Page 19 of Knotted By the Triad

CHAPTER FIVE

KAI

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The possibility that someone might be planning to kill my cousin changed everything.

“Does the driver know what you found?” I asked.

“No. He and his assistant believe they're being held because of the inspection and our need to verify the paperwork. We have them in one of our offices, awaiting a verdict. Neither knows we found the hidden compartment.” The guard removed a folded document from his robe and placed it on my desk. “This was the authorization accompanying the shipment.”

I picked up the document and read it. The Iron Clan seal was stamped at the bottom. The format was right, the authorization marks were current, and according to the document, my clan had approved the wagon's passage through Iron territory. Nothing about it looked forged.

“Has this been verified against our records?” I asked the guard.

“It checks out in the official records. But not in the secondary records you all established.”

I looked down at the authorization again. We’d switched to a double-verification method after my cousin became King. We entered every authorization into our official records, just as we always had.

But it was also recorded in a secondary system known only to the three of us, our records clerk, our consigliere, the people responsible for verifying our records, and the shadow guards tasked with informing us of illegal smuggling.

Anyone trying to move illegal goods through our territory might be able to forge an authorization and manipulate the official records well enough to pass the first verification. But unless they knew about the second verification, they wouldn't know there was another record their authorization needed to match.

“The authorization number doesn't exist in the secondary records,” the guard continued. “So, this permit was not issued by the Iron Clan.”

I looked at Daemin and Zian. The significance wasn't lost on either of them.

“The first shipment of prohibited goods carried a forged authorization from the Assassin Clan,” Daemin said. “The second carried one from the Shadow Clan.”

“And now someone has forged an Iron Clan authorization to move six jars of Dragonblight through our territory,” I said.

Zian took the document and examined it. “All three forgeries used each ruling clan’s current seal to authorize the shipment. Whoever is creating these documents isn't working from outdated permits. They’ve somehow managed to copy our exact seals, which we updated when we took our positions as Triad leaders.”

The people behind the shipments hadn't simply forged three authorizations. They had somehow copied the current seals belonging to all three clans and used them to move prohibited cargo through our territories without raising suspicion.

Worse, all three forged authorizations had made it into our official records. Whoever was behind this hadn't only gained access to our seals. They'd found a way into the system we used to record legitimate shipments.

That required more than skill with a brush and ink. They had to have seen the seals closely enough to reproduce them. Only a few in our inner circle had seen the new seals. Even fewer had come in contact with them.

“Was there anything else in the compartment?” I asked the guard.

“We found a delivery slip beneath the jars.” He reached into his robe and produced another folded paper. “The shipment of DB is to be delivered tomorrow night at midnight to an address on the western side of the capital.”

The first two shipments had left us with prohibited goods and forged authorizations but no way to trace them back to the people purchasing them or the seller. Both drivers had taken their lives once they realized they were caught.

With the Dragonblight, we actually had an address to investigate. Since the driver didn't know we'd discovered the hidden compartment, he had no reason to believe those instructions were compromised.

“Don't question the driver or his assistant again,” I said. “They believe they're being held while we verify the authorization. Let them keep believing it.”

Daemin looked from the delivery slip to me. “We’re letting the shipment continue?”

“We don't have a choice,” I told him. “Not if we want to find out who’s buying this shipment. And we will find out because we’ll be at the delivery location to prevent it from happening.”

Daemin and Zian’s eyes flamed up. Since Zeyan ascended the throne, we’d been forced to behave like royals, unable to get our hands dirty. But this issue required our involvement because we had no idea who’d copied our seals or how they’d done it.

Since we didn’t know who to trust, we had to handle this ourselves. I didn't like sending six jars of Dragonblight back onto the road. But whoever was expecting that wagon tomorrow night had to believe nothing had happened at the checkpoint.

We couldn't replace the jars without risking the driver checking the hidden compartment once he was safely away and discovering the deception. Stopping the delivery at the exchange site was the only thing we could do.