Chapter 10 - THE MISSING SEQUENCE
Doctors admitted me to a secure military hospital.
The drill wound required stitches.
The baby remained stable, but the obstetrician warned that stress could trigger premature labor.
I almost laughed.
Stress had become too small a word.
Ross placed guards outside my room.
Hayes stayed inside.
My father underwent surgery one floor below.
Jason was transferred to federal custody.
Deputy Director Kane disappeared before police stopped his vehicle.
A decoy had been driving.
My mother remained missing.
The evidence drives from the shelter were encrypted.
Only the sequence hidden in my memory could open them.
Ross brought in Dr. Naomi Chen, a neurologist who once worked with my father.
She showed me the recovered files from my childhood.
Patterns.
Music.
Images.
The lullaby acted as a trigger, but only fragments returned.
“Kane believes pregnancy completed the restoration process,” she said.
“What happens if the memory returns?”
“You may experience seizures, sensory loss, or permanent neurological damage.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Your mother dies.”
I looked toward the guarded door.
“Play the recordings.”
For six hours, Dr. Chen exposed me to childhood sounds and images.
My mother’s voice.
My father’s laboratory.
The red blinking light.
Numbers began surfacing.
Then disappearing.
Jason knew more.
I demanded to see him.
Ross refused.
“He tried to kill you.”
“He worked for Leonard. He knows the conditioning process.”
“He will manipulate you.”
“He already did that for years.”
Ross watched me carefully.
“What makes you think you can control the conversation now?”
“I don’t need to control it.”
I touched my bruised lip.
“I need him to believe he still can.”
They brought Jason into an interrogation room in chains.
His wounded shoulder was bandaged.
When he saw me, he smiled.
“I knew you’d come.”
I sat across from him.
“Help me recover the sequence.”
“What do I get?”
“A chance to live.”
“Kane will kill me anyway.”
“Not if he thinks you are useful.”
Jason leaned back.
“You want to trade me.”
“I want my mother.”
He studied my face.
“Where is the monitor?”
“Federal evidence.”
“Then you’re missing the second trigger.”
“What is it?”
He smiled.
“Our wedding song.”
My stomach twisted.
He had chosen it.
An old jazz recording my mother used to play.
Every romantic detail in our marriage had been selected to condition me.
“Play it,” he said.
Hayes started the recording.
The first notes filled the room.
Pain exploded behind my eyes.
I fell from the chair.
Images tore through me.
Jason holding a syringe.
Leonard beside our bed.
My mother watching through a one-way window.
A code appeared in fragments.
Seven words.
I whispered the first six.
Jason leaned forward.
“And the last?”
I looked up.
He wanted it.
That meant he did not know.
I smiled despite the pain.
“You should have listened more carefully.”
Jason’s face changed.
The seventh word came from the memory of my father holding me beside the burning house.
Not a code word.
A name.
Kane.
The sequence was not designed to unlock the files.
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It was designed to transmit them automatically to every major news organization once Kane’s voice was authenticated.
And my phone was already recording Jason’s confession.
