Chapter 87: The Network.
The phone rang again at exactly nine in the evening. The first man answered on the second ring, his voice flat and businesslike.
"Talk."
"It’s getting complicated," the voice on the other end said. It was their insider, the one who had been feeding them information about movements from inside Captain Koker’s organization. "Koker’s starting to ask questions."
The first man straightened in his chair. The second and third men leaned forward, catching the tension in his posture. "What kind of questions?"
"About his daughter. Where she is, who she’s with, why his usual channels can’t locate her. He’s been making calls to people who usually have answers."
"And?"
"They don’t have answers. Which is making him suspicious. He’s starting to wonder if someone inside his operation is feeding information to outsiders."
The first man was quiet for a moment, processing this. "How close is he to figuring out it’s you?"
"Not close yet. But if he starts a full internal investigation, it won’t take long. The man didn’t build his empire by being naive about security leaks."
The second man grabbed the phone from the first man’s hand. "Then we accelerate the timeline. We need to buy harder, hit faster."
"Who is this?" the insider asked, clearly not recognizing the voice.
"Give it back," the first man said, taking the phone. "How much time do we have?"
"Maybe a week before he starts pulling people into rooms for interrogation. Maybe less if something else spooks him."
After the call ended, the three men sat in silence for several minutes. The warehouse office felt smaller somehow, the walls closing in with the weight of their narrowing options.
The second man broke the silence first. "So we escalate. No more photographs and psychological games. We hit them where they sleep."
"With what?" the third man asked. "Direct violence brings police attention. Police attention brings Koker’s full resources down on our heads."
"Not violence," the first man said slowly. "Accidents. Near misses. Things that make them feel unsafe without giving them evidence of deliberate targeting."
He walked to the window and adjusted the blinds, checking the street below out of habit. "We have contacts in Mumbai, right? People who can arrange for things to go wrong around their location?"
The second man nodded. "I know people. Local authorities who can be convinced to look the other way. Business owners who owe me favors. The usual network."
"Good. I want their safe house to feel unsafe. Power outages at convenient times. Water problems. Maybe some suspicious activity in their neighborhood that requires police attention."
The second man grinned. "Make them paranoid. Force them to keep moving."
"Exactly. A moving target is a stressed target. And stressed people make mistakes."
The third man refilled his glass, his expression thoughtful. "But we need to be careful about our Mumbai contact. The person helping us track them is getting nervous. They’ve been asking questions about how far this is going to go."
"What kind of questions?"
"Whether anyone’s going to get hurt. Whether there’s going to be violence. The usual concerns people have when they realize they’re in deeper than they planned."
The first man sat back down, his fingers steepled in front of his face. "Are they reliable?"
"For now. But if things escalate to actual violence, they might withdraw their support. And without their help, we lose our eyes on the ground."
"Then we don’t let it escalate to violence," the first man said. "We keep it psychological. Fear, uncertainty, constant pressure. Break them down mentally instead of physically."
The second man slammed his fist on the table. "You’re both missing the point. This isn’t just about the girl anymore. This is about Koker. About what he did to us, to our families, to our entire operation."
He stood up and began pacing, his voice rising with each word. "Don’t tell me you’re quick to forget Singapore? The way he came in like a hurricane and destroyed everything we’d built? Twenty years of work, gone overnight. Good people thrown out on the street. Families ruined."
"We remember. And that’s why we’re here in the first place." the third man said quietly.
"Sure? Because sometimes I think you’ve forgotten. I think you’ve forgotten Marcus Chen, who put a gun in his mouth because Koker’s takeover left him with nothing. I think you’ve forgotten Sarah Williams, who lost her house because her pension fund was tied up in our investments."
The first man’s voice stayed calm. "We haven’t forgotten anything."
"Then why are we playing games with photographs and power outages? Why aren’t we hitting him directly? Why aren’t we making solid moves?"
"Because," the third man said, setting his glass down with deliberate care, "revenge that destroys you in the process isn’t revenge. It’s suicide."
The second man stopped pacing and stared at him. "So what, we just send scary pictures forever?"
"We do this smart," the first man said. "Koker built his empire by being ruthless, but also by being intelligent. If we want to bring him down, we have to be smarter than he is, not just angrier. Anger would make us slip up."
He pulled out a folder from under the table and spread its contents across the surface. Financial records, organizational charts, photographs of key personnel in Koker’s operation.
"This isn’t just about his daughter. She’s the pressure point, but the real target is his entire network. We make him so focused on protecting her that he starts making mistakes in his business operations."
The third man studied the documents. "You want to use her as a distraction."
"I want to use her as leverage. Every resource he diverts to finding and protecting her is a resource that isn’t watching his other vulnerabilities."
The second man leaned over the table, his anger cooling temporarily. "What other vulnerabilities?"
"His operations in Southeast Asia are already unstable after the government crackdowns. His European partnerships are being investigated by financial regulators. His technology investments are going below drastically. Plus, he just lost a solid business deal that could have helped him stay afloat."
The first man pointed to different sections of the documents. "Right now, his personal attention and his best people are keeping all these problems from becoming disasters. But if he’s distracted by his daughter’s safety..."
"The whole house of cards comes down," the third man finished.
"Exactly. And we’ll be positioned to pick up the pieces."
The phone rang again. The first man answered it on speaker this time.
"It’s me," their insider said. "I have an update."
"Go ahead."
"The girl and her friends are getting restless. My contact thinks they’re considering changing locations soon. Maybe within the next few days."
The three men exchanged glances. The first man leaned toward the phone. "Do we know where they’re planning to go?"
"Not yet. But they’re definitely planning to move. The picture act really shook them."
"Keep monitoring them. And see if you can find out their destination before they leave."
"I’ll try. But if they’re using Koker’s resources, they might have access to transportation methods we can’t track."
After ending the call, the third man turned to his companions. "This changes things. If they move to a location we don’t have contacts in, we lose our advantage."
"Then we force them to stay put," the second man said. "Make Mumbai too dangerous to leave but too dangerous to stay behind."
The third man shook his head. "That’s exactly the kind of escalation that will bring Koker’s full attention down on us."
"So what do you suggest?"
"We let them move," the first man said slowly. "But we make sure we know where they’re going before they get there."
The third man considered this. "You think we can arrange that?"
"Our insider is inside Koker’s organization. If the girl is using her father’s resources to relocate, there will be a paper trail. Flight plans, hotel reservations, security arrangements. We just need to make sure our contact can access that information."
"And if they can’t?"
The first man’s smile was cold. "Then we make sure their new location is less secure than they think it is."
"What if they don’t use Koker’s resources?" The third man asked again.
"We trail them regardless."
The second man raised his glass. "To staying one step ahead."
All three men drank to the toast.
Somewhere in the Mumbai city, the three young people planned their next move, unaware that every decision they made was being monitored, analyzed, and countered.
The game was accelerating, and the stakes were rising with each passing hour.
"One more thing," the third man said as they prepared to leave. "Our insider mentioned they might not have access to all of Koker’s transportation resources. That means private jets, secure vehicles, safe houses we don’t know about."
"So?"
"So we need to be prepared for the possibility that this girl has more resources than we initially calculated. If she’s using her father’s full network, she could disappear completely if we’re not careful."
The first man gathered up the documents. "Then we make sure that doesn’t happen."