Turn 8 of 9

Press Vasek to name his client directly, and demand to see the original debt bond from Hallek & Sons

You fold the manifest and tuck it into your coat. Vasek watches you do it, and for the first time something shifts behind his eyes — not fear, but the awareness that the conversation has moved past the point where pleasantness is sufficient. You step closer. Not aggressively, but enough that he has to look down at you from a shorter distance, which changes the geometry of the thing.

"Who is your client?" you say. "Not a category. A name."

Vasek's mouth opens, closes. He adjusts his cuff again — the same gesture as before, his tell, and you mark it.

"I have told you what I am able to tell you. The client's identity is protected under Harbour Court regulation seven, section four — debt instruments acquired through a brokerage may be held in nominee. This is not unusual."

"Neither is a rigged game," you say. "You want us to fly tin to Aelver's Reach under a contract that keeps a lien on our ship if we're a day late. The tin was sitting in a warehouse before your client bought the debt. Your client bought the debt at a discount from a brokerage that couldn't wait to be rid of it. And now you're standing on a quay offering us a deal that looks like salvation and smells like a trap." You let that land.

"Show me the original bond. The one Hallek & Sons issued. If this is clean, the paperwork will prove it."

Vasek is quiet for a moment. The wind on the sixth level quay carries the sound of a crane chain below, and somewhere a broker's runner is shouting cargo figures through an open door. Ferran stands very still beside you, her arms folded, watching.

"The original bond is filed with the Harbour Court," Vasek says carefully. "I can request a copy, but it will take time. Time you do not have."

"Then we're done talking about the cargo contract until I see it."

Vasek studies you. Then he nods, a single, small motion, and reaches into his coat for a second document — a folded copy, not the original, but it carries the Hallek & Sons seal and the stamp of the Harbour Court's filing clerk. He holds it out.

"You are a thorough man," he says. "I respect that. But thoroughness is a luxury, and the twelfth bell does not care about it."

You take the bond copy and unfold it. The handwriting is cramped, legalistic, and you scan the key clauses — the debt amount, the consolidation date, the transfer of holding from Hallek & Sons to Calderon & Mott. And there, at the bottom, in the space where the creditor's name should be, the ink has been scratched out and re-entered in a different hand. The new entry reads simply: *Calderon & Mott, as nominee.*

"Nominee," Ferran says, reading over your shoulder. "Someone doesn't want to be found."

Vasek says nothing. His face is composed, but his thumb moves against his cuff again. You have the manifest and the bond copy now, and two hours and forty minutes before the twelfth bell. Below, the wardens are still measuring your mooring lines, and Grieve is still hammering below decks, and somewhere in the Harbour Court a notary named Brennan is carrying a leather case toward a door that may or may not have your ship's name on the other side of it.