The man with the photograph did not make the call right away.
He set his phone back on the table and stood very still for a moment, the way a person stands when they are holding something enormous and they need a second to decide whether they are strong enough to carry it.
His name was Dr. Elias Cross. He was sixty-one years old, and he had worked for Chairman Wales for thirty of those years. He had done things in those thirty years that he was not proud of. He had kept secrets that would make ordinary men lose sleep for the rest of their lives.
But this.
This was different.
"Does Chairman Wales know yet?" he asked the other man in the room.
"No." The younger man, whose name was Felix, shook his head. "We came to you first, as protocol requires."
"Good." Dr. Cross looked at the report again. "Keep it that way. For now."
Felix frowned. "Sir, Chairman Wales has been searching for this child for over twenty years. He will want to know immediately—"
