Chapter 5
REAGAN
The data spreads across three monitors like a constellation waiting to be mapped.
The Committee's financial networks branch and split, merge and diverge, creating patterns that should be impossible to track. Except they're not impossible. Just carefully hidden behind layers of shell corporations and defense contractors that all connect back to the same handful of people.
Hours of work and my eyes burn. Coffee's gone cold again. But the connections are there. Protocol Seven wasn't just Morrison's operation. It was systematic. Organized. Funded through channels that required approval from senior leadership.
"You missed one." The voice comes from behind me. Young. Accented. Precise.
I spin around. Khalid stands in the doorway, book in hand. He's been so quiet I didn't hear him approach. Dylan's taught him well.
"Missed what?"
"The shell corporation in Luxembourg." Khalid moves closer, points at my screen. "You traced Morrison's funding through the Caymans and Virginia. But there's a gap between the initial capital and the first shell corporation. Money doesn't just appear. Someone seeded the account."
I pull up the financial records again. He's right. There's a three-week gap where two million dollars materialized in Morrison's first shell corporation with no clear source.
"How did you see that?"
"Dylan taught me to look for gaps. Missing time, missing money, missing connections.
That's where people hide things they don't want found.
" Khalid's English is quite good and improving.
A little hesitation, but not much searching for words.
"You're good at finding the obvious trails.
But the Committee doesn't leave obvious trails. "
"The obvious trails have taken me six months to map."
"Because you're thinking like a journalist. Follow the story, find the sources, prove the narrative." Khalid sets his book down on the desk. Some thriller in Arabic. "Dylan thinks like an interrogator. Start with what's missing, work backwards, find who benefits from the absence."
I pull up the timeline again. He's right.
"Show me."
Khalid pulls up a chair. Leans forward to study my timeline. His dark eyes scan the data with an intensity that doesn't belong on a fifteen-year-old face.
"Here. Morrison authorized Protocol Seven operations in six different countries over two decades.
But there are gaps. Years where no operations appear in the records you've found.
Either he stopped completely, which seems unlikely given the systematic nature of the program, or those operations are hidden somewhere you haven't looked. "
"Where would they be hidden?"
"Black budget allocations. Emergency response authorizations.
Anything that doesn't require normal oversight.
" Khalid highlights sections of my timeline.
"These gaps correspond with major geopolitical events.
Embassy bombings, terrorist attacks, political assassinations.
Standard response would be emergency authorizations for covert operations. "
"You think Morrison used crises as cover for Protocol Seven operations."
"I think Morrison created crises to justify Protocol Seven operations. You eliminate witnesses during chaos and nobody asks questions. Everyone's too busy responding to the attack to notice a few extra bodies."
The logic is brutal. Efficient. Exactly the kind of thinking that would let someone run a systematic elimination program for decades without getting caught.
"How do you know this?"
"Dylan explained how the Committee works.
How they use chaos to hide operations. How they create problems so they can offer solutions that increase their power.
" Khalid looks at me directly. "I learn fast. I have to.
The people who killed my family are still out there.
Understanding how they think is how I stay alive. "
"I'm sorry about your family."
"Don't be sorry. Help me make sure Morrison's crimes are exposed and Webb pays for continuing them.
" Khalid turns back to the monitors. "Your investigation is good.
But it's incomplete. You prove Morrison ran Protocol Seven.
You don't prove why the Committee let him. That's the piece you're missing."
"The Committee benefited from eliminating witnesses."
"The Committee benefited from eliminating specific witnesses.
That's different." Khalid pulls up a list of Protocol Seven victims. "Look at the pattern.
Who gets eliminated? Whistleblowers, journalists, witnesses to specific operations.
Not random people. Not blanket suppression.
Targeted elimination of individuals who threatened specific projects. "
"So Morrison wasn't just covering up general corruption. He was protecting specific operations."
"And whoever authorized those operations wanted the witnesses gone as much as Morrison did.
" Khalid highlights connections between victims and operations.
"Find out which operations these people threatened to expose.
That tells you who Morrison was protecting.
That tells you who's behind Morrison and now Webb. "
"Will you help me? Map these connections?"
Khalid hesitates. Glances toward the hallway where Dylan is probably monitoring this entire conversation.
"Dylan says I should focus on school. Not on hunting the people who killed my village."
"This isn't hunting. It's building a case.
Legal, documented, admissible in federal court.
" I pull up the evidence structure Dylan showed me.
"Everything we find goes toward prosecuting Morrison's crimes and everyone still connected to Protocol Seven.
That includes the people who authorized what happened to your village. "
"You want me to testify."
Khalid knows exactly what I'm asking.
"Only if you're willing. Only if it won't hurt you more than it helps. But yes. Your testimony about what happened in your village would be powerful. You're the only surviving witness. The only person who can describe what Morrison did from direct experience."
"Dylan doesn't want me involved. He thinks I should move on.
Forget. Live a normal life." Frustration edges into Khalid's voice.
"But I can't forget. Every time I close my eyes I see my mother burning from the inside.
My sister choking on her own blood. My father trying to shield us and dying anyway. "
"You don't have to forget. You just have to decide whether remembering serves justice or revenge."
"Dylan says there's no difference. Justice is just revenge with paperwork."
"Dylan's wrong." The words come out more forceful than intended.
"Revenge is personal. It ends when the person who hurt you is dead.
Justice is systematic. It ends when the system that enabled the hurt is destroyed.
Morrison's dead, but the Committee continues.
Webb took his place. The system falls, nobody can authorize operations like Protocol Seven ever again. "
Khalid considers this. His posture relaxes slightly. Less defensive. More interested.
"What do you need from me?"
"Your testimony. On record. Everything you remember about the day Morrison's team came to your village.
The chemicals they used. The way people died.
What you saw, what you heard, what you survived.
" I pull up a digital recorder. "Only if you're willing.
Only if you understand this will be public.
People will read your testimony. Committee lawyers will challenge it.
You'll have to relive the worst day of your life in front of strangers. "
"How is that different from reliving it every night in my sleep?"
I sit back. Fifteen years old and he's already thought this through.
"It's not different. It's just witnessed. You're not alone with it anymore."
Khalid nods. Sits back in his chair. Folds his hands in his lap like he's preparing for something difficult.
"What do you want to know?"
For the next hour, Khalid talks. His voice never wavers.
The details he provides are devastating.
The chemicals came in the morning. Released through aerosol dispersal systems mounted on trucks that looked like water delivery vehicles.
People thought they were getting clean water.
Instead they got nerve agents mixed with corrosive compounds designed to test symptom progression under field conditions.
Khalid describes his mother's skin blistering and peeling. His father's respiratory failure. His two sisters and younger brother’s convulsions. Three hundred forty-seven people dying in systematic waves as Morrison's team documented results and adjusted dispersal patterns.
"I hid in the well. Dylan found me because I was still breathing. Everyone else was dead or dying." Khalid's hands don't shake. "He was supposed to wait until I died. Supposed to document my death. Instead he pulled me out and ran."
"Why?"
"You should ask him. I think seeing dead children reminded him of something. Or someone."
His daughter. Maya. Eight years old when she died.
"Dylan saved you because you mattered. Not because you reminded him of anyone."
"Maybe. But I think people usually save the things they couldn't save before.
That's why he checks on me at night. Why he reads to me in Arabic even though his pronunciation is terrible.
Why he watches me like I might disappear if he looks away.
" Khalid's expression softens. "He's trying very hard to be someone worth trusting. Most days he succeeds."
"He is worth trusting."
"I know. But he doesn't believe that yet. Still thinks he's the monster the Committee made him." Khalid stands, picks up his book. "Your investigation proves Morrison was guilty of war crimes. Maybe it also proves Dylan made the right choice by saving me instead of following orders."