Chapter Twenty-Eight – The Chase of a Ghost #2
We end up getting to know them a little better too.
The Harris pack has two little ones, a three-year-old nyra named Zuri, an almost-two-year-old aegis named Carter, and their nyra’s pregnant again.
They let it slip that they’re worried because this pregnancy feels different from the ones before.
Their nyra has been feeling off. I can see how tense they get just saying it.
“Our mate is a resident doctor in Bridgeport, at Joseph Monsoon Hospital,” Shane says. “She’s damn good at it. If you take your nyra there, I’m sure she could take a look at her.”
My chest swells with pride, but the Harris pack’s reaction is instant confusion.
They go quiet, glancing at each other like it has to be a mistake, and then change the subject.
But a little later they come back, asking questions, carefully and curiously, like they needed time to believe it first, and now they’re trying to understand how it could even be possible .
I get it. When Jo first told us, I had the exact same reaction. It didn’t fit. But now it’s just part of who she is: brilliant, fierce.
Two days later, Jo is beaming with excitement when we get home.
She hugs and kisses each of us before blurting out, “A pack showed up at the hospital today with a pregnant nyra asking for me. I got to see a nyra patient for the first time! They told me they’re Special Ops agents and that you guys talked about me. ”
We all smile at her excitement as she goes on, breathless.
“You should have seen how people at the hospital were staring, practically tearing their eyes out watching that pack walk in with her. I had to see her with Dr. Moretti, the OB-GYN, of course, but I didn’t care.
I’m just so glad it happened. Turns out Makena, that’s her name, has high blood pressure and it could have been really dangerous for her and the baby.
We started her on meds right away, and I’m going to keep seeing her through the rest of her pregnancy. ”
The Harris pack pass by the garrison again to thank us, and I think they spread the word, because to my surprise the Solomons come to talk to us about Jo too.
They already have four kids: three aegis aged eight, six, and five, and a nyra who’s seven.
The oldest was throwing up a lot yesterday and this morning, and they want to know if Jo could take a look at him too.
“He probably just ate something weird,” Sam says, “but since we have a gregalis doctor now…”
After we told them to take the kid to the hospital so Jo could check on him, I gather the courage to ask questions myself. Since their youngest is five, I figure they must have found a birth control method that works. It’s awkward as hell, but it’s really important to Jo, so I ask what they did.
But they don’t seem bothered by the question at all.
“Maya made us all get vasectomies after Yael,” Josh says.
“It was hard to find a doctor who’d do it.
We spent months looking, but we found one in New York.
It was a relief. You know, if she got pregnant again and had another boy, we’d have to keep going to give him brothers, and we already had our hands full with the four we have. ”
We end up with nothing, since surgery is not an option for us — we want something temporary that we can stop once Jo feels ready to try for a baby. But it was nice to talk to them either way.
Despite our growing relationships, every Tuesday briefing at the garrison is frustrating. Miles Aranya is untouchable. We’ve been trying every possible legal way to get to him, and nothing sticks.
We make a second attempt to get a search warrant for the Life Circle Biotech warehouse near Port Newark. The Harris pack already tried and failed, but we’re hoping our angle through the frostbite case will carry more weight.
But although the warehouse is tied to Aranya through the LLC, we can’t give the DOJ any link between him and the frostbite investigation other than the similarity between his name and the “Eme Arana” on Athena Foods’ spreadsheet.
The DOJ answer is that this is not sufficient probable cause to justify a search warrant for the warehouse.
The Harris also try to file a preliminary RICO case, tying together Aranya’s years of clinic relocations, their timing near trafficking raids, and connections to warehouse shell companies. The goal is to categorize him as part of a long-running criminal enterprise.
But RICO cases require predicate acts: at least two criminal offenses like trafficking, money laundering, or fraud directly committed by the defendant or ordered by them. Aranya has no known direct criminal activity on record, so the DOJ blocks the petition.
In response, the Harris pack files subpoenas to access the financial records of Aranya and Life Circle, hoping to trace payments or contracts linked to TGH trucks, Athena Foods, or the trafficking network.
But Aranya’s legal team is already prepared.
They immediately file for a protective injunction, citing medical privacy laws and physician-patient confidentiality, like that applies to payment records.
It shouldn’t hold. Everyone knows financial transactions aren’t covered under those protections.
But somehow the court grants the injunction.
It’s not a clever legal move; it’s a sign of his power, of how protected he really is.
The Harris pack then requests physical and digital surveillance of Aranya’s closed clinic in Short Hills and his current residence in Saddle River.
But when a suspect hasn’t yet been formally charged or linked to a crime, surveillance requires judicial approval or DOJ internal review.
The U.S. Attorney for New Jersey refuses the request.
The Bielke pack files for an administrative port inspection, similar to a customs audit, to check the Life Circle warehouse.
But the place sits in a legal gray zone, not commercial enough to flag, not residential enough to surveil, so HSI has no authority to inspect it without a federal warrant. And we already know how that’s going.
On Saturday, after the basketball game at the YMCA court, we stay a little longer to catch up with Fontes. We’re stretched out on the bench just outside the court when he drops down beside us with a quiet groan, pulls a water bottle from his duffel, and leans back.
“S?nia wants to go see her family in Arizona,” he says. “First time we’ll take more than a weekend off in years.”
“That’s good,” I reply. “We just took a week off with Jo too.”
Shane lets out a low whistle. “Best damn week of my life.”
I shoot him a look. Jay snorts, biting back a laugh.
Fontes leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, bottle dangling from his fingers. “You guys deserved a break.” Then, his tone shifts, still easy, but more focused. “So… this Frostbite shit. How deep does it go? I’ve only caught bits and pieces from the bulletins. ”
We tell him about the name that makes my stomach twist every time I say it: Aranya.
He listens without interrupting. Just scratches his beard, thoughtful. “I’ve got a few friends at the Port Authority Police Department out in Newark,” he says. “I’ll call in some favors. See if they can quietly keep eyes on the warehouse.”
The next few days, his friends at PAPD start making passes around the place. They run plates on every vehicle parked out front, log movement during odd hours, even ask around, quiet questions to port workers, neighbors. Nothing official, just listening.
But the place is cold. No unusual traffic. No suspicious activity. No one coming or going. Which makes sense. After we cracked the operation wide open, they shut everything down, even Aranya’s private office.
But still, Fontes calling in favors to help us isn’t nothing. So it might’ve come up empty, but I’m grateful anyway. And I won’t forget it.
Unexpectedly, Jo is the one who actually gets something.
One night, we’re cooking and talking about our day, and we end up mentioning the medical supplies the Life Circle warehouse has been getting.
She thinks she can figure out what they’re doing there, and it might help us build a case.
I agree — any information could matter. So we make her a list, and she spends every spare moment that week in her office in the second bedroom, cross-referencing notes, medical manuals, and her field training.
Sunday morning, she brings her notebook to the table during breakfast and tells us what she’s found.
It’s cold, calculated, and monstrous.
“I think what Aranya was doing in that clinic was medically turning women into cargo,” she says. “He prepared them to survive transport in refrigerated trucks.”
Jay frowns. “How?”
She opens a spreadsheet on her laptop. “The supplies match the process, step by step. First, IV saline stabilized them, prevented dehydration, and got their bodies ready to tolerate sedation. Then, a powerful sedative. I’m betting on a benzodiazepine mixed with a paralytic.
That would put a person under fast and keep them quiet. ”
“Once they were under, he dropped their core temperature,” she continues. “I think he basically induced artificial hypothermia. He didn’t completely freeze them, but close. It slows metabolism, cuts oxygen demand, and buys time.”
“Then the battery-heated pads,” she goes on. “He probably used them under their torso and neck. They can generate enough warmth to keep a person’s organs from shutting down completely.”
She lifts her eyes to us. “But there’s a catch.
Trap someone in a sealed box, and they’d die from lack of oxygen and carbon dioxide buildup way before the cold could kill them.
That’s why he had carbon dioxide scrubbers.
The scrubbers absorbed the carbon dioxide the women breathed out.
It doesn’t add oxygen, but it keeps the air from turning toxic too fast.”
I feel my stomach twist. “How long could they survive like that?”