"They're allowed to hold suspects till the real police arrive.  Except, of course, the police never did.  By the time they let me out, two days later, it was all over for Lisa and her people."  He bit his lip, clenched his hands.  "I was helpless.  Although not as helpless as the Gang of Four had figured, thanks to Lisa."

"How was that?"

"When I brought her and George the data, she told me to place a copy somewhere secret—lawyer, bank vault, wherever—with instructions to simultaneously release it to a bunch of places—the courts, all the Prefecture departments of justice, the news, the net—in the event of my death, freezing, or disappearance.  Which I did."

"And that bought you protection from your bosses?"

"No, they had the location out of me in no time.  Thing is, Lisa and George also hid copies, and by the time NewEgypt figured this out, they were both . . . well, Lisa was frozen and George was dead.  The Gang searched, but they never found the other two copies."

"How do you know?"

Leiber smiled grimly.  "I'm still above room temperature and walking around."

"Ah.  Reasonable inference."  Miles rubbed his lips.  "Were Suwabi and Tennoji murdered on purpose, then?  By Hans and Oki, perhaps?"

"By Hans and Oki, but I don't think they were told to kill anyone.  I think those were attempted snatches that went wrong.  They managed to get Kang and Khosla and Lisa, though."  Leiber's lips twisted.  "Speaking of job security.  Both were given bonuses and raises, after, despite the big screw-ups.  I wasn't privy to the under-the-table agreements.  They can't turn in their bosses without incriminating themselves, and vice versa.  And I think the Four kind of liked the idea of owning their own dirty-work squad.  In case they needed someone to handle people like me again.

"Anyway, the impasse bought everyone time to calm down and think, even me.  I felt so badly about it all.  Especially Lisa.  I mean, I'd destroyed everything she'd worked for, even though I was just trying to help.  So when I was offered the bribe, I took it, even though I didn't believe it for a minute, because I thought it would pacify them."  He brooded.  "They'd bribed Rog a lot earlier, I think."

"What form did this bribe take?"

"Nothing immediately useful, they knew better than that.  It's all unvested stock options that cut in after a certain number of years.  I always figured they'd fire me just before they had to pay anything out, but I don't know.  They did let me do some real work—I developed a non-invasive scanner test for the bad preps, which wasn't a task they could have assigned to anyone else, after all.  The first payment option was due to cut in soon, though, and that's what I set my plan on."

"What plan?"