Graham woke at 0400, as usual. After a quick stretch, he dropped to the floor for his standard routine: 200 pushups, 400 situps, 100 jumping jacks. Enough to stay limber and ready for action without bothering with the gym on a weekend.
The shower came next—hot to start, then ice-cold at the end. As he turned the knob all the way to the cold setting, he began counting silently to fifty. It wasn’t just about the wake-up. It was ritual. A quick mental reset. A grounding discipline.
Toweled off and dressed in weekend casual, he strapped on his concealed sidearm and rubbed his hands together in anticipation of the coffee he was about to make.
But as he stepped into the kitchen, his phone buzzed in his back pocket.
Huh. Five a.m. here. Eight on the East Coast. Could be nothing. Could be something.
He gnced at the screen. Smiled at the name. Frowned at the encryption indicator.
ARIA VANCE – SECURE CALL
He answered as the espresso machine whirred to life.
“Aria, my darling. How are you? Happy Satur—”
She cut him off. “Sorry, Grim. Not a social call. Is the line secure?”
He double-checked. Green checkmark. “Yup. You’re good. What’s going on?”
Aria exhaled—sharp, clipped. “Our little basement dweller wasn’t working alone. And if we don’t move fast, this turns into a shitstorm of epic proportions.”
Graham let out a quiet sigh, mourning the espresso he’d been about to enjoy.
“Ah, fuck. I was afraid of that.”
He rubbed his forehead and reached for a pen already sitting beside his notepad on the kitchen counter.
“Alright. Give me fifteen to get Brick, Sienna, and Nina spun up. I’ll set a secure line, and you can brief us all at once.”
“Thanks, Grim. I’ll be ready.”
He could hear the tension in her voice as she hung up—and it was enough to make his gut tighten.
Shit. How bad is this? As if we didn’t already have enough on our pte.
He opened his secure dialer, toggled the encryption protocol, and began assembling the team. One message to each: Brick, Sienna, Nina. He scheduled a private line conference for 5:25 a.m. Pacific.
Then he sent the invite to Aria via the secure channel, along with a single line:
Hold tight. We’ve got this.
<
Aria Vance hung up the phone, her hands still trembling as she mentally walked back through everything she had just confirmed.
Between her not-so-friendly chats with Trevor Gant and the deep-dive forensic work on his devices and accounts, the whole picture had finally come into focus.
Trevor was a pawn—barely a rook at best. He’d been maniputed by people far smarter than him, and a hell of a lot more dangerous. His mother’s death had been the perfect emotional breach point—raw, unresolved, and easy to exploit.
And exploit it they had.
Whoever was behind this had been careful. Painfully careful. Trevor had been chosen precisely because his access wouldn't raise eyebrows. He wasn’t on anyone’s radar. He was credible. Overworked. Frustrated. Vulnerable.
The foreign agents had built their retionship with him slowly, methodically. So much so that Aria had almost missed it.
Almost.
In the end, it wasn’t some fshy breach that tipped her off. It was a fucking grammar mistake.
They’d been communicating through Signal—more secure than WhatsApp, but still child’s py for someone with Aria’s training. The contact number carried a 770 area code—suburban Atnta. Seemed pusible enough.
They were articute. Precise. Native-level English, at least on the surface. But then one message stood out—just off enough. Not a spelling error. Not a typo. Just... a syntactical anomaly. A phrase that didn’t sit right in her gut.
She ran the text chain through her custom tracer—something she’d built herself over five years of off-the-books work. The phone number was a dead end, but the routing trail wasn’t.
The signal bounced from Atnta to a sleepy mountain vilge in northern Italy.
From there, it jumped to Minsk.
Then North Korea.
That’s when her blood ran cold.North fucking Korea.
And they weren’t just sniffing around for curiosity’s sake. They were after far more than the clinical trial data. They were targeting formutions. Base compound libraries. Synthetic pathways.
They wanted to recreate the formus. Maybe even get them to market first in bck bs. Or worse—weaponize them.
And Trevor? He was just one loose thread.
These crafty fuckers had embedded operatives or assets in six of Voss’s companies—each one connected in some way to the R&D, refinement, or logistics of Vitalyx or Rejuvenex.
This wasn’t just a leak.
This was a full-blown infiltration.
And if they didn’t act fast—surgical, coordinated, ruthless—it was going to blow wide open.
Aria checked the time. 7:24 a.m.
Time to dial in.
She slid into her chair, cracked her knuckles, and began typing. The secure conference line had a ten-stage authentication protocol, each step requiring biometrics, cipher key rotation, and live-ping verification.
It usually took sixty to ninety seconds to complete.
Today, she had it done in forty-five.
Aria spent the first fifteen minutes ying it all out.
While she spoke, she simultaneously uploaded the data to a secure, self-deleting drive—set to auto-wipe in twelve hours. Nina and Sienna sifted through the files in real time, parsing metadata, cross-referencing fgs, and tagging weak points in the attack vector.
Nina had pulled the thread a little further than Aria had. Their target wasn’t in Pyongyang after all.
Bureau 121, the North Korean cyber warfare unit behind some of the most notorious hacks in modern history, had set up a nest farther east—in Hamhung. Hidden in the industrial belt, where infrastructure masked traffic and surveilnce was thinner.
Easier to strike.Still dangerous as hell.But—key to the harebrained pn slowly forming in Grim’s head—conveniently located right on the coast of the Sea of Japan.Fuck yeah.Way easier than going around the Peninsu through heavily patrolled Chinese waters. They’re just making it easy for us now.
When Aria finished, the line went quiet for a moment. Then Nina spoke.
“Pretty nice of these dumbasses to all be huddled together in one spot,” she said, dry amusement in her voice. “Makes our next move a lot simpler. Although, uh... getting across the DMZ isn’t exactly a Sunday hike. Any thoughts, boss?”
Grim rubbed a hand over his jaw, rifling through names in his mental Rolodex. Did he know anyone who could get them in without drawing fire?
Actually... yes. Yes, he fucking did.
There was an old fishing boat captain he used to drink with on leave—ran a fishing trawler and a few quiet off-the-book hauls in the Sea of Japan. What was his name?
Yamaguchi?No. Yamamoto.That’s it.
Grizzled bastard with a sharp ugh and a liver made of reinforced steel. They must’ve killed half a dozen bottles of Suntory together. The whiskey, that is—not the beer. Heh. Simpler times. Better ones.
Grim’s eyes narrowed as the shape of a pn began to take form.
He unmuted.
“We’re going to need all five of us. Aria, that means you’ll need to leave Montana. We’ll get someone else on babysitting duty. Voss can assign it—he’s got enough loyal people in the rotation to keep Gant on ice without stirring the pot.”
Aria was already reaching for her kit bag. “Hah—twist my arm. I’m tired of pying nurse here, anyway.”
“I’m picturing you in a candy striper outfit right now…”
“Shut it, Grim,” Aria clipped, not quite able to hide the sultry ughter under her voice. The others chuckled along.
“Anyway—he’s sedated. Eight-hour dose. I’ll clean up, log everything, and get the pce ready for my repcement. I’ll be moving in a few.”
“Perfect,” Grim replied. “You’ve got four hours. We’ll meet you at Billings Logan around noon.”
The pn was clean. Quick. Surgical.
Fly to Japan.“We’ll meet my old drinking buddy Yamamoto in Toyama,” Grim said. “Old port town on the Sea of Japan. He’ll take us north and we’ll drop off into the water as the sun begins to dip below the horizon. Nighttime cover. My favorite time for a swim in unknown waters. Right, Brick?”
Brick ughed. “Yeah man, it’s been a while since we brushed up on our actual swimmer roots. Gonna be a fucking bst. Let’s do this.”
After assigning tasks and locking in coordination protocols, the team signed off. Grim immediately called Voss and id it all out—the breach, the infiltrators, the op pn.
Voss didn’t hesitate.“Take the G700. It’s ready to go at Hayward. Wheels up ASAP. I’ll deal with Gant and the other rats. Just get this done. Stay frosty—isn’t that what you boys always say?”
Grim ughed at that, but he didn’t need to be told twice. Going full frosty on some dickhead NK sounded like just the kind of murder therapy he and his team needed after all this executive hand-holding bullshit.
The fact that they got to do a water infiltration? Just icing on the bloody cake.
Just like the good old days.
It was time to rough some people up—and even better, these assholes deserved it ten times over.
Two hours ter, Grim, Brick, Nina, and Sienna boarded the jet at Hayward Executive. It was fueled, stocked, and cleared under a shell company’s call sign. Aria was already en route from Red Lodge.
She arrived at Billings Logan airport just after noon, local time, as the G700 nded and taxied toward the hangar where she waited.
Back in Red Lodge, Trevor Gant y sedated in the basement, monitors humming quietly—unaware that the hammer was about to fall on everything he thought he understood.
<
On the flight over, Graham had called in a few favors from an old SEAL buddy—now working as a JSOC liaison at Yokosuka Naval Base.
One promise of a ridiculously expensive bottle of single malt ter (billed to Voss, obviously), and a Swimmer Delivery Vehicle—a near-silent, battery-powered craft capable of pulling up to six operators through the water for dozens of miles—was quietly handed off to Yamamoto’s filthy old (read: inconspicuous) fishing trawler, the Kage-Maru.
They’d also secured five Diver Propulsion Devices—handheld diver scooters designed to propel operators the final few miles just beneath the thermal yer. Perfect for evading sonar and infrared scans from patrol drones. More importantly, they’d help conserve energy for the real work waiting on shore.
If it were just Grim and Brick, they might’ve powered through the st eight miles without help. But with others in tow—and gear to haul—they weren’t about to risk anyone starting the op below max.
The team nded at Toyama Regional Airport under overcast skies. The early rainy season brought thick humidity, and the air outside the cabin hit them like a wet tarp to the face.
Thanks to a third favor from Grim’s contact, they cleared immigration without a second gnce.No fanfare. No deys.
They didn’t go to the harbor. The Kage-Maru had already left.
Yamamoto had pushed off the dock early that morning, slipping out of Toyama under legal pretense, running his trawler slow and steady into the Sea of Japan. By now, he was nearly 200 nautical miles offshore—moving quietly toward the final drop point.
The rendezvous pn was simple: keep it low, keep it quiet. The team checked into a cramped business hotel, barely enough room to stand in the tiny showers, but they didn’t care. They had an easy dinner, barely talking while they ate, and retired to their rooms around 8:00 PM for a little bunk time while they could get it.
At 4:00 AM the next day, a civilian-registered Bell 412 helicopter—the fourth favor from Grim’s JSOC contact—touched down at a private helipad two miles outside Toyama—leased under a shell corporation owned by one of Voss’s front companies. No markings. No military callsign.
The rotor wash kicked up mist and dust as the team—dropped off by private car twenty minutes prior—loaded aboard. Everyone was geared up in bck tactical wear and sealed waterproof duffels—no insignia, no identifiers, nothing that could be traced if things went sideways.
Grim sat up front beside the pilot, headset already on.“Call sign is Echo-One,” the pilot said. “We’re off radar by thirty feet, flying nap-of-the-sea all the way out, sir. Strap in.”
They lifted into the gray dawn, sweeping low over the ocean, the coastline shrinking behind them.
<
The Kage-Maru was sitting still in the water, engines idling just enough to keep the trawler oriented with the swells.
Yamamoto stood on deck, arms crossed, wind tugging at his shirt. The early morning fog curled around the rigging like smoke from an unspoken warning.
The Bell 412 appeared low on the horizon, silent until it was nearly on top of them. It circled once, then descended with a practiced precision—touching down on the makeshift helipad bolted to the reinforced cargo deck.
Grim was the first one out, dropping to the deck with practiced ease.
“You miss the water, Yamamoto?” he called over the roar as he man-hugged the grizzly Japanese sailor.
Yamamoto grinned through the cigarette cmped between his teeth.“Like I miss your ex-wife.” Deadpan eyes staring right into Grim’s soul.
Grim had to ugh. This guy has been hanging out with SpecWar operators way too long if he’s making ex-wife jokes in fluent English. Jesus Christ…
The rest of the team unloaded quickly. Aria and Nina moved the gear toward the hatch while Brick and Sienna gave Yamamoto a quick nod in passing. No wasted words.
Belowdecks, they found the SDV secured in its cradle—clean, charged, and ready. The diver scooters were stacked beside it, battery packs fshing green. Everything had arrived exactly as promised.
Yamamoto gave a short wave as the helicopter lifted off again and banked away to the east—already vanishing into the mist, heading back to civilian airspace like it had never been there at all.
The Kage-Maru turned west by northwest, crawling toward the invisible line where international waters blurred into North Korea’s shadow. They had about fourteen hours until nightfall.
Then the real mission would begin.
<
Grim and his team slowly let their heads rise above the waterline as the beach shallowed, twenty feet from shore. Scanning the ndscape through his infrared binocurs, he confirmed the path ahead was clear. One silent nod, and they split off into their predetermined fan-out positions.
Industrial buildings littered the shoreline, seemingly pced with no coherent pn—like a child had scattered them by hand on a map.
A few minutes ter, their gear was loaded, dripping water had ceased, and they were ready to move. Their target y deeper in Hamhung: a team of hackers working through the night, masquerading as scientists from a fake biotech conglomerate. A front. A lie. And a deadly one. For them, anyway.
As they moved in silence, Sienna took point, checking her GPS every few minutes. Then—suddenly—she stopped, right hand raised in a clenched fist. The universal signal: halt.
A low buzz emerged. A drone.
They dropped to the ground in perfect sync, pressing their still-cold packs over their bodies in hopes the seawater's lingering chill might mask their heat signatures if this one was thermal. Seconds stretched. The drone drifted past—too close—but didn’t linger.
When it vanished, they resumed, weaving through the dead-of-night streets with practiced silence. Sienna led them unerringly to their destination.
It was a truly nondescript building—corrugated metal, small footprint. Could’ve been a fisheries shack, a janitorial outpost, or a forgotten storage shed. But inside?
Inside was Bureau 121—the elite North Korean hacker cell responsible for some of the most devastating cyberattacks in modern history. Including, recently, six operations directly targeting Voss’s empire.
For that, they all had to die.
Grim’s team didn’t know exactly how many were inside—not until they deployed the long-range thermal scanner from across the alley.
Thirty-six.
Thirty-six mostly young adults. Late teens. Early twenties.About to pay the price for crossing the wrong man.
When they moved, it wasn’t a battle.It was a sughter.
The breach was silent.Sig Sauer MCX suppressed rifles. Combat knives. A garrote.Twenty-two seconds from breach to utter silence.By the time the st body hit the floor, not one soul inside the building was left breathing.
Aria, Sienna and Nina got to work while Grim and Brick secured the perimeter.
They cracked systems. Extracted terabytes of encrypted data. Ripped out hard drives and jammed them into waterproof satchels. What they uncovered on these systems would pay back every favor Grim had called in—and then some. Proof of active operations against multinationals, nation-states, military networks.
And now?Proof of their extinction. A few quick photos snapped to show the identities of every one of the thirty-six, and they were ready to go.
When the sweep and documentation were complete, Grim and Brick set the scene.
A server spark. Faulty wiring. A chain reaction.That’s what the world would see. A localized fire, fueled by poor oversight and ancient breakers, notoriously shitty infrastructure.The story was clean. Believable. Practically written for them by North Korea’s own crumbling regime.
They exited quietly. One st touch of thermite.By the time the first smoke curled into the sky, they were already back in the dark embrace of the night sea.
<
A few hours ter, they were aboard Yamamoto’s rust-streaked trawler, trading stories over Suntory whiskey and inhaling enough calories to make up for what they’d burned.
The food was too good for a boat this dirty.The whiskey was top-shelf, in dirtiest of hands.
Yamamoto, still grinning, showed off his increasingly colorful English.Aria nearly choked ughing at something obscene he said about her boots.Even Grim rexed, just a little.
At 7:00 AM, the helicopter returned. A soft whup-whup across the water.Everyone hugged the old sailor and his skeleton crew goodbye.
Grim made sure the satchels of extracted data were secure. No trace left behind. No loose ends.
Later, back on the G700, they’d sanitize the contents—wiping any reference to Voss’s companies. The rest? Pushed through encrypted JSOC channels, with one extra thank-you gift.
A bottle of Yamazaki 18. The real stuff. No duty-free garbage you can get at the airports.
Wrapped like an artifact.Labeled with a single sticky note:
For debts paid in full.
At 1,800 a bottle, it was personal value for a personal favor.
And for now, at least, Elliot Voss’s interests—and maybe humanity’s—were protected.