CHAPTER 61"Someone has been following you."River said it before I had even fully closed the door of the safe house behind me and I turned around slowly because the way he said it was not the voice he used for ordinary surveillance reports."How long?" I said."Four days," he said. "A different person each day. Rotating tails. Professional enough that our street camera picked them up only because I was specifically looking after the restaurant incident." He turned the screen toward me. "Three separate individuals. All connected to the same private investigations firm."I crossed to the screen and looked at the photographs. Not network people. Not Teel's operatives. These were different, the particular appearance of private investigators working a contracted job, the kind you hired when you needed information gathered but not necessarily acted on."Who hired the firm?" I said."The firm is retained by a legal practice in the city center," River said. He clicked to the next screen. "Th

CHAPTER 63"The witness on the affidavit is Margaret Shen's personal accountant."River said it on speakerphone in the Deputy Director's office and I watched Ethan's face and I watched the Deputy Director's face and I looked at the wall because there was nowhere else to look that did not require me to react in front of people."Say that again," I said."His name is Victor Lau," River said. "He has handled Margaret Shen's personal accounts for six years. He is also listed as a former employee of a financial consultancy that connects through a single shell company to the Halcourt network." A pause. "The connection is old. It predates Margaret's association with him by two years. But it is documented."I looked at the floor."My mother's accountant," I said."Vivian," Ethan said."Don't," I said. I did not say it sharply. I said it because I needed one moment and he understood that and gave it to me.One moment.Then I looked up."Does M

CHAPTER 65"Stop her at the gate."I said it to River while I was already in the car and the city was doing its afternoon thing around me without any awareness that a woman with information that could change the shape of a trial was forty minutes from boarding a flight."Terminal three," River said. "She is checked in on a flight to a non-extradition jurisdiction. Departure in seventy minutes.""Who authorized the watch?" I said."The Deputy Director flagged her passport forty minutes ago when Victor Lau's statement came in," River said. "Airport security has been notified. She will not board." A pause. "But she is in the terminal and she knows she is flagged. She has stopped moving.""She is looking for another exit," I said."Yes," River said. "Terminal three has four service exits. She is standing near the central atrium, which gives her line of sight to all four.""She was trained," I said."She was careful," River said. "There is a diffe

CHAPTER 67"She messaged you directly."River said it over my shoulder and I was looking at the five words on the screen with the particular stillness of someone who has just been told that the person they are hunting knows exactly where they are.You are looking the wrong direction."She has my number," I said."Yes," River said. "Which she should not have. Your personal number is classified." He paused. "Which means she has access to the same level of classified information that the person in the President's office had." He looked at me. "Or she is the reason he had it."I looked at the message.The wrong direction.I had been looking at Elena Marsh. At the constructed identity. At the Harmon case. At every thread that led back to her as the architect of the network we had dismantled.She was telling me that was the wrong place to look.Which meant either it was misdirection, she was telling me the opposite of the truth to pull me towar