PART 1: Rain in Eldenport
It had been raining for two straight days.
Not the hard, punishing kind — just steady, cold, and mean enough to keep people inside. The gutters hissed like they resented having to work again. The streetlights came on early. Everything was damp and sullen.
Izzy Diaz stood barefoot in her small kitchen, stirring instant coffee she didn't really want.
The news was on low. Not local. Lisbon. English captions ticked across the bottom of the screen. She wasn't watching.
The knock came soft. Two taps.
No one used the front door anymore.
She stepped over slowly, one hand unconsciously brushing the scar on her collarbone — a leftover from the job, from the serum, from another time she didn't talk about.
Nothing outside. Just a package on the mat.
No postage.
Just her name, in block letters.
Black marker. A little too neat.
She picked it up and closed the door behind her.
Inside: a flip phone. Plastic-wrapped. Cheap. Government-cheap.
It vibrated in her hand the moment she touched it.
No caller ID.
Just one incoming voice message.
She hit play.
"Izzy."
The voice was rough. Rushed.
Evelyn.
"They found me. I didn't run fast enough. I thought I had time. I didn't. It's not over. Carl's next. I—"
The sound glitched, like someone had slapped the phone.
"If you're hearing this, I used the fallback. I don't know who else they found. But if Carl goes dark, so do the files. So do we. It's back on you."
A pause.
"You should've burned the whole thing."
Then silence.
Just the hiss of rain against her window.
Izzy stood there a long time.
Then she walked to the hallway closet and pulled the duffel bag she hadn't touched in six months. Inside: a coat, field boots, a backup phone, an old burner SIM still sealed.
No badge.
She'd left that behind for good. At least, she thought she had.
But some stories don't end when you walk away.
Some stories await.
PART 2: Lisbon: Final Transmission
The flat was small.
Third floor, Alfama district. Tiled roof, barred windows, laundry lines still strung across balconies like they were waiting for better weather.
Hugo Santana had lived alone.
Thirty-seven. Freelance investigative journalist. Mostly financial crime. No spouse. No kids. A few late-night political radio appearances and a growing reputation for chasing what local press wouldn't touch.
When they found him, he was seated at his desk. Head slumped. Apartment locked from the inside.
No forced entry.
No sign of struggle.
The note was one sentence, printed.
"I was wrong."
The authorities didn't question it.
But his editor did.
And so did Carl.
Izzy sat at her kitchen table, phone cradled between shoulder and ear, staring at the single image Carl had sent her — a screenshot of Hugo's draft folder.
The file title:
THE LEDGER THAT BURNED THE TRUTH
Time-stamped four hours before his death.
Not published.
Just saved.
In the image, only the first paragraph was visible:
"Months after the collapse of the Thorne network, a deeper layer has begun to bleed through the financial ruins — not just laundering, but structural concealment tied to post-9/11 intelligence transfers. The name 'Brandt' appears in three separate offshore channels, none declared. One was listed as 'Veteran Asset Trust (Retired – Inactive).'"
Carl's voice came through the static.
"I scrubbed the file from a ghost cache. Two hours later, the server was pulled."
Izzy didn't speak.
Carl exhaled. "This isn't Thorne anymore. Someone bigger has taken over."
"Where are you?" she asked.
"Nowhere. But not for long."
A pause.
"You should go dark."
"I tried that once."
"How'd it go?"
Izzy looked at the file again.
The title. The paragraph. The name.
"Someone still died."
Outside, the rain began to slow.
But the sky stayed the same.
Gray. Endless. Watching.
PART 3: Jack's Quiet Life Ends
The marina shop closed at 8, but Jack always stayed an hour later.
He didn't mind. The silence helped. It gave his hands something to do.
Coil the ropes. Seal the bins. Wipe the counter twice even if it didn't need it.
He hadn't gambled in 201 days. He hadn't had a drink in 178.
No chips. No slips.
He knew the count exactly.
The mail came late now, bundled and rubber-banded. Mostly bills and catalogues that assumed he had more money than he did.
But tonight, tucked between an envelope from the DMV and a tide calendar, there was a small, padded mailer.
No return address.
Just his name. Mr. J. Rourke, typed clean, no smudges.
Inside: a key. Plain brass. No label.
And something else — folded tight, taped beneath.
A photocopied page. Ledger-style.
The handwriting was unmistakable. Arthur's.
Jack unfolded it on the counter, smoothing it flat with both hands.
Column after column of names and numbers, some marked with red Xs.
Near the bottom, one name underlined twice in ink that had almost bled through:
N. Brandt
No account number. No initials.
Just the name.
His pulse changed. Not faster. Just... sharper.
He stared at the page for a full minute.
Then walked behind the counter, pulled the burner phone from the drawer he'd locked on day one, and plugged it into the wall.
He still had one number memorized.
The only one that mattered now.
He dialed.
It rang once.
Then twice.
Then someone picked up.
A voice he hadn't heard in six months.
Cool. Low. Familiar.
"I was wondering when you'd call," Izzy said.
PART 4: Carl Speaks
The screen flickered twice before stabilizing — grainy, low-res, like it had been routed through four countries and one Cold War bunker.
Izzy sat alone in a windowless room at the back of a shuttered bait shop she still technically owned. The building smelled like rust and salt. The signal came in choppy.
Carl Vanz appeared in a square no bigger than a credit card.
He looked like hell.
His beard was uneven. He'd lost weight. The wall behind him was covered in foil-backed thermal blankets and what looked like a gutted microwave.
"Turn off your trackers," he said.
"I haven't carried one since March."
He gave a weak nod. "Good."
Izzy narrowed her eyes. There was something in the cadence. The inflection — military sharp, but buried. The way he blinked with his left eye just a fraction slower.
Izzy leaned forward. "You said Evelyn's next. Start from the top."
Carl took a breath like it hurt.
"They're killing the chain, Izzy. Not for revenge — for containment."
"Hugo?"
"Wasn't the first."
He tapped something offscreen. A list appeared. Blurry, but legible.
• M. Vale – former compliance officer, died in traffic collision.
• J. Evert – overdose, alone, unrecovered.
• A. Romero – suicide, Argentina. No note.
• H. Santana – Lisbon. Journalist. Ledger leaker.
"All had one thing in common," Carl said. "They saw the same data. Same fragment. Same ledger."
He paused.
"Same file Arthur left for you."
Izzy stayed quiet.
Her eyes lingered on his face now. No beard, cleaner hair, different lighting — and suddenly the image shifted in her mind. A flash of a nameplate: RAUSCH, K. NATO SYSTEMS. The debrief room in Pristina. Concrete walls. A cup of untouched coffee between them. He had said barely two words. And now…
"Kristof," she said softly.
Carl went still.
Just for a beat.
"Not anymore," he said.
"I didn't recognize you."
"That's the point."
Izzy exhaled, not shocked — but disturbed. "You burned your own name."
"Before anyone else could."
Carl's eyes flicked to something offscreen. His voice dropped.
"I saw the pattern two days ago. The deaths aren't random. They're sequenced — by date of access."
"Meaning?"
"Whoever's cleaning house is working off Arthur's original ledger, or a copy of it. And if Evelyn made the list—"
"She's still alive," Izzy said.
"—then you're after her."
Silence.
Then Izzy said, "And Jack?"
Carl nodded slowly. "He's last."
The screen froze for half a second. Then Carl's face reappeared.
"Izzy, if you don't stop this—"
"I won't have the chance."
"Why not?"
She stared at the flickering camera for a moment.
Then said quietly:
"Because they'll stop me first."
PART 5: Ledger Zero
The coordinates came through as a raw string — no message, no header, no file name.
Just numbers.
Carl's version of subtle.
Izzy didn't plug them into anything traceable. She opened her drawer, pulled the analog map book Arthur had once called "his backup brain," and cross-referenced the decimal manually.
The island blinked to life in red ink.
São Jorge, Azores.
Middle of the Atlantic.
Low population. Rough terrain. One way in by air, and slower ways out by sea. The kind of place you vanished into, not from.
The annotation on the map was old — Arthur's handwriting, digitized and faint.
Most points were labeled as dead drops or dormant assets.
One was marked in red.
A villa on the hillside. Tile roof. No power grid.
Underneath it, scrawled sideways:
E.K. - final fallback
Evelyn was still alive.
For now.
Izzy closed the file, wiped the drive, and walked to the narrow closet across from her desk.
The coat was still there.
Wool. Charcoal gray. Reinforced cuffs. The one she used to wear when arrests meant climbing fences and not just signing paperwork. It looked out of place now, tucked beside civilian rain jackets and sweaters she never wore.
She slipped it off the hanger, tested the fit. Still perfect.
Still hers.
Below it sat the old duffel — pre-packed, untouched since the night Marcus was taken away.
She unzipped it. Field boots. Gloves. Three burner phones. A rolled-up map with a customs sticker she'd never used.
No badge.
She'd left that behind. Clean. Deliberate. On the desk in her office six months ago — a promise to herself that the story was over.
But some stories don't stay buried.
They wait.
And then they call your name.
She zipped the duffel, slung it over her shoulder, and opened the door.
The rain had stopped.
But something in the air felt unfinished.
Like the ledger had started writing itself again.