“We’ve had falsies before. Anonymous bastards.”

“Yeah, but this one’s got a sample, and a bunch of supplementaries. From memory, I think it checks out—at least, there’s not anything obviously wrong with it at first glance. I want it dusted for fingerprints and DNA samples before we go any further. What do you think?”

Pete whistled. “If it checks out, and the dates match, I figure we can get the boss to come along with us and go lean on Judge Judy. A break on the Phantom would be just too cool.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Mike grinned ferociously. “How well do you think we can resource this one?”

“If it’s the Phantom? Blank check time. Jesus, Mike, if this is the Phantom, I think we’ve just had the biggest break in this office in about the last twenty years. It’s going to be all over Time Magazine if this goes down!”

In the hallway outside the boardroom, the palace staff had busied themselves setting up a huge buffet. Cold cuts from a dozen game animals formed intricate sculptures of meat depicting their animate origins. Jellied larks vied with sugar-pickled fruit from the far reaches of the West Coast, and exotic delicacies imported at vast expense formed pyramids atop a row of silver platters the size of small dining tables. Hand-made Belgian truffles competed for the attention of the aristocracy with caviar-topped crackers and brightly colored packets of M&Ms.

Despite the huge expanse of food, most of the Clan shareholders had other things in mind. Though waiters with trays laden with wine glasses circulated freely—and with jugs of imported coffee and tea—the main appetite they exhibited seemed to be for speech. And speech with one or two people in particular.

“Just keep them away from me, please,” Miriam said plaintively, leaning close to Olga. “They’ll be all over me.”

“You can’t avoid them!” Olga insisted, taking her arm and steering her toward the open doors onto the reception area. “Do you want them to think you’re afraid?” she hissed in Miriam’s ear. “They’re like rats that eat their own young if they smell weakness in the litter.”

“It’s not that—I’ve got to go.” Miriam pulled back and steered Olga in turn, toward the door at the back of the boardroom where she’d seen Angbard pushing her mother’s wheelchair, ahead of the crush. Kara, her eyes wide, stuck close behind Miriam.

“Where are you going?” asked Olga.

“Follow.” Miriam pushed on.

“Eh, I say! Young woman!”

A man Miriam didn’t recognize, bulky and gray-haired, was blocking her way. Evidently he wanted to buttonhole her. She smiled blandly. “If you don’t mind, sir, there’ll be time to talk later. But I urgently need to have words with—” She gestured as she slid past him, leaving Kara to soothe ruffled feathers, and shoved the door open.

“Ma!”

It was a small side room, sparsely furnished by Clan standards. Iris looked around as she heard Miriam. Angbard looked round, too, as did a cadaverous-looking fellow with long white hair who had been hunched slightly, on the receiving end of some admonition.

“Helge,” Angbard began, in a warning tone of voice.

“Mother!” Miriam glared at Iris, momentarily oblivious.

“Hiya, kid.” Iris grinned tiredly. “Allow me to introduce you to another of your relatives. Henryk? I’d like to present my daughter.” Iris winked at Angbard: “Cut her a little slack, alright?”

The man who’d been listening to Angbard tilted his head on one shoulder. “Charmed,” he said politely.

The duke coughed into a handkerchief and cast Miriam a grim look. “You should be circulating,” he grumbled.

“Henryk was always my favorite uncle,” Iris said, glancing at the duke. “I mean, there had to be one of them, didn’t there?”

Miriam paused uncomfortably, unwilling to meet Angbard’s gaze. Meanwhile, Henryk looked her up and down. “I see,” she said after a moment. “Well, that’s all right then, isn’t it?”

“Helge.” Angbard refused to be ignored. “You should be out front. Mixing with the guests.” He frowned at her. “You know how much stock they put in appearances.” Harrumph. “This is their first sight of you. Do you want them to think you’re a puppet? Conspiring with the bench?”

“I am conspiring with you,” she pointed out. “And anyway, they’d eat me alive. You obviously haven’t done enough press conferences. You don’t throw the bait in the water if you want to pull it out intact later, do you? You’ve got to keep these things under control.”

Angbard’s frown intensified. “This isn’t a press conference; this is a beauty show,” he said. “If you do not go out there and make the right moves they will assume that you cannot. And if you can’t, what are you good for? I arranged this session at your request. The least you can do is not make a mess of it.”

“There’s going to be a vote later on,” Iris commented. “Miriam, if they think you’re avoiding them it’ll give the reactionary bastards a chance to convince the others that you’re a fraud, and that won’t go in your favor, will it?”

Miriam sighed. “That’s what I like about you, Ma, family solidarity.”

“She’s right, you know,” Henryk spoke up. “Motions will go forward. They may accept your claim of title, but not your business proposals. Not if names they know and understand oppose it, and you are not seen to confront them.”

“But they’ll—” Miriam began.

“I have a better idea!” Olga announced brightly. “Why don’t you both go forth to charm the turbulent beast?” She beamed at them both. “That way they won’t know who to confront! Like the ass that starved between two overflowing mangers.”

Iris glanced sidelong at Miriam. Was it worry? Miriam couldn’t decide. “That would never do,” she said apologetically. “I couldn’t—”

“Oh yes you can, Patricia,” Angbard said with a cold gleam in his eye.

“But if I go out there Mother will make a scene! And then—”

Miriam caught herself staring at Iris in exasperation, sensing an echo of a deeper family history she’d grown up shielded from. “The dowager will make a scene, will she?” Miriam asked,  a dangerous note in her voice: “Why shouldn’t she? She hasn’t seen you for decades. Thought you were dead, probably. You didn’t get along with her when you were young, but so what? Maybe you’ll both find the anger doesn’t matter anymore. Why not try it?” She caught Angbard’s eye. Her uncle, normally stony-faced, looked positively anesthetized, as if to stifle an image-destroying outburst of laughter.

“You don’t know the old bat,” Iris warned grimly.

“She hasn’t changed,” Angbard commented. “If anything, she’s become even more set in her ways.” Harrumph. He hid his face in his handkerchief again.

“She’s been getting worse ever since she adopted that young whipper-snapper Oliver as her confidante,” Henryk mumbled vaguely. “Give me Alfredo any day, we’d have straightened him out in time—” He didn’t seem to notice Iris’s face tightening.

“Ma,” Miriam said warningly.

“Alright! That’s enough.” Iris pushed herself upright in her wheelchair, an expression of grim determination on her face. “Miriam, purely for the sake of family solidarity, you push. You, young lady, what’s your name—”

“Olga,” Miriam offered.

“—I know that, dammit! Olga, open the doors and keep the idiots from pushing me over and letting my darling daughter sneak away. Angbard—”

“I’ll start the session again in half an hour,” he said, shaking his head. “Just remember.” He turned a cool eye on Miriam, all trace of levity gone: “It cost me a lot to set this up for you. Don’t make a mess of it.”