Starship: Rogue

Chapter Twenty-One

Gerrit didn't fuck it up, and, by the same time the next day, it seemed Vail had reached his destination. As Gerrit explained, his beacon's pulse had remained in the same general area for several hours and didn't seem to be preparing to leave.

"He's at... a mansion on Grand Cayman," Gerrit said, after pulling up his location. "It belongs to the billionaire owner of Redstone Tech, Jansen Nash."

"Redstone," Stark said pensively. "Red Night. It can't be a coincidence, and–"

"You don't believe in coincidences," Rowan and everyone who'd known Stark a long time said alongside him. "Anyway," Rowan went on, "Cade did say that the Red Night has wealthy backers, and Redstone designs weapons systems, along with various other things."

"Even if we didn't know that Vail had at least stopped there, it would be worth investigating," Captain Falk said decisively. "We need to get in there, somehow."

"Agreed," Stark said. "But how? Get someone vetted as an employee? That'll take ages."

"Uh, guys?" Cade spoke up from the corner, where he was perched in front of a computer. "We might not need to do that. According to the Cayman Compass, the local news network, and I quote, 'Local Billionaire Jansen Nash will be hosting a soiree for his investors to celebrate his company's tenth anniversary. Rumors abound about the details of the party, which will be held on February 2nd–' That's about a week from now, guys. 'Blah blah blah–is one of the most exclusive events of all time: investors and their dates only, or else an invite is impossible to procure.'"

Captain Falk groaned. "Only minorly less impossible, then," he said grumpily.

"Not necessarily," Rowan pointed out. "All we'll have to do is invest upwards of 100,000 units in his company between now and then, under a false corporation or foundation, and we'll be sure to be invited as honored guests." She shrugged. It was pretty simple, really.

Captain Falk groaned. "And how exactly are we supposed to procure 100,000 units?" he demanded. "It's not like we can requisition it from the Hub's accountancy department. We'll be financing a company potentially involved in terrorist activity, for fuck sake!"

Rowan leaned back in her seat. They were in the squad room onboard Fox Squad's shuttle, which, when docked onto the Horizon, became the squad's living quarters on the ship. "What if we told them we needed the money for something else, then funneled it around? Sure, we'd get in trouble for it, but if we can hand them one of the Red Night's leaders, or more than one, it won't matter."

Stark leaned forward. "Say we said we needed the funds to purchase new supplies for the lab. We could have them deposit it in one bank account, then create a company and siphon it into that company's account, and so on and so forth. We could even put some of it into real companies' accounts, then sell them prototypes or ideas that we don't actually need–like Gerrit's new coffee machine idea, or Indigo's automatic plant watering machine, or whatever the hell it is. We could make back more than what we get, then put that in another account–basically, keep the money moving, essentially launder it or something."

"So," Captain Falk said. "We only ask for seventy-five thousand, and build it up from there by laundering that money, then adding to it ourselves, since we don't have time to make it ourselves from scratch. Smart, and very nearly illegal."

"We have a week," Levi said, looking at each of them in turn. "So, we ask each Science and Medical Officer for inventions they made for fun, not for our use, give them a portion of the proceeds, if they want it, and requisition that money."

"Easy," Rowan said, knowing it would be anything but.

***

A week later, Rowan and Major Kramer waited in a car outside the gate's to Nash's manor, dressed in a ballgown and a suit, respectively. As the owners of the fake New Horizons Foundation, allegedly created to help disadvantaged youths, they had received their invitations to the party two days earlier, and here they stood.