Jonah was fairly certain Morten wasn’t referring to Janella Lakewood.

There was, of course, a question about Morten’s credibility. This was a man who, by his own admission, had used underhanded or deceitful means repeatedly to accomplish his missions. He knew how to get people to believe what he wanted. Horn was a skilled interrogator, and he was pushing Morten hard, but there was no guarantee Morten was being completely honest. He still might be playing an angle.

Another sheet emerged from the printer.

Sinclair had Founder’s Movement sympathies? Jonah stared hard at the recent printout, as if his gaze could rearrange the words on the page. That didn’t sound right.

But Mallowes was firmly in the Founder’s Movement camp. And Mallowes was Sinclair’s sponsor. He’d worked hard to set up the training program on Skye, and he’d gotten a bright young man of an influential family into the program right away. Certainly enough to make that man feel a debt to his benefactor.

Enough of a debt to shape his political beliefs? That was the question.

Rereading the most recent page for the sixth time, Jonah grew increasingly uncomfortable with Morten’s last line—“they keep using me.” Both Mallowes and Sinclair had claimed to have distanced themselves from Morten, and now Morten claimed he was still working for them?

Luckily, Horn caught that line, too. The next page brought an answer to Jonah’s question.

Jonah knew what he had to do. It was as clear as any battlefield tactic, and he’d never had trouble carrying through with those. But this, he didn’t want to do.

He trusted Sinclair far more than he trusted Morten. If the two fed him different stories, he was far more likely to believe the former. There was no reason to expect Morten to tell the truth and Sinclair to lie.

Actually, there was, Jonah thought. There were fifty-two million reasons.

He didn’t want to have to do this. On Kurragin, he hadn’t wanted to charge the ammo dump. But the line needed to be held.

He made a few calls. Within an hour, Gareth Sinclair would be placed under surveillance, his every move watched. Any communication he had sent through government channels would be examined. A report on his use of government finances would be sent to Jonah.

It didn’t take long to give the orders. It wasn’t official—Jonah was going to keep to back channels as long as possible—but as far as his investigation was concerned, Gareth Sinclair had just been made the chief suspect in the death of Victor Steiner-Davion.

There was one more call to make. Heather GioAvanti needed to hear about this.

Bank du Nord Central Branch, Geneva

Terra, Prefecture X

18 December 3134

Heather was of the firm belief that one of the greatest benefits of command was the freedom from legwork. All the drudge work—scouting locations, reviewing public records, staring at endless piles of paper or computer files—could be assigned to someone else. Staffers would disappear for a few hours, or days, or weeks, and when they returned, instead of having this vast pile of information to sort through, you’d have a compact digest of salient points, all of the truly important information compacted into a small datafile. It was a true blessing.

Unfortunately, on rare occasions, there was some drudge work that couldn’t be parceled out. Some flows of information could only be uncorked by the right person, and most often that person was not some junior government staffer. Often, even a Knight of the Sphere wouldn’t suffice. Some streams of data could only be opened by a Paladin, who would then have to sort through the data only she could access.

This was one of those times.

“As I told your assistant, Paladin GioAvanti, the principal problem is that we have no clear evidence of criminal activity tied to your request. Without such evidence, we cannot violate the privacy of our clients.”

The tradition of secrecy tied to Geneva-based banks was rooted in tens of centuries, and they took it as seriously today as they ever had. When she was examining government files—campaign finances, Senatorial accounts and the like—she’d had free access. Now, though, she was trying to plunge into personal accounts, and that was a whole different battlefield.

Heather had four inches in height and at least twenty pounds in weight over the slight, bespectacled man in front of her, but he stood firm as a vault door.

“Yes, I understand that,” Heather said. “Did they explain to you the extraordinary nature of this request?”

The bank official had three strands of hair running across the bald expanse of his scalp. He carefully patted them into place. “They attempted to. That is to say, your assistant made quite vociferous claims about this being an extraordinary matter, but he would not specify just what made it so unusual.”

“Mr. Confrere, if you know my reputation you should know I’m not prone to exaggerate. But this matter could shape the future of the whole Republic.”

“Yes, Paladin. What I need to understand is, how?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to share the details at this time.”

“Then we clearly have a problem.”

Heather took another look at her opponent, sizing up the exact nature of this obstacle. Neither intimidation nor charm would work—this man had most likely been placed in his position primarily because of his extraordinary resistance to both forces. Yet, despite his formal manner, part of him seemed to want to help her. He hadn’t dismissed her entirely, and was willing to talk. If there was just something she could offer him…

It came to her in a flash. The gift most appreciated by all bureaucrats—deniability.