The Nano Flower

by Peter F. Hamilton

  "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 attache
d 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."

  Chapter Nine

  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.

  But then Fabian was a boy in lust. He was also a remarkably fast learner. She had spent a strenuous two hours last night coping with his enthusiasms and demands before he finally drifted off into an exhausted sleep, then he'd been ready for more this morning. Which was why they turned up late at the table.

  Jason Whitehurst was already sitting at the table waiting for them. He greeted them with an unabashed smile. "Ah, glad to see you young people are getting on so well."

  Fabian blushed hot crimson.

  Jason Whitehurst had chosen his cereal, unperturbed, and ordered his cybofax to display the London Times, which he read as he ate.

  Charlotte could hear the waiter squeezing fresh orange juice at the side table behind her. She started in on her own cereal bowl. The sun was filling the dining room with a liquid rose-gold light, rising into view direc
tly behind Jason Whitehurst. She stared at it, feeling cold despite the thick Cotton of her summer dress.

  Jason Whitehurst looked up from his cybofax. "Something wrong, my dear?"

  "West," she said numbly. "We're heading west."

  "That's right."

  "But Odessa is east of Monaco. I thought we were going around Italy, then up into the Black Sea."

  "No." Jason Whitehurst inspected a slice of toast, then began buttering it. "My agent has taken care of my business in Odessa. There's no need to go there now. Great relief all round, one expects. I told you what it was like."

  The waiter put a glass of orange down in front of Charlotte. She ignored it. "Where are we going, then?"

  "Going?" Jason Whitehurst affected puzzlement. "Why, my dear girl, the Colonel Maitland simply drifts. On a whim and a prayer, I always say. I had a notion that South America would be nice. You and Fabian could laze around on the beach, that sort of thing, whatever it is a boy and a girl do together these days. How does that sound, young man?"

  "Great, father," Fabian said cautiously.

  "Which country in South America?" Charlotte asked. It was hard to maintain her pose of polite seminal interest.

  "Oh, I don't know. I really hadn't given it any thought, to be woundingly honest. Why, have you got any preferences?"

  For once she was stuck for a reply. There was a small part of her mind thinking that Baronski would be shaking his head in dismay; questioning her patron's intent, letting her own disapproval show. It simply was not done. But either Jason Whitehurst was the most carefree soul she'd ever met, or he was being deliberately obtuse.

  She'd heard of patrons like that, not that there were many, thank heavens. Instead of physical mastery, they went in for nasty psychological games. Mental kinks designed to rip the sense of order from a bewildered girl, reduce her to a disorientated nervous wreck. It gave them a sense of power. A mind set which got its bang from destruction.

  Charlotte remembered talking to one of the women tutors that Baronski had sent her round to learn the extras which put her so far above the others of her trade. The woman had told her it was all down to age and bitter jealousy; the patrons wanted to punish the girls for their youth and beauty, something their money could never bring back to them.