The French Riviera was a string of diamonds glittering against black velvet. From their vantage point in the hills above Nice, the marina was the brightest jewel, a nest of impossible wealth where hundreds of millions of dollars worth of private vessels bobbed gently in the calm Mediterranean water. One yacht, the Odyssey, outshone them all. At 120 meters, it was less a boat and more a floating palace, a blade of white light and tinted glass that radiated the sound of champagne glasses and muted electronic music across the bay. Their target.
Sineus adjusted the focus on his electro-optical binoculars. The heat signatures of the guests on the upper decks bloomed in soft oranges and reds, a party of ghosts dancing for the thermal cameras. He and Moreau were dressed in the dark, functional clothing of high-end yacht crew, their gear concealed in nondescript duffel bags. The Kestrel VTOL was hidden in a private hangar twenty kilometers away, its scarred hull a stark contrast to the polished perfection below.
— Security is private, — Moreau said, her voice a low murmur beside him. She was studying a tablet displaying the marina’s schematics, data purchased at an exorbitant price from one of Ben Carter’s less savory contacts. — Former DGSE. They rotate patrols every twenty minutes. The weak point is the stern maintenance hatch, below the water line.
— It’s never the front door, — Sineus replied, collapsing the binoculars. He slung his bag over his shoulder. The plan was simple. The execution would be anything but. They were not here to steal. They were here to plant a seed.
They descended from the hills, moving through the manicured gardens and quiet residential streets with the practiced ease of shadows. The air smelled of night-blooming jasmine, salt, and diesel exhaust. At the marina’s edge, they bypassed the main security gate, slipping through a service corridor used by catering staff. The transition was jarring. One moment they were surrounded by the opulent calm of the Riviera; the next, they were in a world of humming generators, clanging metal, and the shouts of overworked crew.
The water of the marina was black and cold. They entered it without a splash, using compact, silent rebreathers that left no trail of bubbles. The hull of the Odyssey loomed above them like a steel cliff face. Sineus found the maintenance hatch exactly where the schematics said it would be, two meters below the surface. He worked on the magnetic lock, his tools moving with an engineer’s precision. Moreau kept watch, a combat knife held in a reverse grip, her eyes scanning the dark water. The lock clicked open with a faint, satisfying snap. They slipped inside, into the guts of the great machine.
The service decks were a maze of white-painted corridors, exposed conduits, and humming machinery. The air was cool and tasted of ozone and filtered air. Every twenty meters, a thermal sensor swept the passage, its invisible beam a line of instant failure. Sineus pulled a small, Mylar-lined sheet from his pack. It was a simple, low-tech solution to a high-tech problem.
— Hold, — he whispered.
He waited, his eyes fixed on the faint shimmer in the air that his senses registered as the sensor’s path. As it passed, he moved, holding the thermal blanket up to shield their heat signatures. They crossed the corridor in a single, fluid motion, pressing themselves into an alcove on the other side just as the beam swept back. They repeated the process three more times, a silent, deadly dance with beams of light. The pressure plates embedded in the deck were easier, their locations clearly marked on the schematics. They simply stepped over them.
They ascended three decks, emerging from a service ladder into a plush, carpeted corridor. The sound of the party was louder here, a muffled thrum of bass and laughter filtering through the walls. They were close. According to the intel, Rico Vargas, the infamous and utterly amoral artifacts broker hosting this circus, was displaying his latest prize in a private gallery just off the main salon.
Moreau took the lead, her pistol now drawn, fitted with a suppressor. She moved like a panther, her steps silent on the thick carpet. She paused at a corner, holding up a hand, then peered around it. She gave a single, sharp nod. Clear.
The gallery was a circular room, its walls lined with climate-controlled display cases. Inside each case, an artifact rested on a bed of black velvet: a Sumerian tablet that seemed to shift its cuneiform under the light, a pre-Incan knotted cord that hummed with a low, resonant energy, and in the center of the room, the prize. The Mirror Fragment.
It was a shard of polished, obsidian-like material, no larger than a man’s hand. It did not reflect their images. Instead, its surface swirled with a faint, milky nebula of captured light. To Sineus’s senses, it was a vortex, a drain pulling at the ambient Memorum of the room. It was a dangerous, unstable piece of a much larger whole.
— Two minutes, — Sineus said, his eyes scanning the corridor outside. The patrol was due.
Moreau didn’t answer. She was already at work. She produced a small, powerful suction cup device from her bag and attached it to the armored glass of the display case. With a twist, a section of the glass came free with a soft hiss of depressurization. She reached inside, her movements swift and sure.
She lifted the Mirror Fragment from its velvet bed. In her other hand, she held a nearly identical object—a perfect replica crafted by a specialist in Geneva, its interior hollowed out to hold a micro-tracker no bigger than a grain of rice. She placed the fake on the velvet, its weight and appearance indistinguishable from the real thing. The swap took less than ten seconds.
She held the real fragment for a moment, her brow furrowed. — It’s cold.
— It’s hungry, — Sineus corrected. — It eats memories. Let’s go.
She slid the real fragment into a lead-lined pouch in her bag and replaced the glass panel on the display case. The seal hissed shut. To any casual observer, nothing had been disturbed. But the tracker was now active, a silent beacon ready to lead them to whoever paid Vargas’s exorbitant price.
Their exfiltration was as clean as their entry. They descended back into the service corridors, bypassed the sensors and pressure plates, and slipped out of the stern maintenance hatch into the dark water. They surfaced a hundred meters away, behind a row of smaller, docked vessels. They stripped off their dive gear, hiding it in their duffel bags. They were just two more crew members walking the jetty, their faces lost in the crowd of staff and security. They were clear.
— A clever move.
The voice was smooth, cultured, and laced with an amusement that set every nerve in Sineus’s body on edge. A man stepped out from the shadow of a large cruiser, blocking their path. He was handsome, with silver-streaked dark hair and a smile that didn’t reach his cold, intelligent eyes. He was dressed in a tailored silk suit that probably cost more than their entire mission budget. Rico Vargas.
— The replica is quite good, — Vargas continued, taking a slow sip from a crystal glass of what looked like whiskey. — The weight is off by a few grams, but only a true connoisseur would notice. And my client is certainly that.
Moreau’s hand moved instinctively toward the weapon concealed under her jacket. Sineus gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. A firefight here would be suicide.
— That tracker will lead you straight to him, — Vargas said, his smile widening. He was enjoying this, playing with them. He had known about their plan all along. Their clean infiltration, their successful swap—it had all been permitted. They were not the predators; they were mice in his maze.
— For a price, of course, I can make sure you get there in one piece. My client’s security is… formidable. Think of it as a finder’s fee. A small investment to protect your larger one.
He extended his free hand, a gesture of open, cynical partnership.
Sineus looked at Moreau. He would follow her lead. This was her territory, the world of spies and back-alley deals. He saw the cold fury in her eyes, the rigid set of her jaw. She had spent a career fighting men like Vargas, men who saw the world as a marketplace and people as commodities.
— We don’t make deals with parasites, — she said, her voice as cold and hard as arctic ice.
Vargas’s smile never faltered. He simply took another sip of his whiskey and gave a small, theatrical shrug. — A pity. I do so admire your conviction. It’s a rare and expensive commodity. Good luck. You’ll need it.
He turned and walked away, melting back into the lights and music of the party, a ghost in a thousand-dollar suit. He left them standing on the jetty, the weight of his knowledge pressing down on them.
The air was warm, and the sea was calm. The small, brass gimbaled compass in Sineus’s pocket would have shown a perfectly steady needle.
But the victory felt like a defeat. The tracker was active, a clean signal leading them forward. But it was no longer their lead. It was a leash, and Rico Vargas was holding the other end.
