“Do you concede that they have her in their custody, and the power to determine her fate?”

“I understand they claim to have ‘arrested’ her. But I don’t trust anything those people say. And I don’t even know if I trust Heather. She has been lost for a long time. Not unlike you, but of an even more radical generation.”

“A kid who dares to ask where the money comes from.”

Lecker raised a derisive eyebrow.

“Just let me go work out a deal,” said Donny.

“My sources tell me you have your own reasons to want to get to New Orleans. You just want me to buy you a ticket.”

“Well, New Orleans is on lockdown. Closed to outsiders, unless you have a transit visa. I think I could talk my way through, but having an official purpose, like being appointed to represent Heather in front of the Tributary, would definitely help me get in. I wouldn’t propose it if I didn’t care about Heather, or honestly believe I could get her home.”

“Or need the money,” said Lecker.

“That too.” Donny shrugged.

“Well, I might be persuaded to take you on, if you can get after a very different sort of deal,” said Lecker.

“What’s that?” said Donny.

“The City of New Orleans are the ones who owe me money. Seven hundred million and counting. Money I paid for the repurchase and remediation of the toxic zone they call Echo Sector. Debt which your friends in the new government there repudiated.”

“I thought you were supposed to be a smart investor. Everybody knew what crooks the administration had running that project. I bet most of that money was skimmed right off the top.”

“About a third of it,” said Lecker. “As we expected and understood. I’m not counting that. The rest of it is there in the cleaned-up soil, and in the seeds we gave them to grow in it.”

“You want them to pay that? They’re broke.”

“If they want to give us the land back, I’m positive I can make my money back.”

“They’re not giving New Orleans back, and you know it. That was the deal,” said Donny. “The price of getting them to leave Washington and take their AK-47s with them.”

“I’m not talking about the whole city,” said Lecker. “Just the part I already paid for.”

Donny bit into another slice of the orange. It had a big seed in it. He pulled it from his mouth, and then looked at it. Then he held it up.

“This is what you really want, isn’t it?”

Lecker almost smiled. “It’s not all we want, but the most important thing. They are growing our seeds. Patented organisms that we own just as we own the land on which they are grown. And they are giving them away.”