Alle Kapitel von THE BIKER'S NEW FOUND MATE : Kapitel 191 – Kapitel 200

Varro worked through her files methodically.No rushing. No dramatizing. She pulled up documents, data sets, communication records and walked us through each one with the precision of someone who had spent years organizing this material and knew exactly where everything was and why it mattered.The program had an internal designation. Project Meridian. Not connected to the Meridian Research Institute despite the shared name. Varro said that was intentional on Webb's part. If anyone ever stumbled onto a reference to Meridian in a classified context the Institute provided a convenient and legitimate explanation.The budget documentation was thorough. Nine years of funding buried inside three separate defense appropriations. Small amounts individually. Significant collectively. Webb had been careful to keep each line item below the threshold that triggered additional oversight review.The personnel files were worse.Eleven core staff. All of them with legitimate cover positions in govern

Day one started at seven in the morning.I had everyone in the main room. Hayes and her team. Phoenix at the table with his laptop already open. Grace standing near the back with her arms crossed. Maren beside her. Eva to my left. Holt's petition to the committee was already submitted. We'd have an answer within forty eight hours.Varro sat at the far end of the table. Several people in the room were seeing her for the first time. Hayes looked at her with professional assessment. Grace looked at her with the particular expression she reserved for people who hadn't yet proven themselves.I kept the briefing direct."Eleven days," I said. "Four simultaneous operations. One objective. Shut down Project Meridian permanently and secure the evidence needed to pursue the people who built it." I laid out the plan clearly. Each operation. Each team. Each timeline. No unnecessary detail. Only what each person needed to know to do their job.Nobody interrupted. Nobody asked questions until I fin

Reaper's test results came back on the morning of day eight.Sophia brought them to me before the morning briefing. She sat down across from me at the kitchen table and put the file in front of me and said nothing while I read it.The deterioration rate had slowed by forty percent. Not stopped. Slowed. The treatment protocol was working better than the initial indicators suggested. His heart rhythm was more consistent than it had been since the enhancement. His organ function markers were improving across the board.Sophia's revised estimate was in the last paragraph.Two years minimum. Possibly three depending on continued response to treatment.I read that paragraph twice. Then I closed the file and handed it back to her."Tell him today," I said."I thought you'd want to tell him yourself," she said."Tell him," I said. "He's been waiting and I'm going to be in briefings until tonight. He shouldn't wait any longer than necessary."Sophia took the file and left.I sat at the kitchen

We moved at six in the morning.Four teams leaving the secondary location in four separate vehicles at four minute intervals. Staggered departure so nothing about the movement pattern suggested coordination. Hayes first with her team. Then Phoenix and Maren. Then Grace alone. Then Eva and me with Varro watching from the doorway of the secondary location as we pulled out.She'd done everything she could do. The rest was ours.The drive to the facility took forty minutes. Eva sat beside me and didn't speak. She had her eyes forward and her hands relaxed in her lap and she was doing what she always did before an operation which was very little visibly and a great deal internally. Processing. Preparing. Getting to the place where action was instinct rather than decision.I did the same.We parked two kilometers from the facility at seven twenty. Hayes and her team were already in position near the eastern approach. Confirmed through the communication channel at seven twenty two. Phoenix a

We delivered the referrals at two in the afternoon.Eva and I took the inspector general's office. Varro came with us because she was the one who could speak to the full nine year history of the program with direct knowledge. Phoenix stayed at the secondary location managing the digital package distribution. Copies going to secure locations simultaneously. Seven different destinations. Physical and digital. Enough redundancy that suppression was impossible even for someone with Dalton's reach.The inspector general's office was in a government building forty minutes from the secondary location. We didn't have an appointment. We walked in with the document case and asked for the deputy inspector general by name and said it was a priority matter involving a classified program and a senior elected official.We waited eleven minutes.The deputy was a woman named Forsythe. Late forties. She came into the waiting area herself rather than sending staff which told me she'd taken the descripti