"So make a list of people you'd never normally suspect, and start watching them."
"Hard to do when we don't actually know who we can and can't trust."
True. "Couldn't we just watch who Gautier talks to?"
"Gautier's clever enough to realize we're doing that." Rhoan glanced at me. "Besides, he's on assignment up north at the moment. Has been for the last month. He's not involved in this little episode."
At least that explained why I hadn't seen him around. I thought I'd just been damn lucky. "What about Alan Brown?"
"As shifty as hell, and definitely involved in something, but again, I'm not sure he's in on this."
"But he fast-tracked Gautier's entry into the Directorate, didn't he?"
"Yeah, but we've a feeling he was forced into that. Brown's being blackmailed."
I raised my eyebrows. "Someone knows about his appetite for whores?"
"His appetite for gambling, more likely." Rhoan sat back with a grunt. "Can't find anything resembling a bug."
Good. At least I wasn't responsible for bringing problems home to threaten him and the others. "If you know he's being blackmailed, then surely you'd be able to trace the source."
He rose, grimacing. "I wish it were that easy."
"Paper trail?"
"No trail."
"How come?"
"Brown's as cagey as a fox. We're certain he's giving someone information, but we can't uncover who or what."
"You've put him under surveillance, then?"
He gave me the look. "Hell, no. We just thought it was easier to let him wander around as he pleases."
I whacked his arm. "Don't get smart."
"Then don't ask dumb questions."
I grabbed my clothes off the floor and re-dressed. "What about the whores he uses?"
"You've seen the disks in his office. If he's using the whores to pass information, there's only one way he could be doing it, because he certainly doesn't talk to them."
"He's a vamp, so he's telepathic. Maybe he's figured out a way around the psi-deadeners." Hell, if Jack could get past them, surely other vamps could. Though Brown didn't seem to be anywhere near the same league as Jack.
"We've checked the whores. Their minds haven't been touched."
"Then he has to be passing something during sex." Though given what I'd seen on those videos, the only thing Brown had seemed interested in passing was his own dead sperm.
"We've had our own cameras installed. We don't believe that is happening."
"Then how is he getting information in or out? And if you don't think he's involved in my snatching, does that mean he might not have been involved with Genoveve?"
"Possibly. Many of those files Brown inherited from the former assistant director."
"And he is?"
"Very dead."