Chapter 10 - THE MAN WHO OFFERED PROTECTION
Cole’s weapon pointed directly at Carlo.
Tony raised his own gun.
I remained beside the cassette recorder.
“Put it down,” Cole ordered.
“You followed us without a warrant,” I said.
“I followed a federal suspect.”
“Which one?”
“All of you.”
Carlo looked toward the basement window.
Two agents appeared outside.
Cole had not come alone.
The livestream had made him look like an ally when he protected the clinic. My father’s warning suggested that was exactly what the Shepherd would do.
Appear helpful.
Offer protection.
Know too much.
“Are you the Shepherd?” I asked.
Cole’s expression barely changed.
“No.”
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“Because it’s absurd.”
“Then why point a gun at a man imprisoned for twelve years?”
“Carlo Russo is evidence in a national-security investigation.”
“Evidence doesn’t bleed.”
“He carries an active network transmitter. If Gabriel controls it, he can send encrypted commands through Carlo’s body.”
Carlo frowned.
“How do you know that?”
Cole lowered the gun slightly.
“Because we have monitored the signal for three years.”
The revelation changed everything.
Federal authorities had known Carlo was alive.
They had tracked Gabriel’s network and allowed it to continue.
Tony stepped toward Cole.
“You watched children disappear.”
“We were identifying placements in government agencies.”
“How many children were acceptable losses?”
Cole’s jaw tightened.
“None.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It was the calculation made above me.”
“By whom?” I asked.
Cole looked toward the recorder.
“Your father’s message may identify them.”
I pressed play.
The tape resumed.
“Theodore Wynn handles money. Gabriel handles minds. Politicians handle appearances. But the Shepherd is the person who ensures investigations fail.”
The recording crackled.
A loud impact sounded upstairs.
Cole’s agents shouted.
Gunfire followed.
One agent fell past the basement doorway.
Cole turned.
A bullet struck his shoulder.
Tony dragged him down the steps while I fired toward the hallway.
Men wearing plain black clothing entered the house from both sides.
No insignias.
No warnings.
Professional elimination team.
We retreated through a coal-storage tunnel my father had built during Prohibition.
Carlo knew the route.
He had played inside it with me when we were children.
Cole stumbled between us, bleeding heavily.
“You brought them,” Tony said.
“No,” Cole gasped. “My team was compromised.”
“Convenient.”
The tunnel exited beneath a detached garage two houses away.
Niko waited in a van.
We loaded Cole inside and drove before the attackers surrounded the block.
My childhood home exploded behind us.
The cassette recorder remained in my pocket.
The attackers had tried to destroy the message and everyone who heard it.
That made Cole less likely to be the Shepherd.
Not innocent.
Just less likely.
Dr. Park treated his shoulder in the van.
“You have five minutes before you lose enough blood to become honest,” I told him.
Cole laughed weakly.
“You really speak like the newspapers describe.”
“Who ordered the surveillance on Gabriel?”
“Deputy Attorney General Matthew Keene.”
“Where is he now?”
“Washington.”
“Who knew Carlo’s signal was monitored?”
“Keene, my former director, and a special judicial panel.”
“Names.”
Cole hesitated.
Dr. Park pressed near the wound.
He shouted.
“Names.”
He gave us three.
One was Judge Helen Ward, who signed Elena’s custody order.
Another was Theodore Wynn.
The third was United States Senator Margaret Hale.
The panel supposedly oversaw a covert operation investigating illegal foreign adoptions.
Instead, the panel protected Gabriel’s network.
“What was your role?” Rachel asked. She had joined us after the house attack, unwilling to let the story disappear into official statements.
“I believed we were rescuing compromised placements,” Cole said.
“When did you learn children were still being taken?”
“Six months ago.”
“And you did nothing?”
“I built a case.”
“Elena was placed inside a coffin while you built it.”
Cole closed his eyes.
He had no defense.
Carlo asked about the transmitter.
Cole explained that it sent a heartbeat-encrypted code every sixty seconds to several remote servers.
The federal government had mapped some receiving points.
One was beneath St. Bartholomew’s.
Another was inside Saint Agnes headquarters.
A third was aboard Wynn’s private yacht.
“The yacht left New York Harbor two hours ago,” Niko said.
“Destination?” I asked.
“Officially Bermuda.”
“Unofficially?”
He studied maritime data.
“It changed course after the broadcast. Heading north.”
Cole looked alarmed.
“Toward Blackstone Island.”
The island was privately owned by the Wynn family off the Maine coast. Saint Agnes operated a rehabilitation center there for children with severe trauma.
No journalists had visited in nine years.
No state inspectors had entered in four.
Carlo gripped the edge of his seat.
“That’s where Gabriel performed the final conditioning.”
“How many children?”
“Dozens when I was there. Maybe more now.”
Niko intercepted a new signal from Carlo’s implant.
The transmission rate had increased.
“They’re activating something,” he said.
Cole looked at the waveform.
“It’s a recall command.”
“For whom?”
“Every placement still connected to the network.”
Across the country, adults raised under false identities might suddenly receive instructions planted during childhood.
Law-enforcement officers.
Doctors.
Judges.
Military personnel.
Politicians.
Some might be ordered to flee.
Others to destroy evidence.
Others to kill.
Tony stared at the photograph labeling him Placement 001.
“What happens to me?”
Carlo answered carefully.
“You were conditioned very young.”
“I don’t remember.”
“That was the intention.”
Tony’s phone rang.
The screen showed no number.
He answered before I could stop him.
A recorded lullaby played.
Tony’s face went blank.
His hand lowered.
Then he turned his gun toward me.
I saw the struggle in his eyes.
He was aware of his movement but unable to stop it.
“Tony.”
His finger tightened on the trigger.
Dr. Park reached for a sedative.
He aimed at her.
Carlo began singing over the lullaby.
Not the same song.
A childhood chant we used while playing stickball between apartment buildings.
Tony blinked.
Carlo sang louder.
I joined him.
The gun trembled.
Then Tony threw the phone through the van window.
It shattered on the street.
He collapsed against the wall, gasping.
“I almost killed you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“What happens next time?”
“We remove the command.”
“How?”
Carlo looked toward the map of Blackstone Island.
“Gabriel keeps the original conditioning files there. Every trigger. Every reversal phrase.”
The island held the children, the records, and the only chance to free Tony and the other placements.
Cole’s radio activated.
A national alert was spreading through federal channels.
Dominic Russo and his associates were now classified as armed domestic terrorists responsible for coordinated attacks against Saint Agnes facilities.
The order authorized lethal force.
Rachel checked the news.
Senator Margaret Hale appeared at a press conference beside Theodore Wynn.
Wynn had supposedly never boarded his yacht.
He stood before cameras in Washington, tearfully condemning the violence.
The man on the yacht was someone else.
Then Wynn looked directly into the camera.
“This tragedy will end when Elena Vasquez is returned to the people equipped to care for her.”
Bruno began barking over the secure video feed from Elena’s hospital room.
He was not barking at the television.
He was barking at the nurse standing behind Elena’s bed.
May you like
The nurse lifted a syringe.
The video feed went black.
