She was forced to smile. I‘ve got plenty.

You‘re going to make a lot, right?

She laughed and got to her feet. Mutt followed.

Just don‘t start serving it up until I‘m standing in front of you with a bowl and a spoon. He paused, a pile of pink call slips in one hand. Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you. I finally took those numbers Lyda had on her computer over to the mine. She looked over her shoulder, one hand on the door. I thought you‘d already done that.

No. Didn‘t seem much point, with Lyda‘s death being ruled accidental and the corporate spy already accounted for. But I had to go out to the mine to talk to Randy Randolph yesterday—

She groaned.

Yeah, another one showed up from Outside, and she may be the one with the oldest date on the marriage certificate yet. Anyway, before I flew out I printed out the numbers in Lyda‘s file, and when I got there I showed them to Haynes. She checked them out against the core sample log.

What‘d she say?

He shrugged. She said that Lyda had gotten the numbers transposed but that otherwise they corresponded with core samples Allen had forwarded to his extracurricular employers.

Kate‘s brows came together. Lyda got the numbers wrong?

Yeah, I think Haynes said she got the core sample data right. She just got the dates wrong.

Kate turned to come back in the room. Mutt stuck her head around the door frame. Her vigilance had been unrelenting ever since Kate had gone to Anchorage without her.

Lyda got the dates wrong, Kate said.

Yeah, I just said that. Didn‘t I just say that?

No, she didn‘t, Kate said.

Kate— Her name was a drawn-out exasperation.

I‘m telling you she didn‘t get the dates wrong, Kate said. Truax wasn‘t pissed off she was dead, remember, he was pissed off that he‘d lost the person who made his camp march along like Napoleon‘s army. Did you keep the dates?

Kate—

She came around the desk to stand in front of his monitor. Let me see them. Like Brillo, Jim knew it was always going to be easier and less time-consuming if he just gave her what she wanted. He called up the file and displayed it. Still got the dates of the pay-ins to Allen‘s account?

He displayed those, too. We did this before, he said. We noticed the dates were off when you first showed me Allen‘s bank records, and we compared the two. It didn‘t bother you then.

One a month, she said, ignoring him. April, May, June, and then July 1, five days before she died. She straightened, her face a mask, her eyes focused inward on the working out of some internal calculation. April, Allen was still alive and spying. May, maybe, but by June he was dead, and by July he was even more dead. She looked at him. She didn‘t screw up the numbers, Jim.

It took him a minute, and when he got there what she was intimating strained his credulity to the breaking point. Kate. You think somebody else was selling Suulutaq data? The significance of the last two dates hit him between the eyes. And if you‘re right, if Lyda‘s dates are correct, that means somebody else continued to steal data after Allen disappeared.