Cracks in the Spires

12: Three Blind Mice

The following day the last of the Elite departed for Greenland. Not that everyone went. Families always left one or two members to keep an eye on their affairs. It wasn't a popular duty so the people who stayed were either young men left to gain management experience or the old who didn't want to travel. Neither group gave Asken any trouble. The young men spent the summer partying and the very old just wanted to be left to snooze in the sun. Normally Asken gave himself and his senior staff an unofficial rest break of half a cycle before they started the busy period of their year. Without the distracting demands of the Elite they could get on with dealing with the pressing problems of Esperance's crumbling infrastructure. He instructed his senior staff that their rest break would have to wait until Janvier Lon Esta and Vallen Norin had been found and executed for their crimes. He set up a multidisciplinary task force to co-ordinate efforts in the secure knowledge that this would be the best way of ensuring delay and confusion. Just in case the individuals proved his experience wrong and beat the odds and worked together, he scheduled daily strategy and debrief meetings. He made sure that all of this was duly recorded for Stravel's snoopers. He couldn't resist including a comment to the effect that it was a pity President Foran had not agreed to Legatus Stravel's suggestion since ten of his men were probably more effective than a hundred lower level CSB officers.

Over the years Pico and himself had devised several patterns of behaviour. They didn't vary his normal daily routines too much, it was more that he would be in certain places at certain times. They'd settled on Pattern B which would allow Pico and his operatives the best opportunity of watching his watchers. He was quite sure that that was the purpose of the guards. Three would enable them to cover him at all times. They'd be stretched too thin to watch anyone else as well. Undoubtedly Stravel would have liked to have left more men but in the face of Foran's prohibition that was all he dare risk.

Pattern B required him to be out and about. He timetabled an inspection visit to the air-conditioning engineer's complex on 10 followed by a mountain tea at the well known café run by Maa Hons. Then a visit to the Mid-Cit Administration Complex on level 3 for a meeting with the heads of the Mid and Lo-Cit ARM sections to discuss summer maintenance schedules. Foran had cut the budget for repairs to the water and air conditioning systems in the lower levels yet again. Turning off the ornamental fountains and cascades in the Elite enclave for the summer would allow them to divert water to refilling storage tanks but it had been a dry winter and Asken worried that for the third year in the last five the reservoir and the storage tanks would remain below maximum capacity. Another price increase in the cost of water seemed inevitable. The beauty of the patterns was that the watchers of the watchers didn't have to tail them, Asken led his fan club right past them. Simple comparison of who appeared where should identify them. Asken went about his business with an attitude of unconcern. Pico wouldn't contact him until he'd profiled the watchers and set up the 'sightings'. Day two found him lunching at La Patisse, the most exclusive restaurant in UpCit. It was not a place that he particularly liked but its exclusivity provided an excellent opportunity for Pico and his people to identify followers if they hadn't already done so. The fact that he saw Pico there wearing a blue shirt told him it was an opportunity they hadn't needed.

They met in Pico's old office as usual. On consideration it was the safest place. Asken's apartment was on the top floor of the Administration Building and any other meeting place meant leaving it and being followed. Asken was surprised to see Pico leafing through what looked like a pile of very ancient paper records. There were two boxes on the floor and a third open on the desk. He looked at the boxes wondering what Pico was doing with stuff that must be two or three hundred years old.

Pico catching his expression of inquiry put the file he was leafing through back in the box. "I'll explain this later" he gestured at the boxes "Something nagging me that I want to check but it can wait. Lot of more pressing stuff." he came over and joined Asken.