Robert sat in the basement.
The indoor temperature in New York that December was barely above ten degrees Celsius. The battered heating pipes rattled, but he felt no cold.
He stared fixedly at the laptop before him, with seventeen tabs open in the browser.
Every page, news site, and social media feed was frantically refreshing with the same word.
Ceasefire.
Robert's breathing grew heavy.
He watched the video of security dragging Kozlov out of the shareholders' meeting from beginning to end for the fifth time.
The first time, he had been stunned by the sheer volume of information-offshore accounts, shell companies, and top-secret contract numbers.
All of it was hard evidence capable of bringing the Supreme Court to a standstill.
The second time, he had grasped the tight pacing: three people on the same day.
Intervals of precisely four hours and six hours, with each revelation more substantial than the last.
Until Popov's final email had exposed the entire inner workings of the global mercenary system.
The third time, his instincts as a former federal prosecutor had kicked in, and he had keenly sensed something was wrong.
This was no assassination.
This was a trial.
Robert had spent fourteen years as a prosecutor.
He knew this process all too well: present irrefutable evidence, force the defendants to confess in their own words, then bring down the gavel and pronounce them guilty.
The procedure was complete and rigorous, its logic perfectly airtight.
The only difference was that this trial had neither a courtroom nor lawyers.
The judge remained in the shadows, and the defendants paid for their confessions with their lives.
But so what?
The result was a ceasefire.
Those warlords who had still been signing bombing orders yesterday.
Today, every one of them had retreated into a bunker. The politicians