Page 588 of Lodestar

“Conor,” Goldstein snarled, jerking to his feet. “You?—”

“The New World Sparrows,” I stated, speaking over him, “and the United Brotherhood were the two faces of the same coin, Aaron.

“Anton, with the dismantling of the Sparrows, became the head of that unified group, but tonight, he suffered a heart attack.Iam the new leader, and together, we’re going to disassemble the power source, much as we have with the Sparrows.”

His mouth gaped like a goldfish. “Y-You, what? I don’t… Conor?”

Conor, as calm as I, rested a hand on my shoulder. “She’s right, Goldstein. The Sparrows are choir boys in comparison to the Brotherhood.”

“You want to take them down?” Schmidt rasped.

“I do. I want their bones dusting the floor. I want their blood shed and their asses rotting in jail cells. We’re not going to stop until their networks are infiltrated and infected and infested until they’re no more. Do you understand?

“As of now, you are the two members of the team who we officially know are not Brothers.

"Interpol is riddled with Brothers so we’ll keep Anton’s passing a secret, but I expect you to uncover the parasites in your department.

“Anton hand-picked you all, and though I investigated each and every one of you, Hoyt, Ingridsdottir, and Deschamps were squeaky clean on paper. The only way to uncover them is to use that motto.”

Though his features were still pinched and pale, Goldstein frowned. “We’ll burn that route quickly.”

“Then we burn it quickly. We just need to figure out who’s who in the team. Fast.”

“You can’t kill them all,” he argued, terror leaching into his expression.

“This is a cull,” I said quietly. “We will do what needs to be done to eradicate this threat to our society. Do you understand, Aaron?”

He swallowed. “Is there a sniper on me?”

“Yes. Schmidt, too.”

“If you’re going to purge Interpol, what makes you any better than the Sparrows or this Brotherhood?”

I smiled at him. “I never promised to be better than them. But Iampromising to do what needs to be done to make our world a better place.

“The Brothers were into child trafficking, Aaron. Organ harvesting. That’s the tip of the iceberg. I’ve got thousands of terabytes of information, some paper files too, on exactly what they’ve done and are involved in.

“I know Conor picked you because you have an unusual sense of justice?—”

“It still ends with the bad guys rotting in prison. Not an early grave."

“It does, and we share that desire, but this is a unique circumstance. You can be the face of this investigation, Aaron. You can be the one who is celebrated as taking down these monsters. You can be the next secretary general of Interpol if you so choose?—”

“Or, like Hoyt, Deschamps, and Ingridsdottir, I can die?” His demand was bitter.

I shrugged but before I could answer, “I’ll do it,” Schmidt interrupted. “I’ll be the face?—”

“Fuck off," Goldstein snarled. "I’m your superior.”

“If he’s willing to do what needs to be done, he can be the last man standing in your team,” was my simple retort.

Goldstein’s nostrils flared. “How are you going to cover up their deaths?”

“I blame the Sparrows, of course.”

“You’re just as corrupt?—”

“‘An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination.’” When that Mark Twain quote went over his head, I sighed. “You’re mistaking me for someone who claimed to begood, Aaron,” I sniped, my patience broken at long last. “I’m not a white hat. I’ll never be entirely clean. I’ll always exist in the shadows.”

---