Chapter 184: James Conley

"I’m talking about a soldier willing to die to prevent a bioweapon from reaching the open market."

Mike’s laugh was bitter.

"Just like that? You’re going to find someone desperate enough to volunteer for intentional infection?"

"Yes." Dimitri pulled up another file, a dossier with a photograph. "Because I already have someone in mind."

The man in the photo was early forties. Strong. Scarred. The kind of face that came from a lifetime of violence. ℯℯ𝑙.

"Tell me about him," Mike said.

"Name’s James Conley. Former Marine. Force Recon. Served three tours in Afghanistan. Came to work for me five years ago. He’s one of my best soldiers." Dimitri expanded the dossier. "Here’s the important part, he was wounded in 2014. Gunshot to the abdomen. Perforated intestines. According to medical records, he should have died or at minimum spent months recovering."

"But he didn’t."

"He recovered in three weeks. Fully functional. No complications. His immune system is approximately four hundred percent more efficient than baseline human immunity."

Mike understood immediately.

"If anyone can survive The Covenant’s viral trials...."

"It’s him." Dimitri closed the dossier. "He’s volunteering. I’m going to brief him in an hour."

"He doesn’t know yet."

"No. I wanted to talk to you first. Get your perspective. You’re my partner in this as much as I am."

Mike sat back down, processed everything.

The missing people. The bioweapon. The plan to infiltrate.

The reality that one of their soldiers would almost certainly die.

"What’s your contingency?" Mike asked. "If he gets trapped inside? If he can’t get out?"

"Then he goes down fighting. And he takes as many of them with him as possible." Dimitri’s voice was cold. "But that’s not the plan. The plan is he gathers intelligence on facility layout, security protocols, personnel, timeline. He sends encrypted messages through dead drops. And when we have enough information, we move."

"How long?"

"Best case? Two weeks. He gets inside, establishes patterns, identifies security vulnerabilities. Then we hit them hard and fast."

"Worst case?"

"They figure out he’s a spy. He dies. We lose our only inside source. And we have to find another way to stop them."

Mike nodded slowly.

"And if we can’t stop them? If they release the bioweapon?"

"Then thousands of people die. Thousands of families are destroyed. And we spend the rest of our lives knowing we had the chance to prevent it and failed."

The weight of that settled between them.

A choice between losing one soldier and losing thousands of civilians.

It was always an easy calculus in their world.

The one always lost.

"Okay," Mike said finally. "I’m in. I’ll help with planning, logistics, communication protocols. Whatever you need."

"Thank you."

"Don’t thank me yet. We don’t know if this will work." Mike paused. "But Dimitri.....this is bigger than Antonio. Bigger than the Romanos. This is actually important."

"Yes."

"So we do this right. We do this carefully. And we make sure that when we take them down, we take them down completely."

A knock at the door interrupted them.

Marco entered with someone behind him.

James Conley.

He was wearing civilian clothes, but you could see the soldier in the way he moved. The careful awareness of his surroundings. The controlled power.

"Boss," Marco said. "This is...."

"I know who it is." Dimitri gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Sit, James."

James sat, his eyes sharp and intelligent as he looked between Dimitri and Mike.

"This is about The Covenant," he said. Not a question.

Dimitri blinked.

"You already know?"

"I suspected when Marco called and asked me to come in at this hour." James’s lips curved slightly. "I’ve been waiting for you to give me a reason to take the fight to them. Now you’re going to."

Mike looked at Dimitri.

Dimitri looked at James.

And saw exactly what he needed.

A man who’d already made peace with the possibility of his own death.

***

POV: MIKE

Dimitri briefed James on everything.

The missing persons. The facility. The bioweapon. The plan.

James listened without interrupting, his expression never changing.

When Dimitri finished, James was quiet for a long moment.

Then: "Timeline?"

"You volunteer within the week. They screen you, accept you, bring you in. Probably within ten to fourteen days of your initial contact."

"And once I’m inside?"

"You gather intelligence on facility layout, personnel, security protocols, testing schedules. Anything that helps us understand how they operate." Dimitri pulled up a device on his desk....small, sophisticated, barely larger than a grain of rice. "This is your primary communication tool. Encrypted, undetectable on standard security scans. You embed it somewhere safe. Once every forty-eight hours, you activate it and transmit data to a dead drop. Marco’s team retrieves it."

"What’s my exit strategy?"

Dimitri and James exchanged a look.

"There isn’t one," Dimitri said quietly. "Not built in. You’re going in to gather intelligence until we have enough to move against the facility. Once we move, you’ll either be able to get out, or...."

"I don’t make it out," James finished. "I understand."

"You don’t have to do this," Dimitri said. "I can find someone else. Give someone else this mission."

"No, you can’t." James leaned back in his chair. "You need someone who will survive the initial infection. Someone whose immune system won’t immediately reject whatever they pump into me. Someone who can think clearly while sick enough to look authentic to their medical observers." James smiled slightly. "That’s me. That’s been me since Afghanistan when I should have died but didn’t."

Mike listened to the exchange and understood what he was watching.

Two men who’d accepted mortality. Who understood that sometimes the only meaningful choice was how you died.

"How many people are we talking about in the facility?" James asked.

"Unknown. Marco estimates minimum fifty, maximum three hundred. Scientists, military personnel, security."

"And they’re deliberately infecting people with experimental bioweapons."

"Yes."

James nodded.

"Then I’m going in," he said simply. "I’ll gather your intelligence. I’ll help you take them down. And if I don’t come out...." He shrugged. "Then at least I’ll have done something that mattered."