Chapter 20 - The Resurfacing Signal
"Fire! Shoot the water! SHOOT THEM!" Evelyn’s screech tore through the storm like the wail of a banshee.
Automatic gunfire instantly ripped across the surface of the river. Hundreds of rounds peppered the black water, kicking up white geysers of spray and foam. The mercenaries emptied their magazines into the boiling current, their tactical lights frantically tracking the violent, swirling rapids that swept everything toward the treacherous downstream gorge.
Miller raised his tablet, his eyes darting frantically across the telemetry screen.
The green biometric beacon that had been broadcasting from Noah’s arm was flatlining. The signal strength plummeted from ninety percent to forty, then ten, before dissolving into a flat, unbroken line of static.
"Signal lost," Miller said, his face draining of color. "The water temperature... it’s forty-one degrees. The shock must have stopped the child’s heart. Or the capsule breached."
"Find them!" Evelyn screamed, grabbing Miller’s tactical vest with both hands, shaking him with manic, uncontrollable rage. "Get the searchlights! Deploy the dive team! Arthur’s entire empire is in that boy’s blood! If he sinks to the bottom, we have nothing! WE HAVE NOTHING!"
Miller roughly shoved her hands away, his jaw clenching as the cold reality set in. The sound of distant sirens—real state police sirens, dozens of them, converging on the Whispering Pines perimeter from Route 9—began to echo through the valley. The flashbang and gunfire had drawn the local authorities.
"The police are inside the gates," Miller said coldly, turning his back on the river. "We have to abandon the site. Now."
"No!" Evelyn wailed, falling to her knees in the mud, staring out into the black, empty water where Daniel and Noah had vanished. "NO!"
Three miles downstream.
The violent current finally slammed Daniel Whitmore’s battered, half-frozen body onto a sandbar beneath the rusted iron trestles of an abandoned railway bridge.
Daniel choked, vomiting a lungful of icy river water onto the gravel. His vision was almost entirely gone, his body shivering with violent, uncontrollable hypothermic tremors. His right arm was completely paralyzed, the bullet wound throbbing with a dull, distant numbness.
But his left arm was still locked like a vice.
Tucked tight against his chest, wrapped inside the heavy wool overcoat, was Noah.
The boy coughed weakly, spitting out a small mouthful of water, and let out a tiny, fragile whimper. "Dada..."
Daniel collapsed onto his side, his forehead resting against Noah’s cold cheek. "I’ve got you," Daniel whispered, tears freezing against his skin. "I’ve got you, baby. We made it."
Daniel reached down with trembling, numb fingers to feel Noah’s forearm.
The scar was gone.
In its place, the skin had split cleanly along the surgical line, the microscopic capsule having been dislodged and washed away into the crushing depths of the Hudson rapids. The data was lost forever. The fortune was gone. Noah was just a boy again. Just an ordinary, beautiful, innocent little boy.
Daniel let out a ragged breath of pure, profound relief, allowing his exhausted eyes to close against the storm. They were free.
Suddenly, five feet away on the dark gravel of the sandbar, a handheld military transceiver washed ashore in a tangle of river driftwood crackled to life.
A voice hissed through the static—a voice that was deep, aristocratic, and impossible.
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*"Marcus. Evelyn. This is Arthur Vance speaking from the primary extraction yacht off Long Island Sound. The diversion at the museum was successful. The board has assumed full operational control of Whitmore Biologics. Retrieve the secondary subject immediately... Daniel Whitmore’s biological mother has just arrived at the terminal."*
Daniel’s eyes snapped open in the freezing dark.
