I. The 0600 Briefing (Old Dominion Administrative Zone)
The highway sign over Interstate 64 just past Battlefield Boulevard had three languages on it: English, Cyrillic, and the jagged municipal runes of the New Eurasian Security Directorate. Underneath the speed limit, someone had spray-painted: THE TSAR CAN SUCK MY DICK.
Levon “Leo” Vance sat in the idling engine of an unmarked 2022 Chevy Caprice—retrofitted with Soviet surplus catalytic converters that rattled like a coffee can full of drywall screws—and reviewed his morning schedule on a greasy clipboard:
- 07:00 AM: File 800 words for the Chesapeake Herald-Patriot praising Sector Governor Volkov’s new municipal pothole initiative.
- 09:30 AM: Lead a narcotics raid on a Bratva-affiliated synthetic meth lab in Portsmouth as Senior Detective Vance, Metropolitan Enforcement Division.
- 01:15 PM: Dead-drop satellite telemetry of the same meth lab to an encrypted Langley relay buoy bobbing off Cape Henry (CIA Special Activities Division, Class of ’22).
- 04:00 PM: Meet the Tidewater Freedom Front in the basement of an abandoned Arby’s to distribute the assault rifles seized during the 09:30 AM raid.
- 06:30 PM: Performance review with Commissar-Captain Golyitsyn.
Leo rubbed his eyes. The windshield wipers smeared dead marsh-flies across the glass.
“I miss 2024,” Leo muttered to his coffee. “Back when the Agency just overthrew normal democracies and you only had one W-2.”
His center console held four distinct wallets, each wrapped in a different colored rubber band so he didn’t accidentally hand his CIA diplomatic credentials to a state trooper or flash his partisan guerrilla manifesto to the editor-in-chief.
The dashboard radio clicked twice. A low, gravelly voice rasped through a scrambled military frequency:
“Unit 44. Vance. Report to the Shipyard gate. Deputy Inspector Voronin has an unregistered cargo manifest. Wear the uniform with the shoulder braids. Not the trench coat. The trench coat makes you look like a bourgeois revisionist.”
“Ten-four, Dispatch,” Leo said, switching the toggle. “Praise the Union.”
He clicked over to his secondary handheld radio, tuning into the rebel frequency: “Sparrow to Nest. The bear is moving crates at the shipyard. Be in position by noon.”
He grabbed his voice recorder, tapped the microphone, and spoke in his measured, syndicated journalist baritone: “Column draft three: ‘Why the New Order’s Dockside Modernization Brings Family Values Back to Virginia’s Waterfront.’ By Leo Vance…”
He shifted the Caprice into drive. The transmission shrieked in Russian.
II. The Shipyard
The Norfolk drydocks smelled of diesel exhaust, brackish estuary water, and boiling cabbage from the garrison cafeteria.
Deputy Inspector Voronin was a six-foot-four Siberian transfer with a titanium plate in his jaw and a trench coat that could double as a circus tent. He was leaning against a shipping container stenciled with the double-headed imperial eagle and a cartoon depiction of an armored bear crushing the US Constitution.
“Vance,” Voronin grunted, blowing cigarette smoke into the drizzle. “You look like shit.”
“I was up late. The morning edition, sir,” Leo said, snapping a crisp, regulation-approved half-salute that ended in an awkward chest tap.
“Good. The press must remain vigilant against subversives,” Voronin spat on the wet asphalt. “Look at this container. Inside are two thousand crates of high-grade Baltic Krokodil and twelve pallets of phased-plasma night optics stolen from the old DARPA depot in Richmond.”
“A terrible blight upon our youth,” Leo said solemnly.
“A three-million-dollar distribution deal is what it is,” Voronin corrected, tapping the crate with his steel-toed boot. “The local Bratva faction wants sixty percent. I told them forty. You are going to take the Interdiction squad, raid the warehouse in Suffolk, execute the bookkeeper, and bring the trucks back here to the Directorate lot. Then we split the cut.”
“Consider it secured, Inspector. For the glory of the State.”
“And Vance?” Voronin narrowed his pale, dead eyes. “Station chief says there is a holdover CIA officer running around with a 2019-era burst transceiver. If you find him, shoot him in the knees, get his cipher pads, then shoot him in the teeth.”
“I will personally dismantle him,” Leo promised.
III. The Dead Drop and the Deadline
At 11:45 AM, Leo sat in a booth at a diner on Military Highway that had been converted into a state-run tea house.
He was typing frantically on a 2022 Chromebook that was daisy-chained to a shortwave ham radio and a police scanner.
With his left hand, he typed his column for the newspaper:
“…Under the steady leadership of the Joint Eurasian Command, maritime logistics in the Tidewater basin have reached unprecedented efficiencies. Local citizens report feeling safer, cleaner, and more aligned with historical destiny…”
With his right hand, he punched 128-bit hex codes into the CIA burst transmitter:
TO: LANGLEY_REMNANT_OPS_BUNKER_OMEGA
FROM: CASPER_06
SUBJECT: WEAPONS SEIZURE / SHIPYARD INTERCEPT
TARGET VORONIN IS RUNNING DARPA OPTICS THROUGH SUFFOLK HUB. WILL INTERCEPT WITH REBEL CELL DURING POLICE RAID. REQUESTING EXTRACTION PROTOCOL 4.
The transceiver chirped three seconds later with Langley’s automated reply:
ACKNOWLEDGED CASPER_06. EXTRACTION PROTOCOL 4 DENIED. BLACK BUDGET INSUFFICIENT. YOU ARE AUTHORIZED TO MAINTAIN COVER UNTIL 2032. GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES.
“Incredible,” Leo whispered. “The country doesn’t even exist anymore and the federal government is still cutting travel per diems.”
His phone buzzed. It was Marcus, the managing editor of the Herald-Patriot.
“Vance! Where is the op-ed on the potato harvest?”
“Filing it now, Marcus. I was out conducting deep-background interviews on the cultural degradation of imported rock music.”
“Make it punchy! The Kommandant reads the lifestyle section during his morning sauna. If he doesn’t see at least three mentions of collective triumph, he’s going to audit our newsprint ration!”
“Writing it with tears of socialist-nationalist joy in my eyes, boss.”
IV. The Suffolk Warehouse
By 3:30 PM, the Suffolk industrial park was cloaked in heavy gray fog.
Leo arrived early in his Caprice, popped the trunk, and threw on a mismatched tactical rig: a blue Metropolitan Police raid jacket over an OD-green guerrilla combat harness, a press pass laminated around his neck, and a CIA-issue suppressed SIG Sauer in his holster.
The back door of the abandoned cold-storage facility creaked open. Six armed partisans from the Tidewater Freedom Front stepped out from behind a row of rusted refrigeration units. They were led by a fierce, grease-stained mechanic named Sarah.
“Commander Vance,” Sarah whispered, raising her rifle. “Is the raid on?”
“Listen to me carefully,” Leo said, adopting his stern, gravelly Revolutionary Commander voice. “In eight minutes, Detective Vance of the Metro Narcotics Task Force—who is an incompetent, corrupt lackey—will breach the front gates with three armored tactical vans.”
Sarah blinked.
“When the shooting starts, you and the cell will hit the rear loading docks, secure the DARPA optics from the second container, and load them into your flatbed. The police will be distracted because Vance will intentionally throw a flashbang into his own squad’s windshield.”
“Who is writing the report on this?” one of the rebels asked, scratching his beard.
“Leo Vance, Senior Crime Correspondent for the Herald-Patriot,” Leo said without missing a beat. “He will report that the warehouse was destroyed by rogue Ukrainian saboteurs operating on behalf of the remnants of NATO. That gives Voronin an excuse for the lost inventory, keeps the police squad from being executed for gross negligence, and allows the CIA to log this as a successful localized insurgent interdiction.”
Sarah stared at him for five unbroken seconds.
“Leo,” she said gently. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Sarah, I have been working seventy-two hours straight across four payrolls. If this raid doesn’t go off precisely on schedule, I am going to miss my quarterly review with the Kommandant, fail my CIA field fitness audit, get fired from the newspaper, and you guys won’t get your night-vision scopes. Now get in the fuckin’ truck.”
V. The Masterpiece
At 3:38 PM, the Metro Police tactical vans smashed through the perimeter fence with sirens wailing in half-step minor keys. Leo was behind the wheel of the lead unit, shouting orders through the megaphone: “Surrender in the name of the Directorate! Drop your weapons and embrace administrative compliance!”
At the same moment, the Bratva sentries opened fire with heavy machine guns.
Leo rolled out of the driver’s seat, kicked open the side door, tossed a smoke grenade toward the police perimeter, and sprinted around the north corner of the building. He ripped off his police windbreaker to reveal his olive-drab partisan smock, grabbed a bullpup rifle from behind a dumpster, and fired three controlled bursts into the air to signal Sarah’s flatbed.
“Rebels! For the Commonwealth!” Leo roared, waving the truck through the bay doors.
As Sarah’s crew loaded the crates, Leo pulled his digital SLR camera from his shoulder bag, snapped four high-resolution action photos of the burning warehouse for tomorrow’s front page, and pulled out his encrypted satellite uplink to ping Langley:
OPERATION ACTIVE. ENEMY SUSTAINING MASSIVE LOGISTICAL COLLAPSE. REQUEST OVERTIME AUTHORIZATION.
Voronin’s black Volga screeched into the lot, tires smoking. The Deputy Inspector kicked his door open, leveling a heavy automatic shotgun.
“Vance!” Voronin yelled through the gunfire. “What is happening?!”
Leo sprinted back over, threw his police jacket back over his shoulders, put his press notebook in his teeth, and slid across the hood of the Volga.
“Inspector! It was an ambush!” Leo shouted, panting with genuine, unfeigned exhaustion. “A joint strike! CIA commandos coordinated with local extremist partisans! I managed to shoot three of their vehicles, but they detonated the meth stills to cover their retreat! I documented the whole atrocity for the morning press!”
Voronin looked at the flaming ruins, then at the camera around Leo’s neck, then at Leo’s smoldering police jacket.
He slowly lowered his shotgun and let out a long, appreciative sigh.
“Good work, Detective,” Voronin grunted. “Did we save the optics?”
“Tragically destroyed in the fireball, sir,” Leo said, as Sarah’s flatbed vanished into the fog two miles down Route 58 carrying every single crate. “Not a trace left. But I have an exclusive interview with you scheduled for the front page about your heroic counter-assault.”
Voronin beamed. “Make sure you mention that I personally killed their leader.”
“He died screaming your name, Inspector.”
VI. The Evening Log
At 9:30 PM, Levon Vance sat in his one-bedroom apartment over an auto-body shop in Greenbrier.
The television was broadcasting the evening state news. On the screen, a picture of Leo Vance was shown shaking hands with Commissar-Captain Golyitsyn under the headline: METRO DETECTIVE FOILS IMPERIALIST SABOTAGE IN SUFFOLK; FILES PULITZER-WORTHY REPORT.
Leo sat at his kitchen table in his underwear.
On the left side of the table was a check from the Municipal Police Department.
Next to it was a direct-deposit slip for his syndicated newspaper column.
Next to that was a crate of DARPA night-vision scopes with a thank-you note from the Resistance.
And in the center of the table was an encrypted pager from the CIA that read:
CONGRATULATIONS ON THE REVOLUTIONARY GAINS, CASPER_06. YOUR DENTAL COVERAGE HAS BEEN REINSTATED.
Leo took a sip of lukewarm tap water, picked up a pen, and pulled out his planner for tomorrow.
“06:30 AM,” he muttered, writing it down. “Organize a protest against myself outside the precinct. 08:00 AM: Disperse the protest with tear gas. 10:00 AM: Condemn the police brutality in an editorial. 12:00 PM: Bill the CIA for the tear gas canisters…”
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling, exhaling his anxieties into the nothing.