“What do you want, then?”

Horn reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out the picture of Henrik Morten that Levin had sent him earlier from Geneva. He unfolded it and spread it out on the counter. “A simple yes or no—did you see this man talking with Tony Delgado anytime recently?”

The bartender studied it, frowning. “Yes. I don’t know who he is, just that he isn’t one of our regulars and probably isn’t a local, either. But he and Tony were here once or twice. Tony never introduced me. Your boy never seemed too comfortable, always seemed antsy to move on.”

Horn refolded the picture and put it away. “Thanks.”

“You going to let me know who it is?”

“I don’t believe I am,” said Horn, rising to leave. “And you can keep the change.”

The late-night air outside the Cloverleaf Bar was chill and crisp. Horn breathed deeply, clearing his lungs of the Cloverleaf’s smoke-fouled atmosphere. The stars overhead were sharp and there was a ring around the moon: high ice crystals, he thought, and maybe the prospect of snow.

He thought about the photograph of Henrik Morten, now tucked back inside his coat. The bartender had identified the man in that picture as someone who had been seen with Delgado earlier.

He’d read the stream of information Levin had sent him about Morten. And now he had directly connected him to the attempt to intimidate, or harm, Elena Ruiz.

It was time to stop beating around the bush. They had enough to go after the rabbit himself.

First Stop Bar, Geneva

Terra, Prefecture X

12 December 3134

From time to time, Jonah Levin experienced moments of gratitude that, unlike most of his fellow Paladins, he was not a physically memorable person. He didn’t have the striking, Clan-bred looks of a Tyrina Drummond or a Meraj Jorgensson, both of whom were the products of generations of selective breeding for strength and symmetry and commanding appearance. And unlike Gareth Sinclair or Maya Avellar, he lacked the easy assurance that came of being born into wealth and high position.

He was only a man of average height and average weight, with hair and eyes a nondescript shade of average dark brown and a face that could have belonged to a hundred other men of the same general age and ethnicity. In much-laundered street clothes a year or so behind the fashion, he could sit in a workingman’s bar drinking beer with a whisky chaser, and none of the observers would recognize him as a Paladin of the Sphere.

The sharper-eyed ones among them might have frowned for a moment, puzzled, before going so far as to remark, “Say, did anyone ever tell you that you look a lot like that guy What’s-his-name—you know, the Paladin from Kervil?”

And Jonah would say, “Yeah… lots of times,” in tones of bored resignation, and that would be that.

This functional anonymity allowed him to nurse his drink and eat salted peanuts at a back table in the First Stop Bar, undisturbed by the comings and goings of the shift workers and truck drivers who made up the greater portion of the First Stop’s boisterous clientele. Left alone at his vantage point, he watched the front door of the bar and waited to see if the man he had contacted would show up.

He didn’t have to wait for long. The time was still an hour short of midnight when the door opened to admit a broad, heavy-shouldered man who walked with a distinct limp. The man’s long-sleeved shirt and denim jacket couldn’t disguise the fact that his right arm was a prosthetic attachment.

The man’s worn face lit up at his first sight of Jonah, and his lurching gait became faster. Jonah stood up to greet him, and the two men shared a handshake that turned into a quick hug. They sat down together at the table. The other man spoke first.

“Captain.”

“Sergeant,” Jonah replied. “You’re looking well.”

“You’re not looking too bad yourself.” Wilson Turk’s gravelly voice hadn’t lost its Hesperus accent after all these years on Terra. “Married life still agreeing with you?”

“I’d sooner be at home on Kervil than working here in Geneva—but you and I both know life doesn’t always give us what we want.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

The waitress came over from the bar. Turk nodded toward Jonah and said, “I’ll have one of whatever he’s having.”

She left and Turk turned back to Jonah, all business now. “I came as soon as I could when I got your call. Whatever you need, Captain, I’ll do it. Or try my damnedest, anyhow.”

“It shouldn’t be difficult.”

Jonah finished his drink and contemplated ordering another. He decided against it. He had no fondness for drunkenness for its own sake, and he didn’t have either the stamina or the constitution of the young militia captain he’d been when he learned to drink beer with whisky chasers during the campaign on Kurragin.

“I don’t know if all of what I’m about to tell you has made it out onto the streets or not,” he said, after the waitress had brought Turk his whisky-and-chaser. “It’s probably safest to assume that if you haven’t yet heard something similar on one of the major news feeds, then you don’t officially know about it until you do.”

Turk looked unsurprised. “I didn’t know you were doing intel work these days.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Jonah. He moved on to the business at hand. “To begin with—how much do you know about the death of Victor Steiner-Davion?”

“Only what everybody else does,” Turk said. “Have to admit, it shook me up a bit. I know he was nine years older than God, but he’d been around for so long it felt like he was going to last forever. Hard to believe that he’s dead.”

“Not just dead,” said Jonah. “Murdered. And the Exarch has put me in charge of the investigation.”

Turk whistled. “What did you do to make Damien Redburn hate you that much?”

“I’m still trying to figure that one out myself,” Jonah said.

“Cracked the case yet?”

“Yeah. Looks like the butler did it.” That earned a weak grin from Turk. “No, it’s far too early to know anything. But there’s a distinct possibility that Steiner-Davion’s murder was planned by persons very high up in the government.”

“How high? As high as you?”

Jonah nodded gravely. “Maybe. But I hope not.”

Turk shook his head. “They still don’t give you the easy jobs, do they? Where do I come in?”

“You and your people come and go in the government buildings at all hours,” Jonah said. “You see the stuff that the workers bring in and the stuff that they throw out; you see who’s meeting with whom off the record; and nobody ever sees you. The custodial staff in a large building is effectively invisible—you could be plotting the overthrow of the government and no one would even notice.”

Understanding crossed the other man’s broad face. “Anyone in particular you need me to put the word out on?”

“Henrik Morten.”

Turk showed no recognition. “Anything in particular about him?”

“Who he works for. Who’s acting as his main sponsor. I’ve got him doing odd jobs for half a dozen politicians, but I know there must be someone out there giving him a majority of his work, and protection to boot. He’s been in more than one sticky situation and come out smelling like a rose. Someone powerful is watching his back.”

Turk nodded. “I’ll get the word out, and we’ll see what people try to tell me.”

“Thanks, Sergeant.”

“No worries, Captain. I owe you one.”

Jonah shook his head strongly. “I thought we’d established a long time ago on Kurragin that I owe you.”

“Not the way I figure it. If you hadn’t been with us, we’d never have held down the flank without breaking, and I’d have gotten chopped up just the same.”

Jonah looked at the other man. Turk’s expression was firm; nothing was going to sway him from his position.