The Puppeteer's Game

Chapter 13

Echoes and Triggers

The operations room was quiet but tense. The chaos of the night before had settled—papers restacked, screens dimmed, coffee mugs half-full. Morning light sliced through the blinds, casting sharp shadows over manila folders and smudged notes. The hum of machines and rustle of pages filled the space. Not calm—focused. Coiled.

Miguel stood at the head of the table, arms folded, the cluttered whiteboard behind him ignored. Today wasn't about screens. It was about paper—maps, logs, and yellowed ledgers. No laptops. No filters. Just the weight of what had surfaced.

He tapped the file's cover, his voice low and clipped. "Cross-referenced names from Leal's known network. People who rotated through program sites between 2009 and 2015. Operatives, handlers, admin. Most disappeared into shell companies. A few were retired. Some... weren't."

Across from him, Emily flipped through a dog-eared memo, eyes narrowing. "You think they knew what they were part of?"

"Some did," Miguel said, not looking up. "Some didn't care enough to ask."

Monteverde bent over the map, his finger following a faded red line that stretched from a training compound in Iloilo to a closed rehab unit in Baguio. "Same supply trail," he muttered. "Sedatives, biometric cuffs, surveillance gear—orders disguised as civilian outreach."

Miguel gave a tight nod. "It's a pattern. Looks like humanitarian aid, acts like conditioning. These weren't tools for recovery. They were instruments of control."

Emily looked up. "Designed to shape behavior."

"That's the spine of it," Miguel said. "We've been looking for rot inside the system. But this wasn't a corruption. This was the design. Built to classify, monitor—erase."

Silence lingered, broken only by the rustle of pages and the quiet squeak of a marker against the whiteboard. Still bent over his file, Ramos adjusted his glasses and spoke without lifting his gaze.

"There's a name that repeats across the earliest drafts. Program proposals, budget memos, relocation approvals—never as a lead. Just a signature. Tomas Garrido."

Miguel froze. The name didn't shock him—it resurfaced like a memory he'd tried to bury.

"I know him."

Emily's head snapped toward him. "How?"

"My first year," he said, voice measured. "He kept to himself. Came from Internal Intelligence, low profile. Seemed like a paper-pusher—always logging, rarely speaking."

Monteverde raised his eyes. "Maybe a profiler. Watching us while we watched them."

Miguel's tone was cold. "Or marking people to be watched later."

He turned to an old Rolodex on the side table—faded tech from another time—and rifled through it with practiced fingers. Then he stopped, holding up a yellowed card.

"Tomas Garrido," he said. "Last flagged in Tanay, Rizal. Clearance revoked four years ago. Nothing on record since."

Emily stood by the window, sunlight spilling through. "So what now?"

Miguel slid the card into his pocket, voice cold and steady. "Now we find him."

The room felt different. No longer chasing shadows—they were closing in.

***

In a dim garage miles away, Tomas's voice faltered. Sweat clung to his brow as dust thickened around him. Then he went still. Head tilted, birdlike, toward the narrow window. Miguel noticed the shift—the breath caught mid-air.