I started shredding the wilted flower in my buttonhole. “If I can’t pin something substantial on that bastard, I’m not going to be able to work again. I can’t prove he killed Frenada. I can testify to someone somewhere about the shirts, but I can’t prove they’re running a factory out in Coolis either. That is, I can’t prove they’re selling the shirts and jackets and whatnot outside the prison system, not without a huge amount of effort.”

“What would it take to prove it?” Morrell asked.

“Oh, the grubby kind of detective work we used to do in the days before we could check everything out on–line. Watching for service vans like the one that carted me off, follow them, see which ones contain Global products, where they get dropped off. You could probably bribe the drivers and shorten the process, but it would still take weeks. And then there’d be hearings, and somehow during that time I’d have to come up with money to live on, not to mention money to fund the investigation. It would be easier if I could get Baladine to confess.”

Morrell looked at me in astonishment. “You don’t really think you could do that, do you? That kind of guy won’t. His self–image, his need to be the top dog—”

While he was talking I was imagining the way Baladine had come after Frenada and me: trying to plant cocaine in both our shops, arresting me for kidnapping, planting phony data on the Internet about Frenada’s finances. Baladine wasn’t just a high–tech operator; he liked to get his hands dirty. But I began to see a way in which I could use his technology to make the confession happen. Was I going to be foolhardy once again? To be daring without judgment? In a way, I didn’t care. I had been through the fiery furnace; I had been badly burned, but I had survived. No harms that befell me in the future could be as bad as the ones I had already endured.

“I have an idea.” I interrupted Morrell abruptly. “But I’m going to need a little help.”

Chapter 44: Diving in with the Sharks

44 Diving in with the Sharks