Chapter 12 - The Agent Who Chose the Wrong Side
Reed kept the weapon aimed at Celeste.
His face showed no triumph.
Only exhaustion.
“Put the keys down,” he said.
Celeste did not lower her gun.
“You should have stayed outside, Marcus.”
“You should have disappeared when you had the chance.”
I moved behind the concrete column.
“Are you working for Elias?”
Reed looked at me.
“I am trying to prevent a catastrophe.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Northstar is embedded in institutions across twelve countries. If the reserve opens without control, markets collapse, intelligence assets are exposed, and people who had no part in the original crimes become targets.”
Celeste laughed bitterly.
“That is what Elias told you.”
“He showed me projections.”
“He showed you fear.”
Gunfire continued outside.
Reed’s team was fighting someone, but I no longer knew which side belonged to whom.
Reed stepped closer.
“Claire, give me the key. You and your brother will be placed under protection. Your father will stand trial. Your company and assets will remain untouched.”
“And Celeste?”
His silence answered.
Celeste raised her weapon.
Reed fired first.
The bullet struck her shoulder.
She fell behind the telescope base.
I ran toward her.
Reed shouted my name.
I ignored him.
Celeste was conscious, blood spreading across her coat.
She pushed her key into my hand.
“Service tunnel,” she gasped. “North wall.”
I closed my fingers around both keys.
Reed approached.
“Do not make this worse.”
“You shot my sister.”
“She was reaching for a weapon.”
“She was warning me about you.”
“I am not your enemy.”
“That is what every person who betrayed me has said.”
I pulled the emergency release on the damaged telescope.
The massive frame swung across the floor.
Reed jumped aside.
Celeste fired from the ground, striking his leg.
He collapsed.
I helped her stand.
We reached the north wall as smoke thickened.
A narrow door opened into the service tunnel.
Naomi was waiting inside.
“What happened?”
“Reed happened.”
Naomi supported Celeste’s other side.
We moved through the tunnel while explosions shook dust from the ceiling.
Benjamin appeared at the far exit with two private security officers.
His face changed when he saw Celeste.
“We can discuss that later,” I said.
He nodded.
Our convoy left through a maintenance road.
Celeste refused a hospital.
Benjamin arranged a private physician at a secure property outside the city.
The bullet had passed through soft tissue.
No major artery was damaged.
While she underwent treatment, Naomi examined the drive Celeste had given me.
The files confirmed Sabine Keller’s involvement in the hospital attack.
They also contained communications between Reed and Northstar officials.
His cooperation had begun after his wife’s death.
At first, he supplied minor information while secretly gathering evidence.
Later, the line blurred.
He prevented investigations, redirected agents, and helped Elias identify threats.
He believed he was limiting greater harm.
Northstar used that belief to control him.
Reed survived the observatory.
Federal authorities arrested him when honest members of his team compared radio logs and discovered he had guided hostile forces toward our position.
However, Reed escaped custody during transport.
Two officers were injured.
His location remained unknown.
Celeste recovered quickly.
Three days later, she joined us in the secure library.
Seeing her beside Naomi felt impossible and strangely natural.
She studied the two silver keys on the table.
“We need the third component.”
“I thought there were only two keys.”
“The keys authorize the heirs. The ledger location requires Grandma’s cipher.”
“Where is it?”
“Victor had part of it. Elias has another part.”
“And the rest?”
Celeste looked at me.
“Inside Aster.”
My first prototype.
The system I designed at Northbridge.
“Grandma never had access to Aster.”
“She funded someone who did.”
I remembered Martin Vale, the investor who gave me the first two hundred thousand dollars.
Martin had died two years earlier in a boating accident.
At least, that was what I had been told.
Celeste opened a Northstar personnel file.
Martin’s real name was Martin Voss.
He was Elias’s older brother.
He had not invested in me by chance.
He had been sent to monitor my work.
But according to Celeste, Martin later betrayed Northstar and hid part of Grandma’s cipher inside Aster’s original source code.
The only complete copy of that first version was stored offline.
I had placed it in a private digital vault years earlier.
The vault was protected by a physical access token.
The token was kept inside my penthouse safe.
We returned to the city under heavy security.
The penthouse door was locked.
No alarm had been triggered.
Inside, nothing appeared disturbed.
Then I opened the safe.
The token was gone.
In its place lay a graduation photograph.
It showed me standing alone beneath the Northbridge archway.
On the back, someone had written:
You looked for your family in the audience.
May you like
I was there.
C.
