Seventy-one

 

Iniko Zagrando stood up from his computer. He felt dizzy.

A quick search for information had given him too much. This thing was big, and it seemed to infect the entire Earth Alliance. He couldn’t just report to a superior or try to bring down Jarvis.

He had to figure out who inside the Alliance was causing this. Or how many people. Or how many people and corporations. He needed to know how far up this thing went before he could do anything.

And although he was good, he wasn’t that good. He didn’t know how to track and trace things aside from a superficial look as part of an investigation. He had let other people do that back when he was a police officer. He hadn’t had to do it much at all when he had been undercover.

The problem was, the entire Alliance was involved, the government itself. He couldn’t just ask them for help, and he couldn’t go through channels anywhere inside the Alliance.

And dammit, he couldn’t walk away. He wasn’t that kind of guy.

He rubbed a hand over his face.

He knew a lot of people who could help him get this information, but only one person he trusted. Only one person who understood how corrupt the system could be and how to work outside that system.

The problem was, that person was in the center of the Earth Alliance, on Earth’s Moon.

He would have to contact Miles Flint.

Only Zagrando couldn’t do it through links or secret communications. Nor could he do it by asking Flint to come to him. Flint wouldn’t leave Alliance space. Not with a daughter to raise.

Zagrando had to go to Flint.

Instead of fleeing the Alliance, Zagrando had to go into the very heart of it.

The upside was that no one expected him to do so.

The downside was that he would be completely alone until he reached Flint.

Zagrando took a deep breath. This was one of those moments when a man, standing alone, would find out what he was made of.

He had been right: He wasn’t the kind of man who ran away.

He went directly into the crisis.

He would stop these criminals from bringing down the Alliance.

The criminals would have some time to regroup. It would take Zagrando a while to get to the Moon, even in this ship.

But he would do it.

And he would stop them—if it was the last thing he would ever do.