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lip, running over the intel. "Mob, you think?"
    Carson shrugged. "Could be. All I know is, he has to cough up tonight."
    Her eyes widened. "Oh, you've been holding out on me, Carson."
    He smiled. "Before he left the boat. Last words Aviators told him: 'We're expecting an installment tonight.' Then Theo asked if it was at the same place, but Aviators said: ' He doesn't want your kind there anymore. You're only fit for The Bruges.'"
    She glanced at her watch. "How far's that from here?"
    He sat up and looked intently at her. "No, Peyton. I looked for it before coming here. It's a rough place."
    "Oh please," she scoffed. "If you can find it, I don't think it's too bad."
    "I don't know if I should be flattered or insulted by what you're implying," he said mildly. "But I'm serious, Peyton. I didn't find it by Googling and the person who pointed me in the right direction isn't exactly the type I'd like hanging around a good-looking woman. And you're not exactly inconspicuous, Red." He caught a strand of her hair and made to play with it, but dropped it after a second. "Better let me do it. I'll download when I get back."
     
    There was a small TV hidden in one of the flat's closets. She pulled it out, plugged it in by the kitchen counter and puttered around, fuming dejectedly. Not a place for good-looking women, indeed. Where'd Carson get off, pulling the protective caveman act? He had no idea the scrapes she'd been in. She could take care of herself.
    She settled on a random English news channel and left it as background noise as she walked around the flat, trying to shake off her nerves and boredom and irritation at Carson.
    "Tonight, we speak with Anders Van Der Luyden, CEO of the start-up Agile Tech…"
    She glanced at the screen to see a curly haired TV journalist face off against their painting's potential buyer. The spotlights fell straight upon her in her red chair and bounced off Van Der Luyden's high forehead, giving the illusion that his clear eyes glowed. He didn't seem to blink very much.
    "Mr. Van Der Luyden," said the journalist. "Talk is that investors are jittery—you seem to be committed to so many developments at the same time."
    "I am a man of many different passions and the capacity to see them all to fruition. Why should I limit myself to the narrow imagination of others?"
    Peyton walked across the room and leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window, feeling out of sorts. She had to admit to that familiar thrill of putting a takedown together. Despite everything, it was there: her senses were awake and a niggling mental itch started, that old compulsion to finish a job, no matter how cocked-up Gustave was. But underneath the excitement was the dread of actually finishing and going back to Roi. At the end of the day, she had been drugged and taken against her will to do this. It was now nearly a month since she was due to return from Cosa Imbah'i, and she didn't want to imagine what her boss was thinking.
    From the TV behind Peyton, the journalist's voice rose over Van Der Luyden's hectoring tone. "There are rumors of buyers keen to look into—"
    "New technology attracts many investors," he snapped.
    "I'm not talking about investors, Mr. Van Der Luyden. You are selling your company, piece by piece, asset by asset, technology by technology. It was what you did with AVL Digital, didn't you, before you established Agile Tech?"
    There was no answer for several seconds, so Peyton looked if the program was cut. Anders Van Der Luyden was smiling like a shark onscreen.
    The journalist shuffled her papers. "All right, don't answer that, Mr. Van Der Luyden, although I am sure your investors would've been interested in your answer. Isn't it true that the long-held criticism against you is that your innovations hardly keep your attention for long, and that you are always moving from one company to another? Isn't that why there are so many fears for Agile Tech's future?"
    Peyton zoned out and focused on the