Central Business District

New Orleans, Acadiana

TIME WAS RUNNING OUT for Joseph Wells. At eight a.m. he would become an outlaw, and the hunt to capture him, dead or alive, would begin. A sensible man with a healthy instinct for self-preservation would be well on his way out of town by now. Instead, thirty-four year old Joseph Wells sat inside an upscale restaurant, ordered his third cup of coffee, and waited anxiously for his insurance agent to arrive.

Joseph pulled back his coat cuff and spun his watch to see its face. The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master was a gift from his former employer, and the simple inscription on its caseback had been Joseph’s engraved invitation to Mount Olympus.

Joseph,

It is a far greater thing to be trusted than to be loved.

—Lester

The true lesson, it turned out, was discovering that no good thing ever lasts. Joseph had been cast from the mountaintop and stripped of a life in paradise. The dream was dead. Now the watch on his wrist and the bespoke Henry Poole suit on his back were all that remained of the many fine things he once owned.

Seven twenty-eight a.m. Where the hell was he? They should have met at the offices of Orleans Risk & Casualty, or, better yet, Citadel headquarters. But Ari insisted they meet there, at that exposed public place, because he wanted to eat breakfast first. The fat bastard.

Joseph gulped down his tepid coffee and surveyed the packed dining room over the rim of his mug, at once eager for a friendly face yet inclined to remain anonymous. His eyes settled on a woman seated alone near the restaurant’s main entrance, appearing to study her menu. Joseph recognized her. He didn’t know her, but he’d definitely seen her before. Two days ago, at a grocer’s market on Baronne, she’d stood among the baked goods squeezing a loaf of sourdough. Then yesterday, in Lafayette Square, she’d paralleled him on St. Charles as he walked along the plaza on his way to the gym. Now, here she was again.

Three times in three days. What were the odds?

The longer Joseph observed the woman, the more unsettled he became. The subtle head shake that deterred waitstaff and the tactical utility of her attire shined a spotlight on her amid the throngs of tailored professionals networking over coffee and omelets. Her sage canvas pants, black polyester polo, and low-profile hiking shoes might have been in vogue at the food stalls on Decatur, but not inside Le Pavillon Bijoux during corporate feeding time.

There! Her eyes settled on him for the briefest instant. Or did he only imagine it because he was already staring at her? He scanned across the dining room and spied a man loitering at the newsstand near the side entrance to the restaurant. His loose windbreaker and denim jeans revealed broad shoulders and a narrow waist. A boxer’s build.

Joseph checked his watch again then thumbed his earpiece and dialed Ari, who picked up on the second ring.

“I’m almost there,” Ari said by way of greeting. “I swear on my mother. Just give me two minutes.”

“They know where I am,” Joseph said under his breath. When Ari didn’t respond right away, he added, “Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard you. What makes you say that?”

“There’s a woman here. I’m pretty sure she’s been following me.” Something outside the restaurant caught Joseph’s attention. “Wait, hold on.”

Through the plate-glass window, he saw a car creep up to the curb, just around the corner from the restaurant. Rooftop light bar, red fenders, matte-black hood. Joseph’s over-caffeinated heart hammered in his chest. He turned to check on the boxer and found him looking back across the dining room, nodding to the woman. Joseph hunched down in his seat.

“They’re here.”

“It’s way too early for that. Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m fucking sure!” Joseph hissed. “They’ve got the exits blocked, and a Sentinel cruiser just pulled up.”

Ari’s voice was placid, calming. “Alright, relax. You’re fine. I’m going to send Citadel to pick you up right now.”

A quartet of elderly women entered the restaurant through the side entrance, blocking the boxer behind a tall glass door.

“They’ll never get here in time. I’m going to slip out while I still can.”

Joseph stood from the table on rubbery legs and crossed as casually as he could in front of the hostess station, angling toward a vestibule with a restroom sign hanging above it. He suppressed an urge to run when he noticed the woman stand to follow.

“And go where? Right now you’re safe. Just stay put, I’m on my way.”

“No, you fucked me, Ari. I should never have come here.”

Joseph passed through the vestibule and turned down a dim narrow hallway to the men’s room. As he pushed through the heavy swinging door, the woman rounded the corner behind him. With a trembling hand, he pushed the door shut and twisted the lock. The latch caught the bare edge of the strike plate. One solid kick and the door would open.

“Don’t put this on me. I begged you to take their deal.”

Joseph surveyed the restroom. A pair of toilet stalls with louvered doors lined the back wall. To his left, a cobalt-glazed urinal and, next to it, a large bowl sink. No window. Pinpricks of heat flushed his skin and his breathing accelerated.

“And I told you, I don’t trust it. Find me something else.”

“There is nothing else!”

Joseph lifted his eyes. A drop ceiling. He balanced delicately on the rim of a toilet seat and punched a tile out of its frame. Dust and mineral fibers rained down onto his face.

“Ugh!”

“What’s going on? Where are you?”

Joseph spat something awful out of his mouth. “I’m trapped in the bathroom. That woman’s right outside.”

He looked through the rectangular hole in the ceiling. The top of the bathroom wall was nearly level with the drop ceiling frame and dim light glowed on the other side.

“Good, stay there. I’m messaging Citadel right now.”

“Sure.”

The chromed flush valve sticking out of the toilet provided a few extra inches, sufficient boost to grip the top of the wall. A short hop and Joseph muscled up far enough to rest his belly on top of the wall and peer over the side. It was a utility closet. Copper pipes overhead made a ninety-degree turn down into the room and terminated at a bulky water heater. If he could swing his leg over, he might be able to step down on top of it.

The door crashed open behind him and the boxer rushed into the bathroom. He lunged for Joseph’s dangling feet. In a panic, Joseph churned his legs and pulled himself headfirst over the wall. His arms windmilled, and he grasped for anything to break his fall. He caught the corner of a cheap wire rack loaded with cleaning supplies and tore it clean off the wall. Down he went, landing hard on the ground as cans and bottles clattered around him.

“He went over!” came a shout from the bathroom.

“What was that?” Ari shouted.

Laying in a daze, Joseph groaned. He’d tumbled into a supply closet head over and landed on his back, his legs and arms tangled up among wire shelving.

“I fell,” he groaned as he carefully unfolded and extricated himself, making sure no bones were broken.

“Fell where? I told you to stay put!”

Joseph stood and pressed his ear against the closet door. Muffled conversation and the rattle of ceramic plates. He was just outside the kitchen. He cracked open the door and peeked out. Directly across from the closet were a set of double doors for receiving deliveries. He stepped from the closet into a small pass-through area between the walk-in refrigerator and the kitchen.

“He’s going out the back!”

Joseph whipped his head around to see the woman and the boxer barrel past stunned kitchen staff as they weaved their way between stainless steel prep tables.

“Look out!”

The woman body-checked a waiter hard into the wall and went to the ground with him. The full tray he carried tipped out of his hand, sending mugs of steaming hot coffee crashing to the floor. The boxer hurdled over the two prone bodies and landed in the liquid. With a loud squeak, his feet flew out from beneath him and he flipped backwards, slamming his head against the terracotta tiles with a sickening thunk.

Ari’s booming voice cut through the commotion. “What the hell is going on?”

Joseph seized his opportunity and dashed forward. He slammed through the double doors, stumbling out onto a small loading dock just as two more Sentinel cruisers screamed past with their sirens blaring, headed toward the front of the restaurant. He spun and ran in the opposite direction, down a shallow ramp and onto a narrow side street as tires squealed behind him.

“Jesus, they’re everywhere! What do I do!”

“We gotta get you somewhere, fast. Tell me exactly where you are.”

Joseph clocked the blue and white street sign as he sprinted by and relayed his location to Ari.

“Okay, make your next right and head toward Canal. I’ve got a friend nearby who I think can help.”

A delicate structure called the nucleus accumbens sits in the command center of the brain’s reward system. Stimulate it just so and your arm hairs dance on mounds of goose flesh and chills wash over your body. You experience a frisson.

For Maxim Galloway, it happened every time his Nemonik created a new memory. The surgical technician at Virtex had somehow mislaid one of the hundreds of neural nanowires that crisscrossed his temporal lobe and hijacked the function of his hippocampus. A probable cause for malpractice he’d once considered, but ultimately it was a minor inconvenience when compared to the benefits of hyperactive insight.

In a flash of cognition, Galloway remembered an event moments before it happened.

>> Aristotle Webb called

An instant later, his cellular implant issued a pleasant tone and his tripad tablet illuminated. He inched aside a plate loaded with small donuts and spied Ari’s name peeking from the message notification tray. He frowned. What the hell did that deadbeat want now? He toyed with letting it go to the message service. Then again, maybe Ari finally had that money he owed.

“Morning, Ari. How do?”

High def audio from Galloway’s cochlear stims provided stunning fidelity and sound localization, creating the illusion that the portly managing partner of Orleans Risk and Casualty was speaking to him from across the desk.

“Galloway! Where ya at, man?”

Should he say home or office? Galloway glanced at the marine clock tick-tocking on the sideboard. It read seven thirty-five in the morning. Far too early for client business.

“Home, of course,” he said, and then popped one of the donuts into his mouth.

Home for Galloway was a two-room executive suite at The Hotel Grunewald, a moldering high-rise tenement squatting on the shoreline of the murky Tulane Basin. Despite its shabby condition, the hotel retained a small measure of its former glamor and refinement, which suited Galloway just fine. Room service encouraged his indolent lifestyle, which some called lazy, but he considered a practical luxury. The hotel suite also served as a convenient host to the worldwide headquarters of Metis Intelligence Service, of which Galloway was the proprietor and sole employee.

“That’s great to hear. I really need your help, pal. I’m sending someone over.”

Partially chewed crumbs caught in Galloway’s throat and he swallowed hard to force them down. “Wait, what are you talking about? When?”

“He should be there any minute.”

Galloway scoured the paper-strewn desktop for a napkin or tissue and, finding neither, wiped his sugary fingertips across his bare flat stomach. For someone who existed on a room service diet, he managed to stay remarkably lean.

“I’m awful busy right now, Ari. Can you send them around later? You know, lunchtime works best for me.”

Frantic pounding at the door caused a pair of zesty Bellocq prints to dance on the wall.

“Are you in there? Open the door!” someone shouted from the hallway.

“It can’t wait. We’re on a deadline.”

Galloway stared at his unfinished breakfast and cursed himself for taking the call. He stood and smacked crumbs from his plaid boxer shorts.

“Hold on a minute!” he yelled at the door, but acknowledgement only encouraged more pounding. “Which of your little cretins did you dispatch to my home at this ungodly hour?” Galloway asked Ari as he stalked away to the bedroom to put on some pants.

“Good kid. His name’s Joseph. Joseph Wells.”

“Don’t know him. What’s he do for you when he ain’t raising a ruckus?”

Clothes laid neatly arranged at the foot of the bed and he quickly shimmied into a pair of fitted khakis and shrugged on a light blue polo, skipping the shoes and belt.

“Joe doesn’t work for me. He’s one of my executive protection clients.”

“Really? Then I’m confused,” Galloway said, hurrying to answer the door before someone called about the noise. “If he’s your client, then why ain’t he banging on your door?”

“Someone’s after him to serve a writ of seizure. The fool refuses to sign his restitution agreement.”

Galloway froze with his hand on the door lever. “Did you send a criminal to my home?”

Ari’s amused snort sounded calculated to disarm. “No way, man. He’s white collar.”

“Mm-hm, white collar what?”

Galloway narrowed his eyes at the small brass plate where his peephole used to be and reminded himself once again to call building maintenance about it.

“It was a business thing between him and another guy. Nothing you need to worry about.”

“I think you’re full of shit, Ari. Who’s after him?”

Ari hesitated before answering. ”Sentinel.”

Galloway snatched his hand back as if he’d burned it on a hot skillet handle. “For chrissake, Ari! Do they know where he’s at right now?”

“It’s a good bet they do.”

Joseph’s pounding grew louder and more insistent. “I can hear you in there! For God’s sake, let me in!”

Galloway wasn’t about to invite hot trouble into his home. Better for Ari to dump the guy into a cab and send him somewhere else.

“How much time’s he got?” Galloway asked, but Ari sounded distracted.

“No, I’m talking to him right now. “ Ari said to someone in his office. “Hey, grab me a cruller while you’re up, will you? Thanks. Sorry, Galloway, I missed that. What’d you say?”

“How much time, Ari?” he repeated, raising his voice.

“Not much. His grace period expires at eight.”

Galloway coughed out a laugh. “Are you high on gasoline or something? That’s no time at all. What the hell do you even expect me to do?”

“Jesus, Galloway!” A sharp bang, like Ari’s beefy palm slamming down on his heavy steel desk, made Galloway flinch. “I don’t have time for your coonass, chanky-chank bullshit right now. Will you please let the man inside, already?”

Galloway backed away from the door, shaking his head. “No. This ain’t part of our arrangement. My business don’t include harboring your fugitives.”

He almost felt the hot wind blasting from Ari’s nasal passage.

“Joe’s not a fugitive,” Ari grumbled. When no response came, he pressed on. “He called me from Le Pavillon in a panic, climbing out a bathroom window with Sentinel agents on his tail. You’re the only friend in the area I can trust with this. That’s the God’s-honest truth. I’m begging you man, please help me out. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“Your promises don’t pay the rent, Ari. You know what does? Money!” Galloway blurted out and then bit down on his tongue. Several seconds passed before his stims transmitted Ari’s response.

“I don’t even know what to say to that. You gotta tell me what I did wrong, because I don’t understand why you’d say something like that after all the years we’ve worked together. Is this really about money, Galloway, or are you just done with me now?”

The sound quality was exceptional. He’d never been shamed in HD audio before. It was like a rebuke from a chubby Jiminy Cricket.

“I didn’t say- You know that ain’t what I meant,” Galloway sputtered. “It’s, well, you’re calling at such an unseemly hour, and you interrupted my breakfast too, by the way. I just don’t appreciate this kind of unprofessionalism, is all I’m trying to say.”

Ari breathed a long sigh. “Hey, I can respect that, man,” he said and Galloway was momentarily relieved. “And I accept your apology.”

“Pardon?”

“I already dispatched a team from Citadel to help you out, so stop worrying. And listen, Joe’s a huge liability for me, so all I want you to do is sit on him until Citadel gets there and takes control. Don’t let him out of your sight. You’re the best, Galloway. I’ll get back to you.”

The line went dead. Galloway stared at the empty space before him, wondering what the hell just happened, while the pounding on his door continued unabated like a second line drum beat. Against every rational impulse, he snatched open the door and Joseph Wells, who’d been leaning against it, fell at his feet gasping for breath. A pair of surveillance nanodrones, fat as June bugs, hovered in the hallway behind him. Their glittering pinhole-camera eyes provided a clear view into the room for the Sentinel agents who monitored them.

“What the hell took you so long?” Joseph managed between gasps.

“You must be Mr. Wells.”

“No shit, guy. Ari said you were expecting me.”

Of course he did. Galloway swatted at the bots buzzing about, but they were too fast. Tiny wings, flicking at hundreds of cycles per second, propelled them away to a safe distance, just beyond his reach.

“You’re swarming with bugs, son,” he said and then looked at his feet. “Are you just gonna lay there like an idiot or what?”

Joseph took the offered hand and Galloway hauled him up into the suite. The last thing the drones transmitted before the door slammed shut was a stone-faced Galloway extending his middle finger. Joseph pushed past him to the nearest window and pulled back the heavy drapes to check the street.

“How long before Citadel gets here? Did you call hotel security yet?” An antique rotary phone on the desk rang and he snapped his head around. “Who’s that?”

“Don’t worry about any of that,” Galloway said. He leaned against the desk and folded his arms. “How about you explain what’s going on first? What kind of animal beats on a man’s door like that?”

Joseph Wells wasn’t at all the manner of fugitive he expected. Tall and well-dressed in a tailored blue suit. Despite his sweaty, blood-shot, and flustered state, he was strikingly handsome. Flushed with adrenaline, Joseph stepped away from the window and mopped sweat from his face with a shaking hand, his nostrils flared and eyes wide.

“What are you talking about? Explain what?”

“I don’t know,” Galloway said with a shrug. “You tell me.”

“You don’t know,” Joseph muttered, and then he was on the move. He bounced around the small hotel suite, peeking into open doorways and closing curtain gaps. “Is there another way out of here?”

“No, why would there be?”

Joseph looked back. “Because Sentinel’s coming for me,” he said with an edge of scorn before resuming his search. “They’ll be here any minute.”

“Okay, that part I already knew.”

“Then why’d you even ask?” he muttered. When Joseph finished his reconnoiter of the suite, he returned to the parlor displeased with the verdict. “You realize we’re trapped up here, right? You need to call security and barricade the goddamned building!”

His eyes flicked to the door. He looked fully prepared to defenestrate himself if he heard so much as a footstep outside.

Galloway held up his hands and said, “Let me start again. Why is Sentinel after you?”

Joseph’s frustration with Galloway’s questions reached an abrupt crescendo. “It doesn’t matter why! Ari said to come here and that you’d help me, and right now the help I need is protection and transportation the hell out of Acadiana. That’s everything you need to know!”

He swiped the air to underscore just how settled the matter was. Galloway stood impassively and waited as the clock tick-tocked and the phone continued to ring.

“Are you ever going to answer that damned phone?”

Galloway hesitated another beat, then picked up the handset and held it to his ear.

“Good morning, Mr. Galloway,” said Janet De Luca from the concierge desk. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but we’ve received complaints about the noise. Is everything all right?”

Galloway cradled the phone and paced across the parlor. “Yes, dear. I’m sorry for the disturbance but everything’s fine now, thank you.”

“A gentleman raced through the lobby but didn’t stop to give his name. Is he a guest of yours?”

So much for hotel security. Galloway regarded Joseph, frazzled and deranged, and said, “Yes, I suppose he is. Sorry for not informing you earlier, but Mr. Smith’s visit was a last minute arrangement.”

“Mr. Smith. Of course. If there’s nothing else, then...”

“There is, actually. I’m expecting a few more guests shortly. Associates of Mr. Smith. When they arrive, please inform them we’ll be receiving them in the Roosevelt Lounge.”

“Certainly. How many are you expecting?”

“Couldn’t say. Three, four, maybe more. You’ll know when they arrive.”

“Shall I have banquet services arrange for coffee and tea?”

Galloway considered the offer and said, “Coffee would be wonderful. Thank you, Janet.” He hung up the phone and turned to Joseph. “Satisfied?”

“I really hope you’re not being serious. Is that your plan? Serve them coffee?”

Galloway slammed the phone down on his desk hard enough to make its mechanical ringer sing. “Hey, listen to me, son. I don’t know what Ari promised you, and frankly I don’t care, but I was told to keep you right here till Citadel arrives and that’s precisely what I intend to do.”

Joseph opened his mouth to object but Galloway’s withering glare quashed it. He slumped down onto the burnished leather sofa behind him instead.

“Good,” Galloway said. “Now, since we ain’t got nothing to do but sit tight and wait, how about you tell me what the hell’s going on, and maybe I can figure out a way to fix it.”

Joseph clasped his hands behind his neck and hung his head. His stress-induced agitation drained away and a petulant resignation settled in its place.

“What’s the point? You can’t fix this. No one can.”

“Try me.”

Joseph looked at him with large dark eyes and said, “Sentinel’s coming with a writ to haul me away to a place called Falconhead, and I can’t let them take me.”

“Why not?”

“Because, I’ll be killed,” he croaked.

His tone was no longer hostile and had lost its frustrated edge. All that remained was fear and exhaustion. Galloway tsked.

“Come on, now. Are you talking about that old Metairie club they converted into an internment center? I heard it’s a nice place.”

Joseph shook his head. “No, no, you’re not listening to me. It’s all bullshit. There is no Falconhead. At least, I don’t think it exists. He’s just using it to trap me. He told me I was going to get what’s coming to me.” Joseph pushed himself to his feet. “Coming here was a mistake. I have to go.”

“Hold up. Who told you that?”

Joseph locked eyes with Galloway. “Chief Les.”

“Oh...”

Chief Les was “Big Chief” Lester Lineer, a man Galloway had never met in person but whom, through various business dealings with Ari over the years, he knew well enough by reputation. The imposing head of Black Eagle Legion, one of Acadiana’s oldest and most respected business syndicates, was a notoriously ruthless and unforgiving man.

It was a business thing between him and another guy. Nothing for you to worry about.

“What the hell did you do to Lester?”

Joseph stared, his face stricken, before turning away from Galloway’s judging expression. “Oh man...,” he breathed.

He wandered to the window, slowing when he reached a gap in the curtains. He absently drew them aside. Galloway waited as Joseph gazed out over the fetid waters of the Tulane Basin and across Lake Pontchartrain, to the edge of Acadiana where the promise of escape beckoned.

May as well be staring at the moon, Galloway thought. Even if Joseph managed to slip through the Sentinel dragnet, it would hardly matter. Chief Les possessed certain traits no one wanted in their pursuer: unlimited resources, supernatural patience, and pathological determination. If so inclined, Lester would track Joseph to the furthest corners of the world.

“Ari never even told me your name,” Joseph said.

“It’s Galloway. Maxim Galloway, but everyone just calls me Galloway.”

“Galloway,” he said, trying on the name. “You want to know something, Galloway? My life used to be great. No, better than great. It was perfect. But then my mom got remarried to this real low-life gambler type named Digger Dolan and it all went to shit.

“That’s what he calls himself, you know. Digger. I mean, too perfect, right? Within six months, he’d torched her entire savings at the riverboats. Then he pledged their house, my parents’ house, as collateral on a gambling marker and ran it all the way up to its limit.” Joseph’s face clouded. “When it was all gone, so was he.

“One day, I get this call from my mom. She’s hysterical. Men are at the house trying to serve her with an eviction order. Digger’s long gone, but the juice never stopped running on his marker, and now she owes way more than the house is worth. They were threatening to throw her into debtor’s prison!”

“They couldn’t do that. It wasn’t her debt.”

“I know that, but she’s an old woman, Galloway. She doesn’t know the law like you do. She was scared, and I think that’s what they wanted.” Joseph’s eyes softened and his voice caught a hitch. “She loves that house more than anything. She and my dad rebuilt it from the studs after Hurricane Kirk. It would’ve killed her to lose it that way. I couldn’t let something like that happen to my mom, could I? Could you?”

When Galloway realized it wasn’t a rhetorical question he shook his head.

“No, of course you wouldn’t. So I did what I had to do. I liquidated everything l possibly could and paid off the debt.”

Galloway exhaled sharply. “That was a good thing you did, son, helping your mama like that. It must’ve been tough.”

Joseph’s breathing stuttered. “More than you know. It destroyed me. A giant hand sweeping away my entire financial future. I was going to be spending my retirement years living at home with my mom on a syndicate pension.”

He let go of the curtain and turned to face Galloway. His eyes were glassy and he used the cuff of his coat to pat them dry.

“Then a couple months ago, a miracle dropped right into my lap,” he continued. “I learned about something at work that would not only restore my losses, but set me up for the rest of my life.”

As Joseph talked, a shiver raced up Galloway’s spine. He’d caught another frisson. The unexpected recollection of a caption printed below an image of a square-jawed young man standing behind a wooden lectern on a darkened stage.

>> IFGN Conference speaker, Joseph Anthony Wells, SVP Black Eagle Investments, presented at the Ernest N. Morial...

“M&A?” Galloway ventured.

Joseph turned, surprised. “Did Ari already explain all of this to you?”

Galloway shrugged. “No, but this is Acadiana. Everyone’s mated, dated, or related. I do intelligence work for Ari sometimes and OR&C is a member of the Black Eagle syndicate. Not a lot of dots to connect there.”

“Well, I don’t work there anymore, but you’re right. I was the Chief Investment Officer at Black Eagle Bank.”

It was Galloway’s turn to be surprised. “I’m sorry, but they made you an officer?” he asked, and when Joseph tilted his head, Galloway waved his hand. “I mean, you’re ... well...”

“White?”

“That too, but I was gonna say ‘quite young.’”

“Sure,” Joseph said and managed a weak smile before turning pensive. “There is something to that, though. The board was dead set against promoting me. They’d never allowed a white person into the c-suite before. Most of those old-heads had lost folks in the Christmas Holocaust, so they really don’t trust us. But Lester, he knew my parents from way back. From when they first came to Acadiana in the years after. He helped them when a lot of others were trying to push them out of the neighborhood. He even sponsored me into Tulane. Lester told the board, if there’s one peckerwood they should trust, it was me. He said he thought of me as family.” Tears brimmed in his eyes and his voice cracked. “Can you believe that?”

Galloway bobbed his head in commiseration but he sensed a creeping unease. Trust was sacrosanct in Acadiana. The way Joseph talked about the Black Eagle board, and especially Lester, impinged on his deeply held beliefs about duty, honor and integrity. He couldn’t imagine Black Eagle inviting a man like Joseph into their inner circle. It was unprecedented. So what had Joseph done to turn Lester against him? The more he thought about it, the less certain he was that he wanted to know.