The private investigator's office was in a part of Port-Royal that Marcel had never visited—a neighborhood of converted warehouses and artist lofts, where the streets were lined with galleries that sold paintings to people who could afford to be eccentric. Nadia Voss worked out of a corner space on the second floor of a brick building that had once been a textile mill. Her office was sparse: a desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet, and a wall of monitors that displayed live feeds from satellite imagery and encrypted databases.
She was a woman in her early fifties, with cropped silver hair and eyes that seemed to miss nothing. She had spent fifteen years with the CIA before leaving to start her own firm, and she carried the quiet confidence of someone who had seen the worst the world had to offer and had learned to navigate it.
"I've been tracking Simon Kessler for the past 72 hours," Nadia said, her voice flat and professional. "He's a ghost, but ghosts leave trails. He used a credit card in Paris three days ago, then a burner phone in Brussels. He's moving east, probably toward the Balkans. He's running from someone."
"From Cross," Marcel said.
"Or from the FBI. Or from both. Kessler is a careful man, but he's also a greedy one. He's been living off the money he made from the clinic network, and that money is running out. He needs to surface eventually."
"Can you find him before Cross does?"
Nadia's eyes flicked to Sofia, then back to Marcel. "I have a network. Informants. People who owe me favors. But Kessler is not the only one being hunted. I've picked up chatter—Cross has people on the ground. Professionals. Ex-military, ex-intelligence. They're not looking to arrest him. They're looking to silence him."
Marcel felt the familiar cold knot in his stomach. "We need to get to him first. He has the evidence—the emails, the names, the direct link to Cross. If Cross's people get to him, it's over."
Nadia nodded. "I have a lead. A former associate of Kessler's lives in a village outside of Prague. He's been using her as a safe house for years. If Kessler is still alive, he's probably there. I'm sending a team tonight."
Sofia stepped forward. "We're going with you."
Nadia raised an eyebrow. "This isn't a pleasure trip. It's dangerous. If Cross's people are on the ground, they won't hesitate to use force."
"Then we'll stay out of the way," Marcel said. "But I need to see him. I need to hear him say it himself—that Cross was behind everything. That it wasn't just a rogue faction."
Nadia studied him for a long moment. Then she nodded. "Fine. But you follow my orders. No heroics. If I say run, you run. If I say hide, you hide. Understood?"
Marcel agreed. He had no desire for heroics. He just wanted the truth.
The flight to Prague was long and cramped, a commercial airliner filled with tired travelers and the smell of recycled air. Marcel sat by the window, staring at the clouds below, his mind churning. Sofia was beside him, her eyes closed, but he knew she wasn't sleeping. Nadia was in the row ahead, her laptop open, tracking the latest intel.
They landed at dawn. The Prague airport was a maze of glass and steel, and they moved through it like shadows, avoiding the security cameras that Nadia had identified. A car was waiting for them—a nondescript sedan driven by a local contact. They drove through the city, past the spires of the old town, into the countryside.
The village was a cluster of stone cottages, nestled in a valley that seemed untouched by time. The safe house was a small farmhouse at the end of a dirt road, its windows dark, its yard overgrown. Nadia parked a hundred meters away and scanned the area with a pair of binoculars.
"No movement," she said. "But there's a car—a black SUV, parked behind the barn. That's not local. Cross's people are already here."
Marcel's heart pounded. "Is Kessler inside?"
"I don't know. But we're not going to find out by sitting here."
They approached the farmhouse on foot, moving through the tall grass. Nadia led, her pistol drawn. Sofia flanked Marcel, her hand on his elbow, guiding him. The front door was ajar. Nadia pushed it open with her foot, revealing a scene of chaos: overturned furniture, shattered glass, a pool of dried blood on the floor.
"Too late," Nadia muttered. "They got him."
Marcel felt the ground drop out from under him. He had come all this way, risked everything, and Cross's people had been faster. Kessler was dead. The evidence was gone.
But as he stepped into the room, he heard a sound—a faint moan, coming from the back of the house. He moved toward it, his heart racing. In the kitchen, slumped against the wall, was a man in his late fifties, his face bruised, his shirt soaked with blood. He was alive.
"Simon Kessler," Sofia whispered.
Marcel knelt beside him. "We're here to help you. We're with the FBI—unofficially. We need you to tell us everything."
Kessler's eyes fluttered open. They were unfocused, but they found Marcel's face. "You're the donor," he rasped. "The one who got away."
"I'm the one who survived," Marcel said. "But I need you to survive too. Tell me about Cross. Tell me about the clinic. Tell me the truth."
Kessler coughed, a wet, rattling sound. "The truth is that Julian Cross is a monster. He created the network, he ran the network, and he killed anyone who got in his way. I have proof—the emails you found are just the beginning. There are recordings. Transactions. The names of every politician and judge he bought. I hid them. In a safety deposit box. In Zurich."
Nadia was already on her phone, barking orders to her team. "We need a medevac. Now. He's bleeding out."
"Zurich," Marcel said. "What bank?"
Kessler's eyes were closing. "UBS. Account number—" He whispered a string of digits, then his head lolled to the side.
Sofia checked his pulse. "He's still alive. But barely."
Nadia's team arrived within minutes—a pair of paramedics who had been on standby. They stabilized Kessler and loaded him into a waiting helicopter. Marcel watched as the chopper rose into the sky, carrying the only man who could destroy Cross's empire.
"We need to get to Zurich," he said. "Before Cross finds out that Kessler is still alive."
Nadia shook her head. "We need to get back to Port-Royal. The Zurich account can be accessed remotely—I have contacts in the banking system. But we need to move fast. Cross's people will have reported their failure by now. They'll be looking for us."
They drove back to Prague, then caught the next flight home. Marcel did not sleep. He stared at the window, watching the clouds, thinking about Kessler's words.
He had been so close. They had been so close.
But as they landed in Port-Royal, his phone buzzed. A message from "A Friend": "Kessler is safe. The Zurich account is frozen. Check your email."
Marcel opened his email. There was a message from an unknown sender, with an attachment—a photograph. It showed Julian Cross, in his detention cell, holding a burner phone. The photo was timestamped from two days ago.
Cross had been communicating from prison. He had been orchestrating the hit on Kessler from behind bars.
Marcel felt a wave of fury. Cross was not just a criminal. He was a cancer, spreading poison even when locked away.
He forwarded the photo to Elisa. "We need to use this. It shows he's still running his network from inside."
Elisa replied within minutes: "This is huge. It proves he's a flight risk. It also proves he's been tampering with witnesses. I'm filing a motion to restrict his communication immediately."
Marcel sat back, his heart pounding. They had evidence. They had momentum. And they had Kessler—alive, recovering, ready to testify.
But Cross was still fighting. And as long as he had resources, he would never stop.
He thought about the message from "A Friend." Whoever they were, they had helped them again. They had pointed them toward Kessler, had warned them about the hit, had guided them through the darkness.
But they had not revealed themselves. Not yet.
Marcel looked at Sofia. "We need to find out who 'A Friend' really is. They're the key to ending this."
Sofia nodded. "I've been trying to trace the number. It's encrypted, but there's a pattern. It always pings off a tower near the federal courthouse. Whoever it is, they're close. Very close."
Marcel's mind raced. The courthouse. Someone there—a clerk, a guard, a lawyer—had been watching the case, had been feeding them information. But who? And why?
He thought about the people he had met during the trial. The FBI agents. The prosecutors. The judge. The journalists. Any one of them could be the Friend.
But one name stuck out. One person who had been present at every critical moment, who had known about the warrant, the cabin, the hard drive.
Detective Mariana Reyes.
He looked at Sofia, his eyes wide. "What if it's Reyes?"
Sofia considered it. "She's been involved from the beginning. She helped us get the warrant. She knew about the cabin. She knew about Webb."
"But why would she hide it? Why not just tell us?"
"Maybe she couldn't. Maybe she had to protect herself. If Cross found out she was the mole, she'd be dead."
Marcel felt a surge of adrenaline. It made sense. Reyes had been the one constant, the one person who had always been a step ahead.
He pulled out his phone and typed a message to the unknown number: "It's you, isn't it? Detective Reyes."
The reply came quickly: "Took you long enough. Meet me at the courthouse. Midnight. Come alone."
Marcel stared at the screen. He had found the Friend.
But the message had a new urgency. A new edge.
He was about to walk into a meeting that could change everything.
And he had no idea what he would find.
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!