Trouble in Tarragona
By: Julian Darius
(With contributions from William Thomas)
© 2020
The phone’s abrupt buzz in the small comms center startled everyone to action. The phone was a dedicated line, available only to His Majesty’s most important assets in the field, and so was rarely used. After counting three rings, the young communications officer nervously picked up the receiver and awaited a prompt.
“May I speak with Carlos Vallejos, please?” asked a voice on the line. Male, Central Catalan dialect. He spoke confidently, but with a clearly communicated sense of unease.
“Are you certain you have the correct number? There is no one here by that name,” came the scripted reply.
“Yes, I am certain. I will try again in 30 minutes. Gracias.” The line went dead.
The comms officer noted the time and collected some notes, quickly leaving the room.
Matilda Thompson could hear the approach from down the hall. By the fractions of a second between the “click-click” of the footsteps, she knew this was important news. Thompson was an analyst with MI6, in counterintelligence and covert operations. The comms officer entered, recounted the call, and promptly left. Thompson immediately picked up her phone and opened a secure line to the office of Neville Chamberlain IV, her “unofficial” boss, chief clandestine service operative of The Watchers. This was news he had to hear…
* * *
Ayden Boyle sat in the uncomfortable, high-backed chair in the waiting area of Neville Chamberlain IV’s office and stared across at a long couch with three paintings above it. He told himself that he chose his seat for its view of the paintings, but as he waited, he noted how much more comfortable the couch would have been. He told himself he had always chosen the more difficult road.
“The Undersecretary will see you now,” announced Chamberlain’s assistant. She stood and opened the door for Ayden, then shut it behind him.
From behind his antique desk, Chamberlain barked at Ayden. “You’ve been assigned to Blackman for almost a year now. Would you care to explain why you haven’t fed me anything I can use?”
“I’ve reported several infractions. Has your office not been forwarding my memos?”
“Poppycock!” Chamberlain might have been one of the few men on the planet who could have made that word sound angry and intimidating. “Minor infractions. I’m looking to bury the man.”
“I understand, sir. But if I may be so bold, I doubt you’d wish to wound him. We both know that, if you’re going to come after Blackman, you’d better take him down.”
Chamberlain paused to size Ayden up. A year ago, fresh out of the Watchers’ grueling training course, Ayden wouldn’t have dared to be so impertinent. Was Blackman wearing off on the boy? Had Blackman turned him? In truth, Chamberlain had no other option but to trust Ayden.
“I’ve had a very interesting call,” Chamberlain began. “One of Blackman’s most prized assets, codenamed Manuel, dialed an emergency line last night.”
“Have you informed him?” Ayden asked, before realizing his tone betrayed too much concern for Blackman.
“I’ll do so the moment you step out of this office. Protocol requires the asset’s handler to establish contact. Blackman’s protective of his assets. If Manuel is really in such danger, perhaps Blackman’s desire to protect Manuel will lead him to break the rules. Perhaps you’ll encourage him to do so, at a key moment.”
“I understand,” Ayden replied. But he realized that Chamberlain had himself broken protocol and endangered the asset by speaking with Ayden before notifying Blackman.
“Then get out of here,” Chamberlain said, waving his hand dismissively, as if shooing a dog. “And enjoy your trip to Spain!”
As Ayden exited the office, he could hear Chamberlain pick up the phone and command, “Get me Raven. It’s an emergency.”
* * *
Jonathan Blackman. Codename: Raven. Mission Brief and Unit Composition 1.0.16. 8 January 2020.
When an asset as good as Manuel sounds scared, you do whatever you can to protect him.
From his position in the Spanish government, he has fed Her Majesty’s government vital information for the better part of a decade. In this time, I’ve come to know him as reliable without question… and as unflappable as any Englishman.
After hearing Manuel had signaled us, I called his office, pretending to have the wrong number but in fact conveying a time he could reach me at a prearranged phone number. When Manuel called me back, it was clearly from a pay phone. He sounded in uncharacteristic distress. He said he had big news, but couldn’t say what. Nervous, he claimed to be under increased surveillance. When I pressed, he hinted there might be a leak in British intelligence. “Come to Tarragona,” he said, “and I will show you in person.”
Normally, I would advise against such a trip. For all we know, our asset could have been exposed and we could be walking into a trap. But this is Manuel, and I believe him.
At stake isn’t simply Manuel and his information. It’s also the reputation of the Watchers. Our assets risk everything with only our word to rely upon. If an asset as highly placed and dependable as Manuel can’t count on us, who’s going to trust us to protect them?
So my lieutenants and I are going to the Spanish port city of Tarragona to learn what our informant wanted to show us in person. We will also determine if a counter-intelligence operation is indeed targeting our informant… and if necessary, exfiltrate him for his protection.
* * *
Although she has the highest regard for her direct reports’ analytical capabilities, Claudia Diez is a perfectionist and likes to review all the underlying data herself. Pouring over ship manifests, tracking and transaction numbers, bank accounts, and wire transfer records, she began to see a pattern forming. However, she knew more data would be required to continue to connect the dots.
Claudia dialed the number of Adriana Morterero, the Sixth Sun’s senior counsel and logistical coordinator. She explained the patterns she discovered and where she thought they might lead.
“I have a theory, but I need more time and more information to figure it all out. Permission to take a team to the European mainland to do some snooping around?” She inquired of Morterero.
“Claudia, of course, whatever you require. And, as always, keep it discreet until we know where this trail leads. I have faith in you. Into the light.”
“Into the light,” Claudia intoned as she hung up the line. She immediately dialed Sara Sophia Madrid to detail her operational requirements and to ask her to assemble the team.
* * *
Claudia Diez. Codename: Centuriana. Mission Brief and Asset Requisition A.556-D1. 10 January 2020.
Our successful operation against the Veraguas cartel continues to bear fruit. In addition to intelligence yielded from interrogations, we discovered a treasure trove of cartel documents. These records have already permitted the Panamanian government to arrest over a dozen corrupt officials, and we expect more to follow. Without doubt, this represents a great victory for the Church of the Sixth Sun, both for our mission and for our reputation.
Less publicly, we have attempted to use the Veraguas documents to track the source of the cartel’s black-market weaponry. The documents give dates of weapons purchases that closely correspond with the arrival of specific cargo ships. Tracing their paths backward, these ships only had one previous port in common: the city of Tarragona, in Spain.
Given the large shipments of illegal armaments that have flowed through this modest town, I believe the arms traffickers have corrupted someone in the local port authority there, allowing cargo containers to go uninspected.
The same ships also landed in several South American ports. I believe other criminal elements may be using this same source. We do not know the full extent of this network, but we cannot weed out corruption here without addressing its sources abroad.
My team arrives in Tarragona tomorrow. We will report once we have additional intelligence.
* * *
In the hilly outskirts of Tarragona, Jonathan Blackman drove a Spanish sedan down a cobblestone street. Micha Flemming, his lieutenant, sat slumped in the passenger’s seat, looking like she was about to fall asleep.
It was a wealthy neighborhood, with large homes recessed from the street, where a stone fence separated each home’s lot from each other and from the sidewalk.
“Van at ten o’clock,” said Blackman. “Directly across from his house.”
Micha’s posture didn’t change, but her eyes darted to the van, betraying her attentiveness for anyone close enough to see.
“Looks like Manuel wasn’t paranoid after all,” she muttered.
If anyone had been close enough, they would have also seen a tiny camera on the top of a thin metal antenna peering through the backseat window on the driver’s side. It rotated towards the van.
In the back seat, Ayden Boyle crouched behind the driver, holding a digital camera, from which the metal antenna extended upwards. He stared at the van on the camera’s screen, its windows too dark to see through.
As Blackman drove past the van, Ayden Boyle lowered the antenna and crouched further towards the ground, making sure he couldn’t be seen.
Across the street, Arturo Calleros lived in a large white home that he shared with Mireia, his wife of fifteen years; Martina, their teenage daughter; Pau, their ten-year-old son; and Hugo, their fluffy brown Spanish water dog. By day, he worked as the Treasury Counsel for the Mayor’s Office, which supervised transportation. Calleros had access to the entire nation’s transportation records, including train, rail, and ship travel, and he had direct supervision over Tarragona’s port. The Watchers knew Calleros as Manuel, and only Blackman himself knew Manuel’s identity.
Not far from the van, Blackman spotted a man sitting alone in his car, listening to the radio with his seat tilted back. From his crouched position in the back seat, Ayden extended his antenna and recorded the man. Soon, they had passed him, and at the end of the block, Blackman turned.
Once they were a few blocks away, Ayden sat up in the back seat. On his camera’s screen, he’d zoomed in on an image of the man alone in his car. In the man’s ear, a black microphone was clearly visible.
“That car was definitely surveillance,” said Ayden. “Probably to tail Calleros, if he leaves the house.”
“No doubt he’s surveilled at work too,” Blackman observed. “He’s under 24-hour surveillance. Explains why he called me back from a pay phone and seemed so rushed. Poor Manuel. He must have known even going to a pay phone would look suspicious. We’ve got to help him.”
Micha wasn’t used to hearing her boss sound so empathetic. “Tell us how,” she said.
“We can’t. Not yet, anyway. Before we try to reach him, we need to know what we’re up against.” As he continued to drive, Blackman tilted his head to speak into the back seat. “I believe counter-surveillance is your department, Ayden.”
* * *
Along the edge of the uneven rooftop of the seafood restaurant, warped by age and rainfall, ran a brick wall, only about three feet tall. Behind that wall, Claudia Diez, Mina Miralles, and Rodrigo Ordonez sat, peering with binoculars at the massive shipping facility that jutted out into the salty Mediterranean Sea. The smell of its brine mixed with the scent of shellfish from the restaurant below.
From a distance, Berge Maritima-Tarragona looked like a collection of box-like buildings. Cranes moved nonstop, transposing cargo containers onto large and often rusty ships. Warehouses blended into smaller structures made of corrugated metal, while ships of all sizes waited for large cranes to load them with long, interchangeable metal containers. At the inland side, the entire facility was surrounded by a tall fence, with a guard post at its opening. Men patrolled the perimeter. Their weapons were concealed, but their number and their posture would make anyone guess they were armed – which was likely the intention.
It was the biggest such facility in the city, and all the ships that Claudia had tracked through Tarragona had left from it.
“A lot of security for a shipping operation,” Claudia observed.
“I can still get in,” Rodrigo confidently volunteered.
“I believe you,” Claudia replied. “But it’s a huge facility. We have no idea where to look.”
“Not every situation calls for spycraft,” Mina began. “I can get in there legally. SAU has a trade agreement with Europe, and we keep a small permanent staff in Brussels. As a public official of the SAU, I can call for an inspection under our trade agreement. I’ll walk right through their front door.”
“Then they’d know we’re onto them,” countered Rodrigo.
“This is what we’re supposed to do,” Mina opined. “We need to at least try the proper channels. If our inspection uncovers contraband, Europe shuts down their operation for us.”
“An operation this large can’t exist without government contacts,” interjected Claudia. “How much do you want to bet that whoever’s running this operation gets advance word?”
“I agree that’s likely the case,” Mina confessed. “But then we’ll see who moves what. We lift the rock and let the roaches run into the light.”
* * *
On Wednesday, 15 January 2020, Rodrigo Ordonez spent the day monitoring Berge Maritima-Tarragona from the rooftop of the seafood restaurant.
That morning, Ayden Boyle, using the same sedan Blackman had driven past Calleros’s home, dutifully tailed Calleros’s surveillance from his home to his workplace in city hall. City hall occupied an entire downtown block, containing most of the city government’s offices. Its parking garage opened onto Avenida Dali, which ran along the side of the block. While Calleros entered the garage, his surveillance car parked along Avenida Dali. Ayden, following the surveillance car, parked further down the same street. Inside city hall, Calleros took an elevator to his office on the third floor.
Neither Rodrigo nor Ayden knew the other was conducting surveillance elsewhere in the same city.
At four o’clock in Brussels, the phone rang in the lightly-staffed SAU offices. The functionary who answered it was already anticipated going home. Instead, he heard from Mina Miralles that he needed to formally initiate a surprise inspection of the Berge Maritima-Tarragona facility for the following day. The tired office swung into operation, alerting the necessary European bureaucrats, and booked seats on a night flight into Spain.
Three hours later, at eight o’clock in Tarragona, Rodrigo witnessed a similar flurry of movement erupt within the shipping facility. One of its lazier warehouses abruptly burst to life. Floodlights activated, and workers shifted into overtime, loading shipping containers onto boats that headed out to sea.
At the same time, Mireia Calleros answered her kitchen phone. In the adjacent living room, Arturo sat with ten-year-old his son, Pau. While Pau watched a dubbed American blockbuster on their living room television, Arturo watched him. Arturo could not tell his family the game he’d been playing. When his wife had noticed the van lingering outside, Arturo had suggested it was likely repairmen taking their usual time. Perhaps his own duplicity heightened his son’s innocence, as Pau thrilled to colorful American gods punching one other. Mireia called Arturo to the kitchen and handed him the phone. A moment later, she saw her husband’s face go white.
In the hours after midnight, while the desperate loading of shipping containers continued, Rodrigo left his monitoring post. He walked to the public docks, about a mile down the coast, where he boarded a small houseboat. It would make a great cover, were he spotted watching the boats ferrying shipping containers from a brightly illuminated Berge Maritima-Tarragona warehouse into the blackness of the night sea.
On Thursday morning, Ayden again followed Calleros’s surveillance into work. But today, Calleros left work a few hours later and drove directly to Berge Maritima-Tarragona. A car followed him, and Ayden followed in turn. As Calleros slipped past the gate and into the shipping facility, his tail found a parking space along the adjacent street. Ayden pulled into a spot half a block behind, in front of a seafood restaurant.
A few hours later, the SAU trade delegation and its European handlers began to arrive. One by one, they briefly stopped at the security booth before passing inside the facility’s fence. Inside, the facility’s security officers directed each car to a parking space. When one such car parked, a contingent of jetlagged trade experts emerged, along with Mina Miralles. She looked like any other bureaucratic functionary, with a briefcase in her hand. No one would suspect it was filled with surveillance equipment.
The SAU representatives gathered and merged with their European handlers, who in turn were approached by Arturo Calleros, acting in his official capacity. They were soon joined by representatives of Berge Maritima-Tarragona, along with the facility’s ubiquitous security guards. Through a litany of handshakes, the SAU representatives, their European counterparts, the facility’s representatives, the facility’s security, and Arturo Calleros all merged into a single flock, then disappeared into the facility.
Two hours later, the same large group re-emerged. From below the seafood restaurant, Ayden watched as the SAU and European contingents filed into their cars and, one by one, drove away. He took no special note of Mina Miralles. Once the others had departed, Calleros’s posture relaxed, as if obviously relieved. He spent several more minutes talking with the facility’s representatives before getting into his own car and departing.
Down the street from the seafood restaurant, a car started, and Calleros’s tail pulled around to follow Calleros back to work. Ayden quickly followed suit, keeping enough of a distance not to be too obvious.
Had Rodrigo not been recuperating from his night spent watching ships in the darkness of the Mediterranean, perhaps he would have spotted the sedan on the street below. Everything could have worked out so differently.
* * *
Mina Miralles. Codename: Equinox. Field Report A.559-34. 16 January 2020.
Rodrigo updated me on his investigation of the site, confirming our suspicions of illicit activities at Berge Maritima-Tarragona, the city’s largest maritime and shipping operation. Hours after announcing the surprise inspection by our European trade delegation, he observed numerous shipping containers being relocated, then placed back on an awaiting ship, which is now anchored a mile off shore.
Please run “Dünya,” the ship’s name, through all background protocols and scour the reports. We need to know where this ship has been and who has been dealing with her since she touched the water.
As I accompanied the trade delegation on its inspection, I noted nothing unusual and x-ray photographs of the containers in our proximity revealed no contraband.
However, I also need you to run the identity and background on Arturo Calleros. He is Treasury Counsel for the Mayor’s Office, with oversight responsibility for all shipping and transportation activities. He made an appearance at the inspection, but, from my observation, was not expected. He was uneasy, though he masked it well. Slight perspiration of the hands (temp was a brisk 10 degrees), furtive eye movements throughout the inspection, and most interestingly, I am positive he was carrying a sidearm. I got a brief glimpse of it as he exited the official motorcade. Appeared to be a SIG Sauer P226, the type of weapon used by the National Police Special Operations Group.
I know you have urged discretion, but I have a strong feeling Calleros is involved in this operation somehow and should be added to our list of targets. Please advise quickly before we lose the opportunity to gain valuable intel. I await your instructions.
* * *
SIXTH SUN PLAYER POLL RESULT
Order full-time surveillance of Calleros and arrange recruitment of an asset in his office.
Penetrate the Berge Maritima-Tarragona shipping yards and attempt to board the Dünya.
Maintain surveillance of the shipping yards to observe an overtly incriminating action.
* * *
On Sunday, 19 January, Claudia Diez gathered her team in their hotel room to have Mina Miralles present what the home office had sent her on Arturo Calleros.
“This is Arturo Calleros,” Mina began, passing around a printout with several images of him. “Born 1969 to middle-class parents. Graduated business school in 1994. Employed by Banco Catalan from 1995 to 2000.” Claudia now distributed a printout of an image of a woman in her 20s. “During this time, he married Theresa Morwell, a British national he’d met in business school, in 1996. They divorced, with no children, three years later, in 1999. He’s been with Tarragona’s office of the Treasury Counsel since 2000.” Now, Claudia distributed a printout of Mireia Calleros. “Married his current wife, Mireia, in 2004. Their first child, Martina, was born a year later, in 2005. Their second, Paul, was born 2009.”
“Do we have any evidence he’s involved in the smuggling operation?” Claudia asked.
“His record shows nothing suspicious,” Mina confessed. “By all appearances, Arturo Calleros is a competent bureaucrat. But he was obviously nervous during the inspection, and the larger the smuggling operation, the more likely that someone in Arturo’s position would have to know about it. Home office has authorized the gathering of further intelligence on him.”
“Rodrigo,” Claudia began, “your job is to tail Calleros. Find out if he’s hiding anything. Mina, you have the advantage of being able to act in your official capacity. See if you can recruit an asset within Calleros’s office.”
* * *
On Tuesday, 21 January, Mina Miralles, delegate to the European Trade Union and agent for the Sixth Sun, paid a visit to the offices of the Treasury Counsel in Tarragona’s city hall, under the auspices of a follow-up to the surprise inspection of Berge Maritima-Tarragona.
Arturo Calleros welcomed her, and they reintroduced themselves to one another, referencing the inspection the day before. Calleros instructed his staff to support her and retired to his office.
Mina left with a list of the Treasury Counsel’s employees. By that evening, she had identified a half dozen potential assets and had begun researching their vulnerabilities.
A generation ago, this would be done by examining debt records, criminal records, and political affiliations. This would still prove useful, but in 2020, Mina had a new tool available to her.
One by one, Mina identified each potential asset’s social media accounts, then run software that scraped its data, assembling a list of politically charged words and a wide array of likes and dislikes. Mina did the same for her targets’ family members.
None of this data would appear particularly informative to a human observer. But when it was sent home for analysis in encrypted form, it would be run through the same artificial intelligence programs that permitted micro-targeting of advertisements. Each individual’s data would be correlated with a huge database, which knew that 70% of people who liked Movie X had a high level of suspicion of their own government – and that this was raised to 82% when the same person preferred one brand of soft drink over the other. The resulting report, identifying each target’s likely hidden sympathies, would then be transmitted back to Mina in Tarragona. Officially, such reports were simply meant to augment other data, but such reports had often proven more reliable than an agent’s gut instincts.
* * *
WATCHERS PLAYER POLL RESULT
Conduct surveillance on the team surveilling Manuel and determine their operator.
Penetrate the shipping operation and conduct and investigation.
Maintain surveillance on Manuel, but also identify members of the trade delegation.
* * *
On Friday, 24 January, a man sat slouched in the driver’s seat of his parked sedan, casually reading a newspaper on Avenida Dali, alongside Tarragona’s city hall.
Further down this street, Ayden Boyle sat in his own sedan, listening to the radio and watching the other man read his newspaper. A young man, Boyle hadn’t spent much time in Spain and enjoyed his sampling of Spanish music, news, and sports.
Just after four o’clock, the newspaper man abruptly shook his paper, then stared up and to the right. Ayden guessed the newspaper man had a receiver in his ear that had delivered an update. Instead of righting his newspaper, the man set it aside and stared down the street at an iron door along city hall’s side.
Ten minutes later, the metal door opened, and Calleros drove his retro-styled coupe up the ramp from the underground parking garage. As he pulled onto the street, the newspaper man started his car. As the newspaper man pulled onto the street, Ayden started his.
As cars wound through the streets of Tarragona, each of the pursuers carefully left a couple cars between them and their quarry. Then, the newspaper man put on his turn signal and made a left turn, while Calleros continued forward, two cars ahead.
Ayden experienced a moment of sheer panic. Why would the newspaper man break off? Had he spotted Ayden? Were there people now following him? Then Ayden’s training reasserted itself, and he calmly took the same left turn.
For miles, Ayden watched his mirrors carefully, until he was certain he wasn’t being followed. He suspected the newspaper man had been relieved by one of the other cars behind Calleros. The thought worried him. It implied that whomever had Calleros under surveillance had a large and organized operation.
Ayden followed the newspaper man into the parking lot of the Hotel D’arras, on the outskirts of Tarragona proper. Ayden parked on the next row over from the newspaper man. As Ayden watched, the newspaper man got out of his car and strode calmly into the hotel.
Holding his cellular phone to his ear, Ayden got out of his car and feigned to be having a conversation in Spanish. Walking between the parked cars, he dropped his phone. “Hijo de puta,” he exclaimed, and ducked down to search for it.
In the preceding year, Ayden had mastered several of the Watchers’ trademarked gadgets. Crouched between the two cars, he snatched up his phone, then produced a thin key with a large rectangular base from an inner pocket of his jacket. He slid it into the driver’s side door beside him and tried to torque it clockwise. It didn’t turn, but he kept applying pressure. Inside the lock, tumblers slid down from the base and fell along the thin key, fitting the key to the lock. After several nervous seconds, the key surrendered, and the door cracked open.
Ayden stood, opened the door, calmly got into the driver’s seat, and closed the door behind him.
The newspaper man kept nothing in his sun visor and only a few bubblegum wrappers in the center console. From the glove compartment, Ayden pulled out the car’s documentation and photographed it with his phone.
Then he noticed that the Spanish newspaper in the passenger’s seat was thicker than it should be. Inside it, he found a book of crossword puzzles. In English. With a British publisher. Inside the book, the puzzles were mostly complete.
The newspaper man was a fellow Brit.
From another inner pocket of his jacket, Ayden produced a small spray bottle and dusted the steering wheel. The dim outline of a thumb print revealed itself. Ayden quickly took a photo. He checked the screen to make sure he’d gotten the print, tidied up from his brief intrusion, then got out of the car.
Once back in his own car, he texted a Watchers number, attaching the image of the print.
And then he sat.
An hour later, he got a phone call.
“Thomas Somerset,” a voice said without any introduction. “32. Born in Kent. Employed for the last five years by Sterling Security.”
Sterling Security – a private British contractor advertised as an executive protection detail, but secretly specializing in corporate espionage. Why did they have the Watchers’ asset under surveillance?
Then Ayden remembered that Blackman had told him the asset believed there might be a mole in British intelligence.
What had they stumbled onto?
* * *
WATCHERS PLAYER POLL RESULT
Contact Manuel to hear the message he wanted to give Blackman in person.
Search the room of the man following Manuel and try to determine who hired him.
Return to the pier to determine what the inspection was targeting.
* * *
In Blackman’s hotel room, Ayden Boyle sat on the corner of the bed, telling the others what he’d discovered. While he spoke, Micha Flemming took a seat at the room’s desk, on which Blackman had a map of the city, marked up to highlight the Calleros home, city hall, and the Berge Maritima-Tarragona shipyards. Throughout Ayden’s story, Blackman stood and listened acutely.
When Ayden finished, Blackman stood silently, refusing the others’ expectation that he speak. His hand wrapped around his jaw, as if deep in thought. Micha broke the silence.
“Sterling Security is a big firm with a lot of business abroad. Its involvement doesn’t prove there’s a mole in the Watchers.”
When Blackman spoke, his words sounded sharp and forged from experience.
“People in our line of business who believe in coincidences get bullets in the head.”
“So run it through,” Ayden suggested. “It’s all I could do on the ride over.”
“If Manuel was right,” Micha began, “we were blown before we got here. Whoever hired Sterling Security would know Manuel wants to talk to us. Why leave the surveillance team for us to spot, instead of simply removing Manuel?”
“Unless it’s a trap,” Blackman suggested. “But there isn’t a strike team at Manuel’s home or office. And they haven’t spotted you following them, right?”
“I don’t think so,” Ayden replied. But he realized these facts might be explained if all of this was a different kind of trap, set by Neville Chamberlain IV. Perhaps to get Blackman to cause some sort of international incident? Ayden tried to clear the thought from his mind.
“We have another problem,” Blackman interjected. “No one in the Watchers knows Manuel’s identity.”
“Right,” said Ayden, remembering how he’d tried to puzzle this out while driving. “You didn’t even tell me until we were underway. But Manuel complained about surveillance before we got here.”
“So what are we saying?” asked Micha. “That someone back home has been surveilling Manuel without knowing he was your asset?”
“Is there any way someone at the Watchers could have sussed out Manuel’s identity?” asked Ayden.
“Not unless I was under surveillance myself,” said Jonathan Blackman.
Ayden wondered if Blackman knew how realistic that possibility was.
“Manuel either was right or wrong about the mole,” Micha began. “If there’s no mole, Sterling Security is just a coincidence. But if he’s right, the mole (or his handler) had you under surveillance first,” she said, pointing to Blackman, “or somehow learned Manuel’s identity. Then he put Manuel under surveillance through Sterling Security. Then Manuel calls you. Presumably, the mole knows we’re in Tarragona and… this is all somehow a trap, or we’re serving his agenda somehow.”
Ayden held his tongue.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Blackman announced. “We’ve got to get to Manuel. He wanted to tell me something big, and sounded like it was pressing.”
“We still don’t know the situation,” said Micha, recalling why Blackman hadn’t wanted to contact Manuel earlier.
“At this point,” said Blackman, “we have to reach him to know the situation. We need to know why he thinks there’s a mole in the Watchers. If he’s got evidence, it changes everything.”
“If there is a mole,” Ayden reminded Blackman, “they’ll be expecting us to reach out to Manuel.”
“I can get a location to him,” Blackman asserted, “but we’re going to need to break his surveillance and ensure we’re not being monitored. And we need to do so in a way that doesn’t alert that surveillance, so we don’t jeopardize Manuel’s safety.”
“I believe that’s my department,” said Micha.
* * *
Ayden Boyle. Codename: Orthros. Mission Brief 1.1.52A Supplemental. 25 January 2020.
We have determined that the surveillance of Manuel is being conducted by Sterling Security. Please ascertain who hired the firm to work in Tarragona. I understand the firm will resist providing this information, but I am confident Her Majesty’s government will be able to extract it, given the authority granted it when national security concerns are involved.
Of course, I understand that leaning on a private firm is a delicate matter. I expect there to be concern, within our government, that any public action against Sterling might wound, perhaps even fatally, a British company, employing British citizens. We understand that this process will be sensitive and may require time, but it is essential to our mission here.
I must stress, however, the importance of not revealing operational intelligence, including the existence of an asset in Tarragona. We must assume that what Sterling Security knows, its employer in Tarragona knows.
Frankly, the presence of Sterling here has us a bit spooked. If home office has any additional information about this situation, we now need to know.
Given this new information, Raven has decided to make contact with Manuel. We are formulating how to do so, without alerting his surveillance.
* * *
On Monday, 27 January, Alex Cambra got fast food on the way home. The 27-year-old lived alone in a small apartment, which was all he could afford as a public servant. He turned his television to the Spanish cable news channel and unwrapped his hamburger.
He had just bitten into it when the buzzer indicated that someone was at the front door.
Alex wasn’t expecting anyone. He put down his hamburger, went to the front door, and looked through the peephole. An attractive woman in her thirties, whom he didn’t know, stood wearing an expensive jacket. Unafraid of her, he opened the door.
“How may I help you?” he asked.
“Hello, Alex,” said the woman. “My name is Mina Miralles. I’m a diplomat working with the European officials who conducted the inspection of Berge Maritima-Tarragona. I’d like to talk to you about what’s going on at the Treasury Counsel, if you have a minute.”
* * *
On Wednesday, 29 January, as he did roughly once a week, Arturo Calleros stopped at his favorite used bookstore after work.
One of the cars surveilling him parked in the bookstore’s parking lot, while another parked on the street. Its driver disembarked, crossed the street, and followed Calleros into the store.
Ayden Boyle didn’t need to follow closely to know where Calleros was headed. He’d waited for this moment for days. Having already scouted the location, he pulled onto a perpendicular street, turned around, and parked where he had a clear view of the bookstore’s parking lot.
He found the pistol under his seat, and repositioned it with the handle just under the edge of the seat. He memorized its position, so he could grasp it in a single motion.
Blackman’s orders were to intervene only if Sterling Security seemed aware that Calleros had made contact. For example, Calleros might inexplicably get into one of the two chase cars, rather than his own. If Ayden felt Calleros were exposed, Ayden’s orders were to rescue Calleros, using deadly force as necessary.
Inside the store, an employee asked if he wanted help, which Calleros politely refused. He wandered through the stacks until he reached the fiction of the 19th-century Spanish novelist Benito Pérez Galdós. Known as the Spanish equivalent of Dickens, Balzac, or Tolstoy, Galdós is celebrated in Spanish literature as second only to Cervantes. While in graduate school, Arturo had fallen in love with the novels of Galdós, and seeing them again always triggered nostalgic feelings for a time in his life that wasn’t so structured or perfunctory, when he might afford romantic ideas. Arturo let his fingers run across the top of the novels’ spines as he browsed, feeling where the spine gave way to paper, as if hoping this mixture of textures would trigger some greater recollection of these treasures. Finally, his fingers stopped on Galdós’s Marianela. He tilted the book forward and opened it, flipping to different passages.
The novel was about a blind boy who loves an orphan girl who sings to him. He imagines her beautiful, although she assures him she is ugly, and declares his intent to marry her. After an operation restores his sight, he mistakes a beautiful girl for the one he fantasized about, leaving the ugly orphan girl heartbroken.
Within the pages of the novel, Calleros found a small note. A stranger would take it for a remnant of the book’s previous owner, but Calleros knew it to be a message from Blackman. Calleros had been stopping here, hoping for a message in the prearranged volume.
Looking around, Calleros caught a man at the end of the aisle glancing his way. Another one of his ghosts, who had turned his life into one of silent paranoia. Calleros turned slightly, making sure his back was to his ghost, and slid the small note into his coat pocket. He returned the book to the shelf and, a half minute later, seemed to lose interest and wandered to another aisle.
His ghost wandered over to the works of Benito Pérez Galdós, where he briefly tried in vain to ascertain which book Calleros had perused.
Calleros discovered a circular display, on which he saw a collection of popular romantic novels with dramatic covers. He chose one arbitrarily and brought it to the register. “A gift for my wife,” he explained. The female employee at the register smiled, as if she doubted the book was really for someone else.
Outside, Ayden spotted Calleros leaving the store, holding a small bag containing his purchase. Ayden alerted, ready to reach for his gun. But Calleros was alone as he walked to his coupe.
The man who had parked in the bookstore’s parking lot started his car immediately after Calleros did, and only then did the man who had followed Calleros into the bookstore exit and begin to head across the street to his own vehicle.
Ayden sighed and suddenly felt the adrenaline his body had released, in preparation for conflict. He took a breath and started his engine.
The two men working with Sterling Security would never know someone had been waiting, prepared to kill them. Ayden wondered how common that was… and if it had happened to him.
* * *
On Thursday, 30 January, Arturo Calleros spent the morning at his office on the third floor of city hall. He left for lunch, walking by himself. By itself, this was not unusual, but today, Arturo Calleros had not chosen Café Julieta. Rather, a small slip of paper had.
Calleros took a seat by himself. He looked around nervously, hoping to see Blackman. After being under surveillance for so long, wondering about the agenda of the people sitting outside his home, seeing Blackman would have been a relief. Blackman had always been reliable.
Despite his hopes, logic told Calleros that Blackman wouldn’t show. Calleros had told Blackman of the surveillance, a fact Blackman would have quickly confirmed. If Blackman had been careful enough to leave a message in their designated book, he probably wouldn’t show himself now, when he’d be just as surely observed.
A waiter approached.
“Are you Arturo Calleros?” he asked.
Calleros, already nervous, startled at his own name.
“I am,” he responded.
“Your appointment called and said he’s been delayed, but that he’ll see you tomorrow night at seven at Casa Romana.”
“I’m sorry?” Arturo inquired.
The waiter repeated, “Tomorrow night at seven at Casa Romana.”
“Thank you,” said Calleros, and got up to leave.
* * *
Rodrigo Ordoñez. Codename: Eclipse. Field Report A559-37 S//. 30 January 2020.
My choice would have been to continue to monitor the shipyards, and attempt a boarding of the Dünya. However, I must confess your instincts about this Calleros were on point, and I believe we are now onto something interesting.
In order to monitor Calleros full-time, I entered the parking garage at his workplace and installed a GPS device on Calleros’s car. After just hours of monitoring his movements, I observed him making a clandestine coordination. On his lunch break, he walked to a local café and sat alone until the waiter arrived. The two spoke only briefly, then Calleros departed. But that is where things got interesting.
Because of the sudden nature of his departure, what appeared to be an organized surveillance team tailing him had to regroup, and their clumsy hand-off was obvious to anyone who was looking. There seemed to be two different teams following him, which speaks to his importance as a target.
The second team appeared to be comprised of only one man. He was different than the other men, and it makes me wonder if he is even a part of their operation. He was young, obviously very British, but... just something about him was different. He was a natural at physical surveillance. Confident. Subtle. I am going to change the focus of my efforts to following him as he seems a good match for my skill set, and likely is the bigger fish in this operation. He must know something we need to know before we decide to move on Calleros.
Once I have more intel on these players, I will report again. While I understand control has urged no contact without permission, we may lose a window here, and I would like permission to engage if I believe necessary under the circumstances. Please confirm.
* * *
On Friday, 31 January, Arturo Calleros made a point of kissing Mireia goodbye in the morning, and she asked what prompted this kindness. He simply told her that he loved her, saying nothing about the clandestine meeting scheduled for that evening.
Pulling his coupe onto the street to head to work, Arturo passed the van that had been parked there for weeks. As he pulled away from his house, he saw a sedan in his rearview mirror, pulling out from a parking space.
After the previous day’s observations, Rodrigo Ordoñez had decided to monitor the mysterious British man tailing Calleros. Yet on this day, the mystery Brit failed to appear. Instead, while Calleros worked inside city hall, Rodrigo made his way from café to bar, circling the block by foot. This permitted him to pass one of the surveillance cars, where a man had sat reading a newspaper, hour after hour. Passing him, Rodrigo noticed the small receiver in his ear.
Inside the parking garage, Ayden Boyle easily located Calleros’s retro-styled coupe. Ayden bent down and punctured the rear tire on the passenger’s side. The idea was to force Calleros to take alternate transportation, foiling any tracking device linked to the car, including any that he couldn’t find.
Since he was there, Ayden performed a quick inspection of the car. He located a GPS device on the underbody, examined it, and returned it to its place. He continued his inspection, and to his surprise found a second GPS device. With international manufacturing, there was no meaningful way of determining their origin. Ayden reasoned one device must belong to Sterling Security, but struggled to explain the second. It didn’t belong to the Watchers; Ayden had reasoned there was little reason to track Calleros, and such a device might be spotted by the surveillance on Calleros. He had no idea Rodrigo had put the second device there.
As he prepared to leave work, Calleros phoned his wife and informed her that he had to take a business meeting. She should have dinner without him. He apologized and told her he loved her. It was unusual enough for him that she asked if anything was wrong.
Across the city, Micha Flemming sat with her laptop on a wooden chair in a small, ancient room, listening to Calleros talk with his wife. Except for a single window and a single door, the only other object in the room stood a hollow box, its surface composed of wire mesh, taller than a human and with footprint just under one square meter. Calleros’s voice assured his wife nothing was wrong. On her computer screen, she could see Calleros had ended the call. She then initiated a new program, which put a map of Tarragona on the screen.
Calleros exited the elevator into the parking garage and soon discovered his coupe’s flat tire. Desperate not to miss his appointment with Blackman, Calleros rushed down the stairs to Avenida Dali and attempted to hail one of the city’s many cabs.
From a café across the street, Rodrigo noticed the newspaper man jump to attention, as if someone had just shouted into his ear. He started his car and quickly pulled into traffic. Rodrigo abandoned his coffee, exited the café, and headed to his own car down the street, towards the green light at the end of the block. On the way, Rodrigo saw a second surveillance car, following the first. Rodrigo hastily got into his car and pulled into traffic, some distance behind the second surveillance car.
At the end of the block, the second surveillance car ran a yellow light. Rodrigo briefly gunned the engine, then realized speeding dramatically through a red light, alerting the car he was pursuing, and while dodging perpendicular traffic, all on the same block as city hall, probably wasn’t a good idea. He broke abruptly, stopping just short of the wide crosswalk.
As Rodrigo cursed his luck, pedestrians began to cross in front of him. One stopped directly in front of Rodrigo’s car, held up a camera, and snapped Rodrigo’s picture.
It was the intriguing Brit whom Rodrigo had intended to surveil but who’d been mysteriously absent that day.
In a moment, Ayden Boyle had disappeared back into the pedestrians, and then was gone.
The light turned green.
Rodrigo could have easily cursed his luck again. Instead, he smiled. He’d found an opponent worthy of him.
Rodrigo didn’t know that a woman, sitting alone with a laptop across the city, had kept that light green to aid the cab’s escape, then triggered it to begin the sequence from yellow to red, so as to cut off pursuers. Micha Flemming then tracked the cab’s progress using the GPS signal from Calleros’s phone. As it headed towards major intersections, she initiated a script she’d prepared which shifted the light ahead of the cab to green if needed, then ensured it remained green until her next input. As Calleros’s phone neared the same intersections, Micha gave that input, allowing the light to begin its sequence through yellow to red.
Her goal was to maximize the odds that Calleros’s cab would make the light, while minimizing the odds his pursuers would be able to do so. Sometimes, Calleros’s phone would slow and miss the light, but most times, it would race through. Likely, any pursuers would leave space between them and the cab, and would be unable to follow the cab through the intersection. But without any eyes on the cab, Micha couldn’t know how successful she was.
At length, the cab arrived at Casa Romana, an upscale restaurant in Part Alta, the oldest and highest part of the city. Until the late middle ages, Part Alta had been the whole of Tarragona, distinguished from the fishing community on the sea, which Tarragona had later swallowed.
“We made good time,” the cab driver idly observed, unaware anything but luck was at play.
From a nearby rooftop, Jonathan Blackman watched Calleros emerge from the cab and watched for any surveillance cars. “I’ve got him,” Blackman said into a radio.
Standing awkwardly in front of a restaurant he didn’t know, Calleros checked his phone to obtain the time and determine whether he was early or late for his meeting with Blackman. But his phone was dead, its battery apparently drained. Calleros wandered inside.
Blackman waited until he was certain Micha had been successful in throwing off Calleros’s surveillance.
Inside Casa Romana, Calleros sat with a glass of red wine, looking around nervously. At length, Blackman entered the restaurant and approached the table.
Calleros’s face beamed. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”
“Let’s go,” said Blackman, tossing enough euros on the table to cover the wine.
Calleros abandoned his wine, and the two walked out together. Blackman led Calleros through Part Alta’s maze of ancient, narrow streets. Tiny balconies overlooked alleys so narrow that a human could reach across them. Houses stretched above the alleys, which could look like dead ends until you got close enough to spy a corridor shooting off in a hidden direction. Telephone wires ran across the buildings’ ancient brown surfaces, then leapt across the narrow gaps between them. Elements of Roman walls appeared without warning, incorporated into newer structures. So too did solitary stones, half the size of a man, remnants of some long disappeared home or worship site. No turn was straight. Often, one couldn’t see sunlight ahead, only for a passage to give way to little plazas, along which residents dined at outdoor tables, fed by restaurants no larger than a studio apartment, while their children played football beside them. Tourists wandered, stumbling upon stores no larger than those restaurants.
It was the perfect location to lose pursuers or to hold a clandestine meeting. People mere feet away, unless already familiar with the landscape, might struggle to understand how to pass to the level above, or how to travel right or left.
“Is this necessary?” Calleros asked.
“We tracked you with your phone and didn’t deactivate it until you arrived at the restaurant,” Blackman explained. “If we could track you, others could too.”
Leading Calleros by the arm, Blackman identified an iron gate, no more than two feet wide, in front of a narrow stone staircase. He produced a key and unlocked the gate. It locked behind them, and they made the narrow ascent.
At the top, the two stepped onto a slight landing, then stepped left and made their way along a walkway, with only a rusty iron fence keeping them from tumbling onto the stone stairs. They passed a thick wooden door, then another. The walkway continued beyond the base of the stairs, and if you hadn’t come from the street, you wouldn’t even know you were in a structure suspended in the air. One thick wooden door, presumably with a room beyond, must have been located above the alley. The door beyond it, Blackman opened.
Inside, Micha Flemming saw on a wooden chair with her laptop open in front of her. She raised her right hand and waved at Calleros.
Blackman led Calleros to the wire mesh box, and the two men stepped inside.
“Just because your phone is deactivated,” Blackman explained, “doesn’t mean it’s entirely safe. And we can’t be sure some other surveillance device hasn’t been placed or implanted on your person. So to be safe, we’re having this conversation inside a Faraday cage.”
“My friend,” Calleros began. “I’m sorry you went to so much trouble.”
“You were alarmed,” Blackman responded, “and you’ve got us all spooked. Now, we need answers. What did you want to tell me in person? Who has you under surveillance? And why do you think there’s a mole in the Watchers?”
“Ah,” Calleros replied. He couldn’t stand meeting Blackman’s gaze in such a confined space and hung his head. “Let me start at the end. Nobody knows I’ve been feeding you information. Then this surveillance begins, around the clock. I’ve seen a lot of them. I’ve gotten angry and approached them. I’ve overheard their accents. They’re British. From your people.”
“Not my people,” Blackman explained. “They’re private.”
“How am I to know?” asked Calleros.
“That’s it?” asked Blackman. “No other evidence of a mole?”
“No,” Calleros confessed. “Except to say I was scared and wanted to get you here.”
Blackman sighed in relief. What Calleros had said didn’t eliminate the possibility of a mole, but he didn’t have any additional evidence. All he had was the same coincidence that he was an asset of the Watchers and that the culprit hired a British security firm. “So you don’t know,” Blackman asked, “who has you under surveillance? You thought it was us? Or some corrupt Watcher agent?”
“Yes,” Calleros confessed. “But if it’s not you, it might be someone else.”
“Go on,” urged Blackman.
“It has to do with what I wished to tell you.” Then Calleros paused. “It is to my shame. You understand, I’ve only been able to feed you information because I’m aware of what criminals are running through Tarragona. Surely, you realized this information was only possible because I work with them.”
“And they pay you,” Blackman interjected. “Of course. It was unspoken, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. My only concern is what you do for Britain.”
“That’s good,” Calleros continued. “My rule is, I’m very tolerant, but I need to know what they’re shipping, at least generally, because I need to know what risk I’m taking and what to charge them. And I inspect the illegal shipments, at least occasionally, using men I trust. Not only to make sure I’m charging them correctly, but because it would raise suspicions otherwise. Even if I falsify the paperwork, not knowing the risk I’m taking, people at the facility would notice and start talking. And it’s because I do this that I’m able to leak information to you.”
“Go on,” Blackman urged again.
“Most of the contraband that comes through here are artifacts, stolen artwork, counterfeit goods… things like that. But as you know, sometimes it’s weapons.”
“You’ve told me, and it’s let us interdict shipments headed for Britain or our allies.”
“Of course, there’s much more that I don’t share. If everything were intercepted, they’d suspect me. And not everything affects Britain. One group I work began with the normal illegal goods, all destined for Latin America. Then they moved into arms. Then they stopped sending the other goods, as if that had simply been a test. Then their business began increasing and increasing. I believe it’s arms for gangs and cartels, and that it’s increasing not only because they’ve determined I’m safe, but because the Sixth Sun has had successes cracking down on these elements, and these elements are responding.”
“What kind of volumes are we talking about?” Blackman asked.
“Boatloads,” Calleros replied. “Hundreds of thousands of weapons have passed through here, all bound for various locations across Latin America. I’ve made millions. I don’t know what to do with all the money, and I’m certain they’d kill me or my family if I tried to stop. I have blood on my hands.”
“Who’s doing this?” Blackman asked.
“I don’t know,” Calleros answered. “I only know my contacts. They simply call themselves the Syndicate. If it’s not the Watchers monitoring me, it must be them. My God, the surveillance isn’t covert. They must be sending me a message. I didn’t dare imagine… they don’t trust me. You’ve got to get my family out of here!”
“I’m sorry,” admitted Blackman. “I don’t understand. Was this what you wanted to tell me? That you want expatriation? Why are you telling me now?”
“Because of the last crates my trusted few inspected,” Calleros confessed. “We found warnings on them. Radiation warnings. And we looked inside.
“I didn’t understand all the parts, but even I can recognize a warhead.”
* * *
Micha Flemming Codename: Chimera. Mission Brief 1.2.3B Priority 1A. 31 January 2020.
Everything has changed.
After Orthros discovered the British firm Sterling Security was conducting Manuel’s surveillance, Raven decided to contact Manuel immediately. Raven had protocols in place with the asset to arrange a meet, but we faced several logistical problems.
(1) Above all, Manuel’s surveillance had to be thrown off, yet in a way that didn’t alert them to our presence and permitted Manuel to be returned to his surveilled life. Given my areas of expertise, Raven left this challenge to me…
(2) We could never guarantee Manuel’s car was free of tracking devices, short of disassembling it.
(3) In addition to Manuel’s phone, he might have other devices on his person, or even implanted within him, with or without his knowledge.
After we consulted about the ideal location for the meeting, Raven bribed a waiter to pass a time and location to Manuel. The next day, instead of surveilling Manuel as usual, Orthros slashed Manuel’s tires. As expected, Manuel took a cab.
While his surveillance scrambled to catch the cab, Orthos was able to photograph a new player, clearly not British, yet following the surveillance team.
Tracking Manuel’s phone through GPS, I manipulated traffic signals so that his cab got yellow lights, while any pursuers would get red ones. At the designated location, a restaurant in the Part Alta neighborhood, Raven visually confirmed Manuel hadn’t been followed. I shut off his phone remotely, to prevent others from tracking it as I had. Raven then intercepted the asset, leading him through the neighborhood to a room I’d prepared. There, Raven and Manuel entered a Faraday cage, negating any remaining devices on Manuel’s person.
Manuel had no evidence of a Watchers mole, except having noticed his surveillance had British accents. He revealed a syndicate has been running illegal arms through Tarragona, destined for Latin America, in massive and increasing quantities – likely due to the Sixth Sun’s recent successes there.
Manuel also revealed what he’d wanted to tell Raven in person: that during one recent inspection, he’d discovered parts for a nuclear weapon.
Manuel has now returned home, no doubt to renewed surveillance. But the stakes have been raised. The world cannot permit another nuclear exchange. Yet sabotaging shipping operations here might lead to an international incident and antagonize the syndicate, about which we know little. Please advise re: mission priorities.
* * *
SIXTH SUN PLAYER POLL RESULT
Scour Calleros’s office for evidence needed to determine the identity of the smuggler.
Expose Calleros as a corrupt official, while subjecting the port to more inspections.
Continue surveillance of the two teams watching Calleros and interrogate them if possible.
* * *
While awaiting a response from home, Blackman instructed Ayden to return to following Calleros. But this time, instead of monitoring his surveillance, Blackman wanted Ayden to reach out to the agent he had photographed. If this mystery agent was operating separately from Calleros’s surveillance, he and the Watchers might have a common enemy.
But on Saturday, 1 February, the mystery agent wasn’t present. Nor was he, the following day. When he failed to appear for a third day, it became clear that the mystery agent had disappeared, perhaps spooked by being photographed.
Both the Sixth Sun and the Watchers had key pieces of the puzzle. The Sixth Sun knew the importance of Berge Maritima-Tarragona and that arms from that facility were likely still on board the Dünya. The Watchers knew that these arms likely included a nuclear weapon. The Sixth Sun had an asset inside Calleros’s office, and the Watchers had Calleros himself. Had the two shared intelligence, they might have focused on the smuggling syndicate together. But the two teams would never meet again in Tarragona.
After a frustrating delay, Blackman finally received a message from the home office on Tuesday, 4 February. First, the British government had threatened Sterling Security with legal action, forcing Sterling Security to reveal who had hired Thomas Somerset and the surveillance in Tarragona: the client of record was Berge Maritima-Tarragona itself, likely used as a surrogate by the smuggling operation. Ascertaining this information had apparently delayed the home office’s response.
Second, Blackman was instructed to interdict any nuclear materials at all costs. Calleros’s security was to be a secondary concern.
Accordingly, on 5 February, Ayden shifted his surveillance to Berge Maritima-Tarragona. But he didn’t know it had already evacuated its contraband in preparation for the inspection Ayden had witnessed 20 days before. The moment had passed.
* * *
In the afternoon of Friday, 7 February, a large team of European officials assembled inside the stairwell of Tarronga’s city hall. Mina Miralles was not with them.
The team’s leader held up three fingers, then lowered one, then another, and then threw open the stairwell door.
The team strode quickly down the hall and entered the office of the Treasury Counsel. They flashed their badges, instructing workers to take their hands off their computers.
Alex Cambra heard the commotion and looked up from his desk. He hadn’t been told to expect the raid, but it didn’t take him long to figure out that it must be related to the information he’d been giving to Mina Miralles.
Arturo Calleros, sitting in his office, watched the team’s leader make a beeline to his office door.
For more than a decade, this moment had lived in his nightmares. He had imagined it without warning while driving and felt his blood pressure instantly spike. He had feared this moment when he looked at Martina and Pau. He had envisioned exactly this, as he woke in a cold sweat and descended to the kitchen, in the wee hours, hoping a drink would calm his nerves. This was what he hadn’t been able to share, when his wife asked what was wrong and knew he was lying when he denied anything was. Arturo had always imagined this moment as an endpoint, in which his life collided into a wall, and wanted to do whatever he could to avoid it.
But now that it was happening, all Arturo could feel was relief. Suddenly, he felt stabbing a pain in his shoulders, and he realized it was all the stress he’d been carrying for more than a decade but hadn’t let himself feel or acknowledge until he saw the end approaching.
For a split second, he caught himself wondering if there were any records he ought to destroy in the seconds before officials arrived. But instead of doing so, he laughed. Even when it was already too late, he couldn’t help his brain from nervously thinking he could somehow save himself.
Arturo expected that he would be placed under arrest. Instead, the team’s leader insisted Arturo step out of the office.
Then Arturo sat, his every movement watched by European officials, and watched as the Treasury Counsel’s files and computers were carted out. He still expected to be arrested. Instead, he was told that he should go home. He’d been suspended with pay for the duration of the investigation.
As Arturo exited, his eyes met those of his office’s employees, staring up at him with confusion or shock or disappointment. Alex Cambra simply looked sad. To Arturo, the whole scene felt surreal, but nothing more than being allowed to leave amid such chaos.
In the hallway, Arturo entered the elevator. He looked back at his office. European officials looked back but took no action. The doors closed.
As the elevator descended and opened onto the parking garage, Arturo could almost feel like it was any other day. If he could dismiss the scene in his offices and forget the time he was leaving work, everything would feel normal. As the elevator door opened and Arturo walked to his coupe, the sheer familiarity of this ritual propelled him forward. He even smiled, as his thoughts shifted to the remainder of the day: how he’d see being home, and how Hugo would greet him.
It wasn’t until he was sitting behind the wheel of his coupe and had to push its start button that the emotions hit him. He could imagine the scene upstairs, as his office was ransacked for evidence against him. He’d have to tell his wife what happened, and he’d have to lie about his guilt. His heart broke, thinking of Mireia’s eyes shifting as she processed the news. But things would only get worse. The investigation would find the evidence it needed, and he’d be found guilty. And that’s if the syndicate didn’t kill him.
Arturo Calleros put both hands over his face, as if they could block out the entire world, and began to weep.
* * *
Claudia Diez. Codename: Centuriana. Mission Debrief A.556.2-D1. 25 February 2020.
When Rodrigo reported that the Brit he’d spotted had spotted him in turn, it forced me to reassess our progress here. The Brit’s identity remains unknown, as does that of the team surveilling Calleros. However, Mina’s asset within Calleros’s office had confirmed that arms were being smuggled through Berge Maritima-Tarragona and that Calleros, as Treasury Counsel, was involved. Given this, I decided to leverage what we knew in order to re-focus on our mission of disrupting the flow of arms to the forces of corruption at home.
It was a simple matter for Mina to expose Calleros through official channels. She provided photos of goods being moved to the Dünya, to prevent inspection, and anonymized testimony from her asset in Calleros’s office.
Of course, we knew the smugglers would get advance word of this, as they had of our inspection. On 6 February, the night before European officials returned to Tarragona, the Dünya lifted anchor and headed into international waters. The 7 February, European officials secured Calleros’s office, and Calleros was suspended with pay for the duration of the investigation.
The Tarragona side of the operation crumbled with surprising speed. In the ensuing days, interviews of employees within Calleros’s office yielded descriptions of a massive illegal operation. Calleros hadn’t been as careful as he should have been, and his employees were bureaucrats, unwilling to go to jail for their boss. These include Mina’s asset within Calleros’s office, whom we have instructed to cooperate with the investigation while not revealing our involvement.
On 20 February, European officials shut down Berge Maritima-Tarragona and began questioning its employees. It wasn’t long before one pointed officials to a computer, on which separate shipping logs had been maintained.
Despite official requests, European officials have refused to turn these logs over to Mina, but we will continue our demanding them. However, officials have informed Mina that an indictment is pending against Calleros. I suspect word will leak of this too, and that the smugglers won’t permit Calleros to enter custody.
Our mission here is over, but I can’t help but have mixed feelings. We haven’t stopped the smuggling operation, although we’ve succeeded in disrupting it, forcing it to find other ports. I am comforted (although we won’t get the credit) that the Sixth Sun has once again weeded out corruption, even if it’s this far from home.
* * *
WATCHERS PLAYER POLL RESULT
Risk an international incident by raiding the Dünya at sea.
Exfiltrate Manuel and his family, potentially fighting through his surveillance.
Dangle Manuel as bait and hope to identify his corrupt benefactors.
* * *
Jonathan Blackman. Codename: Raven. Mission Debrief 1.0.18 L. 26 February 2020.
As I write this, I am sitting next to a ten-year-old on a train, moving at top speed beneath the English Channel.
Days after contacting Manuel and learning the smuggling syndicate had parts for a nuclear weapon, European authorities descended on Manuel. They seemed to have significant evidence against him, and he was suspended pending the investigation. Within days, European officials also shut down the Berge Maritima-Tarragona shipping facility.
This prevented any attempt to further investigate the syndicate. The shipping facility was now in the custody of European officials, who would have to be trusted with the investigation.
With a likely indictment hanging over his head, I worried for Manuel’s safety. Given the size of the smuggling syndicate, I feared that they would not permit Manuel to be imprisoned, questioned, or tried. Manuel’s safety was clearly in jeopardy. I requested and received permission to bring him and his family to England.
We raided Manuel’s home in the early morning hours of Wednesday, 26 February. Our first goal was to incapacitate his surveillance, which consisted of a single car and the usual van. Chimera had researched the specific model of van, discovering where air would find an ingress. She was able to sneak underneath the van, wiring it with multiple tear gas canisters. On cue, Orthros got the drop on the man sitting in the car, getting him out of the car and holding him at gunpoint. Simultaneously, Chimera, still underneath the van, put on a gasmask and triggered the canisters. About a minute later, the van’s back doors opened, releasing its occupants within a cloud of tear gas. Chimera was able to Taser them before they even spotted her.
During all of this, I covered the van from a distance, hoping I wouldn’t have to fire on British security personnel. After she entered the van and ascertained no one was still inside, Chimera flashed a “thumbs up” signal in my direction.
While Orthros and Chimera guarded the street entrance, I head into Manuel’s home. I was able to wake Manuel and explain the situation, but we woke his wife, Mireia. She demanded to know who I was. He explained, as clearly and quickly as he could, that he had been working for years as a British spy and that they had to leave, immediately and forever. She was furious at him, but I insisted I was leaving with her husband, one way or another, within minutes. Manuel had to insist this was real. Without a word, she relented, rushing into her children’s rooms, where she woke her ten-year-old son, Pau, and then her teenage daughter, Martina, and explained their lives were over and that they were leaving all of their possessions behind. Pau insisted on bringing Hugo, their Spanish water dog. Martina refused to leave until the rest of us were already departing, at which point she rushed to join us.
I led the family, still in their pajamas and with their dog, to the street. We could hear the sound of approaching sirens. We piled Manuel’s family into our own car, driven by Orthros, while Chimera and I left in the surveillance car.
We drove for almost two hours, stopping only once in the morning to purchase proper clothing. As planned, we arrived at a train station shortly before it was scheduled to depart for London. There, we passed out false documents to Manuel’s family, abandoned our cars, and boarded the train together. For an additional cost, the train was able to board the family dog.
On the train, I was able to talk with Manuel. While we’d waited for permission to extract him, we’d pondered who had fingered Manuel to the European authorities. It couldn’t have been the syndicate or the private surveillance they’d hired. It must have been the third party Orthros photographed the day we contacted Manuel. This agent seemed to have a Latin look, and we remembered that the syndicate had run weapons into Latin America.
As if the pieces fell into place, Manuel told me about a woman who had been at the surprise inspection of the docks and who had subsequently visited his offices. As a Latin American official, she would have been in a position to feed European authorities evidence against him. Manuel even recalled her name: Mina Miralles.
I now believe that the Sixth Sun was operating in Tarragona and that the mystery man Orthros photographed was one of their agents. Likely, they were pursuing an inquiry into the arms shipments and decided to expose Manuel’s corruption. Sadly, our agenda didn’t conflict with theirs, and we could have collaborated to shut down the smuggling syndicate.
Instead, I’m on a train with a family that will never go home again. Beside me, Pau is playing a first-person shooter on his tablet. New lives await them in England. Whatever else, I am proud we honored our commitment to him and were able to protect an important source.
But I can’t help but fear that someday, this world will again see a nuclear holocaust. Perhaps the perpetrator will be a non-state entity, such as a cartel. And I’ll wonder if we missed our chance to stop it, in Tarragona.