The prudent move was to go to Karl. To hand over the time, the place, and the problem. But prudence had never saved Andrei Hayes, and it hadn't kept Lutz Fischer from the noose. Leverage was the only currency that mattered, and you couldn't get it from a second-hand report.
He went to the silo himself.
He found a perch in the rafters of a neighboring warehouse, a gap in the corrugated iron giving him a perfect, shadowed view of the transfer point. The cold night air was thick with the smell of damp grain and salt. Right on time, Finch's wagon rattled up, the merchant wringing his hands beside it. Then the other party arrived: not Hass, but a man Lutz recognized—a known, small-time smuggler named Silas, who occasionally fenced goods for the Vipers among others. This wasn't a high-stakes conspiracy; it was a simple, illicit deal. Silas and Finch exchanged tense words. The cargo was unloaded: a dozen crates, small enough to be carried by one man, but heavy. From the way they were handled, Lutz guessed machinery parts or metal ingots. Valuable, but not war-changing.
As Silas's men loaded the crates onto Finch's wagon, a plan clicked into place. It wasn't about violence. It was about theater and theft. Lutz left to put it into action.
He was waiting for Karl in the warehouse office at first light.
"Well?" Karl asked, the single word hanging in the stale air.
"Midnight. Old grain silo on the west quay," Lutz said. "Finch was there. The other party was Silas."
Karl's eyes narrowed. "Silas? That worm is getting ambitious."
"The shipment is a dozen crates. Heavy. Metal, maybe. Silas is loading it onto Finch's wagon as we speak. It's sitting in a warehouse on Pier 7 now. Finch is moving it to a secure location tonight."
"Then we take it tonight," Karl said, a simple, brutal solution.
"Or," Lutz countered, "we let him have it."
Karl went still, his disturbing, vacant gaze fixed on Lutz.
"Silas already has Finch's money," Lutz explained. "If we steal the cargo, the only one who loses is Finch. Silas is untouched. But if Finch pays for a shipment and receives... nothing of value... his partnership with Silas collapses. He looks like a fool. And we still have the real cargo."
Karl leaned back, a spark of understanding in his coal-like eyes. "A switch."
"A switch," Lutz confirmed. "We have until tonight. I need a man who can get into that warehouse unseen, and I need a dozen crates filled with scrap metal and rocks."
A ghost of a smile touched Karl's lips. It was not a pleasant sight. "Old Thom. The night watchman on Pier 7 is in our pocket. And we have plenty of scrap." He stood. "You'll supervise. This is your play, Fischer. Don't fumble it."
The rest of the day was a lesson in the mundane logistics of crime. Old Thom, a grizzled man who smelled of seaweed and secrets, was procured. The fake crates were assembled in a corner of the Viper's warehouse, Rudel scoffing as he dropped a load of rusty chains and broken gears into a box. "All this trouble for a few trinkets."
"Better than explaining to the Baron why we started a war over them," Lutz replied, not looking up from ensuring the weight of the fake crate matched the one he'd seen.
That night, under the cover of a thick harbor fog, the operation went like clockwork. The watchman nodded them through. Old Thom had the lock open in seconds. Inside, Finch's crates sat neatly stacked. The swap took twenty minutes of silent, strenuous work. The real crates, stamped with an Intisian maker's mark, were loaded onto a handcart and whisked away to the Vipers' warehouse. The fakes were left in their place.
As they slipped back into the alley, Lutz looked back. The warehouse was silent, holding its worthless secret.
"It's done," he said to Thom.
The old man spat. "Now we wait for the screaming."
The next evening, Lutz found Finch at The Gilded Quill. The merchant was not celebrating. He was pale, nursing a drink alone in a corner.
The Gilded Quill felt different. The polished wood and the smell of good tobacco were the same, but the air was heavy with failure. The merchant wasn't at his usual prime table, holding court. He was slumped in a shadowed booth in the back, a half-empty bottle of amber liquor and a single glass on the table before him. The rings were still on his fingers, but they looked like gaudy weights dragging his hands down.
Lutz approached, adopting the concerned expression of a trusted associate. "Alistair? I came as soon as I got your message. What's happened?"
Finch looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, his face puffy and pale. The confident boom of his voice was gone, replaced by a ragged whisper. "Elias. Sit. Share a drink with a ruined man." He gestured vaguely at the bottle. He didn't call for a second glass.
Lutz sat, folding his hands on the table. "Ruined? What are you talking about?"
"It's all gone," Finch slurred, leaning forward, his breath a cloud of cheap spirits. "The shipment. The investment. My standing." He drained his glass and poured another with an unsteady hand. "Silas. That snake. The crates were filled with rust and scrap. Worthless garbage."
"I took them straight to a potential buyer. We opened one there, as a show of good faith." He shuddered at the memory. "The laughter... I've never been so humiliated. The buyer walked out. The news will be all over the merchant quarter by tomorrow."
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush, though the booth was empty. "I had to sell my shares in the Backlund-Lenburg freight line to cover the loss to Hass. My stake in the new steam-pump venture? Gone. All of it. Just to pay back the principle. I am a ghost in this city, Elias."
Lutz listened, nodding with a sympathetic frown. Inside, he felt nothing but a cold, satisfied clarity. The plan had worked exactly as intended. He was a surgeon who had successfully removed a tumor, and the patient was grateful for the knife.
"The coward vanished!" Finch continued, his anger flaring. "But that cold fish Hass..." He trailed off, taking a gulp of his drink. "He sent a message. A single, typed line on a card. No signature."
Finch fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and produced a crisp white card. He slid it across the table. The message was brief, typed with mechanical precision:
"A poor investment reflects on the investor."
Lutz picked up the card. The paper was high-quality, the type clean. The message was a masterclass in contempt. It was Hass's way of washing his hands of the entire affair and blaming Finch for his own gullibility. It was also a warning. Hass had lost nothing but a bit of time; Finch had lost everything.
"The gall," Finch whispered, his eyes welling with drunken self-pity. "He blames me. After all I risked for his venture."
Lutz set the card down, his mind racing. This was better than he could have hoped. Hass wasn't seeking revenge; he was cutting his losses. He was a businessman, not a brawler. For now, the threat was neutralized.
"Alistair, listen to me," Lutz said, his voice low and earnest. He placed a hand on the man's shoulder. "This is a blessing in disguise."
Finch looked at him as if he were mad.
"Hear me out," Lutz continued. "Silas double-crossed you. But Hass? He's merely distanced himself. He's not sending men to break your knees. He's written you off. That means you are free of him. A costly lesson, yes. But you are alive and whole. Men like Silas and Hass... they often resort to more permanent solutions to tie up loose ends."
He let the implication hang in the air. Finch's eyes widened slightly as he considered the alternative. Instead of being dead in an alley, he was merely broke and humiliated in a tavern. In the brutal arithmetic of Indaw Harbor, it was a bargain.
"You... you think so?" Finch asked, a fragile hope breaking through his despair.
"I know so," Lutz said, injecting absolute certainty into his tone. "This message is his farewell. He considers the matter closed. Now you must rebuild. A man of your talents? This is a setback, not an end."
He signaled the barkeep for a second glass. When it arrived, he poured a measure for himself and raised it. "To new beginnings, Alistair. To smarter partnerships."
Finch stared at him for a long moment, then a slow, grateful smile spread across his tear-streaked face. He clinked his glass against Lutz's. "To new beginnings, Elias. You... you are a true friend. The only one who has stood by me."
Lutz drank, the liquor burning a path down his throat. He had taken the man's money, his dignity, and his future, and sold it back to him as a fresh start. The scam was complete. As he listened to Finch begin to haltingly outline a pathetic, small-scale plan for a new business importing dried fish, Lutz allowed himself a single, silent thought.
The easiest lies to sell are the ones people desperately want to buy.
Later that day
The air in the Baron's office was always still, as if the dust motes themselves were afraid to dance. Today, it was thick with the scent of old wood, oil, and a new, metallic tang. One of the crates from Finch's shipment sat open on the floor before the Baron's desk like an offering.
Karl stood beside it, a crowbar in his hand. The Baron, seated, watched with his flint-like eyes as Lutz finished his report.
"…and so, Hass has severed ties. Finch is financially broken and considers himself lucky to be alive. The matter is closed," Lutz concluded, his voice even. He kept his account factual, omitting the finer points of his psychological manipulation of Finch.
The Baron's gaze shifted from Lutz to the crate. A slight, almost imperceptible nod. Karl bent down and pulled back the straw packing to reveal the contents. It wasn't gold or jewels. Nestled in the packing material were several precision-engineered brass mechanisms, complex arrangements of gears, pistons, and finely calibrated springs. They gleamed dully in the lamplight.
"Pressure valves," Karl said, straightening up. "For high-pressure steam systems. Not something you find on a common merchant vessel. This manufacturer…" he traced a gloved finger over a tiny, etched logo on one valve, "…has exclusive contracts with the Intisian naval yards."
The Baron leaned forward, his presence seeming to bend the light in the room. He didn't touch the valve, but his eyes assessed it with a cold, proprietary interest. "A useful prize. Denying these to an enemy is as valuable as acquiring them for ourselves." His eyes lifted to Lutz. "You turned a potential conflict into a clean profit. You identified a flaw in the situation and exploited it without noise or bloodshed. That is the essence of good business."
The words were delivered without warmth, but their weight was immense, as if a law was being laid down.
"The debt," the Baron continued, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the silence. "Fifty Hammers will be struck from the ledger."
The number landed like a physical blow. Fifty Gold Hammers. Half the debt, it was a fortune, a king's ransom to a man like Lutz. It was more than a reward; it was a tangible measure of his worth, a massive chunk of the mountain of debt suddenly carved away. He had to fight to keep his expression neutral. "Thank you, Baron."
"Do not thank me," the Baron replied, his lips twisting into something that was not a smile. "Your value has been quantified. See that it appreciates."
Once again, Lutz felt an undescribable sensation of oppression and unwillingness to go against the Baron's will.
It was then that Karl spoke, his voice cutting through the moment of triumph like a cold draft. "This specific manufacturer… their goods are rarely seen outside official channels. Hass has interesting contacts. This is a setback for him, not a defeat." Karl's coal-like eyes met Lutz's. "He lost a pawn and some coin. But a man with connections like this…"
The Baron waved a dismissive hand, the gesture final. "Then we will be more careful in response. The matter is closed."
The audience was over. Lutz gave a short nod and turned to leave, the image of the gleaming valves and the sound of Karl's warning etched into his mind. As he reached the door, the Baron's voice stopped him one last time.
"Fischer."
Lutz turned back.
The Baron was not looking at him. He was staring at the open crate, his finger tapping slowly on the desk. "A man who can turn a loss into a win is valuable. A man who can do it without creating a dozen new problems is indispensable. See that you continue to be indispensable."
The unspoken threat hung in the air, perfectly balanced by the substantial reward. Lutz stepped out of the office, closing the door on the oppressive silence. He stood in the corridor for a moment, the fifty Hammers feeling like both a liberation and a heavier, more intricate set of chains.