"Bartholomew is not just complicit, Adam. He is fully integrated at almost every level. Sponsorships, approvals, cover stories…you name it, he's in there. He lined up both money and people and he blocked Veritas audits frequently. He ran it as council business so it stayed inside the order, and negated the risk of discovery."
Adam's jaw twitched.
"Then we move him out of the comfortable room that he's currently holed up in and put him in a cell."
"Not yet," Ann said. "If we move before we have everything mapped out fully, the rest will scatter and cover everything up as if it never happened."
"I don't care about the council's theatrics." Adam said. "I care about stopping anyone who fed our people into experiments."
"Then listen to me Adam," Ann said, keeping her voice level. "The truth matters more than comfort. If we grab him first, the others will say he went rogue. They will cut him loose and keep these vile experiments going under different names. We need the whole record that shows the line all the way from council vote to field test. Then when he falls, they fall with him."
Adam held her gaze and she could tell that his patience was a little on the thin side today.. It showed in the set of his shoulders and the way his fingers flexed as if they did not trust themselves to not strangle the first person who pissed him off.
"As if we don't have enough to deal with," He snarled, "Do you want me to keep him confined in the council chamber and his rooms while we build the case?" he said.
"No, because then he'll know that something is wrong. I want you to keep him where we can see him though," Ann said. "I'm sure that at some point he'll be talking to his allies. Especially if we can get our hands on one of these abominations of Ely's. They studied them before and now I know why they were so interested. If you can handel obtaining one that may have fallen, then he will talk to his allies and we can see who moves next."
"I would think he'll try to move money first," Eva said without looking up. "That way he can order his only investigations. Then, he will try to move files and he will try to move people. I can track two of those. If you give me clearance, I can track all three."
"Done," Adam said immediately, "I'll sign off on the paperwork, this way it doesn't look like she's any the wiser to whats going on if the catch wind of it. It should remove the element of danger anyway, and with our private lives being the hot topic of gossip recently, I feel as though they won't suspect a thing."
Eva blinked.
"I was honestly expecting more of a fight about it."
"I'm trying to only pick the fights that matter," he said as he shifted his attention back to Ann. "This is it now Ann. Don't trust him anymore. He will try his best to feed you a story laced with lies that's more acceptable than the one you see on that screen and he will look you in the eye while he does it."
"Well, he's in for a rude awakening then, " Ann sneered, "I don't have time for pretty stories."
"He'll still try to tell you it though," Adam said.
"I know," Ann said. "But with this evidence, there's not a chance in hell that I'm going to believe a word that he says."
"Good," Adam said. "Because my patience with council politics is not endless, and it's even less when it comes to their fuckery. If he crosses the line one more time, I am not asking for a transcript of the evidence, I will deal with him myself."
Eva cleared her throat softly.
"Then let me give you a few more reasons to ignore recorded transcripts. Here is Project Alder's procurement log for medical supplies. A supplier in the east marked a series of orders as returned but in the same week, a separate invoice from a foundation linked to the Elder Council covered a donation for emergency relief to the same region. The donation amount is within two percent of the procurement total."
"Which means Alder got the gear under a different label," Ann said.
"And the paper trail looks like charity," Eva said.
Adam's expression dropped.
"Add it to the board."
Ann scrolled back through her notes and forced herself to read them slowly, there was so much now that she felt the need to skim read but that wouldn't do them any favours in the long run.
She underlined dates, adding a margin mark for every time Bartholomew's name touched anything and it all added up too fast.
"Is there anything in the Veritas auditor logs that shows any pushback?" she said her voice bordering on disbelief at the scale of this, "I want to know if anyone tried to stop this."
Eva ran another query.
"One auditor," she said squinting at the screen, "He filed two objections to Project Alder before auditing access was removed. He was reassigned to logistics in the north and then the file on him goes quiet."
"Find him," Ann said.
"I'll try," Eva said. "If he is alive I should be able to locate him with a little time, but if he's dead…then I won't be able to find anything else."
"Imagine if they used him as a 'volunteer' for their experiments," Maeve mused, "Wouldn't that be a tidy way of disposing of things that won't do as they're told."
Ann pressed her lips together tightly. It didn't even bear thinking about but the possibility that they had done that was also hard to ignore.
"Either way, he matters," Ann said. "People will ask why no one inside raised the alarm and I want names to answer that line of questioning with before they use the question to stall or point fingers."