The payments traceable back to True North and RPetCo Alaska. The switched files. Gammons‘s bullet wound. Lyda‘s pistol, the weapon that probably inflicted the wound. The truck. The fingerprints.

How did Allen get hold of Lyda‘s pistol?

You said it yourself, it‘s a small camp. Allen was a con man, a swindler and an embezzler and a thief. A guy like him would make a regular habit out of inventorying the contents of every room in the camp.

He sat back down and frowned at his coffee, which didn‘t deserve it. Con men don‘t usually upgrade to murder, Kate. It doesn‘t fit the profile.

It doesn‘t mean he wouldn‘t, if he felt under enough threat.

Under threat, from a venture capital firm and an Alaskan oil corporation? What was he afraid they‘d do, string him up by their silk ties?

Ah, she said, and it was as near a cackle as he‘d ever heard her make, now we come to the best part. At the same time, independently of anything going on at Suulutaq, the FBI—

The coffee mug landed on the table with a thud that should have cracked its bottom. The FBI?

—in the person of Special Agent Fred Gamble, of whom you have heard me speak before—

I thought he‘d been transferred to Oklahoma.

Omaha, she said, with an airy wave. Other opportunities. Things happen. You know. Special Agent Gamble is I believe still striving to find a headline case that will get him reassigned to somewhere that isn‘t Alaska. In pursuit of this goal— Oh yeah, he could see she was really enjoying herself now.

In pursuit of this goal, it came to his attention that a venture capital firm called True North Investments was making many investments in Global Harvest stock and that John King, president and CEO of RPetCo, was on the board of directors. Where did Gamble pick up your trail?

At RPetCo, when I went to see John King. She looked demure. He thought, given our prior dealings, that I might be able to shed some light on his investigation. Jim closed his eyes and shook his head. You know, Prohibition gave us two things, organized crime and the FBI. Honest to god, I wonder sometimes which was worse. He opened his eyes. I shudder at the many prospective answers to this question, but why is the FBI investigating True North and John King?

Because True North is in receipt of large quantities of money with no provenance. Translation, please?

It burst out of her with a velocity that made him realize how hard it had been for her to hold it in for the last fifteen minutes. True North is suspected by the FBI, the DEA, and various other governmental agencies of laundering money for the—wait for it—Carlomagno Coahuila drug cartel.

Holy shit, Jim said.

That‘s what Brendan said. Kate raised her mug to her lips for the first time. It was cold. She got up to refill it, and settled back in her chair with the air of one who had brought the news from Marathon to Athens on time and under budget and had lived to tell the tale.