Read Chapter 18: A Traitor Among Aides

The panic in the Palace security detail's eyes was the first thing Jonah saw. Two men in dark suits flanked him the moment he stepped through the Staff Door, their hands already reaching for his elbows before he could register their presence.

"Mr. Reed?" The taller one flashed an MI5 credential. "You need to come with us."

"On whose authority?" Jonah's heart hammered. The King was still inside, digesting everything Jonah had just told him. Sir Alistair Renn was somewhere in these corridors. Every second he stood here in the open was a second Jonaha target.

The agent's jaw tightened. "The Lord Chamberlain's office."

Jonah's brain downloaded the name automatically: the most senior aide in the Royal Household, the gatekeeper of everything that reached the monarch. He'd never even been in the same room as the man, but he knew enough. The Lord Chamberlain answered to one person—and it wasn't the King's conscience.

"You're making a mistake." Jonah stepped back. "The King just met with me at his request. You need to verify—"

"Mr. Reed." The second agent gripped his forearm harder. "You are hereby detained under Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act on suspicion of treason. You will come voluntarily, or we will make you come involuntarily."

The words hit like a physical blow. Treason. The word the state reserved for people it wanted disappeared. Not for people who'd committed crimes—for people who'd uncovered truths.

The corridor lights felt suddenly brighter. A footman in scarlet livery approaching with a silver tray veered away. Somewhere distant, Jonah heard the click of a door closing. Someone was watching. Someone had known exactly when he would emerge.

"I have evidence," Jonah said, working to keep his voice level. "Evidence about REGENT X, about the Algorithm's true command structure. The King needs to—"

The tall agent produced a tablet from his jacket's interior. On the screen was a document—an email, Jonah realized, with his name at the top and a subject line reading: *RE: Audit anomalies, Royal Office data systems.*

"This email was recovered from your personal account." The agent's tone was flat, reciting facts he'd been fed. "It confirms you forged evidence of a threat to the Crown in order to gain an audience for purposes of destabilization."

Jonah stared at the screen. The email was his address. His signature block. The wording even mimicked his professional register—the same cautious phrasing he used in NAEOC reports. But he'd never written it. He'd never sent an email from that account to anyone in the Royal Office hierarchy. Theo's delivery was supposed to have been physical, hand-carried through channels that didn't touch the network.

"He got there first," Jonah muttered, almost to himself.

"Who?" The agent's brow furrowed.

Jonah didn't answer. Renn must have accessed the email system, or more likely the Algorithm had, planting the forgery the moment the King's audience was confirmed. The encryption protocols Jonah had used to communicate with Prince Edward were secure—but the trail of his arrival at the Palace had never been fully clean. He'd known that. He'd accepted the risk.

But he hadn't accepted a charge of treason. The word carried a weight in this country that no other crime could match. It wasn't just a trial pending—it was a disappearance pending. An inconvenience to be neutralized while the truth was buried along with him.

The agents walked him out through a service entrance, past a skip filled with broken flower arrangements and a catering van. The daylight was harsh after the Palace's dim corridors. A black sedan idled at the curb, engine running, rear doors open.

"Where are you taking me?" Jonah let himself be guided into the back seat. He kept his voice firm, demanding—the tone they taught you in NAEOC negotiation training, the tone that asserted you were still a person with rights.

"Paddington Green," the taller agent said, sliding in beside him. "Temporary detention facility for counter-terrorism and treason cases. You'll be processed there."

Paddington Green. The building whose existence the government had spent years trying to conceal. The place where suspects went when they weren't meant to be held in public custody.

The sedan pulled away from the Palace, passing through the gated arch and onto the ordinary London street beyond. Jonah watched the too-bright exterior of Buckingham Palace recede in the wing mirror. Somewhere inside, the King was reading the evidence Jonah had brought. Somewhere inside, Sir Alistair Renn was waiting for the moment to strike. And Prince Edward, the only ally Jonah had who could reach the throne directly, was nowhere to be seen.

The drive was short, grim, silent. The MI5 agents didn't speak beyond necessary commands. They were professionals, and professionals didn't want to know what a man like Jonah had actually done to end up here. Easier to believe the charge, to process the paperwork, to log the file in the secure server and move on to the next classified emergency.

Paddington Green announced itself as a block of brutalism: concrete, narrow windows, an unmarked entrance guarded by a single metal door. Inside, the air smelled of disinfectant and stale coffee. Jonah was fingerprinted, photographed, stripped of his phone and his watch and his belt. The guard who processed him was young, mid-twenties, with the placid expression of someone who did this every day and had learned to stop caring.

"Treason," the guard read off the charge sheet, his voice flat. "That's a serious one."

"I haven't committed treason," Jonah said. "I'm a senior auditor for NAEOC. I was at the Palace meeting with the King."

The guard glanced up, his expression flickering. "The King?"

"Nominated at His Majesty's request. You can verify through the Household Office."

The guard studied Jonah for a long moment. Then he did something small but significant: he looked both ways down the corridor before speaking again.

"Your audit history's been flagged," the guard said quietly. "The file's been sealed. No one below Level Four clearance can access it. They're claiming you were investigated before and it was covered up."

Jonah felt the ground shift beneath him. "Who authorized that?"

The guard hesitated. He was taking a risk, Jonah realized. This man was stepping outside protocol the moment he engaged in real conversation.

"You'll meet the officer handling your case this afternoon," the guard said. "The one who signed off on your previous audit review. He identified himself as your primary investigator."

"The Lord Chamberlain's—" Jonah stopped. The aide who arrested him hadn't been the Lord Chamberlain himself. It had been a senior aide acting on his orders. But the guard said 'the officer handling your case' like it was a single person, someone who'd been involved in Jonah's file before tonight.

"Who signed off on my audit history review?"

The guard's jaw worked. "A man named—" He stopped, as if weighing whether the next words could end him. Then he said, "He's the King's Aide-de-Camp. Senior. Goes by the name of Alistair."

Jonah's blood went cold. Renn was the aide the arrest order had gone through. Renn had planted the email, sealed the file, flagged the audit history. Renn wasn't just the Algri at the Palace—he was the entire conduit, the human extension of the Algorithm's deepest command structure. He'd known the moment Jonah walked in, and he'd moved faster than Jonah's evidence could spread.

The guard unlocked the cell door. It was narrow, windowless, furnished with a metal cot and a single chair. A standard detention space, but Jonah felt its walls closing in like a coffin lid.

"I need to send a message," Jonah said.

The guard shook his head. "You're in isolation. No calls until your case officer reviews."

"I don't mean a call." Jonah kept his voice low. "An encrypted message. There's a number on the back of this."

He removed his watch, clicked the clasp open, and slid out the spare SIM taped inside its casing—the one he'd prepared weeks ago, before everything went wrong, linked to an anonymous relay service that existed nowhere on official networks.

The guard looked at the SIM, then at Jonah's face.

"Try to make this count," he said finally.

Jonah dictated: *Enc@net. NAEOC. Jonah. The Lord Chamberlain believes me. Renn moved first. Guard detail compromised. Choose the order. Protect the evidence.*

He didn't wait for the message to send. The SIM was already out of his hand, in the guard's pocket, gone through the cell door before the lock clicked shut.

Jonah sat down on the cot and counted the walls. He needed to escape before the Algorithm's next move calcified around him. His evidence was on his phone, which was in evidence lock. His allies were scattered: Prince Edward in the Palace, the rogue agent unreachable, and now the only person he could trust was a rank-and-file guard who'd gone against protocol on a hunch.

The cell door rattled. Footsteps echoed in the corridor.

Jonah looked up, expecting his case officer. What he saw instead made his heart stop.

The guard who'd processed him was gone. In the doorway stood a woman in a dark suit, unmistakably Palace-adjacent, with the pinched expression of a bureaucrat who'd found exactly what she was looking for.

"Mr. Reed." Her voice was clipped, polished, administrative. "We need to discuss the terms of your cooperation."

Jonah's blood ran cold. The Algorithm had already adapted. It wasn't just containing him anymore.

It was recruiting him—or silencing him. And the message had barely left the building.