Rafe hadn’t had much luck tracking down the source of the borrowed shares in Sahel Hydrocarbon. If there was a hidden mastermind behind the play, that mastermind remained hidden, having borrowed the shares he/it/they had sold piecemeal from a dozen brokerage firms, firms that could have been anywhere. Rafe had inquired politely at several plausible firms in Switzerland and had doors slammed in his face, not always so politely. He could ask the Swiss authorities for help, but they would hardly consider it a matter of urgency. There was nothing illegal about short selling and no actual evidence that any short seller had committed industrial sabotage or any other crime. And Switzerland might not be the right place to look anyway. If an American firm was involved, Rafe might in theory have gotten a clue from perusing Suspicious Activity Reports filed by financial institutions with Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, but that hardly seemed worth the effort.

“Why not?” asked Frank as they sat side by side at computers in their little office.

“Because fifty-five thousand reports are filed every day. Banks cover their asses. Every time a kid walks in with a piggy bank and can’t document the source of the pennies, they report it.”

“Brilliant,” Frank said. “Building a haystack so no one can find a needle. You think Homeboy’s bank filed a report when he walked in? If Homeboy used a bank. If there is a Homeboy.”

Rafe didn’t answer. He was scrolling through documents on his screen, saw one, and stopped. “Wait a minute,” he said.

“No rush,” said Frank. “While you’ve been running around getting nowhere, I’ve been catching up on my Murder City.”

Rafe looked over to see if that was what Frank was doing over there, actually playing Murder City.

He was.

“I’m not finding any clues,” Frank said. “Though I did just steal a Ferrari.”

“I queried the British firms that shorted Sahel,” Rafe said.

Frank didn’t look up. On his screen he was shooting at a cop. “Did they tell you to go fuck yourself nicer than the Swiss did?”

“If ignoring me is nicer, yeah. But one of them did reply. It said the transaction was routed through a bank in Cyprus . . .”

“Greek side or Turkish?”

“Turkish.”

“Natch.”

“For the benefit of an LLC in the Turks and Caicos.”

“Wild guess—anonymous?”

“Very.”

On his screen, Frank was reaching for a howitzer in the trunk of his convertible. “You know,” he said, “for a change, you might enjoy playing this game. Things actually happen in it, things actually get accomplished.” He fired the howitzer and blew up a gas station. “See?”

Rafe didn’t. He had turned back to his screen. “The same firm just reported another short sale, routed through the same bank in Cyprus.”

“More Sahel Hydrocarbon? Now? After the stock cratered? Kind of too late, isn’t it?”