The air inside The Garrison felt ten degrees warmer than it should. The pub was half-lit and half-silent, the kind of old London joint where conversations stuck to walls like cigarette smoke. It was the kind of place where men talked in murmurs, where every pint glass came with a secret, and the mirrors behind the bar watched more than they reflected.Kabri sat across from Jamil in a back booth, their duffel bags tucked beneath the table. No one looked at them. No one dared. Wordless tension hung between them like a curtain. Jamil’s shoulder was freshly stitched, patched up in the back room of a Turkish clinic an hour earlier, his arm now bound in a sling made from a ripped scarf.Fred hadn’t said where he’d be. He never did. He just said to meet here at midnight—“business finished, then family drinks.” That’s what Fred called it. Family. A word that had lost meaning long ago.Kabri leaned back, eyes moving over the pub’s entrance like a hunting hawk. His face was still unreadable. Ev

The London rain had turned to sleet by midnight, whispering against rooftops and alley bricks like a confession from the sky. In the dim-lit backroom of a Turkish barbershop in Kilburn—long since closed for the night—Jamil crouched beneath a floorboard, his breath measured, hands moving carefully through dust and old nails.This place had once belonged to Farouk, a retired gunrunner who owed Fred favors that no one ever detailed aloud. Fred used it now as a rotating dropbox—a safehouse for codes, stolen IDs, and data drives too dangerous to keep in central caches. Kabri had never liked it. The smell of burnt shaving cream and mold made him twitch.But tonight, Kabri wasn’t here.And Jamil needed that.He had told Kabri he was heading out to secure the next meet location. It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the only thing he planned to do.Jamil lifted a steel box wrapped in thick duct tape from the hollow beneath the floor. Dust clung to its sides like dead skin. He laid it on the cracked

The night had teeth.The fog at Hollow Bridge had thickened, soaking into skin and nerves alike. Kabri and Jamil had left the body behind, the metal case delivered, the clothes burned. But something felt unfinished. Something was off. The silence wasn’t peace—it was a predator waiting to pounce.As they approached their parked BMW, the lot was dead quiet. Not a car in sight. No wind, no overhead traffic, just the hum of distant river movement and the soft click of Kabri’s boot on gravel.Kabri stopped cold.The passenger door was ajar.Jamil noticed too late.“Did you lock it?” Kabri asked.Jamil’s face tensed. “Yes.”Kabri drew his Glock. Jamil reached for his piece—but before he could grip it—Pop.The shot came sharp, from the side.A silencer’s whisper.Jamil gasped.Blood bloomed on his left side, just beneath the ribs. He dropped to his knees with a grunt, eyes wide in disbelief.“Sniper—” Kabri shouted, dragging him down behind the car.More shots pinged off metal. One tore thr

The early light clawed its way over the treetops like a dying animal, dull and grey, diffused by clouds swollen with pending rain. The woods north of Enfield were quiet, save for the wind shifting through brittle branches and the occasional caw of a distant crow.Kabri stood alone in the clearing, shovel in hand, his jacket soaked with morning dew, his palms blistered and red. His breath came in visible bursts. The scent of moss, wet earth, and rot wrapped around him like a warning.The grave was almost done.A rectangular hole, chest-deep, framed by loose stones and damp, overturned roots. The kind of place no one would find. No markers. No crosses. Just the earth swallowing secrets like it had for thousands of years.Lying nearby on a makeshift tarp was Jamil’s body, wrapped in one of Kabri’s old coats and a grey blanket they’d once used during stakeouts in Bristol. His face was calm now, too calm—unnatural, as if he’d just fallen asleep and forgotten to wake up.Kabri’s hands shook

Rain tapped on the windows of the ferry terminal like a thousand fingers trying to warn him.Kabri sat on a cracked wooden bench near Dock 4, hunched inside a faded trench coat, a small duffel at his feet. His beard was gone. His hair trimmed down to a military crop. He wore cheap reading glasses, the kind meant to throw off facial recognition software. The air around him reeked of salt, diesel, and cigarettes—but the real stench was fear. Not his. The world’s.He watched the customs officer across the waiting area chat idly with a port security guard, neither paying attention to the man who didn’t belong. The fake French passport in his breast pocket bore the name Younes Fariq, a name purchased three weeks ago from a corrupt Algerian hacker in Bethnal Green.The document would last three crossings, at best. Kabri needed only one.To Tangier.North Africa. A ghost’s territory.His breath fogged the window beside him. Outside, the ferry—a rusted relic named Aurora V—sat like a sleeping