‘Or maybe you’re just not competent enough to do your job,’ Fowler snapped. ‘Please don’t waste my time with excuses. Have you even found Maalouf?’

Donohue cleared his throat. ‘We’ve found him, and he’s still on Newton. However, he’s escorted by armed guards wherever he goes.’

‘In other words, he’s considerably more than just a civilian scientist.’

Donohue nodded. ‘We’ve carried out extensive analysis of his movements prior to being posted to the Founder Project, and we found evidence that he’s had at least some contact with one of the local separatist groups.’

Fowler waved a hand dismissively. ‘We’ll have time to mop up the separatists after the evacuation is over. In the meantime, terminating Maalouf remains a priority. Got that?’

‘Sir.’

‘All right.’ Fowler nodded, still far from mollified. ‘What’s the latest with Hanover?’

‘We’re still in negotiation with the Taiwanese authorities, but we’ve confirmed that he allowed himself to be caught. One of our people managed to get a private interview with him, and he’s still threatening to tell Sphere representatives everything, if we don’t give him what he wants.’

Fowler grunted. ‘Hell of a gamble for him to take.’

‘But one that paid off, at least at first.’ Donohue leaned forward and clasped his hands. ‘We’ve made progress, however. Network forensics show that Hanover opened more than a dozen anonymous accounts over the past several weeks, all with firms specializing in secure data-storage. He’s set the accounts up so that any data held in them will be released and disseminated automatically unless he intervenes at specified times.’

‘In other words, killing him would just make things worse.’

Donohue nodded. ‘And it also puts a time limit on how long we can risk leaving him in foreign custody. However, we’ve put pressure on the owners of the businesses concerned. Several are in non-Coalition treaty territories, which means we don’t have any influence over them directly, but all of them do business within Coalition territories – and it’s business they can’t afford to lose.’

Fowler grunted approval. ‘Go on.’

‘To cut a long story short, we’ve already secured access to most of his accounts, and it won’t take more than another day or so to shut down the rest.’

Fowler nodded. ‘Excellent. Any idea who Hanover’s main Sphere contact is?’

‘Yes, a member of the Beijing diplomatic service, based in New York. We picked him up a few hours ago, along with a couple of other embassy workers we’re pretty sure were involved. That leaves Hanover with no evidence to show, and we’ve already arranged a diplomatic exchange.’ He rubbed his hands on his thighs. ‘Regarding him, do you want me to—?’

‘No.’ Fowler shook his head. ‘No termination. I’m going to let him live – for now, anyway.’

Donohue frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’