But lately Drake had become even more pessimistic than usual. Evans had first noticed it a few weeks ago, and had wondered at the time if there was illness in the family, or something else that was bothering him. But it seemed there was nothing a miss. At least, nothing that anyone would talk about. NERF was a beehive of activity; they had moved into a wonderful new building in Beverly Hills; fund-raising was at an all-time high; they were planning spectacular new events and conferences, including the Abrupt Climate Change Conference that would begin in two months. Yet despite these successesor because of them?Drake seemed more miserable than ever.

Morton noticed it, too, but he shrugged it off. "He's a lawyer," he said. "What do you expect? Forget about it."

By the time they reached Reykjavнk, the sunny day had turned wet and chilly. It was sleeting at Keflavнk airport, obliging them to wait while the wings of the white Gulfstream jet were de-iced. Evans slipped away to a corner of the hangar and, since it was still the middle of the night in the US, placed a call to a friend in banking in Hong Kong. He asked about the Vancouver story.

"Absolutely impossible," was the immediate answer. "No bank would divulge such information, even to another bank. There's an STR in the chain somewhere."

"An STR?"

"Suspicious transfer report. If it looks like money for drug trafficking or terrorism, the account gets tagged. And from then on, it's tracked. There are ways to track electronic transfers, even with strong encryption. But none of that tracking is ever going to wind up on the desk of a bank manager."

"No?"

"Not a chance. You'd need international law-enforcement credentials to see that tracking report."

"So this bank manager didn't do all this himself?"

"I doubt it. There is somebody else involved in this story. A policeman of some kind. Somebody you're not being told about."