Chapter 8 - The Child They Took From MeI hit Adrian Voss hard enough to knock him against the SUV.
Now he wanted my help.
“Give me one reason not to hang up.”
“Because the people hunting Rachel just blew up a federal safe house.”
“That could have been you.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Your word means nothing.”
“Then ask Mercer who issued the evacuation vehicle numbers.”
I looked toward General Mercer.
He had just arrived with additional security.
“What numbers?”
Voss continued.
“The armored vehicles waiting outside the safe house. Ask him who selected them.”
I lowered the phone.
“General, who assigned those vehicles?”
Mercer frowned.
“Transportation command.”
“Specific name.”
He checked with an aide.
Minutes later, his face changed.
“Colonel Andrew Vale.”
Voss spoke through the phone.
“Andrew Vale has worked for Monarch for nine years.”
Mercer heard him now on speaker.
“How do you know?”
“Because I recruited him.”
Everyone stared at the phone.
Voss continued.
“And he stopped taking my orders three months ago.”
“So who does he work for?” I asked.
“That is what I need you to discover.”
I laughed.
“You built the monster.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re scared of it.”
“Yes.”
At least he didn’t pretend.
We relocated to an underground command facility.
Rachel and Noah were moved separately.
I hated letting them out of my sight, but I also understood that my presence was a beacon.
Voss gave us coordinates.
An abandoned aerospace plant outside Mojave.
He claimed Monarch had a data relay there.
Mercer wanted to arrest him first.
Voss refused to reveal his location.
So we formed the worst alliance imaginable.
Blackwood.
Rebecca.
My father.
Mercer.
Me.
And Voss on encrypted audio.
Six people connected by decades of lies.
At midnight, we entered the Mojave facility.
Wind pushed sand across the concrete.
The plant had closed fifteen years earlier.
Inside, however, power was running.
Rebecca found the first camera.
Military grade.
“Someone is home.”
We moved quietly.
Blackwood insisted on coming despite Mercer’s objections.
“You’re sixty-two,” Mercer muttered.
Blackwood checked his pistol.
“And still a better shot than you.”
“Wonderful.”
My father remained at the command center.
I wasn’t ready to trust him with a weapon near me.
We reached a central server room.
Empty.
But active.
Screens displayed financial markets, military logistics maps, shipping lanes, satellite feeds.
Monarch wasn’t a small conspiracy.
It was an operating system beneath the world everyone else could see.
“Download everything,” Mercer ordered.
Rebecca connected a device.
Then a voice came from the speakers.
“Commander Cross.”
Female.
Calm.
American.
I looked around.
“Who are you?”
A woman appeared on the largest monitor.
Late fifties.
Silver-blonde hair.
Elegant suit.
I recognized her.
Senator Margaret Hale.
Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
One of the most powerful national security figures in Washington.
Mercer whispered, “Oh, God.”
Hale smiled.
“General.”
“You’re Monarch?”
“Monarch is an idea.”
“That’s a convenient answer.”
She looked at me.
“Your father told himself Nightglass existed to expose corruption. In truth, he merely wanted control transferred to people he considered morally superior.”
I stared at the camera.
“And you?”
“I don’t pretend morality has much to do with power.”
At least she was consistent.
“Why Rachel?”
“Insurance.”
“Against Voss?”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“Because you possess the key.”
I touched my lower rib.
Hale smiled.
“There it is.”
“You’ll never get it.”
“I don’t need to remove it.”
Rebecca stopped working.
Hale continued.
“Modern imaging can map the capsule without surgery.”
Mercer said, “You’ve already scanned her.”
My blood chilled.
When?
Hospital?
Airport?
Military facility?
Then I remembered the parade ground.
The helicopters.
No.
Before that.
The security scanner at the entrance.
Hale smiled.
“Your temporary credentials directed you through a specially configured portal.”
Blackwood looked horrified.
“The gate.”
I had walked into it voluntarily.
“Do you have the key?”
“Most of it.”
“Most?”
“Your father designed one clever safeguard.”
She looked amused.
“The capsule changes state in response to a biometric factor.”
“What factor?”
“Something we have been unable to replicate.”
My father’s voice entered through our radio.
“Her heartbeat.”
Everyone paused.
I touched my chest.
Daniel continued.
“The key is dynamically encrypted using cardiac rhythm variation. A static scan is incomplete.”
Hale’s smile vanished slightly.
“So Daniel is listening.”
“Yes.”
“Still hiding behind his daughter?”
My father said nothing.
Hale looked at me.
“To unlock the ledger, we need you alive.”
My father’s warning echoed.
The person who needs you alive is more dangerous.
“You’re the one who needs me.”
“Yes.”
“Then you can’t kill me.”
“No.”
She smiled.
“But everyone else is optional.”
The facility went dark.
Gunfire erupted.
Mercer shoved me behind a server cabinet.
Rebecca fired toward the door.
Blackwood took position beside her.
Men entered wearing tactical gear without markings.
We fought through the room.
One attacker got close enough to grab me.
He didn’t shoot.
He tried to inject something into my neck.
They needed me alive.
I broke his wrist and slammed him into the server rack.
Another burst of gunfire.
Blackwood fell.
“Admiral!”
I crawled toward him.
Blood spread across his jacket near the shoulder.
“Through-and-through,” he grunted.
Rebecca pulled him behind cover.
Mercer shouted.
“Exit route!”
Voss’s voice came over my earpiece.
“North wall. Service tunnel.”
“How do you know?”
“I built the facility.”
Of course he did.
We escaped through the tunnel as explosives detonated behind us.
Outside, two vehicles waited.
Not ours.
Voss stood beside one.
For the first time in seven years, I faced him without a scope or handcuffs between us.
He looked tired.
Older than I remembered.
He raised his hands.
“I came unarmed.”
I punched him.
He dropped to one knee.
Rebecca almost smiled.
Voss touched his bleeding mouth.
“I probably deserved that.”
“You deserve more.”
“Yes.”
Blackwood was loaded into the vehicle.
Mercer aimed a pistol at Voss.
“Give me one reason not to arrest you.”
Voss looked at me.
“Because Senator Hale has Rachel.”
My heart stopped.
“No.”
Mercer grabbed his radio.
Static.
Voss continued.
“She intercepted the relocation convoy twelve minutes ago.”
I moved toward him.
“If you’re lying—”
“I’m not.”
“What does she want?”
Voss’s face looked genuinely terrified.
“Not Rachel.”
He looked at me.
“Noah.”
My nephew.
“Why?”
Voss closed his eyes.
“Because Noah isn’t Rachel’s biological son.”
The desert wind seemed to vanish.
I stared at him.
“What?”
May you like
Voss looked toward me.
“He’s yours.”
Related Stories
