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CHAPTER 133
The decision to go after Thomas Kim took Adrian exactly three minutes. Not because assassination was justified—he still hadn't fully reconciled that moral boundary—but because Kim had deliberately set them up for detention, had facilitated their classification as criminals, had positioned them for elimination while pretending to support their investigation. That wasn't just conspiracy. That was betrayal. Adrian coordinated with his team from a different Hong Kong safe house, this one arranged through Coleman's military contacts rather than Jade's networks. He didn't fully trust anything Brandt-adjacent anymore. "Kim's protected," Fischer said, reviewing Singapore intelligence infrastructure. "Director-level security, government bodyguards, movements coordinated through official channels. Getting to him requires penetrating Singapore's most secure facilities." "Or catching him when he's outside Singapore," Mara countered. "He travels—regional security conferences, coordination meet
CHAPTER 132
The escape routes Jade arranged were exactly as uncomfortable as promised. Adrian found himself in the back of a cargo truck crossing into Malaysia, hidden among crates of electronics, breathing air thick with diesel fumes and sweat. The truck stopped every few hours at checkpoints where border guards were apparently paid enough not to inspect too carefully. He emerged in Johor Bahru twenty hours later, disoriented and stinking, picked up by a contact Jade had arranged—a Malaysian smuggler named Rizal who specialized in moving people governments wanted disappeared. "You're the American who pissed off Singapore," Rizal said, not making it a question. "That's impressive. Singapore doesn't usually let anyone embarrass them like this." "Where's my team?" Adrian asked. "Scattered. Different routes, different timing. Jade's protocol—she said you'd understand why you couldn't travel together." Adrian did understand. If they'd been captured at the border, traveling separately meant not e
CHAPTER 131
The facility they were taken to wasn't a police station. Adrian knew that immediately—no booking procedures, no official paperwork, no lawyers being called. Just concrete corridors, fluorescent lighting, and the smell of industrial disinfectant that suggested this place was designed for activities governments didn't want documented.They separated the team. Adrian was pushed into a windowless room with a metal table and two chairs bolted to the floor. The door locked behind him with the heavy finality of serious security.He waited.Twenty minutes passed. Then an hour. Classic interrogation technique—let the prisoner's imagination work against them, let anxiety build, establish that time was controlled by the interrogators.Adrian used the time to assess his situation. His hands were zip-tied in front of him. No weapons, no communications equipment, no way to contact anyone who might help. Martinez had the data they'd extracted, but she was probably in an identical room somewhere in t
CHAPTER 130
Singapore hit them like a wall of heat and humidity when they stepped off the plane. The city-state gleamed in the tropical sun—skyscrapers, pristine streets, the kind of obsessive order that came from a government that actually enforced its regulations.Director Kim met them at the private terminal, accompanied by two Singapore intelligence officers who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else."Welcome to Singapore," Kim said. "Your cover identities have been established—infrastructure security consultants conducting assessments for the International Development Bank. The facility we're interested in is registered as a telecommunications hub owned by a company called Pacific Infrastructure Solutions.""What do we know about them?" Adrian asked as they loaded into a van with tinted windows."Legitimate on paper. They manage data centers, provide cloud services for regional businesses, maintain communications infrastructure for corporate clients. Revenue of about three hundred milli
CHAPTER 129
The secure facility outside The Hague looked like a corporate office park—all glass and steel modernism, landscaped grounds, nothing to suggest it housed intelligence operations for multiple countries. Adrian's team arrived separately, maintaining operational security even though they were supposedly legitimate now.The briefing room was underground, three levels down, accessed through biometric checkpoints that made Vienna's security look casual. Twenty people were already seated when Adrian entered—intelligence officers from five countries, technical specialists, operational planners. All of them turned to watch as he walked to the front of the room.Vance was waiting there, along with a man Adrian didn't recognize—late fifties, Asian features, wearing an expensive suit that suggested private sector rather than government service."This is Director Kim," Vance said. "Singapore Intelligence. He's been tracking the Southeast Asia situation for eighteen months."Kim pulled up satellite
CHAPTER 128
Three days in Vienna became a week. What should have been simple debriefing turned into congressional testimonies via secure video link, depositions for European prosecutors, endless meetings with intelligence officials trying to understand how Brandt had positioned herself so thoroughly that immunity was the only option.Adrian spent most of it in a hotel room near the American embassy, watching news coverage of the "infrastructure crisis" that had somehow been reframed as preventable system vulnerabilities rather than deliberate corporate conspiracy. Brandt's lawyers were already winning the narrative battle.On day eight, Director Sarah Vance arrived in person.She was younger than Adrian expected—early forties, with the sharp competence of someone who'd climbed Interpol's ranks through actual results rather than political maneuvering. She found Adrian in the hotel's restaurant, sat down without invitation, and ordered coffee with the confidence of someone who didn't waste time on
