Bas nodded once. “Be rightback.”
“Okay,so,” Cort began, raising his voice slightly so Bas could hear him. “Sean was sufficiently worried that he put in some time last night, running the company names Bas gavehim.”
“The ones he found on Alexei’s server,” Camclarified.
“Right. Not shockingly, all of them seem to be legit, just like the dummy companies Cain and Damon found in Senator Shaw’s records lastmonth.”
“Figures.” Bas came back and perched himself on the arm of Drew’s chair, one foot up on the seat next to Drew’s thigh. It was incredibly distracting - every cell of Drew’s body was warmed by theproximity.
“They’ve all got an online and/or physical presence. They all filed taxes for last year,” Cortcontinued.
“Why isn’t that a shock?” Damon demanded. “I knowgoodpeople who don’t paytaxes.”
Cain snorted. “Let me guess what tinfoil-hat-wearing mountain man you might be thinkingof.”
Damon nudged Cain’s back with his foot. “Hush.”
Cain grinned. “I bet the difference is, Eli’s not a criminal. If the government does come after him, the most they’ll get him on is failure to file taxes. But forAlexei…”
“Exactly,” Cort confirmed. “Alexei doesn’t want anyone poking around in his files. He doesn’t exactly have receipts for hisexpenses.”
“There have to be other servers where he keeps his black-hat accounting information,” Bas said, shaking hishead.
“Air-gapped,” Drew said, repeating the new vocabulary word Bas had taught him. “So there’s no way to get at the information unless you can access the serverphysically.”
Bas pursed his lips and looked like he was thinking aboutsomething.
“Which you’re not doing,” Cort told him. “We’ve already discussed this, Sebastian. So seriously get any idea you have of infiltrating SILA right out of your head. We don’t even have a clue where the server might bekept.”
Bas sighed. “Yeah.” The agreement was grudging and unconvincing atbest.
“And,” Cort continued, still staring at Bas like he’d heard the reluctance in his voice. “As we have discussed in the past, Sebastian, obtaining information from SILA that way would only damage any case against them. None of the evidence would be admissible in court. I know you want to take down the organization,but—”
“But that’s not the way. Fine,” Bas said, frustrated. “I getit.”
Cort nodded, satisfied. “Yesterday, Cam had Margaret comb through all of the Seaver Tech projects your father took the lead on, searching for Michael Paterkin and/orCollier- the project that Paterkin mentioned in his emails. Sadly, both searches came upempty.”
Cam spoke up. “And it’s worth noting that Margaret’s memory is long, and she doesn’t remember anyone by thatname.”
Drew pushed a hand through this hair. “Great. Tell me you didn’t call this meeting to tell me that all we have are deadends.”
Cort’s grin was positively feral. “Would I do that to you? No. Darling Margaret, the love of my life, who deserves a raise by the way—” He pointed to Bas and raised an eyebrow. “Was brilliant enough to notice that there was a client your father handled who generated quite a bit of income for Seaver Tech over the years. So much income, in fact, that she was shocked she couldn’t remember the details of the project, or the contact person. She can’t remember handling any of the billing. And? There are no notes or files in the project folders. No contact person listed. It’s like they’ve all beenremoved.”
Bas frowned and rubbed at his chin. “I guess it’s possible there was a glitch. That something gotarchived…”
“Itmighthave been possible,” Cort allowed. “But it wasn’t. Show them,Cam.”
“The name of the company is Storm Surge Enterprises,” Cam said. He turned his laptop around to show them the screen, where a very,verybasic website of white text on a black background was displayed. The only visual interest on the entire page was a picture in the headerbar.
“Is that Comic Sans font?” Cain demanded. “Was this created by a thirteen-year-old?”
“More like a fifty-year-old who wanted to stay under the radar, I’m pretty sure,” Cam answered, ill-concealed excitement in his voice. “The contact information at the bottom is bogus except for the email, which is listed as R. Van Rijn at StormSurge.”
Drew blinked. “Who?”
“Van Rijn?” Cain asked, leaning forward to look at the website more closely. “Isn’t that the painter Rembrandt’s last name?” When Damon shot him a look, he said defensively, “What? My mom made me take an art appreciation class back in theday.”
“Ding ding ding!” Cam exclaimed, pointing at Cain. Then to Cort, he said, “See? I told you someone else would recognizeit.”
