“No, ma’am.” The regret in Captain Bishop’s voice sounded genuine. “It’s Jacob Bannson. A radio message from his private DropShip. He’s landing in eighteen hours, and he says he wants to talk to you.”

“Bannson?” Tara’s mind was blank. She couldn’t imagine what the business tycoon would have to say to her under these circumstances. She shook her head to clear it, reminding herself that Bannson might want to talk to Tara Campbell, the Northwind aristocrat, or to Tara Campbell, the politician, rather than Tara Campbell, the commander out in the field. Just because she tended to forget her other identities from time to time didn’t mean that anyone else ever did. “What does Bannson want with me?”

“He says it’s about Paladin Ezekiel Crow.”

“Bannson? Has word on Crow?” Tara’s mind raced as she pulled on her socks and began lacing her boots. No matter how rich and important Bannson was, he wasn’t worth going over frozen ground barefoot for. “What does Jacob Bannson have to do with Ezekiel Crow?”

“Damned if I know, ma’am,” Captain Bishop replied. “But he says you’ll be interested.”

“He does, does he? We’ll see about that.”

Tara shrugged her heavy wool greatcoat over her shoulders, jammed her beret on her head, and left the command tent at a pace not quite a run. Anastasia Kerensky and the Steel Wolves would have been worth running for. Jacob Bannson wasn’t. Quite.

The communications tent was dimly lit, and empty except for the soldiers keeping the night watch. Tara slid into the empty chair at the main console and took the handset that the tech handed to her.

“Tara Campbell here.”

She waited through the pause as signals traveled back and forth—the jerky rhythm of a radio conversation at space-travel distance. Then, “Jacob Bannson, Countess.”

“My aide says you want to speak to me about”—this wasn’t an encrypted conversation, and she chose her next words with care, wishing that she knew how much Bannson had already betrayed onto the airwaves—“a certain person.”

“That’s right.”

“What do you want to say about—that person?”

“I have some information that you might find interesting.”

“Not over an unsecured line.”

“A meeting, then,” Bannson said. “Where?”

She didn’t have to think long. Jonah Levin was a friend, or at least had believed her unsupported word enough to send his man out looking for the missing evidence. He’d want to hear whatever Bannson had to say. “Geneva.”

“Geneva it is, then. The penthouse suite at the Hotel Duquesne. I’ll be waiting for you. Bannson out.”

Tara gave the handset back to the tech on duty and turned to her aide. “Things are starting to move. I don’t want to set anything into motion that isn’t moving already, so direct contact with Paladin Levin at this point might be a bad idea.”

“If you say so, ma’am.” Captain Bishop was still frowning at the radio console as though Bannson were there in person. “Does that guy really think he can get the penthouse suite at the best hotel in town just by showing up and asking for it?”

“Yes, he does. And he’s right.” Tara didn’t think that this was the best time to mention that she could have done the same—only with her name, not money, to open the door. “It doesn’t matter. I want you to get busy with the communications listings, and track down the personal number of a man named Burton Horn. It may be unlisted. Lean on people and use my authority if you have to. I’ll back you.”

Captain Bishop nodded. “Burton Horn. What do I say once I’ve got him?”

“Tell him to find his employer as quickly as possible, and bring him to meet me in Geneva at the Hotel Duquesne.”

Rue Simon-Durand

Geneva, Terra

Prefecture X

April 3134; local spring

Roughly twenty-four hours after the Countess of Northwind had seen her sleep, or lack of it, so unexpectedly interrupted, in Geneva Paladin Jacob Levin was walking back to the Pension Flambard from the small neighborhood restaurant where he had eaten dinner. The evening was dark and still, and few people were about. The occasional vehicle passed by him on a hum of tires or a sigh of hoverjets, its shadow looming up and fading again in the circles of pale yellow light thrown onto the sidewalk by the street lamps.

It was a pleasant night. A light breeze, not yet fully springlike, but hinting nevertheless at the eventual possibility of spring, blew toward the lake. The taste of dinner’s roast lamb with rosemary still lingered on Jonah’s lips, as did the bouquet of the wine. The meal had been excellent, even for a man whose thoughts remained preoccupied as his had been by the developments of the past few days.

The data disc Burton Horn had recovered from the Pescadore Rus in Belgorod had not left Jonah’s possession since the former GenDel employee had delivered it to him. Jonah suspected—though he would not alarm Madame Flambard by saying so—that his rooms in the pension had been searched at least once, and he was unwilling to let such damning evidence fall into other hands.

Tomorrow, he thought, with the Countess of Northwind’s concurrence, he would present the data disc to the Exarch. A formal investigation would follow, and much adverse publicity. Damien Redburn would undoubtedly want to keep everything quiet until the investigation had officially settled the question of who, exactly, had sold out whom on Northwind, but Jonah didn’t think that he would succeed. News as shocking and frightening as this—that a Paladin, one of the seventeen most trusted men and women in the entire Republic of the Sphere, could have betrayed and abandoned the very people whom he had been sent to help, and slandered their leader to the Exarch afterward—would find its own way of getting out.

“Lift ’em up.”

The voice was that of a stranger. Jonah saw that a man with a slug-pistol had come out of the shadows ahead and was standing in front of him.

“What is—” he began.

“It’s a robbery, Gramps.”

Jonah raised his hands. In his peripheral vision, he saw another man approaching from his right. And there was a third coming up from behind, his presence made known by the scuffling of his footsteps.

“Over there.” The man with the slug-pistol gestured toward a nearby alley.

“It wasn’t in his room,” the man coming up from behind said. “So it’s got to be—”

The gunman said, “Shut up.” And the man behind fell silent.

Not ordinary robbers, then, Jonah thought, and resigned himself to putting up an active resistance. The small amount of money in his wallet was not worth disturbing the quiet of the evening with violence. The data disc currently residing in his inner jacket pocket was another matter altogether.

He turned toward the alley. At the moment when his side was toward the gunman, with his narrowest aspect exposed, he reached out with his left hand, grabbed the gunman’s arm by the sleeve, and pulled it straight out.

At the same time he pressed in toward the man, letting the side of his leg, with his weight behind it, push at the man’s knee and bend it backward. The knee joint resisted, then gave way under the pressure with an audible crack. The man grunted in pain and lost his grip on his weapon. Jonah took it.

He didn’t want to fire the slug-pistol. In the dark and confusion, he had no way of telling what kind it was, how well it had been maintained, or even if it was loaded. Instead, he threw it as hard as he could at the upper torso of the man on his right—who was now, after Levin’s rightward turn and this fellow’s collapse, the man in front of him.

The man sidestepped to dodge the impact. Jonah, seeing an attacker off balance, with his plans—whatever they had been—disrupted, took the opportunity to move forward.