“Bad night to work late, Mr. Suit,” he said. The man glared at him.

“You want to get hurt, make a move. Cooperate and everybody will be happy. You, me, even United Oil. After all they won’t have an expensive rug cleaning bill or employee replacement search.”

The man said nothing, but he spread wide the fingers of his trapped hand and relaxed the muscles of his arm. Ghost let him straighten and back away from the desk.

Sam entered the room, closing the door before crossing to look at the terminal screen. “You’ve got a pretty high clearance.” Sam tapped the I.D. recall and read their Captive’s name. “Mr. Fuhito. You will pardon us if we advantage of your position in the system.”

Fuhito found his voice. “You will not get away with this. Do you know who is director of our company’s Sec forces?”

Ghost grinned and stepped close to Fuhito again, placing the muzzle of his right-hand Ingram smartgun level with man’s eye. “Great big Dragon by the name of Haeslich. And we’d be very impressed if he were here. But he’s not. It’s just you and us, so maybe you’ll think about your future and cooperate.”

“I will not compromise my employer.”

“You don’t have to, Mr. Fuhito.” Sam looked into the lens of the room’s security camera. “Dodger, can you slip through into this access port?”

The monitor under the camera had been displaying a peaceful view of the vehicle park, but suddenly blanked. Words formed on the darkened screen. “Nay. Locked too tight. Grab what you can from there.”

“Right.” Sam retrieved the chair and sat down at the keyboard. Fuhito had not been jacked in, which was just as well. A manual access to the Matrix was acceptable; it was slower, but less painful than decking. If the trip out was is tense as the trip in, he would need all his wits about him. The headache he would get from jacking in would be a liability.

He was about to trash the file Fuhito had been working on when he noticed a familiar name, Andrew A. Wilson. Scanning the file with sudden interest, Sam’s surprise grew as he read. The document was a plan for a hostile extraction of Wilson by special operatives of United Oil. The source of the extraction order was not listed, but Sam knew that only higher authorities could approve such actions. Those same authorities would know if Wilson was already working for United Oil’s interests. And if he were, any extraction would not be hostile. If Drake was with United Oil, his arrangement with Wilson was unknown to his superiors. Was Drake a rogue, then? Or was he unconnected to United Oil, and their trip here useless?

The answer might lie in the database. Sam closed the file and ran a search for references to Drake, Hart, or Tessien.

He came up empty. Fingers poised on the keys, he tried to think what to do next.

“You are searching for information on Katherine Hart,” Fuhito said. He must have been able to see the screen from where he stood. Sam swiveled the chair to face him.

“That’s right. We want to know who she works for, among other things. She’s involved in something we want to stop. Can you help us?”

Fuhito drew himself up, obviously having made a hard decision. “I will tell you who they work for.”

“I thought you wouldn’t compromise your company,” Ghost said.

“I will not. The Elf bitch and her worm work for Haesslich directly. They are under his personal contract.”

“By the worm, you mean Tessien?”

Fuhito nodded.

“Why are telling us this?” Sam asked.

“Hart is a worse threat to United Oil security than you two. The Dragon gives secrets to her, a money-grubbing mercenary of flickering loyalty. Her presence is an affront to our security organization, an insult to the company.”

“Why don’t you tell your bosses?” Sam asked. Fuhito maintained a sullen silence. Either he had done so and been ignored, or he was afraid to. “All right, then. What about Jarlath Drake?”

“I know nothing about any Jarlath Drake. Is he another of Haessjich’s adventurers?”

“We ask the questions, chummer,” Ghost warned.

Fuhito turned on him with sudden heat. “I must know about this Drake. You will tell me if he is a threat to United Oil security.”

Ghost laughed softly, “Take it easy, Tiger. The only threat you have to worry about right now is us.”

Snorting, Fuhito replied, “You are no threat. You will not leave the grounds alive.”

Ghost holstered one of his guns and stepped up to Fuhito, passing an open hand across the man’s face. Locks of hair drifted toward the floor. The Indian’s fingertips came to rest tightly on the man’s neck, marking the course of his jugular vein. Sam could see Fuhito pale and his eyes go wide with fear. Ghost’s smile was tight and hard; not a tooth showed.

“Ever try to kill a ghost?”

The tableau broke as the security monitor beeped, and the words “Time, time, time,” marched across the screen. Ghost stepped away from the shaking Fuhito and moved to the door. Sam stood up, took out his gun, and pointed the Lethe at the United Oil man.

“It’s been enlightening, Mr. Fuhito, but it’s past your bedtime.” he said, pulling slowly on the trigger. The dart struck home and Fuhito jerked, his expression flickering from surprise to contempt as he slumped. Ghost caught him before he hit the floor. The two runners arranged Fuhito at the desk, draped to appear as though he had fallen asleep.

By the time they closed the door, the knowbot monitoring he length of inactivity on secure files had blanked the screen, logging Fuhito out.

As they hurried down the corridor back to the pens, Ghost whispered, “I think you’ve lost your invisibility He’ll spill to Haesslich in the morning”

“I disagree. I saw enough of his kind in Japan when I was with Renraku. They’re loyal to the company, but also concerned about personal honor.” They were into the vehicle park before Sam had a chance to say more. “Mr. Fuhito is actually Major Fuhito, Haesslich’s second in command of security,” he said. “Being caught by a couple runners who slipped in and out of his domain without setting off a single alarm will shame him deeply. I called him mister instead of by rank, so he’d think we didn’t know who he was. He may take that to mean we wont say anything about who we caught. If none of us talks, tonight never happened. His kind find it real easy to take that line. Fuhito must be ambitious, which is why he works late at night. He wants to move up in the world, but he wants his world orderly. Haesslich and his personal agents are a troublesome headache to him, too random and unpredictable. Such wild cards are disturbing to a man like Fuhito. He wants them gone from his world, and that’s a service we night provide in a number of ways. Whether we eliminate Haesslich’s agents, expose them, or simply foul up their plans, we embarrass Haesslich.