Money was a problem for them, but it was their hope as well. The world’s banking was mostly electronic now and money transfers left a trail that they could follow through Matrix. The trail had already connected Hart and the serpent Tessien to Drake, the man who was pulling the mercenary runners’ strings. Dodger had made no secret of his relief when Sam agreed they should concentrate on the man behind the Elf runner and Dragon. He had seemed impressed by their reputations and reluctant to tangle with them.

So they hunted Drake now but so far he had proved to be a mystery man. They knew he was often seen with Nadia Mirin, president of Natural Vat foods. That information had come during a general data search of the news networks, and from the society section, of all places. Calling up a datapic had confirmed that the Mr. Drake who escorted Ms. Mirin was the same man Sam had met in the abandoned car lot. The connection stubbornly remained a random data point. Nothing they tried ever linked Drake to Mirin in any way other than socially. He was not connected with Natural Vat, its parent company Aztechnology, or any of the subsidiary or sibling companies that Sam and Dodger managed to check. That was unusual and intriguing. Executives of Mirin’s stature usually kept their romances within the corporate family.

“Are you ready to crack those files we hooked on the last run?”

“I think so. The nap and the food have pretty much taken care of the headache.” The files in question were filched copies of transaction records from Transbank. The run through the bank’s security had been exhausting, with even Dodger admitting that he might not be able to crack the locks on the files and extract the data safely. By now, Sam knew that for the Elf to make such an admission meant the task at hand was extremely tricky. These files must be heavily protected.

The files turned out to be just that. It was hours before they determined that Drake had certified several credsticks through Transbank. It seemed hardly worth the effort and new headache to achieve such a dead end. A certified credstick was the electronic equivalent of cash. The money could still be traced once it reentered the financial network, but there would be no record of who had received the credstick.

“ ’Twas a small hope that he would be so careless.”

“Maybe if we can find some other transactions of the same monetary value as were assigned to Drake’s certified sticks, we can pick up the trail by following it from wherever Transbank sends the funds. Sure, some of the matches will just be coincidence, but some might actually be the recipients of Drake’s generosity. If we’re lucky, some of the names attached to those transactions might mean something.”

After two more days of data slogging, they had eliminated likely coincidences. That left three names. Each one connected to at least three transactions whose amounts equalled one of Drake’s credsticks.

The first, Nadia Mirin, was no surprise. In her case, the amounts were the smallest, suitable as gifts to one’s paramour. The second name was totally unfamiliar, but the pattern of intervening transactions was interesting. Each amount went through a series of transfers, all for the exact value of Drake’s credstick. Each thread led to a sealed account in a Denver data haven. Dodger pronounced the data trail to be a record of the laundering of Hart’s payments. At Sam’s suggestion, they traced a similar trail from deposits made by a known client of Harts and got the same sealed account number, confirming the Elf’s supposition. The last name sat at the end of a similar, but much less well hidden, trail. The destination account was registered to A. A. Wilson.

“A. A. Wilson.” Sam shook his head. “Why does that name seem familiar?”

“Familiar or not. ’Twould seem that Mr. Drake finds something about Squire Wilson worth a lot of money. But what?”

“If we knew who A. A. Wilson was, we might have a clue.”

“How many people can there be with that name?”

Dodger sighed. “We don’t know that it is a real name. Whether it is or not, there could be quite a few. ’Twill be another time-consuming task.”

“So?”

“I thought you would say that, but it would help if we could narrow things down.”

Sam thought about it for a minute. There really was something familiar about the name. “What if Wilson is a Metahuman?”

“ ’Twould help, if ’twere true. How have you come by that revelation?”

“I don’t know. Something in the back of my mind says Metahuman when I hear the name. Maybe I read it somewhere. Something medical.”

“Mayhaps Wilson is a doctor specializing in Metahuman physiology?”

“Could be,” Sam shook his head in puzzlement. “It’s a place to start.”

The AMA files for Seattle yielded no A. A. Wilson. A check into the complete database for the UCAS did no better.

“Try the Salish-Shidhe Council,” Sam suggested. “Let’s not go too far afield yet.”

An hour later, Dodger had something. “A. A. Wilson is licensed to practice in Salish-Shidhe. He is listed as residing in Cascade Crow lands on an extraterritorial reservation belonging to the Genomics Corporation.”

“Genomics? Run a check on medical literature. See if Wilson has published anything.”

Dodger hacked into the public datanet and pulled the files in a flash.

“Squire Wilson appears to be an accomplished man of letters. He is principal or subsidiary author of several papers.” Title by title, Dodger began reciting the List. “Variational Effects of Albinism…”

“In Metahumans. D. Nyugen, M. T. Chan, and A. A. Wilson, Biophysiology, 2049,” Sam finished for him.

“ ’Verily. How did you know that?”

“I scanned it as part of the research I was assigned in setting up the arcology’s Metahuman medical library. That project was how I knew about the medical files when we did the run to see if Tessien worked for Renraku.”

“An amazing memory, Sir Twist, but it gains us little.”

“Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t.” Another memory prodded him. “Dodger, there was an albino with Hart’s team in the arcology.”

“Coincidence?”

“What do you think?”

“I believe an investigation into Squire Wilson and Genomics is in order. But first,” Dodger said with a grin, “it’s your turn to get the food.”

Sam acquiesced with good humor. They had a lead now, their first hope of penetrating whatever had set off the chain of events that led to Hanae’s death and his own exile from corporate society. Knowing what Drake was really involved in would make a difference. They would bring him down to pay for the murders he had arranged and all his machinations with him.