“Mr. Confrere, I appreciate—even applaud—your discretion on your clients’ behalf, especially because I am one of them. I can assure you that the activities I’m investigating are of the deepest criminal nature, but I know I can’t convince you with the information I have available at the moment. But here is what I propose: let me look at the data I need. Let me find what I want, and you and your bank will become heroes through the role you play in this investigation.”

The banker started to speak, but Heather raised her hand. “Wait. Let’s say I’m wrong. Let’s say you give me access, and it leads nowhere, and our investigation never turns up a thing. Then, my friend, point to me. Say that a Paladin marched into your bank, making claims that sounded believable but turned out not to be true. You were not wrong for opening your files—I was wrong for using your patriotism to convince you to give me access. Do you understand?”

The banker smiled slightly, which was probably his equivalent of a broad laugh. “Yes. I do. You understand, of course, that your access to our data will be quite limited, and you will have to stay on our premises while conducting your investigation?”

She flashed a smile that in no way reflected her feelings. “Of course.”

“Then please follow me.”

It ended up being a simple story. Dishearteningly simple.

Following the thread had been quite tricky. It wound through dummy corporations, holding companies, and a private account or two held by people who probably didn’t exist. But Heather kept tugging, sending and receiving a constant stream of messages to her office (and ignoring each and every one from Duncan) that pierced through the thick financial fog gathered around this transaction. Eventually, the whole thing unraveled, and Heather had the entire story lying in front of her.

A new office tower was being constructed in Geneva, developed by a former senior aide to Governor David Guliani. The former aide received a healthy subsidy from the government for helping renovate downtown Geneva. In return, the aide made two contributions. One was a direct contribution to the Guliani Family Museum and Visitor’s Center. The other was a bit more complex.

After being disguised as various payments to nonexistent companies, the money ended up in the hands of a Knight of the Sphere. But it didn’t stay there for long. A few more transfers, including a brief stay in a still-active account of a man who died in 3103, brought it to rest in an account belonging to Tres Vite Cleaners. The final transfer had occurred on the day of the riot in Plateau de St. Georges, using a machine at a branch right by the flash point of the riot. The bank where Henrik Morten had been caught on camera.

Heather knew Tres Vite, and not because she often took clothes there. It had come up earlier in the week. The address listed for the company was an empty storefront, and by all evidence Tres Vite no longer did business anywhere. The people listed as officers of the company did not exist.

Geneva police had received numerous complaints about illegal activities in the abandoned storefront, but never found anything to act on. Some of those complaints, though, identified certain people entering the store, people who were of significant interest to Heather GioAvanti. These reports had found their way to her desk.

Ever since Otto Mandela identified the woman called Norah in the footage from Plateau de St. Georges, Rick Santangelo had been tracking her movements. He’d managed to find a witness who swore a woman matching Norah’s description had entered the shop and never come out.

Santangelo had secured the proper warrants and torn the shop apart, top to bottom. He found a series of tunnels beneath the shop, all of them leading to other abandoned stores. And some of them did not appear to have been empty very long.

Tres Vite, Heather was all but certain, was a cover for the Kittery Renaissance. That cover was blown, and Kittery had moved on to other locations, other dummy accounts. While they had used Tres Vite, though, they had received money that had passed through the hands of a Knight of the Sphere.

Gareth Sinclair.

Counterinsurgency Task Force

Temporary Headquarters, Geneva

Terra, Prefecture X

18 December 3134

Jonah had called Heather that night to say they needed to meet, about three minutes before she was going to call him to say the same thing. Figuring her temporary offices had a better collection of information, he traveled there.

The broad hallways of the office building hummed with the sound of fluorescent lights and distant carpet cleaners. Other than that, they were quiet. The election was two days away, and it seemed that half of the citizens of Geneva had political meetings to attend, while the other half had fled to their homes to avoid the whole affair. Government rules forbade the use of offices for activist purposes, so the Paladins’ building was perhaps the most peaceful place in the city.

Half of the lights in the hallway leading to Heather’s office were off, making her suite glow by contrast. The light at the end of the tunnel, Jonah thought, wishing it were true.

Heather was in her office, sitting stiffly in her chair, looking at nothing. Jonah had just decided to wave a hand in front of her face when she blinked.

“Hi, Jonah,” she said in the flattest tones he had ever heard from her. “Why do I think neither of us is about to tell the other good news?”

“Because we’re not. You want to go first?”

“Not particularly. But I will.”

She reviewed her day at the bank. Jonah knew he should be dismayed, but he had already hit his absorption limit of bad news for the day. Her words just sank into a numb spot in his mind.

“I don’t know if Morten is anything more than a hired gun,” Heather said. “He probably doesn’t have any particular ideological loyalty. If he was helping the Kittery Renaissance, it’s because people told him to. And right now it looks like one of those people is Gareth Sinclair.”

Jonah nodded ruefully. Before he threw his evidence on the fire, though, he wanted to at least glance in another direction.

“What about Senator Derius? She had contact info for Morten, something very few people knew. He’s practically a fugitive. So how does she get this info?”

Heather pounced, seeming happy to move in another direction. “That’s a question worth asking,” she said. “She closed down on me, hard, when I was talking to her, and all I really wanted to know, at least right then, was the depth of her connection to Morten. It’s worth probing more in that direction.”

She paused. “But as far as what’s happening with Kittery Renaissance, I don’t think she was involved. We have no direct connection from them to her. Morten was at the riot finishing the tail end of a transfer that involved Gareth, not her. And I hate to say it, but she wasn’t covering up her connection to Morten, not like Gareth.”

“I know. Morten’s interrogation is supporting that connection.” He passed the printouts to her.

She read them, then closed her eyes. “We have to bring him in.”

“I know.”

“Do you think he knew? Was this his plan all along, to get Victor out of the way and take his place? If so… God, how long must he have been jockeying for position? How much effort did he put into impressing the Exarch to get this nomination? How deep does this plan go?”

These were the same questions Jonah had been asking himself for the past couple days. He answered with his gut. “I don’t think he knew he was going to become Paladin. I don’t think he planned any of this to happen this way. I don’t even want to think he’s involved, but the evidence keeps pointing to him. I hope he just got mixed up in something over his head and he hasn’t been able to pull out of it. I hope.”