The rap went on relentlessly around her. It was something she hated, and she couldn't let them know. Silence implied wisdom, some bullshit like that. Let them think she was lost in deep thoughts, fully plugged in. This was Greg's scene, not hers. She could plan ahead, sort a deal down to the last detail. Good at it, too. But she could never pin the past down the way Greg could. He listened to what people said they believed had happened, thought about it, then explained what had really been going on. And it all made sense, like he was fitting a big jigsaw of events together in his mind, a map through what had been. Him and his warlock intuition.

She grinned at him.

He gave her a knowing look, then broke away. "You see, Charlotte," he said, "you didn't know it, but you've actually been working for the Dolgoprudnensky since you left the orphanage. According to General Kamoskin, Baronski was plugged into them at a high level. That's why he always sent you and the other girls looking for financial gossip. He made some money out of it, certainly; but all the really smart data was squirted back to this Pavel Kirilov character. He's in a position to make a lot more use of it than Baronski ever could."

The girl looked crestfallen. Suzi could see Fabian's hand locked in hers under the table, his thumb stroking gently.

"And you think it was the Dolgoprudnensky who asked Jason Whitehurst to lift her from Monaco?" Victor asked.

"Yeah."

"Father did business with them," Fabian said unexpectedly. "It was sneaky stuff. Made us a heck of a lot of money, though."

"Are you sure?" Julia asked.

The boy grimaced. "Absolutely. Father explained it to me." He smiled at Charlotte, flipping a lock of hair from his eyes. "I said he told me everything."

"Yes, you did," Charlotte said. "So how did it work?"

"It was the Dolgoprudnensky who made sure we were granted all our import-export licences with the Eastern Federation states. Licences are really tricky to get most of the time, unless you know the right people; those Eastern European states are still lumbered with huge civil service bureaucracies. All we had to do in return for the licences was use ships which the Dolgoprudnensky owned to carry our cargoes in and out of Odessa. It's simple really, most of our trade with Russia involves exchanging their timber for household gear and industrial cybernetics. So say if a Russian company comes to us and asks us for a particular piece of foreign hardware, we look round the global timber market and come back with a weight of wood which is equal to the cost of that hardware. Next, the Russian government's Timber Export Directorate authorizes the release of that weight from their stocks. They have millions of tonnes of dead deciduous trees left over from the Warming, it's a big national resource for them. The timber is shipped out of Odessa at ten per cent above the normal commercial carriage rate, and in return the company gets its hardware. Nobody queries the amount of wood being sold abroad which pays for that extra ten per cent in the shipping costs, because the Dolgoprudnensky have consolidated their control of the Timber Export Directorate. From the Director herself right down to the office cleaners, the entire staff is made up of Dolgoprudnensky members; it's like a closed shop, the personnel department will only employ their nominees. And the only merchants who are admitted to the Directorate's approved list to barter timber are the ones in on the deal. Like Father."

"And timber is bulky," Julia said. "You need a lot of ships to transport it."

"That's right. Only father didn't just supply single pieces of hardware to Russia, he shipped in entire factories."

Charlotte reached out and smoothed the remaining strands of hair from Fabian's forehead. They both smiled at each other.

"OK," said Greg. "That confirms it. Jason Whitehurst was working for the Dolgoprudnensky, at least to start with. When he began to realize how valuable Charlotte was he decided he didn't need them any more. It explains why Nia Korovilla was on board, to keep a close watch on the Dolgoprudnensky's most valuable timber deal partner. And they were also the ones who mounted the observation on Baronski's apartment after the Colonel Maitland failed to show at Odessa."

"But how did they know I was carrying the flower for Julia?" Charlotte asked.

"They wouldn't have known it was the flower specifically, not at first," Greg said; he pursed his lips, gazing at the ceiling. "Let's see. How long had it been since your last genuine by-yourself holiday?"

"I'm not sure, a couple of years at least, maybe longer."

"OK, and where were you when you asked Baronski to get you in to the Newfields ball?"

"I was still up at New London. If he couldn't get me a ticket there wouldn't have been much point in coming back to Earth early."

"And you specifically told him it was Julia you wanted to see?"

"Yes."

"Good. That would make Baronski very suspicious. You break off a pre-paid holiday of a lifetime, all because you want to physically meet the woman who owns one of the largest companies in the world. There must have been a compelling reason, yet you didn't tell him, which is not only out of character, it goes against your whole arrangement with him. If I was Baronski, someone who lived off the kind of byte scraps dropped by people like Julia, I'd want to know exactly what you were up to.

"I'd say it went like this. After he found you the Newfields ticket he called the Dolgoprudnensky and told them something dodgy was going down. You either knew something about Julia, or you were carrying something to her. They would have been on to you straight away, probably before you left New London. Your luggage would be searched, which I'm guessing is when they took a sample of the flower. It was obviously something that had been given to you recently, something you'd brought down from New London. An empathic psychic would home on to that flower straight off. Tell you, it gives off some pretty weird vibes. And any pro tekmerc team would use a psychic on an observation mission. Suzi will tell you."

She gave Charlotte a rough nod. "Too fucking true. When we roll a courier, anything and everything they have with them is suspect until proved otherwise. Clothing, hair, luggage. We even pick up sweet wrappers out of the bin, half-eaten hamburgers, you name it, anything discarded. Using an empath is routine, it's the least you need. Me, I prefer a precog if I can get me one. They tend to be more reliable." She held Greg's eye, taunting.

"The man at the airport!" Charlotte said in a fearful gasp.

"What man?" Suzi asked keenly.

"I saw him twice, maybe three times. He was waiting at Capetown when I landed, then he was at the Monaco airport, too. And I thought I caught a glimpse of him at the Newfields ball, but I couldn't be certain. He was dressed as a waiter."

"Interesting," Greg said.

"No such thing as coincidence," Victor murmured.

"No messing." Greg turned back to Charlotte. "When did Baronski tell you to meet Jason Whitehurst?"

"He called me right after my flight landed at Capetown. I was still in the spaceport."

"A day after he organized the ticket. Plenty of time for the Dolgoprudnensky agents to discover the flower. After that, after they had analysed it and discovered it was alien, they would have been very interested in exactly where in New London you obtained it, and from whom. They must have allowed you to go to the Newfields ball so they could confirm it was Julia you were delivering the flower to. Then Jason Whitehurst was supposed to take you straight to them for interrogation." He shook his head in amused admiration. "They must have been frantic when you dropped out of sight. I imagine they've had their agents searching New London for the last four days."