Chapter 5 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Freya could not move.
Elias looked older than the photograph.
His hair was gray at the temples. A burn scar climbed the left side of his neck.
But his eyes were unchanged.
“Hello, Lark.”
Freya crossed the room and struck him.
Hard.
Gabriel said nothing.
Elias accepted it.
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let me stand at your memorial.”
“I know.”
“You knew I blamed myself.”
“I know.”
Her second blow became a fist against his chest.
Then she was crying.
Elias held her.
For six years, Freya had carried one memory above all others: Elias disappearing into fire.
Now the dead man was holding her.
When she finally stepped away, her face hardened.
“Start talking.”
Elias explained.
The convoy attack had been designed to kill him and Freya because they had discovered the network.
Elias survived.
But revealing that survival would have exposed Freya.
So he vanished.
“Why contact me now?”
“Because Arthur found you.”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“And you left the code at my table?”
“Yes.”
“You sent the photograph?”
“Yes.”
“You arranged the shooting?”
Elias’s expression sharpened.
“No.”
That changed everything.
If Elias had not sent the shooter, someone else was watching.
Gabriel asked the question Freya had avoided.
“Who is the second leader?”
Elias stared at him.
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try.”
“Your father.”
Gabriel’s expression became empty.
“My father has been dead for twelve years.”
“No.”
Elias took out a photograph.
An older man was entering a building in Montreal.
The date stamp was eight months earlier.
Gabriel stared.
Victor Mercer.
The founder of the Mercer organization.
The man Gabriel had watched die from pancreatic cancer.
Except apparently he had not.
Victor had staged his death.
Arthur had spent years protecting the secret.
Gabriel sat down.
Freya watched the most feared man in Chicago suddenly look like a son.
“What does he want?”
Elias answered quietly.
“Everything you took when he disappeared.”
“My organization?”
“Not anymore.”
Elias looked at Freya.
“He wants her.”
Freya frowned.
“Why?”
“The memory card.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
Elias pointed toward her injured leg.
Freya became still.
“The surgeons removed most of the shrapnel,” Elias said. “Not all of it.”
Her face drained.
“What are you saying?”
“The card was sealed inside a fragment casing during the evacuation. I put it there because you were unconscious and we were surrounded.”
Freya stared at her knee.
For six years, the evidence had been inside her body.
Gabriel looked horrified.
“You used her.”
“I saved the evidence.”
“You used her.”
“And kept her alive.”
Freya’s voice cut between them.
“Stop talking about me as if I’m not standing here.”
Both men went silent.
Elias explained that the casing was positioned near the remaining surgical hardware. Removing it required a specialist.
Gabriel said, “I know one.”
Freya laughed bitterly.
“Of course you do.”
They arranged the procedure secretly.
That evening, Freya lay beneath fluorescent lights while a surgeon removed a tiny sealed titanium cylinder.
Inside was a microSD card.
Six years of murder sat on something smaller than her fingernail.
Gabriel placed it into an isolated computer.
Files appeared.
Payments.
Routes.
Names.
Photographs.
Arthur Keane.
Victor Mercer.
Judges.
Contractors.
Police officers.
And one more folder.
FREYA SULLIVAN.
She opened it.
Photographs of her apartment.
Her jobs.
Her medical appointments.
Someone had monitored her for years.
The final document contained a scheduled termination order.
Authorized three days earlier.
Gabriel leaned closer.
At the bottom was the signature.
Not Victor’s.
Not Arthur’s.
Freya read the name once.
Then again.
She slowly turned toward Elias.
May you like
Because the authorization was signed:
ELIAS WARD.
