A Dangerous Game
The team of operatives discovers their enemy isn’t receiving leaked intelligence but is being used as bait by an unknown party
monitoring their operational patterns, forcing them to devise counter-strategies.
Hereford – Safehouse
Rhys sat hunched at the kitchen table, the dark room broken only by the faint, blueish light from his laptop. The early morning hours clung to him; dawn was still a distant promise outside the window. He scrolled through Dar’s follow-up message, each line tightening the knot in his stomach. His gut reaction wasn’t panic—it was something colder, sharper: recognition.
His elbows rested on the surface, fingers pressed flat against the table as he read the text a second time, then a third. His jaw shifted slightly to one side.
“What if it’s a leak?” he said. “What if Dar got it wrong?”
Rhys sat back in his chair, a slow, deliberate movement. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment before his gaze dropped. If it was a leak, then it had to be someone close. The thought landed like a meteorite, shifting the entire geometry of their operation into something darker, more dangerous.
His gaze drifted out the kitchen window, where the shadowed outline of tree branches swayed against the night sky. The house seemed motionless; even Dar had succumbed to sleep an hour earlier—Good, she needs it.
His thoughts churned. That packet timing—if someone’s feeding Ashford our rhythm…we’re exposed. The realisation settled over him.
“We need to break it,” he declared with unwavering resolve, not meant for anyone else—not even Twigs, who, having enjoyed the warmth of Rhys’s shared milk earlier, slept peacefully on his socked feet, oblivious to the man’s growing unease.
A silhouette watched silently from the doorway—carved against the dim glow emanating from the front hall light that had come on without Rhys noticing.
“You’re saying it’s a leak?” Callum spoke finally—not accusatory, but probing.
Rhys glanced up, his focus shifting instantly. His voice dropped, instinctively cautious now that he wasn’t alone. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. And leaks don’t happen by accident.” His fingers began a slow, measured drumbeat on the table. “Someone’s handing him our playbook.”
Callum stepped further in but stopped short of sitting down, remaining upright as his gaze remained fixed on Rhys—not judging, but assessing.
Rhys’s eyes were cold when they met Callum’s. “We change the rhythm. Now. Not tomorrow. We move before he does.”
Callum didn’t flinch under Rhys’s scrutiny; instead, he tilted his head as though considering something unspoken. “Who’s still breathing that shouldn’t be?”
The question hung suspended.
Rhys didn’t hesitate. “Logan’s solid,” he began, ticking off names like pieces on a chessboard being evaluated for their positions. “He’d burn this house down before he’d leak intel.” His tone was cold and precise. “Malik—he’s capable but too honourable for this kind of betrayal…Sean’s still learning our rhythm; his loyalty is to Dar first and foremost.” Another pause followed—a beat longer this time—as Rhys’s jaw tightened. “Pam? She’s outside the wire completely.”
His words slowed now. “That leaves people who’ve seen the packets but don’t carry them.” He looked directly at Callum. “Someone with access—not authority.”
Rhys pushed back from the table, sending Twigs darting toward the stairs indignantly at being so rudely disturbed. Against the hard tile floor, the scraping of chair legs produced a loud echo, as though the sound itself was trying to make a point.
“Stroud.” Rhys stood and squared himself toward Callum. His expression hardened further as he delivered his next question with deadly seriousness: “Who’s the one person you’d never suspect?”
Callum’s jaw set for only an instant—enough for Rhys to catch it—before he forced himself to respond.
“Me,” Callum had paused momentarily, long enough to feel natural, “or you.”
Rhys stared at him hard before speaking again—and when he did, his voice was low and unyielding.
“If it were you…” He took a step closer so there could be no mistaking his meaning behind those words. “…we’d already be dead.”
Rhys closed his laptop and picked it up, heading out to the hallway with purpose radiating from every step.
With dawn just around the corner, Callum tugged on his running shirt, a deep sense of belonging settling in his chest, a feeling that persisted despite his earlier encounter with Calder.
The safehouse felt coiled, a spring wound tighter with each day since his arrival. But Logan’s words from their brief conversation the day before lingered—’You’re part of the team now.’—a quiet reassurance that cut through some of the tension.
He felt genuine acceptance in the way Logan watched him and Dar trade notes now, a look of grudging approval that had shifted into something warmer. Pam’s sharp, assessing glances over the pastries she delivered some mornings had softened too, her nods of greeting carrying an ease that hadn’t been there at first. Sean’s humour remained unchanged, but Callum recognized now that it wasn’t just a veneer—it was an invitation, a sign that he’d been folded into the rhythm of things. Even Malik seemed more relaxed in his presence.
But Rhys was different. He watched Callum with the unwavering focus of a threat assessment that never seemed to resolve, his gaze a constant, low-grade pressure. The resentment hung in the air whenever Rhys looked at him, unspoken but impossible to ignore. Probably didn’t help that Callum wasn’t interested in proving himself to someone who’d already decided not to trust him. His job brought him here, though truthfully, he felt a sense of contentment again, nearer Dar, nearer the rest of them. He hadn’t realised he had missed those early days being on a team. That was it.
He understood that Rhys viewed him as an outsider who had won Dar’s loyalty, someone who remained distant and had upended Rhys’s perceived understanding of the situation.
Callum’s phone buzzed on the dresser. He glanced at the screen as he pulled on his shirt. The text was from Dar, brief and to the point: “Office, please.”
It was all she needed to say. He knew better than to waste time with questions.
Without replying, he pocketed the phone, grabbed his trainers, and headed downstairs.
As he entered the kitchen, he spotted Rhys at the counter, stirring a mug of something steaming. The tension in Rhys’s shoulders was subtle but noticeable—an alertness that hadn’t been there moments ago.
Rhys jerked his chin toward the short hallway leading to the office. “Office. Now.” He didn’t wait for acknowledgement or questions; he turned on his heel and strode toward the office door.
The office was lit only by the streetlamp outside the yard and the glow of the monitors when they stepped inside. The lamp’s dim, amber light stretched dark shadows across the room, emphasizing the weariness etched on Dar’s face. She sat at the desk, clad in her running attire: sleek leggings and a roomy hoodie that draped over her, hair up in a messy bun.
She didn’t acknowledge them right away. Her focus was locked on her screen, fingers tapping at the keyboard with precision born of familiarity.
“Another message came in overnight.” She gestured toward the monitor without looking up. “I checked it against everything else we’ve gotten and it doesn’t add up.”
Dar glanced up at Rhys now, her gaze sharp and assessing. “But it’s not a leak. It’s a mirror.”
Rhys moved nearer, examining the anomaly, his eyes scanning it, uncertain of the exact detail he aimed to uncover. “Then what have they been sending us?”
“Noise,” Dar said. “Dressed up to look real. Somebody’s using Ashford as bait—feeding him just enough to make it believable, then sitting back to watch how we respond.” Her voice was low and certain. “It’s not about the information. It’s about us. Our timing. Our habits. Every time we’ve reacted to one of his messages, we’ve handed them a piece of how we operate.”
Rhys stiffened at that, staring down at the screen with renewed intensity, as if it might give up a name. “So it’s a trap. Not to catch us doing something—just to watch us.”
“Exactly,” Dar confirmed. Her gaze darted to Callum, who was studying the same screen, working it through. Before he could speak, their secure comms channel crackled to life.
“If Ashford’s being used as bait,” Veyr’s voice cut in, sharp and toneless, “it means whoever’s running him is close enough to see us clearly. Closer than we’d like.”
“Whoever’s behind this,” Dar said, her volume lower now but no less certain, “has been careful. No mistakes we can point to. Just a pattern, once you know to look for it.”
Rhys exhaled—a sound more akin to restrained anger than anything else—and stepped back from where he’d been leaning over Dar’s shoulder. “Clever.”
“And patient,” Dar resumed typing—her fingers flew across keys faster than Callum could track—but moments later, her measured calm held an unmistakable edge: “They’re not just watching what we do. They’re watching what we don’t do. The gaps. The silences.”
Callum’s brow creased, shallow at first, then deeper, as it settled into place. “So every time we’ve gone quiet, thinking we were being careful—”
Dar pulled up a secondary log; the screen glowed dimly as lines of data cascaded down. Each piece of information was a thread in a web she was determined to unravel. Her eyes narrowed as she caught a pattern nestled within the chaos—subtle but unmistakable. She let out a calm exhale. “They’ve been taking notes,” Dar finished. “We could stop running clean,” she said, watching Callum. “We could run wrong on purpose.”
They held each other’s gaze as pretence vanished, leaving only clarity and trust.
Callum’s fingers skimmed the desk’s edge as he faced the screen, preparing his words. The timestamps scrolled past with mechanical precision—the idle moments they’d thought were theirs alone now seemed like open wounds exposed under scrutiny.
He saw it now: every pause in communication, every lull in activity. The silence hadn’t been theirs alone; it had been observed.
“Run wrong,” Callum repeated, testing the phrase. Then his tone sharpened. “How wrong? Enough to make them show themselves? Or enough that they think we’ve fallen apart?”
Dar’s fingers stilled above the keys mid-keystroke. The cursor blinked at her from where it hovered over a phantom server route—a reminder of how much still hung in limbo. She tilted her head back, letting her eyes meet his again as the room’s atmosphere brimmed with coiled tension, ready for sudden release.
“Wrong enough,” she said, “that they think they’ve won. Enough that they move to protect it.”
Nobody spoke after that. Dar’s hands moved fast now—decisive, confident—as she began sketching out the shape of a plan. “If they’re watching our gaps,” she said, “we give them a bigger one. Something so obvious it swallows everything else. We feed Ashford something he can’t resist, force him to react, and then we watch what happens next.”
Callum stepped closer without realizing it, drawn in by the sheer force of her conviction.
“You ever run a play where you’re the bait?” Dar asked, not lifting her gaze from her work, her words carrying a teasing edge.
Callum’s lips curved into what might have been a grin, if not for the grim resolve behind it. “Not often,” he said, lowering his voice. “But I know this much—the fish that bites fastest is always the one that thinks it’s stealing.”
He reached out then, his hand brushing hers as he leaned in toward the screen. “If we’re going to be bait,” he said, firm, “it needs to be something they can’t tell is a trap.”
He tapped the desk for emphasis. “Let them think we’re hunting Ashford, when really we’re watching whoever’s pulling his strings. They’ll tighten their grip trying to protect him—and when they do, they’ll show us exactly who’s holding the leash.”
Dar gave a single nod, pausing to look at him—softer, but no less intense—then turned back to her work.
Before either could say more, Veyr’s voice cut through, crisp with authority. “That’s the right instinct,” she said. “You’re thinking tactically. But you’re still thinking like civilians.”
A rustle of paper on her end. “You don’t tempt a ghost. You starve it. Ashford doesn’t need a reason to panic—he needs to succeed. Let him.”
A pause. A match struck. She exhaled. “Feed him one real piece of information. Small. Verifiable. And completely useless to anyone who acts on it. He’ll report it up the chain like he’s won something. Whoever’s running him will have to respond—even if it’s small. That response is what we’re after. That’s your opening. Follow it quietly, and it’ll lead you straight to them. But move now. The longer you wait, the more careful they get.”
Rhys had stayed quiet, arms folded, leaning against the windowsill, catching not just the conversation but the unspoken signals passing between Dar and Callum. The distant streetlamp outside painted him in stark shadows, his face unreadable except for the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth—there and gone, like he’d thought of something he had no intention of sharing.
“Veyr’s right.” His words carried an edge of grudging respect, but also something sharper—doubt, maybe. Disagreement. Hard to tell beneath his stoic exterior. He nodded toward Dar without moving from his spot.
“But you’re setting a snare when what you need is a chokepoint.”
Pushing off the sill, he moved forward, the space constricting. The floorboards creaked faintly beneath his weight—not enough to be loud, but enough to remind everyone just how close they all were in this cramped room.
“Give Ashford something real,” Rhys said, his certainty palpable as he neared Dar’s desk. “Tell him we’re pulling out of a location—make him think he’s caught us slipping.”
He planted both hands flat on the desk’s surface, bending forward. “Then watch who moves first. Ashford himself, or whoever’s behind him.”
His gaze darted between Callum and Dar, as if daring either of them to argue. “You don’t bait it. You burn its fucking house down.”
The words landed with the force of a slammed door, silencing any argument. The air in the small office grew thick with the brutal simplicity of his plan.
“You want to burn it down,” Dar said, steady, delivering a firm decree of her own. “I want to know who built it first.”
She opened a new window, fingers moving swift and precise. “We give them something small—something that looks like it matters to us. Then we watch how hard they scramble to deal with it. That tells us who we’re really up against, before we torch anything.”
Her eyes landed on Rhys. “They think they’re watching our gaps. Let’s give them a crack worth filling—and see whose hands show up to fill it.”
The room held its breath.
Then Rhys nodded—once—and Callum moved toward the door.
There was work to do, preparations that couldn’t wait for morning.
The time for waiting was over.