Prefect Raymond Pallas

Raymond Pallas has served every government France has had since the 1930s, and each has praised his efficiency. He is a model administrator: punctual, cultivated, precise, a reader of history with a prefect's memory for names and dates. His career has never had a gap, and he would like it not to have one now.

He was a young official in the Grey Years. What he signed then is in the files, and the files are in his keeping. As Prefect of Police in the Cold War city he commands men who learned their trade under several regimes, and he believes that order must be kept at any cost and that obeying orders is never a crime. The city has not yet learned what that belief can cost.