Lex Luthor was trimming dead leaves off a potted plant when the message arrived.
The scissors closed.
Text popped up on the screen.
[Slade Wilson has been detained by Gotham police.] [His equipment has been disassembled and inspected by Wayne's people.] [Passive beacon whereabouts unknown.]
Lex Luthor dropped the dead leaf into the wastebasket before answering the internal line.
"Are the lawyers ready?"
"Yes, sir. Should they go to Gotham to contact Wilson?"
"No."
Deathstroke had neither secured the files nor killed Bruce. The contract was clear: one failure did not automatically release the funds in escrow.
The trouble lay elsewhere: as long as Deathstroke was alive, someone could take his equipment apart, piece by piece.
Lex Luthor looked at the second terminal on his desk.
The beacon inside the mask had been meant to confirm Deathstroke's location. It had no battery and would only respond when a compatible scanner came close. Now the other side might already know what could make it respond.
"Shut down the scanner," Lex Luthor said. "Dismantle the receiver."
"Destroy it outright?"
"Cut the power first. Number every board you remove and ship them separately."
He opened the underground transaction page. Only a string of numbers remained in the client field.
Two executives had handled proof of funds, escrow, and the transfer of materials on his behalf. Neither had met Deathstroke, and neither knew they were handling the same contract.
In theory.
Lex Luthor pressed the delete key, removing the company's internal chat copies, access credentials, and forwarding caches one by one.
The third-party escrow records did not disappear. Neither would the bank transactions vanish at the touch of his finger.
He wrote two names on a sheet of paper and handed it to the Security Chief, who had just entered.
"Revoke all