Date: July 13–15, 2005
Location: Chicago
On July 13, 2005, Chicago sweltered under a muggy 88°F, the humid air pressing down like a heavy blanket. In the South Loop district, historic libraries stood alongside modern offices, creating an air of intellectual vibrancy. In 2005, the Harold Washington Library Center was a cornerstone of the area, its vast collection of books and documents drawing researchers and historians from across the globe. But beneath the calm, secrets simmered—the Chicago Police Department reported 80 document thefts in the district that year, often linked to underground historians chasing rare manuscripts.
James Crowe sat in the library’s reading room, surrounded by stacks of yellowed documents and leather-bound books that smelled of dust and time. His table was a mess: notes scrawled in his Moleskine notebook, a pencil he tapped absentmindedly, and a cup of coffee he’d bought at the library cafe, now cold. The 38-year-old private detective had spent the last two days in Chicago investigating the global network he’d uncovered—a shadowy organization that used “temporary families” to execute heists, scams, and espionage across centuries. His suspicion that this wasn’t a modern operation had grown after Paul Reynolds’ mention of “people in London and Paris” and the “StarLink Innovations” sign he’d found in Portland, which echoed the Order of the Star Path his ancestor Elizabeth Crowe had encountered in 1753.
Crowe started with legitimate methods, diving into the library’s archives on financial schemes and secret societies. He worked with Ellen Smith, a 55-year-old librarian with silver hair in a tight bun and thick-framed glasses, who had 30 years of experience with historical documents.
“Mr. Crowe, are you looking for something specific?” Ellen asked, her voice soft but curious as she set a box of 19th-century records on his table.
“I’m tracking an organization that operates through ‘temporary families,’” Crowe replied, his tone serious. “They’re tied to heists, scams, maybe even abductions. I think they’ve been around for centuries—possibly since the 1700s.”
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Ellen raised an eyebrow but nodded, retrieving several boxes of documents. Crowe sifted through reports on financial schemes in Chicago during the 1870s, following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which had razed over 17,000 buildings and left 100,000 people homeless. A document caught his eye: a report on the “Starlight Foundation,” a supposed charity aiding orphans after the fire. The report revealed the foundation was a front, using children for “educational experiments” to “prepare them for a future among the stars.” It noted ties to London and a founding date in the 1750s as the “Order of the Star Path”—a name that matched the “StarLink Innovations” sign and the journal entries Elizabeth had hidden.
“Well, looks like I just found a dinosaur among criminal organizations,” Crowe muttered, a self-deprecating smirk on his lips as he jotted down the connection. “If they were operating in the 18th century, I might be the first detective to dig this deep—though I’m not sure that’s a badge of honor.”
Over the next two days, Crowe pored over records spanning the 18th and 19th centuries. Letters from British merchants in the 1760s complained of a “secret group” manipulating trade in London, calling themselves the Order of the Star Path. In the 1820s, the “Brotherhood of Starlight” operated in Paris, running “orphan schools” that doubled as training grounds for child spies. By the 1900s, the “Starlight Society” emerged in New York, exploiting the Great Depression by buying land for pennies and reselling it at massive profits. Crowe found a direct link to the 2004 Alaskan Way robbery: 1950s documents mentioned a “Starlight Network” funding U.S. gangs for bank heists, using methods eerily similar to the Seattle job.
The organization had evolved over centuries, changing names but never its core mission: manipulating people, finances, and even governments while staying in the shadows. Its sci-fi-tinged ideology of “a future among the stars” had persisted since 1753, a thread Crowe now recognized as the precursor to the Brotherhood of Starlight he’d later face in 2025.
In 2005, Chicago was a hub of history and culture: the Chicago History Museum preserved millions of artifacts, and Wilco gained acclaim with their album A Ghost Is Born. But for Crowe, those details were background noise—London, where the Order of the Star Path began, was his next stop to uncover the full scope of this centuries-old conspiracy.
