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“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
“And Napoleon might have been better behaved if Josephine had been a member of the RG.”
Jonah smiled at me. “You had that one in the chamber, ready to fire.”
I shrugged. “Frankly, I’d ask the same question if I was you. It’s a fair question. But my answer’s the truth. I’ve been around money and power for most of my life. It doesn’t control me.”
“Touché,” Horace said.
I nodded in acknowledgment. “I don’t know how long Darius’ll be here, or what he’s planning to do. But he’s in my territory, and I’d appreciate any information you can provide.”
Horace rose, the chair rocking rhythmically in his absence, its squeak ringing across the room. “Then let’s get to it,” he agreed, and gestured to the metal spiral staircase that stood in the center of the room.
The staircase was narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate the guys’ wide shoulders. I’d known it went up but hadn’t noticed it also spiraled down into the floor—and presumably beneath the lakebed.
We spiraled down for several seconds and what felt like several stories, emerging into a concrete room that stretched at least the length of a football field. The floor was glossy, the walls scored in what looked like a really large, concrete version of soundproofing. And down the middle of the room was a series of black, glossy cabinets. The room was chilly, and it hummed with energy.
“Holy shit,” I murmured, staring at the space.
“Welcome to the sparkplug’s data center,” Horace said.
“Sparkplug?”
“The lighthouse,” Jonah said. “It’s a nickname for this particular style.”
“This is . . . impressive,” I said, except that I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. “What, exactly, am I looking at?”
“Two centuries of data,” Horace said. “Correspondence, GP rulings, intelligence, financials. They’re stored on drives with double tape backups.”
“That’s a lot of information.”
“It is,” Horace said. “And that’s why we have Matthew.”
He gestured to the lone desk in the room, a long glass table on which sat a single computer terminal. The chair was occupied by a vampire who looked like he’d been changed in his early twenties. He had golden brown skin, a wide mouth, and glasses with thick black frames. He wore a gray hoodie with the green Jakob’s Quest logo across the front.
Dear God, I thought. The RG had a Jeff.
“Matthew Post, this is my partner, Merit,” Jonah said. “Matthew’s a rogue, so he gets both of his names, the lucky bastard.”
“Hi,” Matthew said, fingers flying over the keys.
“Hi,” I said. “Jakob’s Quest fan?”
“Bravely into battle,” Matthew said, eyes on the screen.
I grinned. I knew this one. “And victory for all.”
He paused, looked back at me, appraised, nodded. “Cool.”
And with four simple words, I’d passed Matthew Post’s Test of Acceptability. I counted that as an achievement.
“We run a pretty lean shop. Matthew’s our analyst and IT expert. He responds to requests for information—like yours—and analyzes data for anomalies if they arise. We rely primarily on human intelligence,” Horace said. “But Matthew and the data center are crucial to our operation. Matthew, Darius is apparently in Chicago, after a trip to NYC. What’s the GP’s latest traffic?”
Matthew’s long fingers worked the buttons like a pianist, each movement smooth, dancerly, and precise.
“Nothing unusual,” he said, scanning the data he’d pulled up on the screen. “Rules and regulations have been issued. Payments have been made. House tithes have been collected. Operations appear normal.”
“Go a level deeper,” Horace suggested.
“Running anomaly check,” Matthew said. This one was all business, and not nearly as keen on the witty small talk as Jeff. IT folks came in all flavors.
“Hey, anomalies,” Matthew announced after a moment.
We all moved closer. “What anomalies?” Horace asked.
“Not on the surface,” Matthew said. “The trust accounts are normal. Any deviation is standard. And so are the operating accounts.”
I decided this wasn’t the time to ask about the ethics of our sneaking into the GP’s bank accounts.
“But?” Horace prompted.
“The American Houses’ operating subaccounts are off. The GP keeps an account in each city with Houses. A portion of the Houses’ tithes go into the subaccounts, which the GP distributes back to the Houses for renovations, special projects, what have you. There are withdrawals in some of them.”
My blood began to hum. That was a definite bump. “How large? And which ones?”
“Boston, New York . . . and Chicago. Six point eight mil and change in total.”
“Darius has been in at least two of those cities recently.”
Jonah looked at me. “Did Victor say where he’d been before he got to New York?”
“He didn’t. I don’t know if he knew.” But I could find that out easily enough. I pulled out my phone, showed it to Horace and Matthew. Candor seemed the best bet considering their doubts about me. “I’m going to check with Ethan. Any objections?”
“Do it,” Horace said, and I sent a quick message, kept my phone in hand to await Ethan’s response.
“Where’s the money going?” Jonah asked, leaning on the desk beside Horace.
Matthew clicked keys. “Zurich. Two numbered Swiss accounts. Bulk of the money was moved into one account. The other one received”—he paused as he looked it up—“a forty-thousand-dollar transfer.”
Jonah and Horace exchanged a glance. “Ten bucks says the smaller account is a payoff.”
Horace paused, nodded. “I’ll take those odds,” he said, and they shook on it.
“So, to summarize,” I said, “we think Darius is visiting U.S. cities, transferring money out of the GP’s local accounts, and funneling the money back into Swiss bank accounts.” I looked between Jonah and Horace. “For what purpose? Is he going to just take the money and run?”
“Why else would you open a Swiss bank account?” Horace asked.
It was a good point. “Still—why the travel? If he wanted to secret the money out, why not just have it wire transferred?”
