Rogue(23)

We were early, and found seats only three rows back from the rope. The rope was over a stun barricade, and was twenty meters from the platform. The platform had a stunstrip along the edge. Capital Police patrolled both edges. I wondered if they had tanglers in the gap in between. Possibly not. It was sculpted and colored carpet with the summit and sponser logos. Behind us, the seats curved back and up in blocks with broad flat aisles for access.

I settled back. Silver wandered away with portable gear, shooting shots and pretending to cover the event and attendees. That wasn’t really what our passes were for, but no one mentioned anything. Once in the hall, we were assumed clean. This would also apply to Randall, if he’d found some way to spoof any finance-sector ID, which wouldn’t be too hard.

It was probably going to be a very long day. The ten targets would all be in this hall, all on that stage, sometime in an eight-hour span starting in two hours. They’d be other places, too, but crowded hallways were unlikely. He might target them out of their vehicles, but that meant either a long-range shot, or risking being seen up close. I might do that. He wouldn’t.

It was the typical convention. Shuffling in seats led to expectant silence led to presenter with leading joke, introduction of the man who needs no introduction, who stepped up and made leading joke, commented on important issues of the day facing the finance information sector, followed by introduction of the first speaker.

Ms. Cape took the podium, waved over her display, and brought up charts. She was a very good speaker, and I would have been fascinated if I could have followed more of it. I got the parts about M1 through M4 money sources. I understood inflation, deflation, purchase and sale of debt. After that, she was speaking Ancient Mesopotamian.

She talked for an hour. I’m sure it was all fascinating, but I had to pretend to be attentive, run my recorder, occasionally pan the crowd, while keeping an eye out for a threat that might not be there and could be invisible if it was.

So I played it as a journalist. I tagged the high points of her speech, summarized on a pad, noted the audience attention and response. That let me get into intel mode and study it by traffic analysis, cryptologic assessment, and such.

She concluded, there was a brief break, and I clicked my phone.

“Spell me at breaks,” I said.

“Observing now,” she replied. Good.

Breaks were good times for him to maneuver, with all the confusion. He’d have to avoid crowds, but the noise and movement would cover him, and if he wasn’t in the chameleon, it would handily fit in a large doccase.

I let my brain reboot, hurried to the restroom with a legion of others, bought a hit of oxygen from a kiosk, then hurried back. I resumed my position, called Silver and said, “Back.”

“My turn,” she said.

The schedule was well-planned. Most were back in seats, or at tables, or up in el-boxes when the second presenter came up. I watched more intently. Mr. Rothman was one of my more likely targets.

He was also dry as stale toast.

He read in a monotone, flashing graphs with a remote, with little liveliness or presence. He could almost have been a hologram. He might be one of the most brilliant bankers in space, but he was not good at public presentation.

He was certainly important, though. All eyes were on him, and all kinds of notes and murmurs ran through the crowd. They stayed quiet, but never stopped. Whatever he had to say kept their attention. So I watched the curtained wings, the arching, scaffolded overhead, the gallery above and behind where more recorders and the lesser media loitered. It was a sleekly modern facility when seen from this side, though the working bowels were somewhat less impressive.

I was almost busted when the man next to me asked, “What do you think about that notion on logarithmic easing at inverse interest?”

“I’m just trying to get it all down at the moment, so I can follow up later,” I said.

He was bursting with excitement and wanted to talk further, but I shushed him with a gesture, made a quizzical face, scrawled a note, and checked my gear. He took the hint.

It was a tiring task, pretending to be fascinated by something I couldn’t parse, while trying to be a spy not looking like a spy.

Was that a faint shimmer on the stage? It might be. It might also just be airflow across the curtain. It was hard to tell at this distance. Nor did the video tanks show anything. They were zoomed in on Rothman.

I could get a little closer. I’d have to judge the time on this, because I’d have to go through his own guards to pull it off. There really wasn’t any way of keeping discreet after this. Direct intervention meant the masks were off.

I considered again waiting until the exfiltration phase, but that meant the bait would be dead, and his own security milling about. If I pursued at that point, I’d lose lead, still risk public visibility. No advantage.