The New Art of the Deal:
Crafting a Digital Honey Trap
Dar and Callum set a digital honey trap using real intelligence against Kozlov,
while Dar grapples with the moral weight of orchestrating her first lethal operation.
The Trap
The office hummed with focused energy as Dar’s fingers danced across three keyboards simultaneously, building the most elaborate piece of bait she’d ever crafted. Callum stood behind her coaching, watching lines of code scroll across multiple monitors, each one a carefully constructed lie designed to look like truth.
“Walk me through it again,” she said.
Callum remained absorbed in the monitors. “We’re creating a false intelligence package—actionable, time-sensitive, and too good to ignore. Details on Kozlov’s next shipment, including route, timing, and cargo manifest. Whoever’s watching us will see us planning an operation.”
“And they’ll either try to stop us or watch to see what we do.” Dar’s fingers paused momentarily; her gaze returned to Callum over her shoulder.
“Exactly. Either way, they reveal themselves.” Callum’s fingers grazed hers as he took control of her trackpad, a warm sensation spreading through her as he highlighted a section of code, and she didn’t immediately pull away. He was close enough now to feel the warmth on her skin, seeing the blush bloom on her cheeks. He didn’t move away. “We are embedding tracking protocols in everything—metadata, routing information, even the encryption keys. The moment they access this intel, I’ll know where they are, who they are, and what they’re looking for.”
Dar broke the near contact and leaned closer to the monitors, studying the fabricated intelligence. It was masterful—detailed enough to be credible, urgent enough to demand action, and completely consistent with their operational pattern. To anyone watching, it would look as if they had identified a high-value target and were moving to intercept.
“The beauty of it,” Callum stood back. “is that we’re actually going to hit Kozlov. The operation is real. Only the intelligence leak is fake. So even if our observer suspects a trap, the outcome will validate the intel.”
“A honeypot that actually produces honey,” Dar’s eyebrows raised slightly.
“Something like that.” Callum stood back from the laptop and instructed.
“Now, upload this to our secure server now. Whoever’s watching will find it within the hour. After that, we wait and see who takes the bait.”
Bait and a Haircut
Down in the basement comms room, Malik was hunched over his own workstation, finalizing the electronic warfare package for the Kozlov operation. Maps of Wrocław covered one screen, GPS coordinates and cellular tower locations on another, and a real-time traffic feed on a third. Beside him, Sean Kennedy, all restless energy and sharp eyes, was reviewing secondary communication protocols, his leg bouncing with barely contained frustration.
“How’s it looking?” Dar asked as she appeared in the doorway, then moved to Malik’s station. Malik kept his surprise hidden, his expression unreadable. This was the first time he could recall Dar visiting this area.
As Sean leaned forward, his chair emitted a creak. His gaze remained on the screen, feigning familiarity with his current haircut.
Dar noticed immediately.
She said nothing at first. Just tilted her head slightly, studying him like a data anomaly that hadn’t decided what it was yet.
“…Sean.”
He kept watching the monitor. “Yeah.”
A beat.
“That a haircut… or did you lose a bet with someone holding clippers?”
Malik huffed once, not looking up. “That’s not a regulation cut. That’s a decision.”
Sean finally leaned back, defensive but trying to keep it casual. “It’s practical.”
Dar folded her arms, still assessing. “Practical for what, exactly?”
“Less to grab in a fight,” Sean said. “Aerodynamic. Tactical airflow.”
Malik glanced sideways at him. “You planning to outrun the wind now?”
Sean pointed at him. “Laugh all you want. When I’m ten per cent faster, don’t ask me to slow down for you.”
Dar’s mouth twitched, just barely. “Ten per cent of what, Sean?”
A pause.
“…baseline potential.”
That did it.
With a weary shake of his head, Malik settled deeper into his chair. “Man optimized himself into a default setting.”
Dar shifted gaze toward screen, smile persisting.
“…we’ll monitor performance.”
“It’s looking good, Dar. I’ve mapped Kozlov’s entire logistics network—his routes, his safe houses, his communication protocols. I can funnel him exactly where we want him.” Malik pulled up a satellite image of an industrial district. “This is our kill zone. Minimal surveillance, no police presence, and multiple exit routes for us. Once we activate the electronic warfare package, Kozlov will be completely isolated.”
Sean leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Meanwhile, some of us are stuck here babysitting servers.”
Malik remained focused on his task. “You’re learning the backend systems. That’s critical. Callum will be here to help you.”
“I’m learning how to watch other people have fun,” Sean echoed the familiar complaint of a young operator eager to prove himself in the field.
“Heard you were going with them now. Timeline?” Dar asked, ignoring the exchange.
“Calder, Ward and I are wheels-up 0800 hours. We’ll meet up with Veyr’s team when we land and be in position by nightfall. If Kozlov takes the bait, the convoy moves at 2200 hours, and we hit them at 2230.” Malik glanced at her. “You sure about this? Using an actual operation as bait?”
“It’s the only way,” Dar locked away the hesitation that would keep her up most of the night. “If we fake it, our observer might see through it. But if we actually take down Kozlov, if we seize a bioweapon shipment and eliminate a major player in Ashford’s network, then the intelligence looks genuine. And whoever’s watching us will have to react.”
Malik nodded slowly. “High-risk, high-reward.”
“That’s the job.” The words caught her off guard as they escaped her lips. Bloody hell, Dar?
Sean groaned audibly. “The job is apparently sitting in a chair while the cool kids go shoot things.”
“The job is learning,” Malik corrected, finally glancing at him. “You think I started running electronic warfare packages in the field? You think I didn’t spend months doing exactly what you’re doing now?”
“Yeah, but you probably didn’t complain about it,” Sean’s expression softened slightly. He knew Malik was right. He just hated being right.
Having left the office door open, Dar heard SIBYL chime upstairs. Callum called down the stairs, his voice sharpening. “We’ve got movement. Someone just accessed our secure server. They’re downloading the Kozlov intel.”
Dar took the basement stairs two at a time, Sean and Malik following.
Logan and Rhys, responsive to Callum’s call, had already taken up space in the cramped office, leaving Sean and Malik to observe from the doorway. Dar stood next to Callum, who was now sitting in her chair, watching the data flow. “Can you trace them?” he stood, swapping places with her.
“They’re good—routing through multiple proxies, using sophisticated obfuscation techniques. But I planted tracking code in the files. Give me a few minutes.” She was a blur on the keyboard, tracking digital hints through the internet’s maze.
Silence filled room, save for the keystrokes, electronic hum. Callum felt his pulse quicken. This was the moment—the point where their trap either worked or failed spectacularly.
“Got something,” Dar said. “The access point originated from… London. High-end commercial district. The IP address is registered to a shell company, but the network architecture suggests a private intelligence firm.”
“Sentinel Group? Continuum? Pale Hand?” Callum asked, remembering the names from their earlier analysis.
“Possibly. Or someone using similar infrastructure.” Dar continued tracing the connection. “Whoever they are, they’re definitely interested in Kozlov. They’ve downloaded everything—route maps, timing, cargo manifest. They know we’re planning to hit him.”
“Good,” Callum said. “Now we see what they do with that information.”
Sean perked up slightly. “Wait, so someone’s actually taking the bait? This is really happening?”
“This is really happening,” Malik confirmed. “Which is why you’re staying here, monitoring the electronic warfare package and ready to provide real-time support if things go sideways.”
Sean’s shoulders slumped. “Of course I am.”
Rhys, having looked up when Sean spoke, now dragged a hand down his face, elbowing Logan, but the corner of his mouth betrayed him. Just slightly. Logan looked over at Malik and Sean standing in the doorway.
“Points for commitment.” With his usual flat delivery, Logan looked back toward the monitors. Callum turned now to check out Sean’s fresh haircut, his expression totally neutral, except for a slight eyebrow raise.
Malik fought the urge to laugh and placed a hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Next operation, you’re in the field. But you need to understand the full picture first—how the pieces fit together. Tonight, you’re learning from the best seat in the house.”
Sean didn’t look entirely convinced, but he nodded and turned back to his screens, muttering something about “best seat” being code for “the boring seat.”
Clarity
Dar woke at 5:00 AM, though “woke” wasn’t quite accurate. She’d been lying in the darkness for the past hour, watching the ceiling fan rotate slowly, replaying the operation in her mind. Every position. Every contingency. Each instant culminating in Kozlov’s demise.
A death she had orchestrated.
She’d never killed anyone. No weapon ever held was intended for lethal use. Her work had always been at a distance—intelligence gathering, pattern analysis, connecting dots on screens and whiteboards. Even when her analysis had led to operations, to arrests or eliminations, there had been layers between her and what she knew of actual outcomes. Other agencies. Other countries. Other people pulling triggers.
This was different. This operation existed because she had built it. She had found Kozlov, tracked him, and identified the window of opportunity. She had sat in planning sessions with Veyr and Callum, discussing approach vectors and kill zones as casually as if they were planning a grocery run. She would watch it unfold in real time from her office, monitoring feeds and movements.
She would be responsible. Not for pulling the trigger, but for everything that made pulling the trigger possible.
The distinction mattered, though she couldn’t quite articulate why.
She gave up on sleep and padded downstairs in yoga pants and a tank top, following the smell of coffee. Stillness filled the safe house, its quietness reflecting dawn before the world stirred. Observing Logan’s suite at the hall’s end on the main floor, she noted his closed door but detected light beneath it. He was awake too.
Callum sat at the kitchen island, tablet in front of him, coffee mug in hand. He looked up as she entered, unsurprised.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” she asked.
“Slept fine. Just wanted to review the timing one more time.” He gestured to the tablet—floor plans, approach routes, exfil paths. “Machine’s primed.” He gave a nod toward the coffeemaker.
Dar made herself a cup of espresso, added hot water, then milk, and stood by the counter. Their planned actions made the kitchen seem unusually ordinary. A bowl of fruit on the counter; the dishwasher signalling that it had completed its cycle. The cat wandered in, wound around her ankles, then disappeared through the open door to the basement, where Sean and Malik had their rooms.
“I keep thinking about it,” she said quietly. “What it means. That I’m doing this.”
Callum set down his tablet and gave her his full attention. “You’re having second thoughts.”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” She wrapped both hands around her mug. “I’ve never… I’ve analyzed operations before, provided intelligence, but I was always removed from it. Someone else made the decision to act. Someone else carried it out. Mostly I never knew where it had led. This is different.”
“Because you’re directing it.”
“Because I feel responsible for it.” She met his eyes. “Part of me agrees with the order but another part of me is screaming that I have to right to decide who lives and who dies. If Kozlov dies tonight, it’s because of my work. That’s on me. Not on you, not on Logan or Rhys or even Veyr. On me.”
Callum watched her, weighing the moment. His coffee had gone lukewarm, but he didn’t touch it.
“That’s the burden of command,” he said, his voice low. “Doesn’t matter if you’re holding a rifle or a keyboard. The weight’s the same.
Every op I’ve greenlit, every breach I’ve ordered—those choices don’t vanish when the mission ends. They stay. You learn to carry them, not because it’s easy, but because someone has to.”
His thumb traced the rim of his mug. “You’re not removed anymore. That’s not a weakness. It’s clarity.”
Dar’s fingers tightened around the mug, feeling the warmth seep through ceramic into her palms.
“Clarity.”
She repeated the word as if she were testing its weight, its edges. “That’s one way to put it.”
She took a sip, letting the coffee burn down her throat. The taste was bitter, grounding.
“I used to think clarity meant seeing all the angles. The data, the patterns, the probabilities. But this—”
She gestured vaguely toward the tablet, toward the rooms upstairs where Rhys was likely gearing up, toward the basement where Sean and Malik were probably already running comms checks.
“This is different. This is seeing one path forward and knowing it’s paved with consequences.”
Her eyes flicked to the basement door where Twigs had disappeared.
“When Zoe died, everyone told me it wasn’t my fault. The accident, the timing, the circumstances beyond my control. And maybe they were right. But this?”
She looked back at Callum. “This is a choice. My choice. And I’m trying to figure out if I can live with the version of myself who makes it.”
She set the mug down, the ceramic clicking softly against the counter.
“That’s what I keep thinking about. Not whether Kozlov deserves it. But whether I deserve to be the one who decides.”
Callum held her gaze. “The fact you’re asking that means you’re not the person who decides lightly.”
He pushed his mug aside. “Hesitation costs more lives than conviction. I’ve seen it.”
His voice dropped. “You won’t be the same person after. None of us are. But you’ll be the one who made the call when it mattered.”
The weight of Callum’s words settled between them, heavy and absolute. She stared at her mug, watching the coffee’s dark surface tremble slightly with the vibration of her own hands.
“That’s the part that terrifies me,” she admitted, the words barely above a whisper. “Not that I’ll change, but that I won’t. That I’ll make this call, and Kozlov’s people will die, and I’ll just… keep going. Like it’s another day at the office. Like Zoe’s death didn’t hollow me out, but somehow this won’t.”
She looked up at him, the kitchen’s dim light casting shadows across his face. “I don’t want to be the kind of person who can order a man’s death and then sleep soundly. But I’m terrified I’m already her.”
“But I also know that if I don’t make this call, Kozlov keeps trafficking girls younger than Zoe was when she died. And that is a weight I know I can’t carry.”
Callum leaned back, the stool creaking under him. “That’s the balance. You carry it, but you don’t let it own you.”
He studied her face—the strain at the corners of her eyes, the way her shoulders had tightened. Something inside him ached to reach out and just hold her. He didn’t. Couldn’t. Not right now.
“I’ve seen operators who sleep like babies after. They’re the ones you worry about. The ones who feel nothing.”
His gaze flicked to the basement door, then back. “You won’t be her. The woman who just keeps going? She doesn’t exist. You’ll change. You’ll question. Some nights you won’t sleep. That’s the price.”
He picked up his mug, cold coffee forgotten. “But you also won’t be the woman who stood by while Kozlov kept hurting kids. That’s the other side of the coin.”
He stood, crossing to the sink, and paused. “You’ve read Kozlov’s file. You know what he’s done. What he’ll keep doing if we don’t stop him.”
Dar thought of the photographs. The other victims. The children trafficked, the witnesses murdered, the trail of destruction that followed Kozlov like a shadow.
“I know,” she said.
“Then trust that. Trust that this is necessary. That some people can’t be arrested, can’t be reasoned with, can only be stopped.” He looked at her directly. “You’re not pulling the trigger, Dar. But you’re making it possible for someone who can to do what needs to be done. That’s your role. That’s what you’re good at.”
“And that makes it better? That I’m one step removed?”
“No. It makes it different. Not better, not worse. Different.”
He rinsed out his mug and set it on the drain rack. “You can still back out. I can run this operation. You can stay in your office, not monitor, not coordinate. No one would think less of you.”
“I would.”
Callum stepped closer, his voice dropping to a fierce whisper. “Then we do this together. You don’t carry this alone, Dar. And when it’s done, we’ll deal with it together.”
Footsteps on the stairs—Rhys, already dressed in dark tactical pants and a compression shirt. He grunted a greeting and headed straight for the coffee.
The day was beginning.