Chapter 19

Pan spent his first two months on Chonwei feeling like he was back in college, taking accounting courses with a plan to work in the family business. His brother John had encouraged him to take Corporate Finance, no matter what else he studied, so that when he took his place in the company, he could make informed decisions.

He spent ten to twelve hours a day tracking the money movements between corporations, megacorps, holding companies and shell companies. It was an epic task, though it was made considerably easier by the team of financial analysts and forensic accountants he had brought with him. The accountants could supply the data and point out discrepancies, and it was Pan's job to make the connections between the data found and the investigation.

He might have, under other circumstances, found the investigation a fascinating puzzle. His personal involvement, and the daily discomfort of stumping around the offices on his prosthesis, made the slow and methodical pace of the investigation an irritant. The only bright spots were his regular letters and the occasional video message, from Kat. She had graduated, was now working with Helios in the Beta sector and, though she couldn't put specifics into her messages, she was also stuck in an office doing research. She was even more action-oriented than Pan was and they could commiserate through their letters. It helped, though he missed her more than he had ever thought possible.

The initial stages of Pan's investigation had been slow going, but it didn't take long before things had started to change. His forensic guys had been tracking regular transfers of credit to a series of companies that were, on paper anyway, unrelated to LeMare Mining, Union Assets or Anson; the three major entities in this financial iceberg. The funds were being transferred to a separate series of interlocking financial entities that were all unrelated, but, when taken as a whole, looked suspicious. All of them were, on the surface, completely above board and legal. What brought the issue to light in the first place was the sheer volume and the unlikely amounts.

A good example was a shipment of machine tools from a small corporation on LeMare. The equipment was shipped from LeMare to Chonwei and sold to another corporation that was a shell company for Union Holding, at a price that was nine times the going rate. It was then sold back to the original company, through a separate set of transactions, and through different holding companies, all at a steeply discounted price. This was classic money laundering behavior but, since all of the companies involved paid taxes, tariffs and fees on the equipment, there was nothing blatantly illegal about any of it.

They were trying to discover the source of the funds used in the first set of transactions. If they could prove that the money was the profit from an illegal source, they could make a case to go in and seize the assets of each company in the chain. Pan was convinced that the original source of the money came from the sale of the pirated ships and the cargo they carried, but he didn't have the proof he needed to suggest the Agency act.

He had compiled a list of the companies, their officers and, in particular, those individuals who were signing off on the various transactions, and sent it all back to the Citadel. He was hoping that the larger staff and the almost endless influx of intelligence data would allow the analysts there to point out new avenues of research for his team.

He was surprised to get a personal message from Minerva in response to his report. He had expected to have several days of pacing ahead of him while the Citadel analysts did their magic. Decrypting the message, he was even more surprised at the contents.

"Need to know what kind of presence the Galactic Church of Extropian Transhumanism has in the Delta Sector. If possible, identify key players in the Church for your sector and take a look at their financials. We need to know if any of the companies you have been investigating can be tied back to the Church. - M"

Pan pulled a few of his team off the LMP/Union/Anson investigation and started them to work on researching the Church. Though there were no publicly available rolls that could be checked for Church membership, Pan had them searching the news archives for any mention of the Church. The initial search was not promising, but when he told them to expand the search into the social sections, he started getting hits. Events held on Church properties, or for Church charities; Statements released on a wealth of topics; these all yielded names of people in the Church hierarchy.

Cross-referencing those names against the stockholder reports, articles of incorporation and other, publicly available documentation, started paying off right away. Within hours, they had made a dozen links between the Church power structure and as many corporations already being investigated by the team. These links led to the identification of more Church members and additional tie-ins.

The results were stunning. Though there was no proof that the Church, as an entity, was directly involved in the piracy, the kidnapping or even the money laundering, it was equally clear that the Church hierarchy, as individuals, were neck deep. Once the connections had been made, it became immediately clear that the Church members owned controlling shares in almost all of the companies, corporations and megacorps involved in the investigation.

Expecting new orders from Minerva, Pan eagerly reported his findings and waited anxiously to see what the next step would be. He was surprised, and a little disappointed, to read Minerva's next message.

"Turn the team over to your 2nd and come home. -M"

When Pan arrived back on Calysto and reported in, Minerva was not in her office but a message was waiting for him. It said, simply enough, to report to medical.

The medical department was eagerly waiting for Pan to arrive and when he walked through the door, he was quickly surrounded by smiling faces and unceremoniously shoved into an examining room. He vaguely remembered that he had, sometime during his convalescence, agreed to an experimental procedure that would test a new type of prosthesis, and this was the team who was working on the project.

The experimental model, it was explained to him, would use a cultured bio-mechanical interface that was created using his own DNA and specially designed Nanotech. The first step was to surgically implant the interface into his thigh and anchor it to the bone. Next would come an injection of the Nanobots that would link the interface to his nervous system. This would enable him to control the artificial limb as though it were his actual leg. It would accept signals from his brain and return commands to the leg just like it had before he was injured.