The Administration Series (153 page)

Toreth finished his sandwich, brushed away the crumbs, and returned to the official investigation.

How long would it take Sara to manage the credit and purchase? Assuming Nagra had told her to keep it as discreet as possible, it might take longer than usual. Karteris obviously had some kind of contact in New London, but Toreth doubted that they'd be up to spotting Sara at her most sneaky.

Not that there was any guarantee that Karteris's gambling extravagance was anything to do with the dismal arrest record of the section. He shouldn't pin all his hopes on it, but it was difficult not to when it was all he had. He was no longer optimistic that he or B-C would come up with anything from the files.

For lack of other ideas, he found a few sheets of paper and a pencil and started making lists.

A couple of years earlier Sara had tried to interest him in a decision-tree program on the I&I admin system. Toreth had killed a couple of hours with it, then abandoned it. It had too many flow diagrams with dozens of little circles and lines that gave him a headache. Sara loved them, but then she was better than him at holding twenty different things in her mind at once.

It was, as she had informed him airily, a female thing.

However, the first exercise in the training scheme had been binary lists, and Toreth had rather liked them. You knew where you were with a list — for one thing, all you had to do was look at the title at the top of the page.

He started one for Problems and Solutions. That lasted for ten minutes, until he reached the bottom of the page with Problems while Solutions was still a heading. He wrote 'fuck 'em all and go home' underneath it, screwed up the paper and started again.

Dead-Ends and Potential Leads started as badly. After a few minutes of pencil chewing, he unscrewed Problems and Solutions and smoothed it out.

That was the object of the exercise, after all — for every point you thought of, find at least one list where it fell in the positive half.

Nikoletta. A Problem if you wanted decent filing, or were trying to do anything without Karteris finding out. However, she might be moved over to Potential Leads, with some suitable persuasion.

The corridor was empty as he strolled the few metres to her office — everyone was still at lunch, and he wondered if she'd be there. She was, listening to something through headphones and reading from the screen. A white paper bag sat on the desk and she held a half-eaten cake of some kind in one hand. He caught a faint smell of cinnamon.

He waited until she popped the cake into her mouth, then stepped into the office. She looked up at once, lifting off the headphones.

"Doing anything tonight, Nikki?"

She waved her hand towards her mouth, chewed and swallowed hastily. "No, Para."

"I thought I'd take you up on that offer of a drink. And maybe a meal." He smiled. "In a professionally friendly way, of course. You deserve an evening on expenses, and I could do with a change from the hotel. It's nice enough, but I've eaten there almost every night."

"That's very kind, thank you, Para. I'd love to." She licked her fingers, then offered the bag. "Would you like one? Loukoumades. Like doughnuts."

Far too sweet, but Toreth took one anyway. It was the friendly thing to do, and B-C or Nagra could eat it.

At three-thirty he was alone in the office again when someone knocked on the office door.

"Come in," Toreth said.

"I brought you a file," Sara said as she closed the door behind her.

"Which — " Then it registered and he looked up. "What the fuck are
you
doing here?"

Sara's usual grey admin uniform had been replaced by a cream-coloured shorts-and-halter-top arrangement that temporarily distracted Toreth from her reply.

"Sorry?" he asked after a moment.

"I said, I thought I'd bring it personally rather than send it, since you were so cagey about getting it in the first place."

"And Tillotson authorised the flight?"

"No, you did. Or at least you left me the code to sort out B-C and Nagra. I'm flying back Sunday night — that was the cheapest way to do it." She smiled brightly, radiating earnest truthfulness. "It was, honestly."

He grinned. "Did you know it's a statistical fact that people who use words like 'honestly' are usually lying?"

"You've mentioned it before. I
am
paying for my own hotel, though, and I booked tomorrow off as holiday." She waved her hand screen. "Now, do you want this file or not?"

"What is it?"

"Karteris's financial records. And either senior para pay is a hell of a lot better over here or there's something very fishy going on. He's spending — "

Toreth held his hand up. "Not in here. Let's go for a drink. I'll get hold of the other two."

They walked half a kilometre away from the I&I building and picked a cafe at random. Toreth bought three coffees, and a chamomile tea for Nagra, then they picked seats with a clear view of the tables around them.

"Show me what you've got," Toreth said to Sara, adding a suggestive twitch of his eyebrow.

Nagra snorted. Sara shook her head, then expanded her hand screen and set it out between them.

"I sorted everything by amount and location spent," she said. "All the money that goes into Karteris's account is from his pay here. No more, no less. Doesn't look like he gets any pocket money from his wife, unless she's funding his alias. Taki Whateverthehellhe'scalled gambles a heck of a lot, and loses badly. Despite that, he's got savings in six different places, and a third share in a pricey little boat. Doesn't spend as much as you'd think on food or clothes, though. And — get this — nothing spent at all on housing. No registered partner, either."

"He could be staying with a friend," B-C said. "No law against that, at least some of the time."

"Here's the killer," Sara said. "Taki's got a genetic profile, just as you'd expect. But the system doesn't throw up a fault if you query it with
anything
. Feed in any old DNA ID sequence, and it passes. Basically, he's a free-floating alias. As far as I could tell, he was set up about six years ago by someone at Justice in, uh — " She peered at the screen. "Salonika, I think you pronounce it. It was probably for a perfectly legit undercover operation, but they lost track of the alias and never shut it down. The files went dormant for a couple of years, then someone in Athens started using them."

Sara sat back, looking justifiably pleased with herself. "You should introduce Taki to Marcus Toth," she said. "I bet they'd get on well."

Toreth grinned at the reference to his own double. "Probably. So, we can get Taki shut down anytime we want to. Freeze the accounts, set up an enquiry with Justice. Tillotson will like that — we might get a cut of the funds. Sounds like we can get plenty of witnesses if we want to arrest him."

"Maybe," Nagra said. "But I get that close-knit feeling. My bet is we'd need to interrogate. And I hate to say it, but none of this has anything to do with low arrest rates, except that Karteris doesn't need to work his nuts off trying to get a raise."

"So where's the money coming from?" B-C asked.

"Good question." Toreth considered for a moment. "Okay. Taki's boat might be a weak point — Sara, when you get back to I&I, see if the other two partners are real or fictional. And if they're aliases too, you can fly back out here to tell me." Toreth turned to B-C and Nagra. "And we can start financial checks on the rest of the paras in the section. It'll take time, but I think it's justified now, and it'll look less suspicious if we do the whole section.

On the way back to the office, Sara said, "I thought you could buy me dinner tonight — I know Warrick's showing up tomorrow."

He didn't bother asking
how
she knew that. "Great, except that I'm already taking Nikoletta out for the evening."

"Oh?" She glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. "Well, don't let me spoil your plans."

"No, that's fine." And the more he considered it, the finer it was. "You can come too. I'm planning to take Nikoletta off on her own somewhere and try to get a handle on what's going on here. You can do the same with Karteris."

She stopped dead, pointed her folded hand screen accusingly. "
Oh
, no. You can stop
right
there. I don't screw paras, and I definitely don't screw paras as a favour to you."

"I'm not asking you to fuck him. Just show him a bit of attention. Butter him up. Dig for gossip. No body fluids involved." When she still hesitated, he added, "Dinner's on expenses — it'll be somewhere nice."

"They're baiting hooks," Nikoletta explained. "They caught those fish during the day, and they'll be going night fishing — squid, I think. You need the right bait to get the right fish. Traditional fishery is all that's allowed these days. It's all strictly licensed by the Administration, to preserve stocks."

The four of them moved off along the quay of the tiny natural harbour. Knowing exactly where his food came from had never appealed to Toreth, but he'd felt obliged to accept Nikoletta's suggestion that they take the public metro out to the Piraeus section of the city. He hadn't expected a double date, either, but Karteris had been surprisingly keen. Still, the strangeness of the situation appealed — him walking with Nikoletta while Sara walked beside Karteris, doing a passable imitation of interest in the man.

As far as Toreth could tell, there was no inch of the convoluted coastline which hadn't been colonised by restaurants and bars. The fishing boats bobbed against the harbour wall, setting off a vague unease possibly related to the smell of dead fish. Soon, Nikoletta turned back away from the water's edge and into a crowded taverna. Nikoletta and Karteris seemed to know the proprietors, and a table was found for them in a corner with, to Toreth's relief, no view of the sea.

Toreth was surprised to hear Greek being spoken by the older diners, or at least he assumed that was the language. Nikoletta must have caught his expression, because she smiled.

"This is a traditional place. They don't mean any harm by it."

Toreth exchanged glances with Karteris, who looked equally unconcerned. "I'm not on duty," Toreth said.

At least the menu was in English — Toreth felt happier knowing what he'd ordered. Service was slow, but that suited his plans. He kept up a constant flow of alcohol, refilling Nikoletta's glass as often as he dared. Karteris drank steadily to no obvious effect, and Toreth didn't worry about Sara — she could pace herself.

When the food arrived, Toreth had to admit that the fish was spectacularly good, the salad and other accompaniments simple but equally delicious. Fresh ingredients, which was exactly what Warrick always said was important. The proprietor came over and Toreth complimented the food enthusiastically, which seemed to please Nikoletta.

Toreth had to admit that it wasn't a bad evening. Karteris had a wide stock of work anecdotes, primarily about George and Vassilakis, which did nothing to raise Toreth's respect for them. Nikoletta must have heard them before, but she listened and laughed, and then listened with equal attention as Toreth responded with stories about Tillotson and other idiots at New London I&I.

The only irritation was Karteris's proprietorial air towards both women, which made Toreth grit his teeth. He didn't give a fuck how Karteris treated Nikoletta, but Sara wasn't
his
admin. It didn't help that Sara was showing every sign of playing the part Toreth had given her rather too well. When Toreth was engaged with Nikoletta, Sara and Karteris's conversation frequently dropped into lowered voices and laughter.

After the other three had rounded the meal off with desserts that seemed to be comprised entirely of nuts and honey — the mere smell of which was enough to make Toreth feel queasy — they left the restaurant.

As they strolled back into town, Toreth said, "It's still early. Would you like to get a coffee somewhere? Or another drink. I don't often feel like it, but . . . maybe it's the sea air."

On cue, Sara yawned. "I'd love to, but I'm shattered. I'll get the metro back."

A pause, then Karteris said, "I couldn't possibly let you go alone. I'll walk you back. You two stay, if you like."

"If you don't mind," Nikoletta said.

Karteris looked between them, then said, "Why would I? See you tomorrow."

When they had gone, Nikoletta said, "I know a bar — it's quite quiet, at least during the week."

As soon as they walked through the door, Toreth's estimate of his chances of success for the evening jumped sharply. He couldn't have picked a better place himself. Low lights, quiet music, medium busy with a relaxing hum of voices. Nikoletta steered him towards a secluded table.

He left her there and bought drinks at the bar, smiling to himself. Nothing like an air of reluctance or indifference to make a woman try to prove her attractiveness.

For the first hour or so, Toreth gave every appearance of listening with rapt fascination to a detailed if rambling recounting of Nikoletta's life, from her earliest memories. Which, from the time it took her to get through them, felt to start soon after conception. Only one thing was omitted — the blindingly obvious fact that she was fucking Karteris. He'd hoped she'd mention it herself.