlucky ones were those whose lives came to a premature end at the hands of one ruthless, cold-blooded assassin and his arsenal of high-grade military weaponry. Colton Donovan may be dead on paper and Kane O’Brien may be physically healthy, but the moment I pulled that trigger on my AK-47 inside the Bank of New York Mellon corporate headquarters, it was all over, and there was no turning back. Here I was, once more, betraying everything I stood for.

Explosives that I planted into the building were bound to detonate imminently. Tick, tick, tick. I could hear the several timers throughout the building counting down to the establishment’s destruction. The various explosives and arson I planted into the various sectors of the skyscraper’s interior were just waiting to go off. The atrocities I committed on this day would haunt me for the rest of my life, just like the fateful day in Cairo, Egypt. However, none of that mattered at the moment because the only goals I was hell-bent on accomplishing were escaping undeterred in one piece, transferring the $50 billion into Divac’s account before it was too late, transporting the multitude of cash, goal, and highly-encrypted computer codes to the extraction point as well as. Not even the disgusting odors emanating from the sea of cadavers that pierced my facemask, or the sight of the blood-stained floors, was going to stop me from completing my mission. Failure was not an option, lest I risk Divac unraveling my original identity to the government. The gruesome thoughts of what would happen to me inside the maximum security prison sent shivers down my spine.

Tick. tick. tick. Every second that passed sounded the alarms in my head to put a spring in my step. The NYPD had already infiltrated the lower levels, and I knew time was short. My head started to spin, and I found myself shaking from the adrenaline as I raced up the dark stairwell to the helipad where my Bell UH-Huey chopper was stationed. Upon entering the roof, I was greeted by a brigade of SWAT team officers.

“Resistance is futile!” barked the Lieutenant of the brigade. “We have you completely surrounded!”

I began to back away slowly, and the officers proceeded forward. In one fell swoop, I created a smokescreen using a handful of capsules I kept in the back pocket of my multi-terrain combat suit.

“After him!” the Lieutenant ordered. “Stay on your toes, and make sure he is captured dead or alive! Our ground units are currently making their way up! He has no way of escaping”

As the smoke began to clear after a few short moments, the squadron readied their weapons and took aim. I drew a rocket launcher I concealed under the steely exterior and opened fire. Authoritative casualties-I did not want it to come to this, but there’s too much at stake. I can’t let the police discover my identity, or fail THEM. I rushed past the myriad of slain officers into my Huey, and took off. 5 minutes into my ascent, things appeared to have quieted down as I headed into the sunset towards Boston. In a matter of seconds, BOOM! The explosives finally detonated, with the resulting inferno claiming more police and civilian lives in and around the former Bank of New York Mellon headquarters. I began to sob, as my heart sank deeper into despair over the calamities I caused. I can no longer live my life like this. It ends now.

Once in Boston, I concealed my Huey from the public and made my way to the abandoned warehouse off of Boylston Street where Horatio Fitzsimmons and his cronies were waiting.

“Colton Donovan,” he greeted, “it’s good to see you. I trust everything went according to plan?”

I said nothing. Instead, I threw down the bags of heisted cash and gold from.

“Good,” Divac stated. “And I received the $50 billion that you transferred. As promised, your secret is safe with me. Your next task-”

“There is no next task!” I interjected. Divac’s henchmen drew their weapons and took aim at me.

A brief, yet intense silence engulfed the warehouse.

“We’re done. I refuse to be a part of this any longer.”

“You do know what will happen if you don’t cooperate, right?” he said.

“I’m well aware.” I replied, “My secret will be exposed, and judging by your lackeys, I’ll be gunned down.”

“Very good,” snickered Fitzsimmons. “So you’d be wise to cooperate.”

Unbeknownst to Divac and his goons, I surrounded the warehouse with explosives that were bound to go off in mere moments. Ever since my betrayal of the CIA, I have yearned to live a safe and normal life. However, none of that mattered as the atrocities I committed resurfaced in my thoughts and nightmares at every waking moment. I simply felt that I no longer deserved to live in this world anymore after taking and hurting a multitude of lives over the course of my career. On top of this guilt, I was forced to abandon my principles and loyalties once more and harm many more people due to the fear of my secret being unraveled to the government, let alone the public. I had no reason to live anymore after reminiscing over these atrocities. I stopped fearing death long ago because I am but an empty shell now whose soul had died on that fateful day in Cairo. I welcomed death. Life is full of suffering, but when one dies, he or she can’t be hurt any longer. Before my time came, I knew that there was something I had to do.

“Divac,” I said. “I’m aware the terms of our ‘agreement’, and in spite of that, I will not serve you any longer.

“Is that so?” he asked rhetorically. “In that case, I have no use for you any longer. I’ll expose you for the traitor you are and will be credited with taking your life! Men, take him down!”

Divac’s cronies positioned their fingers on the slick-stained AK-47s as they took aim.

“If I am going down”, I bellowed proudly, “I’m taking you with me.”

Just as Divac’s henchmen were about to fire, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The explosives that I set around the building finally detonated. A violent inferno soon immersed in the warehouse, proceeding to destroy everything in sight. Little by little, the infrastructure of the antiquated establishment gradually came crashing down. More explosions ensued, and the temperature rose to astronomical levels as everyone present began to succumb to the raging inferno.

“DONOVAN!” screamed Divac in agony and horror. “YOU’LL PAY DEARLY FOR THIS. ROT IN HELL!”

“What’s there to pay? I’m already dead”, I murmured.

Death was our next and final destination, and this inferno was the gateway to the afterlife. Whether I end up in Heaven or Hell over what I’ve done throughout my life was irrelevant. All I could do was hold my sweltering fist in triumph as I saw Divac and his henchmen, the envoys of evil, burn to a crisp and succumb to the inferno one by one. As the flames rampaged on and my pain intensified, everything around me gradually became pitch black. Although I was physically withering away, I had never felt more alive than I did at this moment. For the first time ever, despite sacrificing my own life, I felt that I was doing something right in the name of humanity.