In a masterful stroke of timing, Shauna’s car pulled into the Basilisk Group building’s parking lot just ahead of the first of several police cars. As the police started to secure the area and restrict all movement around the building, Kevin and the police captain discussed the situation. Kevin explained about Roger already having incapacitated the guards and how the captives were on the seventh floor. When Kevin mentioned the bombs, the captain immediately had the perimeter moved farther back from the building and called in his specialized team. He wasn’t taking any chances with his men.

It would take another half hour for the bomb squad to arrive and another hour for them to confirm that all the bombs had been removed. During this time, I returned to my truck and got out Edgar’s go-bag. Taking out the list of addresses, I scanned to the third one and typed it into Waze on my phone. From a sheltered area beside the building, I returned to reality to see how far away it was. I could be there in twenty minutes. With nothing else pressing to do, I drove out to safehouse three.

Phil had already unpacked his few belongings and was trying to reach Edgar on this phone, while simultaneously checking his laptop for any information on any explosions in the area. My mental picture of Phil didn’t match up with reality. From his panicking voice on the earlier phone call with Edgar, I’d been expecting a geeky pajama boy with a pale complexion and greasy hair. Instead, I found a man dressed like he was ready to model for the cover of next month’s ‘Captain’s Yacht’ Magazine. Tearing my eyes away from the way too attractive man, I went through my usual routine of getting his passwords before sending him to L2 and copying the data on his computer and his phone.

I left Phil tied up, much in the same way I’d left Edgar, and called Shauna to let her know where Kevin’s team could pick him up. He was another thread for the FBI to pull on and it was possible that with both Edgar and Phil in custody, no one else in their organization would know what had happened tonight. Kevin might be able to catch some of them before they disappeared.

Phil’s go-bag was more of a go-trunk. It’s contents were similar to Edgar’s bag, but more plentiful. More gold, more jewels, more cash and a lot more clothes. No t-shirts and jeans for our Phil. He was designer all the way and had a fondness for Cucinelli suits. Who packs suits when they’re on the run? I left the clothes behind, but took everything else for my collection.

By the time I got back to the Basilisk building, Kevin’s team had shown up and were preparing to enter the building with the police. I checked on the prisoners, making sure that they were still sleeping and shifted Edgar and the guards back to reality. I wouldn’t want them to miss out on all the fun. I spent the last few minutes before the show picking up all the bombs in L2 and disconnecting the explosives from any wiring or detonation devices. I’d put the devices somewhere the police would find them. The explosives though would go into my personal stash of goodies. You never know when you might need some explosives.

Emergency services had been called in and they’d already set up aid tents and processing stations when the first of the survivors were brought out by the police. Shauna and the Hannah’s Home team were right in there with them. While Shauna had been racing over here, she’d contacted Diane to call up our team and gather supplies for the survivors. Besides blankets and water, they also had stacks of clean clothes, and food. We’d also set up our own tent, where our councilors could provide advice in what needed to be done and phones for anyone wanting to call their families or friends.

I watched all this from R1, moving among the survivors and the team. The survivors were trying to take in their newfound freedom and come to grips with everything that they’d been through. Some of them had only been taken a few days ago, while others had been captive for months. None of them would come out of this experience unscathed in some way. Whether it was simply a fear of going out alone or the inability to stop reliving their captivity, all of them would need help to move on. I was proud of my team and their handling of the survivors with compassion and assurance. Shelley and Diane, having been captives themselves and both now free thanks to ‘Roger’, were especially effective in illustrating that the survivors could re-start their lives.

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With the coming of dawn, the FBI were still hard at work, the police were packing up their perimeter and the survivors had all made their statements. Many of the survivors had been met by family or friends. These reunions were joyous and tearful affairs, full of introductions between family members and various survivors who had helped them survive the ordeal. Shared adversity and simple human kindness had made strangers into lifelong friends.

Thirty-seven survivors either had family that was too far away to get to them this quickly or had no family to turn to. Hannah’s Home offered to take them all in temporarily and help them get themselves situated. All of them accepted our offer and Kevin had to step in and vouch for the foundation when Child Services tried to deny six teenagers from going to Hannah’s Home. We didn’t have the right credentials to take in minors. It was an oversight that Shauna would be remedying immediately, but for now Kevin would have to take full responsibility for them. Kevin didn’t even bat an eye at this. After carefully reading the appropriate forms, he signed them and officially took charge of the teenagers by handing them off to Shauna with the admonition that she’d better not make him regret this.

I stayed to the end; until every last survivor had boarded the bus that Shauna had chartered for them to return to Hannah’s Home. Kevin drove Shauna’s car back for her, so she could be on the bus with everyone. Likewise, Shelley was driving the supply truck back by herself to give Diane a chance to help Shauna on the bus. By the time the slave auction was supposed to have taken place, everyone had left and I was still there, still in R1.

In truth, I didn’t know what to do with myself. All this energy was coursing through me, ready to be used, but there was nothing to do. The saving had already been done. The only person that still had to be saved, couldn’t be. I had no way to find her.

I faced out of the parking lot and started walking, hoping that I could walk off some of that energy and clear my head. I didn’t have anywhere to go or anywhere to be. I just walked. The constant motion and noise of cars passing by kept distracting me from my thoughts so I shifted to L2 where the quiet was absolute. I kept walking and thinking.

I’d done what I set out to do. I should feel something more than the emptiness that was consuming me. I should feel something. A sense of satisfaction. Pride. Joy. Anything. Did Superman ever feel this way? He flew from crisis to crisis, saving lives, propping up buildings, catching school buses that fell off bridges. Did he feel empty afterwards? Unfulfilled? Did he feel that he hadn’t done enough? Did he feel that he’d let down the people he cared most about in the world? I was felling all of those things.

Mostly though, I felt sad. I thought that this was going to be my big break. My chance to find mom. It made so much sense. The pieces had finally fit. She should have been in the Agora system. Why wasn’t she there?

I kept walking, trying to work it all out. Eventually, my cloud of self-absorption lifted enough for me to realize that I hadn’t been walking aimlessly this whole time. I’d googled this route when I’d first heard about the Pearl Dragon Corporation and how close it was to my abduction site. I’d wanted to follow mom’s journey after we were separated and the church with the beautiful stained-glass windows that I’d just passed was only two blocks away from the intersection where I’d been found.

I hadn’t been back to this area since the kidnapping. I had no memory of it at all, just a description from the police report and another from John Buckler’s stories. Curiosity swelled within me and I picked up my pace a little. My walk changed from ‘aimless wandering’ to ‘somewhere to be’ and my mood similarly changed. It wasn’t much of a destination, but it was something at least.

As I drew closer to the intersection, I started to feel something strange. There was a wrongness up ahead. I’d last felt that in Venezuela, outside of the airport all those months ago when I’d found the meteorite. I kept walking, a little faster now, expecting to find another meteorite and wondering how many of them there were out there. Only as I drew closer, I saw that the shape was all wrong for it to be a meteorite.

I saw a figure lying on its side. It was in a sitting position, hunched over, with its arms wrapped around something that wasn’t there, as if it had been protecting something or someone. I was still fifty feet away and my pace slowed. My confused mind was trying to figure out why a statue had been placed in the middle of the road. Who could have even gotten it into L2? What was the point of it being here?

I walked closer still. It was a woman, strands of her hair had escaped her ponytail and were strewn across her face. Something finally broke inside me and I ran the rest of the way to her, tears blurring my vision.

“Mom!”