I looked at the invitation. “She’s marrying Marco Novak?”
“Yeah. You didn’t tell me that Mychal had a twin brother.”
“I didn’t know.”
After dinner, I sat down at the computer and plugged in the chip Whittaker had given me. Following the roadmap it contained, I soon found the firewall Akiyama had erected around their private phone network. The electronics and software were strong, and the firewall was definitely enhanced by magik.
I triggered my enhancement and jacked into the datanet. It was far easier to trace the trail on the chip than to use the computer, and I encountered the firewall very quickly. An enormous wall of white ice stretching in all directions. But they had to have ports to call out and receive calls. Those ports would be monitored and protected, but I’d deal with that when I found them. I began searching.
What I found appeared to my mind as little red pimples, so tiny and scattered that they were easy to miss. I stuck a probe into one and immediately jerked back. My probe was fried, and the intrusion device caused me a stab of actual physical pain.
I pulled back and spoofed one of the numbers Novak had gathered to call into the Akiyama network. The call didn’t go through one of the little red pimples. The portal it used was a tiny pale-yellow depression, almost impossible for me to see in the expanse of white. I followed the call through the port.
Not only was I inside a private Akiyama phone network, but I discovered I had also penetrated the main firewall for their computer systems. Half an hour of poking around led me to their mainframe. It took me another half an hour to identify the accounting system.
I was tempted to plant something nasty in it but decided I should wait. Osiris would want data, and he would have ideas about what kind of hack would be most damaging. And if I was going to leave a malevolent package for my father’s killers, I wanted to design something especially nasty. Something they couldn’t easily recover or repair.
Back to the phone system. I soon identified the numbers Novak had given me and linked them to people. More than half of the calls from Lucifer’s had gone to Benjiro himself. He had also called the demon’s nightclub three times in the past month.
I wondered what kind of game Ashvial was playing. He seemed rather eager to point the finger at Akiyama, and it was hard to imagine that playing games with me was important enough to sacrifice such a powerful ally.
Distraction. Ashvial was up to something, and he didn’t want me sniffing around. And if he was willing to point me at Akiyama, either he expected them to kill me, and his hands would be clean, or his other scheme was even more important than trafficking humans.
I backed out of Akiyama’s system and tucked my consciousness back inside my skull. I was stiff, my butt had fallen asleep, my mouth was dry as a desert, I had a throbbing headache, and it was almost midnight. I had been inside the datanet more than four hours.
I managed to make it into work on time and went straight to Whittaker’s office.
He looked up from something he was reading. “What’s up?”
Closing the door, I sat down and said, “Those numbers inside Akiyama’s network. Someone inside Lucifer’s Lair, inside the business operation, is conducting a fair amount of communication with Akiyama Benjiro himself.” I pushed the list I had compiled across the desk. “This is more than trafficking one girl. I would even suggest it’s probably beyond human trafficking, unless Akiyama is selling humans across the Rift. I suspected Fredo and Martin Johansson of doing that, but Benjiro? That’s piddly crap.”
Whittaker nodded. “I agree. Even Rifter drugs would be too small time to interest him.”
“Well, we have two choices, the way I see it. Either Akiyama is selling something that Ashvial is sending across the Rift into the demon world, or Ashvial’s bringing something here that Akiyama wants to buy. Probably both. I mean, it’s all about money, right? Business. What probably got Johansson killed was that he went over the line and mixed business and pleasure.”
My boss’s eyes narrowed. “You have a devious mind.”
“I’m not a complete idiot. Just because I’m not preoccupied with making money, doesn’t mean I didn’t notice that everyone else in the Hundred is. Present company excluded, of course.”
He laughed. “Law and order have been very good to the Whittaker Family. Between the police, private security services, and mercenary contracts, we live very well. If I didn’t think George Findlay would have a meltdown, I’d have offered you a magitek engineering job in one of our arms factories a long time ago.”
After sending a quick mental blessing for Granduncle George, I changed the subject. “Are you going to be at Marco Novak’s betrothal party?”
“Of course. Frank Novak expects his allies to pay their respects.”
“Well, I need to take off early this afternoon. I have an appointment with my grandmother’s dressmaker.”
“Try not to get ambushed. I hope you realize how upset Olivia would be if you got her favorite designer killed.”
Kirsten met me at the dressmaker’s shop, excited as a six-year-old on the first day of school. It reminded me that things I took for granted—and often considered irritating impositions—were something she had only read about or seen in vids. My mom wasn’t rich, but my father came from two wealthy and powerful Magi Families. At least, back when Dad was born, James was powerful and respected. Findlay had made sure I never lacked for
