Troon made a sign toward another car parked a short distance away, which Sarda hadn’t noticed previously, and a woman got out. There was another figure in there too: a man, wearing a hat pulled low, obscuring his face. Troon opened the window next to him as the woman came across. She was tall and slim with curly black hair, dressed in a patterned sweater and dark pants. “Recognize her?” Troon asked casually.
Sarda jutted his jaw obstinately as she peered into the car. “No, I don’t. Why should I? Look, I’ve just about had it with these games. Is anybody gonna tell me what’s going on around here?” The woman stared at him with an expression of disbelief on her face, then shook her head. She seemed distressed, pleading almost, in a strange kind of way. So, she had problems. Sarda had plenty of his own too, just at this moment. “Who are you staring at, lady?” he shot at her. “Look, I don’t know you, okay? Is that it? Everybody satisfied?” Troon nodded to the woman. She turned and walked quickly back to the other car. “Right, that’s enough. I’m outta here.”
Sarda made to move, but Troon’s restraining grip on his arm was like a steel clamp. At the same time, the black barred his way with an arm from the other side. In the front passenger seat, the dog growled. “I think not,” Troon said, echoing Sarda’s own words upstairs at the terminal. The sudden authority in his voice, quiet yet insistent, would have been enough on its own to make him desist. Sarda slumped back, still angry but defeated. “Actually, we’re from your medical team,” Troon said. “I’ve got some bad news for you, Leo. Something went wrong with the experiment. We haven’t unraveled exactly what yet, but you’ve been acting strangely, forgetting things, and getting loose all over the place. Now I have to go, but these nice people are going to take you back in again. Try not to worry about it. It’s all very comfortable and civilized.” Sarda could only look at him, bewildered now. Gently but firmly, Troon took the briefcase that he had been carrying. Sarda wasn’t sure why he had been carrying a briefcase. “It’s all right, Leo. You won’t be needing this. I’ll make sure that everything goes back where it belongs.”
And then, before Sarda could collect his wits enough to object, Troon was outside, closing the door, and striding across toward the other car. Before Troon reached it, the woman in the suede coat started the motor of the car that Sarda was in, and he felt them moving away.
* * *
The Lowell City offices of the Zodiac Commercial Bank were located in the commercial sector at the inner end of Gorky Avenue, where it joined the Trapezium. Kieran and Sarda-Two arrived ten minutes before the time that Sarda-One had scheduled to meet the delegates from the intermediary that Balmer had set up. They were received by a bank official called Walworth, who ushered them smilingly through to a conference room where four men were already waiting. He indicated coffee brewing on a side table, an assortment of other beverages and snacks, and after gushing at them to call if there was anything else they needed, left them to conclude their negotiations privately. He would rejoin them later to attend to the details.
Two of the men were dressed expensively but flashily, one in a loud striped suit with crimson shirt and white tie, the other in royal blue with glittery links, studs, and rings. They seemed ill at ease in the bank, glancing around surreptitiously as if suspicious of bugs or hidden cameras. The man with them was plainly dressed and more easily forgettable—the technical expert, to vet the contents of the briefcase, Kieran guessed. The fourth, soberly attired in a charcoal three-piece with plain blue shirt and tightly knotted tie, introduced the others as Mr. Brown, Mr. Black, and Mr. Green, and himself as their nameless attorney. He seemed disconcerted to find that Sarda was not alone. “Who’s this?” he asked, indicating Kieran. “My understanding was that you were to be the sole contact.”