Beckett is later approached by two officials from the Central Intelligence Agency, Director William Avery (Denis Arndt) and Deputy Director Richard Addis (William Duffy). Avery reveals to Beckett that Finnegan's death was faked in Vietnam and he is actually still alive. The CIA recruited him prior to the fall of Saigon and used him to run drugs out of Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge. However, Finnegan went insane and is now a drug and weapons trafficker known as the "King Cobra". He has amassed a large group of child soldiers and his group lives in the tunnels under the jungles of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Avery claims that Finnegan is the "head of the snake", and if he is killed, his child soldiers will have no leader and "the snake will die". Finnegan has been marked for elimination because he has even aided terrorism after providing support for Jemaah Islamiyah, and is about to be captured by the Vietnamese authorities which would cause an international incident. To spare Neil and Sydney from the painful truth, Beckett agrees to kill Finnegan, but demands that he conduct the mission alone, without a spotter, as he is unwilling to involve anyone else in such a personal mission.
