And that realization should worry me more than it does.
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 theinitial 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 gapscorrespond 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."
