Helling was as good as his word, as Cerise had expected. Interpol’s local office contacted her secretary, and they juggled schedules until they found a mutually acceptable time for lunch. She took a car and driver—not her usual habit, but she wanted time to think—and as the car slowed in the clotted traffic on the main approach to the downtown business district, she began to wonder if she was doing the right thing. That uncertainty was unlike her, and she frowned, annoyed with herself, and pushed the thought away. What she needed from Interpol was simple, an accounting of the false Trouble’s activities—it would be useful to have something to show the board, to prove that Multiplane was not the only corporation targeted by this particular cracker, plus it would be nice to have more evidence to analyze, to prove to Coigne that it wasn’t her Trouble—and maybe, just maybe, she could trade her own information, her knowledge of the old Trouble and her certainty that this was someone else, for Interpol’s files. After all, she thought, I was Trouble’s partner, and anyone who’s been anything in security, even a Eurocop, has to know that. It’s the least I can do, for old times’ sake. And if I have to, I have other coin to trade. The pun pleased her; she smiled, and saw the driver cast a fleeting glance into his mirror.
The car turned off the flyway, rode the ramp down into the crowded streets. Cerise leaned back in her seat as the hordes of pedestrians flowed around the car like water around the rocks in a streambed, not wanting to pay attention to them, men and women in cheap-corporate suits, the middling sort who kept the companies running and the money flowing. Trouble would have teased her for her contempt, called it arrogance—and she would’ve been right, had been right about it, but I was right, too, when I said I’d earned it. Cerise frowned slightly, the old apartment coming back to her in a rush of memory, the plain two-rooms-and-a-bath, with a kitchen unit mounted into the wall above the freezer, and Trouble lounging on the foam-core folding couch that was their only piece of furniture. It had been two months before they’d gotten a job that let them pay for anything else, and right after it they’d seen a play on the culture channel that took place entirely in a bed. For weeks, just the thought of it had been enough to send both of them into giggles. Bad enough to be crackers, Trouble had said, that was enough of a stereotype, but artsy crackers…
And this was not the attitude she needed to take to this meeting. Her frown deepened to a scowl, and she took her thoughts firmly in hand. Helling’s friend from Interpol was going to want value for any information he let slip; she would have to be at her best, if she was going to win this game. The car slowed again, eased to a stop directly in front of the black glass-fronted building that housed the restaurant they had chosen. The driver locked the engine, and came around to open the door; Cerise climbed out easily, just touching the automatically extended hand.
“I’ll be back for you at three, Ms. Cerise?” the driver asked, and she nodded.
“That’ll be fine,” she said, and went up the shallow marble stairs into the lobby.
The light was darker here, dimmed by the smoky glass, but she knew her way without having to consult the direction boards placed discreetly inside the entrance. She climbed the double staircase and nodded to the man in evening clothes who waited just outside the door.
“Cerise,” she said. “I’m meeting a man named Mabry.”
The security man nodded back, fingering the silver square of the annunciator clipped to his lapel, and Cerise stepped past him into the suddenly warm light of the restaurant. It wasn’t crowded, and a pair of waiters came hurrying to meet her.
“May I help you?” the first—a dark, curvy little woman in a black skirt a little too short to flatter her short legs—asked, in a voice that held the hint of a musical accent. Cerise smiled in spite of herself, in spite of business.
“My name’s Cerise,” she said again. “I’m here to meet Mr. Mabry.”
“Of course. If you’ll come this way,” the woman answered, and hurried off, glancing back only once to be sure Cerise was still behind her. Cerise followed more slowly, enjoying both the woman’s bustling handsomeness and the quiet elegance of the dining room, found herself, as she had expected, at the door of one of the semiprivate rooms. A table for two had been set up there, hidden from any other diners by a standing screen and some towering, broad-leafed plants, and the dark woman gestured toward the table.
“Your party, ma’am.”
“Thanks,” Cerise said, hoping vaguely that she would be the one to wait on them, and turned her attention to the man at the table. He rose to his feet at her approach, holding out his hand in greeting.
“Ms. Cerise?” It was only half a question, but Cerise nodded anyway, and the man went on, his vowels touched with a flat, European accent. “I’m Vesselin Mabry.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Cerise said, and allowed herself to be handed to her seat. It was a tactic Eurocops often employed against Yanks, that overdone, unfamiliar politesse, but she had faced it before, rather enjoyed the brittle game of it. He was not quite what she had expected, looked more like an overage rocker than a netwalker: a big man, broad through the shoulders and thick-bodied, with a mane of untidy, greying curls and a fleshy, broad-boned face. Only the jacket betrayed him for a cop, even though he wore it over jeans and a charcoal-grey T-shirt: it was not top-of-the-line, a less expensive copy of a good designer. She smiled to herself, reassured, and leaned forward in her chair.
“Max said you might have some information for me about a cracker I’ve been hunting.”
Mabry didn’t even blink, just smiled slowly, the lines at the corners of his eyes tightening with what looked like good humor. “Funny, that’s what Max said to me.”
Their waiter—not the dark woman, Cerise saw with some disappointment—arrived then, stopping the conversation. He offered menu boards, pointed out the order mechanism, and vanished again, but the interruption had been enough to defuse any advantage she might have achieved.
“I heard on the net that Multiplane had had an encounter with Trouble,” Mabry said. “Frankly, I was disappointed that you didn’t notify us at once.”
“Question of jurisdiction,” Cerise said, promptly and plausibly, using the easy lie. “Interpol’s network authority comes from the Amsterdam Conventions, and you know we never signed.”
Mabry sighed heavily, put his menu aside. “You and I both know that’s bullshit. Any law enforcement agency can be notified now, and the word passed to a more appropriate entity if necessary.”
“Also bullshit,” Cerise said. “We have a responsibility to be certain that our response to an intrusion is overseen by the agency most directly concerned. Which may or may not be your agency—all of which is made moot, of course, by the fact that the company is U.S.-based.”
“Multiplane is multinational,” Mabry murmured. “You have subsidiaries in Switzerland, Eire, and Germany, just to name Europe. That certainly falls within my brief. And multinationals have traditionally obeyed the Conventions.”
Cerise nodded, willing to surrender her position—she had better and stronger ones in reserve—and said, “Which is part of why I’m here, Mr. Mabry.”
“Vess. Please.”
Like calling a cobra “Cuddles,” Cerise thought. It’s cute, but it doesn’t make me any less careful. “And I’m Cerise.”
“No other name?”
“I never needed one.” Cerise smiled at him, looked down at her menu, then touched the order strip to select her lunch.
“Except Alice,” Mabry said, and matched her smile.
“That was a long time ago,” Cerise answered. She had expected him to know that—anyone who was halfway competent on the nets would have found out her old workname, never mind that Helling could have told him—and she refused to be disconcerted by it.
“Yes, it quite dates me,” Mabry answered, and Cerise caught herself warming to him. That was dangerous; still, Helling liked him, and Max had never been a fool.
“But we are interested in the same person,” Mabry went on. “I would be very glad indeed to see any data you can give me regarding your intrusion.”
“You didn’t say, we’re both interested in Trouble,” Cerise said.
“That’s the second thing I’d be interested in hearing from you,” Mabry said. “The word on the nets is that Trouble is back—the old Trouble, your former partner, I believe—and that this intruder, this cracker who writes viruses, is someone else entirely. Of course, a week ago, everyone was saying the opposite.”
“I think it’s two different people,” Cerise said.
“Why?”
