The Mandel Files by Peter F. Hamilton Page A

to be making good use of them.”
    Julia pulled a face. Her grandfather caught it and squeezed her hand softly.
    “Certainly, I believe the tekmerc team who ran the spoiler used them quite extensively on this occasion,” Walshaw went on. “We’ve been running some deep analysis on our furnace operators, and there is overwhelming evidence that the tekmerc team assembled a comprehensive profile on every one of them. Bank accounts, medical records, past employers’ personnel files, they were all sampled by the team’s hotrods. I think we’d be correct in assuming that the likely candidates were also scanned by a psychic to see if they would be susceptible in the final instance. It’s very significant that not one of the furnace operators they approached ever came to us.”
    “How many did they turn?” Philip Evans asked.
    “So far, we’ve nabbed fourteen, out of a total of eighty-three on furlough. Greg Mandel and Victor Tyo are due up at Zanthus tonight. Probability suggests there are between four and six- furnace operators currently in orbit who’ve been turned. We’ve done our best to make sure no news of the round-up has leaked. Not that they can run, but there is the prospect of sabotage to consider. Out of the fourteen we’ve already got, two had consented to kamikaze if they were cornered up at Zanthus.”
    “Bloody hell!’ Philip shouted. “What kind of people do we employ? That’s damn near twenty per cent of them willing to sell us out at the drop of a hat!”
    “It’s over now, Grandee,” Julia said in a small voice. “Please.” She bowed her head so he wouldn’t see how upset she was. It’d been a good morning for him, he’d eaten well, and he wasn’t sweating like he usually did, even his colour was almost normal. But now she could see the pink spots burning on his cheeks, showing just how badly worked up he was, which wouldn’t do his heart any good.
    There were some days when she wanted it all to be over, this pain-drenched clinging to life. And that wish only brought more guilt. Psychics would be able to see that clearly. Perhaps Walshaw would hold off using them until afterwards. She, ought to have a word with him about that.
    When she looked up the security chief was staring candidly out of the window.
    “All right, Juliet,” her grandfather said in a calmer voice. “I’ll be good.”
    She gave him a tentative smile.
    “I don’t believe the crystal-furnace operatives are representative of Event Horizon personnel as a whole, nor any of the other Zanthus workers for that matter,” Walshaw said. “Theirs is an extraordinarily high-stress situation. There is an average of three fatalities a year, a significant chance of radiation poisoning, and the psychological pressures from living in such a closed environment are way above normal. Those factors came out time and again from all the interviewees.”
    “Yeah, OK,” Philip Evans said grumpily. “I’m a no-good mill owner, exploiting his downtrodden workers. What else is new? You got any good news for me?”
    “Greg Mandel should’ve pulled the last of the furnace operators by this time tomorrow. We’ll be sending up the replacements on an afternoon flight, so from tomorrow evening the spoiler will be over. Plus, the memox crystals tagged as contaminated last week haven’t been dumped yet. That’s nearly two million Eurofrancs we’ll recover.”
    “Jesus, chucking away perfectly good crystals like a crap dump. That’s a bugger, that is.” He gave Julia a forlorn smile.
    Walshaw shrugged. “Only way to do it.”
    “What about the people who organized this?” Julia asked. Walshaw hadn’t said anything about them, as if they didn’t matter. He lived for the game, not the players, she felt sure of it.
    “Difficult,” he said.
    “Why?” She made it come out flat and cold, and never mind if he disapproved.
    “This is what we call a finale deal. It’s all cut-offs, understand? The tekmercs who made the moves,