Paula’s seat was positioned so she faced the target building, while Tarlo was at right angles to her, giving him a view along the canal. In his white cap and loose orange and black linen shirt he seemed immune to the heat. Paula took off her suit jacket and hung it on the back of the chair before sitting down; her white blouse was clinging to her skin. Her wig was hot, she could feel the sweat pricking her brow, but she resisted the impulse to shift it around. A waiter from the café scowled at them from his seat just inside the doorway. When it was clear they weren’t going to go away, he sauntered over.

“Ah, uno, aqua, minerale, er natu—” Paula began.

The waiter gave her a pitying sigh. “Still or sparkling?”

“Oh. Still, please, chilled and with ice.” The Venice Coast waiters were normally contemptuous of anyone who couldn’t speak even a smattering of Italian.

Tarlo asked for a nonalcoholic beer and a bowl of smoked rasol nuts.

Both of them received a further look of utter derision before the waiter slumped his shoulders and walked back inside.

“Always feels good to blend right on in there,” Tarlo said. He put his sandaled feet up on the rusting iron railing that guarded the edge of the granite-cobbled pavement from the canal.

Paula checked her timer. “We’ll order more drinks in half an hour, then a snack after that. I’d like to have at least two hours here.”

“Boss, we have got the whole place covered by sensors, you know. You can’t get a carrier pigeon in there without us zapping it.”

“I know. Target review is important to me. I need to get a feel for the op.”

“Yeah.” Tarlo grinned. “So you keep telling me.”

If one good thing had come out of the Directorate becoming the Security Agency, it was the expanded intelligence base. For once, the news of Valtare Rigin purchasing a number of sophisticated and very restricted items of technology hadn’t come from any of Paula’s deep assets. Instead, Anacona’s special criminal bureau had been running a monitoring operation with local manufacturers who made dual use products. They ran financial checks on an industrial supply company that purchased some molecular resonance stabilizers with a very high power rating, the kind that could be used in large force field generators. It turned out the supply company was a shell, with its credit supplied from a onetime bank account on StLincoln.

The bureau tracked the shipment, which was routed through a number of blind drops, until a courier picked it up and delivered it to the gallery. That was when they called the Agency in.

Observation, backtracking, and communications monitors had shown them Rigin was acquiring a lot of dual use components. There were no actual weapons, but the pattern fitted one of Adam Elvin’s shipment operations exactly.

“He picked a good cover,” Paula said as she sipped her mineral water. “I’ll bet you Rigin’s lawyer claims that the components make up one of his EK works.”

“So why did he need to acquire them like this?”

Paula smiled in the shade of the parasol as a light breeze washed off the canal. “Radical art, I expect.”

“You reckon he’s going to ship it out all at once?”

“Most likely. The risk was in putting the items together. Now he’s exporting, it’ll be a couple of big crates to a legitimate destination.”

“Right out the back door, huh?”

“Yes.” From behind her big sunglasses, Paula gazed at the solid gray-painted wood of the gallery’s loading door, visualizing the cargo boat tying up beside it, the containers being lowered onto the deck. They’d do it in the middle of the day, of course. A simple honest shipment, nothing to hide. Wherever it went—out to the docks that fronted the Acri district where the big seagoing ships put in, or the cargo yard at the Prato monorail station—she’d follow it. Somewhere down the line, Bradley Johansson would be waiting.

Adam Elvin leaned back against the purple cord cushions in the back of the gondola as it slid gracefully along the narrow canal. It was one of the little waterways that zigzagged around large blocks, connecting and crossing the larger canals. The side walls were high here, slimed with weed and dirt. Water slapped against the cracked brickwork, slowly eroding the mortar—there were entire sections that had been repaired with new bricks and hard cement, looking totally out of place. Bridges curved overhead like miniature tunnels. Each block had a row of near-identical blank wooden doors a meter above the tide line, fastened by heavy iron bolts. They passed several that were open, with little cargo boats tied up outside, their crew manhandling crates and boxes into the dark interiors.

Every delivery in Venice Coast was by boat, adding to the cost of living here. Adam hadn’t appreciated that before he came, that the only transport in each district was either walking or boat. The monorail took you between districts, but that was all.

They turned out onto the famous Rovigo canal, one of the major channels through the Cesena district. The venturi trees lined both sides; planted a century ago their trunks resembled gnarled copper pillars reaching over twenty-five meters high, with arched boughs that trailed long strands of yellow-gold leaves as thin as tissue. Each one had its own sieve well that had been drilled under the pavement into the boggy subsoil, allowing the roots to suck up fresh water. Adam was lucky enough to be visiting during the fortnight they were in bloom. Each branch ended in a triune of brilliant amethyst ruff flowers as big as footballs. Already, though, petals were beginning to fade and fall, snowing onto the heads of delighted gondola tourists like scented confetti.

Adam smiled appreciatively as the gondolier slowed down, allowing him to soak up the sight and smell of the wonderful native trees. The boutiques and galleries on either side of the Rovigo were among the more exclusive in Venice Coast, with dark glass windows illustrating single examples of their expensive prestige products. Not far away, the strange and wonderful twisted neo-Gothic spire of StPeter’s Cathedral towered above the city’s red tile roofs like a pre-Commonwealth silver space rocket.

The Rovigo ended at a junction with the Clade canal. They waited between the last of the venturi trees for a big glass-topped, air-conditioned tourist bus boat to chug past. The wash slapped at the gondola, much to the gondolier’s disgust; half of his conversation during the trip had been a diatribe against any boat that had an engine. Adam looked along the Clade, seeing the broad waterway slowly curving away from him, with the back of the Nystol Gallery just visible. There were only about ten other boats on this section, a couple of gondolas, some cargo boats, a taxi; the pavement along the side was equally empty, with a few tourists wandering along. Even the cafés were almost deserted—

“Stop!” Adam hissed at the gondolier.

The man looked back at him in surprise, the pole poised ready to push them out into the Clade now the water bus had passed. “Is clear now,” he complained.

“Go back. Do not go out onto the Clade. Understand? Do not take me out there. Take me back to the monorail station.” He produced a thick roll of notes from his pocket, and peeled off over a hundred Anacona dollars.

The gondolier’s face brightened at the sight of the money. “Sure. Okay. You’re the captain, I’m just the engine room.” He changed the angle of the pole, and slid it into the muddy water. The gondola’s prow slowly came around, and they began to head back down the Rovigo. A multitude of crispy dry violet petals continued to drift down over Adam’s clothes as they retreated at a speed that was barely above walking pace. He refused to look around. That would be a stupid weakness. He knew exactly who he’d seen sitting there outside the café. After all this time he could recognize Chief Investigator Myo’s profile from almost any angle and distance. She was wearing a blond wig, and large sunglasses, but that couldn’t disguise her from him. Her posture, her gestures. That suit! Who the hell else would wear a business suit in the middle of Venice Coast’s siesta?