“Ser Warrick?” Female. But not Ari.

“This is Justin Warrick.” He never had blocked off calls after midnight. He’d never needed to. But here it was, after midnight. And he didn’t even know any women outside this wing and Admin. “Who is this?”

“Sandi Patil. Dr. Sandi Patil.”

He sat straight up in bed as Grant lay there a heartbeat, then levered himself up on an arm.

“What do you want?” He was rude. He knew it. But so was Patil, calling him out of nowhere at this hour, on business that couldn’t be good.

“Are you alone?” Patil asked.

“I’m as alone as I choose to be.” He didn’t want any part of this. He waved a hand at Grant, mimed recording the conversation, which took a keypush on the console. He got up to do it himself, on the wall panel near the door, but Grant, starting on that side of the bed, beat him to it, and then turned the room lights up full. “Why don’t you call my father?”

“I can’t reach him. Listen to me. Dr. Thieu is dead.”

Dead. Dead wasn’t a metaphor. Not from this source, at this hour. And he didn’t want to ask, but not getting information could be as bad as hanging up, outright, for the monitoring that went on in this place.

“Dead? How?”

“They’re saying heart attack. But I don’t believe it. They’re monitoring my phone, they’re questioning my friends…”

“Look, if you deal with my father it’s a dead certainty they’ll do that, whoever ‘they’ are…”

“Not Reseune,” Patil said. “It’s not Reseune. They have people inside.”

He made a furious gesture at the other wall, in the direction of next door, Ari’s apartment. Grant understood, grabbed a robe on his way and left, running, wrapping the robe about him like a bath towel.

“What do you mean?” he asked meanwhile, trying to keep the tone even and the conversation going.

“They’ve gotten to Dr. Thieu in the heart of Planys, on the other side of the world. They can get to anyone.”

“Look, somebody gave me your card, I haven’t a clue why, I don’t know who ‘they’ are, and I don’t know why you’d be calling me. What are you into, what do you want with my father, and where in hell did you get my number?”

“I got it from Thieu. Look, I’m in the middle of selling my apartment. All my belongings are in boxes, my physical files are in a mess and I can’t find anything. I’m supposed to be going up to the station, and now everything’s stalled, I don’t know why, and I can’t get an answer out of the Director’s office! Thieu said to talk to your father, now Thieu’s just died and I can’t reach him, your number works, you’reon the inside of the agency that’s hiring me and now not talking to me, so here you are, Ser Warrick, and welcome to my situation! Can you just go down the hall or wherever you are and tell your father I urgently need to talk to him? There’ve been people coming through to look at this place I don’t like the look of, they say it’s sold, but someone arrives today and just walks through, and I didn’t know whether to let them in or not. I don’t want to deal with this, and someone I don’t know phones me to tell me Thieu is dead and hangs up. So what am I supposed to do? When I get hold of Schwartz, he’s going to tell me it’s all fine, I don’t need to worry, and just let them handle everything, but that’s what he said the last time. I need to talk to someone who knows what’s going on.”

“Well, it’s not going to be my father. I think you should call Planys Security tonight and ask them what’s going on. You get a call in the night and you assume it’s even true…”

“Oh, it’s true. It’s true he’s dead. I have no doubt of it. I have no doubt I’m targeted and your father is, and Planys Security can’t even take care of its own, let alone protect me here. These aren’t reasonable people.”

He didn’t like it. His heart had picked up the old familiar heavy beat. On one hand it felt like a trap. On the other…this woman might be inone, and in possession of information ReseuneSec was going to want. And if he could stay on the line and get a record down of this little playlet, naming names, it was safer for him and everyone attached to him.

“I don’t understand why my father has anything to do with this. And if you want protection, I can get ReseuneSec to go wherever you are–”

“Thieu,” she interrupted him, and somewhere in the background there was a noise, a thump, of some sort. “Oh my God,” she said. “Warrick, tell them! Tell them!”

“Tell them what?”

“Clavery! The name is Anton Clavery! Just–”

Something thumped. The phone quit. He grabbed his own robe, shoved his arms into the sleeves and headed past the end of the bed, out of the bedroom, taking down the small, useless table next to the door as he headed down the hall. Lights in the living area had come on, where Grant had passed.

He got that far before the front door opened and black‑uniformed security came bursting in–Marco and Wes, specifically, night shift, with Grant’s conspicuous red head just beyond that tall blot of black uniforms.

“Her phone went dead,” he said, out of breath. “I recorded it, as far as it went.” In that moment Catlin arrived, in a black tee and workout pants, unarmed, to all appearances, and probably straight from bed, while Marco walked over and took a look at the house minder unit. He didn’t know which one to address, or which, Marco or Catlin, was technically in charge. And he had a shaky moment of realizing he, ReseuneSec’s main target for years, had been babbling in that call, urging a woman’s cooperation with ReseuneSec, anxious to keep himself and Grant safe from whatever damned fool thing Jordan had brought on them in his eternal feud with Admin–and too sure, maybe, that his father hadn’t had anything to do with whatever was going on in Novgorod. He felt a vague sense of shame about turning coat on his father. But not enough. That collection of ReseuneSec in the hall–that had been Ari, young Ari, taking real power over a segment of that organization that had repeatedly arrested him. And he had urgently to deal with them–for Grant’s sake. “Catlin, it was Patil on the phone. Something’s wrong. She needs help. Security. Fast. She’s saying Thieu was killed. Someone interrupted her on the phone. Apparently violently.”

Catlin didn’t waste a breath. She had her com unit, and delivered a fast message somewhere that consisted of, “Information on Patil. Code 10. Her residence?” The last was a question aimed at him.

“I think it was,” he said. “Residence.” Second thought. “Maybe her office. I don’t know.”

“Residence andoffice,” Catlin said into the com. “Stat, find her, wherever she is.” She broke the contact. Grant, meanwhile, had gotten past building security at the door, still with the robe held like a towel, and Florian showed up behind him in the bottom half of a workout suit, dark hair in its usual curling disarray.

“Sera’s awake,” Florian said. “Ser Warrick. Did you call Dr. Patil?”

He shook his head. “She called me, out of nowhere. Said Thieu was dead.”

Up went the com unit, same fast contact. Florian said, into it: “Planys‑Sec, report on status of Dr. Raymond Thieu, researcher, retired.”

There was perhaps a brief silence on that contact. Grant made a quiet move toward him. Building security moved to restrain him. Catlin simply lifted a hand, on the phone with someone else, and security stood down, letting Grant through.

He grabbed Grant by the arm, in no mood to have them separately questioned. Gone over. Drugged. Any of those things. “I’m worried about my father,” he said to Florian. “She said someone was inside. On the inside.”

“Thieu is dead,” Florian said. It was a measure of trust that someone of Florian’s nature gave a piece of information to an outsider. And Florian immediately thumbed buttons on the com and called someone else. “Guard alert, Jordan Warrick’s residence. See to his safety. Report.”