Part II: Abigail

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She is everywhere. Maybe he's hallucinating- no, of course he's hallucinating- but she's practically everywhere. She plagues his work, his sleep, his early morning runs and late night dreams, yet she's never actually there.

And yet Edward feels the impetus to lock all the doors and windows and check several times in the night if they've been disturbed, to take abnormal routes around the city to and from work, and to utilize every countersurveillance technique and procedure in the book to lose an imaginary tail.

But he can never lose her, even though he's lost all of himself.

His grim hatred of her burns like poison in his stomach, driving him mad enough to be legally locked in a mental hospital. He hates her, he hates her, and he hates her so much that he can't see red hair or hear the name "Catherine" without going berserk internally.

But he can't forgive himself either. For his stupidity, his carelessness, his naïveté.

He trusted someone. He's a spy. Those two words do not go together.

So he throws himself into work. He concentrates all his effort and determination on work, to be the best operative the world has ever seen. It's admittedly a stretch, but since he has nothing else to lose and needs a little boost to his ego, he commits himself to impossible, suicide missions and pushes himself well beyond the limits of what any sane operative would do. He may brush with death on the way out, but he always comes back home.

In Romania, he orchestrates a giant sting operation involving a trio of arms dealers addicted to heroin, seven Transylvanian sleeper agents, and a swarm of vampire bats.

In Poland, he infiltrates a group of ex-KGB generals attempting to smuggle Soviet missiles across the Russian border disguised as a traveling circus.

In Mozambique, he gets kidnapped by pirates, fights his way out of captivity on a leaking boat with his bare hands, and throws the ringleader overboard.

He even survives three bullets to the chest after leaping in front of Queen Elizabeth to save her from being assassinated.

For his actions, he is awarded top-level clearance at MI6, a George Cross presented by the queen herself, and the permanent reputation as a spying legend. But it's not enough for him.

He wants revenge.

So he drops HUMINT field work and joins the counterintelligence department, effectively dropping off the grid to discover a whole new realm of double agents, moles, and enough leaks and holes in the SIS to house an extended family of meerkats. This is where he meets Catherine again- not in person, but as a suspect and a terrorist with a picture on a drawing board titled "Circle of Cavan."

The Circle of Cavan, he learns, has been around since the American Civil War. Started by Ioseph Cavan, the first assassin of Abraham Lincoln, it grew into a massive terrorist organization consisting of isolated cells containing double agents and moles lusting after power and profit and the destruction of the intelligence agencies. And it all started to gain revenge against an eighteen-year-old girl named Gillian Gallagher who slew Ioseph Cavan with his own sword- and afterwards, started the Gallagher Academy.

Suddenly everything makes sense to Edward. It explains Catherine. He is finally happy because he has found a reason for it all.

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