Page 30 of Nash Falls

They checked his ID, though they well knew who he was, and they expertly searched him for weapons, though they knew he never carried any. However, they were part of a world where you did these things routinely, because if you didn’t and someone under your protection died, then so would you.

He was escorted inside and up to a room on the second floor. She made him wait for ten minutes before making an appearance, because she could.

Victoria Steers was a few years shy of forty and the product of an Asian mother and a Caucasian father. She stood five nine and was whipcord slender with black hair. She possessed delicate, porcelain-like features that were, in contrast to the hair, as pale as cream. Her voice was nearly as low as a man’s, and her manner was understated and sometimes stilted, if somehow still imperious.

Steers was battle hardened in tactics, superbly schooled in ruthless backstabbing, and had absolutely no compunction about killing anyone who might challenge her interests. Rhett had once listened to her unemotionally order the execution of someone, who, up until then, had been one of her closest allies. The message spun off this had been clear and intentional:No one is safe.

She appeared dressed in black slacks, an untucked, long-sleevedblack shirt, and white tennis shoes with three-inch platforms that brought her up nearly to Rhett’s height. She smiled at him, but it was a smile without genuineness. Her small affectation completed, she sat cross-legged on the floor, and motioned for him to join her. More inflexible than the limber Steers, Rhett still managed to get down there with only a bit of a struggle.

“The problem?” she said.

“Solved. Burr is handling disposal.”

“And?”

“Deep water, diced organs, and heavy footwear.” Rhett hesitated for a moment, drawing up his nerve. “It’s the third in two years. That is unsustainable.”

“I disagree,” said Steers.

“I’m looking at the long game and—”

“That is the only game there is, Mr. Temple. But if you allow yourself to appear weak? Then there is no long game possible because you will not be around to execute it.”

“So, if we appear so strong, why does this keep happening?”

“I summoned you here for that very answer,” she replied, neatly turning the tables on him.

He leaned back and reconfigured his pretzeled legs to allow him a moment’s reflection, better circulation, and a chance to think of a response now that he had lost the advantage.

She beat him to it. “I feel compelled to also ask whether you are feeling out of your depth.”

“No,” Rhett said instantly because he sensed if he did not, he was dead.

“So explain,” Steers ordered.

“I believe this keeps happening because we have a leak somewhere.”

“Obviously, and just as obviously that isyourresponsibility,” she replied.

“But it seems that every time I close one hole another one pops up. That can’t be a coincidence.” He glanced at Steers to see the woman’s reaction.

“My response to that is exactly the same as my previous one.”

“I’m not afraid to ask for advice from someone far more experienced than I am.”

He knew that she either bit on this and showed some mercy, or he might suffer the exact same treatment as Peter Lombard had.

“It is not a weakness to seek help from others better established to make decisions of importance,” she remarked. “It is a strength. Up to a certain point.”

Steers had this awkward way of speaking that he had noted before. But her words were true enough, and even more important, they agreed with his.

“What do you suggest?” he asked.

“That you use the intelligence gained from each ‘problem’ to make sure there is not an additional ‘problem’ with which to contend. I sense a pattern here. The government is looking for a pathway in. They have not succeeded yet because we have been too quick for them.” She paused. “You have done well on the reaction time, Mr. Temple. But reaction is eventually a losing tactic. Soproactiveis the method we must adopt here.”

“And to accomplish that?” he said.

“Observation: The other targets of FBI complicity were all midlevel people who had access to financial information the authorities would find useful. This is correct?”