In the background, throughout all the planning, procurement, and installation, Beijing remained well-informed—at least, as far as they knew. Nathan Liu, still blissfully unaware that he had been compromised, continued feeding his MSS handlers carefully curated snippets of intelligence. Each report was scripted with precision, designed to maintain their interest without revealing the true scope of what was unfolding.

  Of course, the full extent of New Zealand’s preparations was never disclosed, not even in the weekly briefings being provided to the shadow cabinet. There was always just enough truth to keep Beijing engaged—interspersed with a few bold-faced lies for good measure. The deception was deliberate, a slow drip of information over a period of months, engineered to mislead rather than inform.

  Sinclair had gone even further, intentionally leaving gaps in the intelligence network—just enough to give Beijing the illusion of hidden opportunities. Let them think they’re uncovering something valuable, he had reasoned. Hope is the best way to make them blind.

  One evening, as Liu finalized his latest transmission from his Wellington office, a message arrived from his contact. It was short and laced with subtle urgency.

  "More specifics on naval deployments. Gaps remain. Fill them."

  Liu hesitated for only a moment before drafting his reply.

  "Still working on details. The Ministry of Defence is tightening access, but I’ll get what I can. Expect updates soon."

  He encrypted the message and sent it off via the specially designed social media app, convinced he was still in control.

  In truth, every word he sent had already been anticipated. Every move he made was being watched. And the net was closing fast.

  ***

  “You devious little bastard…” Sinclair muttered under his breath, staring at the decrypted file before him. He leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly as his fingers drummed against the polished mahogany desk. The latest Iron Lotus intercept had just come through, and the implications were... troubling.

  The intel contained precise details about fleet movements and highly classified missile battery locations. Not devastating—not yet—but disturbing, nonetheless. The missile batteries were mobile, which meant their exposure was manageable. But the naval intelligence... now that was interesting.

  Sinclair narrowed his eyes as he scanned the intercepted communication again. The details on the Royal New Zealand Navy’s latest patrol routes and deployment schedules were frighteningly accurate. This wasn’t general military speculation—this was inside information.

  Where the hell had Liu gotten this?

  Sinclair leaned forward, rubbing his temples. Nathan Liu, the National Party’s Shadow Defence Minister, known to the intelligence community by his codename—Iron Lotus. The man had played a long, patient game, and while they had suspicions, nothing concrete had yet stuck. But this? This was dangerous.

  Had Liu tapped a deep-cover source inside the Ministry of Defence? A mole within the Joint Intelligence Coordination Centre? Had NZSIS itself been compromised? Unacceptable.

  Sinclair swivelled his chair, staring at the dimly lit office. It was late—well past midnight—but there would be no sleep tonight. He picked up the encrypted phone and punched in a secure line.

  “Get me Prime Minister. Now.”

  For the next seven days, Sinclair did what he did best—hunted.

  He put out feelers, dropped bait, carefully planted misinformation to see if it made its way into future intercepts. The intelligence could only come from one of two sources, it was either from the defence establishment or from his own office. He subtly probed within Defence HQ, the Navy, his own department, even Parliament itself, watching for tells, reactions, anything that felt off.

  Harper, the Foreign Affairs Minister, was eventually looped in. The Defence Minister, MacNielty, was kept just informed enough to stay out of the way for now. The last thing Sinclair needed was an overzealous politician blundering into a delicate counter-intelligence operation.

  He called in favours from his Five Eyes peers, requesting pattern analysis on any unusual leaks tied to recent diplomatic cables. If Liu was feeding Beijing intelligence, it was passing through somewhere—and Sinclair intended to find out where.

  Then, something broke and it came from an unlikely source. A junior analyst—smart, ambitious, but still wet behind the ears—flagged an anomaly in one of the metadata sweeps. The intercepts didn’t match standard MSS exfiltration patterns. Instead, they showed low-frequency, high-priority bursts routed through an unexpected relay—an offshore server farm in Kuala Lumpur.

  Sinclair's gut twisted.

  That wasn’t normal Chinese tradecraft. This was closer to something Western intelligence would do—clean, layered, masked as financial transactions, disguised in data traffic flows. Professional, it smacked of old-school East German thinking.

  Which meant one thing: Liu wasn’t working alone.

  Sinclair felt a flicker of something rare—doubt. Could this be a third party in play? A new actor? A foreign intelligence service exploiting Liu for their own purposes? Or worse—had Liu switched allegiances?

  Whatever the case, they were running out of time. Because if the enemy knew what New Zealand's fleet was doing, it meant they were preparing for something bigger, and that, Sinclair knew, was a problem he couldn't afford to ignore.

  Days later, Sinclair stood in a secure briefing room beneath the NZSIS headquarters on Pipitea Street, the fluorescent lights buzzing faintly above. Across the table, Harper and MacNielty sat grim-faced, their eyes scanning the latest intelligence update.

  "Tell me I’m wrong," Sinclair said, placing a satellite image on the table. It was a seaborne relay platform, under the guise of a fishing trawler in the South Pacific—Russian in origin.

  Harper exhaled sharply. "That’s FSB infrastructure. And it’s active?"

  For months, Russian intelligence operations in the Pacific had been minimal—a few cyber intrusions, some political meddling. But this? Direct intelligence gathering on New Zealand’s military? That was an unexpected escalation, even with their latest round of Chinese troubles.

  "What’s their play?" MacNielty asked. "If China already has Liu feeding them intel, why the hell would Moscow get involved?"

  Sinclair’s fingers tapped on the dossier. "That’s what we need to find out. Perhaps, they aren’t talking to each other as much as we thought, who knows. But here’s what we do know—this data isn’t just going to Beijing." He flipped the next page. "It’s being relayed through various networks to Vladivostok, and I assume, eventually Moscow."

  A heavy silence hung in the room.

  Harper was the first to break it. "Jesus. Are they piggybacking on Chinese operations or running their own parallel game?"

  Sinclair shrugged his shoulders. "We don’t know, which means we’ve been too focused on Liu as Beijing’s asset. He might be compromised twice—or worse, playing both sides."

  MacNielty leaned back. "Christ. If Liu’s feeding intel to both, that makes him either incredibly stupid—"

  "—or incredibly valuable," Sinclair finished.

  ***

  It didn’t take long for Sinclair’s team to confirm it. By the time of the briefing the following week, they had tracked down multiple Russian operatives who had been in recent contact with Liu’s financial network. Not direct communication—Liu was too careful for that. But through third-party cutouts, shell companies, and offshore accounts which all had led eventually back to Russian state-backed entities.

  Through Five Eyes, Sinclair had discovered that the Australians had had a Russian team in Jakarta under surveillance for months. They were clearly well entrenched, because they had been running operations for god knows how long. And when NZSIS cross-referenced recent encrypted traffic flows, they found anomalies that lined up perfectly with Liu’s leaked data.

  Harper folded his arms. "So what’s their angle? Are the Russians trying to undermine the Chinese? Steal intel for themselves? Or worse—are they feeding Liu bad information to manipulate Beijing?"

  Sinclair rubbed his temples. "Could be all of the above. But if Moscow has their hands in this, then Liu is either a pawn or a player. And we need to find out which."

  He turned to MacNielty. "I need a classified asset list—every single person who’s had access to this data in the last six months. No exceptions."

  MacNielty hesitated. "That’s a hell of a risk, Charles. If we start digging too deep, we could spook him—tip him off."

  Sinclair’s expression was cold. "We don’t have a choice. If the Russians are moving, it means the game is already in play."

  Harper’s face was tight with concern. "And if we’re already too late?"

  Sinclair exhaled, his jaw clenched. "Then God help us."

  ***

  Sinclair stared at the list on the screen, the blue glow reflecting off his glasses. Seventy-three names. Every single person with access to the compromised naval data.

  "Too many," he muttered. "We need to narrow it down."

  His team at NZSIS had already ruled out senior officials—too visible, too well-monitored. That left low-to-mid level bureaucrats, intelligence functionaries, and external contractors.

  One name stood out. Elena Markovic. Age 29, a policy analyst with the Department of Internal Affairs, with a ‘Confidential’ clearance level and a Russian father—Sergei Markovic, Russian immigrant, and the former Soviet attaché to New Zealand.

  Sinclair’s stomach tightened.

  It wasn’t just her ancestry—it was the irregular data access patterns. Elena had no business viewing military logistics reports, yet her credentials had been flagged in an audit of sensitive database queries. A subtle pattern easily missed.

  Harper leaned over his shoulder. "You think she’s the leak?"

  Sinclair’s voice was grim. "I think she’s more than that."

  He pulled up another file—communications metadata from Jakarta. An encrypted signal had been bouncing from New Zealand to a known FSB safehouse in Indonesia. A pattern that matched Elena’s travel history—three ‘official’ trips to Jakarta in the past year.

  Then the clincher. Surveillance footage from her last visit.

  Elena Markovic, meeting a Russian intelligence officer at a café in South Jakarta. And that officer had a name Sinclair recognized—Viktor Malenkov. A seasoned FSB operative, one of Moscow’s best counter-intelligence specialists. If Malenkov was involved, this wasn’t just an ordinary leak. They were actively trying to turn Liu.

  Sinclair closed the laptop and stood up.

  Harper frowned. "Where are you going?"

  Sinclair’s voice was steady. "Jakarta."

  ***

  The heat in Jakarta was oppressive, even at night. The streets hummed with life—cars and motorbikes weaving through traffic, horns blaring, music spewing from every door front, neon signs flickering in the thick air. From a fourth-floor safehouse, Sinclair watched through binoculars as Elena Markovic stepped out of a black sedan in front of an upscale café in South Jakarta.

  It had been twenty-seven years since Sinclair had last been in the field. He had spent decades behind a desk growing old and fat, orchestrating operations from the shadows. But this time, he couldn’t trust it to anyone else. Liu was too valuable, the Russians were too smart, and Markovic was too careful.

  If they wanted to catch Malenkov and his team in the act, they had to do it themselves.

  She wasn’t alone.

  At her side was Viktor Malenkov—mid-fifties, grizzled, the kind of man who had spent his life in the service of Moscow’s covert wars. His dossier was extensive: FSB counter-intelligence specialist, fluent in five languages, former SVR case officer in Singapore, known for asset recruitment and field operations in the Pacific.

  Sinclair tightened his grip on the binoculars. This was it. The moment of confirmation. Could it really be this easy?

  Behind him, a six-man SAS team—handpicked from New Zealand’s elite Clandestine Operations Group—were prepping for the snatch-and-grab. Suppressors were being locked onto SIG Sauer P320s, knives secured in sheaths, comms tested.

  No room for mistakes.

  "Alpha, confirm eyes on target," a voice crackled over Sinclair’s earpiece.

  "Confirmed," he muttered. "Markovic and Malenkov on-site. No sign of backup yet."

  The café was half-full, a mix of tourists and locals. Markovic and Malenkov slid into a corner booth, angled away from the entrance. Tradecraft 101. A minute later, a third man entered—Roman Volkov, Malenkov’s right hand man. Former Spetsnaz, rumoured to have worked in Donbas before switching to deniable operations for the Kremlin, a true psychopath he was wanted for several war crimes.

  Sinclair exhaled. This was their window. They had the opportunity to grab all three and Sinclair wanted it.

  Two SAS operators in waiter’s uniforms entered the café first, walking in with casual ease. Their hands were steady, movements unhurried—just another night in Jakarta. One veered toward the kitchen, the other took up position near the bathrooms, their concealed pistols within easy reach. Sinclair, dressed in civilian tactical wear, exited the safehouse and made his way across the street. His heart pounded, but his hands were steady. Decades of experience hadn’t left him.

  "Execute." He said, stepping through the door of the café.

  The operation unravelled with well-practiced ease. The first man bumped into a café patron, accidentally spilling a drink—a distraction that drew eyes away. The second man moved past a security camera and jammed it with a signal disruptor. Sinclair and two others headed straight for Malenkov’s table.

  Before Malenkov could react, the world exploded into violence. Sinclair grabbed Markovic by the wrist, twisting it hard—she yelped in pain as several small bones in her wrist broke and her phone clattered to the ground. The first of Sinclair’s two man grab team snatched Malenkov’s wrist mid-draw, snapping two of the man’s fingers, in the process of yanking his pistol free before slamming the Russians forehead unceremoniously into the table.

  Volkov reached for a blade—but was met with a brutal elbow to the temple from the second grab man, he was out like a light and his head also hit the table before he could react.

  The whole thing was over in less than ten seconds. Both men now rousing were bound with zip ties and physically pulled to their feet by the SAS operators preparing for exfill.

  Markovic struggled, but Sinclair pinned her against the table, his grip like iron. "Game’s over." He told her, as he zip-tied her as well

  Malenkov, bleeding from his forehead, snarled something in Russian. "You have no idea what you’ve stepped into!”

  Sinclair pressed a silenced Glock 19 against his ribs. "Try me."

  The rest of the café was frozen—shocked faces, people backing away, someone raising a phone to film—before an one of the SAS operators flashed a fake Interpol badge and barked, "Official business! Return to your drinks!"

  By the time anyone realized what had happened, the team was already gone—their targets bound, gagged, and shoved into two waiting SUVs.

  ***

  The safehouse was windowless, soundproofed, a nondescript warehouse in Jakarta’s industrial district. Markovic was seated across from Sinclair, her wrists still zip-tied, eyes looking terrified. Malenkov and Volkov were being interrogated in separate rooms.

  Sinclair poured a glass of water, setting it in front of her.

  "Elena, let’s not waste time," he said, voice even. "You were passing intelligence to Malenkov. That means you have a handler in New Zealand. Give me a name, and you walk away."

  Markovic sobbed, her wrist was starting to turn blue. "I don’t understand, what intelligence, what handler?" She shifted uncomfortably in the steel seat, clearly in pain. “Why are you doing this to me, who are you?”

  Sinclair smirked. "They’re not coming for you. They’re cutting their losses."

  Silence. Tears, nothing. Then a whisper. "I don’t know what you’re talking about, I was just here to visit family."

  Sinclair narrowed his eyes. "What?"

  Sinclair showed her the surveillance photos of her multiple trips and each time the same answers, she was just visiting family. For hours, the same lines, the same answers. As a well-trained intelligence officer Sinclair knew when he was being played in an interrogation and this wasn’t one of those times, for what ever reason, she honestly thought she was telling the truth.

  Markovic swallowed. "I’ve been coming here to see family from my father’s side, from the old country, I knew it wouldn’t look too good at home, given my job, so I did it here, I just wanted to know them."

  Harsh guttural laughter erupted from the other room and Sinclair’s blood ran cold, as the realisation hit. Malenkov had been a diversion. Markovic had been exposed deliberately, this whole mess had been a wild goose chase, and he had fallen for it! Somewhere, deep inside New Zealand’s intelligence structure, the real Russian mole was still in play.

  ***

  Sinclair had barely touched down in Wellington before he was ushered into the underground command centre beneath the NZSIS headquarters. The air inside was thick with tension, every breath heavy with the weight of failure. The operation in Jakarta had been a bust—an elaborate feint designed to divert their attention away from the real mole, who was still embedded in New Zealand's intelligence network.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Sinclair had his best analysts cross-reference every intelligence leak in the past five years—classified reports that had been altered, data that had been accessed when it shouldn’t have been, patterns that didn’t add up. A name had to emerge and two days later, it did.

  Nicholas Carmichael. Senior analyst in the GCSB Counter-Intelligence Unit. Clearance Level: TOP SECRET.

  On paper, Carmichael was a model intelligence officer—English national, Cambridge-educated, ten years in the service, multiple commendations. But then came the red flags. Unexplained bank transfers. Small, frequent deposits—too precise to be random. A sudden interest in defence policy. Three months ago, he requested access to classified reports on Australia-New Zealand military cooperation.

  Odd travel history. A “vacation” in Bali last year—at the same time a known Russian handler was in the country. Sinclair didn’t believe in coincidences. If Carmichael was the mole, they needed proof. And they needed to catch him in the act.

  Sinclair called for a counter-intelligence deception operation—a fake document detailing a new joint missile defence initiative with Australia, seeded with tracking metadata that would alert NZSIS the moment it was accessed or transmitted.

  The bait was set, they didn’t have to wait long.

  Less than twelve hours later, an encrypted data packet was intercepted leaving Wellington—bound for an FSB cutout in Singapore. They had him. NZSIS counter-intelligence teams moved in swiftly and Carmichael was picked up outside his Churtan Park home at 3:27 AM, bundled into a black van, driven to a classified holding facility in Upper Hutt. No press, no leaks. The operation never happened.

  Sinclair entered the dimly lit room, the door clicking shut behind him. The harsh overhead light above the metal table cast deep shadows over Carmichael’s face, highlighting the sharp lines of his jaw, but leaving his eyes half-hidden in darkness. He sat there, perfectly still, his hands folded neatly in front of him, exuding a calm that felt too practiced, too deliberate.

  Sinclair’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed the man across from him, sensing that beneath that composed exterior, Carmichael was unravelling. He didn’t speak immediately, allowing the silence to settle between them.

  Finally, Sinclair broke the silence, sliding a thick dossier across the table. The sound of the paper hitting the metal surface echoed in the quiet room.

  “You should’ve run,” Sinclair said, his voice low, a thread of menace slipping through.

  Carmichael’s lips curled into a smirk. “And why would I do that?”

  Sinclair didn’t flinch. He opened the file, his fingers brushing across the edge of a photograph. “You’ve been a very naughty boy Nicholas. Let’s talk about your friend in Mumbai.”

  For the first time since they entered, Carmichael blinked—just once, but it was enough to tell Sinclair he had hit a nerve.

  “Rajat Verma,” Sinclair continued, his eyes not leaving Carmichael’s, “Indian intelligence. You met him in 2029 in Dubai. Two years and one steamy romance later, you suddenly develop an interest in missile defence technology. Strange coincidence.” He slid the first of many photos across the table. “That is the two of you sharing an intimate moment, isn’t it?”

  Carmichael’s smirk faltered, but he recovered quickly, his gaze flicking to the file before meeting Sinclair’s eyes again. “I like to keep my options open,” he said, voice tight.

  “Then there’s Ahmed Khan,” Sinclair pressed, shifting the photograph aside to reveal a few more pages of notes, “Pakistani ISI, stationed in Jakarta. You crossed paths twice—once in Singapore, once in Sydney.” Another photo hit the table, another sordid scene. “Now, that wouldn’t be concerning, well, maybe for him it would be, I hear Muslims aren’t too fond of that kind of behaviour. But what I’m really interested in is that a week after this photo, you accessed a file about Indo-Pacific naval manoeuvres. Tell me, Carmichael, how many paymasters do you have? Or should I say, which one pays best?”

  Carmichael exhaled sharply, almost as if a controlled breath of frustration. He leaned back in his chair, his posture still a fa?ade of calm, though his fingers curled just slightly at the edges of the table.

  “You’re grasping at straws,” he spat, the words barely masking the unease creeping into his voice.

  Sinclair wasn’t deterred. He pulled out another photograph from the file and slid it across the table. The image was grainy, taken from a distance, but the faces were unmistakable. It was a candid shot of Carmichael, naked in a hotel room in Bali, his arm casually around the shoulder of a woman—Olga Makarova, FSB field officer.

  “This is from a surveillance op in Bali,” Sinclair said quietly, watching Carmichael’s expression. “That’s you. And that’s Olga Makarova. For a married man, you spend an awful lot of time sleeping with other people. Don’t insult my intelligence by telling me it’s a coincidence.”

  Carmichael’s eyes lingered on the photo for a moment too long. His jaw tightened, the only real sign of a crack in his otherwise pristine mask of composure. Sinclair noticed the small, almost imperceptible twitch in Carmichael’s fingers. The man was on the edge.

  The room fell into an oppressive silence. Sinclair leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Do you really think the Russians will come for you?”

  Carmichael’s fingers twitched again, this time more noticeably, his jaw clenching as if he were holding something back—something far more dangerous.

  Sinclair smiled coldly, savouring the moment. “They’ve burned you, Nicholas. We intercepted your transmission. That means they know you’re compromised. If I let you walk out that door, you won’t last 48 hours. Not with the Chinese, not with the Russians. They’ll come for you all right, but you won’t like what they do when they get there!”

  Carmichael swallowed hard. His lips parted as if to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. He was cornered, and they both knew it.

  Sinclair leaned back in his chair, letting the silence drag on. He watched as Carmichael shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the cracks in his calm demeanour widening. Then, his voice soft but cutting, Sinclair spoke again. “Now… tell me what I don’t know.”

  The seconds stretched, feeling like hours, as Carmichael stared down at the table. It seemed as though every ounce of resistance had drained from him, leaving only the cold realization of the trap he was in.

  Finally, Carmichael exhaled. His voice, when it came, was strained, thick with the weight of his secrets. “There are things you wouldn’t understand… things I had to do to keep the game going, to stay in the field.”

  Sinclair sat up straight. “Like the affair with Kate?” he asked, his words cutting through the tension like a knife.

  Carmichael’s eyes flicked to him, his gaze narrowing, but the flush that crept up his neck betrayed him. Kate—an affair that had been buried deep under layers of classified reports and whispers in shadowed hallways. She was a senior political advisor, married to a high-ranking member of the National Party. Carmichael had known her well enough to leverage her position for information. But she wasn’t the only one.

  “And your dealings with the Chinese?” Sinclair continued, his voice unwavering, digging deeper. “You’ve been playing both sides for years, Carmichael. Tell me about the money, the secrets you sold, the deals with Beijing.”

  Carmichael’s face darkened, his eyes narrowing into slits. He hadn’t expected Sinclair to bring up everything so quickly. He had assumed the intelligence officers would be content to piece together fragments of his history, hoping to string this whole thing out for weeks, months even. But Sinclair had already put it all together: the connections, the bribes, the covert meetings, the illicit affairs. Every piece of the puzzle had fallen into place, and now it was clear.

  With a ragged breath, Carmichael leaned forward. “I did what I had to do to survive,” he whispered, the mask slipping just enough for Sinclair to see the rawness beneath. “You think this is about loyalty? About country? It’s never been about that. It’s always been about who can keep me in the game. Who can offer the next pay check, the next escape.”

  Sinclair’s voice was icy. “And now, you’ll answer to me.”

  Carmichael’s hands clenched. “You won’t kill me, Sinclair. You need me. You need the information I have.”

  The corners of Sinclair’s mouth curled up in a dangerous smile. “What you have isn’t worth much anymore, Nicholas. But what you know about the people you’ve betrayed? That might be worth something.”

  Carmichael met his gaze, his eyes hardening. “It won’t end well for you, either,” he spat, but there was no conviction behind it.

  For days they played the same game, danced around the same answers, and each day, Sinclair dug a little deeper, peeled back another layer. Carmichael was broken, of that Sinclair was sure, but he still held something back—something Sinclair would have to pry out of him. What remained of Carmichael’s ego was the only thing that stood between him and everything he had done.

  But Sinclair wasn’t done yet. He leaned in one last time. “You’re never getting of here Nicholas, you may as well tell me everything. Go on, tell me how smart you are, how you fooled us for all these years.”

  Carmichael’s eyes flicked to Sinclair. With a smirk on his lips, he finally nodded. “Fine, I’ll talk.”

  The truth, long buried under layers of lies and manipulation, was finally ready to spill.

  Carmichael’s gaze flickered with hesitation, it had taken days of intense interrogation to get to this point and the weight of what he was about to reveal pressing heavily on him. He let out a sharp breath, the edge of his composure starting to fracture. Sinclair had known the man was a master at managing secrets, but even Carmichael couldn't keep up the facade forever.

  Sinclair leaned in, his voice calm but insistent. "You’re not the only one in this game, Carmichael. And neither is Liu. We both know that. So why don’t you start talking?"

  For a moment, Carmichael said nothing. His eyes drifted to the photograph of him in bed with Makarova, that one hell of a night from Bali, still lying on the table like an accusing finger. Carmichael was very sure that his staunch catholic bitch of a wife wouldn’t approve, but he didn’t really care. He took a deep breath, almost resigned, then his shoulders straightened ever so slightly and the mask fell away completely.

  "Fine," he whispered. "You’re right. There’s a network. One that goes far beyond anything you’ve imagined." He looked up, meeting Sinclair’s gaze for the first time since the interrogation began. His voice, when he spoke again, was quiet but thick with layers of arrogant condescension. "I wasn’t just working for Beijing, not just for the Russians... Hell, not even for the ISI or the FSB. I was a cog in something much larger and I played them all."

  Sinclair sat back, his mind racing.

  Carmichael hesitated again, then pushed his chair back and leaned forward, his eyes scanning the room as though he feared being overheard, despite the high-tech security measures in place, he was enjoying the pageantry of it. "It started small a few casual fucks, a few loose secrets... just monitoring key individuals—players in the Indian Ocean region, military movements in Southeast Asia. But as New Zealand grew, as your country’s influence expanded, everything changed. The bigger New Zealand got, the more eyes it drew. And those eyes? They weren’t just from the West."

  Sinclair narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

  Carmichael’s fingers twitched. He exhaled sharply, then continued, the words tumbling out faster now, the excitement of finally letting someone know how smart he was, was too much for him, he wanted to savour it, but he was impatient. “You were right about the people you mentioned—Verma, Khan, Makarova—but it’s more than that. It’s a web of overlapping interests. Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, India, Pakistan—they’re all connected, in ways that will make your head spin. They're all using proxies and cutouts to keep their hands clean, but they’re all playing the same game.”

  Sinclair’s mind whirred, trying to process the enormity of what Carmichael was saying. “Who’s running this operation?” Sinclair asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Who’s at the centre of this web?”

  Carmichael’s lips twisted into something like a bitter smile. "No one.” He openly laughed. “No one at all, it’s not a centralized operation. It’s a ring of cutouts and proxies that link all these powers together. The ones who run things—who have the real control—are behind the scenes. We—people like me, Liu, and others—were just intermediaries. We were useful because we had access to New Zealand’s growing influence. You’re not just a player in the Pacific anymore; you’re becoming a global player. That scared the hell out of everyone. And they’re all looking to get their piece of it."

  He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “You want the names, Sinclair? I’ll give them to you. But you won’t like what you hear.”

  Sinclair’s pulse quickened. He nodded, waiting.

  Carmichael began listing names and locations, his words spilling out like a confession he could no longer hold back. "In New Zealand, you’ve got Liu. But it doesn’t stop there. There’s Ravi Shekhar, an Indian diplomat, stationed in Wellington. He’s been involved in clandestine meetings with high-ranking officials from Pakistan, sharing intel. He’s one of their key contacts in the region. Then there’s Ali Hosseini, an Iranian operative posing as a Kuwaiti cultural attaché. He's been gathering intelligence on New Zealand’s missile defence capabilities for months."

  Sinclair’s mind was racing as he scribbled down the names. But Carmichael wasn’t finished. He continued, his voice lower now, almost reluctant, but driven by some force he couldn’t resist.

  “And in Hong Kong, there’s Jin Wei, a Chinese intelligence officer who works with the MSS. He’s been sending reports about New Zealand’s economic shifts, how your oil reserves are reshaping the global market. And the North Koreans? You’re not going to like this either—Kim Il-seok, a North Korean military officer who’s been running operations through a shell company in Wellington. He’s been funnelling money through local enterprises, laundering it into international accounts.”

  Sinclair stiffened at the mention of North Korea, and his eyes narrowed as he processed the information.

  “I’ve had to deal with these people directly,” Carmichael said, his voice growing more resigned. “But the real kicker? The people in charge—they don’t care about countries, they care about control, about power and money. All of them are in on it: the FSB, the ISI, the Chinese MSS, and even the Iranians. They all want New Zealand’s rise to fail—or they want to use it to their advantage and that’s just the ones I know about.”

  Sinclair leaned forward again, his gaze intense. "And Liu? Is he part of this network?"

  Carmichael’s expression twisted with a mixture of disdain and condescension. "Liu? He’s deeper in it than I was, Sinclair. He’s not just involved in Chinese operations—he’s been working with them, facilitating their strategies. But he's also been playing both sides, trying to broker deals between Beijing and some of the other players. I didn’t know the full extent of his connections, but now I see it... We weren’t just keeping tabs on New Zealand’s growth. We were making sure it didn't become a threat to anyone’s ambitions."

  The room went deathly silent as Sinclair processed the last of Carmichael’s words. The rise of New Zealand—its booming economy, its vast oil reserves, its growing influence in the Pacific—had not gone as unnoticed as they had perhaps thought. And now it was clear: the country had become the focal point of a global game of espionage and manipulation.

  "So what’s the endgame?" Sinclair asked, voice hard. "What happens next?"

  Carmichael’s eyes flicked up to meet his, the final piece of the puzzle falling into place. “The world will make its move. And it won’t be pretty. They’ll do anything to maintain control—whoever gets to New Zealand first, gets the leverage. You’ll see soon enough.”

  Sinclair’s mind was working furiously as he absorbed the enormity of what Carmichael had just confessed. This wasn’t just about national security anymore. This was about global power—and New Zealand was caught right in the middle of it. The future of the country’s place in the world would depend on how well they could navigate the treacherous waters that Carmichael had just revealed.

  ***

  A message arrived at the Ministry of State Security headquarters in Beijing via secure diplomatic channels. The New Zealanders had caught a Russian mole.

  Director Sun Kai read the report in silence, his expression unreadable. Across from him, Liang Qiang, China’s Minister of Defence, let out a slow exhale.

  “This changes things,” Liang muttered. “If the Russians were burrowing into Wellington, they could have been inside our networks as well.”

  Sun remained quiet. The implications were vast. Beijing had long cultivated Nathan Liu, a highly placed asset in New Zealand’s defence establishment, but now Wellington was on high alert. The mole hunt could expose more than just Russian operations—it could lead to Chinese networks as well.

  “We have to assume,” Sun said finally, “that Sinclair won’t stop here.”

  Liang nodded. “Do we warn Liu?”

  Sun considered it. A premature warning could compromise Liu more than protect him. But China couldn’t afford to lose their man in Wellington.

  “Not yet,” Sun decided. “But tell our people in Wellington to monitor Sinclair closely. If he starts pulling on the wrong threads… we may have to act.”

  ***

  The Beehive war-room was a far cry from the usual calm of briefings; the flickering fluorescent lights seemed to cast shadows on the walls, mirroring the unease that gripped everyone inside. Sinclair, his jaw tight with frustration, stood at the head of the table, scanning the faces of the key players gathered in the room. Jonathan Robson, the no-nonsense Chief of Defence Force, stood with his arms crossed, eyes narrowed in thought. The Defence and Foreign Affairs ministers sat stone-faced, and at the far end of the table, Prime Minister Miriama Kahu’s gaze was unflinching, her fingers steepled as she observed the gathering.

  Completing the briefing, Sinclair glanced at the file spread in front of him, then leaned forward, letting his gaze settle on the group. "The Russians knew we were watching. Markovic was a plant. That means our leak is high-level. Someone with access to counter-intelligence ops."

  Robson folded his arms, giving Sinclair a look that could have frozen water. "That narrows it down."

  "Not enough," Sinclair snapped, his voice laced with frustration. "Malenkov was a diversion. The real assets are still in play, feeding Moscow intelligence on our defence policy, military buildup, and Five Eyes operations."

  The silence that followed was thick, charged with the realization of what Sinclair was implying. Someone else within their ranks was betraying them, and no one was above suspicion. Not even those sitting in this very room.

  MacNielty, his face impassive, leaned forward slightly. "You’re certain of this? That the mole is still inside New Zealand’s intelligence apparatus?"

  Sinclair met his gaze without hesitation. "I’ve been tracking the pattern of leaks. The information coming out is too specific—too high-level. It’s someone with intimate knowledge of classified operations. Markovic didn’t just slip through our cracks; he was a distraction. Whoever's pulling the strings has been covering their tracks for months."

  "How deep does this go?" the Defence Minister asked, his tone sharp.

  "Deep," Sinclair replied. "The Russians have known about our defence initiatives before we even announced them. Our build-up in the South Pacific, integration with the Americans… it's all been fed back to Moscow. The mole has been playing both sides. The question is, who? And where the hell do we find them before they cause more damage?"

  A tense murmur rippled around the room, and Robson pushed himself off the wall, his voice low but firm. "If we’re talking about someone with that kind of access, it could be anyone. Someone in operations. In planning. Even someone inside the damn government itself. You can’t rule out political connections."

  Sinclair’s eyes flickered to the Prime Minister, who hadn’t said a word until now. She hadn’t shifted in her seat, her demeanour as steady as ever. But Sinclair could tell she was weighing the possibility of someone within the government being the leak.

  "Could it be someone in my office?" Kahu finally spoke, her voice calm but sharp, as if testing the waters.

  Sinclair took a breath, his gaze meeting hers with a flicker of uncertainty. "I don’t know. But at this point, I’m not ruling anything out."

  Kahu nodded slowly, her fingers tapping lightly on the table. "Then we take it a step further. We don’t just look for the mole. We start looking at who benefits from these leaks. Who’s been getting stronger from them? Who has been watching from the sidelines while we scramble to keep everything together?"

  "We’re all being watched," Sinclair said darkly. "And it’s not just the Russians. It’s the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans. Hell, it’s a circle of proxies and cutouts, all feeding each other intel. Whoever’s behind this leak is playing a dangerous game with global players."

  Robson grunted in frustration. "So we have a mole, and they’re not just leaking to the Russians. They’ve got ties to half the damn world."

  "Exactly," Sinclair replied, a grim determination settling over him. "I’m not just concerned about the Russians anymore. Whoever’s behind this has created an overlapping network—India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia. It’s a web, and we’ve only seen the edges of it."

  The tension in the room was palpable as Sinclair’s words hung in the air. For a moment, no one spoke. Then Kahu broke the silence. "We need to move fast. If we’re going to track this mole, we need to start looking outside the box. These aren’t just ordinary leaks. This is bigger than anyone in this room realizes."

  Sinclair nodded. "The leak goes all the way to the top, but it’s protected by layers. Proxies. Cutouts. People who aren’t directly involved, but they’re all connected in ways that make it impossible to trace. And just so we’re clear—Liu wasn’t the only one. Carmichael wasn’t the only one. There are others in this game, too. People we haven’t even begun to look at yet."

  Kahu’s gaze hardened, and she leaned forward, her voice low but commanding. "So, we start digging. We start with the ones closest to us. No one is safe from scrutiny, not even our own. Start bringing in the ones we know about and press them hard for the rest. I want this shut down now, no more games, I want action, and I want this over. We send a message to these clowns, and we do it today!"

  Sinclair gave a curt nod. "We’ll start immediately."

  ***

  The dim glow of the bar Leuvin on Lambton Quay flickered gently through the haze of conversation and clinking glasses. A low hum of jazz played softly in the background, mixing with the occasional burst of laughter from the patrons. The bar was an intimate place, dark wood panelling reflecting the warm light of overhead fixtures, the atmosphere cozy yet refined. Nathan Liu sat at a corner table near the window, a thick, mahogany-panelled booth shielding him from prying eyes.

  He took a slow sip from a glass of foreign lager, savouring the subtle sweet bitterness of the drink—high-end, imported. It was cold and refreshing, a perfect contrast to the summer evening outside. His eyes briefly closed as he leaned back, taking in the fleeting moment of peace before the demands of the world outside came rushing back.

  The soft rustle of newspaper paper caught his attention, and his fingers—lean and methodical—flicked through the pages of the New Zealand Herald, each crisp turn revealing the latest political developments, stock market updates, and world affairs. Liu was a man of habit—his mind always seeking news, always processing. As he turned the page, a headline caught his eye, printed in bold black ink across the centre of page three.

  "Tragic Car Accident Claims Life of Nicholas Carmichael"

  Liu’s brow furrowed as he read the opening lines of the article. The words seemed to blur for a second before they snapped back into focus.

  "Nicholas Carmichael, a Wellington-based businessman and long-time community figure, tragically passed away in a car crash early Tuesday morning. Police say the crash occurred on State Highway 1 near Churton Park. Emergency responders arrived on the scene but were unable to save Carmichael, who was the sole occupant of the vehicle. Authorities have not yet released details regarding the cause of the accident, though early reports suggest the possibility of an alcohol related, high-speed impact."

  The paragraph continued, describing the details of the accident, but Liu’s mind was no longer focused on the words. His grip on the glass tightened, and for a moment, the room seemed to shrink around him.

  Carmichael—gone. It didn’t make sense. The man had been a fixture in New Zealand’s political circles, a well-connected figure with ties stretching across continents. His death in a car accident, especially one so sudden and unexplained, felt... wrong.

  Liu’s mind clicked back into motion, parsing the significance of the timing. Carmichael had been a player—a significant one—though not necessarily a loyal one. Liu knew him well enough to recognize his ambition, his willingness to broker deals with anyone who could help further his cause. A businessman with connections to intelligence networks spanning multiple countries, including China. But now, suddenly, his role was erased. Liu’s lips tightened, suppressing the sudden surge of tension.

  Was it an accident?

  The thought lingered. His eyes scanned the rest of the article for more details, but the information was sparse, the usual platitudes about the deceased’s contributions to the community and vague speculation from unnamed "sources." The rest was filled with condolences from his colleagues, a portrait of Carmichael’s life painted by those who had only known the man on the surface.

  Liu placed the paper down slowly, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass. The golden liquid inside seemed to shimmer in the light, almost mocking him. There was no doubt now. This wasn’t a coincidence. Carmichael had been compromised. His involvement in the shadow networks Liu had been monitoring, his ties to both Beijing and various other intelligence agencies—they were not overlooked.

  The death of such a figure couldn’t simply be written off. Someone, somewhere, had decided to silence him. But the question remained—who? And why now?

  Liu stared out the window, the view of the city’s bustling streets offering no answers. His mind churned through the possibilities, all while his fingers, seemingly of their own accord, reached for his phone. He had contacts in the intelligence community—high-ranking ones. A simple message was sent out, directed to someone in the know.

  “Carmichael—accident or hit? Find out. We need to know who moved.”

  He sent it off, then picked up his glass and took another long sip. The bittersweet taste lingered on his tongue as he set it down with a soft clink.

  The game had shifted. And Nathan Liu, ever the pragmatist, knew the rules were about to change in ways he could not yet predict.