All Hands on Deck #2
Her final mission. The one that’s supposed to be easy. One last box checked before she moved behind the planning table. I think that’s what makes this feel so different.
“Elliot is with Gianna in the hospital, and he’s gotten a secure connection set up for her. She’s agreed to a debrief.”
The director switches the photo on the screen for live video feed.
Gianna’s tech op, Elliot, is in front of the camera, looking like a man who has spent the last several hours listening through an earpiece to someone he was responsible for almost die.
His hair is a mess, and the circles under his eyes are dark.
Once Elliot steps out of the frame so we can see Gianna, the director says, “We’re ready for you, if you’re up for it.”
Gianna gives one small nod. Every breath she takes is careful enough to tell me her ribs didn’t make it through her mission unscathed, either. Her voice is rougher than usual, but steady. “The meeting took place exactly where and when we planned. Radomir arrived first.”
“He’s been an asset for seven years,” my mom says. “Radomir is the kind of person an operative can build entire operations around because he has proven, again and again, that his word means something.”
Gianna continues. “Radomir told me someone was selling the identities of seven assets. I asked him whose assets, and he said, ‘Ours.’”
Something cold settles low in my stomach.
“We were making the brush pass when Radomir’s eyes shifted to look past me. I knew something was wrong before he said anything. He shoved me behind a concrete planter just as three shots were fired.” Her voice cracks a little, and she swallows. “Radomir took all three. He saved my life.”
No one says anything for a moment. Then my mom quietly takes over. “Radomir died at the scene, but Gianna got the package out.”
The next image is security footage. “There is no usable facial recognition on the shooters,” the director says. “And at this point, determining who ordered Radomir’s death is secondary to what he died getting to us.”
My mom changes the screen again. This time, seven narrow boxes appear in a row. Six contain blurred photographs and redacted identifying information. The seventh is Radomir’s. Across the top of the slide are the words International Security Intelligence Directorate.
The ISID is a multinational organization that coordinates intelligence sharing and joint operations between allied nations’ intelligence agencies.
When an operation crosses enough borders and involves enough agencies, somebody has to make sure everyone is working from the same version of reality. That’s their job.
“These seven people are confidential non-employee CSA assets,” Director Lancaster says. “All seven have provided intelligence to the same joint international operation coordinated through ISID.”
Jace’s eyes stay fixed on the screen. “And someone accessed all seven names.”
“Yes.” She taps the remote, and one of the boxes turns red. Radomir’s. “He was one of them.”
No one moves. There is something different about seeing one red square among six others. It turns a security breach into a countdown.
“Are the other six safe?” I ask.
“Teams are moving them now,” my mom says.
“But temporary relocation doesn’t solve this.
The stolen file contains enough identifying information that if it reaches the wrong buyer, those people will spend the rest of their lives in danger.
” She looks at each of us in turn. “Radomir is the first confirmed casualty. We are going to make sure he is the last.”
Ledger leans forward, forearms on the table. “How did Radomir know about the breach?”
“Because he obtained a copy of a solicitation that began circulating among a very small number of vetted criminal clients. It offers access to what it describes as a restricted intelligence package containing the identities of seven confidential human sources connected to a multinational operation, including a date connected to the joint operation. Radomir recognized himself.”
Charlie exhales quietly.
“He started digging,” the director continues, “and he confirmed who was facilitating the sale.”
A photograph fills the screen. It’s of a man in his early fifties, standing beside a glass wall overlooking a city, wearing a dark suit with the kind of relaxed confidence money can buy but not teach. There’s nothing outwardly threatening about him. Beneath the photograph is a name and company.
Julian Rooke
Founder & CEO, Rooke Strategic Services
My mom looks toward Kella. “What do you know about Julian Rooke?”
Kella doesn’t need to check her notes. “Rooke Strategic Services is a legitimate international facilitation firm. High-net-worth clients hire them for difficult logistics, strategic introductions, acquisitions, private travel, permits, crisis resolution. Basically, if there’s an obstacle, Rooke knows someone who can remove it. ”
“Publicly,” Nora adds.
Kella nods. “Privately, intelligence agencies have suspected for years that he provides the same services to a small number of carefully vetted criminal clients.”
“Meaning?” my mom asks.
“He connects people who shouldn’t be able to find each other. Someone has something valuable, someone else wants it, and Rooke knows how to put them in the same room without either side exposing themselves.”
“Very good.”
“So,” Nora says, “a criminal concierge service.”
My mom clicks to another slide. It’s a collection of suspected transactions, names, businesses, and photographs.
“Rooke’s brilliance is that he rarely commits the underlying crime.
He doesn’t steal the intelligence. He doesn’t move the weapons.
He doesn’t hack the system. He facilitates.
He arranges introductions, transportation, access, payment structures, people. ”
“Connections,” I say.
Her gaze lands briefly on me. “Exactly.”
I look back at Julian Rooke’s photograph. He built an empire on knowing the right person.
“For almost six years,” my mom says, “multiple agencies have tried to prove Rooke knowingly facilitates criminal transactions. We have never had enough to make a case stick. His legitimate and illicit business overlap too cleanly. His communications are careful. He compartmentalizes. Most of the people involved in any given transaction never know who else is involved.”
Jace folds his arms. “Who hired him to sell our asset roster?”
“That part developed in the hours since Gianna got Radomir’s package out.
Once Radomir’s information reached us, ISID immediately audited access to the seven records.
They found an employee who had accessed all seven files outside the requirements of their assignment. The employee is now in custody.”
That happened fast. Then again, when seven protected identities are being sold, and one of them is already dead, nobody waits until morning.
“The employee had been recruited by an intelligence trafficker to look for restricted information that could be monetized. They copied the roster and passed it along. The trafficker had already retained Julian Rooke to sell it before ISID discovered the breach.”
“Do we have the trafficker?” Emerson asks.
“No. CIA and ISID are handling that investigation jointly. That is not our assignment. Our assignment is recovering the roster before Rooke sells it.”
“How far along is the sale?” Jace asks.
“We don’t know. All we know is that the solicitation Radomir saw had been created within the last forty-eight hours. Historically, transactions this sensitive take Rooke somewhere in the range of two to three weeks from initial solicitation to final transfer.”
Gianna shifts on the hospital bed and immediately winces.
“Before anyone forgets,” she says, “I would like it entered into the official record that the package you’re all discussing required me to get chased through two alleys, knocked down a service stairwell, jump a canal wall, climb through the window of a moving tram, and spend twenty minutes pretending to be a very concussed tourist while holding onto it. ”
Ledger’s mouth quirks. “Stepping into retirement with style, I see.”
“I also dislocated my shoulder badly enough that a Czech paramedic called me several names that I’m choosing to believe were compliments.”
Charlie reaches for the sealed evidence pouch near my mom’s tablet and hugs it against her chest. “I will swaddle it in encrypted bubble wrap, tuck it behind a protected firewall, and sing it lullabies until it tells me all its secrets.”
“Thank you,” Gianna says, more genuinely than is typical for her.
In a quieter voice, my mom adds, “Radomir made sure she survived so she could get that package to us.”
For the first time, Gianna’s composure slips. Just slightly. She nods. Then Elliot moves into the edge of the frame and says something quietly to her.
“I’m getting kicked out of my own debrief,” Gianna says.
“You need rest,” my mom tells her.
“I need a less bossy tech op.”
“No,” Elliot says from offscreen.
That earns the smallest hint of a smile from Gianna before her feed goes dark.
For a moment, no one says anything. Then my mom looks around the table. “Julian Rooke has begun approaching buyers, and we need someone inside that sale.”
Ledger leans back. “How?”
“That,” she says, “is what I expect us to know before we leave.”
Chairs shift. Laptops open wider. The room moves from shock into work, which is what the CSA does best. We absorb the impossible for one breath, then turn it into task lists.
My mom starts giving everyone assignments of things to look into. Then she looks at me. “Miles, help Emerson with the client side. Rooke built his business on relationships. I want to know who trusts him enough to open a door.”
I nod.
The conference room looks like an electronics store lost a custody battle. Laptops cover half the table, with tablets on most of what’s left. Empty water bottles, coffee cups, and a vending-machine bag of pretzels have appeared from nowhere.