Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

Wrong. You squirt my picture into this characteristics recognition program of yours, or Greg’s, or Rachel’s, or Pearse’s. You’ll get bugger-all back, just like the chauffeur and the kid. We never showed our passports to anyone, never thumbprinted an Immigration data construct.”

“Certainly not,” André Dubaud said. “You are here as Madame Evans’s guests. I know how much importance she attached to your mission. Though I might question her judgemerit in your case. Naturally, considering the urgency, you were spared the inconvenience.”

“And that’s it,” Suzi said. “Greg asked me how I’d pull someone from this pissant lotus land. Said I couldn’t. I don’t have what it takes, I’m hardline and covert deals. What you need for this is money. That’s what jerks your strings, Cornmissaire. Money. You people have turned it into a flicking religion, you fawn over the stuff. Christ, all Julia’s got to do is speak, and you roll over and spread your legs. All ‘cos she’s loaded.”

André Dubaud had reddened, lips squashing into a bloodless line, taking slow shallow breaths through his nose.

“Yeah, thank you, Suzi,” Greg said. “How about it, André?” Is there anyone else in the police department apart from yourself who has the authority to waive Passport and Immigration controls?”

“There are some others who could sanction such a courtesy. But it could only be done if the circumstances justified it,” André Dubaud said sullenly.

“How many people?”

“Please understand, money is not all that is required. The person making such a request would have to be of impeccable character.”

“How many?”

“Twenty-five, thirty. Perhaps a few more.”

“Oh, great.”

Victor’s face formed on Greg’s cybofax as soon as he entered the code.

“Charlotte Fielder was lifted out of here,” Greg said. “No doubt about it. This is a real pro deal; lot of money, lot of talent. The Pontiac that spirited her away from the Newfields ball was hired, the bloke who paid was the chauffeur. There’s no trace of him, he wasn’t entered in the police memory core. Same result for the boy she left with. As for the other person in the car, I couldn’t even tell you if they were male or female.”

The other three, Rachel, Suzi, and Pearse Solomons were sitting quietly round Claude Murtand’s office, happy to let him summarize. The air conditioner was humming softly, sucking out the accumulated moisture. Claude Murtand and André Dubaud were on the other side of the glass wall, talking in low tones, and casting an occasional unhappy eye in his direction.

“I can’t add much,” Victor said. “Fielder hasn’t used her Amex card for the last three days, so no leads for that. But then she hadn’t used it for a ten-day period prior to booking into the Celestious, either.”

“What did she use it for ten days ago?” Greg asked.

Victor glanced at something off screen. “It was in Baldocks, that’s a department store in Wellington, New Zealand. A bill for forty-three dollars; but it wasn’t itemized.”

“Not important,” Greg said. “So what was she doing for the ten days between Wellington and Monaco?”

“That’s what you’re supposed to tell me,” Victor said.

“Meeting Royan,” Suzi said.

“Right. But where?” said Greg. “I have two questions, based on what we’ve found out so far. Firstly, why take so much trouble over a courier? Given that all she had to do was deliver the flower box to Julia, someone has gone to a hell of a lot of effort to stash her away.”

“Because she can lead us to Royan,” Suzi said.

“Fair enough. So that means the people behind her, the ones with the Pontiac, don’t want us to know where Royan is. Ordinarily, I’d say that pointed to a kidnapping.”

“But there’s the flower,” Victor said.

“Yeah, and also the eight months that Royan’s been missing. Holding someone for eight months without a ransom demand is ludicrous.”

“Who knows how alien minds work?” Suzi asked.

“Not me,” said Greg. “But the chauffeur and the kid were human-” he broke off, remembering the boy’s perfection. “Make that humanoid.”

“Oh, bollocks,” Suzi said. “Fucking aliens walking round Monaco.”

“They might have the technological know-how to enter and leave the dome whenever they wanted,” Greg pointed out. But he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. Too complicated, especially now they had established money could do the job just as easily. “The thing is, someone powerful is moving Fielder around. That’s the second question. Why not bring her in to Monaco the way she was taken out? Letting her come in through the normal channels, going through Passport control, thumbprint, the legal construct, then booking into the Celestious, all of that let’s us find out who she is. Why? When they could obviously have handed over the flower to Julia, and left us completely in the dark?”

Suzi stretched in her chair. “Go on. You’ve obviously got an answer.”

“Two different groups,” Greg said. “She came from Royan, to deliver the flower. Then afterwards, someone else nabbed her.”

“If it was a tekmerc squad, could you find out, Suzi?” Victor asked.

“Maybe. But it would take time. Week, maybe two. Then longer to find out who put the deal together.”

“Not good enough,” said Victor.

“Fuck you too.”

“If you want my opinion,” Greg said, “the group that arranged for Fielder to be lifted are the ones who took the first sample from the flower.”

Victor nodded. “That fits. You think they’ll have found Royan by now?”

“If they had a psychic interrogate Fielder, it would take a minute to find out what she knew. Drugs and a polygraph, that’s about thirty minutes. They’ve had her for nearly three days now.”

“Bloody hell.”

“There’s one easy short cut we could try,” Greg said. “Phone Fielder’s cybofax number, and use whatever clout Event Horizon has with English Telecom to find out the co-ordinate.”

“Good idea,” said Victor.

His image on Greg’s cybofax slid smoothly to one side. Julia appeared on the other half, sitting in her study again. Nothing behind her had moved, even the sunlight shining through the window was at the same angle.

“No need to make it an official request,” she said. “I’m infiltrating the location response targeting software in lineisat’s antenna platforms. Calling Fielder’s number now.”

Greg waited.

“No reply,” Julia said. “There isn’t even a signal from the transponder.”

“Keep trying.”

“If all they wanted from Fielder was Royan’s location, then she’s probably been snuffed,” Victor said.

“No, she hasn’t,” Greg said.

“OK.” Victor subsided with good grace. He had seen Greg’s intuition at work before.

Greg wondered what young Pearse Solomons was making of all this. The security hardliner had been sitting at attention ever since Victor had come on the cybofax. After Julia appeared he hadn’t taken a breath.

“That just leaves us with Baronski,” Greg said.

“What can he tell us?” Suzi asked.

“Charlotte Fielder left the party early, with a rich young boy, in an expensive car. She walked out of the El Harhari freely, I’d almost say happily. That means the boy was either someone she knew, or more likely the son of a client. Either way, Baronski should be able to tell us.”

It was the sun again, inexplicably wrong. Charlotte finally twigged the reason when she was having a latish breakfast in the Colonel Maitland’s aft dining-room.

Fabian sat opposite her as usual. He acted dazed, almost in shock, barely eating his cereal. Every time he looked at her it was with an unsettling degree of reverence.