As Tycho took a seat, Tyler motioned with his head to Bette that he wanted a quick word before they proceeded.

”I didn’t have time to call or contact Brom or Mike or any of the others yet. Do you want me to call them now, while you talk to him?” he asked in low tones as he and Bette stepped towards the windows of the suite.

”Brom,” Bette answered briefly. ”The highest level of confidentiality will apply to this conversion but I don’t know yet if this will ultimately involve government matters, and if we call Mike in right away, he may be forced to bring in federal agencies, just to be on the safe side, as far as he’d be concerned. I want to know first what we’re up against before we escalate it like that.”

Tyler pursed his lips, and then answered briefly, ”Okay, if that’s how you want to play this, that’s a reasonable option. But, Bette, I’m an officer of the court, and if I need to be in a position to help you later on, I can’t be part of this conversation.” He gave Bette an apologetic look.

Bette nodded her head in understanding. She pursed her lips, weighing various things that they’d come across already. One thing she had to consider was that Diane had still not heard specifics, until this point, about what Tycho was hinting at. If she were asked later on, in some official investigation, she could plausibly say that everything she’d heard of the whole affair could be gathered through in-depth research by any reputable financial institution or monetary authority. So nothing privileged.

This remained true even if Diane had formed an unerringly accurate insight into what Bette was thinking, concerning the serial numbers. But, if pressed, she’d have to admit that this was just speculation on her part, since Bette hadn’t confirmed anything to her, yet, so Diane could still deny knowing anything specific about what the numbers were, or what they meant.

She looked over at Diane, who’d taken a seat on the sofa, her back to where Bette and Tyler stood.  She’d chosen to sit on the sofa perpendicular to where Tycho sat, settling down on a spot a foot or so from Tycho, who was leaning back, and had stretched his long legs underneath the coffee table. He’d removed his jacket, and had laid it over the high-back chair he was sitting on. Now more casually dressed in his long-sleeved open-necked white shirt, he’d also unbuttoned one more button, exposing a portion of his upper chest whenever he moved.