Maya called on Sunday morning at nine-seventeen with the particular efficiency of someone who had not slept and didn't intend to waste the time she had bought by staying up.
"I have it," she said. "All of it. Every layer, every account, every transfer, every decision at every point where a decision was made. I know who started it, who kept it going, who benefited, and I know what it means." A pause. "Are you in a room by yourself?"
"Yes."
"Sit down."
Elara moved from the window to the desk chair and sat. "I'm sitting."
"Okay. From the beginning."
Maya talked for twenty-six minutes. Elara didn't interrupt once.
The complete picture was this: Eleven years ago, Edmund Vale had developed a significant tax exposure problem. Not illegal, a complicated structural issue that had accumulated
