The Nano Flower

CHAPTER EIGHT

Greg slipped his leather jacket over a sky-blue sweatshirt. The black leather was thin enough to move easily, thick enough to shield him from the chill of early morning. It had been a present from Eleanor a couple of years back when his old one had finally torn.

"You're going to wear that in Monaco, are you?" Eleanor asked. She was sitting on the edge of their bed, wrapped in a quilted housecoat. Hands fidgeting in her lap, knotting and unknotting the belt.

Greg glanced at himself in the bedroom's antique full-length mirror. Flat stomach, sideburns frosted with grey, a hint of excess flesh building up on his neck. Not bad for fifty-four. He managed to get down to the gym in Oakham twice a week, the fitness bug was something he'd caught during his Army days. After surviving the war in Turkey and the street violence in Peterborough, it would be silly to succumb to clogged arteries and wasted muscles.

"I thought it was all right," he said. "Fits the image of an English gentleman farmer."

Eleanor tsked in disapproval.

"It's not as if I'm going to a social function with the Prince."

"Don't I know it," she mumbled.

Greg went and sat beside her on the bed, his arm going round her shoulders. Eleanor's head remained bowed, focusing on her hands.

There was none of the old pre-mission exhilaration that used to fire his blood. He'd thought there might have been, the one final deal, proving he could still hack it. He knew plenty of married officers in the Army, combat deployment was something their wives accepted. But family had come after that stage of his life, there was no way the two could be reconciled now.

"If you don't want me to go, then I won't," he said.

"That's blackmail, Greg. Putting it off on me. You know you have to go."

"Yeah." He kissed her on the side of the head, tasting hair.

"And you behave yourself around that Suzi."

Greg laughed and gave her a proper kiss.

Eleanor responded hungrily, then pushed him away. "Don't, you know where that sort of thing leads." She looked down at her belly, smile fading.

"Tell you, it's funny," he said quietly. "Even five or six years back I would probably have pleaded with Julia for the chance to do this. I mean, Royan missing, in trouble. What could be more important? But now… I resent it, this being ruled by the past. And I think Suzi does, too. That was a nice girl she's living with. Pregnant, as well."

"Suzi?" Eleanor exclaimed.

"No, the girl, Andria. Not that Julia and I were actually told. But you can't hide that from a psychic."

"Oh. That ought to be interesting. Suzi, a parent."

"Yeah." He went over to the dresser and picked up the Event Horizon cybofax Julia had given him yesterday. "For your own safety," she'd said. "It's got a locater beacon for the security crash teams to keep track of you. If you need hardline help, just shout, they'll be there in minutes. And I've loaded one of my personality packages into the memory. You never know, I might actually be of some use to you."

Greg slipped the palm-sized wafer into his breast pocket. God alone knew what else her security division had squeezed into its 'ware.

He drew back the honey-coloured curtains. Cool early morning sky, halfway between grey and white. A narrow spire of smoke rose from the dead ashes of the Berrybut estate's bonfire on the opposite shore. Heavy dew coated the grass of the paddock. The pole jumps for Anita's pony made sharp splashes of colour among the pale blades. They wanted a fresh coat of paint, he saw, and the grass was too long.

"I'd better get off," he said. "This is going to be a long day."

Rutland Water's high-water level was marked by a thick band of quarried limestone blocks thrown round the entire shoreline to prevent erosion when the reservoir was full. But it had been a hot summer, the farms and citrus groves of the surrounding district had siphoned off a lot of water for irrigation. The vertical water level was already two metres below the bottom of the limestone; on the Hambleton peninsula that produced a broad expanse of mudflats which had dried as hard as concrete under the relentless sun.

Greg and Eleanor walked down the slope from the farmhouse to the limestone, and stood on the top of the crumbling blocks. The travellers' camp was just beginning to stir.

They heard a shout as Christine came running down the slope after them. "Dad, you were going to leave without saying goodbye," she accused.

Greg saw the Event Horizon Pegasus hypersonic sink out of the wispy cloud band and skim across the reservoir towards him.

"I'll only be gone a couple of days, at the most," he said.

Christine threw her arms round him and gave him a wet kiss. Eleanor's peck on the cheek was more demure.

The three of them watched the arrowhead-planform Pegasus slowing; a hundred metres from the shore its nose pitched up. Slats opened in its underbelly, venting the compressor fans' efflux straight down. The undercarriage unfolded, and it settled on the rusty-coloured mudflats in a swirl of dust. A flock of swans drifting on the water behind it rose into the sky, wings pumping frantically.

Greg gave Eleanor a final kiss, and clambered down the nettle-swamped limestone.

There were two security division hardliners waiting for him at the bottom of the hatchway stairs. Pearse Solomons and Malcolm Ramkartra; depressingly young, healthy, and respectful.

"Good morning, sir. We've been instructed to provide you with backup should you request it," Pearse Solomons told him.

Greg's espersense picked up a hint of resentment in the man's mind. Not a total cyborg after all, then. He went up the stairs in an improved frame of mind.

The windowless cabin had fifteen seats, a compact rosewood cocktail bar at the rear, and a flatscreen on the forward bulkhead beside the door into the cockpit.

Suzi and Rachel Griffith were sitting at the back. Suzi lounging lethargically in her chair, dressed in a dark purple shellsuit. Her mousy hair had been given a crew cut. At least she didn't dye it mauve these days.

"Christ, you look keen," she said.

Greg sat in the seat beside her. "You know me."

"Yeah. Me too. I feel like I've been press-ganged."

Greg gave Rachel an apologetic shrug.

"I gave up hardlining ten years ago," Rachel said. "Exec assistant suited me just fine."

"Just point her out to us," Greg said. "Your job ends there."

"Yes," Rachel said; she looked troubled.

Pearse Solomons and Malcolm Ramkartra came up the stairs and sat in the front two seats. The belly hatch slid shut.

Malcolm Ramkartra picked up a slim phone that was built into his armrest. He turned to Greg and Suzi. "Is Monaco still the destination?"

"Yeah," Greg said. "And tell the pilot to put the nose camera image on the screen after we lift."

"Yes, sir." Malcolm Ramkartra spoke briefly into the handset.

"We travel on these planes when we go on holiday with Julia," Greg said. "I never can get used to not having a port. I grew up with aircraft that you can see out of."

There was a gentle whine from the fans as they spun up. The deck tilted back slightly.

Suzi grunted. "Didn't know you went on holiday together."

"Sure. The kids are all big mates. And I sometimes think Eleanor and I are the only ordinary people Julia knows."

"You're ordinary, huh?" Suzi grinned evilly.

"More than you, dear, that's a fact." He felt a press of acceleration as the Pegasus surged upwards. The flatscreen lit up, showing blue sky, splashes of white cloud piling up in the south, and a big pink-gold sun lifting over the horizon.

"It was bad at the start," Greg said. "People thought we were an easy route to her. The rich and the social climbers. We couldn't move for presents and invitations. The way they behave, it's ridiculous, disgusting really. Say hello to one, and you're a lifelong friend. They don't know what shame is. One birthday the drive looked like the end of a car factory production line; Jags, Ferraris, Lotuses, MGs. Two of them had a ribbon tied round, for Christ's sake. I sent them all back to the garages. That type just don't know when to give up. And I couldn't count how many times I've been asked to be a non-executive director—" He became aware of Suzi's silent unsympathetic stare.

"It's a hard life, isn't it?" she said.

The Pegasus flew at an altitude of twenty kilometres, turning south above the North Sea and passing over the English Channel at Mach two. They hit Mach four heading into the Bay of Biscay, then went subsonic to cross the Pyrenees.

Greg watched their approach to the tiny coastal principality on the bulkhead flatscreen. Circles predominated below, almost as if some weird genealogy of symmetrical aquatic creatures was surfacing to storm ashore. The pink rings of the tidal turbine lagoons, flat dusty-grey field of the airport. Then there was the Monaco dome itself, a faintly translucent golden egg that had driven itself into the cliffs. Two thirds of it extended out into the rich blue water of the sea, radiating white jetties like wheel spokes. He could just make out shaded rectangular outlines through the monolattice shell.

The Pegasus settled on to the airport island. Over half of the parked planes were similar white arrowhead executives, the passenger jets were long flattened cones with narrow fin wings.

Pearse Solomons and Malcolm Ramkartra stood as the belly hatch popped open.

"Are you carrying?" Greg asked the hardliners as he came forwards.

"Yes, sir," Pearse Solomons said. "A Tokarev IRMS7 laser pistol."

"OK. Load up with a second, and come with us. Malcolm, you stay here, and maintain constant contact."

"I've got a Browning, fifty-shot maser," Suzi said as she slung a canvas Puma flight bag over her shoulder.

"I sort of took that for granted," Greg said.

It was hot outside, the expansion joints on the concrete apron creaking in protest, barely audible over the ever-present piccolo hiss of compressor fans. Greg slipped on a pair of Ferranti sunglasses.

Commissaire André Dubaud was waiting at the foot of the stairs, Monaco's deputy police chief.

"Trust him," Victor Tyo had told Greg. "He's good at his job, and he understands the politics involved with corporate cases. He's also totally paid for, so there shouldn't be any trouble."

They shook hands, and Greg introduced Suzi and Rachel. Commissaire Dubaud was in his mid-forties, wearing an immaculate black uniform with a peaked cap.

"Mr. Tyo informs me you are looking for a girl," he said.

"That's right," Greg said. "We don't know her name, but she was definitely at the Newfields ball three days ago."

"May I enquire why you are hunting her?" André Dubaud nodded pointedly at the Pegasus. "This seems rather a large operation to track down one good-time girl."

"Certainly. She was in possession of a certain item which interests us. We'd like to ask her a few questions about it."

André Dubaud glanced at his polished shoes. "Very well. Are you intending to extradite her?"

"No. She will answer everything I ask her."

"So?"

"No messing," Greg said.

They drove into the dome in André Dubaud's official car, a black Citroën with fold-down chairs in the rear. Greg thought it was the kind of limo a head of state would normally ride in.

He looked hard at a thick white pillar sticking out of the water halfway across. It was made of metal, topped by a petalsegment composite hemisphere. There was another one five hundred metres past the first, heat distortion above the sea made it impossible to see if there was a third.

"What are they?" he asked.

"Tactical defence lasers," André Dubaud said. "If Nice comes knocking again, those bastards will wish they hadn't. The principality is impervious to all forms of attack now, from rioters with stones all the way up to KE harpoons. It has to be done, of course. Our inhabitants are the natural targets to certain kinds of diseased minds. But they're entitled to live like anyone else. Inside our dome civilization is total. The one place in the world where you can walk down any street at any time, and never have to look over your shoulder."

"It sounds as if your department is doing an excellent job," Greg said. He glanced at Suzi, but she was hunched down in the Citroën's leather seat, staring out of the tinted window, her size making her appear like a sulking child. She hadn't spoken since being introduced to the Commissaire. They were total opposites; Greg reckoned Dubaud knew it as well. If she hadn't been operating under Julia's aegis, he doubted Suzi would even have been allowed to land at the airport.

"There is a degree of fraud perpetrated by our financial community," André Dubaud said. "But physical crime—property theft, the act of violence—that is unheard of."

By banishing the poor, Greg thought, the people who commit robbery and muggings. Monaco hadn't solved crime, they'd just dumped the problem on someone else. Not even New Eastfield in Peterborough went that far. He could sense the stubborn pride in André Dubaud's mind, mingling with a trace of what seemed suspiciously like paranoia. He held back on the urge to inject some sarcastic observations. Maybe that's why Suzi had kept silent, instinctively recognizing the futility. Trying to reason with someone like André Dubaud about basic human dignity would be like pissing in the wind.

The covered bridge from the airport island dipped down, and the Citroën drove through an arch in the base of the dome, coming out on the perimeter road. Clean, that was the impression he got from the tidy rows of white buildings bathing under a tangerine glow, clean verging on sterile.

"Where's the casino?" Suzi asked.

André Dubaud pointed to a cluster of white-stone buildings on the cliffs. She peered up at them curiously.

The Citroën took them right up to the marble front of the El Harhari. A footman opened the door for Greg, and he followed André Dubaud up the stairs into the lobby.

A troupe of cleaners were busy inside, polishing the mirrors and dark wooden furniture, drone vacuums moving up and down the carpet. Claude Murtand, the hotel security manager, met them under one of the chandeliers. With his handsome face and perfect hair he looked like a channel star, dwarfing Suzi.

"A picture of a girl?" he asked after André Dubaud explained what they wanted.

"Yeah," Greg said. "She was here for the Newfields ball, name unknown. Attractive, early twenties, short fair hair, wearing a dark-blue gown, possibly silk. We think she's on the game."

"This is Monaco," Claude Murtand murmured. "Who isn't?"

André Dubaud scowled at him.

The El Harhari's white-tiled security centre had a long bank of monitor screens along one wall relaying scenes from around the hotel. Two big flatscreens showed the floorplans, red and yellow symbols flashing in rooms and corridors. There were two island consoles, with three operators each. Claude Murtand had a small glass-walled office at the back.

"We compile a profile on each guest," Claude Murtand said as he led them in. "In so far as we can, just what is available in public memory cores. Obviously it's only a secondary precaution. Customs and Immigration filter out anyone genuinely dangerous."

"That true?" Greg asked André Dubaud.

"Certainly," the Commissaire said. "Our passport control is the most stringent in the world. Nobody with a criminal record is allowed in."

"You and the wife must get lonely here all by yourself," Suzi said in an undertone.

Rachel smiled faintly. Greg shot Suzi a warning glance. "What about the Newfields guests, did you put together a profile on them?" he asked Claude Murtand.

"No. We have a complete list of those who originally bought tickets. But unfortunately tickets for these events change hands all the time, especially when someone like Julia Evans is attending, there's no way of knowing in advance exactly who's going to turn up."

"OK." Greg switched a finger at the monitor screens. "Did you record the ball?"

"Of course."

"Right. We'll start with the lobby camera memory for the night."

There were six cameras covering the lobby. Rachel chose the one giving a head on view of the door; Greg watched over her shoulder.

He recognized the people coming in, the category, not the names. The type that used to pester him and Eleanor during the first years after their marriage. Anybody over twenty-eight had their facial structure frozen in time with annual trips to discreet clinics, until they reached fifty-five, then they were allowed to age with virile silver-haired dignity. Appearance wasn't just important to them, it was everything.

He watched Julia make her entrance a quarter of an hour after the official start. The jockeying to greet her. One statuesque redhead beauty in a shimmering black dress quite deliberately screwed her stiletto heel into the foot of a rival to be sure of being on the front row as Julia walked by.

The faces blurred together. Beauty was a quality which ebbed when it became monotonous, and none of the women lacked it. He concentrated on the dresses, looking for blue.

"That's her," Rachel Griffith said,

Greg halted the memory playback. The girl had sharp cheekbones, broad, square shoulders held proud. Judging from her build she could have been a professional athlete, except… he stared at her. An indefinable quality. Something lacking, perhaps? Rachel was right, she was a pro.

Suzi whistled softly. "Some looker."

Greg restarted the memory, and watched the girl walk down the lobby towards the ballroom. He stopped the memory again when she was just under the camera. The white flower box was clasped in her hand. "Bingo. Can you get me a better shot of her face?" he asked Claude Murtand.

"Certainly." The security manager slid on to a chair beside Rachel. He checked the memory's time display, and began to call up corresponding memories from the other lobby cameras. He found an image of the girl staring almost straight into one camera above the reception desk, and squirted it into André Dubaud's cybofax. The Commissaire relayed it to the police headquarters central processor core.

"Two minutes," he said proudly. "We'll have her name for you."

"The name on her passport," Suzi said.

"Madame, nobody with a false passport enters Monaco."

Greg reversed the memory, watching the girl walk backwards to the door, halted it. She seemed to be by herself. "Can I see the memory of the outside camera, a couple of minutes before she comes in, please?"

The girl was the only person to get out of a dark green Aston Martin.

André Dubaud's cybofax bleeped. He began to read the data that flowed down the wafer's little screen. "Charlotte Diane Fielder, aged twenty-four, an English citizen, resident in Austria. Occupation, art student"

Greg felt a grin tugging his face. Suzi was chortling.

"She checked in to the Celestious at four-thirty p.m. three days ago," André Dubaud continued. "Then checked out at nine-forty p.m. the same evening."

"What time did the Newfields ball end?" Greg asked.

"Julia packed up around one o'clock," said Rachel. "It was still going strong then."

"Most had left by four," said Claude Murtand. "There was a party of about thirty who stayed on to have breakfast. That would be about seven o'clock."

Greg closed his eyes, sorting out an order of questions. "André, would you find out if she's still in Monaco for me, please?"

"Of course." The Commissaire began to talk into his cybofax.

"Rachel, would you and Pearse review the lobby door camera memory for the rest of the night, please. I'd like to know what time Charlotte Fielder left the hotel. And whether she was alone."

"Sure thing," said Rachel.

"What about me?" said Suzi.

Greg grinned. "You come with me to the Celestious. Make sure I don't get into any trouble."

"Bollocks," Suzi muttered.

André Dubaud slipped his cybofax into his top pocket. "Immigration have no record of Charlotte Fielder leaving the principality, so she's still here," he said firmly. "But there is no hotel registration in her name. That means she's staying with a resident."

Greg ordered his gland to secrete a dose of neurohormones, shutting off Claude Murtand's office, the turbulent thought currents of nearby minds, concentrating inwards. It was his intuition he wanted; now he had a face and an identity to focus on, he could scratch round inside his cranium for a feeling, maybe even an angle on her current location.

But he didn't get the certainty he wanted, not even a sense of mild expectancy, which he would've settled for; instead there was a cold emptiness. Charlotte Fielder wasn't in Monaco, not even close.

Back in the Citroën, Greg used his cybofax to call Victor Tyo, and squirted Charlotte Fielder's small file over to him.

"See what sort of profile you can build," he said to the security chief. "She's gone to ground somewhere. Be helpful to know friends and contacts. Her pimp too, if you can manage it."

"You got it," Victor said. "Is she still in Monaco, do you think?"

"Commissaire Dubaud believes she is."

The cybofax screen had enough definition to show a frown wrinkling Victor's forehead. "Oh. Right. Can you get me her credit card number?"

Greg looked across at André Dubaud, who was sitting on one of the fold down seats, his back to the driver. "Can we get that from the Celestious?"

"Yes."

"Call you back," Greg told Victor.

The Celestious had a faintly Bavarian appearance, a flat high front of some pale bluish stone, a tower at each corner. Windows and doors were highly polished red wood, with gleaming brass handles. The principality's flag fluttered on a tall pole. Greg looked twice at that, there couldn't be any wind under the dome, someone had tricked it out with wires and motors. Utterly pointless. He put his head down, and went through the rotating door. It was the politics of envy. Monaco was getting to him, he was finding fault in everything. Always a mistake, clouding judgement. Never would have happened in the old days.

There was a strong smell of leather in the lobby, the decor was subdued, dark wood furnishings and a claret carpet. Biolums were disguised as engraved glass bola wall fittings.

André Dubaud showed his police card to the receptionist and asked for the manager.

"You think she's made a bolt for it?" Suzi asked Greg in a low voice.

"Yeah. She came here for one thing, delivering the flower to Julia. When that was over, her part in all this finished."

"Snuffed?"

"Could be." He scratched the back of his neck.

"But you don't think so."

"Not sure. My infamous intuition doesn't say chasing her is a waste of time."

"So how did she get out? This gold-plated rat hole is worse than a banana republic for security."

"You're the tekmerc, you tell me."

"No. Seriously, Greg, I'd never take on a deal inside Monaco. Use hotrods to burn data cores in the finance sector, maybe, but only from outside terminals. It's like Event Horizon; something you just have to learn to accept as untouchable."

"I thought you left Event Horizon alone because Julia owned it."

Suzi made a big show of shifting the weight round on her shoulder strap. "Yeah, well. That, and I've seen what's left of people after our angel-face Victor has finished with them. Sometimes there's enough to fill a whole eggcup."

"He's good, isn't he? Julia and old Morgan Walshaw knew what they were doing giving him the job."

"Too fucking true."

"So you don't reckon our Miss Fielder could get out on the quiet?"

"Put it this way, I've never heard of anyone else doing it. And I would've done. It's the dome which is the problem. A one hundred percent physical barrier. The only holes are the official ones. Nobody needs to create smuggling routes into Monaco, see? Drugs aren't illegal here. They actually have two pharmaceuticals licensed to produce narcotics. Any kind you want."

"I didn't know that." Somehow he wasn't surprised.

André Dubaud walked over to them with the manager, a tall old man with thinning grey hair, who actually wore glasses, round lenses with silver rims. He must do that for effect, Greg thought. It worked too; he had the kind of old-world dignity anyone would trust.

He listened to Greg's request, and beckoned one of the receptionists over. Greg was given Charlotte Fielder's American Express number, which he squirted direct to Victor.

The porter who was on duty the night of the Newfields ball was summoned from the staff quarters. Greg didn't learn much. Charlotte Fielder had phoned the hotel and told them to pack her bags, a car would be sent to collect them. The porter couldn't remember any details, it was a limousine of some kind, black, maybe a Volvo or a Pontiac.

"Not a green Aston Martin?" Greg asked.

"No, sir," said the porter.

"You seem very sure, considering you couldn't remember the make."

"We have a complementary fleet of Aston Martins at the disposal of our guests," the manager explained. He consulted his cybofax. "One was booked by Miss Fielder to take her to the El Harhari for the Newfields ball. But that's the only time she used one."

"Right, can you show me the memory for the camera covering the front of the hotel please."

The manager gave a short bow. "Of course."

They viewed it in his office, sipping coffee from delicate china cups. Greg watched the porter put three matched crocodile-skin cases into the boot of a stretched Pontiac, a chauffeur helped him with the largest.

"Progress," said Greg. He leant forward and read the licence plate number off to André Dubaud. "Can we have a make on the driver as well, please."

"It's a hire car," the Commissaire said, as his cybofax printed out the vehicle registry data. "I'll have my office check the hire company's records. The chauffeur's identity won't take a minute."

Greg and Suzi walked back out into the dome's filtered tangerine light. One of the Celestious doormen was holding the Citroën's door open for them. André Dubaud followed slowly.

"Problem?" Greg asked.

A muscle on the side of André Dubaud's cheek twitched. "There seems to be a glitch in our characteristics recognition program."

"Meaning what?" Suzi asked.

"It's taking too long to identify the Pontiac's chauffeur." He gave the cybofax a code number, and began speaking urgently into it.

Greg met Suzi's eyes as they sank down into the Citroën's cushioning, they shared a sly smile. He knew André Dubaud wasn't going to trace the chauffeur, it wouldn't be a program glitch, that was too complicated. The simple method would be to wipe the chauffeur's face from the police memory core, or make sure it was never entered in the first place. Either way, it would take a pro dealer to organize. His cybofax bleeped.

It was Julia. She appeared to be sitting in Wilholm's study. The walls behind, her were covered with glass-fronted shelves, heavy with dark leatherbound books. The edge of a window showed sunny sky.

"How's the speech day coming along?" Greg asked.

Julia smiled. "You'll have to ask her when she gets back."

"Right." He was talking to an image one of the NN cores was simulating. He wondered how many of her business deals were made like this, flattering the smaller company directors with what they thought was a personal interview.

"Rachel was right about Charlotte Fielder," Julia said. "She's quite well known, at least to us. She's one of Dmitri Baronski's girls. Security keeps a fairly complete list of his stable in case any of my executives should stumble."

"Who's Dmitri Baronski?" Greg asked.

"A first-class pimp, although that doesn't do him justice, he's a lot more than that. Clever old boy, lives in Austria. Runs a stable of girls who aren't quite as dumb as they like to make out to their clients. He's made a fortune on the stock market based on loose talk they've picked up for him."

"No messing?" For the first time, Greg began to feel a certain anticipation. "So this Fielder girl was a good choice as courier, then?"

"Yes. After all, would you know how to deliver a present to me, and be sure I'd see it?"

"Royan would," Greg said. "But you're right; method is one thing, carrying it off is another. Fielder must be bright enough to realize some of the implications of what she was doing."

Rachel, Pearse Solomons, and Claude Murtand were sitting round the El Harhari security centre's desk drinking tea. A plate of biscuits rested on top of the terminal. The monitor screens were dark.

"Got her," Rachel said. "She left at five to eleven, and she was with someone."

Greg didn't like the dry amusement leaking into Rachel's voice, it suggested a surprise.

Claude Murtand called up the memory, and Greg watched Charlotte Fielder walking out of the El Harhari with a young teenage boy. The kid kept sneaking daunted looks at Charlotte Fielder's low-cut neckline, his smile flashing on and off.

Greg halted the memory and studied the boy's eager, wonder-struck face. There was something not quite right about him. It was as if he was a model; everything about him, the awkwardness, the slight swagger, a designer's idea of teenager.

"She'll eat him alive," Suzi snorted gleefully. "He won't last the night."

"Way to go." Rachel said.

"André, can you get a make on that boy for me, please?" Even as he said it, Greg knew the boy would defy identification, just like the chauffeur. Judging by the apprehensive way André Dubaud was ordering the make, he thought so too.

"What car did they leave in?" Greg asked Claude Murtand. The hotel security manager tapped an order into his terminal's keyboard, and played the outside camera memory on a monitor screen.

Greg and Suzi groaned together. It was the Pontiac.

He got Claude Murtand to run the outside camera memory, and watched the Pontiac rolling up to the El Harhari's front door; the same chauffeur who'd driven it at the Celestious hopped out and opened the doors. Charlotte Fielder and her boy companion climbed in. Greg asked to see it again, a third time. His intuition had set up a feathery itch along his spine.

"Freeze it just before Fielder gets in," Greg told Claude Murtand. "OK, now enlarge the rear of the car."

The image jumped up, focusing on the open door and the boot. Charlotte Fielder's raised foot hovered over the door ledge.

"More," Greg said.

The image lost definition badly, black metal and darkened glass, fuzzy rectangular shadows stacked together. He peered forward.

"Suzi, look at the rear window, and tell me what you see."

She sat in Claude Murtand's seat right in front of the monitor screen, screwed up her eyes. "Shit yes!" she exclaimed.

"What?" Rachel demanded.

Greg tracked an outline down the left-hand side of the rear window, a ghost sliver of deeper darkness. "There's someone else in there."

Greg could sense André Dubaud's growing anger; there was worry in there as well, churning his thought currents into severe agitation.

"It would seem that my office is unable to identify the boy at this time," the Commissaire said.

Greg knew how much the admission hurt him. The Nice sacking was burned into the psyche of Monégasque nationals, everything they'd done since had been structured around safeguarding the principality. Now people were coming and going as they pleased. The wrong sort of people.

"No shit," Suzi said, and there was too much insolence even for her.

"Madame, everyone who comes to Monaco is entered in the police memory core. Everyone. No exceptions."

"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 judgement 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, Commissaire. 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."