On the surface, it looked legitimate and professional.
But that was the problem.
It looked too professional for such a low grade job.
Damien read it again, slowly this time.
Something about the wording didn't sit right.
"Tier 2 disposal"? "Natural causes"?
"Discuss logistics"?
It didn't seem like a criminal trying to hire a killer. It read like someone pretending to be a criminal trying to hire a killer.
He narrowed his eyes.
'Natural causes' was a weird phrase. Real criminal would most likely use simple words like 'quiet,' or 'make it look like an accident.'
And 'discuss logistics'? That sounded like a corporate meeting, not a hit.
The message felt like it had been carefully written.
That was the first red flag.
But he ignored it since the contractor stated that he was a businessman.
The second red flag came when he checked the timestamps. The message was sent at 2:34 PM, Eastern Time.
He frowned. Serious clients didn't send contract messages in broad daylight. They were usually busy during the day especially for a business man.
Also people like this usually chose... midnight to early morning, when surveillance was looser.
Then came the reply timing.
When Damien sent a test response asking for clarification, the reply was nearly instant.
Too fast.
People new to this didn't reply that fast. They usually took time even if they are online. Thinking and hesitating.
Only a regular watching the screen, waiting for a response, would fire back that fast and if he was a regular he would already have his established contacts for things like this.
But first he asked the client to define 'natural causes,' suggesting either pharmaceutical or physical means. Then he added, "20 XMR to a burner wallet. No meetups."
Ten seconds later:
_______
Client:
"Pharma preferred. Can we verify via video call? Just to be sure."
_______
Damien chuckled.
Video call?
That wasn't just a red flag... it was a siren.
Nobody in their right mind would ever suggest that in the underworld. Trust was built over time not because of a contract worth less than $7000.
It was clumsy and reckless.
Or perhaps deliberate.
He leaned back and drummed his fingers on the desk.
Just to be sure, he sent one last message... bait disguised as cautious agent.
_______
Damien:
"Since you are not sending this contract to your regular contact any complications I should know about?"
_______
A few seconds later:
_______
Client:
"No I am new to this."
_______
There it was.
His talent in pattern recognition, and a little common sense.
Damien blocked the account, deleted the chat, and blacklisted the client ID on his private list.
Then he leaned back in his chair.
He hadn't even began creating his network yet, but the law enforcement was already on his tail… normally it would take them a while to target someone, but he seemed like luck wasn't on his side here.
'It best to start off with Mr Morningstar's contracts first.'
*******
The next thing Damien did was make a few changes to the program. He added a rough script to estimate the general location of applicants... not a precise pin drop, but enough to sort out who was operating in his region and who wasn't.
He figured it was smarter to start local before expanding.
Once the filter was done running, the number of applicants dropped from 217 to 53. A much more manageable number.
He leaned back in his chair, skimming through the remaining files before sending them to Aria for background information.
A few minutes later she sent one back, he went through it and before he was done with the first one, she sent another and so another and that was how the next few hours went.
Slowly patterns began to emerge, and soon enough, he noticed the applicants fell neatly into three types.
First the real professional, for example.
_______
Name: Viper
Contact: [email protected] (PGP Key: 0x3A7F...)
Specialization: Wet work, Infiltration, Interrogation
Experience:
Freelance Problem Solver (2018–Present) Balkan Counter-Intel Unit (2009–2017)
Skills:
✔ Fluent in Serbian, Russian, Arabic, and English
✔ Expert at urban/rural stealth insertion
✔ Exceptionally high pain tolerance
_______
Background Information
Real name: Luka Markovic
Confirmed experience:
37+ confirmed eliminations across Eastern Europe and the Middle East
Specializes in knife and garrotte kills... leaves no ballistic evidence
Client base includes oligarchs, syndicates, and private militias
Torture/interrogation specialist under paramilitary group "Wolfpack"
Survived enhanced interrogation; reportedly endured 72 hours under torture in 2015
Known Information
Survived 72hrs torture session in 2015 before escape Lives in the southwest region of the USA exact location unknown
No explosives, he prefers hands on work
No ideological targets he believes strictly in just business. He loves his painkillers.
_______
The second one is the AMATEUR pretending to be one
_______
Name: Reaper
Contact: [email protected] (No PGP)
Specialization: Elite Wetwork
Experience:
Private Security Contractor (2020–Present) Military Tactical Training (2016)
Skills:
✔ Expert marksman
✔ Lockpicking expert
✔ Ghost
_______
Background Information
Real name: Tyler Dunn
Confirmed experience:
Escaped the mall security once
Learned lockpicking from YouTube
Claims 12 confirmed kills (none verifiable)
Claims anonymous clients in Vegas
Known Information:
Age: 24
Lives in San Diego with his mom
Works as a cashier in a convenience store a few streets from his house.
Call of Duty Tournament winner (2016)
Only owns a .22LR pistol inherited from his father
_______
And finally the COP.
_______
Alias: Kessler
Contact: [email protected] (PGP looks auto-generated)
Specialization: "Extractions & Counter-Surveillance"
Experience:
Ex-DEA Logistics Role Syria missions
Skills:
✔ Can operate wiretaps
✔ DMV record checks out... clean driving, no tickets
✔ Fluency in Spanish
_______
Background Information
Real name: Det. Ryan Voss
Confirmed Experience:
No DEA Logistic law Works in an office cubicle
Barely conversational Spanish Does have a clean driving and no tickets
Known information:
A detective using a real operative's identity
Fake PMC work
Never left the country talk less of Syria
References from other agents
Lives in Los Angeles Has a family and 2 daughters
_______
After reading through all the reports Aria sent him, Damien rubbed his eyes and closed the file.
It was starting to feel like a job interview for assassins and liars.
Still, this was the cost of doing business in the shadows.
The trick wasn't finding people, you would be surprised by the amount of people willing to kill for money, either driven by desperation or just the love of the game.
No, the trick was finding the right ones before the wrong ones found you.
His first reaction was to block all the imposters both Amateurs and Cops like he did with the contractors, but he paused…
'Wasn't it written in one of the books that says learn to use the enemies and another that says keep your friends close and your enemies closer.'
So he filed them all in three different files named, Cops, Amateur and Real Operatives.
Thankfully he had 12 real operatives with varying level of experience, and he planned to rank them in three levels but that would be for another day because he had a meeting with the doctor tomorrow.
Next, he sent out a message to some of imposters both amateurs and cops telling them that they would soon be receiving mission.
Obviously, he was careful to send it to one to three people in law enforcement in per city making sure it seemed as random as possible while also choosing people with the most secure acctount.
*******
{Same time, FBI office}
The message came in, tucked in a plain text string routed through a triple-layer Tor relay, bounced across three burner servers, and decrypted through a custom parser.
But Ryan Voss didn't care about the technicallity. He only cared about the words.
_______
You'll be contacted when a mission becomes available. Maintain channel and be ready for mission alert.
— The Broker
_______
Voss stared at the screen for a second before it fully hit him. Then he leaned back, grinning like he'd just hit a jackpot.
"Oh, shit," he muttered. "I am in."
From the desk across, Agent Donner looked up. "What?"
Voss turned the monitor toward him. "Got a reply."
Donner blinked, leaned in. "Wait... that's from him?"
"Yep. The Broker." Voss couldn't keep the satisfaction out of his voice. "Message came through my contractor alias. He flagged me for follow-up mission alerts."
A second later, Morales wheeled over from her desk, eyebrows raised. "You're not messing with us?"
Voss shook his head and tapped the screen. "GhostComm. He meets the description although there are a few changes... which are most likely rebranding. This is real. I am in."
"Holy shit," Morales said with a grin. "You actually made it through."
Donner let out a low whistle. "Every other profile we sent got ghosted. You're the only one from this branch that he responded to."
Voss nodded, still riding the rush. "The fake profile passed whatever checks he's using."
"Congrats, man," Donner said, clapping him on the back. "That's months of work paying off."
"I knew we were close," Voss said. "Giving how many of us got rejected just like we thought he is not just recruiting blindly. Using a real operative own profile worked out well for us."
"You gonna tell Keaton?" Morales asked.
"Hell yes, I'm gonna tell Keaton."
He stood up, still holding the printout. His boots thudded lightly against the office floor as he made his way past rows of agents still hunched over their own monitors, most of them working fraud, cyberterrorism, cartel intercepts.
All of it important.
But not this.
This was 'The Broker'.
The one that got away. Or more accurately... the one they thought they caught.
A few months ago, they'd caught a man using the same handle 'The Broker'. He operated a low-level burner account.
But his system was a joke.
No VPN daisy chains.
No Faraday cage.
Not even a basic dead man's kill switch even his computer system was barely functioning and he was spending most of his money on drugs and prostitutes.
How he evaded them for several years they never knew… which was one of the reasons they suspected he was just a fake handler.
And now here he was again. Same name. Similar protocols. Same GhostComm.
Voss didn't believe in ghosts... but he believed in networks that survived their operators or even had fake operators.
He stopped outside Special Agent Keaton's office, knocked twice, and waited.
When the door opened, Keaton looked up from his screen, brow furrowed. "Something urgent?"
Voss didn't speak right away. He held up the printout.
Keaton read the first line. Then his expression changed.
"I'll be damned."
Voss grinned. "We're in."
Keaton didn't smile. But there was a spark behind his eyes.
"Come in," he said. "Close the door. Let's talk next steps."