Chapter 23: THE MOLE HUNT
The next morning started with coffee that tasted like revenge.
I'd slept maybe two hours. The rest had been spent staring at my ceiling, running through everyone who knew about the operation. Everyone who could have talked.
The list was shorter than I'd hoped. Longer than I'd like.
Squad: Terry, Jake, Rosa, Amy, Charles, Hitchcock, Scully. Clean.
I knew them. Had scanned them a dozen times with every ability I had. Their loyalties, their tells, their secrets. None of them had sold us out.
External contacts: Dispatch, support staff, SWAT liaison, DA's office.
Wider net. Harder to read.
"You look terrible."
Holt stood in his office doorway, expression unreadable as always.
"Thank you, sir."
"That wasn't a compliment." He studied me for a long moment. "The surveillance failure. You're investigating."
Not a question.
"Yes sir."
"Officially or personally?"
"Is there a difference?"
His mouth twitched. Might have been disapproval. Might have been something else.
"Keep me informed, Detective Cole. Unofficially."
He retreated into his office. The door clicked shut.
"He knows something's off, Host. Whether he knows what... that's the question."
I ignored the System and got to work.
The next forty-eight hours blurred into a single extended hunt.
I worked through the precinct systematically. Coffee runs that happened to coincide with shift changes. Casual conversations in hallways and break rooms. Questions that sounded innocent but weren't.
Guilt Sense on every face I passed.
[-10 Mental Stamina]
Nothing from dispatch. Clean reads, minor workplace drama, no betrayal signatures.
[-10 Mental Stamina]
Support staff yielded similar results. The closest thing to guilt I found was someone who'd been stealing Post-its.
[-10 Mental Stamina]
[Mental Stamina: 28/115] [Warning: Sustained Use Approaching Limits]
My hands started trembling on day two. I hid it by keeping them in my pockets or wrapped around coffee cups.
Rosa noticed. Of course she did.
"Stairwell. Now."
She found me there fifteen minutes later, sitting on the steps between floors three and four, working through a granola bar that tasted like cardboard.
"You look like garbage."
"Thanks, you're very supportive."
She handed me a bottle of water. I drank half of it in one go.
"The leak isn't here," I said.
"I know."
"Then where—"
"The DA's office." She sat on the step below me, back against the railing. "The liaison who approved Eddie's immunity. Margaret Chen. She's the only external contact who knew specifics."
I'd been thinking the same thing. Had been avoiding it because it meant expanding the hunt beyond my immediate reach.
"You want to come with?"
Rosa's eyebrow rose. "Try to stop me."
Margaret Chen's office was on the fifth floor of the Brooklyn District Attorney's building. Corner unit, modest but professional. Diplomas on the wall, family photos on the desk, a stress ball shaped like a brain that had clearly seen extensive use.
She was mid-forties, sharp features, the kind of tired that came from too many cases and not enough victories.
My Guilt Sense activated the moment we walked in.
[-10 Mental Stamina: 18/115]
The reading hit me like a truck.
Guilt. Massive. Recent. Ongoing.
But layered underneath—fear. Not guilt toward us. Guilt about what she'd been forced to do. And terror of whoever had forced her.
"Detectives." Her smile was brittle. "I heard about the warehouse operation. Terrible outcome."
"Someone talked," I said. "Someone who knew the details."
Her hand moved to the stress ball. Squeezed once. Twice.
"I wouldn't know anything about that."
[LIE DETECTED]
The SPM added context:
[MARGARET CHEN] [Standing: +0 (Neutral)] [Current Mood: Terrified, Desperate, Exhausted] [Flag: External Coercion Detected]
She wasn't a willing traitor. She was a victim.
"Ms. Chen." I softened my voice. "I'm not here to arrest you."
She blinked. "I don't—"
"Whoever's threatening you, we can protect you better than they can."
Rosa shifted beside me. I could feel her surprise, then her understanding.
Chen's composure cracked.
"You don't understand," she whispered. "They have photos of my daughter. At her school. At soccer practice. They know where she sleeps."
"Who?"
"I don't know. I never see faces." Her voice shook. "Just phone calls. Instructions. 'Tell us what the police know, or your daughter pays for your silence.'"
The stress ball fell from her fingers. Bounced once on the carpet.
"They called it insurance. Said if I cooperated, nothing would happen. If I didn't..." She couldn't finish.
"How long?"
"Three months. Since the harbor cases started."
Three months. They'd compromised the DA's liaison before we even knew there was an operation to investigate.
"The phone calls," I said. "Is there a pattern? A regular contact time?"
"Tuesdays. Thursdays. Always blocked numbers, but..." She hesitated. "Once, the call dropped mid-sentence. When they called back, I heard traffic. Specific traffic—the elevated train, I think. And a voice in the background, something about 'the usual order.'"
A restaurant near elevated tracks. Regular customer.
It wasn't much. But it was something.
"We're going to help you," I said. "Your daughter too. But I need you to give me everything. Every call, every instruction, every detail you remember."
She looked at me like I'd offered her air after drowning.
"You can really protect us?"
Eddie's face flashed through my mind.
"Yes."
This time, I meant it.
Holt's office. 7:30 PM.
I laid it out. Margaret Chen. The blackmail. The handler contact—not a name, but a pattern. A location we could narrow down.
Holt listened without interruption.
"How did you find this?" he asked finally.
"Good instincts."
"Very good instincts, Detective Cole." His tone was neutral, but his eyes were sharp. "Concerningly good."
"There it is, Host. The question he's been building to."
"I pay attention, sir. It's what you trained us to do."
"Indeed." He examined the notes I'd given him. "I'll arrange protection for Ms. Chen and her daughter. Quietly. You'll trace this handler contact?"
"Already working on it."
"Then I suggest you continue." He paused. "And Detective Cole?"
"Sir?"
"Whatever methods you're using to obtain these insights—I trust they're within acceptable boundaries."
It wasn't a warning. It wasn't permission either.
It was notice that he was watching.
"Always, sir."
I left his office feeling the weight of that gaze on my back.
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