The Nano Flower Part 13

Andre Dubaud slipped his cybofax into his top pocket. 'Immigration have no record of Charlotte Fielder leaving the princ.i.p.ality, 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 ident.i.ty 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 Citroen, Greg used his cybofax to call Victor T~o, 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?'

'c.o.xumissaire Dubaud believes she is.'

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

Greg looked across at Andre 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 bra.s.s handles. The princ.i.p.ality'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 wei~t through the rotating door. It was the politics of envy. M~naco 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 furnis.h.i.+ngs and a claret carpet. Biolums were disguised as engraved gla.s.s bola wall fittings.

Andre 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 HorlzOfl alone because Julia owned it.'

124.

Suzi made a big show of s.h.i.+fting 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 Waishaw knew what they were doing giving him the job.'

'Too f.u.c.king 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. n.o.body 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.

Andre Dubaud walked over to them with the manager, a tall old man with thinning grey hair, who actually wore gla.s.ses, 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 receptiomsts over. Greg was given Charlotte Fielder's Amen-can Express number, which he squirted direct to Victor.

lie porter who was on duty the night of the Newflelds 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 Harhani for the Newflelds 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, Andre Dubaud. 'Can we have a maJr~ on the driver as well, please.'

41t's a hire car,' the Commissaire said, as his cybofax printed out the vehicle registry data. 'I'll ha,e my office check the hire company's records. The chauffeur's ident.i.ty 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 Citroen's door open for them. Andre Dubaud followed slowly.

'Problem?' Greg asked.

A musde on the side of Andre 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 Citro~n's cus.h.i.+oning, they shared a sly smile. He knew Andre 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 gla.s.s-fronted shelves, 126.

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-cla.s.s 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 antic.i.p.ation. '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, Pea.r.s.e 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 127.

teenage boy. The kid kept sneaking daunted looks at Charlotte Fielder's low-cut neckline, his smile flas.h.i.+ng 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~.'P.achel said.

'Andre, 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 Andre 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 gla.s.s, 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. 's.h.i.+t yes!' she exclaimed.

128'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 Andre 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 Monegasque nationals, everything they'd done since had been structured around safeguarding the princ.i.p.ality. Now people were coming and going as they pleased. The wrong sort of people.

'No s.h.i.+t,' 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 Pear-se's. You'll get b.u.g.g.e.r-all back, 'ust like the chauffeur and the kid. We never showed our pa.s.sports to anyone, never thumbprinted an Immigration data construct.'

'Certainly not,' Andre 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 p.i.s.sant 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.'

129.

Andre Dubaud had reddened, lips squas.h.i.+ng into a bloodless line, taking slow shallow breaths through his nose.

'Yeah, thank you, Suzi,' Greg said. 'How about it, Andre?' Is there anyone else in the police department apart from yourself who has the authority to waive Pa.s.sport and Immigration controls?'

'There are some others who could sanction such a courtesy. But it could only be done if the circ.u.mstances justified it,' Andre Dubaud said sullenly.

'How many people?'

'Please understand, money is not all that is required. The per~n 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 Pea.r.s.e Solomons were sitting quietly round Claude Murtand's office, happy to let him summarize. The air conditioner was humming softly, sucking out the acc.u.mulated moisture. Claude Murtand and Andre Dubaud were on the other side of the gla.s.s wall, talking in low tones, and casting an occasional unhappy eye in his direction.