The Traitor's Stain (wattys 2019)

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Norwalk, Connecticut

Ben looked at the sea of reports on his desk, more than a little overwhelmed. There were so many; he'd never thought that he'd have so many pieces of paper on his desk at the same time. He did have all of them organized: one stack was for intelligence from Setauket, while the other was for intelligence from New York. But, the fact that they were organized didn't make the prospect of reading through each of them and taking note of what they could and couldn't use didn't make it any less stressful, or less intimidating.

"Good morning, Ben," Caleb said cheerfully as he walked into the tent. He held up even more letters. Much to Ben's chagrin. "Special delivery. Your network sure is good about sending in reports, huh?"

Ben couldn't help it: he groaned.

"Well, don't hold back from your emotions, whatever you do," Caleb said. "What's wrong with you? You don't enjoy reading letter after letter without finding anything useful? Or remotely interesting?"

Ben gave him a look, but frankly, he was right. The idea of having civilians spy on the enemy had been a good idea: it meant that their people could blend in, because they'd always been there; nobody questioned their presence. But, it also meant that their informants didn't always know what they should be talking about in their intel. He'd instructed them to stray on the side of saying too much, but now, he had to sift through many meaningless anecdotes that never ended up amounting to anything.

"I don't suppose you have any news for me, do you?" Ben asked.

"I do, actually," Caleb said. "Abraham and Ophelia are in New York to hunt down a spy hunter. And will most likely kill him. Pretty exciting, right?"

Ben looked up at Caleb. "What?!"

Caleb frowned. "You don't sound very happy."

"Am I supposed to?" Ben demanded. "Do you have any idea how much the odds for all of them getting arrested go up if all of them are together?"

"They aren't all together," Caleb said, as if it weren't such a big deal. "It's just Robert, Ophelia, Abraham, and Hercules. And before you yell at me for being an idiot, they didn't say a word of this to me until it was too late."

Ben sighed. "This is just perfect. Absolutely perfect."

"It really is, isn't it?" Caleb asked no-body in general. "Anyway: we've got more intelligence from our lady of New York."

Ben took the letter from Caleb's hand. He was excited to hear from their mysterious day: he didn't know how, but she always had critical information for them, stuff that always panned out. "I must say: I'm shocked that you've managed to keep her identity a secret from everyone."

"Pretty easy to do when you don't know her identity, yourself," Caleb said with a shrug. "Some friend of Robert's, and he sure ain't telling. And he definitely ain't about to let me meet her."

"It's probably for the best," Ben said. "Whoever she is, she has to be in a pretty vulnerable position to be getting that sort of information: the less any of us know about who she is, the better. Do you have anything else for me?"

"Nope: I'l got back to terrorizing the villagers so you can read your love letter from the Lady."

With a flamboyant bow like an actor receiving a standing ovation, Caleb left, leaving Ben alone with their new intelligence from Lady.

Ben sighed and opened the letter. Time to see what she had in store for them, now.

At first glance, of course, it read just like an ordinary letter, just as he'd ordered all of his people to do: