“No,” said Turk. “It was full of guns.”
Jonah straightened abruptly. “That’s… not what I was expecting.”
“I don’t think it was what our friend Bruno was expecting, either.” Turk knocked back the chaser to his beer and continued. “So I told Bruno that I ought to fire him for what both of us knew he’d been up to when that crate came open, but that he’d done the right thing by coming to me about the rifles, so I was letting it go. This time. Then I gave him three weeks’ vacation with pay and told him the weather was lovely in the Azores at this time of year and he should go there and think about the value of being a good employee.”
“A good move,” said Jonah. “Safer for him, safer for us.”
“I thought that it might be.” Turk paused and looked curiously at Jonah. “You don’t think that all of this has something to do with Paladin Steiner-Davion’s murder, do you? If he’d found out—”
“I don’t think so,” Jonah said. “Victor was nobody’s fool. If he’d learned that someone was caching weapons in Geneva, he’d have come out and said so right away. He wouldn’t have put off the announcement for political effect.”
“I guess not. Sorry it wasn’t what you were looking for.”
“Just because I wasn’t looking for it,” Jonah said, “doesn’t mean that I’m not interested. Or that there aren’t other people in Geneva who need to know about it.”
37
Pension Flambard, Geneva
Terra, Prefecture X
16 December 3134
“I’m in town. We need to meet.”
Jonah’s sigh on the other end of the line was audible.
“Sorry,” Horn said. “Did I say something wrong?”
Jonah chuckled. “Just not used to so many meetings. But you’re right. Meet me here at nine a.m.”
Though Burton Horn had spoken with Jonah Levin at the pension only once before, the proprietress remembered him at once.
“Monsieur Horn.” He wouldn’t say that she smiled at him, but her greeting was possibly a shade warmer than the one that she might have given to a complete stranger—and most definitely warmer than the one she would have given to a tri-vid reporter or anyone else she suspected would disrupt her guests’ privacy.
“Madame,” Horn replied. “Paladin Levin said he would be expecting me.”
“Yes. He is waiting in the private parlor.”
The Pension Flambard’s private parlor was a smaller, less welcoming space than the front sitting room. Where the glowing faux-logs on the sitting room hearth gave off both real and psychological warmth, the private parlor had only an ordinary electric radiator set against the room’s blank inner wall. But it had a door stout enough to discourage casual eavesdroppers, curtains of opaque velvet instead of lace, and it could not be seen from the public rooms.
Jonah Levin waited in a chair by the curtained window. The Paladin looked tired, like a man who’d had a late night and an early morning. Horn would have been more sympathetic if he hadn’t spent most of his own night in transit from Santa Fe.
Levin gestured at Horn to take a seat in the room’s other chair. “I’m sorry for giving you so little time, but I have to be somewhere else at ten. I gather your visit to Santa Fe proved fruitful.”
“Yes,” Horn said. “Among other things, I can confirm that our friend Henrik Morten is not a particularly nice person.”
“So I’ve gathered. Seems to have helped his career, actually. What’s he been up to in Santa Fe?”
“Hiring one of the local thugs to beat up and attempt to kill an inconvenient girlfriend.”
“‘Attempt’?” The Paladin looked curious. “I gather it didn’t work.”
“I dissuaded the gentleman in question.” Horn paused. “I’m sorry that he couldn’t remain available for a more thorough interrogation, but—”
“I understand.” Levin’s smile was a bit grim. “If I hire someone and tell them to use their own best judgment, I’m not going to argue when they do. I’m assuming that you managed to get Morten’s name from him beforehand?”
Horn shook his head. “Morten was too canny to give his name to the hired muscle—he was just ‘some guy in a bar.’ But I did get the name of the bar, and the bartender recognized Morten’s picture, sure enough.”
“You’re certain?”
“He wasn’t the establishment’s usual sort of customer. The bartender made a point of noticing.”
Levin nodded. “How did Ms. Ruiz take the series of events?”
“Everything came as quite a shock to her, of course.”
Another nod. “Of course.”
“On the other hand, the incident effectively removed any qualms she might have had about revealing everything she knew about Paladin Steiner-Davion’s final project. She didn’t know that it was her boyfriend who’d set up the attack, but she did figure out that it had happened to her because she knew something that she shouldn’t.”
“Now we come to the meat of it.” The Paladin leaned forward, intent. “What was it that Elena Ruiz saw and, presumably, passed along in innocence to Henrik Morten?”
“As she told the story to me,” Horn said, “Paladin Steiner-Davion had been working on his final project for several months. And the endeavor wasn’t just a casual hobby; it placed considerable demands upon both his time and his energy. She told me that she would find him asleep at his desk some mornings, with the display still open on his data terminal.”
“So of course she looked at it.”
Horn nodded. “She says it was correspondence mostly at first, and she didn’t notice anything odd about it except for the fact that he was obviously working hard on something and not discussing it with anyone.”
“She should have followed his example.”
“I considered pointing that out,” Horn said. “But since I was trying to convince her to talk to me at the time—”
“It would have been counterproductive. I understand. Go on.”
“As you may have guessed, one night in casual conversation she mentioned the Paladin’s late hours and his mysterious project to Henrik Morten, and Morten—instead of letting his girlfriend’s moment of indiscretion pass unremarked—encouraged her to snoop further and to pass the results along to him.” Horn paused and shook his head. “She’s adamant that she never actually touched anything, or pried into anything; she only relayed to Morten whatever happened to be left out for her or anyone else to see.”
“She apparently saw more than enough. Does she realize that?”
“I don’t think Henrik Morten was involved with Ms. Ruiz for the sake of her vast intellectual capacity, if that’s what you’re asking,” Horn said. “On the other hand, she does possess an excellent visual memory. When I asked, she was able to reproduce the last item she showed to Morten before the Paladin’s death.”
“You have it with you?”
“Yes.” Horn withdrew a folded piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it across to Jonah Levin. “Under the circumstances, I thought it would be unwise to entrust this to any other method of delivery.”
Levin unfolded the paper and glanced over it quickly. Horn knew what he was seeing: no page title or note of explanation, just three columns, two lists of names and a third of numbers—and those alone had been enough to seal a man’s fate.
Levin closed his eyes briefly after he scanned the list.
“Headache?” Horn asked.
“Sort of. Where’s Morten now?”
“Not in Santa Fe, I know that much. I’d guess he’s back here, since this is the place to be for any diplomat. But whether he’s here for sure, and where in the city he might be, I can’t say.”
“We have to find him,” Levin said firmly. Then he frowned, almost wincing again. “And I might need your help on another matter.”