a couple of notches above the outfits the guards out in the corridor were wearing. That probably made him a secretary or assistant.
On the other side of the door sat another bodyguard type. Unlike the men outside, this one had his jacket off, showing the shoulder holster he was wearing under his left arm. He was pretending to read a newssheet, but Jack could tell that was just an act. One suspicious move on Jack's part, and that gun could be out of its holster in half a heartbeat.
'You Morgan?' the secretary type demanded. His voice, Jack noted, was the one that had first answered the guard outside.
'Yes,' Jack said, turning to face him. 'You must be Mr. Boyle.'
'This had better be important, kid,' Boyle growled. 'And if you try to swing some gribble on me, you're going to regret it. What's so funny?'
'Sorry,' Jack apologized, wiping away his smile. 'It's just amusing when one of you corporate types tries to use street slang.'
Boyle scowled a little harder. 'So what's this about?'
Jack shook his head. 'Like I told your friends outside, I need to talk directly to your boss.'
'Not a chance,' Boyle said. 'You tell me. If I think it's worth his time, I'll tell him about it.'
Jack crossed his arms. 'His merchandise,' he said flatly. 'His ear. Or he doesn't get it back.'
Boyle stood up, leaning his palms on the desktop and looking Jack straight in the eye. 'Last chance,' he warned.
Jack hesitated. Maybe he shouldn't expect to get in this easily. No one here knew him, after all. 'I'll tell you this much,' he said. 'It has to do with the number four-oh-seven-six-six-two. Tell him that, and see if he wants to see me.'
Boyle's lips pressed together in a thin line. 'And what's that supposed to mean?'
'He'll know,' Jack assured him. 'No one else needs to.'
Boyle's gaze shifted over Jack's shoulder to the bodyguard. 'Vance? Toss him out.'
'Just a moment,' another voice came from the back archway. It was the second voice Jack had heard over Harper's comm clip.
He turned. The man standing in the archway was fully dressed in a casual but expensive suit. No sleeping in late for him, obviously. His face was in shadow, but there was enough light coming from the room behind him to show that his brown hair had streaks of white in it. An old man, then, the sort who would have had a lifetime to build up a business empire of his own. Exactly the sort of person Cornelius Braxton might be trying to take down. 'I'm here, Mr. Morgan,' the old man said. 'You have one minute to make your point.'
Jack took a deep breath. This was it. 'Then I'll be brief,' he said. 'I believe that Cornelius Braxton of Braxton Universis is making a move against you. A scheme that involves the cylinder you think you've got locked away in Box 125 in the purser's safe.'
The man's head cocked slightly to the side. 'That I 'think' I have locked away?'
'Yes, sir,' Jack said. 'The one in there is a duplicate. I have the original.'
'That's ridiculous,' Boyle insisted. 'Carpenter checked it just last night—'
'That will be all, Boyle,' the old man said. His voice was calm but cool, not giving anything away. Jack wished he could see the expression on his face. 'Are you telling me you took it, Mr. Morgan? In and out of the purser's safe without being caught?'
'Well, I had some help,' Jack admitted. 'And I didn't want to do it at all. Braxton blackmailed me into the job.'
'How?'
'His men tried to frame me for theft,' Jack said. 'When that didn't work, they upped the ante and framed me for murder. Look, the point is that I've got the cylinder, and that I want to give it back.'
'After going to all the trouble to steal it? Why?'
That whole conversation with Draycos flashed through Jack's mind: warrior ethics, looking out for yourself, doing what was right simply because it was right. It seemed way too complicated to go into here in the middle of crust central.
Besides, Jack wasn't sure himself any more why he was doing this. 'Because whatever's going on, Braxton is up to something underhanded,' he said, settling for the easiest of the possible answers. 'I don't think he should get away with it, that's all.'
'An interesting story,' the man said. Stirring, he stepped forward out of the shadow of the archway, and Jack got his first clear look at his face.
He was old, all right, maybe even fifty. His face had some lines and a few wrinkles, a lot of them set around his sparkling blue eyes. The white-streaked brown hair Jack had already noted was matched by a neatly trimmed white-speckled brown beard.
And like the voice, the face seemed oddly familiar. Jack frowned, trying to remember where he'd seen it before. The newssheets? Television? The VideoNets?
'There's only one small problem with it,' the old man continued, still walking toward Jack.
Suddenly, like a crack of thunder in the back of Jack's head, it clicked.
And as it did, his whole theory of what was going on here shattered into a thousand pieces.
'Because, you see,' the old man said, 'I am Cornelius Braxton.'
