“You know this definitely?”
“Third-party information, like yours,” Olmo said. “I haven’t seen them myself. But we know that they were here. We are working on tracing them, but we are having a little difficulty. Probably they have gone back to Earth already. But in that case we will be watching for them, the next time they return.”
“Well, then,” Farkas said. “You’re ahead of me, all right. I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Emilio.”
“It is always a pleasure to hear from you, Victor.”
“I’ll call you if I find out anything more definite.”
“Please do,” said Olmo.
Perhaps this was the moment to put through a call to New Kyoto and ship this thing up to higher levels. Farkas debated it inwardly and decided against it, for now. If one did not happen to be Japanese, the only way one could reach higher levels oneself was to take the initiative in situations that called for boldness and decisiveness, and then to display, when everything had taken shape properly, the excellent results that one had achieved.
Farkas slept on it. When he awoke, the patterns were clearer in his mind. Before going out for breakfast he called the number of the hotel room that Jolanda shared with Enron.
The dark, glassy column that was Meshoram Enron appeared on the visor.
“Jolanda’s not here,” Enron said, a little too quickly, not bothering to hide the hostility of his tone. “She’s downstairs in the health club.”
“Good,” Farkas said. “You’re the one I wanted to talk to.”
“Yes?”
“We need to have another little meeting. There are some loose ends left from last night that I’d like to tie up.”
Enron seemed to be considering that. But his glassy facade was unchanging: Farkas had no clear idea of the processes going on within the Israeli’s mind. Enron was too well guarded. It was impossible for Farkas to read any fluctuation in Enron’s emanations using only the image in a visor. He would have to be in direct contact with him to pick up nuances of that sort.
After a moment Enron said, “We’re expecting to go back to Earth later today, or maybe on the first shuttle tomorrow.”
“Then there’s plenty of time for us to get together, isn’t there?”
“This is important, you say?”
“Very.”
“Anything to do with Jolanda?”
“Not in the slightest. She is a very fine woman, but you and I have more significant things to discuss than who sleeps with whom, am I not right?”
This time Farkas noticed a definite brightening of Enron’s image, a distinct increase of gleam.
“Where do you want to meet?” Enron asked.
“A town called El Mirador, on Spoke D,” Farkas said, picking the site randomly out of his memory. “The Cafe La Paloma, right on the central plaza, in forty-five minutes.”
“Make it sooner.”
“Half an hour, then,” Farkas said.
Enron was already there when Farkas arrived, five minutes before the appointed time. The plaza, at this hour, was quiet, far emptier than it had been the day Farkas and Juanito had gone there to find Wu Fang-shui. Enron was sitting at one of the front tables, as motionless as a piece of sculpture, betraying no sign of restlessness at all. But he was tight, tight as a coiled spring: Farkas could see that from thirty paces away.
Sitting down opposite him, Farkas said at once, “There is this California project, involving a change in government. You spoke of it last night.”
Enron said nothing.
Farkas continued: “A joint effort might be the best way to bring off such a project, you said. A large corporation and a prosperous country, putting up the needed funds, fifty-fifty.”
“Go on,” Enron said. “You don’t need to remind me of what I said.”
“All right, then. The point is this: Were you making an offer? Are you people willing to have the enterprise be a partnership?”
Now Enron was leaning forward, alert, intent. The rhythm of his breathing had changed. Farkas knew he had struck the right place.
“We could be,” the Israeli said. “Are you?”
“It’s very possible.”
“What level are you, Farkas?”
“Nine.”
“That’s not high enough to authorize anything this big.”
“High enough to initiate it, though.”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose. And of course you already have the authority to go as far as you’ve gone.”
“Of course,” Farkas said, without hesitation.
“I need to go back down to Earth and talk to people,” said Enron. “It isn’t a question of authority, it’s a question of information. I need to have some more. Then you and I can get together again and maybe we can strike a deal. I can tell you, Farkas, this is precisely why I came to Valparaiso Nuevo.”
“Excellent,” said Farkas. “We are traveling on converging lines. I like that. We will talk again soon.”
“Very soon, yes.”
The conversation was over, but neither of them moved. Enron still seemed tightly coiled: more so than before, possibly. There was just enough of a pause to allow for a change of subject.
Then Enron said, “Jolanda is really fascinated by you, you know. Does that happen often, women falling for you that way?”
“Often enough.”
“I would think, with your eyes that way, and all—”
“Quite the opposite,” said Farkas. “Many seem to find it attractive. You aren’t annoyed, are you?”
“A little,” Enron said. “I admit it to you. What the hell, I’m a normal competitive male. But no, no, it doesn’t really bother me. It isn’t as if I own her. And I was the one who told Jolanda to make a play for you in the first place. By way of getting your attention, of setting up contact with you.”
“I’m grateful to you, then. I don’t mind being fished for, with bait of that quality.”
“I just didn’t think she’d be so enthusiastic about it, that’s all.”
“She strikes me as the sort of woman who is very quick to become enthusiastic,” Farkas said. This was making him uncomfortable. Perhaps that was the Israeli’s intention. He stood up. “I will wait very eagerly to hear from you again,” he said.
Jolanda was in the room when Enron got back to it. He had left a note for her to let her know that he had had an unexpected call from Farkas and had gone off for a meeting with him on another spoke.
“What did he want?” she asked. “Or is it all secret spy business that I’m not supposed to hear about?”
“You already know plenty,” said Enron. “You may as well hear a little more. He invited me to go into partnership with Kyocera on the coup d’dtat.”
“Invited yoy? Personally?”
“You know what I mean,” he said. “Israel. He came right out and said it: asked me if we were willing to go into the deal on a fifty-fifty basis.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That we were, of course. That this was precisely what I had come to Valparaiso Nuevo to arrange. But first, I said, I had to go back to Earth and get some further information. He will assume that I mean from my government, a confirmation of interest. But in fact I meant I had to speak with your Davidov. It is important for me to know what kind of an understanding he has with Farkas, before I take any of this to Jerusalem.”
“You won’t need to go back to Earth for that,” said Jolanda. “I had an unexpected call this morning too.”
“What? Who?”
“He’s still here,” she said, preening for him, glowing in what struck Enron as a deeply self-congratulatory way. “Davidov. He said he saw us yesterday, having dinner with Farkas in that restaurant in Cajamarca.”