Troubleshooter

Chapter 44 - What Did I Miss?

THE ASIAN Man did not receive the "mission compromised" communication from the Controller until 19:00 hours that evening when he was back at the small Internet cafe in his neighborhood, checking his mission's email account. He had already read about the shooting in the Canary Wharf area in the online news. Judging from the number of bodies recovered, he already suspected that the mission was severely endangered. Every mission had high points and low points, and the low points usually hit a perfectionist like the Asian Man like a punch in the gut. He had worked with the Controller a few times before, and he considered him an experienced operator. He wouldn't have given a compromised-mission message without solid cause. Something must have gone seriously wrong. Right here, right now was the wrong place to linger over details. Maybe he would be able to discover the reason later that night.

Evasion was the first priority. Going home was out of the question after the alert, so he made sure that he had no trail.

The safe house was a small apartment in northern London. The Asian Man hijacked an open wireless connection from the neighbors to get an update on the shooting. The Controller had talked about hiring a team of five from a local operation, so that matched the number of dead men reported by most media outlets. But the news stories were reporting that the shootout was among gang members, not gangsters versus the police. So how had the action team actually been killed? The opposition consisted of two guys and one girl. Paper pushers, altogether. An intern, an accountant, and an unknown girl. Killing them should have been no problem.

Although ... killing Mr. Schwartz had almost been a problem.

It was not clear how much the opposition knew. Maybe the shootout with the gangsters was completely unrelated to the hundred million dollars or the information gold mine.

The Asian Man was the man in the field. It was his call to abandon the mission or to continue.