Kieran had already seen where she was going. “The only person the customer deals with directly is Sarda-One,” he said, voicing his thoughts as they fell into line. “Not you or Balmer. Sarda does all the talking because he has the technical expertise—it’s his creation. And then he vanishes. If Quantonix realizes later that it’s been sold out, and if it or its client starts proceedings, any pointers that they dig up incriminating Sarda will be taken as meaning Sarda-Two—because he’s the only one who officially exists. And the beauty of it is that he won’t be able to help them no matter what they try, because he doesn’t know anything. His memory of it has been wiped.” Kieran stared at her, his eyes shining with honest admiration. It was so ingenious that it felt almost a shame to have to spoil it. “Well, you’ve got to hand it to Brother Henry for originality, Elaine. I’ll give him that.”
Elaine threw out a hand wearily. “That’s it. There’s nothing else to say.”
“So which outfit is Quantonix finalizing the deal with?” Kieran asked.
Elaine hesitated, then replied, “Three Cs. Both the Morches and the Leo who’s getting all the attention stand to clear a billion each out of it.” Kieran nodded. He already knew that, of course; but Elaine’s answer provided a useful check on her believability.
Which brought them to the key question that Kieran had been leading up to. He made it sound easy and natural. “So who’s Balmer setting this other deal up with?” he asked.
Elaine sighed as if asking, now that she was forced to spell it out, how she could have gotten drawn in to something like this. “Some people are here in Lowell who arrived in the last few days. Leo is due to meet with them later today at the Zodiac Commercial Bank to finalize the first phase of the deal. I don’t know who they represent. Balmer handled that side of things himself. But the money’s coming from some shady underside of the business.”
“What’s the first phase of the deal?” Kieran asked.
“It’s set up as a series of progress payments,” Elaine replied. “A testable portion of the technology to be supplied for a quarter-billion advance. The rest payable in stages as the previously-supplied parts are verified.”
“And you’re saying that Leo will be handing over the first batch of information today, in exchange for a quarter-billion up-front.”
“That’s right.”
Kieran eased himself back on the bench and let his eyes wander idly over the square and small park to one side as he digested the information. It was along the same general lines that he’d come across before. Even if the technology eventually found its way back to one of the major communications providers, outfits like that wouldn’t involve themselves directly in a flagrant ripping off of property that a rival was buying legitimately. They would deal through some nebulous intermediary, possibly created for the purpose and then liquidated to erase the trail. A bogus research program would be invented as having been conducted secretly somewhere, uncannily close to what Sarda had done at Quantonix, and the alleged results of it would duly become the possession of the highest bidder in some netherworld transactions. Tough luck for Three Cs—but they were in business and knew the risks. When time is ripe for such breakthroughs, these coincidences will happen.
And then, again, the client might not be a communications carrier at all, but somebody else with other interests entirely. Such as what? Kieran had to remind himself that what they were talking about here wasn’t, first and foremost, the people-transmitter that the carriers were popularizing and scrambling to acquire first, but a people-duplicator. He was only beginning to reflect on the possible ramifications, when Elaine spoke again. Evidently, she had more to get out, now that she was able to talk.
“Leo changed in the time all this was developing. I watched him become a different person—hard, vengeful. When Balmer urged upping the ante and going for really big money, he was all for it. But when the other Leo called last night, it was like listening to the person I remembered. Even in those few moments, I could sense the difference. It was as if . . . as if opposite aspects of him polarized into two different people.” She turned to look at Kieran. “He doesn’t deserve any of this. I can’t let it go through—what we planned for today. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”