2025-08-12 00:38:30The king of spades swung in the breeze, the metal of the knife catching the moonlight.
For a moment, Adrian didn’t move. He could feel Mara’s gaze burning into the side of his face, silently demanding answers. He didn’t give them. Not yet. “Back up,” he said instead, scanning the shadows between the shipping containers. The sound came again—a faint scrape, metal on metal, closer this time. He raised his gun, angling his body to shield Mara without making it obvious. She might have been a forensic analyst, but in the wrong alley, job titles didn’t matter. “Who’s there?” His voice carried across the yard, swallowed almost instantly by the maze of containers. No answer. They moved in slow formation, Mara’s flashlight cutting arcs across the rusted walls while Adrian kept his weapon trained ahead. Every corner felt like it could hold a muzzle flash, every shadow a set of watching eyes. They rounded a container and stopped. A figure stood about thirty feet away, half-hidden by shadow. Tall, lean, wearing a dark hood. No face visible. “Police,” Adrian called. “Don’t move.” The figure turned slowly… then bolted. “Stay here,” Adrian barked, already chasing. “Like hell,” Mara muttered, running after him. The chase twisted through the narrow corridors of the yard, boots pounding against gravel. The hooded figure darted between containers with practiced speed, knowing exactly when to cut left or vault over debris. Adrian pushed harder, his breath clouding in the cold night air. He could hear Mara just behind him, cursing under her breath as she kept pace. The suspect cut through a gap in the containers then the air split with the sound of a gunshot. Adrian ducked behind cover, shoving Mara down beside him. “Stay low!” They peeked around the metal wall in time to see the figure disappearing over the chain-link fence at the far end of the yard. A second later, an engine roared to life and a motorcycle tore off into the night. Adrian holstered his gun, adrenaline still burning in his veins. “That wasn’t random,” Mara said, voice low. “They knew exactly where to wait. Exactly where we’d be.” Adrian scanned the dark emptiness left behind. “Yeah. Which means…” “They’re watching us.” --- Back at the precinct, the evidence room felt too small, too bright after the vast darkness of the freight yard. Mara laid out the items collected from the scene: the playing card, the knife, the strip of paper. She donned gloves and began swabbing the knife for prints. “You going to tell me why they’re leaving you little gifts?” “It’s not—” Adrian stopped himself. The truth was, he didn’t know if this was about him personally or the case. But the part of him that remembered the last time—the partner, the blood—told him it was personal. Mara glanced up at him. “You’ve got that look.” “What look?” “The one that says you know more than you’re saying. Which, by the way, is infuriating.” He almost smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Focus on the evidence.” An hour later, Mara froze mid-analysis. “Found something.” She angled the card under the light, revealing faint indents across the surface. “Someone pressed hard while writing on the paper above this. Old trick. You can lift the impression with oblique lighting.” She adjusted the lamp until the marks stood out. A partial set of numbers appeared, jagged but readable: 7130-47. Adrian’s pulse kicked up. He’d seen those numbers before, back in Denton’s notebook. “Matches what we found earlier,” Mara said. “If it’s a location code, we’re looking at coordinates… or a secure facility tag.” The room went still. Adrian’s phone buzzed again. Another text from the blocked number: NEXT TIME, IT WON’T BE A WARNING. --- Later That Night — Adrian’s Apartment The lock clicked shut behind him, but it didn’t ease the tension winding through his muscles. He poured himself a drink he didn’t touch and sat in the dark, staring at the city lights through his window. Somewhere out there, someone was moving pieces on a board he couldn’t see. And for the first time in years, Adrian felt the same gnawing certainty he’d had the night his partner died, that the next move would be theirs, not his.
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CHAPTER 138
One Year LaterPortland in autumn felt like forgetting. Adrian had been a security consultant for eleven months now—conducting risk assessments for tech companies, reviewing access protocols, training personnel who'd never face real threats. It was boring work that paid well enough, demanded nothing of his conscience, and let him pretend the previous two years hadn't happened.He lived alone in a small house in Sellwood, ran every morning through neighborhoods where the biggest threat was aggressive dogs, spent evenings reading books that had nothing to do with infrastructure or conspiracies or the systematic failures of democratic institutions.He hadn't spoken to his team since Montana. That was part of the agreement they'd made—scatter completely, maintain no contact, become separate individuals with separate lives who'd never worked together on anything. It was the only way to ensure CIA couldn't track them as a group, couldn't identify patterns that would reveal their locations.
CHAPTER 137
The Montana compound became their prison disguised as sanctuary. Days blurred into weeks—training exercises that felt pointless, intelligence briefings about threats they weren't authorized to address, the hollow routine of CIA assets waiting for deployment. Adrian spent most of his time alone, running perimeter trails until exhaustion drowned out thinking. Fourteen faces haunted him—the people he'd killed in Geneva and across the globe. He'd memorized their dossiers, studied their lives, tried to understand whether their deaths had actually prevented anything or just delayed inevitable infrastructure takeover. Six weeks after arriving in Montana, Teller summoned the team for a video briefing. Her expression suggested bad news. "Phase Four has resumed," Teller said without preamble. "The remaining Consilience Group members regrouped faster than anticipated. They've restructured their authorization protocols—no longer requiring multiple members per region. Single authorization now a
CHAPTER 136
The safe house in Lyon became a war room. CIA flooded them with intelligence on the remaining fifteen Consilience Group members—locations, security details, operational patterns. All of them had gone into deep cover after the Geneva massacre, understanding they were being hunted."Fifteen targets in seventy-two hours across multiple continents," Coleman said, studying the tactical maps. "That's impossible even with unlimited resources.""So we don't try to eliminate all fifteen," Adrian replied. "We identify which ones are critical to Phase Four activation and focus on those."Martinez had been analyzing the infrastructure control systems through back channels into the Consilience Group's networks. "Phase Four requires coordinated activation across six regional hubs—North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia-Pacific. Each hub needs authorization from at least two Consilience Group members. If we can prevent authorization at even three hubs, the global integration
CHAPTER 135
The planning took thirty-six hours. CIA provided information on all eight Consilience Group members attending the Geneva meeting—schedules, security details, vulnerability windows. Teller made it clear this was a sanctioned operation, approved at the highest levels, with full institutional backing."We've identified optimal strike window," Teller explained via secure video call. "Tomorrow evening, they're attending a private reception at a lakeside estate. Limited security due to the confidential nature of their meeting. All eight targets will be in one location for approximately two hours.""You're talking about attacking a diplomatic reception," Fischer said. "Even with CIA backing, that's going to create massive international incident.""The estate is privately owned, guests are attending unofficially. There's no diplomatic immunity, no official government protection. It's classified as private gathering, which gives us operational flexibility.""Flexibility to commit mass murder,"
CHAPTER 134
Singapore looked different the second time—less pristine, more hostile. Adrian and Mara arrived on separate flights, using different entry points, meeting at a hawker center in Chinatown where the crowds provided cover and the noise prevented surveillance."CIA wants to meet at the Singapore Flyer," Mara said, showing Adrian the updated instructions. "Public location, high visibility, supposedly safe for both parties.""Or excellent place for a public arrest," Adrian countered. "Giant Ferris wheel means contained space once you're in a capsule. Easy to control, easy to detain.""So we don't get in a capsule. We meet near the entrance, maintain exit options, leave if it feels wrong."They approached the Singapore Flyer at sunset, when the tourist crowds were thickest. Adrian spotted the CIA operatives immediately two of them, trying to look casual but moving with the controlled awareness of professionals. One was a woman in her fifties, the other a younger man, both dressed like touris
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
