The Boy Who Walked Toward the Gun

While rain lashed against the mountain mill, eighty miles away in the state capital, the top floor of the Sterling Executive Plaza was ablaze with frantic activity.

Senator Donald Sterling stood in his private mahogany-paneled office, sipping twenty-year-old scotch with ice that clinked nervously against the crystal glass. He was a polished man in his early sixties, with silver hair, custom-tailored Italian suits, and the cold, predatory eyes of a career sociopath.

Across the desk stood Special Agent Frank Miller, a rogue deputy director of the State Bureau of Investigation who had been on Sterling’s payroll for over a decade.

"Report!" Sterling demanded, slamming his glass down onto the desk so hard that scotch splashed across the polished wood. "Tell me Hale and the kid are in a body bag!"

Miller wiped sweat from his forehead. "The ridge team was wiped out, Senator. Hale used the terrain against them. The boy... the boy was with him. They've vanished into Blackwood Valley."

"Idiots! Incompetent morons!" Sterling roared, his face flushing crimson with fury. "Do you have any idea what happens if that boy reaches the Department of Justice in Washington? The Chronos files will dismantle this entire administration! I will spend the rest of my life in ADX Florence!"

"We still have leverage, Senator," Miller said quickly. "Victor Kane is in the intensive care unit at St. Jude's Memorial. The FBI has him under heavy guard, but our inside team at the hospital has prepared a lethal potassium chloride injection. Once Kane is flatlined, Hale won't have a living witness to corroborate the courtroom confession."

Sterling sneered, stepping up to the panoramic window overlooking the rain-soaked city. "Kane is already a dead man walking. I want every state highway blocked. I want the National Guard deployed under the pretext of a manhunt for Marcus Hale, framing him for the deaths of those state troopers at the Regency Hotel."

"And the boy?" Miller asked.

Sterling turned around, his eyes cold as glacial ice. "If Ethan Cole cannot be captured, he does not leave that valley alive. Burn the entire forest down if you have to. But eliminate that child."

Just then, Sterling’s private, encrypted satellite phone on the desk began to buzz.

Sterling picked it up, expecting a call from his offshore banking contacts. "Sterling here."

"Good evening, Senator," a calm, youthful voice answered on the line.

Sterling froze. "Who is this?"

"My name is Ethan Cole," the boy’s voice replied, clear and chillingly steady over the speaker. "The son of the woman you ordered Victor Kane to murder."

Sterling's breath caught in his throat. He motioned frantically for Miller to trace the call. "Ethan... Listen to me, son. You're being manipulated by Marcus Hale. Marcus is a dangerous, convicted felon who—"

"Save your breath, Senator," Ethan interrupted, his tone cutting through Sterling's lies like a razor. "I know about Project Chronos. I know about the offshore accounts. And in twelve hours, every television network in this country will broadcast your face alongside Victor Kane's."

"You don't have the encryption key, boy!" Sterling snarled, dropping his polite facade. "You have nothing!"