Звезда Пандоры

The balcony of the little apartment barely had room for the small round table and two chairs that were pressed up against the railing. Hoshe shuffled around the table and sat down. Paula stood by the rail, taking in the view. The thirty-story apartment block was in Darklake City’s Malikoi district, a long way back from the shore. Paula could look out and see the parks and elaborate buildings that meandered along the shoreline, she could even pick out the tower behind the big marina where Morton used to live.

“You have a nice home, Hoshe.”

“Why are you here?”

She left the rail and sat opposite him. “I need some detective work done. This is not an official request, it’s a…”

“A favor,” he supplied gently.

“Yes.”

“You don’t like working outside channels, do you, Paula?”

“I don’t have a lot of choice in this particular case. I believe my Agency is compromised. That’s why I’ve come to you, and a few others I worked with outside the old Directorate, you can make inquiries that won’t be registered in our office.”

“Compromised by whom?”

“I’m not sure. But they will be very highly placed inside the Commonwealth government, perhaps even the executive itself. If they find out about this, it won’t exactly help your career.”

“What have they done?”

“What they always do, play politics and maneuver among their own kind. But this time it’s resulted in people being killed.”

“Okay. What do you need?”

“Have you seen the recordings of the Venice Coast bomb?”

“Hell yes. Mellanie has been playing them just about nonstop.”

“Mellanie?” Paula hesitated. “Mellanie Rescorai?”

“None other. I sometimes think I did the wrong thing letting the demon out of the bottle.”

“You let genies out of bottles, Hoshe, not demons.”

“Not in this case, believe me. After the court case she went on and made some softcore TSI biogdrama, Murderous Seduction . Did you access it?”

“No.”

“It got a huge rating. The actor playing me looked like a sumo wrestler for heaven’s sake. They got you about right, though. Anyway, Mellanie won a lot of media attention; certainly locally, so Alessandra Baron took her on as Oaktier’s rep for her show. She’s actually quite good. I think she’s got her own personality line as well; all the usual crap, swimwear, holograms, monthly TSI releases, scents, food, there’s even a Murderous Seduction cocktail. She’s got quite a fan club these days.”

“Strange, she didn’t seem the type. I don’t normally underestimate people so poorly.”

“Yeah, there’s some politicians she interviewed who made that mistake when she started out. They don’t anymore.”

“And she’s been showing the Venice Coast recordings?”

“Every news show has. I just watched her because she gets the decent interviews; it was one of Rafael Columbia’s deputies, I think.” He gave Paula a cautious glance. “Mellanie was really pressing the point about how you kept fouling up the Johansson case. Her words.”

“I’m sure.”

“So where do I tie in with what happened on Venice Coast?”

“This is not public knowledge, but not all of the equipment Rigin was collecting got destroyed in the blast. Several items were being stored downstairs. We managed to retrieve them.”

“What kind of items?”

“One was a very high-power superconducting microphase modulator. Its regulator software was modified by a fix that apparently came from the Shansorel Partnership, that’s a specialist software house right here in Darklake City. Elvin couldn’t have placed a regular order for it, this is really technical stuff. They would need an expert brief. And, Hoshe, they would have known it wasn’t a legitimate contract.”

“What was the modulator used for?”

A slight frown crossed Paula’s forehead. “We’re not sure. The best guess forensics could come up with from the items we know were delivered is some kind of customized force field. Though that doesn’t explain half of the components.”

“Okay, so you want me to look into the Shansorel Partnership?”

“Please, yes.”

“What exactly am I hunting for? And how much pressure do you want me to put on these guys?”

“I want to know how deep their connection with Elvin goes: if it’s long-term, or if they were just short of money one time and took a no-questions contract to get the bank off their backs. I’m hoping for the long-term, of course, that way I can run a deep-cover tracker on their contact with Elvin’s team. How you want to play it is up to you, there’s always a weak link in any group of people. See if you can find which one it is in Shansorel, and make them sweat.”

“Okay. But I’m puzzled by this. You’re going after Elvin. How does that help you with the Agency’s internal leak?”

“Standard elimination entrapment. Each suspect is given a different piece of information in isolation; then I sit back and see who reacts.”