THE FALL OF KESTREL TOWER

me now, had been her name for four years, ever since she'd paid a man in Manila enough money to m

ind, jogging up beside her with a tablet in hand. "Container fo

im. Five years in these waters had taught her that panic was a luxury for people w

New guy. Vouched for

e ship's own ballast logs a trick she'd learned the hard way, after the first time someone had tried

The weight discrepancy started three ports before Busan.

low. "You want

dge. "I'll handle it. Kessler needs to understand that stealing

y more frightening than one who did, because it meant she never needed to. Anger was something she'd buried five year

r had personally wired restitution plus a fifteen percent penalty, and word had traveled

dark water, and allowed herself exactly one thought about the woman she used to be soft-handed,

r herself, somewhere in these waters, a

a folder she kept locked behind three layers of encryption. Inside were five years of quiet, patient work: shell co

r of the web

el Hol

re, nothing that would ever trace back to her, nothing that would ever raise a flag. It had taken fo

the one contact who knew her real name and had been pai

renewal next quarter. Whoever controls it controls for

scattered across the harbor like a field of cold stars, and thought about a boardroom five years

," he'd said.

y for five years, the way the betrayal had eaten her except she'd turned

d one wo

es

Cassandra Voss began packing a bag to go home as Cassandra Kestr