The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Chapter 33: Dancing with the Dragon

"Do you have anything in front of you right now?" Dee's voice asked out of the phone's tiny speaker. Duffy unconsciously nodded.

"Yup. I'm in the deed office's map room right now, with a couple maps of the downtown core stretched out in front of me." He moved his notebook aside to look at a detail map of the core that was lying beneath it. "I've already identified the buildings that were involved in the majority of the ghost files that you were able to discover."

A thick finger, still with his pen clutched in his hand, reached out to tap a cluster of buildings he had circled before Dee had called.

"What I found most interesting was that downtown office building involved in that massive explosion back in August. According to the deed office, it belongs to a multinational called Byer's Trust International. Paperwork indicates that it has connections both to France and Switzerland. On paper, they appear legit, having been in business for almost 50 years, dealing mostly in real estate and development."

"Think it might be a front?" Dee asked, her voice thoughtful. "After all, from what Mordecai has been telling me, the Brotherhood's been around for a couple hundred years. It wouldn't take much effort to put a front company in place twenty, thirty years ago so they could take advantage of an established record to put their project into play."

"I doubt it," Duffy replied, a thoughtful expression on his face. "It seems too obvious with its European connections, France being the headquarters of the Brotherhood, according to Mordecai. And my gut is definitely telling me that Byer's isn't involved in this bit of shenaniganry."

"Some sort of company leasing from Byer's then," Dee suggested and Duffy nodded.

"More logical, definitely," He confirmed. "My digging discovered that there are at least seven different companies in that building. Three are local; oil drilling companies and the like. But two are from back east and two are American. Four possible fronts for a Brotherhood-run organization. And, according to the paperwork, the dates that three of these four, including the two from back east, took in negotiating to take possession of the building coordinates with those dates you just gave me."

"Well, shit!" Dee's voice exclaimed. "Looks like your hunch paid off again, Duffy."

"Maybe," Duffy conceded. "We need to do a bit more digging to confirm things for sure. But it certainly gives us some stuff to work with."

"Just a thought, but I was wondering if any of those three negotiated for the space through a third party. And which of the three had the top three floors, where the greatest amount of damage occurred."

"Hmmm ..." Duffy let his voice trail thoughtfully off as he pushed aside the detail map to pull out an official blueprint of the office, complete with tenant designations. "Well, I'm not sure about third party negotiation; none of my paperwork deals directly with that. But I have a tenant blueprint here of the Byer's Tower and it would appear that those three floors were shared space, utilized by two different organizations."

"Which were?" Dee pressed.

"One moment, my dear," Duffy husked as he bent low to the page, squinting to bring his eyes into focus. "My old eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be and they use incredibly fine print on these damn things! Uh ... Demico Imports and ... and Brother's Keeper," he said after a moment of staring hard at the spidery print.

Pushing the blueprint aside, he pulled up the tenant information files that had been filed with the deed office by Byer's.

"Okay. According to the database, Demico Imports is a small, oil industry parts supplier based in Washington State. Tacoma, by what I'm reading here. They took up half of the third floor. By far, the bulk of those floors were leased to an organization called Brother's Keeper, a Christian publishing firm out of Toronto."

"Brother's Keeper?" Dee echoed, not bothering to hide the incredulousness in her voice. "You can't be serious."

"Dead serious, my dear," Duffy confirmed, tapping the page in front of him with his finger. "Brother's Keeper, 21 Center Street, top three floors of the Byer's Tower, with a nice view of the Telus Building and the Husky Tower."

"Shit, that is just too damn obvious!" Dee hissed. "That would be like sticking a giant label on their heads saying: 'The Brotherhood is here!'."

"Perhaps." Duffy frowned. "You have to remember, my dear Tragedy, that we're the only Normals that are aware of the Brotherhood's existence and their oddly familial moniker. It wouldn't seem so obvious to somebody that wasn't as well informed."

"Damn good point," Dee returned. "So we need to check these guys out. I have a feeling that psionics aren't particularly religious. We should also find out whether or not they had any other offices in town, to complete the connection.'

"I'm on it," Duffy said, leaning back from the map. "What about this tenuous Toronto contact? Didn't our gruff friend Mordecai indicate that he suspected the Brotherhood of having some sort of central headquarters in North America? Toronto, centrally located, seems to be a good candidate for that. Especially so, if this Brother's Keeper connection pans out. My instincts are telling me that we should do some more digging into them. Including tapping into Interpol and your CSIS connections to see if they have holdings overseas, in Europe. France, in particular."

"Good call, Duffy," Dee replied. "You lock down whatever information you can find there, at the deed office, and use your phone to take some images of those deed maps. After, see if you can get a public listing on Brother's Keeper's officers. If they are public, it shouldn't be too hard to find. And I'll put our other contacts on tracking down any overseas connections they might have as well as any other organizations and companies that are affiliated with them."

"Very good. Let's meet back at Mordecai's apartment at tea time then, to examine our results," Duffy said with a nod.

"Done. See you then."