After he had posted the video to the DFA website, Huang Lei reviewed his query results in astonishment. He had finally found Nathan Elliot.
The trail leading to Elliot had stopped with the technical journal subscriptions. He had gleaned that on his own, but the Lotus Blossom showed a man named Nathaniel Elloway subscribed to the exact same subscriptions shortly afterward in Chicago.
In isolation, there was no direct connection, but Nathaniel Elloway was approximately the same age, yet held no driver’s license, or passport, or government identification of any kind.
More of Nathaniel Elloway’s background scrolled by on the screen. Elloway was born in 1962 in Chicago, Illinois, but the Lotus Blossom had flagged that there were no records of his birth parents. Elloway had attended Our Lady of the Angels, but social media photos from that era showed no boy identified as Elloway. His attendance at Lane Technical High School was equally enigmatic. There were accolades in his school transcripts, but no sign that Elloway had belonged to any of the school’s clubs, and Lane Technical was renowned for its social and academic clubs.
In fact, Elloway had no connections with any other person on earth. According to the Lotus Blossom, he subscribed to the diverse list of technical journals and then suddenly changed his address to an apartment building in Las Vegas, Nevada. Basic services like water, sewer, and electricity were turned on, but no telephone, cable television, or Internet access.
He doesn’t need any because Elliot rarely lives there.
He started another search of men and women in the Las Vegas area with suspicious-looking employment records and spotty backgrounds. In less than thirty minutes, he was again astonished as he scanned the list of names.
Hundreds of people with false identities lived in the Las Vegas area.
Elliot must be working from a central location. That’s where my enemy lives.
He just needed to find it.
Karen waited in Eric’s office doorway until he finally looked up. “You got a minute, boss?”
Eric sighed. “That depends. Are you here to beat up on me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re pissed off that I didn’t tell you about John.”
She tilted her head. “That kinda got to me, but that’s not why I’m here.”
He studied her face. “Come in, Karen. You’re always welcome. You know that.”
She stepped inside, shut the door behind her, and slid into the seat across from his desk. “I want you to know that you can count on me.”
“Really? Because you might be the only one.”
“People are concerned, boss. Keeping us in the dark about John…”
He leaned back in his chair. “That’s just one of a million little things pushing me to make choices I don’t want to make.”
“Maybe you’re…”
“What?” he asked. “Worn out? Making bad decisions?”
“I was going to say maybe you’re limiting yourself.”
“How?”
“Take John. You could give the kill order, or you could lock him up. But what if there was another option?”
“What other option?”
She smiled sadly. “I don’t know, boss. I’m good at seeing the patterns in the stone, but I haven’t worked with John the way you have. I don’t have enough information.”
“Smith must have laughed when he made me the director. Nobody would want this position.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Eric. You’re not Smith. You aren’t limited to only what Smith would do.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
Karen smiled. “Of course I’m right, boss. I’m a woman.”
There was a pounding on his office door, and he sighed. “Come in.”
Deion stormed into the room, dragging Valerie behind him. Deion saw Karen and halted. “We need to speak.”
Karen stood up. “I was just leaving.”
Deion watched as she left, closing the door behind her, then said, “We need to flip the kill switch on John.”
“That’s a permanent decision to a temporary problem,” Eric said. “There are alternatives.”
“Alternatives? Are you kidding me, man? The only alternative I’m comfortable with is locking his ass back up in Camp Seven.”
“You have something else in mind,” Valerie said.
Eric leaned back in his chair. “You don’t throw away a hammer just because it’s got a little rust on it.”
“Bullshit,” Deion said. “We’re not talking rust. John isn’t a hammer. He’s a cold-blooded killer.”
“I’m a cold-blooded killer,” Eric said softly. “How about I pull your record and count your confirmed kills? Your hands aren’t clean.”
“It’s not the same damned thing,” Deion said. “I never killed women or children. I never killed any civilians.”
“What about Gohl?” Eric asked.
“That wasn’t Deion’s fault,” Valerie said.
“Just being there put those men at risk,” Eric said. “Just belonging to the OTM puts men and women in danger.”
“You’re awfully damned stubborn all of a sudden,” Deion said. “You’ve got a reputation, you know. Steeljaw, the most straight-shooting soldier that ever lived. Every Delta Operator either knows you or knows your reputation. Burton would follow you to hell and back—”
“We spent so much time thinking how we could use the StrikeForce technology,” Eric interrupted, “that we didn’t consider whether we should. Doesn’t it bother you what we did to him? We experimented on him.”
“We didn’t do shit,” Deion said. “That was all Smith.”
“We could have said no,” Eric said. “We didn’t. Did you even consider telling John he was dying? Did you consider telling him that he had only a few months?”
Deion glared at him, but Eric glared back until doubt crept across Deion’s face. “It wasn’t my job to tell him.”
“No,” Eric admitted, “but it was mine, and I treated him like a thing instead of a person. The OTM does terrible things to save the world.”
“We do what we need to do.”
“Should we?” Eric asked.
“Are you serious?”
“I’m as serious as a heart attack,” Eric said. “Should we be doing what we’re doing?”
“You didn’t ask me that when you recruited me,” Deion said.
Valerie regarded him thoughtfully. “Where is this coming from?”
“Barnwell once told me I have an almost pathological desire to follow orders,” Eric said. “When Smith made me the director, I pored over the OTM’s files. It’s… disturbing. The OTM has made a difference, but sometimes I wonder if the world would be better off without us.”
“I can’t believe this,” Deion said.
Eric sighed. “We should always consider whether we’re serving our purpose. If we don’t ask the hard questions, how will we know if we’ve crossed the line?”
“What line?” Valerie asked.
“The line between good and evil,” Eric said. “If we don’t question ourselves, how do we know if we’ve become the bad guys?”
“You’re… serious,” Deion said. “You think we’ve become the bad guys?”
Eric turned his steely gaze on Deion. “Not yet. Our books are in the black, and I damned sure want to keep them there.”
“You think we should keep John alive,” Valerie said.
“We could try to wipe his memory again,” Eric said, “but given his… health problems, he’ll never be what he was.”