All internal references to Locke Tower are to be updated to House of Windsor.
External legal records may continue using the former designation where required.
Do not correct Militech paperwork. Do not correct campaign paperwork. Do not correct old donor ledgers.

So the old name stays buried in their systems?

The old name opens doors the new one cannot.

The Ashcroft matter has been resolved.

Confirmed. No further action required. Remove it from the outstanding items log.

And Lady Ashcroft is aware of the resolution?

Lady Ashcroft handled the resolution herself. That is why it is resolved.

This channel is now under new management. Treat all previous admin messages as archived. I will use this channel for formal announcements only. Everything else goes through the appropriate board.

Confirmed dead: Lord Mountbatten. Adrian Locke. Viktor Hale. Damon Ainsley. Three security personnel. Two catering staff caught in the gas.
Drenshaw — confirmed dead separately. Appears to have been a direct hit, not collateral.

The Exec Zone perimeter is in full Militech lockdown. We are inside House of Windsor but we cannot move. No product. No meetings. Nobody in or out without Militech clearance. We own the building and we are prisoners in it.

Who did this.

Investigation ongoing. Preliminary assessment suggests a coordinated professional operation. Multiple skill sets. Not a gang hit.

The Irish?

Possibly. That is the working narrative.

Working narrative. You are not certain.

We are certain enough for public purposes.

I am taking command. If anyone has a problem with that they can say it now.

No problem here.

Understood.

Good. Mountbatten built something. I am going to finish it. Differently, but finished.
First order: nobody talks to Militech without going through me. They are going cold on us. I want to know everything they say before I decide what we do about it.

Drenshaw remains the preferred civic candidate. He will be positioned as law-and-order. Pro-security. Corporate-aligned without being explicit about it.

He dislikes being handled.

Candidates often do.

And if he wins?

Then the city gets a mayor who understands security. And we get a mayor who understands what understanding security means.

You want our men visible when it scares the Irish, invisible when it embarrasses you.

Correct.

That is a difficult operational balance to maintain.

It is what we are paying for.

Militech is suspending active liaison pending internal review of the Locke Tower incident. This channel will remain monitored but MIL-OBS will not be actively participating.

Suspending. Not closing.

Correct.

Then we will be here when you decide you need us again.

Here is where we are. Mountbatten is dead. Locke is dead. The building is locked down. The Exec Zone formalisation never completed. The campaign is finished. Drenshaw is dead.
Here is what we still have. The organisation. The people. The files. And the deal Mountbatten made — most of it — is still in place.

The asset transfer completed before the incident. Militech have what they paid for.

Then they owe us. The Exec Zone residency was the other half of that deal. It did not happen. That is leverage.
Militech are going cold on us right now. Fine. Let them go cold. They will remember what they took from us when they want something else.

Mountbatten spent forty years building toward this city. The plan was always the Exec Zone. Stability. A base.

Mountbatten's plan was tidy. It was patient. It was forty years of patience and it ended with him dead on a floor and the rest of us locked inside a building we own and cannot leave without asking Militech for permission.
I am not patient. We do not need the Exec Zone as our base of operations. We need Little Europe. That is where the money is. That is where the trade is. That is where we build something that does not depend on Militech clearance to walk out the front door.

Mountbatten was against Little Europe. He thought it was too aggressive too soon.

Mountbatten is not here to be against things anymore.

One more thing. The warheads. Mountbatten handed over working nuclear warheads to Militech. Stripped from the Trident submarines. Gave them away as part of the deal for a building.
A building we are locked inside while Militech decides what to do with us.

The transfer was complete before the incident. Militech have them.

I know Militech have them. That is my point. We had nuclear weapons. We traded nuclear weapons for a property arrangement that collapsed six hours after it was signed.
Mountbatten called it leverage. He called it a gesture of good faith. He called it the price of a seat at the table.
We gave away the only thing in this city nobody could have taken from us.

What would you have done with them.

Kept them. You do not spend leverage. You hold it.

Hale is asking for guarantees on the Little Europe routes.

He gets access, not guarantees. He is already paid.

He will push on this. He is not the kind of man who accepts access without assurance.

Then remind him what happened to the last arms dealer who pushed on things he had no stake in.

I want it noted that I do not support aggressive expansion into Little Europe at this stage. We have not finished establishing ourselves in the Exec Zone. Moving on Little Europe while we are still dependent on Militech goodwill is premature.

Noted.

The district has fifteen years of entrenched Italian infrastructure. You do not displace that in a quarter. You displace it over years, carefully, by building something they cannot compete with. We are not ready for that.

Also noted.

Pilsk wants protection for SKiV routes through the district. He says his people are being moved on.

Moved on by whom.

Gallo's people. Two SKiV couriers roughed up in the market district. One hospitalised.

He gets protection if he keeps his people quiet and his routes clean. No independent action in Little Europe while the Hale arrangement is active.

And if he talks?

Then he becomes another gang boss who mistook business for status.

He will want something for his silence. Something concrete.

Tell him the routes stay open and he stays breathing. That is concrete enough.

Little Europe is the objective. I want a full operational plan by end of month.
The Italians are the obstacle. Gambino Gallo has run that district for fifteen years. He is not going to give it up because we ask nicely.

We have the Bianchi files.

Tell me what they give us.

Three senior figures under Gallo. Documented. Acquisition records, movement logs, two confirmed contract arrangements that were never meant to exist on paper. The kind of material that puts people away for years.
We use it as leverage. We tell Gallo to step aside or his people go down. He steps aside, we move in. His organisation is weakened, we take the vacuum.

And if he does not step aside.

Then three of his senior people go away for a very long time. Either way we get the foothold.

Good. The Italians are not the only angle. The Irish route through Little Europe is active. We let them keep using it — for now. It keeps them pointed at the Italians instead of us. When we move on the district we can blame the disruption on the Irish. Two problems, one solution.

The community infrastructure is the harder problem. The Italian families have run the market district for a generation. Remove Gallo and you still have fifty years of loyalty to replace.

Loyalty follows money. When the money moves, loyalty moves. We are not here to be loved. We are here to be the only option.

And the Bianchi files — how did Mountbatten acquire them.

He spent forty years collecting things that could be used. That was the part of him I respected.
He just never used any of it. I will.

Mountbatten would have handled this differently.

Mountbatten is dead. I handle it the way I handle it.

The operational plan is ready for your review.

Send it through the secure drop. Not this channel.

Irish arms continue moving through Little Europe. Volume is increasing.

Let them move. We need the route active for our own purposes.

That changes if they start taking territory rather than just using it.

Then we let them fire first.

And if they do not?

Then they will appear to.

Has this been cleared at the top?

I am the top.

We need an incident. Something that puts the Irish in the frame before we move. Something that holds up to at least superficial scrutiny.

An Irish arms shipment goes missing in the district. Gallo's people get the blame. Irish respond. We step in to restore order.

Gallo will know it was not the Irish.

Gallo will know. He will not be able to prove it. And by the time he works out what happened he will have bigger problems.

The N54 framing helps. If Kincaid runs the Irish angle hard enough before anything happens, every incident reads as confirmation.

Exactly. You prime the audience before the show starts. Then anything that happens fits the story they already believe.

One of the Irish crew has been making contact. Trying to reach someone who will listen. They know they are being set up.

Who are they talking to.

Nobody who matters yet. A fixer. Some street contacts. Nothing that goes anywhere.

Watch it. The moment it goes somewhere, we close it.

And the Irish leadership — do they know what we are planning.

They suspect. Suspicion is not knowledge. Let them suspect. It makes them reactive. Reactive people make mistakes.

Kincaid is asking for direction. N54 needs to run something. The Locke Tower attack is the biggest story in the city.

Irish. The attack was the Irish. That is the story.

Kincaid says there is no evidence pointing to the Irish.

Then he does not need evidence. He needs a narrative. The Irish have been moving weapons through Little Europe. The Irish have a history of conflict with British organisations in Night City. The Irish are a credible story. Tell him to run it.

And if someone pushes back.

Then Kincaid says the investigation is ongoing. That is what journalists say when they do not want to change the story.

He is nervous. Kincaid has never been asked to run something this exposed before.

He was at the dinner. He is already exposed. Remind him of that.

Kincaid confirms the Irish narrative is running. N54 has it as the primary line. Other outlets are following N54's lead.

Good. Tell him we will be in touch about the next phase.

He also mentioned the bounties. Militech released files on a crew they believe were involved. Called themselves something.

The Nice Guys.

You know them.

I know their faces. I know their names. I know what they did to Mountbatten.
Tell Kincaid to keep the Irish story. The Nice Guys are mine.

Kincaid is asking about the Little Europe situation. He wants to know if N54 should be getting ahead of the story before it breaks.

Yes. Irish aggression in the district. Pattern of escalation. Concerned business community. He knows how to write it.

He wants something in writing. Some kind of sourcing he can point to.

Tell him his source is a concerned civic organisation with established Night City ties. He does not need more than that. He never has before.

The other networks are starting to ask questions about N54's sourcing on the Locke Tower story. One of the smaller outlets ran a piece questioning the Irish angle.

Which outlet.

NightWire. Small reach. Probably nothing.

Watch it. Small outlets that ask the right questions have a way of becoming big ones.

Pilsk is a problem. He was at the dinner. He knows the full arrangement — the asset transfer, the Exec Zone deal, Militech's involvement. If he talks to the wrong people that information becomes very dangerous.

What does Pilsk want.

To stay alive, mostly. He has gone quiet since the incident. No contact, no movement on the SKiV routes.

Pilsk is smart enough to know that talking is more dangerous than staying quiet. Leave him alone for now. If he moves — if he makes contact with anyone he should not — then we revisit.
He is more useful scared and silent than dead and investigated.

And the Nice Guys connection. One of the crew has known SMF ties.

Then Pilsk knows more than he has said. Keep watching him.

Pilsk has made contact with an intermediary. Not directly reaching out to anyone, but someone is asking questions on his behalf. Quietly.

Who is the intermediary.

A fixer. Mid-level. Works across Watson and Westbrook. No obvious allegiances.

What kind of questions.

Whether anyone is looking for Pilsk specifically. Whether Militech has flagged him. Whether the Nice Guys are still active.

He is trying to work out how much danger he is in. That means he is still thinking about his options. He has not made a decision yet.

Do we close the fixer.

No. You close the fixer and Pilsk knows he is being watched. Right now he suspects. Suspicion keeps people cautious. Certainty makes them desperate.
Let him ask his questions. Make sure the answers he gets are the ones we want him to have.

What answers do we want him to have.

That Militech has him flagged as a witness. That the Nice Guys are gone or scattered. That the safest thing he can do is exactly what he is already doing — nothing.

Pilsk has gone quiet again. The fixer stopped asking questions three days ago.

Good. Keep the watch on. He does not get to relax just because we have other things to do.

Anyone else concerned about how long these have been active?

The window is what it is. Use them before the next security rotation.

When is the next rotation.

That is not information I am putting on this channel.

And if someone else finds them?

That is why RoyalWire is logged.

What is the current status of the Ginza gate. Can our people still move in and out.

The lockdown tightened after the incident. Militech added a second checkpoint at the roundabout approach. Vehicle IDs are being logged against a pre-approved list.

Are we on the list.

Our registered contractor vehicles are. Personnel movement on foot is being stopped and documented at the gate. Anyone without a current Militech clearance code does not get through.

So we are inside our own building and we need Militech's permission to walk out the front door.

For now. Yes.

This is why Little Europe matters. We cannot run an operation from inside a perimeter we do not control. We need ground that is ours.

The code is still valid through the current rotation. Anyone who needs to move should do it before Militech resets.

Make sure our people know. I do not want anyone stuck outside when the rotation happens.

Current headcount inside the building. Fourteen personnel. Eight security. Three domestic staff who were here when the lockdown dropped and have not been allowed to leave.

The domestic staff. Are they a problem.

They are frightened. They have seen things they should not have seen. But they have nowhere to go and they know it.

Pay them. Double what they were making. People who are paid well have a reason to stay quiet.

And if they are not quiet.

Then they were not paid well enough. Try again.

Morale is becoming a concern. People have been inside this building for ten days. They are going stir crazy. Two of the security team got into a fight last night. Nothing serious but it will escalate.

Give them something to do. Drills. Maintenance. Training. I do not care what it is. Idle people turn on each other. Busy people turn outward.

Some of them are asking about their families. People they have outside the perimeter they have not been able to contact.

Secure comms only. No personal devices. No exceptions. Anyone who cannot accept that can take it up with Militech at the gate.

That is going to create resentment.

Yes. And resentment aimed at Militech is exactly what I want. Channel it correctly and it becomes useful later.

Floor 28 has been cleared and set up as a training area. The security team is running rotations. Atmosphere has improved.

Good. What about the upper floors. Mountbatten's quarters.

Untouched. Nobody has gone in since the incident. I did not think it was my place to order it.

Leave them. For now. There are things in there that may be useful and I want to go through them myself before anyone else does.

His personal files?

Everything. Forty years of notes, contacts, favours owed. Mountbatten was meticulous. There will be things in there I can use.
He built the foundation. I intend to build on it.

The Little Europe operation needs a name. Something internal only. Not for external comms.

OPERATION SOVEREIGN.

Too obvious. Too on the nose for what we are.

OPERATION LEVEE. You hold back the water until you are ready to let it through.

Better. What is the framing.

Phase one — hold. Let the Irish and the Italians wear each other down. We do nothing visible.
Phase two — the incident. Something that puts the Irish in the frame publicly. Kincaid runs it.
Phase three — movement. We step in as stabilisers. The district is destabilised, we provide order, we fill the vacuum.
Phase four — consolidation. Gallo is gone or compliant. SKiV routes under our control. Little Europe is ours.

Timeline.

Phase one is already running. Phase two — six to eight weeks. Phase three follows within a fortnight of the incident. Phase four — three months after that if everything holds.

And if the Nice Guys surface again before phase two.

That is a separate operation entirely.

Yes. Call that one OPERATION CROMWELL.
Appropriate, I think.

That is a significant name to use.

It is. That is why I am using it. They took everything from us once by being systematic and thorough and without mercy.
I intend to return the favour.

OPERATION LEVEE phase one is holding. No significant movement from Gallo. Irish routes active. No incidents yet.

Good. Patience. Let it build naturally before we accelerate it.

And OPERATION CROMWELL. Any movement on the Nice Guys.

Nothing confirmed. But they are out there. People like that do not go quiet permanently. They surface eventually.
When they do, I will be ready.

Full financial assessment. The Locke Tower dinner was supposed to complete the Exec Zone formalisation and unlock the second phase of Militech funding. That did not happen.
Current reserves: approximately eight months of operational runway at current spend. Less if we accelerate anything.

Eight months to make Little Europe pay for itself.

Realistically, yes. The Hale arrangement was generating revenue through the arms routing. Hale is dead. That income is gone until we find a replacement.

Keane.

Keane is not Hale. He does not have the same network.

He has enough. Get him operational. We cannot afford a gap.

The Bianchi files. Depending on how we use them there is a financial angle beyond the leverage play.

Explain.

Gallo's three people. The material we have on them is worth something to interested parties beyond us. Certain corporate entities would pay well to have documented evidence of the arrangements those three were part of. We sell copies and keep the originals for our own leverage.

Who are the interested parties.

Petrochem has interests in the district that Gallo's people have been blocking. Biotechnica wants access to distribution networks the Italians currently control. Both would pay significant sums for the right documentation.

Do it quietly. No direct contact from us. Use an intermediary. I do not want our fingerprints on the sale before we use the files ourselves.

Petrochem paid. Biotechnica is still negotiating but the number they are offering is serious.
Revised runway: fourteen months. Possibly eighteen if the Biotechnica deal closes at their current offer.

Good. Mountbatten's files are paying dividends already.
Close the Biotechnica deal. Then we focus everything on phase two.

There is one other item. Lady Ashcroft's estate. With her gone, there are assets that technically fall under RCO governance according to the internal charter Mountbatten wrote.

How significant.

Very. She was the primary donor network. Property in three districts, offshore holdings, a substantial personal endowment she had directed to RCO operations.
It changes the financial picture considerably.

Then the Ashcroft matter resolving the way it did was not only necessary. It was fortunate.
Process it quietly.

I want us watching the Kabuki situation closely. The Tyger Claws civil war is more significant than people are treating it.

It is a gang war. Internal faction dispute.

It is a legitimacy crisis. The old guard — the original Tyger Claws, the ones who built that organisation from nothing — are being dismantled by factions who care more about territory than tradition. I know what that looks like. I have lived it.
The old guard deserves our attention. Possibly our support.

We are already stretched. Getting involved in Kabuki while the Exec Zone formalisation is pending seems premature.

Not involvement. Observation. And perhaps quiet communication. Nothing visible. But an organisation fighting to preserve its identity against people trying to erase it — that is something we understand better than most.

I have made contact with a representative of the Old Tyger Claws. Indirectly. They are aware someone is watching with sympathy.

Does Militech know.

No. And they do not need to. Militech does not need to know every quiet conversation we have. That is the difference between an ally and a handler.

Mountbatten's Tyger Claws contact. Where does that stand.

Dormant since the incident. They do not know Mountbatten is dead. As far as they are aware he simply went quiet.

I want to reopen it. Differently from how Mountbatten approached it.

Mountbatten wanted to offer solidarity. Philosophical alignment. What do you want to offer.

Resources. The old guard needs fighters, weapons, and money more than they need someone to tell them they understand their pain.
We can provide those things. In exchange we want their loyalty when the time comes, and eyes in Kabuki we can trust.

This is exactly the kind of move Mountbatten would have warned against. Too many open fronts.

Mountbatten managed everything carefully and ended up dead in his own building on the best night of his life.
I would rather have too many fronts than too few options.

Contact reestablished with the Old Tyger Claws. They are receptive. Mountbatten's reputation carries weight — they remember the quiet support they were offered and they want to know if it still stands.

It stands. Tell them it stands and it has teeth now.
What do they need most urgently.

Arms. The Tokugawa Clan has been cutting their supply lines. They are losing ground in the north of Kabuki and they need hardware to hold what they still have.

Get Keane on it. Small shipment, quiet routing, nothing that traces back here.
We invest now. We collect later. That is how Mountbatten built everything he had and it is how we will build what comes next.

He would have said the same thing.

I know. He taught me to think this way.
He just never taught me to stop.