Architects of Emortality - Brian Stableford [68]
The envelope had been splashed by the polymer, but it was not sealed. Although the gloves made her dumsy, Charlotte contrived to open it and to take out the piece of paper which it contained. She took what precautions she could to screen its contents from the inquisitive eyes of Lowenthal and Quan. For once, she wanted to have the advantage, if only for half a minute It was a car-hire receipt. The invoice stated that the car in question was ready and waiting in a bay beneath the hotel, and was stamped with a warning note in garish red ink: ANY ATTEMPT TO INTERROGATE THE PROGRAMMING OF THIS VEHICLE WILL ACTIVATE A VIRUS THAT WILL DESTROY ALL THE DATA IN ITS MEMORY.
It was probably a bluff, but Charlotte had a strong suspicion that Oscar Wilde wasn’t about to let her call it—and Hal still didn’t have any legal authority to take over the trail of clues. He couldn’t commandeer the car unless and until he could get a warrant. By that time, Charlotte suspected, the car would be en route, with Oscar Wilde in it. She had every intention of being in it with him.
While there was a trail to follow, she might as well be on it—and if it transpired that Oscar Wilde was the layer of the trail as well as its follower, she wanted to be the one to arrest him.
Charlotte turned to Reginald Quan, trying hard to give the impression that everything was comfortably under control. The image of the UN police had to be preserved at all costs. “Our forensic team will have to examine these things,” she said. “The biotechnics are almost certainly illicit, perhaps dangerous. Hal Watson will sort out the details.” Quan shrugged. “Going somewhere?” he inquired innocently, with a nod toward the receipt. Her attempts to screen it from his view had obviously not been entirely successful.
“Yes, we are,” she said, pausing only to pass the relevant details to Hal before handing the document to its rightful owner, “and there’s no time to lose.” While they took the elevator down to the car park, Hal gave Charlotte a rapid update on his most recent findings. The car-hire company had reported that they had delivered the vehicle three days earlier, and that they had no knowledge of any route or destination which might have been programmed into its systems after dispatch.
“It looks as if we’re going on a mystery tour,” she said to Oscar Wilde dourly.
“We’ve been on a mystery tour since yesterday afternoon,” he pointed out. “I do hope that our next destination will be a little more interesting than the places we have so far visited.” Hal also reported that he’d launched an investigation of the account used to pay for the hire car, although it appeared that it had been set up entirely for that purpose. The initial deposit had been adequate to cover the car’s expenses for three days’ storage and a journey of two thousand kilometers.
“That could take you as far north as Anchorage or as far south as Guatemala,” Hal pointed out unhelpfully. “I can’t tell for sure how many more accounts there might be on which Rappaccini and the woman might draw, but the transfers made so far have allowed me to trace several that are held under other names; it’s possible that one of them is his current name.” “What are they?” Oscar Wilde inquired.
“Samuel Cramer, Gustave Moreau, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, and Thomas De Quincey.” Wilde sighed. “Samuel Cramer is the hero of a novella by Baudelaire,” he said.
“Gustave Moreau was a French painter associated with the French decadent movement. Thomas Griffiths