Chapter 81

WISE pursuers corner the fleeing traitor only to be dismantled with ease. The man is Winston Wheeler of the agency's intelligence communication division, now unmasked as a long-embedded operative for Ostania's spy apparatus and the probable architect of the recent purge of Western agents. Briefed alongside Fiona, Loid vouches for Wheeler's skill from a mission the two shared before his Ostania posting. Intelligence gathered through WISE's own plants inside Eastern bureaus places Wheeler's SSS rendezvous at a Shellbury hotel, up in the country's northwest.

Loid connects the emergency to Yuri abruptly abandoning his tail earlier, and he assumes the SSS has already flooded the area with agents. Fiona proposes freezing every active operation in Ostania, Strix among them, but Loid overrules her: pulling back now would end any hope of reaching Donovan Desmond, and the Handler's orders are to recover the files. In Shellbury, Yuri's plainclothes unit arrives by train, aware the operation lacks council approval, apparently because the current administration wants no visible hand in the theft of Western secrets. The Lieutenant orders his officers to stay inconspicuous and notes that the mission doubles as a prime chance to catch Twilight should he appear.

The disguised WISE team patrols near the hotel under assigned code names, with Loid designated Red 1 and tasked with stalling the SSS. Wheeler, however, is watching from a rooftop after cleaning himself up at a motel. He walks up to Yuri on the street, confirms his identity through his appearance and dress, warns of a serious "rat problem" at the hotel, and reschedules the meeting for a park in thirty minutes. Fiona and her partner wait in vain at the hotel, realizing their quarry has slipped the net, while SSS agents welcome Wheeler at the new location.

The thief of WISE's secret files is confirmed as Winston Wheeler, a deep-cover Ostanian agent blamed for the recent spy purge, and Loid reveals a past working relationship with him. Fiona's push to suspend all Ostanian operations is rejected, keeping Operation Strix alive.

Wheeler outmaneuvers both agencies at Shellbury, spotting the WISE stakeout from above, verifying his SSS contact through Yuri, and moving the handoff to a park where Eastern agents receive him while Fiona's team watches the wrong building.

This chapter marks Winston Wheeler's debut and confirms him as the traitor teased in Chapter 80. Gascoigne, an SSS officer involved in the operation, also appears for the first time, and WISE is shown to run informants of its own inside Eastern bureaus.