“Niko,” Cam called out, and motioned his cousin over to join them. Seeing Cam, Niko’s face relaxed into a smile. He came over and embraced both Anden and Cam warmly and let Cam refill his cup. Despite his size and tough looks, Cam was naturally gifted at putting people at ease. Whenever the cousins were together, he seemed to bring out a different side of Niko. “Where’ve you been hiding, keke? The Juens want to know when we’re all going to train together again.”
“We’re a couple of suits now, Cam,” Niko said. “The Juens will destroy us.” The twins, Ritto and Din, were both first-rank Fists.
“That’s what they think too,” Cam said, glowing with eagerness to put his newly acquired jade to use. “We should do our part to keep our clan’s Fists from getting too cocky.”
Anden left his nephews to continue their conversation and went over to Hilo and Shae. “Where did all these young people come from, Andy?” Hilo wondered. “It’s barely past midnight and I’m tired as fuck. Let’s sneak out together so it looks like we’re talking about important clan issues.” He put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder and they made their way toward the elevators. Anden smiled, and when Hilo said, “What is it?” he shook his head and said, “Nothing, Hilo-jen. It was a good evening.”
_______
The world came crashing down in the form of a simple newspaper clipping that Shae read while waiting for her daughter’s dance practice to finish. Behind the studio’s soundproof windows, the girls leapt and twirled in flowing silks to music she couldn’t hear, but Shae sat immobilized, a deafening roar building in her ears.
The Euman Deal.
Shae’s ordeal with the Faltas had given her lasting emotional scars and ruined her jade tolerance, but it had also left her with a burning question, the only one the barukan captors had asked her that she had not been able to answer: What is the Euman Deal? Tell us about the Euman Deal. She shuddered and felt tendrils of panic crawl over her every time she thought about it, yet the demanding questions came back to her, swimming into her waking nightmares, taunting her years later.
What’s the Mountain’s big plan? You’re the fucking Weather Man of No Peak, you know what Ayt is up to, don’t you?
She’d investigated all the Mountain’s tributary businesses and assets connected to Euman Island. There was not much: a few properties in the town center, an upscale escort service catering to foreigners, a shipyard. She could find no evidence that any of them might be part of a major deal with the barukan.
Euman Island was best known for the Espenian naval base. Had the Mountain struck a secret alliance with the ROE military? Ayt Mada’s relationship with the Espenians was hostile to nonexistent, so it seemed unlikely—though not impossible. But Shae could not find any sign that Ayt Mada was in contact with the ROE government. If she was, Ambassador Lonard and Colonel Basso would’ve gone to the Mountain instead of No Peak to ask that the protestors be run off.
We know they’re cutting in the Matyos somehow. That was what the Faltas had said. The Matyos are moving money to the Mountain. What are they getting for it?
That part, at least, No Peak’s spies had been able to verify. The Matyos barukan were moving millions of Shotarian sepas into overseas bank accounts. Shae’s informers had long ago told her that Iwe Kalundo, Weather Man of the Mountain, was divesting the clan’s businesses in Ygutan. Perhaps that was simply because he didn’t want Mountain capital tied up in a country that was losing the Slow War and sliding into political instability, but it seemed the clan was still sitting on the proceeds and not reinvesting them elsewhere. It was not like Ayt to be passive. The Mountain and the Matyos were building up a joint hoard of cash and liquid assets. For what purpose?
Niko had told her that both Jim Sunto and the CEO of Anorco, Art Wyles, had part-time homes near GSI’s training compound on Euman Island. Perhaps the Euman Deal had something to do with those foreigners. Hilo and Lott Jin already had No Peak spies planted in Sunto’s organization, but they hadn’t investigated Wyles directly. Shae had dug up every bit of information she could about the man. She had the clan’s branch office in Port Massy keep an open file on him, informing her every time he appeared in the news. Now Shae was looking at an article from yesterday’s Port Massy Post, the story clipped, photocopied, and faxed along with other memos and reports.
The article was short. It announced that Art Wyles, newly appointed secretary of Foreign Trade, had tendered his resignation as president and CEO of Anorco Global Resources. Although he was not required by law to do so, he would be selling his controlling share to an unnamed private Kekonese investment firm. The article ended with a statement that Anorco was valued at sixteen billion thalirs and the conglomerate’s assets included proprietary offshore bioenergetic jade mining technology and Ganlu Solutions International, a private military company. The deal would close in ninety days.