Phoenix

33. Alliances

The silence in the study was no longer the quiet of a library; it was the heavy, suffocating pressure of a trap snapping shut.

Elisa Van Buren felt the air leave her lungs as the name "Alpha-Zero" echoed off the mahogany bookshelves. Her mind, usually a fortress of cold logic and high-level encryption, suddenly felt like a house of cards in a hurricane.

​"I... I don't know what you're talking about," she managed to stammer, though her voice lacked the iron conviction she usually commanded. "Who are you to come into my home and speak such nonsense?"

​Douglas Bullock, the man known as "Bulldog," didn't stop smiling. It wasn't a friendly expression; it was the look of a shark that had caught the scent of blood in the water. He leaned back in his chair, the expensive fabric of his suit straining over his thick frame.

​"Are you really going to maintain the charade, Doctor?" Bulldog asked, his tone dripping with a crooked, theatrical amusement. "Are you going to tell me you have no connection to these three young men? That you aren't the hidden hand behind the Alpha Team? The employer of the world's most efficient ghost squad?"

​Elisa looked toward her brother, Theo-the man the world knew as Alpha-One.

Theo stood motionless, his face a mask of disciplined silence, but his eyes were fixed on the CIA officer with a murderous intensity.

​"This is my brother, Theo," Elisa said, her voice rising with a desperate, defensive anger. "He just arrived. These two are his friends, Carter and Melvin. They are my guests. Nothing more."

​"I see! I see!" Bulldog nodded, clapping his hands together in mock applause. "And what a loyal brother he is. Truly, where else can one find a more trustworthy partner for a global conspiracy than within one's own bloodline? It's practically poetic, Elisa."

​"Who are you?" Elisa demanded, slamming her hand onto the desk. "Identify yourself or I'll have my security clear this room immediately."

​"My name is Douglas Bullock," he said, and for the first time, the smile vanished, replaced by the cold, bureaucratic mask of the Central Intelligence Agency. "I am a senior field officer for the CIA. And as for your security... let's just say my people have already accounted for the guards outside. I didn't come here for a social call, Doctor. I've come to discuss the spooky stories you and your brother have been writing across the globe."

​
​Elisa sank into her leather chair, the sudden weight of the revelation hitting her like a physical blow.

The CIA.

It wasn't just a local investigation; the most powerful intelligence agency in the world had been tracking her.

​"I... I still don't understand," she whispered.

​"There's no use denying it now," Bulldog said sternly. He leaned forward, his eyes locking onto hers. "I know about the Montego Ice Shelf. I know your brother and his team entered that research facility and liquidated eight staff members. I know you've spent the last year systematically eliminating your nine closest friends-the other members of the Uno project. You've been very thorough, Elisa. Very clinical. But you made one fatal mistake."

​"And what was that?"

​"You underestimated the technology of the people you were trying to destroy,"
Bulldog laughed. "Your brother was very careful about the facility's security cameras. He wiped the servers, avoided the sightlines, and moved like a shadow. But the Brighton corporation-the people who funded the Ice Shelf project-didn't trust their own drivers. They installed hidden, analog-loop cameras inside the ice tractors to monitor for theft and dereliction of duty. Those cameras don't feed into the central network. They're independent. It took my team a few days to find them in the wreckage, but when we did, we got a very clear picture of Captain Theo Van Buren."