The New Art of the Deal:
Crafting a Digital Trap
Dar and Callum set a digital trap using real intelligence against Kozlov,
while Dar grapples with the moral weight of orchestrating her first lethal operation.
Hereford – Safehouse
The office hummed with focused energy. Dar directed the construction of the bait, pointing to a monitor as Callum’s fingers moved across the keyboard. Lines of code scrolled past—each one a carefully placed lie, structured around the analytical framework she’d designed.
“Walk me through the encryption layer again,” she said.
Callum’s focus remained on the screen. “It’s a false intelligence package—actionable, time-sensitive, and designed to be irresistible. Details on Kozlov’s next shipment: route, timing, cargo manifest. Anyone watching sees us planning an imminent operation.”
Dar took back her seat as Callum stood and traded places with her. “And they’ll either try to stop us or watch to see what we do.” Dar’s fingers took control of the keyboard; her gaze landing briefly on Callum over her shoulder.
“Exactly. Either way, they reveal themselves.” Callum leaned in, his fingertips brushing hers as he took control of the trackpad. A jolt of warmth shot up her arm, and she felt a flush creep up her neck. He highlighted a section of code, but her hand stayed where it was, their fingers almost touching. “We’re embedding tracking protocols in everything—metadata, routing information, even the encryption keys. The moment they access this intel, we’ll know where they are, who they are, and what they’re looking for.”
Suddenly aware of the warmth spreading through her, 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 straightened, “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 desk and watched the screen. “But not a honey trap.”
Dar glanced at him, a flicker of curiosity more than challenge. “No? Honey traps rely on attraction, we’re luring him.”
Callum shook his head slightly. “No. This trap relies on pressure. We’re removing his options.” His gaze shifted back to the screen. “Now, upload this to our secure server. Whoever’s watching will find it within the hour. After that, we wait and see who takes the bait.”
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, her eyes darting around the room, cataloging the preparations and armaments before she advanced towards Malik’s station.
Malik kept his surprise hidden, his expression unreadable. This was the first time he’d seen Dar visiting down here.
As Sean leaned forward, his chair emitted a creak. His stare stayed on the screen, deliberately ignoring the scrutiny of his new 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.”
With a weary shake of his head, Malik settled deeper into his chair. “Man optimized himself into a default setting.”
Dar shifted gaze toward the screen, a 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 electronics, Kozlov will be completely isolated.”
“Heard you were going with them now. Timeline?”
“Stroud’s staying here with Sean. The rest of us are wheels-up at 0800. We link with Veyr’s people on the ground and get into position by nightfall.” He pointed to a marker on the map. “If Kozlov bites, his convoy rolls at 2200. We hit them here, at 2230.” He glanced at her. “You sure about this?”
“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 this stuff 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 him being right.
Dar, having left the office door open, caught the clear chime of SIBYL echoing from 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 had already taken up space in the cramped office, leaving Sean and Malik to observe from the doorway.
Dar moved to stand beside Callum, who was watching the data flow from her chair. “Can you trace them?” he asked, standing to swap places with her.
“They’re good—using multiple proxies, sophisticated obfuscation. But I planted trackers in the files. Give me a minute.” Her hands flew across the keyboard, chasing digital breadcrumbs through the internet’s maze.
The only sounds were her keystrokes and the hum of the machines. Tension filled the room like a tangible weight. This was it—the moment the trap either snapped shut or failed completely.
“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?”
Sean’s voice made Rhys glance up, and he then scrubbed a hand down his face, giving Logan a gentle jab with his elbow, though the corner of his mouth had already betrayed him. Just slightly.
Logan looked at the two men in the doorway, taking in the sharp lines of Sean’s freshly cut hair. “Points for commitment,” he said, his focus already back on the monitors.
Callum turned to the door, a hint of surprise flickering in his otherwise impassive expression as his eyebrow lifted slightly.
Malik fought the urge to laugh and placed a hand on Sean’s shoulder. “This really is happening. Next operation, you’re in the field. But you need to understand the full picture first—how the pieces fit together. For now, you’re learning from the best seat in the house.”
Sean didn’t look entirely convinced, but he nodded and turned to head back downstairs, muttering something about “best seat” being code for “the boring seat.”
Hereford – Safehouse
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. Despite analysis resulting in operations, arrests, or eliminations, layers stood between her and true outcomes. Other agencies. Other countries. Other people pulling triggers.
This was different. This operation existed because she had built it. She had located 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 the comms room while Callum and Sean monitored 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—maps, 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 down the basement stairs.
“I can’t stop hinking 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.” He pressed two fingers on the scar on his cheek. “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 partially open 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.”
Callum’s words settled between them, heavy and absolute. She stared at her mug, both hands wrapped around it, and realised she couldn’t remember picking it up.
“That’s the part that terrifies me,” she admitted, her voice barely a whisper. “Not that this will break me, but that it won’t. That Kozlov will die, and I’ll just… file it away. Like it’s another day at the office.”
She looked up, her eyes finding his in the dim light. “What if I can order a man’s death and then sleep soundly? What if I’m already that person?”
“But I know if I don’t make this call, he keeps trafficking girls younger than Zoe. And that’s a weight I can’t carry. I know I can’t.”
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 low. “Then we do this together. Whatever comes after—the paperwork, the questions, the fallout—we face it the same way. You’re not the only name on this.”
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.