When it finally ends, I head back to the apartment I've maintained as Michael Hayes. Cheap studio in Arlington, cash lease, minimal furniture. Nothing that suggests I'm anything other than what I appear to be—a man with questionable income and flexible morals.
I hear the door lock behind me and pull the encrypted drive from my belt buckle. Plug it into the laptop hidden in a false panel behind the bathroom mirror. Intelligence downloads to the secure partition, backed up to multiple dead drop locations in case I don't make it out.
Today's haul is good. Webb mentioned NSA monitoring, which means they know federal agencies are tracking some of their communications. More importantly, he referenced specific personnel at Fort Meade who've been "addressed."
That's the word they use. Like threatening, bribing, or killing federal employees is just another item on their to-do list.
I add the details to my files and encrypt everything with a key only my handler at CIA knows. I destroy the temporary partition, reboot the system clean. I'm always careful. One mistake means torture followed by execution.
My phone buzzes. Burner number I've been using for their communications.
Webb: Philadelphia contact confirmed. Meet Tuesday morning. Details to follow.
I send back a quick affirmative because Michael Hayes isn't verbose, then switch to the encrypted comm device hidden in my shaving kit. It's supposed to connect me to CIA oversight, to the handler who's supposed to be monitoring my infiltration from a safe distance.
It's been dark for weeks.
Long stretches of silence aren't unusual when you're this deep in an operation. My handler knows I'll check in when I surface, knows the risk of communication while I'm embedded in their network. But weeks is pushing protocol, and I'm starting to wonder if something went wrong on their end.
I put the device away and focus on the job.
Next morning, I'm back in character, meeting an enforcer named Yuri at a warehouse in Baltimore. Ex-Spetsnaz with massive shoulders and a neck like a tree trunk, he speaks English with an accent thick enough to cut. They keep men like him on payroll for wet work.
"Hayes." He doesn't offer a hand. Just nods toward a shipping container in the corner. "Webb says you handle transport. This goes to Philadelphia. Tonight."
I approach the container, noting the fresh welds and reinforced locks. Whatever's inside, they don't want it found. "What am I moving?"
"You don't ask questions." Yuri's hand rests casually on the gun at his hip. "You move container, you get paid, you forget it existed."
I've been doing this long enough to read between the lines.
The container's too small for weapons, too heavy for drugs based on how it sits on the loading skids. Reinforced construction suggests something valuable, possibly human cargo. They've been trafficking everything from intelligence assets to witnesses who need to disappear.
I run the numbers in my head. Take the job, track the delivery, add it to the case. Or refuse and risk blowing my cover over a mystery shipment that might be nothing.
"Serious money," I say. "Half up front."
Yuri smiles. It's not a pleasant expression. "All after delivery."
"Half up front." I let some edge creep into Michael Hayes's voice. "I'm not running charity logistics here."
We settle on a number I can work with, half up front, and I arrange transport through a company that won't ask questions about their cargo. I load the container onto a truck and follow it north with a tracking device hidden in the undercarriage mount.
Whatever's in that container, I'll know where it ends up.
The delivery happens without incident. Warehouse in Philadelphia's industrial district, minimal security, quick transfer to a facility I've had under surveillance. Yuri pays me, confirms the delivery with Webb, and Michael Hayes heads back to Arlington with another data point for the case.
That night I break into the Philadelphia warehouse.
I shouldn't. The smart play is to stay in character, let the proof accumulate, wait for CIA to authorize extraction when I have enough to prosecute. But playing Michael Hayes is wearing on me, and I need to know what was in that container badly enough to take the risk.
The security is decent but not exceptional. Cameras on fixed rotation, motion sensors I can defeat with careful timing, locks that yield to the picks I've been carrying since my first CIA deployment. Minutes later I'm inside, moving through shadows toward the storage area where they unloaded the container.
It's empty now. Whatever was inside is gone, moved to some other location in their network. But there are traces. Blood on the concrete, recently cleaned but not well enough—coppery smell still lingers in the stale air. Restraint marks gouged into the interior walls. Evidence of human cargo, recent transport, someone who fought hard enough to leave signs.
My stomach turns, but I photograph everything and get out before security makes their next rotation.
Back in Arlington, I add the photos to my files and stare at the images until they blur. Someone was in that container. Someone who might still be alive, or might have joined the growing list of victims I'm documenting one atrocity at a time.
