‘Looks like it,’ said Donohue. His skin had by now taken on a pale and waxen appearance.

‘And Galileo?’

‘We figured you needed an added incentive to find that shipment.’

Saul fought the urge to place the gun between Donohue’s eyes and pull the trigger. ‘And Hsiu-Chuan? Where does he come into it?’

‘No.’ Donohue shook his head, and looked back at Saul with wide, frightened eyes.

Saul pushed the gun barrel against Donohue’s uninjured leg. ‘Five seconds.’

Panicked, Donohue put out a hand. ‘Wait! Okay, all right.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Hsiu-Chuan was just one link in a very long chain of Sphere politicos that wanted the shipment hijacked.’

‘Why did they want it so badly? Because of whatever triggered the growths?’

‘No, we didn’t have any idea what the artefacts were or what they could do. The Sphere couldn’t have known either.’

‘But there has to be some reason they wanted that particular shipment. They wouldn’t have planned things that carefully just for the hell of it.’

‘They got wind of the fact that we had discovered wormhole generators the size of your fist.’ Donohue coughed. ‘They were right, but they didn’t realize it was an alien technology. Maybe they suspected it . . . all I know is, they wound up grabbing the wrong shipment.’ Donohue groaned, clutching at his injured leg. ‘For Christ’s sake, let me go. I need to see a doctor.’

Saul shook his head in astonishment. ‘I can’t believe this. Billions of people are going to die, all because you people fucked up. Did you ever think it might have been better just to let the Sphere have their own damn wormholes?’

Donohue grunted, baring his teeth from the onslaught of the pain. ‘You really think technology like that would have been better in the hands of men like Hsiu-Chuan? Then you’re a fucking idiot.’

‘Tell me what you know about Hanover. Where does he come into it?’

‘We found out that he was taking bribes from organized smuggling gangs on Kepler. We kept him in business on the understanding that he could stay out of jail as long as he funnelled information back to us, but it backfired.’

‘Backfired? How?’

‘Hsiu-Chuan’s people found out he was playing both sides, and threatned to kill his entire family in front of him if he didn’t give them what they wanted. That meant access codes, times and places, delivery dates and security hacks. Everything they needed to send a team into Florida, and walk right back out with the shipment.’

‘Jesus.’ Saul had a mental picture of Donohue running up and down a leaking dam, trying to plug up hundreds of ever-widening cracks. ‘You really made a mess of this, didn’t you?’

‘Listen to me,’ rasped Donohue, his voice growing weaker. ‘About Mitchell Stone.’

‘He’s still alive, isn’t he?’