Collateral

Detective Leon Mercier had been deep undercover for almost a decade. So deep that sometimes he forgot who he was supposed to be. He lived a life built on lies, scaffolding his false identity with convincing details—chief among them, two adopted daughters. On paper, it made him believable. In truth, it made him guilty.

One of the girls—Mira—had died three years ago. The report said “natural causes,” but Leon wasn’t so sure. The other, Lise, was growing into a sharp-eyed teenager with questions she never quite asked out loud. She knew something was wrong. She watched him too closely. Her silences were heavy.

He told himself they were collateral. Necessary illusions. It was just too bad.

Leon didn’t have keys. Not to buildings, not to homes, not even to the place he called home. He slipped in through windows, found cracked fire doors, waited in stairwells until someone buzzed in. He slept rough often, curled behind bins or in abandoned cars, waiting for access, waiting for timing. He moved like a shadow cast by a different life.

Today he crouched near the back of a university research complex—except it wasn’t a university. Not really. It was a shell for something darker: a clandestine scientific program rumored to be developing either a virus or a bomb—no one seemed entirely sure.

Inside, he moved like a man who belonged. He spoke to lab techs about practical things: transfers to other regions, side deals with contract agencies to adjust wages and avoid suspicion. He knew the bureaucracy so well, he could fake being part of it without blinking. That was his power—intimacy with the mundane.

But today he pushed too far. Someone saw through the questions. The conversation curdled. A whisper. A call. A name spoken that didn’t belong to him.

By the time he made it to the car park, the net was already tightening. He dove into a nondescript Peugeot and roared out onto the road, his burner phone vibrating violently in his jacket.

“Mercier,” a voice hissed. “We're on to you.”

He didn’t answer. In the rearview mirror: a jeep gaining. Driven by a woman with cropped hair and cold purpose. She was after him—he knew her type. Not police. Not military. Something between.

He veered hard, tried to ram her off the road, but she was quicker, cleaner. She peeled away into the traffic. Gone.

Moments later, out of options, he pulled into a petrol station. Adrenaline was a buzz in his throat. A woman had just finished refueling her MX5, keys in hand, ready for her morning shift.

Leon strode up, calm but urgent.

“200,000 euros for your car. Right now.”

She blinked. Smiled. Nodded.

He handed over the duffel bag, climbed into the driver’s side, crawled across the seats, and exited on the other side—abandoning the vehicle entirely. The move was a feint, a misdirection. The car was a decoy.

Then he was gone, slipping down narrow side streets, through markets and alleys, into the layered anonymity of the city. He knew how to disappear. It was what he was best at.

Behind him, the gas station camera rolled silently, watching the ghost vanish into a world that would spend years trying to find him.