The DCI’s office was quiet the next morning, but the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Emily and Karim stood before DCI Hicks, who was not yelling, which in his case was worse than a shouting match. The escape of the primary suspects had ramifications.
"We had them," Hicks said, his voice dangerously low. "A high-risk operation, and they slip through our fingers using a smoke grenade in a derelict warehouse." He leaned forward, staring directly at Karim. "We have a leak, Khan. Someone on the inside fed them intel about our movements."
Karim straightened, his face tight. "Sir, I can assure you, no one on my immediate team—"
"Save it," Hicks interrupted sharply. "The surveillance on Thorne’s house was compromised. The moment we started the East London raid, they knew we were coming. There are only a handful of people in this building who had the full operational details. We're launching an internal investigation."
Emily felt a chill that had nothing to do with the office air conditioning. The thought of a mole within the Met was unsettling, but the focus needed to be on Al-Jamil. "Sir, the accomplice, 'The Keeper'—we suspect it's Elias Thorne himself, manipulating Croft. The emails prove a two-person operation with Thorne as the mastermind."
Hicks dismissed her argument with a wave. "Thorne is under surveillance. He hasn't moved an inch from his house, according to the team. He's making phone calls, organizing his lecture for the event, playing the victim. He's clean."
"He's clever, sir," Karim countered. "He's probably using Croft as a proxy."
"We need proof, not just theories," Hicks said, pointing a finger at them both. "The internal investigation starts now. Until further notice, you two are off the Al-Jamil case. You are restricted to desk duty until we clear the air."
The suspension felt like a physical blow. They were so close.
Dejected, Emily and Karim returned to their desks, the entire office buzzing with hushed whispers. The atmosphere of trust had evaporated. They couldn't work on the main case, but they could still work on the case.
"Thorne is the Keeper," Emily whispered to Karim, pulling out her personal laptop. "Hicks is wrong. Thorne is controlling this remotely."
They went through the evidence again, focusing on the mysterious figure at the cafe and the warehouse. The description was always vague: average height, average build, a large hat, long coat. Anyone could fit that description.
Then Emily had a revelation. "The accomplice isn't Thorne, Karim. Thorne is the mastermind, but 'The Keeper' is someone else entirely."
She pulled up a photo from the initial interview with Tariq Al-Jamil's family. A picture of his daughter, Sara, hugging her father.
"Look," Emily said, zooming in on a detail in the background, a corkboard in the hallway. Pinned to it was a calendar with "The Interfaith Event" circled in red ink, and a sticky note next to it.
Karim squinted, reading the note. "'Sara: Cafe meet Friday. Need to discuss logistics. Discreet.'"
"Sara?" Karim was stunned. "The daughter? But she was distraught, she was cooperative..."
"It’s the perfect cover," Emily stated, a cold knot forming in her stomach. "She was the 'mysterious figure' at the cafe. She knew about her father's research, the agenda, everything. She was the one who manipulated her father into trusting her with sensitive details, feeding information to Thorne and Croft."
The betrayal was immense. The person closest to the victim was the accomplice. The internal leak wasn't within the police force; the source had been in the Al-Jamil house all along.
