‘Be quiet.’ Hand’s voice stayed gentle, but there was a sudden spike of steel under the suave tones. ‘We’re in the open here. If you want to do business with Mandrake, you’re going to have to learn a little discretion. No more specifics, please.’
‘Fine. Just as long as we understand each other.’
‘I think we do.’
‘I hope so.’ I let my own tone harden a little. ‘You underestimated me when you sent the goon squad out last night. Don’t do it again.’
‘I wouldn’t dream—’
‘That’s good. Don’t even dream about it, Hand. Because what happened to Deng and his pals last night doesn’t come close to some of the unpleasantries I’ve been party to in the last eighteen months up north. You may think the war’s a long way off right now, but if Mandrake tries to shaft me or my associates again, you’ll have a Wedge wake-up call rammed so far up your arse you’ll be able to taste your own shit in the back of your throat. Now, do we understand each other?’
Hand made a pained face. ‘Yes. You’ve made your point very graphically. I assure you, there will be no more attempts to cut you out of the loop. That’s provided your demands are reasonable, of course. What kind of finder’s fee were you looking for?’
‘Twenty million UN dollars. And don’t look at me like that, Hand. It’s not even a tenth per cent of what Mandrake stands to make from this, if we’re successful.’
Up on the holo, the asking price seemed to have braked at a hundred and nine and the auctioneer was now coaxing it upward a fraction at a time.
‘Hmm.’ Hand chewed and swallowed while he thought about it. ‘Cash on delivery?’
‘No. Up front, on deposit in a Latimer City bank. One-way transfer, standard seven-hour reversibility limit. I’ll give you the account codes later.’
‘That’s presumptuous, lieutenant.’
‘Call it insurance. Not that I don’t trust you, Hand, but I’ll feel happier knowing you’ve already made the payment. That way, there’s no percentage in Mandrake fucking me over after the event. You don’t stand to gain anything from it.’
The Mandrake exec grinned wolfishly. ‘Trust works both ways, lieutenant. Why should we pay you before the project matures?’
‘Other than because if you don’t I’ll walk away from this table and you’ll lose the biggest R&D coup the Protectorate has ever seen, you mean?’ I let that sink in for a moment before I hit him with the relaxant. ‘Well, look at it this way. I can’t access the money from here as long as the war’s on; the Emergency Powers Directive ensures that. So your money’s gone, but I don’t have it either. To get paid, I have to be on Latimer. That’s your guarantee.’
‘You want to go to Latimer as well?’ Hand raised an eyebrow. ‘Twenty million UN and passage offworld?’
‘Don’t be obtuse, Hand. What did you expect? You think I want to wait around until Kemp and the Cartel finally decide it’s time to negotiate instead of fight? I don’t have that kind of patience.’
‘So.’ The Mandrake exec set down his chopsticks and steepled his hands on the table. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight. We pay you twenty million UN dollars, now. That’s non-negotiable.’
I looked back at him, waiting.
‘Is that right?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll stop you if you get off track.’
The faint there-and-gone smile again. ‘Thank you. Then, upon successful completion of this project, we undertake to freight you, and presumably your associates, by needlecast to Latimer. Are those all of your demands?’
‘Plus decanting.’
Hand looked at me strangely. I guessed he wasn’t used to his negotiations taking this path.
‘Plus decanting. Any specifics I should know about there?’
I shrugged. ‘Selected sleeves, obviously, but we can discuss the specifics later. Doesn’t have to be custom. Something top of the range, obviously, but off the rack will do fine.’
‘Oh, good.’
I felt a grin floating up, tickling the inner surfaces of my belly. I let it surface. ‘Come on Hand. You’re getting a fucking bargain, and you know it.’
‘So you say. But it isn’t that simple, lieutenant. We’ve checked the Landfall artefact registry for the past five years, and there’s no trace of anything like the item you describe.’ He spread his hands. ‘No evidence. You can see my position.’
‘Yeah, I can. In about two minutes you’re about to lose the biggest archaeological coup of the past five hundred years, and you’re going to do it because there’s nothing in your files about it. If that’s your position, Hand, I’m dealing with the wrong people.’
‘Are you saying this find went unregistered? In direct breach of the Charter?’
‘I’m saying it doesn’t matter. I’m saying what we sent you looked real enough for either you or your pet AI to authorise a full urban commando strike inside half an hour. Maybe the files got wiped, maybe they were corrupted or stolen. Why am I even discussing this? Are you going to pay us, or are you going to walk?’
Silence. He was pretty good – I still couldn’t tell which way he was going to jump. He hadn’t shown me a single genuine emotion since we sat down. I waited. He sat back and brushed something invisible from his lap.
‘I’m afraid this will require some consultation with my colleagues. I’m not authorised to sign off on deals of this magnitude, with this little up front. Authorisation for the DHF needlecasting alone will need—’
‘Crap.’ I kept it friendly. ‘But go ahead. Consult. I can give you half an hour.’
‘Half an hour?’
Fear – the tiniest flicker of it at the narrowed corners of his eyes, but it was there and I felt the satisfaction come surging up from my stomach in the wake of the grin, savage with nearly two years of suppressed rage.
Got you, motherfucker.
‘Sure. Thirty minutes. I’ll be right here. I hear the green tea sorbet’s pretty good in this place.’
‘You’re not serious.’
I let the savagery corrode the edge of my voice. ‘Sure, I’m serious. I warned you about that. Don’t underestimate me again, Hand. You get me a decision inside thirty minutes or I walk out of here and go talk to someone else. I might even stiff you with the bill.’
He jerked his head irritably.
‘And who would you go to?’
‘Sathakarn Yu? PKN?’ I gestured with my chopsticks. ‘Who knows? But I wouldn’t worry about it. I’ll work something out. You’ll be busy enough trying to explain to the policy board how you let this slip through your fingers. Won’t you?’
Matthias Hand compressed a breath and got up. He sorted out a thin smile and flashed it at me.
‘Very well. I’ll be back shortly. But you have a little to learn about the art of negotiation, Lieutenant Kovacs.’
‘Probably. Like I said, I’ve spent a lot of time up north.’
I watched him walk away between the potential buyers on the balcony, and could not repress a faint shiver. If I was going to get my face lasered off, there was a good chance it would happen now.
I was banking hard on an intuition that Hand had licence from the policy board to do pretty much what he wanted. Mandrake was the commercial world’s equivalent of Carrera’s Wedge, and you had to assume a corresponding approach to latitudes of initiative at executive levels. There was really no other way for a cutting-edge organism to work.