The team calls in the results of their pyramid experiments to Damien and then they hit the sack. Esteban takes time to have a drink with Anabel in the cell. She's still pretty nervous about possibly being rubbed out by the Inquisition.
Late that night (or early that morning, perhaps) Alex Abel calls Gavin and tells him to get everyone to the helicopter pad at the Ranch in an hour, and to bring the pyramid. Further information is not available over the phone. Angelina is separately instructed to stay behind to guard the Ranch itself and to supervise a team of Inquisition heavies who will be showing up to help. The helicopter takes the rest of the team to Albuquerque and there they get on a plane which flies them to a private airport on Long Island.
Their plane is met by Eponymous, who shows them to a building near the airport that is a sort of miniature private hotel, with conference rooms, suites to stay in, and so on. It's almost empty except for four guards. In the conference room are Alex Abel, Sam Chessex, and a small man with short hair and glasses who is introduced as Xerxes Ineich. Most of the team has never met Abel before. Thielo notes that his aura seems more sharp and disciplined than most people's.
Alex Abel lays out the plan. Sam Chessex, acting as TNI's agent, will exchange the pyramid for some valuable magic items that Thorvald Drake, the present Godwalker of the Merchant, presently possesses. This way TNI gets rid of the dangerous and apparently useless item, and Drake gets something he really wants but that turns out to be useless, thus meaning that Sam will have bested him in bargaining. This will hopefully make Sam the Godwalker and Drake less powerful.
SILVER is somewhat skeptical, and wants some more inspection to see if they can determine that the box has some effect other than the obvious complete lack of effect. Alex has Xerxes summon the Weather Channelers, the Inquisition's other magical team. Alex then leaves Xerxes (who has an A clearance) somewhat in charge but not actually supervising, takes Eponymous, and leaves. Sam begins to negotiate with Drake over the phone.
While they wait for the other team to arrive they spend some time watching Sam pace around. Esteban calls Angelina to see how she's doing. She reports that a big pile of TNI badasses have arrived and they've run off an intruder already.
The Weather Channelers arrive and prove to be somewhat weird. There's Uriel Sterne, a tall dark brooding Entropomancer with one arm. He doesn't say much the whole time they're there. Also in the team are Moonglow, an aging hippie, and a young woman with a shaved head.
Xerxes has Moonglow read tarot cards for everyone who has been exposed to the pyramid. He doesn't find anything too interesting - long voyages over water pop up a lot. Esteban is going to have to decide what to do with his life soon. Alexandra has married her husband three times. She's embarrassed about this and wonders what she might have made with the memory of the weddings and divorces or whatever happened. He doesn't see any great doom. Then he reads Xerxes's future and tells him he's reached his peak. Xerxes sighs but is resigned, and then opens the pyramid and has Moonglow read the cards again. There's no interesting change. The strange young woman spends a little time with the pyramid and says that it will have many owners, some of whom will come to bad ends. Everyone decides that TNI can safely give away the pyramid.
Sam has arranged for them to fly into Heathrow in the morning and meet Drake in London. Drake has arranged for them to not have to deal with any pesky customs or immigration officials when they do this. They hang around a bit, Esteban works out, and generally don't do much of anything until one of the guards (Bob) runs in and says that something has got Joey! Everyone runs out to fight the evil.
Thielo is first out the door after Bob and notices that though Bob is pointing off into the dark woods and saying that Joey is over there in fact Joey is right next to the door. Joey shoots at Thielo to prove the point. There follows a brief melee in which Esteban lights Joey on fire with a napalm lighter but he keeps coming. Thielo puts a couple of rounds into Joey and several more into the wall before he will go down. Bob is brought down by Esteban with a tazer. Thielo gets shot in the leg during all this but since he doesn't say anything about it no one notices. Esteban, other other hand, has a mishap with the tazer that takes him a while to recover from.
Bob is brought inside and seems to have been possessed to Thielo's vision. The ghost detaches and heads outside. Thielo then takes off his glasses and looks around to spot a couple of presences off in the woods, obvious to his aura vision. He sneaks out and finds a young man and woman dressed like goths. The woman is interrogating the ghost, asking why he didn't finish them. She then is annoyed that she'll have to summon up more ghosts, and starts doing so. The man mostly watches and simpers a bit. Thielo jumps out of the woods and tazes them both with little trouble.
Inside, Gavin and one of the guards take the man while Thielo and the others interrogate the woman. She spouts some stuff about being a death priestess and summoning up the dead and secrets too mysterious for others to here and all that before Esteban decides he can't take the bullshit any more and shows her Joey's dead body. She throws up and becomes a bit more cooperative, describing her little summoning ritual and admitting that they were after the pyramid. It seems like she's mostly a dupe of the ghosts. Thielo flips out that this stupid girl made him kill one of the guards who was presumably a good man, and starts shaking her.
No one can stop Thielo from shaking her until her neck breaks. This concludes the interrogation.
Meanwhile, Gavin and the guard have determined from the mewling wreck of the man that he's mostly the lackey here and knows nothing. Everyone goes to sleep except for the guards and Thielo, who stays up patching his leg.
In the morning they fly to London and go to a very posh hotel, where Thorvald has taken an entire floor (although there are only two suites on that floor). They are shown in and meet Thorvald, who is tall and very colonial-British looking. They examine the goods that Drake is offering (he seems to think that the pyramid has inside it some sort of contract). The goods are:
The Cardboard Palace (which can be read about in the UA book).
A stopwatch which ages a person 1-10 years for winding it, but then when activated will keep them from dying for any reason for ten seconds.
A pair of ruby glasses which allow certain people (okay, everyone who tries them but Thielo) to see symbols next to the two Merchants and Gavin which seem to reflect their avatar nature.
Carte Blanche, which turns into any card needed (credit, ID, badge, whatever) depending on who it is presented to.
Three mummified monkeys in cages - hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Each may be invoked on one person, preventing them from seeing an upcoming event, seeing an upcoming event, or talking about it. Only one monkey per person, ever, and each monkey will work only once per day. They must be fed and cared for like regular monkeys, however, and they don't like each other.
Team SILVER (and their agent) then adjourns to discuss the items. They decide that the glasses are clearly the best for TNI, but are split about whether the monkeys (Esteban & Thielo's assertion) or the stopwatch (Gavin's) would be better. Gavin calls Damien who connects him with Alex, and briefs the boss. Abel thinks that the glasses are indeed the best, and ranks the monkeys before the stopwatch.
Sam then goes to negotiate, bringing Thielo along, but no others since their poker faces aren't quite adequate. The negotiation is quite interesting. Thorvald is more like a bazaar merchant, talking about the quality of the items that he brings to the table and generally negotiating on the basis of the items. Sam, on the other hand, talks about the needs of his client (TNI), how they feel, how he feels, and about the various relationships involved. In the end, Sam is unable to get all three items for the pyramid, but is able to get the glasses and the monkeys.
Gavin then brings up the pyramid and gives it to Drake. The team grabs their monkeys and their glasses and gets out of London while the getting is good.