Chapter 23

Saint Augustine was not a church.

It was a private boys' academy outside Washington, founded by Blackwood's grandfather.

Blackwood attended as a child.

So did Harrow.

So did several officials named in the Sentinel ledger.

Beneath the oldest chapel was a Cold War shelter converted into an archive.

Ethan learned about it while transporting files for Harrow.

Federal agents requested a warrant.

The academy's attorneys fought immediately.

They claimed religious freedom, student privacy, and national security.

Every hour created time to destroy evidence.

Melissa published Ethan's statement.

Public attention turned toward the school.

Former students began sharing stories.

Some remembered restricted tunnels.

Others remembered late-night visitors.

One former maintenance worker produced old blueprints.

Judge Sloan signed the warrant.

Agents entered the academy during morning classes.

The shelter beneath the chapel was empty.

Shelves had been cleared.

Paper fragments burned inside metal barrels.

But one wall remained sealed behind concrete.

Ground-penetrating radar detected a hidden chamber.

Inside were videotapes.

Thousands.

Sentinel had recorded victims.

Interviews.

Threats.

Forced confessions.

Medical examinations.

Private conversations.

Blackwood had kept proof not for history.

For leverage.

Everyone in the network could be controlled.

Harrow.

Judges.

Officers.

Politicians.

Donors.

The archive was both evidence and a weapon.

One tape showed Margaret after Thomas's death.

Blackwood sat across from her.

He offered money, protection, and a future for Ethan.

In exchange, she agreed to blame my father publicly and raise Ethan within the network.

Another showed Harrow ordering Reeve to eliminate my mother.

A third showed Dr. Hawthorne admitting that Rachel's baby died after Ethan pushed her.

Rachel watched the tape once.

Then she asked prosecutors to lock it away.

"I don't need to see it again."

The chamber also contained a live server.

Technical agents discovered remote deletion software counting down.

Twenty-three minutes remained.

They disconnected the server physically.

The countdown continued through an internal battery.

The system was designed to destroy the drives chemically.

An engineer opened the casing and disabled the release mechanism with ninety seconds left.

Blackwood's archive survived.

His political allies began abandoning him.

The Senate opened expulsion proceedings.

Federal prosecutors prepared charges for conspiracy, racketeering, kidnapping, fraud, obstruction, and murder.

Blackwood disappeared before the arrest warrant was signed.

His security detail claimed he dismissed them.

His private aircraft remained grounded.

His passports were flagged.

He had another identity.

Margaret knew it.

"Stephen Burke," she said. "His mother's maiden name."

A passport under that name had entered Canada two hours earlier.

Authorities traced him to a lakeside property in Quebec.

But the man on security footage was not Blackwood.

It was a decoy wearing glasses and a hat.

Blackwood remained in the United States.

The answer came from Kimberly Dane.

She was found alive in a motel outside Baltimore.

The blood in her rental car belonged to an animal.

Sentinel staged her disappearance after she completed the interviews.

She agreed to cooperate in exchange for protection.

Blackwood had personally coached her.

During one meeting, he received a call about "returning to the beginning."

Kimberly heard him mention a place called Mercy House.

Rachel recognized it.

Mercy House was the psychiatric facility where she had been committed.

It closed five years earlier after a suspicious fire.

The property now belonged to a Blackwood shell company.

Federal agents surrounded the ruins.

Beneath the burned facility, they found a renovated underground residence.

Blackwood was there.

So were twelve armed guards.

He demanded to speak with me.

Prosecutors refused.

He threatened to release classified files that would expose agents and informants overseas.

A dead-man system would publish everything if he did not enter a password every hour.

Technical teams could not disable it remotely.

Blackwood wanted safe passage.

A plane.

Ten million dollars.

And me as assurance.

My father rejected the demand.

Blackwood sent one file publicly.

It revealed the identity of an informant in Eastern Europe.

Within an hour, the informant was reported missing.

He proved he would sacrifice anyone.

Cross said negotiation might be necessary.

I looked at the live feed from Mercy House.

The building where Rachel had been told she killed her own child.

The underground room where Blackwood believed he still controlled every life around him.

"I'll speak to him."

My father shook his head.

"No."

"Not as a hostage."

"Then how?"

"Put me on the cameras."

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Blackwood had built his power through secrecy.

I would drag him into the open.