“Strange as it may seem, I don’t have the authority to order a rendition directly,” Alik explained. “I would have had to go through the National Security procedure, and we’d have needed three tame judges to sign off on it. Sure, I’d probably have got it for Rayner and Javid-Lee, but that would have involved a whole bunch of other people. The whole problem was a clusterfuck Washington wanted to disappear fast. We got the media to write it off as gang warfare. And the two asshole families involved got to keep their frightened mouths shut for life. Actually, it was the best solution. Go me.”

“Bloody hell!” Callum dropped his head into his hands.

There was a long silence in the lounge as everyone tried to come to terms with what we’d just been told. I found it interesting to see how being judged riled Alik. He really was that arrogant. A lot of senior government officials come to have the attitude that nothing they do should ever be questioned or challenged. But it did explain a lot. He hadn’t turned up on this case for any other reason than he’d been told to. It was politics, pure and simple. He was a Washington creature, receiving orders and reporting back to the executive and the dark globalPACs. What he reported no doubt contributed to policy, but he wasn’t a policy maker. He wasn’t the one I was looking for, but I would be very interested in talking to this Tansan character at some time in the near future.

“What about the New York shield?” Jessika asked. “Have there been more attempts to bust the files since Cancer tried?”

“Beyond my pay grade, my friend,” Alik said, splaying his hands wide.

Like any of us believed that.

“But I did hear the whole national shield project had some pretty sharp security upgrades after that night,” he conceded.

“Civic shields were taken back under military jurisdiction twenty-two years ago,” Loi said. “In America, at least. So someone must have taken the attempt seriously.”

“Over half of Earth’s nations have placed their urban shields under military control in the last fifteen years,” Kandara said. “Those that still have a military.”

“Why did Cancer want the shield files?” Jessika asked.

“We don’t know.”

“Wrong question,” Callum said. “What did Cancer’s employers want with the files?”

“When I find out who they are, I’ll be sure and let you know,” Alik said.

“It’ll be money,” Eldlund said in a knowing tone. “It always is with Universal types.”

I thought Callum looked irked with his assistant for the jibe, but my impression of Eldlund was of a devout Utopial—more so than most omnia who never left the comfort of the Delta Pavonis system. Sie simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to establish cultural superiority. I’d guess that was why immigration to Akitha had leveled out in recent years. There’s an old saying in the Sol system: Utopial culture would be a great place to live in, but the problem is that it’s full of Utopials. And Eldlund was a perfect example of that unconscious patronizing privilege they all possessed.