The Need for Misdirection
The encounter with Captain Caine confirmed Kaito's greatest concern: Conan's deduction was too fast. The detective was now actively hunting the existence of The Hound. While Kaito controlled the situation, he needed to make the mystery safer for Conan to chase.
Simultaneously, the Black Organization (The Serpent) needed to be given a compelling reason to maintain its distance following the loss of the Plutonium isotopes and the encounters with Wick and Caine.
Kaito called an urgent tactical meeting in the Apex Command Center, bringing together the leaders of his intelligence and deception divisions.
"The Serpent needs to believe its internal communications are fatally compromised, and that the threat is not merely tactical, but geopolitical," Kaito stated. "This is a task for Division II."
The Charmer's Grand Deception
Kaito tasked Agent 007 (The Charmer), Captain of Division II, with creating a complex information mirage designed to strike fear into The Boss and throw the Organization's intelligence gathering into chaos.
007's plan was a masterpiece of counter-intelligence:
The Fictional Leak: 007 used the Dragon Throne's banking assets to launch a massive, fabricated financial transaction involving several known, high-value Black Organization shell companies. The transaction itself was fake, but the digital metadata was encoded with the General's unique, private military encryption.
The Political Connection: Masato was then directed to "leak" fragmented financial logs into a secondary, high-security server known to be frequently scanned by the Black Organization. These logs suggested the Tenryuu Corporation was actively collaborating with the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) on a joint counter-terrorism initiative in the Pacific.
The Final Signature: The culmination of the data was a single, undeniable signature: the final data packet was intentionally encoded using the exact same, unique chemical synthesis enzyme signature that Dr. Vance had identified in the APTX 4869—the signature of the Miyano family's science.
The Serpent's Panic
The cascade of disinformation hit the Black Organization's intelligence network like a tidal wave.
The Boss received the reports:
Financial Proof: The Tenryuu General was directly tracking and disrupting their shell companies using military-grade encryption.
Geopolitical Threat: The Tenryuu General was apparently operating in direct cooperation with a major Western intelligence agency (MI6), signaling international involvement.
The Ultimate Betrayal: Most chillingly, the data carried the unique molecular signature of the Miyano family's science. This could only mean one thing to The Boss: The General now possessed the scientific keys to the Black Organization's greatest secret—the APTX 4869—and was using them to mock the Organization.
The implication was clear: The Dragon Throne wasn't just defending Beika; it was declaring a silent, sophisticated, geopolitical war, using the Organization's own scientific secrets against them. The Boss's past dread of the Dragon Throne was entirely justified.
Conan's New Trail
The same data leak, designed for the Black Organization, was filtered and simplified by The Jackal (Division VIII, Deception) and strategically directed into Conan's active surveillance streams.
Conan, hunting relentlessly, discovered the "leak" linking General Tenryuu's company to a "massive, ongoing MI6 counter-intelligence operation."
It's not a ghost army of thugs, it's a global intelligence initiative! Conan realized. The Hound is a codename for a joint MI6-Tenryuu task force! They are not interested in me; they are interested in the Black Organization, and they are using Kogoro Mouri's cases as a front!
The information was overwhelming, verifiable, and completely wrong about the true nature of Cerberus. Conan now had a massive, tangible, and misdirected target to chase, exactly as Kaito intended.
Kaito watched the final analytics report in the Apex Command Center.
"The Serpent has moved to Level 4 Retreat. All major asset acquisition attempts have ceased. They believe the cost of engaging us is now too high," Kazuya reported.
"And Conan?" Kaito asked.
"He is pursuing a trail leading to a highly complex, fictitious MI6 operative in Osaka," Shiori replied with a slight smile.
Kaito leaned back, satisfied. "Perfect. The Black Organization is paralyzed by fear, and the Detective is busy chasing a phantom. The golden cage remains sealed."