Sniper avoided her eyes. “I was never planning to strike out on my own.”

She frowned. “I saw your encounter with Felix Faust this morning, in Ingolstadt. All your questions about J.E.D.D. Mason. You haven’t said anything these past days, but I can tell you’re working on something. ¿You have a plan?”

“Jehovah Mason, that’s what Thisbe says. The J stands for Jehovah.”

“¿Sniper?” Lesley pressed.

“I don’t know. There’s something much more rotten than O.S. going on. Listen.” Sniper nodded to the screen, where the Proxy’s tirade was giving way at last to questions.

“Vice President DeLupa, is this what the Hive Leaders were meeting about at this Blacklaw house in Paris? Does the Anonymous know anything about what happened between Prime Minister Perry and President Ganymede?”

The Proxy nodded with too-forced gravity. “The Anonymous and I can confirm the President’s official statement. J.E.D.D. Mason has been investigating these assassinations for some time, and asked the King of Spain to arrange a meeting in a neutral space, to ensure that all the Hives were presented with the same evidence at the same time, and so the Hive Leaders could plan together how to announce the news so as to minimize global disruption. The King’s choice of venue may seem strange, but it had to be done in top security and absolute privacy, and somewhere Hive neutral, and not in Romanova or the press would notice all the Hive Leaders gathering. Few places fit the bill. Remember, the King’s hope in arranging the meeting was to protect global stability by forming a plan before the crisis broke. It’s not inappropriate for the Hive Leaders to meet in private like that, any more than it was inappropriate in 2131 for Thomas Carlyle to meet in private with the leaders of the Cousins, Olympians, and Europe to work out the Hive system quickly before chaos could set in. I’d say Spain and J.E.D.D. Mason are the only ones acting with any sense in all this.”

Hearing the Proxy speak is like watching children perform declawed and bumbling Shakespeare. Knowing the Anonymous as I do, I could hear—yes, I too watched this speech—how the true author would have read these words, and I winced each time the Proxy improvised. Take this last simile. Comparing today’s meeting at Madame’s to Thomas Carlyle’s instantly made the world see the Powers, not as conspirators, but as architects of some grand transformation, the birth of an even more golden golden age; this rhetorical brilliance was the Anonymous. Spoiling it by suggesting in the next sentence that all but two of these great architects were idiots, that addition was DeLupa.

“J.E.D.D. Mason,” Sniper repeated in a slow whisper. “Jehovah.”

Lesley voiced the questions which loomed in Ockham’s face as well. “¿What did you see at Madame’s? ¿Ojiro? ¿What did the President say after they fell? ¿What was that secret meeting really? ¿Did we make the wrong call sending you there with your cameras? I figured the President’s message would’ve said Cardigan not Sniper if they’d wanted you without the cameras.”