Holtzmann opened the drink drawer again. The bottle. He pulled it out. It looked… different. He’d seen Warren pour Laphroaig at the office. The bottle he’d poured it from wasn’t quite the same as this. He turned it over in his mind, scanning the label. There it was. “Bottled in 2029.” Eleven years ago.

Had Becker really been sipping from this same bottle for all those years?

Holtzmann worked the cap off the bottle, brought it to his nose. It certainly smelled like whisky.

He capped the bottle, turned it over in his hands again. Why would Becker keep this bottle all this time? Not drinking it? Or perhaps drinking and refilling it?

Sentimental value?

He turned it over again and again, running his thumbs over the bottle’s surface as he did, wondering, wondering.

And then he felt it.

He turned the bottle back. Somewhere… There. His thumb brushed over a corner of the label. And he felt something. The tiniest bump. Could it be?

Holtzmann brought the bottle close to his face. Was there a tiny irregularity there? Was the corner of the label just a bit loose?

He pried one finger nail under the edge of the label, tugged just a tiny bit…

And the label peeled back. And there, underneath it, was a tiny gold sliver. A tiny memory foil. A gift from Warren Becker.

Chapter 65: A Matter of Principle

65

A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE

Thursday November 1st

The guards fitted him with a Nexus jammer, then took him to the rooftop. The tiles were wet. Palm fronds were scattered around. Servants were busily cleaning up. The night sky was clear now, but weather had obviously gone through here recently.

Shiva was there, just the same, sitting beneath the stars, sipping chai and staring out at the last bit of color in the sky.

“Kade.” Shiva offered him a chair. “You viewed my files.”

Kade sat, took a mug of chai offered him by a server.

“Thank you for that,” he told Shiva. “It was an extremely generous gift.”

Shiva inclined his head in acknowledgment.

“And now are you inclined to work together?” Shiva asked.

“I am,” Kade said.

Shiva smiled.

“…but not to share the back door with you,” Kade went on.

Shiva’s smile disappeared. “I see,” he said. “And why?”

Kade looked the older man in the eyes, wished he could touch his mind, return a small fraction of what Shiva had given him.

“Are you wiser than all humanity?” Kade asked him.

Ilya woke in his mind, soaring, exulting.

Shiva frowned. “What?”