The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [61]
Lisa was still smarting from the insult of the “old-girls’ network” remark when she walked into the downstairs room where the second captive was secured, although she knew she was displacing emotional energy from a slowly growing anxiety that her personal involvement with this mess might not have begun, and might not end, with Morgan Miller. Fortunately, there was no danger of any further embarrassment. She recognized the second prisoner immediately, and knew that she was the real prize—the linchpin of the whole conspiracy.
Stella Filisetti was less than half Lisa’s age, and at least twenty years younger than her companion. Her pale hair was of medium length and silky, and her body was possessed of the peculiar combination of softness and solidity that was still the sole prerogative of authentically young women. She had not yet reached the point of decision regarding the use of such artificial aids as metabolic retuning, calorie-depleted food, indwelling scavengers, and epidermal rejuvenation.
Stella had been carrying the real gun, Lisa realized; it was Stella who had come within inches of killing her. It probably was not Stella who had called her a stupid bitch and taunted her with Morgan’s indifference, but it must have been Stella who had supplied the script.
“It’s Morgan’s current research assistant,” she informed Leland.
“Ms. Filisetti,” he said, to show that he was up to speed.
“Suspect number one,” Lisa confirmed. “The only one close enough to have taken a good long look at his continuing experiments and his stored data. The only one close enough to have gotten a hold of the wrong end of an awkwardly placed stick. She had the means to get the bombers into Mouseworld and almost certainly knew the codes that let the kidnappers into Morgan’s house.” But not, she reminded herself, the codes that let the burglars into my flat.
“We don’t know for sure that she got a hold of the wrong end of the stick,” Leland reminded her dutifully. “We have to work on the hypothesis that it might have been the right end.”
“You might,” Lisa demurred. “I’m not under contract to deliver the elixir of life to my employers. All I have to do is free Morgan Miller before he gets hurt. For that purpose, the hypothesis that this is all some stupid mistake will do very well indeed.”
Leland didn’t bother to point out that if Miller really had nothing to give away, accounting for his exploratory visits to Ahasuerus and the Algenists wouldn’t be easy. He was more concerned to usher Lisa out of the room before Stella Filisetti woke up and heard them talking. He wanted to conserve the element of surprise.
Morgan must have been playing a game, Lisa thought. He was laying down a false trail, dangling a lure—and it worked, far too well. Why on earth couldn’t he have let me in on it?
Leland stood aside to let her precede him into a surprisingly capacious, if rather bare, kitchen, where a short and wiry man with a dark complexion—presumably Jeff—was seated at a hectically stained pine dining table, circa 1995. Lisa guessed that the table must have lost its initial polish shortly after the turn of the century, and that Jeff had never had any to lose.
As Leland and Lisa sat down, the other man politely rose to his feet, waiting for instructions. Leland told his subordinate to wake the prisoner in the downstairs room, advising him to do it gently and to give her a mug of tea, with lots of sugar. Jeff nodded. He filled a mug from the teapot that sat in the middle of the table and spooned three sugars into it before nodding to Lisa and departing.
“Okay,” Leland said when Jeff had closed the door behind him. “You know her. That puts the ball in your court. How should we play it?”
It wasn’t an easy question to answer. Lisa was slightly surprised that it had been asked. She had assumed that the plan was fairly simple: they would say what they had to say in order to elicit a response—any kind of response to begin with—and if Stella wouldn’t let anything slip, they would become