Chapter 8 - THE ROAD TO ST. AGNES
The woman driving Noah and Ava was not a federal agent.
Her name was Dr. Elise Warren.
She was a pediatric neuropsychologist who had consulted for New Dawn for eleven years.
She had passed a federal background check because the identity she used was real, her license was valid, and until that morning no recovered file had connected her to Voss.
She had volunteered as an emergency child-trauma specialist after the safe-house relocation.
That was how she got close enough.
No weapons.
No forced entry.
No dramatic kidnapping.
Just credentials, confidence, and a system moving too fast to recognize one more person who belonged on paper.
By the time Shah’s team discovered the switch, Warren had driven twenty-three miles north.
We were behind her.
Too far behind.
I sat in the rear of a federal SUV with Victoria beside me and Malcolm restrained in another vehicle behind us.
Shah had wanted us left at the station.
Then Noah’s phone connection remained active.
He had hidden the phone beneath his sweatshirt, and for eight minutes we could hear the car around him.
Warren talking calmly.
Ava asking questions.
Road noise.
A radio station giving weather updates.
Our children had become the best source of intelligence in the operation.
That fact made me proud and sick at the same time.
“Why are we going to the lake?” Ava asked on the open line.
Warren answered pleasantly.
“Agent Shah wants you somewhere more secure.”
“She didn’t tell us.”
“She didn’t want the location discussed.”
Noah said, “My dad knows where we’re going, right?”
A pause.
“Of course.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
Noah was asking for confirmation without revealing the call.
Smart kid.
Terrified kid.
Still thinking.
Ava spoke again.
“Were you at the library?”
The car went quiet.
Warren’s voice changed slightly.
“What library?”
“The one near Lincoln School.”
“I visit lots of libraries.”
“You told me where to find Noah.”
No answer.
Then the sound of fabric moving.
I imagined Warren looking into the rearview mirror.
Shah signaled the driver to accelerate.
On the phone, Warren said, “Ava, sometimes adults help children find answers before they are ready to explain why.”
“You work for Dr. Voss.”
Victoria gripped my hand so hard it hurt.
Warren sighed.
“I work for the truth.”
Ava replied, “That’s what people say when they’re lying about who pays them.”
Even Shah looked impressed.
Then the call disconnected.
I stared at the phone.
“No.”
Shah immediately contacted the aerial team.
A highway camera located Warren’s car four miles from St. Agnes Road.
A drone moved into position.
We could see the vehicle from above, a small dark sedan winding through forest.
Then it disappeared beneath heavy tree cover.
The old St. Agnes property had no active cell service.
Of course it didn’t.
Voss had chosen the place because modern surveillance weakened where his history began.
We reached the entrance twenty-one minutes later.
A rusted sign leaned between two stone pillars.
ST. AGNES CHILDREN’S RETREAT — CLOSED.
The gate stood open.
Fresh tire tracks cut through wet leaves.
Shah divided the teams.
She ordered Victoria and me to remain at the command vehicle.
This time I did not argue immediately.
I looked at the woods, then at Victoria.
“Our children are in there.”
“I know.”
“I can’t sit here.”
“I know.”
“But if we run in and make it harder—”
“I know.”
She was crying.
So was I.
We stayed.
It was the hardest useful thing I had ever done.
The tactical team moved through the camp.
Cabins.
Dining hall.
Old infirmary.
Nothing.
Then an agent found a hidden stairwell beneath the infirmary pantry.
The original Merrow Institute had been built partly underground.
Blueprints retrieved from county archives showed a network of basement rooms sealed during renovation twenty years earlier.
Except they were not sealed anymore.
A steel door stood open.
Lights burned below.
Shah’s radio crackled with updates.
“Entering lower level.”
“Hallway clear.”
“Medical equipment present.”
“Multiple rooms.”
Then:
“Children located.”
I stopped breathing.
Shah grabbed the radio.
“Status?”
“Alive. Awake. Separate room behind glass. No visible injuries.”
Victoria collapsed against me.
I held her.
Then the agent continued.
“Door is magnetically locked. We have Dr. Warren in custody. Voss not visible.”
I looked at Shah.
“Get them out.”
“They will.”
But the radio crackled again.
“Problem. Room has independent power. Control panel is internal network only.”
A second voice interrupted.
“Movement west corridor.”
Then gunfire.
Short.
Controlled.
Silence.
Victoria buried her face against my chest.
I stared at the radio like I could force it to speak.
Finally:
“Officer okay. Suspect escaped through secondary door.”
Voss.
He had designed exits into every place he touched.
A technician at the command van pulled up the underground network.
“He’s controlling the child room from somewhere inside.”
“Can you unlock it?” Shah asked.
“Working on it.”
A video window appeared.
Noah and Ava sat inside a glass-walled observation room.
No restraints.
No injuries.
Just two chairs and a table.
Ava stood close to Noah.
He held her hand.
Then a speaker inside their room activated.
Voss’s voice came through the command feed.
“Pair nineteen.”
Ava looked toward the ceiling.
“My name is Ava.”
“Of course.”
“And his name is Noah.”
“Yes.”
“Then use them.”
I nearly laughed from sheer relief at hearing her fight him with words.
Voss sounded amused.
“Identity assertion under threat. Interesting.”
Noah stepped closer to the glass.
“We’re not your experiment.”
“Your grandmother said something similar.”
Victoria heard it.
Her face changed.
Voss continued.
“Eleanor was sentimental. Sentiment creates noise in data.”
Ava asked, “Why did you take me away?”
Voss paused.
“For the comparison.”
“Comparison to what?”
“To him.”
Noah’s jaw tightened.
“You ruined her life to compare us?”
“I gave her a life.”
I slammed my fist against the side of the van.
Victoria shouted at the monitor even though he could not hear her.
“You stole it!”
Then the technician said, “Wait. I can open a channel.”
Shah looked at Victoria.
“Do you want to speak to him?”
Victoria stepped to the microphone.
“Yes.”
The channel opened.
“Gabriel.”
For the first time, Voss went silent.
Victoria swallowed.
“Let my children out.”
“Victoria.”
His voice softened in a way that made my skin crawl.
“You look remarkably like Eleanor when you are frightened.”
“I’m not frightened of you.”
“That is not what your pulse suggests.”
“You don’t have my pulse.”
A pause.
Then:
“I had it two weeks ago.”
Victoria stared at the microphone.
Her doctor’s compromised system.
Her blood test.
Every measurement stolen and turned into observation.
Voss continued.
“Your daughter found her brother exactly as predicted. Their attachment formed faster than the control model. You disclosed the maternal relationship under stress. Now we observe protection behavior.”
Victoria’s voice turned cold.
“No. Now you observe the end.”
Voss chuckled.
“You inherited Malcolm’s certainty.”
“I inherited my mother’s ability to finally stop obeying him.”
That silenced him.
Victoria leaned toward the microphone.
“You spent thirty years trying to prove blood decides who belongs to whom. But Celia was my mother’s daughter even after Malcolm renamed her. Ava was my daughter while I was too afraid to claim her. Daniel became her father the moment he chose not to walk away. Noah loved his sister before anyone explained the science.”
Her voice broke, but she kept going.
“You proved yourself wrong with every person you hurt.”
Inside the glass room, Ava looked toward the speaker.
Noah squeezed her hand.
For several seconds there was no response.
Then Voss said, “Beautiful speech.”
The technician beside Shah whispered, “I have his signal.”
Everyone froze.
The open audio channel had exposed Voss’s network path.
“He’s in the surgical archive, lower west wing.”
Shah signaled the team.
Agents moved.
Voss continued talking, unaware.
“Unfortunately, emotion does not alter genetics.”
Victoria answered, “No. It alters choices.”
On the monitor behind her, the observation-room lock clicked green.
The technician shouted, “Door open!”
An agent rushed inside.
Noah and Ava ran out.
I stopped hearing everything else.
I ran from the command van.
Shah shouted after me, but this time no one tried very hard to stop me.
Minutes later, Noah came up the stairs first.
He hit me so hard around the waist that I stumbled.
Ava followed.
She stopped three feet away.
Not sure.
Still trained by ten years of adults who disappeared.
I opened one arm.
“Come here.”
She did.
I held both children until I could feel their breathing slow.
Victoria reached us and wrapped herself around all three of us.
For a few seconds, New Dawn vanished.
Then gunfire cracked from below again.
Agents pushed us behind the command vehicle.
A radio screamed:
“Suspect moving to north tunnel!”
Another voice:
“Voss has a hostage!”
I looked at Shah.
“Who?”
The answer came one second later.
“Malcolm Reed.”
Somehow, during the chaos, Malcolm had been removed from the transport vehicle.
May you like
Voss was taking the man who funded him back into the place where it started.
And according to the old blueprint on Shah’s screen, the north tunnel ended at the lake.
