Chapter 650
The thing I've always been protecting!
"Have you heard my name before?"
The man did not answer. A tiny curve appeared at the corner of his mouth—a purely muscular movement devoid of any warmth.
"What's your name?" Lynn asked.
silence.
"It's okay. We'll find out."
Lynn turned to face the work area. Three laptops, a communications terminal, and eight filing cabinets. The amount of information stored in this room—if his judgment was correct—was probably more than the entire Midway base combined.
"Mike, begin sealing the evidence. Leave all electronic devices as they are—do not turn them off, do not unplug them, do not touch the keyboards. First, create a hard drive image, then power off and pack them. Photograph each layer of paper documents in the filing cabinet, then seal them."
“Received.” Mike put down the M4 and took out a hard drive imaging tool and a high-resolution digital camera from the equipment box he had brought.
“Pedro, handcuff that guy in the lounge area and take him downstairs to the main entrance. Jason—”
“I’ll watch this one.” Jason walked behind the gray-haired man and pulled out handcuffs. “Sir, please put your hands behind your back.”
The man obediently moved his hands behind his back. The metal buckles of the handcuffs snapped shut on his wrists with two crisp clicks.
Throughout the entire process, his expression remained unchanged. His back remained straight, and his posture remained upright—like a senior manager sitting normally at a board meeting, except that he happened to have handcuffs on his hands.
Mike began his work. He started by mirroring the hard drives of the three laptops—connecting each computer's hard drive to his own device using a dedicated data cable and copying it sector by sector. This process took time—about ten to fifteen minutes per computer.
While waiting for the mirror to be displayed, Lynn opened the nearest filing cabinet.
The drawer was filled with neatly arranged manila folders—each labeled with a number and date printed in English. He pulled out the top one and opened to the first page.
That was a personnel file.
It wasn't a fraternity file—it was a federal agency employee's file. Photo, name, job title, home address, bank account information, personal vulnerability assessment, available leverage points, and a detailed record in a section labeled "Contact History"—a complete timeline from the first informal contact to the eventual turn.
This is the operating manual for the fraternity to recruit federal law enforcement officers.
Lynn flipped through more than a dozen files. Each one was in the same format—a comprehensive intelligence profile of the target, a strategy for turning him into a traitor, and a plan for managing and utilizing him after he was turned. Some files were stamped with a red seal at the end—"Activated." Some were stamped with blue—"Under Development." And a few were stamped with black—"Discarded."
“Jason.” Lynn held up one of the files. “Look at this.”
Jason leaned closer for a look, then gasped.
The photo in the file was of someone they all knew—FBI Deputy Director Richard S. Brooks. But this file was far more detailed than the simple list on the USB drive—it documented the entire process from Brooks' first contact with the fraternity in 2017 to his formal recruitment in 2019, including the methods used, the promised rewards, and the intelligence Brooks provided and the influence he exerted after being recruited.
“This isn’t just a list,” Jason’s voice was hoarse. “It’s a whole set—”
“The archives of infiltration operations.” Lynn closed the folder. “Complete operational records for every federal employee recruited. The entire process from target identification to successful recruitment. These files are handed over to federal prosecutors—each one is an independent case, and each case has sufficient evidence to prosecute and convict.”
He turned around and looked at the gray-haired man.
“You’re not a liaison officer,” Lynn said. “A liaison officer wouldn’t keep files at this level. A liaison officer wouldn’t even be allowed to know these files exist. You’re the head of personnel—or, in your terms—you’re the subversion director in charge of the entire East Coast infiltration network.”
The man's gray eyes looked at him.
“I want to see my lawyer,” he said.
This was the third sentence he spoke. His tone was the same as the first two—flat, indifferent, and completely devoid of warmth.
“You will see your lawyer.” Lynn crouched down, bringing her eye level with the man sitting in the chair. “But before that, I want you to know one thing. These files in these filing cabinets in front of you—we will conduct a full forensic examination of every single one—fingerprints, paper origin, printer model tracking, electronic evidence of document creation dates. I don’t know how long you’ve been in this room, but your fingerprints, your DNA, the login records from every device you’ve used, will bind you to these files. This isn’t the kind of case you can get away with by using your right to remain silent.”
The man didn't answer. But Lynn saw a very subtle change in his eyes—not fear, not wavering—but a recalculation. The gears of the clock were turning at a slightly different frequency.
Lynn stood up.
“Take him away.”
Jason helped the gray-haired man to his feet. The man was about 1.78 meters tall, slender but with a broad frame, and when he stood up straight, he had an eagle-like, commanding presence—even with handcuffs on his wrists.
They took the two suspects downstairs.
At 4:52 a.m., Mott Street was still deserted. The streetlights, softened by the morning mist, cast halos of light that diffused into pale golden orbs in the air. In the distance, the first rays of dawn began to appear in the direction of Canal Street—the horizon changed from pure black to a very deep indigo, as if someone had drawn a line slightly lighter than the night with a fine brush along the edge of the darkness.
Kayla emerged from under the fire escape. "There was absolutely no noise outside the whole time. No one left the building, no one approached the building."
“Okay. Kayla and Dante will guard the suspect. Jason, get a U.S. Marshals escort van to Mott Street—go through your private channels, bypass headquarters’ dispatch system.”
"Where to send it?"
"The federal detention center in the South Side of Manhattan. I requested that the preliminary hearing judge's summons be completed within 24 hours—two charges initiating: conspiracy to commit interstate organized crime and conspiracy to obstruct federal law enforcement. Further charges will be added after the results of the hard drive image and document analysis are available."
Jason made a phone call. Five minutes later, a white U.S. Marshals van drove from Bowery Street onto Mott Street, its reverse lights casting two white cones in the dim alley. Two U.S. Marshals in dark blue uniforms jumped out of the van and took over the custody and transport of the two suspects.
The gray-haired man glanced back at Lynn as he was pushed into the transport section at the back of the van. That glance lasted less than a second. But in that brief moment, Lynn gleaned several layers of meaning—first, confirmation; he was confirming Lynn's face, permanently etching it into his sophisticated memory system. Second, assessment; he was evaluating Lynn's threat level as an adversary. Third—
Lynn wasn't entirely sure what the third layer was. It could be respect. Or it could simply be a kind of kinship recognition, devoid of emotion, instinctively displayed by a predator when it is captured by another predator.
The van's door closed. The engine roared through the brick walls of Mott Street, then the vehicle headed toward Canal Street, its red taillights flashing twice at the end of the alley before disappearing.
Lynn stood in front of Yonghe Tea House and took a deep breath of the Manhattan air at five in the morning.
The air was better than he had expected—Chinatown mornings had a peculiar freshness; all the accumulated fumes and noise of yesterday had been washed away by the cool breeze and humidity of the night, leaving behind a near-neutral smell somewhere between sea salt and damp cement. In the distance, the kitchen of a breakfast shop was already bustling with activity—the sizzling sound of fried dough sticks hitting the pan drifted from a direction several buildings away, accompanied by an appetizing aroma of flour and hot oil.
A faint pink hue began to appear at the eastern end of Mott Street—the sun was about to rise. The thin indigo line on the horizon was being gradually replaced from below by a warmer, lighter color—first dove grey, then shell pink, and then a thin, watery gold.
“Lynn.” Jason walked up from behind, holding a transparent evidence bag. Inside the bag was a passport—a dark blue cover with a gold eagle emblem.
"Found in the inside pocket of his shirt."
Lynn took the evidence bag and looked at the information page of the passport through the plastic.
The photo shows the gray-haired man. Name: Viktor Alexandrovich Solovyov. Date of birth: July 14, 1968. Place of birth: Moscow. Nationality: American.
“Russian,” Jason said. “A naturalized U.S. citizen.”
“Solovyov.” Lynn repeated the name. It made no sound in his memory—the man had never appeared in any FBI case files, intelligence briefings, or wanted lists. A perfect ghost. A key figure in the fraternity who had operated for who knows how many years in the blind spots of the U.S. federal law enforcement system.
But now he has a name. He has fingerprints. He has DNA. He has digital traces of every device he used while sitting in that room. He has eight filing cabinets full of paper evidence. He has a complete chain of evidence that can withstand court scrutiny, from MX-031 to Yonghe Tea House to the secret room on the second floor.
This is no longer a spider web.
This is an anchor chain.
He handed the evidence bag back to Jason. “Send it to the lab. Fingerprints, DNA, passport authentication—the whole set. Then send the results directly to the federal prosecutor's office.”
"Lynn."
"Um?"
Jason looked at him, his brown eyes holding something Lynn rarely saw on his old partner's face—not admiration, nor sigh—but more like a weary sense of relief that comes from finally putting down a stone that had been hanging over him for so long.
"We did it."
Lynn didn't answer immediately. He looked up, gazing at the eastern sky beyond the low rooftops of Mott Street. The first rays of sunlight had just crossed the skyline of Brooklyn, and golden light spread across the rooftops of Manhattan at an almost visible speed—first the tallest glass-walled buildings, then the mid-rise brick structures, and finally the tiled roofs of the century-old Chinatown buildings. When the light touched the faded signboard of Yonghe Tea House, the remaining gold dust on the traditional Chinese characters flashed briefly—a fleeting glimmer quickly obscured by the stronger sunlight.
“Not yet,” he said. “Solovyov is the head of the subversion department, not the highest-ranking official. There are people above him—the real masterminds. The data on the USB drive, the base at Midway, the files in this secret room—every clue points in the same direction, but the destination hasn't been reached yet.”
“But we are closer than yesterday.”
Lynn looked down at the woven bracelet on his wrist. The red, blue, and white colors stood out vividly in the first rays of the morning sun—the red was a deeper shade than he remembered, as if it had been stained by the sweat, rain, and sea salt of the past few days, turning into a warm, chestnut-colored hue; the blue remained pure; and the white was smudged with dirt in a few places, but the underlying color was still there.
“Yes,” he said. “Closer than yesterday.”
From the end of Mott Street came the sound of an iron gate being pulled open—the owner of a breakfast stall was opening for business. The rustling sound of the metal curtain being rolled up echoed through the alley, like a series of hurried and cheerful drumbeats. Then came the sizzling of oil in a wok—closer still—followed by the clinking of bowls and plates and a woman's voice calling out in Cantonese—probably urging a slow-moving helper on their way.
Chinatown has awakened.
New York has awakened.
In a solitary interrogation room at the federal detention center, Viktor Solovyov stared at the white wall opposite him with his gray, clockwork eyes. His wrists were handcuffed, but his back remained ramrod straight, as if supported by an invisible iron bar.
He was waiting for his lawyer.
But Lynn no longer cared about his lawyer. Because every file in the eight filing cabinets, every byte in the three laptops, and every encrypted record in the military communications terminal—all were already linked to the federal chain of evidence, and every link in the chain pointed in the same direction.
Upwards. Always upwards. Until the very core of the Brotherhood is exposed to the light of day.
That would be another story. But right now, on this late October morning in New York, standing in a narrow alley in Chinatown, bathed in sunlight—Lynn allowed himself five seconds to think of nothing.
Just breathing.
Just feel the sunlight on my face.
Just listening to the sounds of Chinatown awakening—iron gates, frying pans, bowls and plates, Cantonese—those noisy, lively sounds of ordinary people's daily lives.
This is what he has been protecting.
He turned around and walked toward Jason's Accord.
"Let's go. I'll treat you to fried dough sticks." (End of Chapter)