The Mandel Files, Volume 2: The Nano Flower

by Peter F. Hamilton

  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 chording.

  ‘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 Citröen, 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 per cent 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 complimentary 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 Citröen’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 Citröen’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 fucking 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.’