Chapter 91 – A Name Is Just A Name
**Julia POV.**
**THREE YEARS EARLIER.**
I was out of Valley Ridge the very next day.
It was as sudden as my arrival in that ghastly hell on Earth, as Amelia’s escape from there, and as my unnerving imprisonment for a day.
Dan Voight simply waltzed in the next morning and took me out of my cell. In full public view. With no one raising an objection or a hurdle.
Not even the warden.
“Remember me?” I hissed at the warden as I walked past his office. He stared with a blank expression on his face, unreadable and incomprehensible.
“He is not supposed to remember faces,” old man Dan remarked softly. “He is a clog in the wheel. He can only watch, not decide which way to turn, or whether to turn at all.”
“So, who turned the wheel in my favor? You?” I asked him bluntly as I boarded his car and he turned on the ignition. “What makes you so influential in this part of the world?”
“I have top level clearance,” Dan said in a solemn voice. “I harbor many secrets, which are best kept under wraps for the benefit of —”
He did not finish his sentence, so I did.
“For the benefit of society?” I scoffed.
“Nope,” he shook his head. “The kind of work I do, or rather, have been doing all my life, does not benefit the masses. Deep state intelligence helps only a select few, the most powerful and elite of this nation.”
“Not much is left of it,” I scoffed again, sarcastically. “Wonder who these elite and powerful are, and what ‘nation’ they are still serving.”
“Oh! Well, there are always vested interests at play,” Dan remarked skeptically. “Who said the powerful serve the nation? They serve themselves, and they need guys like me to make that happen.”
“And they have given you a free hand to recruit ‘assets’? From this purgatory of a prison?” I wondered aloud.
“They had to. The stakes are too high. After the botched attempt on my life last year, I threatened the powers-that-be with severe consequences if another attempt was made to kill me. So, they agreed to strike a deal.”
“What kind of deal?” I could not help but get curious now. Secrets were tumbling out at an alarming speed.
“The return of the classified secrets my daughter stole in return for her life and mine,” Dan replied. “Both of us will get state pardons if those documents are returned safely to their rightful owner.”
“So, why bother to recruit Amelia? Or me? Or anyone at all?” I could not figure out his endgame here. “If both of you are supposed to receive pardons, why would you need either Amelia or me to impersonate your daughter Emily?”
“Because,” Dan drew a deep breath and exhaled loudly, “a promise in my world is never meant to be kept. An assurance in my world is not meant to be honored. As long as the documents are out there, we will probably be safe. Probably. But as soon as they are found and handed over —”
He didn’t finish his speech this time, either. But I got the gist.
“So, you are certain that the threat to your and Emily’s life needs to be eliminated, irrespective of whether the classified files are returned or not?” I asked in a firm tone.
“Yes. Unfortunately, that’s the world I live in. That’s the world Emily lives in, too.”
Dan sighed. He pressed the gas pedal hard. The car was now running at breakneck speed along a deserted highway for an undisclosed destination. We had left Valley Ridge and the rest of humanity far behind.
“What is your endgame here?” I asked him after a long pause. “Retrieve the files, retrieve your daughter, and then what? Kill the threat?”
“No,” Dan shot back. “That won’t work. You see, the threat is not from a single individual. There is a food chain, a hierarchy. The entire hierarchy needs to be eliminated first.”
“The entire …? How many are you talking about?” I gulped in apprehension. “And what do you mean by ‘first’?”
“You will get to know how many once we reach our destination,” Dan replied reassuringly. “And by ‘first’, I mean the threats need to be neutralized before we retrieve either Emily or the secret files.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” I blurted out my thoughts. “The whole thing sounds very sinister, very murky. I am not sure if I —”
“I will help you find your sister,” Dan hastened to add. “I promise you. And that’s a promise I intend to keep.”
“I am not sure if Amelia could be found,” I said skeptically. “And I am not sure if I want to find her, either.”
“You are Amelia, for the time being,” he responded in his trademark hoarse voice. “And once the operation begins, you will be Emily. I will address you as Emily in public, and you will go by that name.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, either,” I told him bluntly. “I prefer being addressed by my name, and not as Amelia or Emily.”
“A name is just a name,” Dan said in a deadpan voice. “A sound. A breath of air. It means nothing. What the person behind that name does, means everything. The murky world you are about to enter does not pay attention to names. It is only bothered about intentions, actions and consequences. Focus on your purpose and your mission, and the name or names you will assume will stop bothering you.”