It would not need to destroy anything itself.
It would simply tell the wrong people where every vulnerable door would be before that door opened.
“Who has Vale?” I asked.
“We think a private network operating through Eastern Europe.”
“Think?”
“They’re using proxies.”
I leaned back.
Try Translation Software
“And the leak?”
Mercer looked toward the second officer.
She slid another photograph across the table.
My stomach tightened.
It was a grainy security image taken inside Sea-Tac.
Timestamp:
07:41.
Less than two hours earlier.
The image showed a man in a dark jacket standing beside a departure board.
His face was partially hidden.
But I recognized the posture.
The shoulders.
The slight tilt of the head.
I had trained him.
“Impossible,” I said.
Mercer said nothing.
I picked up the photograph.
“Where did this come from?”
“Terminal camera.”
“When?”
“Today.”
“That man is d/e/@/d.”
“Apparently not.”
His name was Caleb Rourke.
Former Special Operations.
Former intelligence liaison.
Former friend.
Seven years earlier, Rourke had disappeared during a covert mission in the Balkans.
We had recovered enough physical evidence to declare him k/i/lled.
I had attended the memorial.
I had delivered the folded flag to his sister.
