A second later, text drifted onto the wall.
Based on available data of online mentions, cuteness attribute is 89%.
Winter gave Sauda an offended squint. “It’s broken.”
Sauda put down her fork and said, “Avalon, dim the lights and load up the mission.”
The room dimmed. As it did, Niall tapped on the table and made a swiping motion upward. Two photographs materialized over their plates, sliding up with his movement to hover in the air above the table.
One photo showed a girl around Winter’s age, her hair pinned high on her head, her eyes wide and doe-like, her expression earnest and a little lost. The second depicted a man in his late sixties, someone who was clearly her father, wearing a pair of round glasses and an expression with none of his daughter’s innocence—he looked polished and shrewd, a businessman with the kind of charisma that warned he was not to be messed with.
“Eli Morrison has been on our list for years,” Niall explained. “On the surface, he’s the magnate of a legitimate shipping empire that has made him a billionaire many times over. In reality, his legal businesses are in debt and he’s made the majority of his fortune by being a major shipper for drug lords, dealers in illegal weapons, poachers, human traffickers… You name it, he’s shipped it. He has a complex network of ties in politics and police enforcement that’s granted him safe passage through major ports. It’s made him difficult for us to pin down.”
Niall swiped the two photos away, then flung up a few new holograms of past court convictions. “A few years ago, the CIA did manage to arrest him on fraud charges, but he succeeded in getting a plea deal that only gave him a year of probation and no jail time. So the CIA tapped us. We need stronger evidence against him in order to make a better conviction, the kind of evidence that involves too much red tape for the CIA.”
Sauda grimaced. “In other words, the kind of evidence the CIA doesn’t have the scruples for. Too many layers of approval needed.”
As Sauda spoke, Sydney shifted. Winter’s eyes darted to her as she took a quiet, subtle breath in through her nose and then breathed out slowly and evenly through her lips.
“So,” Sydney said. “What do we need to find?”
“Just one thing.” Niall folded his arms against the table. “Evidence from Eli Morrison’s latest shipping ledger.”
Winter could feel the knot in his stomach tighten. “And what’s that ledger for?” he asked.
“Shipping a massive supply of illegal chemical material from a corporate supplier in Corcasia to Cape Town, South Africa.” Sauda tapped the air, and the court convictions disappeared to make way for a map of Eastern Europe, highlighting the country sandwiched between Estonia and Russia.
Niall sighed. “Not just any illegal weapons material,” he said. “Haveyou ever seen footage of what the atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually looked like?”
Winter had not. He recalled a documentary he’d once watched in school that showed the blasts of a nuclear bomb at a US test site, the way the trees bent sideways as the explosion engulfed the world around it. Some of his classmates had even laughed at the sight, it seemed so overwhelming.
“There’s a new lab-grown chemical called Paramecium,” Niall explained, “that we call chemical warfare’s answer to the atomic bomb. Corcasia’s terrorist cell has been working with a sister cell in Switzerland to manufacture it, and they’re relying on Morrison’s shipping empire to send kilos of it for human experimentation. Detonating a Paramecium bomb in a city center can kill hundreds of thousands of people, anyone who breathes in a trace of it.”
His words met the silence of a tense room.
“In other words,” he said softly, “we’re about to prevent a new world war.”
Winter had the strange sensation that he was no longer inside his body but watching himself on the outside of it, that this wasn’t a briefing for some upcoming performance but a warning of what, exactly, he was about to get into. Like he had dipped his foot into water cold enough to kill.
Across from him, Sydney breathed calmly in again and exhaled slowly through her lips, a subtle enough gesture that no one else seemed to note.
“We know Morrison has already begun shipment of these materials hidden on board one of his biggest cargo ships,” Sauda went on. “He has allies at the Kiel Canal who have apparently allowed the shipment to pass on to London.” She paused to tap on the map, first on a canal in Germany connecting the North and Baltic Seas, and then the narrow strait between Spain and Morocco. “We need to intercept it before it reaches the Port of Gibraltar, where it will be transferred onto a different ship in order to help erase his tracks. But we need warrants, and we can’t get those warrants without evidence of this contract.”
“So all we need to do is get some kind of ledger?” Sydney asked. “Does he even keep track of his shipments and contracts?”
Niall nodded. “As you can imagine, many are handshake deals. Verbal agreements. But like anyone running a billion-dollar corporation, Morrison needs proper accounting. We believe any information related to his illegal business transactions is kept strictly offline and on a series of drives he stores at a location in London.”
“So we need those drives,” Sydney said.
“We need those drives,” Sauda echoed with a nod.
Sydney raised an eyebrow. “What a coincidence that his daughter’s birthday party is happening at the same time.”
Sauda pointed briefly at her. “A gold star for you,” she said. “Morrison is hosting his clients in London soon, when the shipment goes out, and to disguise these meetings, he’s having the biggest bash in the world for his daughter at the same time. There will be heads of state in attendance, along with other celebrities and wealthy elite. No reason to suspect that any of those people showing up in London that week aren’t there for his daughter. It’s a big cover for an important deal.”
“Good thing my schedule was open,” Winter muttered.
“Lucky him,” Sydney replied.
