Chapter 12 - The Child Without a Name
Daniel rejected the statement before he understood it.
“Our mother had two children.”
“That is what the birth records say,” Sloane replied.
Emily’s face had become unreadable.
She sat on the edge of the bed, one hand resting on Rex’s back.
“Who was the third?”
Sloane looked toward the encrypted drive.
“A boy enrolled in Cohort A under the surname Mercer. Age eleven.”
Daniel calculated automatically.
He would have been nine at the time.
Emily seventeen.
An eleven-year-old boy could not have been either of them.
“Cousin?” Cole asked.
“No,” Daniel said. “Our mother had no siblings.”
Sloane opened a hidden directory on the drive.
A scanned intake form appeared.
SUBJECT: MERCER, JONAH.
Guardian: Margaret Mercer.
Their mother’s signature sat at the bottom.
Emily leaned closer.
“That’s her handwriting.”
Daniel studied the date.
Jonah entered the program three days before Emily’s staged car accident.
“What happened to him?” Daniel asked.
“His file ends after forty-eight hours.”
“Ends how?”
“It was deleted from the main archive.”
“You kept a copy.”
“I kept fragments.”
Sloane opened an audio file.
A boy’s voice spoke through static.
“I don’t want the dog to come near me.”
A male researcher asked why.
“Because he knows I pushed her.”
Emily’s breathing stopped.
The researcher continued.
“Pushed whom?”
“My sister.”
The recording ended.
Daniel turned to Emily.
“You said you lost control of the car.”
“I don’t remember.”
Sloane’s eyes held sympathy without softness.
“You were not alone.”
Daniel paced once across the room.
“No brother. No adoption. No foster placement. Nothing.”
“Voss specialized in removing children from records.”
“Nora.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at the intake form again.
If Jonah was eleven then, he would be forty now.
Old enough to be the man under the bleachers.
Old enough to wear Deputy Briggs’s uniform.
Old enough to have spent years close to the family without being recognized.
Emily’s hand tightened in Rex’s fur.
“What if he wasn’t our brother?”
“Then why use our name?” Daniel asked.
“To tie him to Mom. To make her responsible.”
Sloane shook her head.
“Margaret signed as his guardian. She visited him twice after Emily’s accident.”
“How do you know?”
“I scheduled the visits.”
Daniel turned on her.
“You knew him?”
“I saw him once. Thin. Quiet. Dark hair. A scar along his left wrist.”
The disguised deputy had worn gloves.
The figure beneath the bleachers had withdrawn a bare hand too quickly for Daniel to see the wrist.
Cole received confirmation that state police were mobilizing for Fort Axton. Federal authorization remained pending.
“Could take hours,” he said.
“We don’t have hours,” Daniel replied.
Sloane looked at the map.
“Voss wants you to go without support.”
“Then he knows me.”
“He knows the version of you he built.”
Emily stood.
“Maybe that version is gone.”
Daniel looked at her.
Her fear remained visible, but it no longer controlled her posture.
She walked to the laptop and opened the files from the black case.
“Voss arranged the stadium event. He placed the camera in Daniel’s house. Vale altered Rex’s collar. Keene gave them school access. Every move required different people.”
Cole nodded.
“A network.”
“No,” Emily said. “A chain.”
She arranged the names in order.
Voss directed Vale.
Vale controlled Keene through funding.
Keene controlled school access.
Someone inside law enforcement provided uniforms and response times.
But the false deputy had not injected Daniel when he had the chance.
He had exposed the syringe too early.
He had allowed himself to be identified by the mud.
“He wanted us to discover the storm drain,” Emily said.
Daniel followed her reasoning.
“And the tunnels.”
“And the hidden facility.”
Sloane looked uneasy.
“Maybe.”
“Voss’s people are careful. That man wasn’t.”
Cole leaned over the table.
“You think the impostor is working against Voss?”
“I think he wants Daniel to reach Fort Axton.”
“Why?”
Emily looked at the intake form.
“Because Jonah is there.”
Daniel’s radio crackled.
A voice came through on the sheriff’s emergency frequency.
Young.
Female.
Nora.
“Mr. Mercer?”
Daniel grabbed the radio.
“Nora, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I found a radio.”
“What do you see?”
“Dog cages. Old ones. Underground.”
Fort Axton.
Daniel kept his voice calm.
“Is Dr. Voss there?”
“He left.”
“With the children?”
“One child.”
“Who stayed?”
Nora whispered, “The man with the scar.”
Emily moved closer.
Daniel asked, “Is he helping you?”
“I don’t know.”
A male voice spoke faintly behind her.
“Tell him to bring Rex.”
Daniel’s pulse slowed.
“Jonah?”
Silence.
Then the voice came closer to the radio.
“You still don’t remember me, Danny.”
No one had called Daniel that since childhood.
The radio signal cut off.
Rex rose.
From the hallway outside Emily’s apartment came three slow knocks.
Daniel looked through the peephole.
A man stood outside wearing no disguise.
Dark hair.
Pale face.
May you like
A scar across his left wrist.
In his hand, he held Rex’s original military identification tag.
