File 01 Cole Hardin series
Fictional intelligence archive
The Hole in the Ocean
SOME SECRETS ARE BURIED FOR A REASON. OTHERS WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE FOUND.
Mission briefing
In Trieste, CIA officer Cole Hardin finds a murdered information broker and a number that should not exist outside a classified program. Three days later, a U.S. Navy vessel vanishes in the Gulf of Oman. The official account arrives quickly; the questions stop even faster.
Hardin follows evidence through shipyards and defense contractors as access narrows and geopolitical pressure builds. He must find out what happened before his search puts the people he means to protect in danger.
Pressure points
A murdered broker leaves behind one unexplained number tied to a classified program.
A Navy vessel disappears in the Gulf of Oman, and the explanation arrives before the questions can be asked.
Evidence across shipyards and defense contractors points toward consequences larger than one missing ship.
Field notes
Story-grounded details beyond the mission brief.
The free-port city
Trieste’s Porto Franco lets goods sit in bonded warehouses and be repacked before they move on—a detail that gives the port’s ordinary trade an opaque edge.
A report with blanks
The missing-vessel notice gives no name, flag, tonnage, type, or last known position: basic identifiers Hardin expects to see in a naval report.
Locations of interest
Trieste
The investigation opens with the murder of an information broker in a dim stairwell.
Gulf of Oman
A U.S. Navy vessel vanishes three days after the Trieste murder.
People in this file
- CIA officer
Cole Hardin
Follows the broker’s clue as the Navy vessel disappears.
- Broker
Information broker
Murdered in Trieste, leaving one detail tied to a classified program.