Chapter 7 - The Extraction
The evacuation was swift and ruthless.
While Jax secured the digital servers containing Sterling’s international trafficking ledgers, Bull cuffed Sterling and dragged him down to the underground cistern where the submersible was waiting.
Special Agent Vance used her satellite terminal to transmit an emergency code to the United States Coast Guard cutter Gallatin, which was idling ten miles outside Belizean territorial waters.
"Federal extraction authorized," Vance reported, watching the progress bar on her tablet reach one hundred percent. "The Department of Justice has officially seized this facility. Belizean authorities are deploying three patrol craft to secure the perimeter."
We loaded Noah into the rear passenger compartment of the submersible. He sat sandwiched between me and Bull, holding his blue blanket tightly around his shoulders, his head resting against my arm.
As the submersible detached from the underground cistern and submerged into the dark blue depths of the ocean, Noah looked out the viewport at the fading lights of the Sterling Citadel.
"Is he ever coming back?" Noah asked quietly, looking at Sterling, who lay unconscious in the forward airlock compartment under Vance’s watch.
"No, Noah," I promised him, putting my arm around his shoulders. "Julian Sterling will spend the rest of his life in a maximum-security federal facility. He will never touch you, or any other child, ever again."
"And... what about my life?" Noah asked, looking up at me with those bright blue eyes that were so full of lingering uncertainty. "I don't know how to be Noah anymore. I've been Matthew for so long."
I looked down at my son, understanding the long, difficult road of recovery that lay ahead of us.
"We take it one day at a time, son," I said gently. "You don't have to figure it all out today. All you have to do today... is come home."
May you like
Two hours later, the Neptune II surfaced alongside the massive steel hull of the US Coast Guard Cutter Gallatin.
As the crane hoisted our craft onto the floodlit deck, twenty uniformed Coast Guard officers stood at attention along the railing, saluting the returned son of a decorated American hero.
