Page 83 of Blood Game

Something had wakened him, pulling him out of the blood and chaos. He slowly pushed to his feet, the wood floor cold. He glanced back at the bed, and another memory surfaced of slender fingers against his skin, the brush of her hair as she had changed the bandage. Then, another memory—her body warm against his. She stirred, then burrowed deeper into the blankets. He let her sleep.

Innis sat in front of the bank of computers, a gamer's dream for those live-stream marathons.

He had come in a couple of hours earlier, wired for sound, hair standing on end.

“Bloody Christ, I'm glad to see you,” he told James. Then, “You look like hell.”

“What's happened?” James asked.

“Took my own advice—it seemed like a good time to leave. I've found something.”

Several empty cups sat between them now.

James rubbed the ache in his shoulder, the wound below a minor irritation in the scheme of things.

It was still dark outside, except for the streetlight at the corner. After arriving together, Luna had gone to bed in another part of the apartment. Daenerys was stretched out on the couch. Anthony kept them supplied with coffee.

“What else have you got?” James asked.

“Callish,” Innis replied, scrolling through the information that he'd downloaded and copied.

“Public records, media stuff about the gallery, that sort of thing. It's all pretty normal stuff. Then I took a look at his financials.”

James angled him a look. He probably didn't want to know how he pulled that one off. Innis shrugged.

“It's no different than all those New York financial institutions spying on everyone else trying to get an edge on one another. At first it all looked pretty straight-forward. He opened the London gallery almost ten years ago; big splash, lots of fanfare that included a couple of prominent artists at the time, including...” he scrolled through and found media photos of several live art displays from the opening.

“Some pretty shocking stuff, even for the art world, if you know what I mean.”

The photos of actors staged in oversized frames and in various positions that were supposed to mimic modern society were graphic, including two women simulating a sex act that had temporarily shut down the gallery opening. Compared to some of the things that could be found on the internet ten years later it was fairly tame.

Innis scrolled past the pictures of the gallery opening. “There have been other artists featured over the years, more respectable stuff, including some well-known works from the Renaissance, and there was this media piece several months ago about a retrospective of Paul Bennett's photographs from the war for the upcoming anniversary of the war.”

There was a photograph of Jonathan Callish with Cate in a media piece about the exhibit that was in the planning stages. There were other media pieces, publicity spreads in several art magazines, showcasing the gallery and the eclectic blend of iconic pieces with the works of newly emerging artists, and a renewed interest in antiquary, relics from Britain's past, obtained on loan, or through connections of the gallery's owner. From everything he saw, it appeared that the gallery was fairly successful.

“I thought that too,” Innis agreed. “But I'm a natural-born skeptic. I make my living from make-believe worlds, alternate universes, and people who like to hide in the shadows.

“One thing I've learned, nothing is ever what it seems. So I decided to dig deeper, peel back the layers, so to speak. That's when things got very interesting.” He connected a portable hard drive. A stream of information filled the screen, all in code.

“Translation?” James asked, leaning in take a closer look.

“That's just it,” Innis said. “You need to be a really sophisticated coder to understand any of this. There are probably only a handful, maybe a dozen people in the world who would be able to crack it.”

“Explain.”

“They're the sort who work for tech companies building new code, after some time on the other side. They work for government agencies who like to spy on each other, and some private parties who are interested in selling to the highest bidder. It's the sort of thing governments pay a great deal for—with firewalls, detection nets, and trackers.

“I was able to get in,” he continued. “But I picked up a tracker; every move I made, the bloody fucker was there. I finally got rid of the bastard. But I couldn't be certain that he hadn't identified me, or at least my location. That's when I decided we should disappear for a while. But I also thought it was important for you to know.”

“What else?”

“Follow the money,” Innis replied. “It's the one thing you can't hide; it always surfaces somewhere. Someone gets greedy, information gets out, lifestyle changes, sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.” He shrugged at the look James gave him.

“Well, you know what I mean. The point is, it gets out eventually, leaves a trail, if you know what to look for.”

“And you know what to look for.”

“I've had some experience with this sort of thing,” he replied vaguely. “And there's been a lot of money moving around, a whole lot more than shows up on Callish's bank account for the gallery, supposedly business development—a second gallery here in Paris.