“Because she wanted you to grow up without being afraid.”
“But she knew.”
“Yes.”
“And she still loved me.”
“More than anything.”
Daniel sat silently.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
“Cross.”
His expression changed.
He listened.
Then:
“Where?”
He hung up.
“Someone accessed the drive remotely.”
“When?”
“Three minutes ago.”
“Can they track us?”
“Yes.”
The apartment lights went out.
Apollo grabbed my hand.
A door slammed downstairs.
Daniel drew his weapon.
“We leave now.”
We ran through the back stairwell.
A black SUV accelerated toward us.
Daniel pushed Apollo behind a concrete barrier.
The vehicle slammed into a parked car.
The driver jumped out and ran.
Daniel chased him.
I stayed with Apollo.
She was shaking.
“Uncle Sam?”
“Yes?”
“Mom said there was one more thing.”
“What?”
“She said you would know where to find it.”
“Find what?”
Apollo looked at me.
“The boarding pass.”
THE PASSENGER THEY ERASED
The original boarding pass was the first thing they had taken from me.
I hadn't understood why.
Now I did.
It wasn't merely proof that I had been traveling with Apollo.
It was evidence of the moment they had changed my legal status.
Daniel took me to the airline's archival records center.
Federal investigators had already begun securing the terminal.
Marcus Vance was missing.
His office had been emptied.
His computer had been destroyed.
But someone had forgotten one thing.
His access card.
It had been used after his disappearance.
Once at Gate B14.
Once inside the restricted records center.
We entered the archive.
Rows of terminals.
Boxes of old documents.
Thousands of passenger records.
Daniel gave an investigator the exact flight number.
Minutes later, they found it.
My boarding pass.
Inside a sealed envelope.
The original barcode was intact.
But the passenger record attached to it had been altered.
ESCORT REMOVED.
I stared.
Daniel pointed to the timestamp.
“Ten minutes before boarding.”
Exactly when Vance had approached me.
“Who authorized it?”
Two names.
Marcus Vance.
Leonard Pierce.
I looked at Daniel.
“So they needed two people.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the change was designed to look legitimate.”
He showed me the system trail.
The first authorization classified Apollo as an unaccompanied minor.
The second removed me as guardian.
Then a third entry transferred her to Mercury Patient Logistics.
Everything happened in less than six minutes.
The entire separation had been planned.
Daniel looked at the boarding pass.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
He pointed to a handwritten mark near the barcode.
Three small lines.
I recognized it.
Elena's handwriting.
I turned the paper over.
Nothing.
Daniel examined it under a light.
A faint indentation appeared.
Someone had written on another sheet placed above it.
He shaded the paper with a pencil.
Words emerged.
IF THEY REMOVE YOU, FIND THE ORIGINAL.
I closed my eyes.
Elena had known.
She had prepared for this.
But why?
We searched her apartment.
Nothing.
Then Apollo remembered the Bible.
“My mother's Bible.”
We found it inside her old bedroom drawer.
A small black Bible with worn edges.
Apollo opened it.
A number had been written in the margin.
Daniel compared it to the authorization code.
They matched.
Then another sentence.
THEY ARE NOT THE CHILDREN.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Apollo stared at the words.
“Maybe it means they aren't really children.”
“No.”
Daniel shook his head.
“That's not it.”
He studied the files.
Then suddenly he understood.
“They are not the children.”
“What?”
“The children are not the real target.”
He opened the records.
Every child had a guardian.
Every guardian had records.
And every record had something in common.
A weakness.
A bankruptcy.
A divorce.
An old arrest.
A medical condition.
Something that could be used to make the guardian appear unreliable.
“They aren't just moving children,” Daniel said.
“They're removing guardians.”
I stared at him.
“How?”
“By creating false records.”
He opened my file.
There it was.
A juvenile criminal complaint.
A medical record I had never seen.
A court document that claimed I had voluntarily surrendered custody of Apollo.
All false.
But if someone searched the database, they would appear legitimate.
“They built a fake version of me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make you legally disappear.”
Apollo whispered:
“So they could take me.”
“Yes.”
She looked at the boarding pass.
“Mom knew.”
“She knew enough to warn us.”
We found one more file.
It contained a list of names.
At the top:
PROJECT ORPHEUS
Daniel's face became grim.
“What is it?”
“I don't know.”
The next page contained a series of initials.
Then one name.
COORDINATOR: UNKNOWN.
Below it:
SECONDARY CONTACT — M. VANCE.
Daniel looked at me.
“We need Vance.”
“He's gone.”
“He won't stay gone.”
“Why?”
“Because people like him don't disappear unless someone protects them.”
That evening, we received a call.
A blocked number.
I answered.
Silence.
Then a voice.
“You have the wrong idea.”
“Who is this?”
“You think Vance is the one running this.”
“Where is he?”
“He's already running.”
“From whom?”
A pause.
“From the person who hired him.”
“Who?”
“You'll find him at Hangar Six.”
The line went dead.
Daniel stared at me.
“It's a trap.”
“I know.”
“Then we're not going.”
“Apollo's mother died trying to expose this.”
“I know.”
“And Vance knows where the evidence is.”
Daniel looked at me.
“You're going anyway.”
“Yes.”
He sighed.
“Then I'm coming.”
THE COORDINATOR
Hangar Six sat at the far end of the private aviation terminal.
The building was almost empty.
One aircraft stood beneath the lights.
A black SUV was parked beside it.
Daniel's team surrounded the area.
But we didn't know if they had arrived too late.
Inside the hangar, Leonard Pierce stood beneath the aircraft wing.
Marcus Vance was beside him.
Two armed men guarded the entrance.
Pierce looked at me.
“You came.”
“You expected me.”
“Yes.”
“Where's Apollo?”
Pierce smiled.
“She isn't here.”
My heart tightened.
“You said she would be.”
“I said you would come.”