Chapter 20
Maria watched as Phil drove away with his family. It relaxed her mind a little, knowing that they were all safe. She had been visiting Melinda at her training institute when Natasha had called, informing about the man at the middle school who was trying to hurt Skye. Melinda had left everything behind as she rushed to the school and Maria had followed her.
“You don’t need to be here, Agent Hill,” Captain Lopez commented.
“You are not getting rid of me, Captain.”
Maria followed the captain to get a detailed report from the officers. The man had already been taken into custody and would be processed soon. There were a few things Maria didn’t understand. Where had he been all this time? Why not use the proper channels? What was a captain doing here?
“Report,” Captain Lopez said to the officer.
“There had been two calls. One from Barbara Morse May-Coulson, age fifteen, and another from Leo Fitz May-Coulson, age twelve. The crux of the calls was that their sister Mary Sue Poots - she prefers to be called Skye - was walking to the car when a man grabbed her. He had been trying to drag her but she was fighting. Mr. Coulson, who is an ex-FBI agent -” Officer Reyes nodded towards Maria at that “- asked his kids to call 911 and walked out of the car. When we arrived, Skye had escaped from the man and was hiding behind Mr. Coulson. He hit the man, knocking him out with a single punch.”
Maria smirked at that. They used to call it the Coulson Punch. It was enough to knock people out. Captain Lopez was smirking too, having worked with Phil in the past.
“The man - won’t tell us his name - claims to be the girl’s father. Which complicates the situation a little.”
“There is no complication,” Captain Lopez said firmly. “He is Calvin Zabo. He was convicted for over thirty murders around twelve years ago. He escaped from the prison and looks like this was his first stop.”
Maria paled at the implication. There was a chance that this man murdered Skye’s mother and was now coming for his daughter. Captain Lopez was giving orders to interview everyone around and find out what they had noticed, but Maria’s mind stayed on the one photograph she had seen of Skye’s birth mother. The photograph of her dead body.
“How do you know about the murders?” Maria asked the Captain as she followed her to the car.
“I was the one who arrested him. Why are you interested in this?”
“We know Skye’s mom was killed. It has opened a huge investigation which we are trying to keep quiet right now.”
“You think he did it.”
“Or at least should have some information.”
Maria got into the Captain’s car. She filled her in on the investigation. Captain Lopez had always been a trusted friend from the NYPD and had previously assisted them on many operations. They arrived at the precinct and immediately made their way to the interrogation room.
“He does not want a lawyer. Just his daughter,” the officer informed them. Captain Lopez nodded at him and gestured Maria to follow her into the room.
The man - Calvin Zabo - was cuffed and furious. Maria was sure that if he was uncuffed, he would burn this place down to escape. “I WANT MY DAUGHTER,” he screamed, glaring at them. “I want to see her. You can’t keep her away from me. I want my daughter.”
“You think thirty murders, escaping the prison, an attempted kidnapping and illegal possession of a firearm later, anyone in their right mind would allow you near that kid?” Captain Lopez asked.
“I am her father.”
“You tried to kidnap her,” Maria reminded him. “Do you have any idea how traumatizing this is going to be for her?”
“I am her father. I am her family. Not that man. He is not her father. She is not his daughter.”
“He is the one she went to when she was scared,” Captain Lopez pointed out.
“I AM HER FATHER.”
“Did you kill her mother?” Maria asked.
“NO.”
“Who did?” Captain Lopez asked.
“I want my daughter.”
At this point, the Captain left her seat and walked to stand next to him. She bent to be on the same level as his face. “Listen to me carefully. You will never see her again. Not after what you did in the past. Not after what you did today. You had a fucking gun. What were you planning to do? Kill her?”
“I WOULD NEVER HURT HER.”
“Well, news flash. You did.” Maria pushed back her chair and stood up. She looked at Zabo. “You hurt her. She had bruises on her arm.”
That seemed to have done the trick. The man looked like he had been punched in the face. He rocked back in his chair. She could see tears filling his eyes. “What have I done?” he muttered. “I hurt her. I was supposed to keep her safe. What have I done!” Maria let him mourn. They will need to do a DNA test to confirm that he was Skye’s father but Maria could see certain similarities.
“Tell us what you know, Zabo. Help your daughter have a happy life,” Captain Lopez said. Zabo’s eyes cleared as he seemed to have reached a decision. Maria hoped he could give some information.
“I worked as a scientist for ShadowCorp Enterprises. I was a scientist, worked under Daniel Whitehall. We conducted experiments to manipulate the aging process. Doctor Whitehall was obsessed with eternal life.” Maria felt dread fill her heart. This was not sounding good. “I met a wonderful woman. Jiaying. She was perfect. We got married. She got pregnant. She didn’t know about the job, only thought I worked for some normal research company. My life was perfect. I had a wife. We were going to have a daughter. I was doing well at my job.”
Maria felt disgusted with how casually the man was talking about human experimentation. Did he have no soul?
“One day after Daisy’s birth, there was a knock at my door. Someone had tipped FBI about our research. I was arrested. Whitehall escaped obviously. But I wasn’t so lucky. I wasn’t worried though. I knew Whitehall had connections in the FBI. I was in there for six months, until the agent retired. Agent Carter.”
Maria didn’t react to that name but it was comforting to know that even if all the files had been destroyed, she could find information from Peggy herself. She avoided Captain Lopez’s eyes. Now was not the time to focus on the dirty agents.
“When I escaped, I went to find my family. I never found them but months later, I found what happened to them.” He started crying at this moment and Maria felt a little impatient. “My Jiaying had been the one who tipped the FBI. She ran away after that but Whitehall found her. He had her murdered and left my child to die. But she didn’t. My beautiful Daisy escaped. I searched for her.”
“That’s when you started the killings,” Captain Lopez commented.
“I was looking for my daughter,” the man said, annoyed. “I almost found her but you arrested me.”
“You should have told us. Told me.”
“I wanted to kill Whitehall. And then I would have taken my Daisy home. We would have been a family. You took that from me.”
“How did you find her?”
“Saint Agnes was owned by Whitehall. ShadowCorp Enterprises was based in Ohio. I am sure it still is. Whitehall had - probably still has - many such homes under his control. It took me a while to find my Daisy but I did. That is why I came to New York.”
“What did he do with these homes?”
“He got his goons from there. Kids who spent so much time being hurt can be easily manipulated. Some were our subjects. Others were just there to do his dirty work.”
“You idiot!” Maria exclaimed, infuriated by how blind this man was. She was going to punch him. “You knew they hurt the kids at those places. And still, you left your daughter there.”
“I WANTED TO KILL HIM.”
“SO, YOUR REVENGE WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR DAUGTHER.”
The man stopped talking at that point and Maria was done. She didn’t have the energy anymore. She remembered how Skye had watched everyone during the first dinner, Maria had with her. As if afraid that the food will be taken away. She remembered how carefully she walked around Phil, even if she had relaxed a lot now. The same carefulness was still evident in her interactions with William.
Maria walked out of the interrogation and went into the Captain’s office. She pulled out her phone and dialed Melinda’s number.
“Ria.”
“How are the kids?”
There was silence for a few seconds. “I don’t know. Scared. Skye especially, but Bobbi is having trouble too.” This all definitely triggered her old nightmares. “Skye’s worried that he will take her away.”
Maria looked around the room. She was alone and had no one’s attention. “Mel. He escaped prison. He murdered people. No one in their right mind would give him visitation rights even.”
“That’s a relief. Now I just need to figure how to tell that to my daughter.”
Maria chuckled humorlessly. That would be a fun conversation. “I am going to try and end this today.”
“Come back home.”
“I will.”
Maria left the police station, sending a text to Sharon. Meet me at Peggy’s place. She took a cab to Melinda’s training institute, picked her car from there and then, drove to Peggy’s home. She called Fury while driving and briefed him on the situation. Sharon met her in the driveway. “Agent Hill,” she greeted.
“Ready to end this shit?” Maria asked. Sharon nodded. They walked inside the house and were greeted by Peggy. She might be older now but Maria would never underestimate her strength. “Antoine?”
“Asleep,” Peggy answered. Surprised, Maria checked her watch. It was almost eleven. She had not noticed the time in all of this.
“Daniel Whitehall,” she said and watched as Peggy’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You found him?”
“Hopefully but that’s not the point. Do you remember a Calvin Zabo?”
“He was one of the top scientists at that place.”
Maria briefed Peggy of the situation but refrained from releasing Skye’s identity. Skye deserved some privacy. She could see rage build up in the older woman and was glad that she herself was not going to be on the receiving end. “John Garret was my partner on that mission. I had provided that woman protection and he just -”
Maria did not waste time in trying to console the woman. It would be useless - you carried that kind of guilt all your life. There was no escaping it. Instead, she left with Sharon, this time her destination was her office. Fury must have already arranged for a team in Ohio to raid the ShadowCorp Enterprises. Multiple teams must have been sent to arrest all the dirty agents Gonzales had uncovered. Maria was interested in one of them.
Maria walked into the headquarters with Sharon following her. The atmosphere was gloomy and distrustful. The agents were questioning everything they knew. Maria related to that. She had joined the FBI a few years after Phil and Melinda and John Garret. She had been friends with them. And now she had been betrayed by one of her friends. She made her way to the interrogation room, blasting the door open. Both Fury and Garret looked at her but then went on with their conversation.
“You left me to die, Nick. He saved my life.”
“I left you to die,” Fury exclaimed. “You went dark without orders. You lost your radio. You didn’t send us any signal. How the hell was I supposed to know you were missing?”
Maria interfered at that point. “He saved your life. So, you let that bastard experiment on people, on kids. You watched as he hurt them, even killed them. Saving your life justifies all of that?”
“It doesn’t work that way, Hill,” he said. “Small sacrifices.”
Maria lunged at him. She was gonna kill this bastard. They still had no idea how many people had lost their lives in these ‘small sacrifices’. Skye. How much had that poor girl suffered and how many other kids were there, just like her.
Hands gripped her, pulling her away from the offending agent. Maria tried to fight them but at the end, she gave in. She allowed herself to be pulled away and led outside the room, into Fury’s cabin.
“What the hell, Hill?”
“Give me one reason that we shouldn’t kill him,” Maria said. “Didn’t you hear what he said? Small sacrifices!”
“Killing him won’t change anything,” Fury said.
“Think of the kids, Fury.”
“They can get help now,” Sharon said. “Find a new and better home. It won’t bring a change for all of them but at least for some.” Maria looked at the young girl. She was right, of course, but Maria felt as if this wouldn’t be enough.
The door opened and Vic walked in. She looked dishevelled. Maria had never seen her so shaken up. “Hand. Updates?”
“The operation is over,” Victoria announced. “Daniel Whitehall is in custody. We’ve made around thirty additional arrests so far, with more expected. Our teams have rescued ninety-seven prisoners—twenty-three of them are minors. Tragically, we also discovered twelve preserved bodies, three of which belong to minors.”
Maria let out a sigh. “So, it’s over?” she asked.
“There will be trials, obviously,” Fury pointed out. “Not to mention that the Child Protective Services will have to take control of the various group homes. We are going to be living a nightmare for a while. But yes, then it will be over.”
“And it will be worth it,” Sharon said.
It will definitely be worth it.