Chapter 39: The Hunt
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The old man moved through the hotel lobby like a storm front passing over a quiet sea. People didn't just step aside—they fled. A mother pulled her child closer. A businessman froze mid-stride, coffee cup trembling in his hand. The receptionist, a young woman with tired eyes and a practiced smile, felt her smile dissolve the moment she saw him approaching.
His herringbone coat was torn, stained with something dark. His hands were wrapped in bloodied bandages. His face—weathered, lined, etched with decades of grief and rage—wore an expression that promised violence.
The CCTV cameras caught every angle of his advance. No one stopped him. No one asked questions. The unspoken agreement was universal: let him pass.
He reached the reception desk and leaned forward, his weight on his knuckles. His voice was a dry rasp, carrying the weight of a man who had run out of patience decades ago.
"Is there a dickhead known as Noah Carter staying here?"
The receptionist swallowed. Her fingers trembled as she reached for the guest registry, flipping through pages with mechanical urgency. "Let me check the list," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Here it is, I guess. Noah Carter, yeah?"
"Yes."
"He's here on the list."
The old man's eyes, clear and sharp despite his age, narrowed. "What's his room number? I am his father. I want to meet him."
"Forty-four A," she said, pointing a trembling finger toward the corridor.
The old man didn't thank her. He simply turned and walked, his pace deliberate, unhurried. He passed room after room—23A, 24A, 25A—each door a closed mouth, each number a countdown.
When he reached 44A, the door was open.
The room was empty. The bed was unmade. A half-empty bottle of water sat on the nightstand. The window was cracked open, letting in the cold Kansas air.
The old man stood in the doorway, his hands curling into fists at his sides.
"That lying motherfucker went out," he muttered, his voice hollow with a fury so old it had become cold. "Probably scared. He saw me."
He turned and walked back to the reception desk. The receptionist flinched as he approached.
"He already left," the old man said.
"Wait—without paying?" The words slipped out before she could stop them.
"Yeah."
He left the hotel without another word, stepping out into the grey Kansas morning. The sky was heavy with clouds, the air thick with the promise of rain. He had only one way left to find his son.
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The telecom office was a squat, beige building on the edge of town. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The air smelled of stale coffee and old paper. The old man approached the front desk, where a clerk with a bored expression looked up from his phone.
"I need to get the phone call location of Noah Carter," the old man said, sliding a piece of paper across the counter. A phone number was scrawled on it in faded ink.
The clerk took the paper, typed the number into his terminal, and waited. His brow furrowed. He typed again. A long silence stretched between them.
"This phone number seems unavailable now," the clerk said, his voice tinged with confusion. "I do not know what happened here."
The old man's fist slammed against the counter. The sound echoed through the quiet office.
"You all are corrupt bastards!" he snarled. "Every single one of you!"
He turned and stalked out, leaving the clerk staring after him with wide, frightened eyes.
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Outside the telecom office, the old man hailed a taxi. The driver, a middle-aged man with tired eyes, didn't ask questions. He simply watched the old man climb into the back seat, his coat torn, his hands bandaged, his face a mask of barely contained rage.
"Hotel Krata," the old man said. "Fifty kilometers away."
The driver nodded and pulled into traffic. The old man stared out the window, watching the Kansas farmland blur past—wheat fields, silos, the occasional farmhouse. Somewhere out there, his son was hiding. Somewhere out there, Noah Carter was running.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror. "You okay, sir?"
The old man didn't answer.
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Noah - Hotel Krata
The room was small, the walls thin. Noah Carter sat on the edge of the bed, his phone pressed to his ear, his voice low and controlled.
"How are things going there?" he asked.
Justin's voice came through the speaker, smooth and steady. "Good. What about you?"
"Just escaped the police." Noah's tone was flat, matter-of-fact, as if he were discussing a minor inconvenience rather than a high-speed chase and a dead man. "Can you erase the data of my call location history with the help of your hacker friends?"
"For sure," Justin said. "But first do your work. First, factory reset your phone. Then set the SIM card on fire. Then get a new one."
"Okay. Do your work."
"Bye."
"Bye."
The call ended. Noah stared at the phone for a long moment. Then he began.
He performed a factory reset, watching the screen go dark and then glow back to life, wiped clean. He removed the SIM card, held it between his fingers, and set it ablaze with a cheap plastic lighter. The plastic curled, blackened, and turned to ash. He dropped the remnants into the sink and watched them dissolve down the drain.
Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, Justin's friend Max—a hacker who had once been affiliated with the Architect's network—was already at work. Within minutes, Noah's call location history had been erased from every accessible database, a ghost wiped from the machine.
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The Double Game - Justin
Justin and Max stood outside the police station, the grey sky pressing down on them like a lid. The building loomed before them, its windows dark, its doors heavy. Justin adjusted his tie and walked in, Max trailing behind him.
Inside, the station was a hive of controlled chaos—phones ringing, officers moving, the low murmur of conversations interrupted by static bursts from radios. Justin approached the front desk, his expression carefully composed.
"I need to file a complaint," he said. "It's about the Architect."
The officer behind the desk, a man with tired eyes and a weary posture, gestured for him to continue. Justin recited his story with practiced ease:
"The Architect was a manipulator. He influenced people. He held public gatherings. He had many people recruited into his agency. We decided to join as spies." He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. "We helped him and became judge for Noah Carter, whose death sign board was placed by private agencies as a plan for the Architect. Noah Carter is a morally grey person who was affiliated with the Architect. His wife did not do anything. You should not get a warrant from the court. Instead, you should detain his wife and go with her. She is having a trip to Kansas. We did not have any involvement. We just did our work like innocent spies."
The officer listened, his expression unreadable. "We will look into this matter," he said finally. "Prove your innocence."
But a voice cut through the noise—a voice Justin recognized.
"Wait. Noah—I want to get involved here."
Michael Miller stepped forward, his face pale, his eyes sharp. He looked at Justin with a mixture of suspicion and recognition.
"I was in the task force against the Architect," Michael said. "I've been following this case for months. If there's a lead, I want to follow it."
Justin met his gaze, his expression unreadable. Inside, his mind was racing. Michael Miller was a wildcard—a man who had seen too much, who knew too much, who might recognize the cracks in Justin's story.
"Of course," Justin said smoothly. "Any help is appreciated."
Michael nodded, already turning away, already reaching for his phone. "I have a lead. After so many months, I finally have a lead."
Justin watched him go, his smile frozen in place.
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Chapter 39 Ends
To Be Continued...