Neil set out alone through the narrow streets until he found an antique shop near Chinatown, a quiet place smelling of sandalwood and rain. Among carved teak boxes and jade charms, he discovered two things: a small urn of dark sea-green ceramic, its glaze veined like tidewater, and a slender gold chain. The urn for Kurt’s ashes. The chain so Athena could wear the ring close to her heart.

  Simple. Strong. Beautiful, he thought. Kurt would have approved.

  At sunset, they gathered on a peaceful stretch of shoreline. The black, endless sea stretched out, reflecting the violet and gray sky.

  Athena, wearing the ring on the chain around her neck, opened the urn.

  She held it high and began to sing.

  She sang soft words in the Salish language, a melody older than any border.

  The song rose and fell with the tide, carrying love and grief into the gathering dark.

  She scattered the ashes into the wind.

  The particles lifted and swirled, caught between sea and sky, before vanishing into the South China Sea.

  McGregor stood at attention and offered a slow salute. Neil stepped a few paces down the shore, the mist cooling his face. He pulled out his sketchbook and sketched Athena looking out over the sea.

  She turned, put the lid back onto the urn, and held it like treasure. McGregor walked her to the car. Neil closed the sketchbook and slipped it into his pocket. Then he made a vow.

  Justice. For Kurt. For Octavia. For Bastien Beaulieu. For every soul Smyth has murdered.

  Chapter 42

  Neil knocked. Waited. Knocked again. No answer. He tried Athena’s phone. Straight to voicemail.

  After the shoreline goodbyes, he’d expected orders or at least movement this morning. Instead: a closed door, a dark phone. He stood there in the hall, listening to the air system hum, then decided to give her the morning, and slipped his phone into his pocket.

  He went in search of coffee that didn’t taste like the burnt hotel espresso. The cafe he found was narrow and spare, with a brass La Marzocco gleaming like a small shrine behind the counter. The room smelled of citrus peel and roasted beans. A ceiling fan turned lazily; condensation pearled on the windows. He ordered an Americano, added a small pour of half-and-half, and took the first sip standing at the bar. It hit clean and smooth, the way thinking coffee should.

  McGregor slipped in a minute later, no jacket, sleeves rolled. The lines of his forehead looked deeper, but his eyes were bright.

  “You caught a few hours,” Neil said.

  “More than a few.” McGregor nodded at the cup. “Better than the hotel?”

  “Anything’s better than the hotel brew.”

  “I’ve got a line into ASEAN here," said McGregor. "They won’t give us much, but they may want to use us. I’ll go shake it.”

  “You trust them?” Neil asked.

  “I trust their appetite for leverage—and ours.”

  McGregor's phone buzzed. He looked at it. "I got to go. I’ll call when I have something.”

  Neil watched him thread back out into the heat. He ordered a second Americano to go, added a splash of half-and-half, and stepped onto the street.

  Singapore pressed close. Midday heat rose off concrete, and the air had that damp charged feel that made shirts stick to backs. He walked beneath trimmed trees and over tiled sidewalks slick with last night’s rain. Traffic hissed and muttered. Neil sipped, letting the caffeine straighten the edges of his thoughts.

  He drifted toward a park. A low bridge arced over a canal. A worn footpath curved under shade trees whose roots had shouldered up through the soil. A tilt in the rail, a scrape of paint, a particular angle where shadow cut light.

  He slowed. Some part of his mind began laying images against the scene: one, then another, then another, like transparent sheets sliding into register.

  Penelope’s drawing: the bridge line, the cluster of trees, the bench askew. Katherine Sterling’s photo: same rail tilt, same path bend, a slip of water visible through leaves. It clicked into place, the felt sensation of a map snapping to coordinates.

  Neil stopped. Looked. Let it settle until the edges sharpened.

  This was it. Kurt had stood here. Emily too. The past wasn’t memory; it was ground under his feet. His phone vibrated. Octavia. He let it buzz once, twice, then answered. Static and a faint hum bled through before her voice cut in.

  “Neil? I’ve got ear pods in. Can you hear me over this thing? I’m on a machine that stretches my leg muscles and shoots pulses through them. Probably not supposed to use my phone, but here I am.”

  “I can hear you,” he responded.

  “What a year it’s been.” She inhaled sharply, then a slow exhale escaped her lips. “And we’re only three days into it.”

  “I saw your opening.” He let it sit a moment, then added with a trace of irony, “Seems it went well.”

  “You saw the pictures?”

  “Hard to miss. They were everywhere.”

  There was a hesitation, long enough for him to imagine her face behind it. “So, you’re back with Yuu.”

  “Yes. Dragon Ascendant launches in four weeks. Fuji asked me to lead the rebrand. The first promotion bombed.” Her tone slid from professional cadence to wry humor. “He wants me to produce something more provocative, or, in his words, ‘less polite.’”

  “What exactly is Dragon Ascendant?”

  Octavia took in a breath and answered with PR polish. “It’s being presented as a salvation system. A way to counter the catastrophic effects of climate change with a comprehensive response: mass migration, food, water, energy, transportation. Quantum computing and quantum physics filling the void governments won’t.”

  “Sounds like spin,” said Neil. “Quantum grids on that scale burn power. Where’s it coming from? Yuu’s building it?”

  “Yuu’s not doing it alone. It’s a consortium: other corporations, other players. Most of them with interests in Central Asia.”

  “Makes sense. Less government intervention, isolated. They would have to build a sizable complex to support a grid that large, which means they have a quantum computer that’s operational, likely more than one. Where in Central Asia?”

  Octavia hesitated. “I don’t know. And that’s intentional. The location is confidential. For good reason.”

  Neil pressed his shoulder against the park rail, staring out across the worn bridge. Confidential. He didn’t like the sound of that word.

  “So, Dragon Ascendant makes Yuu look like the good guys.” His tone made it less an observation than an accusation.

  “Or maybe … they are the good guys, Neil,” she replied with an edge of frustration. She took in a breath and went on. “From what Kozo tells me, every partner in the consortium is under heavy cyberattack. Whoever’s behind it doesn’t want Dragon Ascendant to rise.”

  “Who would dare attempt that? Who has the talent to attack the strongest cybersecurity system created by Yuu International?” Neil’s voice thinned into suspicion. “Maybe it’s—”

  “I should tell you,” Octavia cut in, “I asked Penelope to send over new pages from her manga. She’s got this effect she calls quantum shimmer. The timing … Uncanny. I showed them to Fuji, and he’s agreed to let me use her art as part of the launch campaign.”

  “Penelope’s involved?”

  The words came out harder than he’d meant, an edge he couldn’t sand down. His gut knotted tight, same as it had in firefights when a kid wandered too close to the line. He bit back what wanted to follow: Don’t let her near this, don’t use her, don’t let them see her work. Saying it would be admitting too much.

  “Not directly,” said Octavia. “Not yet. She’s excited. It’s a chance for her work to be published, promoted. I’ll meet her at the airport after this PT session. She’s flying in tonight, and we’ll be meeting with Fuji tomorrow.”

  Neil pressed his fingers into the phone until the plastic creaked. The protective instinct surged, hot, insistent, but he locked it down and remained silent.

  “Neil … there’s one more thing. I need to tell you about what happened with Detective Hayes.”

  “There are things I don’t want to know, so just tell me the important points. You delivered the ECU module to him?”

  Her breath caught, small, controlled. “Yes, and his team ran their own scan. They saw the pattern once they knew what to look for. The plot thickens, as they say: Rucker is dead. Murdered. And it ties back into the same net: Wallace’s fall from grace and murder. Laura Jones’s murder. Hayes isn’t letting go until all three are resolved.”

  “And Emily?”

  “And Emily,” she said. “He’s pushing for an arrest warrant, probable cause around Laura Jones. He thinks Emily’s the hinge. He doesn’t have the paper yet, but that’s where he’s going.”

  Neil watched the slow ripple of water under the bridge. He said nothing.

  “Neil, Hayes asked me a question, and I can’t shake it.”

  He waited.

  “If you find Emily … what are you going to do?”

  “Get a burner phone to Kozo. Put my number in it, and I want an official invite to the launch.” He ended the call before she could reply and kept walking.

  The park fell behind, then slid back beside him again when the path curved. As he walked, it felt as if Kurt paced there too: same stride length, same habit of scanning without looking like he was scanning.

  Neil’s phone chimed. He took the last sip of coffee, tossed the cup, and checked the phone. Hayes. The call went to voicemail. He clicked on the message.

  Ames, we need to talk. Call me.

  Neil tapped the number. Hayes answered immediately.

  “I’m surprised you called me back so quickly.”

  “Yesterday, I said a permanent goodbye to a friend. Kurt Devlin. Athena Sailto’s husband.”

  “What happened?” Hayes asked.

  “Murdered,” Neil said. “Seven years ago. Add him to your body count.”

  There was a pause from Hayes. “Why?”

  “He was involved in intelligence gathering. Got caught up with an organization that has connections with a man called Mr. Smyth. Still have to prove it … well no I don’t. I know he did it. I’ve dealt with him before. I know his methods. Smyth also claims to know what happened to Emily.”

  “So, what you're saying is that there is a connection to this case," said Hayes. "We’ve got a professional cleaner here. Rucker was murdered. Wallace, Rucker, and we're taking a second look at the deaths of the two detectives who worked with Wallace on the Granger case. I reckon Laura Jones was on his list of jobs.”

  “That would mean he’s been in town a long time,” Neil said. “Maybe he was after Emily.”

  “You know what a cleaner is, right? They kill and clean-up other people’s mess. Your girl isn’t off the hook yet.” Hayes said. There was a pause. “You know anything about a symbol—a compass rose on a ring?”

  “A compass rose? Your killer’s with the Alignment. In Destiny Pointe?” Neil asked with a cold edge. “The Alignment works for the Minister.”

  Hayes made a sound that was half a groan, half a laugh. “You know who he is?”

  “I’ve heard about him.” Neil’s voice held a faint tone of amusement. “You’ve got yours, Hayes, I’ve got mine. Mr. Smyth, the Minister’s soldier, an agent gone bad. He’s behind a long list: Kurt Devlin, Bastien Beaulieu, Octavia’s father, and countless others. He fractured Octavia’s leg into a hundred slivers. That’s what she’s recovering from.”

  “Christ.”

  “And speaking of Octavia …” Neil cut in.

  “You saw the pictures.”

  “Impossible to miss,” Neil said.

  “I didn’t mean to step on your toes.”

  “Octavia decides whose toes to step on,” Neil replied.

  There was a long silence.

  "You still there?" Hayes asked.

  “You’re going to need bigger guns if you tangle with the Alignment,” said Neil, “especially if the Minister’s pulling strings on this.”

  Hayes let out a breath. “Any recommendations?”

  “FBI Special Agent Lela Stout. Independent thinker. Trustworthy. I’ll send her information to you.”

  “What about Upton?”

  “Good man,” Neil said. “Politician. Politicians get influenced. Use him, don’t count on him.”

  Neil could hear Hayes’s chair shift.

  “Ames,” Hayes said, “I’m going to find and arrest Emily Granger for the murder of Laura Jones.”

  “You’ll have to find the cleaner first,” Neil said.

  Hayes let it sit.

  “Finding the cleaner gives you first crack at her,” he said.

  “It does." Neil said. "Doesn’t it.”

  “Coyotes don’t get caught by following the trail,” Hayes said. “You catch them by learning how they think.”

  “Interesting," said Neil. "Good hunting,”

  “You too,” Hayes replied.

  Late that afternoon, Neil knocked on Athena’s door again.

  “Come in,” she called.

  He stepped into heat and the clean sting of sweat. Athena was on the carpet, her face determined, pushing through the last brutal inches of a set of push-ups. She collapsed, arms trembling, then drove herself into another. When she finally fell onto her side, she lay there only long enough to catch her breath, then forced herself upright and crossed to the counter for a full glass of water.

  “I’ve gotten soft,” she said between swallows. “Unacceptable.”

  The room bore witness. Her sweaty body had darkened the carpet. A towel lay in a tangle near the bathroom door. On the desk, the police file was sectioned into small orderly stacks. The photograph envelope remained sealed, edges sharp, like a snake coiled to strike if handled wrong.

  Neil watched her, the set of her shoulders, the way her jaw had found a harder angle overnight. Afghanistan came back in a single frame: her silhouette beside a blown wall, voice even in chaos. Commander. Unbreakable. Carved by mission.

  “Kurt was left behind,” she said, setting the glass down. “That is unacceptable.” She turned toward the bathroom. “Two minutes.” She closed the door, and the shower began to hiss.

  A knock at the door. Neil opened it to McGregor. The RCMP officer stood in the hall, composed and careful, and waited for Neil to step back before he entered.

  “Updates?” Neil asked, low.

  “Contact’s circling,” McGregor said. “Nothing I can put in writing yet.”

  Neil nodded toward the desk. “Let’s look.”

  They sat. Neil slit the photograph envelope with a fingernail and eased the stack free. The first image stopped him. Bones fractured at sharp angles, clustered, ugly. Not a fall. Not random. A pattern.

  His throat tightened. He spoke so low it was almost a thought. “Smyth. Same brutality. Same signature.”

  McGregor’s eyes flicked to him. He said nothing.

  The bathroom door opened. Athena stepped out wrapped in a white terrycloth bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel on her head. She took in their faces before she looked at the opened photograph envelope. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned the stiffness of their lips, the alert set of their shoulders.

  “You’ve both seen something like this before.”

  Neil held her gaze. “Montreal. Beaulieu. And Octavia … What Smyth did to her.”

  Silence clicked into place, sharp as a lock engaging.

  Athena breathed once, steady. “Then we confirm it. We find him. And I kill him.”

  “Not that simple,” said McGregor.

  Her head turned. “Explain.”

  “Kurt didn’t wander into Jakarta. ASEAN wanted eyes on the Minister’s network. They asked. I endorsed it. He was supposed to get close.”

  Athena’s face hardened, the muscles in her forearms flexing under damp skin. “You approved the op that got my husband killed?”

  “He was the right man,” McGregor said. “Or so I believed.” He took a breath. “Smyth was thought to be salvageable. Deep cover. Kurt could verify how far he’d gone.”

  “Smyth went all the way,” said Neil. “Crossed the line. Became the Minister’s killer.”

  McGregor nodded once. “Which makes him key. He can identify the Minister. Capture is the only option.”

  Neil looked at Athena. She pulled the towel off her head. Capture wasn’t in her eyes. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to.

  Dusk laid a damp sheen across Kallang. They went back to the bridge.

  The camp was gone, swept by the police early that morning. What lingered were the outlines: a black circle where a small fire had burned, collapsed cardboard soft with rain, a lone sandal, a smear of ash along concrete. Locals watched the three strangers from under awnings.

  Athena moved like she was on patrol, eyes taking the under girders, the stains, the pathways between shadows. McGregor kept pace, speaking with a man under the bridge in short, neutral phrases and listening harder than he spoke. Neil trailed a step behind, cataloging angles, distances, the place where the rail’s paint had been scoured by more than weather.

  They finished without ceremony. Athena turned and marched toward the car.

  Neil hung back with McGregor. “You left something out.”

  McGregor didn’t break stride. “What?”

  “Smyth is your brother.”

  He stopped. Met Neil’s eyes. “I have my secrets. You have yours.”

  It landed and stayed there between them … acknowledged, not discussed. In that same instant, Neil understood something else: McGregor already knew more about Emily’s position in the network than he was saying.

  “Let’s roll,” Athena called from ahead, voice like a snapped rope.

  They packed in silence and made the late flight to Darwin.

  Chapter 43

  Australia. Neil had felt this kind of heat once before, stepping off a CH-47 Chinook into a war that wasn’t his. Darwin didn’t feel any different; it just had the courtesy not to shoot at him.