Horn pushed a pile of currency across the desk. Ashe picked it up and whistled. “Not too careful of your expense account, are you?”

“He’s a Paladin,” Horn said. “He’s got a budget big enough to handle it. Results is what it’s all about. Now I’d like to see some.”

“You got it.” Ashe pushed some keys on his terminal. A moment later the printer whirred, and a sheet of flimsy drifted into the output tray. “Here you go. Four vessels, all from within ten parsecs of Northwind, since fourteen March.”

Horn took the sheet, glanced at it, folded it, and put it into his inner pocket. Only one bingo—a ship giving its journey’s point of origin as Northwind itself. He’d look at all four of them, but that one was going to be the first on his list. He stood to go.

“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” Ashe said as Horn left. “Next time your boss wants to throw away good money, let me know.”

“I’ll do that,” said Horn, and let the door swing shut behind him.

David Ashe waited a moment, until he was certain Horn was out of earshot. Then he turned to his communications console, picked up the handset, and punched in a code. When the line opened he said, “You wanted to know if anyone got curious about Northwind? Well, a guy was just in here…”

Horn took a shuttle-hop to Belgorod DropPort, where the direct ship from Northwind had grounded. When he had reached the center city transit hub, he paused and took a deep breath, orienting himself to his surroundings.

“Now, if I were Lieutenant Owain Jones, fresh from Northwind with vital information, where would I be?”

The streets, busy with traffic and pedestrians, did not reply.

“Think,” he told himself. “You’ve just arrived by DropShip at a city you don’t know on a planet that you’ve never visited. You have a mission. What do you do?”

He drifted with the foot traffic toward the east, not caring where he was going. He considered a cup of coffee. That would be nice.

A combat officer would want a cup of coffee, too, he thought. And a man newly arrived would want a place to stay. A hotel? That would be a place to start.

Someone was drifting with him, Horn realized. A tall man, but not so tall as to be freakish, and plainly dressed just as Horn himself was plainly dressed. And moving just as unpurpose-fully as Horn himself was moving.

Horn crossed the street and reversed his direction. By the time he had made it halfway up the next block, the man whom he suspected of following him had crossed the street and reversed direction as well.

I didn’t ask for this, Horn thought. It was, however, all part of the job.

Ahead on his right was a breakfast café. He walked in, and without a word walked briskly through the dining area, through the kitchen, and out the emergency door to the garbage-can-lined service alley in the back.

He continued along the alley to its end, turned right, and right again, bringing him to the street he had just left. His shadow was still there, standing in front of a store near the café, window-shopping. Horn contemplated walking up and accosting the man on the open street to ask him who he worked for. He decided against it—there wasn’t enough privacy to make it worth his while—and turned away.

It would be a while before the man realized that he’d been shaken. Horn could use that time.

The pursuit had given him information as well. It showed that someone in Belgorod was taking real interest in a matter that should have been of no interest to anyone.

Lieutenant Owain Jones had met with misfortune, of that much Horn was now sure. Time to pick up the trail.

He found a pawnshop on a nearby street corner—the sign saidHONEST IGOR’S in five languages and three alphabets—and ducked inside. The pawnshop counter had a bulletproof plastic window in front of it. On an impulse, Horn rapped on the window.

“Hey,” he said.

The man behind the counter—Honest Igor, presumably—turned around to face him. “What do you want?”

Horn slipped a twenty-stone note through the slot in the counter window. “Local knowledge,” he said. “You look like a man who has some.”

“A little,” said Igor. “The people who come in here, they tell me things sometimes. And if I don’t know it, I can hook you up with someone who does.”

“That’s what I figured,” Horn said. “What I want to know is, where do the taxi drivers who service the DropPort hang when they’re not working?”

“For that, I’ll have to ask around. If it’s a particular driver that you’re after—”

“I’m looking to talk with a driver who might have picked up a fare from Northwind sometime around the fourteenth.”

“Gotcha,” said Igor. “I’ll ask around. Where can I reach you?”

Horn handed over a business card with the number of a call-forwarding service. “These people can reach me.” He slid another twenty through the slot. “There’s more where that came from if I hear from you, and the same for the taxi driver when I talk to him.”

“Gotcha, tovarich.”

Horn nodded. “See you around.”

He left the pawnshop and hit the street again. Maybe the pawnshop owner would come through, and maybe not. In the meantime, he needed to check the hotels.

23

Belgorod

Terra

Prefecture X

March 3134; local winter

Aweary afternoon’s work spent going through hotel guest registers sufficed to let Burton Horn know that Owain Jones hadn’t checked into any of the respectable establishments in Belgorod. It remained possible that the Lieutenant had chosen to stay at one of the port’s less-than-respectable establishments, but Horn considered that an unlikely choice for a military man with a vital mission.

A military man, Horn thought. He’d look for food, for a place to sleep… and for a place to report in. Not necessarily in that order.

But to whom would he report? To the Exarch in person? The Countess of Northwind might have assumed something like that, when she sent Jones ahead with the evidence, but the Exarch was too high in the chain of command for a mere Lieutenant to think about reporting to him directly. He’d be looking for… the Northwind Interests Section, that was it. Horn grabbed a cab and did the same.

Once he’d reached the building that housed the local representatives of The Republic’s member governments, he employed Paladin Jonah Levin’s name without hesitation in order to gain entry. That got him as far as a bored bureaucrat in a natty suit who invited him to sit at a desk.

“I have an inquiry from Paladin Levin,” Horn said.

“This is most irregular,” the man replied. “The Paladin has every right to request aid from any Republic body. However, that request ought to come through official channels. Most irregular,” he repeated, steepling his fingers in front of his shirt. “What is the nature of the Paladin’s request?”

“The Paladin would like to know if the chargé received a visitor from Northwind at any time since fourteen March of this year.”

“I can tell you that directly,” the bureaucrat replied. “He did not. Nor is the chargé able to assist you now. With the recent arrival of an army from Northwind, he is very busy.”

“The Paladin understands,” Horn said. “He doesn’t want the chargé disturbed, either.”

“Then there’s nothing more I can do for you,” said the bureaucrat. “Good day, sir.”

“Perhaps one small thing,” Horn said. “May I see the call logs for fifteen March?”

“Out of the question,” the other man said firmly.

“I understand… perhaps you could look at them yourself, and answer me one question. A simple yes or no.”

The bureaucrat hesitated. “Perhaps.”

“Paladin Levin will be pleased,” Horn assured him. “The question is this: Did the Northwind Interests Section receive any prank calls on or just after fourteen March?”