8. Hounds on the Trail

The road from Antwerp to Brussels was a grey ribbon stretched across the Belgian flatlands, lined with poplar trees that stood like skeletal sentinels against the winter sky. Gregor drove a battered Renault with French plates, his massive hands resting lightly on the wheel, his eyes scanning the mirrors every few seconds with the automatic vigilance of a man who had spent decades expecting trouble.

Leo sat in the passenger seat, the forged passport heavy in his jacket pocket. The photograph inside showed his face under a name he had never used before—Mathieu Dubois, a junior correspondent for Agence Nouvelle, born in Lyon, educated in Paris, assigned to cover the EU Parliament hearings on child welfare standards. The biography was a fiction constructed by Anya Voss's document forger, but the press credential was authentic, obtained through channels that Gregor had declined to explain.

"The hearing starts at ten," Gregor said. "We will arrive in Brussels by eight. That gives you time to find the cafe, make contact with Johan, and get into the Parliament building before the committee convenes. Once the hearing begins, everything moves quickly. You need to be in position before the first witness is called."

"And if Johan is not at the cafe?"

"Then you improvise. The press credential will get you into the building regardless. But without a parliamentary sponsor, you will not be allowed into the committee room. You need Johan to get you on the witness list." Gregor glanced at Leo, his heavy-jawed face unreadable. "You have been improvising for days. This is no different."

Leo was not so sure. The journey from Ashwick to Brussels had been a series of escapes and narrow margins, but each step had been guided by someone else—Luts, Nadia, Brigitte, Anya, Gregor. Now he was approaching the endgame, the moment when he would have to stand alone in front of a committee of strangers and tell them a story that sounded like madness. The prospect was terrifying in a way that even the gunshot in Rotterdam had not been.

"What happens to you after you drop me off?" Leo asked.

"I disappear. Anya has arranged a safe house in Charleroi. I will wait there until the hearing concludes and we know whether the evidence has been accepted. If things go well, I may be able to negotiate a deal with the authorities—immunity in exchange for testimony. If things go badly, I will need to leave Europe quickly."

"Have you done this before? Testified against the network?"

Gregor was silent for a long moment. The road hummed beneath the tyres, the poplar trees flashing past in rhythmic succession. "I was not always a driver," he said finally. "I spent eleven years as a field operative for Silber Group. I specialized in logistics—moving people and materials across borders without detection. I knew what the cargo was, but I told myself it was not my concern. I was just the transport. The children were someone else's responsibility."

He paused, his hands tightening on the wheel. "Then, in 2014, I was assigned to move a six-year-old girl from a holding facility in Veridia to a buyer in Italy. The girl had been classified as a high-value placement—blonde hair, blue eyes, the kind of phenotype the buyers paid a premium for. She reminded me of my niece. The same age, the same coloring, the same way of tilting her head when she was confused. I delivered her to the buyer, collected my fee, and then went back to my apartment and could not sleep for three days."

"Did you get her out?"

Gregor shook his head. "By the time I decided to act, she had been moved again. The buyers protect their investments. I never found her." He glanced at Leo again, and this time his expression was not unreadable. "That is the thing about the network. It does not just traffic children. It makes people like me complicit in ways that cannot be undone. Every operative who has ever moved a child or erased a file or silenced a witness is carrying a weight that does not get lighter. Some of us pretend it is not there. Some of us try to make amends. But the weight remains."

Leo thought about Anya Voss, who had lost her daughter to the Institute and had spent ten years searching for her. He thought about Edik Luts, who had processed thousands of files before deciding to tear the system down. He thought about Miriam Cole, who had worked inside Ashwick Social Services for decades, processing placements she did not yet understand were crimes. They had all been complicit. They had all carried the weight. And they had all, in their different ways, tried to make amends.

The Brussels suburbs began to appear through the windscreen—first industrial estates and logistics parks, then residential neighborhoods of red-brick houses and small shops, then the denser urban fabric of the city itself. Gregor navigated the streets with the ease of long familiarity, avoiding the main boulevards in favor of side streets and service roads.

"The Parliament building is in the European Quarter," he said. "The cafe is on Rue de la Loi, two blocks from the main entrance. I will drop you half a kilometer away. Walk the rest. Keep your head down. There are cameras everywhere in that district, and the network has access to most of them."

He pulled the Renault to a stop on a quiet side street lined with office buildings. "This is where I leave you. The cafe is north of here, past the roundabout, on the left. Remember what I told you about Johan. Corner table, reading Le Monde. He will be wearing a blue scarf. That is the recognition signal."

Leo gathered his rucksack and the forged press credential and climbed out of the car. The morning was cold and damp, the sky a pale grey that threatened rain. He looked back at Gregor through the open window.

"Thank you," he said. "For the transport. For the documents. For everything."

Gregor nodded, his heavy face settling into an expression that might have been sadness or might have been something else entirely. "Survive the hearing," he said. "That is all the thanks I need. And Leo—when you stand in front of the committee, remember the people who could not stand there themselves. Luts. Miriam. Brigitte. Your mother. Speak for them as well as yourself."

He pulled away before Leo could reply, the Renault's taillights receding into the grey morning. Leo stood alone on the quiet street, his rucksack on his back and the USB drive in his pocket and the forged passport pressed against his chest like a talisman.

He began walking north, toward the roundabout and the cafe and the Parliament building that loomed somewhere ahead. The European Quarter was a landscape of glass and steel and concrete, its streets populated by men and women in business attire who moved with the purposeful stride of people who believed they were shaping history. The flags of member states hung from buildings, their colors muted by the grey light. The architecture was modern and impersonal, the kind of environment designed to impress rather than to welcome.

La Plume was exactly where Gregor had said it would be—a small cafe tucked between a bank and a lobbying consultancy, its windows fogged with steam. Leo pushed open the door and entered. The interior was warm and smelled of coffee and fresh bread, a small haven of normalcy in the bureaucratic landscape outside. Most of the tables were occupied by people reading newspapers or typing on laptops or conducting quiet conversations in multiple languages.

Johan was at the corner table, just as Gregor had predicted. He was a thin man in his forties with receding hair and the slightly harassed expression of someone who worked too hard and slept too little. He wore a blue scarf draped around his neck, and a copy of Le Monde lay open on the table beside his coffee cup. He looked up as Leo approached, his expression shifting from mild curiosity to something sharper.

"You are early," Johan said. His English was accented but fluent, the vowels rounded by a Scandinavian tongue. "Sit down. Do not attract attention."

Leo slid into the chair opposite Johan and placed the press credential on the table. "Gregor sent me. Anya said you could help."

Johan glanced at the credential, then pushed it back toward Leo. "Keep that visible at all times. The security at the Parliament building is not as thorough as it should be, but they will check credentials at the entrance. Yours will pass." He leaned forward, lowering his voice. "I have been monitoring the network's preparations for this hearing. They have four lobbyists registered as observers, two of whom are former Silber Group employees. They have been meeting with committee members for weeks, trying to discredit the inquiry before it begins."

"Will it work?"

"Some of the committee members are sympathetic to their arguments. The network has cultivated relationships with parliamentarians from several member states—people who benefit from the same legal ambiguities that protect Silber's operations. But the chair, Margareta Lindqvist, is not one of them. She has been pushing for this inquiry for two years, and she has enough votes to keep it moving forward."

Johan sipped his coffee, his eyes scanning the cafe over Leo's shoulder. "The problem is that the inquiry was originally focused on administrative failures in the adoption system—lost paperwork, inadequate oversight, cases where children were placed with unsuitable families. Serious issues, but not criminal. Lindqvist suspects there is more to it, but she does not yet have the evidence to prove criminality. That is where you come in."

"The evidence I have proves more than administrative failures," Leo said. "It proves systematic trafficking. Thousands of children. Multiple countries. An organized network that has been operating for more than two decades."

"I know. Anya sent me a summary of what the archive contains." Johan's expression was grim. "If even half of it is verifiable, this will be the biggest scandal in the history of the European Parliament. The legal architecture that enabled the network—the jurisdictional loopholes, the private contracts, the shell companies—it implicates officials in at least six member states. Some of them are still in office."

Leo pulled the USB drive from his pocket and placed it on the table. "This is the complete archive. Everything Luts gathered over five years. Everything Miriam Cole documented in Ashwick. Everything Brigitte Cole preserved after her sister's death. Financial records, internal correspondence, contracts, photographs, the kill list."

Johan stared at the USB drive as if it were a live explosive. "The kill list. Anya mentioned it. Thirty-seven names, is that correct?"

"Thirty-seven confirmed. The evidence suggests there may be more." Leo met Johan's eyes. "Miriam Cole is number thirty-four. Edik Luts may be number thirty-eight. Brigitte Cole may be number thirty-nine. The network is still killing people. If I walk into that committee room and present this evidence, they will try to kill me too."

"Then we must make sure they do not have the opportunity." Johan pulled a tablet from his briefcase and began typing rapidly. "I will register you as an unscheduled witness under your press name—Mathieu Dubois. The committee rules allow any journalist with relevant evidence to address the hearing, provided the chair approves. Lindqvist will approve. She has been looking for exactly this kind of testimony."

"What about the network's observers? If they see me in the committee room—"

"They will not be able to stop you once you are recognized by the chair. The hearing is public. The proceedings are live-streamed to the Parliament's website. If they try to silence you in front of the cameras, they will confirm everything you are saying. Their only option will be to discredit you after the fact."

Johan finished typing and looked up. "The hearing begins in one hour. I will go ahead to the Parliament building and make the arrangements. You will follow in thirty minutes. Approach the public entrance on Rue Wiertz, present your credential, and ask for directions to the committee room on the third floor. Do not speak to anyone else. Do not draw attention to yourself. Once you are inside the room, sit in the public gallery and wait for your name to be called."

"How will I know when to speak?"

"Lindqvist will call for unscheduled witnesses at the end of the morning session. That is the moment. Stand up, identify yourself as Mathieu Dubois of Agence Nouvelle, and state that you have evidence relevant to the inquiry. She will recognize you. After that, the floor is yours."

Johan stood and gathered his briefcase. "I must go. Good luck, Leo. Or Mathieu, I should say. The next time I see you, you will be making history."

He left the cafe, his blue scarf fluttering behind him. Leo remained at the corner table, staring at the USB drive still resting on the wood. The archive. The evidence. The sum total of five years of Edik Luts's solitary resistance, of Miriam Cole's secret documentation, of Brigitte Cole's final stand. It was all contained in a piece of plastic no larger than his thumb.

He picked it up and returned it to his pocket. Then he ordered another coffee and waited, watching the minutes tick by on the cafe's wall clock. 8:30. 8:45. 9:00. The city outside was waking up fully now, the streets filling with the noise of traffic and the movement of people. Somewhere in that crowd, the network's observers were making their way toward the Parliament building, preparing to defend the system that had trafficked thousands of children.

At 9:15, Leo left the cafe and walked toward the Parliament building. The streets of the European Quarter were busier now, the pavements crowded with officials and lobbyists and journalists heading to their various destinations. Leo blended into the flow, just another young face in the crowd, just another press credential clipped to a jacket.

The Parliament building rose ahead of him, a vast complex of glass and steel that dominated the end of Rue Wiertz. The flags of member states fluttered in the grey breeze, and the entrance was flanked by security personnel in dark uniforms. Leo approached the public entrance and handed his credential to the guard, who scanned it with a handheld device and nodded him through.

The interior was a cavern of polished floors and soaring ceilings, its walls lined with information screens and directional signs. Leo followed the signs toward the committee rooms, ascending a series of escalators that carried him deeper into the building's bureaucratic labyrinth. The third floor was quieter than the ground level, its corridors lined with closed doors and the occasional group of officials in hushed conversation.

The committee room was at the end of a long corridor. Its doors were open, and inside, the room was arranged like a small amphitheater—rows of tiered seating for the public and press, a central table for the committee members, a witness stand facing the chair's position. The walls were paneled in light wood, and the lighting was the kind of even, shadowless fluorescence that made everything look flat and exposed.

Leo took a seat in the back row of the public gallery, positioning himself where he could see both the committee table and the entrance. The room was already beginning to fill—a few journalists in the press section, a scattering of observers in the public seats, officials in suits murmuring to each other at the edges. At the committee table, staff were arranging papers and testing microphones.

At 9:55, the committee members began to file in. They were a mix of men and women from multiple member states, their faces reflecting the diversity of the continent they represented. The chair, Margareta Lindqvist, was a woman in her sixties with grey hair cut short and the kind of steady gaze that suggested she had seen too much to be easily surprised. She took her position at the center of the table and adjusted the microphone in front of her.

"This hearing of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs is now in session," she said, her voice amplified by the room's audio system. "The subject of today's inquiry is the functioning of international adoption frameworks within the European Union, with particular attention to cases of alleged administrative failure and potential abuse."

Leo watched the observers in the public gallery. Two rows ahead of him, a man and a woman sat side by side, their posture too rigid, their attention too focused. They were not watching the committee. They were watching the room, their eyes moving across the faces of the people around them. The network's lobbyists. Johan had said there would be four. The other two must be somewhere else in the building.

The first witness was called—an official from the European Commission's Directorate-General for Justice, a grey-haired man who delivered a presentation on the regulatory framework governing international adoptions. His testimony was dry and technical, full of references to directives and implementing regulations and the division of competences between member states. The committee listened with varying degrees of attention. The lobbyists did not move.

The second witness was a representative from an adoption advocacy organization, who described cases where children had been placed with families that had not been properly vetted. The testimony was critical of the current system but stopped short of alleging criminal activity. The lobbyists still did not move.

The morning session dragged on. Leo watched the clock on the wall, its hands moving with agonizing slowness. 10:30. 11:00. 11:30. The committee heard from social workers, legal experts, representatives of national adoption authorities. The testimony was serious but contained, focused on procedural failures rather than systematic crimes. The network's strategy was clear, Leo realized. They were not trying to prevent the inquiry from happening. They were trying to keep it focused on the surface, on the administrative problems that could be fixed without exposing the criminal infrastructure beneath.

At 11:45, Lindqvist announced a brief recess. The committee members rose from their seats, stretching and murmuring to each other. The lobbyists remained in their seats, their posture unchanged. Leo stayed where he was, his heart beating faster now. The recess would be followed by the final segment of the morning session—the segment where unscheduled witnesses would be called.

Johan appeared at the edge of the room and caught Leo's eye. He nodded once, a small gesture that meant the arrangements had been made. Leo nodded back. The moment was approaching.

At 12:00, Lindqvist reconvened the hearing. The committee members returned to their seats, and the room settled back into its formal rhythm. Lindqvist consulted her notes, then looked up at the public gallery.

"Before we conclude the morning session, the committee has been informed that an unscheduled witness wishes to present evidence relevant to this inquiry. Under Rule 162 of the Parliament's Rules of Procedure, the chair has the discretion to recognize such witnesses if their testimony is deemed material to the committee's work." She paused. "I recognize Mathieu Dubois of Agence Nouvelle. Mr. Dubois, please approach the witness stand."

Leo rose from his seat. The movement felt surreal, as if he were watching himself from a great distance. He walked down the aisle toward the witness stand, his footsteps echoing on the polished floor. The lobbyists' eyes followed him, their expressions shifting from watchfulness to something more intense. One of them—the woman—reached for her mobile phone and began typing.

He reached the witness stand and faced the committee. The room was silent. The cameras were recording. And somewhere in the public gallery, the network's people were watching him with the cold focus of predators who had just identified their next target.

"Mr. Dubois," Lindqvist said. "You have evidence to present to this committee?"

Leo placed the USB drive on the witness stand. "I do," he said. "But before I present it, I need to tell you who I really am. My name is not Mathieu Dubois. My name is Leo Thorne. I was born Leonhard, Lot 23, in the Kronberg Institute in Veridia, in February 2006. I was sold before I was born. And the evidence I am about to present will prove that I was not the only one."

The silence in the room deepened. Lindqvist's expression did not change, but her eyes had sharpened. The lobbyists had stopped typing. And Leo Thorne, who had been Leonhard once, who had been Lot 23 in an auction catalogue, began to tell his story.