Rain fell over the capital as if someone were trying to erase it.
From the twenty-first-floor window, Alice watched the vehicle lights fracture into long streaks across the asphalt. The city was still moving. Restaurants remained open, the last trains still ran, and officials continued smiling on giant screens mounted at intersections.
Beneath all that light, a witness had just died.
“Her name was Mira Santoso,” Dominic said. He placed a brown folder on the table. “An administrative employee at the Trade Directorate. Officially, she died in a traffic accident at 10:10 p.m.”
Alice didn’t touch the folder. “And unofficially?”
“Her car was found three kilometers from the accident site. The seat belt had been cut. Before she died, she sent one message to our attorneys.”
Dominic opened the folder. Inside were copies of shipping reports, an access card, and a slip of paper covered in the same numbers written over and over.
15–15–15.
Alan stood beside the screen, enlarging a transaction table. “Those numbers appear across six different companies. None of them have any clear business activity, but they received funds from three government contractors. The money was then moved into overseas accounts.”
“How much?” Alice asked.
“Enough to buy a port. Or finance a small war.”
In the corner of the room, Roberto was putting on a janitor’s uniform. He checked his face in a small mirror, then slipped a fake ID into his breast pocket.
“If Mira worked at the Directorate, why did she contact a law firm?” he asked.
“Because she knew the police wouldn’t help her,” Dominic replied.
Elena stared at Mira’s photograph, printed on the last page. The woman was smiling in front of a school, surrounded by children holding flags. “Twelve children disappeared from the scholarship program she managed. Their data was deleted three days ago.”
The room suddenly felt smaller.
Alice picked up the access card from the table. The Trade Directorate’s logo was printed on it, but a thin line beneath the logo formed a symbol she had never seen in any government document.
Three circles. A single line piercing their center.
“This wasn’t an accident,” Alice said.
“Not enough to call it murder,” Dominic said.
“If we wait for enough evidence, the next person will die.”
The steel door behind them sounded twice. Leo, Samuel, Gake, and Drake moved at once. Old habits meant they didn’t need to look at one another. Leo killed the lights. Samuel locked the inner door. Gake checked the cameras. Drake took up position beside Alice.
No one entered.
The only sound was something dropping through the gap beneath the door.
A white envelope.
Roberto picked it up with gloved hands. There was no sender’s name. No stamp. Inside was a blurry photograph of a warehouse by the river and a slip of paper bearing a message:
“Don’t look for who pulled the trigger. Look for who gave permission.”
On the back of the paper was the address of an old corner store.
Aunt Emma.
Alice read the name once, then burned the paper over a metal ashtray. Flames licked at its edges, turning the ink into black shadows.
“Tomorrow morning,” she said, “we split into three teams.”
“And tonight?” Drake asked.
Alice looked back at the city through the glass. On the giant screen across the street, Wensley—the minister who talked most often about national security—was delivering a speech about a clean future.
Beneath his speech, a government advertisement flashed.
REPORTING CRIME IS EVERY CITIZEN’S DUTY.
Alice smiled faintly. Not because it was funny.
“Tonight,” she said, “we find out who’s watching us.”
At the same time, far on the other side of the city, a woman in a black dress hung up the phone in a windowless room.
“Organization 15 has received the message,” a man said.
The woman looked at a wooden crate filled with weapons that had not yet been assigned serial numbers.
“Good,” she said.
Her name was Gabriela.
And for the first time that night, she looked afraid.