The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [62]
“She’s a rank amateur,” Lisa observed, feeling no compunction about reiterating the obvious. “She’ll be scared, but she must have gone into this knowing she’d eventually be caught. Professionally speaking, this was a suicide mission. Crazy—but not just crazy. The motive must have been powerful if it not only moved her to this kind of recklessness, but allowed her to draw so many others into the conspiracy, including at least one Real Woman.”
“Right,” said Leland. “The rest probably know by now that they can’t hold out long, even if they thought differently to begin with. They must want to get the information to friends elsewhere before the net closes on them, but they obviously don’t have it yet. Why else would they come after you a second time? Miller’s holding out, or feeding them lies, and they haven’t found what they want on his computers or your wafers. That’s good—panic is always healthy in an interrogation situation. If I were to offer Filisetti a big enough bribe and a way out of the back door, do you think she’d sell her friends down the river?”
“How big a bribe?”
“Think of a number. What she’ll eventually get, if anything, will depend on what she has to sell. As to what we can offer—the sky’s the limit.”
There was no point in insisting that what Stella Filisetti would eventually get was at least ten years if Lisa had any say in the matter. “She’s not stupid,” she said instead. “She’s not going to believe you if you offer her a million euros. In fact, our principal problem is going to be persuading her that anything we say can be trusted—and persuading ourselves that anything she says can be trusted. As you’ve already pointed out, people desperate to buy time will come out with any old bullshit.”
Leland sighed. “All the effort that went into the Human Genome Project,” he said, “and we still have no trustworthy truth serum. Call that progress?”
Jeff returned. “She’s very woozy,” he reported. “Might be better to catch her before she’s collected herself.”
“Oh, well,” said Leland. “I guess it’s play-it-by-ear time. Come on.”
Lisa took a quick peek through the kitchen curtains as she followed Leland back to Stella Filisetti’s bedside, but there wasn’t much to be seen through the reflection of the lighted room. The absence of any discernible lights outside suggested that they were quite a way from the cityplex, but she already knew that. There was a faint animal odor in the corridor, but the suggestion that they were in an old farm laborer’s cottage could have been misleading.
Woozy or not, Stella Filisetti recognized Lisa immediately, and her eyes grew wide. She looked around as if unable to reconcile Lisa’s presence with the surroundings. The fact that one of her wrists and one of her ankles were secured to the head and foot of the bed by smartfiber cords must have told her that she was not in police custody, even if the godawful carpet and matching curtains hadn’t.
“Hello, Stella,” Lisa said, unable to deny herself the satisfaction. “How does it feel to be such a lousy shot?”
The younger woman didn’t reply, although her eyes certainly reacted. Lisa moved a straight-backed wooden chair to the side of the bed and sat down, her face no more than a meter from Stella Filisetti’s. Leland remained standing, showing off his intimidating bulk.
“This is how it is, Stella,” Lisa said, improvising furiously. “For me, this is a personal matter, for reasons you’ll understand perfectly. For my friend here, it’s business. He wants to bribe you and I want to cause you pain, but we both want Morgan Miller and we’re prepared to settle for that. If anything happens to him that you could have prevented by talking to us sooner, you’re going to answer to me as well as to the courts—and I can guarantee that it won’t be a comfortable ride.” She really had intended to start out gently, but it wasn