Intelligence Sharing

London's morning fog carried a biting chill as it drifted slowly through the forest of steel and concrete.

As the ghost who had carried out an assassination in full view of the public on Downing Street, Beta should never have returned to this city, now wrapped in MI6's impenetrable net.

But the Continental Hotel's intelligence network never made mistakes. Information bought with a single gold coin clearly showed that the reckless employer was hiding somewhere in this city.

Beta tightened the collar of his trench coat and walked out of Heathrow Airport, blanketed by surveillance cameras. Facial recognition systems had been added to every security checkpoint, and patrol officers at street corners had been issued new equipment.

This city had armed itself to the teeth to capture him, and now he was walking willingly into its net.

Before the authorities connected the assassin's identity to Beta's real face, his utterly unremarkable appearance was his best disguise. Average height, average clothes, average expression—a perfectly ordinary Londoner blending into the crowd. That was the safest camouflage.

Beta deliberately avoided the Continental Hotel, that iconic establishment of the assassin world.

He knew all too well that after the sniper attack on Downing Street that had shocked all of the United Kingdom, every underground-world hideout would be watched around the clock by the security services.

He chose a business hotel called the Oak Hotel, located on the edge of the financial district. Its guests were all employees of multinational corporations struggling with jet lag.

After swiping his card and entering, Beta latched the door chain, drew the blackout curtains, and took a laptop from his suitcase.

He inserted the USB Drive, and faint blue ripples spread across the screen. A triple-encrypted chat interface appeared as expected, its black background holding nothing but a cursor blinking steadily.

Beta leaned back in his chair. A cup of coffee that had long gone cold sat on the table.

One hour and seventeen minutes later, the system emitted a soft beep.

The file's decryption progress bar raced across the screen, and an ID photo appeared: short blond hair, gray-blue eyes, and a jawline with distinctly Anglo-Saxon features.

In twelve-point font beneath the photo was written: Elliot Doyle, a direct relative of a Chief Superintendent at Scotland Yard.

Beta's fingertips lightly brushed across the screen.

This intelligence, worth six figures in US dollars, provided every answer in the simplest possible manner.

MI6 headquarters conference room.

Meva Lake, the operations team leader responsible for the Downing Street shooting, sat across from the head of the counterterrorism department. Thick case files lay scattered over the conference table before them.

On the enormous projection screen, the director of the BND's Munich branch was connected through an encrypted video link.

"Just seventy-two hours ago, a similar case occurred in Munich." The German adjusted his glasses. "The range was 3,815 meters—fifteen meters farther than your London case."

The British director frowned deeply. "You mean it was the work of the same shooter?"

The German on the screen shook his head. "No. There are obvious differences in the methods. The Munich case used an untraceable homemade sniper system, while your man—"

He paused. "—used standard-issue equipment, although there are glaring problems with its registration records."

The British director narrowed his eyes. "So? You didn't activate an encrypted channel just to share case details, did you?"

The German feed trembled slightly as the man adjusted his posture. "We have identified the Munich shooter's codename: Jackal."

He pulled up an encrypted file. "We formally request your assistance in screening the files of all active and retired military and police personnel, focusing on suspicious individuals capable of extreme-range sniper kills beyond 3,800 meters. Based on ballistic analysis and behavioral characteristics at the scene, the shooter codenamed Jackal is highly likely to have a British background. In details such as shell-casing drop points and retreat routes, we found the classic operational style of the SAS."

The British director slapped his pen against the table. "So you went through all this trouble to open an encrypted channel just to dump Munich's mess on our heads? Tell me, Mr. Schneider, is this how your BND handles cases now—with such absurd speculation? Huh?"

The German intelligence officer fell silent for several seconds. His fingers rapidly tapped over the keyboard before he transmitted another encrypted file. "We have also confirmed the identity of the shooter in the Downing Street shooting. For now, of course, only the codename."

The British director opened the file. A nearly blank dossier appeared on the screen. Apart from the solitary Greek letter "β" in the center of the page, the entire file was infuriatingly clean.

The German intelligence officer explained, "The professional assassin codenamed Beta has sniper capabilities that have surpassed the performance limits of conventional weapons."

He brought up a 3D ballistic model. "In the 2018 Egypt case, he used a Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mk I rifle. That World War II relic had an effective range of only eight hundred meters, yet he set a record with a kill directly between the eyebrows from nine hundred and ten meters away."

The surveillance footage switched to the streets of Casablanca, where the bulletproof window of a Mercedes-Benz displayed spiderweb cracks.

"Pay attention to the angle of this impact point." The German circled the shattered center with a laser pointer. "In 2020, he used a Mosin-Nagant M1891/30 rifle with an antique four-power PU scope to hit a moving target traveling at seventy-two kilometers per hour from seven hundred and eighty-five meters away."

On the ballistic analysis diagram, an exaggerated arc stood out sharply.

"In Johannesburg, South Africa, the De Lisle carbine's muzzle velocity was only subsonic." He enlarged the 3D impact diagram. "At a distance of six hundred and forty-four meters, the bullet dropped twelve meters, yet it still penetrated the top of the target's skull."

In the crime-scene photograph, the path of the second bullet through a chaotic crowd was marked with a red line. "Despite interference from seventeen moving obstacles, the second shot still precisely struck the lethal point two and a half centimeters from the target's brow."

Finally, he pulled up a world map, with dense red dots covering every continent. "From 2022 to 2024, there were thirty-seven extreme-range sniper killings worldwide matching these characteristics."

The laser pointer drew a circle across the map. "We strongly suspect they were all Beta's work."

The German intelligence officer brought up a comparative analysis of the two cases, the laser pointer's red dot tracing a clear path across the screen. "According to your country's media reports on the Thames Hotel case—"

He enlarged a close-up of the bullet hole. "Two .50 BMG armor-piercing rounds struck the exact same point with millimeter-level deviation, penetrating Level IV bulletproof glass."

The display switched to a ballistic simulation. "The Downing Street case was even more astounding. From 3,800 meters away, a single .338 Lapua round found and locked onto a viable aiming area only 2.5 centimeters in diameter amid a crowd."

The surveillance footage froze on the instant the target fell. "Both cases displayed Beta's signature method: completing surgical-precision sniper kills under theoretically impossible conditions."

Meva Lake pressed her pen against her lower lip. "So your conclusion is that Beta is essentially a living ballistic computer who ignores weapon performance specifications? Hand him any fire poker with a scope, and he can use it as an anti-materiel rifle?"

The German intelligence officer adjusted his glasses. "One correction: as long as it meets the three basic requirements—rifling, a firing mechanism, and optical sights—in Beta's hands, it becomes an invitation from Death."