CHAPTER 6 — THE CHILDREN OF GREENHAVEN
Dr. Voss had expected Elena to die in the hospital.
When the sedative failed, he created a transfer order.
The authorization listed a private neonatal ambulance scheduled to collect her at midnight. It included forged signatures from two doctors and an emergency request stating that Elena required specialized surgery at a Canadian facility.
If Agent Brooks had not discovered the document, hospital staff might have handed my daughter directly to the people trying to erase her.
Every access point to the NICU was locked down.
Federal agents checked the identity of every doctor, nurse, cleaner, and technician. Elena’s electronic records were removed from the main hospital network.
Dr. Reeves remained beside her for most of the night.
I sat near the incubator, one hand pressed against the glass.
“You’re staying with me,” I whispered. “No one is taking you anywhere.”
At 3:17 a.m., Brooks received word that the convoy had split into three directions.
One van crossed east toward New Hampshire.
Another headed west.
The third moved north toward a private airfield.
State police stopped the eastern van.
It was empty.
The western van contained medical equipment and no passengers.
The northern vehicle vanished after entering a stretch of mountain road without traffic cameras.
“They created decoys,” Brooks explained.
Nora paced beside the NICU window.
“How many children were at Greenhaven?”
“Twenty-three according to the manifest.”
“Then they can’t hide forever.”
“They don’t need forever. They only need to reach the airfield.”
“Where does the plane go?”
“We found flight plans for Montreal, Iceland, and Switzerland. All could be false.”
Nora struck the wall with her palm.
“My daughter was right there.”
I understood the agony in her voice.
For two years, she had believed Lily might be dead. Then, for one brief hour, she had seen proof of life.
Now Lily was disappearing again.
“We’ll find her,” I said.
Nora looked at me with exhausted eyes.
“You don’t know that.”
“No. But Voss needs something.”
“What?”
“Project Eden.”
I turned toward Brooks.
“He won’t abandon the research.”
“He took the files.”
“Not all of them.”
Brooks waited.
“Victor never trusted anyone,” I continued. “He kept duplicate records for every illegal account. If Voss worked with him for years, he probably did the same.”
“You think there’s another archive?”
“I think there’s something at Greenhaven that Voss could not carry.”
The federal team searched the property again.
This time, they examined the building plans.
The original structure had been a private psychiatric hospital built in the 1940s. Renovation records showed three basement levels, but the tactical team had found only two.
A sealed elevator shaft descended beneath the laboratory.
Agents cut through the metal doors.
The hidden third level contained freezers filled with biological samples, paper records, and hundreds of labeled embryo storage containers.
But the greatest discovery was a communications room.
One terminal remained active.
Voss had used it to contact an encrypted server less than ten minutes earlier.
The destination was not Canada.
It was Baltimore.
Brooks displayed a map on the hospital screen.
“Ashford Global owns a shipping terminal near the harbor.”
“They’re not going to an airfield,” I said.
“They’re going to a ship.”
The children could be moved through international waters without passing through an airport or border station.
Brooks ordered the Coast Guard and port authorities to seal the harbor.
For the first time, I saw uncertainty in her face.
“What?” I asked.
“The federal leak.”
If someone inside law enforcement had warned Victor about the raid, that person could warn Voss about the harbor operation.
“Then don’t tell the full team.”
“I need personnel.”
“Tell them the convoy is heading to the airport.”
Brooks studied me.
“Use the leak.”
Within fifteen minutes, an official alert was circulated stating that federal agents believed the children were being transported toward a private airfield in northern New York.
Meanwhile, Brooks contacted only four trusted agents and a Coast Guard commander she knew personally.
The false information worked.
An intercepted message was transmitted from a Justice Department terminal to an offshore number.
AIRFIELD COMPROMISED. HARBOR ROUTE CLEAR.
The leak had revealed himself.
Brooks traced the terminal.
It belonged to Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Garrison, the prosecutor assigned to Victor’s financial case.
Garrison had accepted more than nine million dollars through hidden property purchases.
He was arrested before dawn.
But his warning had already reached Voss.
The harbor route remained active.
Brooks left the hospital to join the operation.
I watched the live updates from my bed.
At 5:42 a.m., surveillance located the missing van inside an Ashford shipping warehouse.
Thermal cameras showed at least thirty people inside.
Children.
Guards.
Medical staff.
Voss.
A cargo vessel waited at the nearby dock with engines running.
The tactical team surrounded the terminal.
Brooks called Voss.
He answered through the warehouse communication system.
“You’re trespassing on private property,” he said.
“You are holding kidnapped children.”
“I am protecting patients.”
“Release them.”
“You don’t understand what they are.”
Nora stood beside the hospital phone.
“They are children,” she shouted.
Voss heard her.
“Mrs. Bell. You always were emotional.”
“Where is Lily?”
“Safe.”
“Let me hear her voice.”
A long silence followed.
Then a child spoke through the speaker.
“Mom?”
Nora collapsed into a chair.
“Lily!”
“Mom, I’m scared.”
“I’m coming for you.”
Voss’s voice returned.
“No one is coming inside. If police approach, I will destroy thirty years of research.”
Brooks replied calmly.
“I don’t care about your research.”
“You should. The children require treatment only I can provide.”
Dr. Reeves leaned toward the phone.
“What treatment?”
“The modifications are unstable. Without periodic intervention, their immune systems will deteriorate.”
Nora looked at Jamie.
“Can you cure them?”
“I can maintain them.”
“Then give us the protocol,” Reeves said.
Voss laughed.
“You believe medicine belongs to everyone. It belongs to those intelligent enough to create it.”
I took the phone.
“You failed.”
Voss went silent.
“You wanted perfect children,” I continued. “Instead, you made them dependent on you so you could feel powerful.”
“Mara.”
“You knew who I was when you walked into the NICU.”
“You were our greatest success.”
“My daughter is not yours.”
“Biologically, she is extraordinary.”
“She is four pounds and struggling to breathe because people like you treated her life as property.”
“Elena will change the future.”
“You tried to kill her.”
“I attempted to prevent the government from placing her in ordinary care.”
The calmness of his answer frightened me more than rage would have.
“You believe you’re saving them,” I said.
“I know I am.”
“Then why are there armed guards?”
Voss did not reply.
“Why did women die? Why did you kidnap Lily? Why did Victor murder Elias Ward?”
The warehouse line went silent.
Then a gunshot echoed through the connection.
Nora screamed.
Brooks shouted orders.
The tactical team breached the warehouse.
The phone filled with explosions, alarms, and children crying.
The video feed from an agent’s body camera appeared on Brooks’s secure channel. Figures moved through smoke. Guards dropped their weapons. Medical workers raised their hands.
Agents found the children locked inside a refrigerated transport container modified with hospital beds.
Lily was among them.
Alive.
Nora sobbed so hard she could not stand.
But Voss was missing.
A tunnel beneath the warehouse led directly to the dock.
He had boarded the cargo ship during the confusion.
The Coast Guard intercepted it before it reached open water.
Voss stood on the deck holding a metal case and a pistol.
“Put the weapon down!” officers shouted.
He looked toward the city skyline.
Then he threw the case into the harbor.
The final Project Eden treatment protocols sank into the dark water.
Voss raised the pistol.
A shot rang out.
He fell.
For several minutes, no one knew whether he was alive.
Then Brooks’s message appeared.
VOSS IN CUSTODY. WOUNDED. ALIVE.
The children were transported to hospitals under federal protection.
Lily was reunited with Nora shortly after sunrise.
Their embrace played silently on the hospital screen.
Lily ran down a corridor and threw herself into her mother’s arms. Nora dropped to her knees and held both of her children against her.
For the first time since the baby shower, I felt hope.
Then Dr. Reeves entered my room carrying Elena’s test results.
His expression told me the danger was not over.
“What did you find?”
He sat beside me.
“Elena has the same genetic instability as Jamie.”
The joy I had felt disappeared.
“Can you treat it?”
“Voss claimed the protocol went into the harbor.”
“But you don’t believe him.”
“The children at Greenhaven received medication every month. There must be samples somewhere.”
“What happens without it?”
“Her immune system may begin failing within weeks.”
I looked through the glass at Elena.
We had survived Daniel.
We had survived Voss’s first attempt.
We had rescued the children.
But now the only man who knew how to keep my daughter alive was wounded, under guard, and refusing to speak.
At that moment, Agent Brooks called.
Voss had regained consciousness.
He had one demand before he revealed the treatment.
May you like
He wanted to speak with me.
Alone.
