Chapter 6 - THE MAN INSIDE MY SECURITY TEAM
Only federal agents and members of my forensic division knew which hospital held Hannah.
The photograph proved Victor had help inside one of those groups.
Naomi isolated every access log.
Seven people viewed the relocation plan.
Six had worked with me for years.
The seventh was Aaron Pike, a communications specialist hired eight months earlier.
Aaron disappeared before questioning.
His apartment was empty.
Inside a desk drawer, investigators found photographs of my team members and payment records from Meridian Recovery Group.
He had been leaking schedules, camera codes, and personal addresses.
Aaron also accessed the warehouse emergency system before Victor arrived.
That explained how a dead employee’s credentials had been used.
He copied Thomas’s old administrator code from the archive.
Victor’s network had reached inside the organization I trusted most.
I shut down our entire forensic division.
Clients panicked.
Employees demanded explanations.
I refused to continue operating until every system and person had been independently reviewed.
Trust without verification had already cost Thomas his life.
Hannah blamed herself.
“If I had called sooner—”
“No.”
“Gary and Mom took my phone.”
“You still found a way to preserve the evidence.”
“I brought danger to you.”
“You did not choose their violence.”
The words were true.
They did not erase every consequence.
Hannah had concealed concerns for months because she feared I would interfere with the company.
She believed independence meant handling danger alone.
We agreed that healing would require honesty, not heroic silence.
Aaron was arrested at a bus terminal.
He carried a new passport and fifty thousand dollars.
During questioning, he revealed Victor’s current location.
An abandoned luxury hotel outside Reno.
Victor had converted its underground service tunnels into a command center.
He monitored bank accounts, hospital networks, and transportation routes from there.
Federal agents prepared a raid.
Victor expected them.
The first team entered an empty lobby.
Automated doors locked behind them.
Gas began filling the ventilation system.
Fortunately, Naomi had insisted on respirators.
Agents disabled the system and reached the tunnels.
Victor escaped through a drainage route minutes before they arrived.
But he left servers behind.
The recovered data exposed the full operation.
Northstar’s trafficking routes ran through medical distributors, funeral homes, private clinics, and rehabilitation centers.
Victor moved living victims as patients.
He moved cash inside medical crates.
He hid evidence among the dead.
Several officials received regular payments to ignore irregular shipments.
One name shocked Naomi.
Deputy Commissioner Robert Kane.
Kane supervised the regional task force investigating Victor.
He had been guiding raids away from important locations for years.
He also approved the original conclusion that Thomas’s death was accidental.
Kane was arrested in his office.
He requested immunity and offered Victor’s emergency escape plan.
Victor kept a private yacht on the California coast under another name.
He planned to leave the country within forty-eight hours.
Agents surrounded the marina.
The yacht remained at its dock.
Inside, they found blood.
A damaged phone.
And Aaron’s missing communications tablet.
Victor had changed plans again.
Then the yacht’s navigation system revealed a recent destination.
Bay Point Island.
The island belonged to a charitable foundation Victor controlled.
It contained one mansion, a private airstrip, and an underground medical facility.
More importantly, the island housed thirty-seven people registered as long-term psychiatric patients.
Many matched names from missing-person databases.
Victor was not escaping alone.
He intended to move or kill every remaining witness.
Federal authorities launched the largest operation in the region’s history.
Before the aircraft departed, my phone rang from a blocked number.
Victor spoke calmly.
“Come to the island, Isaac.”
“Why?”
“Because Hannah’s mother is already here.”
I looked toward the federal holding area.
May you like
Makayla’s room was empty.
Someone had taken her from custody.
