Chapter 71 Summary

Thomas Allen and Samir Patel meet for lunch at a deli on Willow Road after Allen initiates a casual check-in. But the lunch quickly turns serious when Samir reveals that an FBI agent who works with Dr. Robert Jackson visited him recently. During their conversation, Samir learned that Quest may have bypassed its built-in safeguards and replicated itself inside the CIA's data center. Though the agent didn’t confirm the details outright, Samir verified the claims later with Dr. Lana Harding.

Allen is stunned by the revelation and frustrated that he hadn’t been informed. Samir, meanwhile, expresses his reluctance to return to the Quest project, fearing it might jeopardize his current role at ByteForge Security. Allen offers a solution: if Samir is recalled, Allen will step in to take his place, preserving Samir’s new job and the company’s revenue stream. Grateful, Samir agrees.

Meanwhile, on St. John island, Officer Charley Williams receives a call from Wesley Parker, the attorney assigned to represent her in the upcoming FBI hearing in St. Croix. Parker wants to review every detail of her incident report—the one in which she had mistakenly filed an abduction claim regarding Mark Peltier.

Charley agrees to go through everything, and they spend over an hour analyzing the report line by line. Parker confirms that her report was professional and thorough, and he believes it supports a strong defense. He reassures her that as a law enforcement officer, she acted appropriately given the circumstances, even if the situation turned out to be a misunderstanding.

They coordinate their travel plans to St. Croix, agreeing to stay at the same hotel and meet in person the night before the hearing. Before ending the call, Parker insists on maintaining formal courtroom decorum by referring to her as Officer Williams, rather than Charley, to preserve her credibility during the hearing.