The Nano Flower gm-3

by Peter Hamilton

  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.