Chapter 7 - OLD CENTRAL
Old Central Station had been abandoned for decades before redevelopment.
North Line used the unfinished lower floors as a transfer site.
We entered with federal agents through the rail tunnel.
Inside, dozens of temporary beds lined the old waiting hall.
Children had been held there before being moved across state lines.
Medical bracelets replaced names.
Lily found a bracelet matching her own birthday.
North Line had prepared her transfer months earlier.
In the control room, we found Linda Brooks.
Alive.
Older.
Thin.
Still wearing the red dispatcher headset from her last shift.
Mercer held a gun behind her.
Michael Carter stood near the exit with Sarah’s antibiotics in his pocket.
Mercer demanded the storage ledger.
Thomas had it.
He refused.
Linda shouted, “Destroy it.”
Mercer fired.
Thomas pushed Sarah down and took the bullet in his shoulder.
Agents breached the room.
Michael escaped through a service tunnel.
Mercer was captured.
Linda survived.
No dramatic reunion.
She looked at Sarah and me and said both names.
Then asked permission before touching us.
That mattered.
Mercer’s arrest should have ended the operation.
Instead, every police computer in Detroit displayed one message:
NORTH LINE PROTOCOL TWO ACTIVE.
May you like
TARGET: LILY COLLINS.
The network no longer needed Mercer.
