Chapter 18 - Twelve Names, Twelve Minutes
Twelve witnesses.
Twelve minutes.
The false Kelsey had activated simultaneous kill orders using my credentials. Every protected location now believed the commands came from me.
I lowered my weapon.
She smiled wider.
Dad did not.
He stepped toward the wall and ripped the cable from my secure terminal.
The countdown continued.
“It’s already distributed,” she said.
“Then you don’t need to be alive,” Dad answered.
For the first time, uncertainty touched her face.
I moved before she could reach the pistol beneath my desk. We hit the floor hard. She fought like someone trained from recordings—precise, fast, technically perfect.
But she anticipated doctrine.
I used memory.
I drove my shoulder into the old fracture on her right side, the one her file had hidden but her movement revealed. She gasped. Dad kicked the pistol away.
I pinned her wrist.
“What’s your name?”
“Kelsey Morgan.”
I tightened my grip.
“What was your name before they stole mine?”
Her eyes changed.
Just once.
“Lena Voss.”
Dad froze.
He knew the name.
Lena was the daughter of Daniel Voss, a Gray Lantern operative listed among the dead identities. She had been raised inside the network after her father disappeared. Cross had trained her to believe the Morgan family caused his death.
“She told me Nancy Morgan burned the safe house,” Lena said.
Mom’s voice came through my phone on speaker.
“I evacuated that house.”
Lena looked toward the sound.
Mom continued, “Your father chose to stay because he was moving money for Cross. I tried to bring you out.”
“You’re lying.”
“I left you a red wool coat at Saint Agnes Station. You were six. One button was missing.”
Lena stopped fighting.
The countdown showed eight minutes.
I searched her uniform and found a ceramic data token sewn beneath the collar.
Dad inserted it into the terminal.
A command tree opened.
Each witness order required a second confirmation from a hidden controller.
The controller was listed as LANTERN ONE.
Not Cross.
Not Shaw.
Judge Reed.
The judge who had raised his hands in the warehouse and pretended to be afraid was the man above them all.
Ruiz’s voice exploded through the phone.
“Reed is gone. He killed the officer transporting him.”
Lena stared at the countdown.
“I can cancel the orders.”
“Do it.”
She hesitated.
“What do I get?”
“Your real name back.”
She entered the code.
Eleven orders turned green.
One remained red.
TARGET: NANCY MORGAN.
LOCATION COMPROMISED.
May you like
Mom’s line went silent.
Then Ruiz shouted, “They’re inside!”
