unknown#2: "Look after a mate, like." "Look after a mate, like."

His software had identified Richard Broomhall and Khan, conditionally rather than absolutely, but Josh had no doubts: this was who he was looking for. He noted the other youth's use of Richie Richie rather than Richard. Plus, the image of Khan was clear there would be no mistaking him. rather than Richard. Plus, the image of Khan was clear there would be no mistaking him.

Now the guys at the bar were returning their attention to him. This was not good. He checked the other drinkers. Most remained focused on their drinks or their inner thoughts, whatever they were, while at a small table like his, a heavy woman was pushing two empty gla.s.ses away from her. Her makeup formed strata, emphasising, not hiding, the fault lines and general crumbling.

When she realised Josh was staring at her, she raised her eyebrows.

"Don't tell me" Josh pointed at the two empty gla.s.ses "you drank two at once."

"Nah. My mate Sylvia was with me."

"Well, do you need another?"

"Got a cake in the oven, going to burn. Need to get home."

Good. He had thought she was about to leave.

"I shouldn't either," he said. "Have another, I mean."

"Mind, I went to the offie last night, brought back some lagers, need finishing off."

"That sounds tempting."

Flakes of mascara moved when she batted her eyes.

"Wouldn't want to drink alone." She wiggled her soft ma.s.s. "Don't seem right."

"d.a.m.n straight. I'm Joe."

"I'm Azure."

"Nice name."

"Well. Come on then."

They left, shoulder pressed to shoulder, while the guys at the bar watched. This close to Azure, Josh kept his breathing shallow. In the Regiment, he had been through desensitisation training, able to function in heavier and heavier concentrations of tear gas; it served him well now, coping with the thickness of Azure's perfume. No doubt made from the finest ingredients in a bathtub just down the road, and flogged off a market stall.

As she made a joke and laughed, he turned to smile, checking back. In the pub doorway, both men were watching. Josh slipped an arm around Azure's ma.s.sive waist.

"Up here," she said. "This door, see?"

They went into a small entrance hall. A former townhouse, now flats, and she clearly lived upstairs. Her b.u.t.tocks heaved as she started the climb, starting to puff; then Josh helped push her up. By the time they reached the top, they were both laughing. They almost fell inside, then Azure lumbered into the kitchen, looking for her lagers.

From the sitting room, a window opened out back, almost without sound. Josh swung through in one motion, pushed the thing shut it would remain unlocked, but she might not notice for a while then crimped his fingertips into the gap between bricks, made a shuffling traverse above a twenty-foot drop, then caught hold of a drainpipe, tested it with a tug, and descended most of the way. Overstuffed, split rubbish bags littered the ground, but from the wall he leaped over them and landed, crouching. Then he went over the back wall, and into a lane running behind the houses.

Poor Azure.

But another disappointment in her life might save a fourteen year-old boy, and that was the only consolation Josh could find for acting like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, using sneaky avoidance in a way that would make his old instructors proud.

An hour and twenty minutes later, he was about to resume his sneakiness. From another back lane, he had watched the row of houses until all was quiet, while his phone displayed diagrams and images of the interior. The terrace was eight houses long clearly, buying the whole row was too much even for Khan and Josh's chosen entrance point was the fifth house along, owned by a law-abiding widower (according to a quick scan on the Web) who had nothing to do with any of Khan's enterprises, and had on occasion complained to police and council services about the noise from next door.

The house in question was number 39, and there was no sign of the owner moving about. In an ideal penetration exercise, Josh would prepare for longer, take additional equipment, and if possible three of his highly trained mates. But sometimes you had to act quickly or not bother, so he crossed the alley, jumped up, and clamped his hands onto brick. Then he was in a kind of vertical sprinter's crouch, pushing off with one foot, swinging out then jerking in with his arms, making full use of the myotatic reflex for fast power; and he was over. Tumbling sideways, he dropped like a cat, and remained on all fours at the rear of a tidy lawn.

A check of his phone revealed his subversion ware at work, altering the logged images from four different spycams over the last few seconds. Then he slipped across the lawn, just as his phone cracked the house system, and the back door's lock clicked open. He listened, then entered, taking in controlled large breaths, knowing that the reptile brain inside every human can respond to subliminal airborne molecules, communicating with the civilised mind in the form of intuition.

Nothing. He smiled, partly because it was the same old thrill: breaking the rules for a definite good; but he no longer had the Regiment behind him if things went t.i.ts up. Then he moved through the tidy house, climbing the stairs to the upper hallway, and finding the loft door in the ceiling. Standing on the banister, he reached up to push the door aside; then he grabbed hold, palms in, and swung his feet up, jack-knifing upward through the opening.

He shone a thin white beam from his phone, then gekkotagged the phone to his shoulder, freeing his hands. Looking around the darkened loft s.p.a.ce, he saw neat transparent boxes, all labelled. Old comics here, an X-Men run from the 1970s, artwork by Neal Adams and hardcore fitness books: Pavel Tsatsouline, Scott Sonnon, Ross Enamait, Matt Furey. Josh smiled, then turned his attention to the chipboard wall that separated this place from Khan's enterprise next door.

From his belt, he twisted free his buckle, then pressed hard. A memory-steel blade uncurled, then snapped into stiffness. It was sawtooth, and just what he needed. He pressed the blade against the chipboard, increased pressure, then doubled it. The point went through.

Got it.

There was no vibration from his phone. His subversion ware was doing its work, hiding his intrusion from the house system. Too much reliance on high tech, and not enough on simple materials. But then, if the part.i.tion wall had been metal or brick, he would have found a different way in; because there always was a weakness.

He started to saw down, starting the opening that would let him inside.

[ FOURTEEN ].

Khan's people had stored junk in the loft, after wiring the place with motion sensors and infrared spycams all of them hooked in to the main system, allowing Josh's subversion ware to rewrite the data. The biggest danger was that he would put a hand or foot through the thin floor. He crawled along a horizontal beam, stopping when he reached a hatch. Here he was prepared to slow down and take his time dismantling hinges or lock mechanism; but the only lock was electromagnetic, integrated with the system, and it clicked open with a simple command from Josh's phone.

Still there might be standalone alarms he had not detected, even a simple bolt to delay his progress. Tension compressed his heart and lungs as he reached for the hatch, took hold, and raised it a millimetre, a centimetre, then stopped. Through the trapezoidal gap, grey carpet and white-painted fittings suggested a hallway or landing. The air smelled cold and tinged with chemicals. There was a steady drone of pumps, but nothing to suggest human movement.

He pulled up the hatch, scanned below, then dropped through. Hanging by one hand, he manoeuvred the hatch almost into place, then let go. It banged shut where his fingertips had been, but he was already crouched on carpeting, checking the stairway that descended beside him, the narrow door in front, listening and sniffing.

Once through the door, he stopped and checked again. To his left was a storage cupboard he checked: cleaning fluids, sponges, a bucket, and mop and offices along the right, while straight ahead stood another internal door. Again, system integration was Khan's undoing, as the door simply opened, already unlocked by Josh's code. But this time there were people, two of them heading this way, and he crouched, spiralling back, reaching the cupboard and pushing inside. There, he exerted conscious control of his breathing, trying to command his emotions, interpreting his fear as the adrenaline surge of a soldier about to fight; but then the voices were past, neither man pausing. After thirty seconds, Josh pushed the door open, scanned the corridor, then exited.

Again the internal door was unlocked, and when he peeked through, the corridor was empty, while the rooms on the right had doorways but no doors, emitting strong white light. There was an acrid heaviness on the air, but whether it came from here or had slowly built up in the stairwell beyond, emanating from the virapharm labs on the floors below, he could not tell. If he went down here, he could wreck the apparatus, destroy at least a portion of the labs but his phone, when he checked it, showed a small red dot inside the schematic: Khan was in the next portion of the building, one floor down.

There were twenty-three people in total working here right now, several sporting shoulder holsters as well as knives at their hips. Far too many to fight. He took a silent pace forward as Attack.

a pair of brown eyes widened, too late to process the real danger because for Josh the reptile brain was in control, and this man-shaped thing in front was a problem framed in geometry and forces, and here was the objective: to shut the thing down. Josh's fist slammed into the throat, collapsing it like cardboard, then both hands cupped the man's head and ripped it down, into his rising knee; and he dropped all his body weight, his forearm vertical, elbow piledriving into the back of the neck. The corpse smacked face-first into the floor, the darkening stain in its trousers and the stench of s.h.i.t confirming death.

His ware had not indicated anyone up here, so this guy had been out of camera sight, not just him but two more of them two more of them tugging guns from shoulder holsters so this was it, milliseconds before death, and the fallen corpse was a springboard he used to launch his jump, a flying knee into a face, hammering down on the other man's head. He snapped one gun away from its owner's grasp fingers crunched and smashed back, dropping the guy to his knees. The other was out cold from the knee strike, so there was just this man to deal with, but he was still battling, left hand going for Josh's throat, but Josh slipped beneath, whipped a ridgehand, caught his own hand the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's left arm and head in the circle of Josh's arms and tightened the arm triangle-choke so-called but really a strangle twisting as he took the guy down, squeezing the carotid artery closed, sending the brain into shutdown. tugging guns from shoulder holsters so this was it, milliseconds before death, and the fallen corpse was a springboard he used to launch his jump, a flying knee into a face, hammering down on the other man's head. He snapped one gun away from its owner's grasp fingers crunched and smashed back, dropping the guy to his knees. The other was out cold from the knee strike, so there was just this man to deal with, but he was still battling, left hand going for Josh's throat, but Josh slipped beneath, whipped a ridgehand, caught his own hand the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's left arm and head in the circle of Josh's arms and tightened the arm triangle-choke so-called but really a strangle twisting as he took the guy down, squeezing the carotid artery closed, sending the brain into shutdown.

Finally he stood up, slick with sweat and maybe blood.

What have I done?This was no military mission, and he had no mandate for murder. At least one of the guys was dead, and the other two were likely to You b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

Inside the white-lit room was a gla.s.s table, and splayed upon it was...

You f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

...a naked teenage girl, spreadeagled and webbed with translucent tubes, connecting her to a rack of nanoviral cells. She was alive, perhaps more so than Sophie, perhaps not but at least Sophie was no factory, no farm for viral pharmaceuticals growing and evolving by unnatural selection, because viruses in the wild, under stress from antiviral drugs, flip into a new state of accelerated mutation, call it a metamutation; and what nature can do, humankind can subvert.

There were bite marks around the girl's nipples one of the staff obtaining added value from the goods. Perhaps one of these three lying on the floor. Josh thought he had probably seen the girl in his peripheral vision, reacting unconsciously before rationalism kicked in after the event; which meant he hadn't murdered anyone he had saved His Majesty's courts the expense of an official execution.

I ought to kill you all.

This was more than enough for him to call in the police, let them deal with the rest of Khan's people; but Khan himself might lead the way to Richard Broomhall. Checking his phone display, he flicked from monitor view to monitor view, tracking Khan's progress, two hard-faced men in tow. Then Khan stopped, said something, and went into a room alone, a room without spycams. A toilet. Under other circ.u.m

stances, Josh might have smiled.

The other two waited around a corner. They were one floor down, and in the next unit. Josh made his move, with one glance back at the abused girl. Invisible to the system his malware continued to hack his image out of the data he went through the next internal door, downstairs, and padded to a halt outside the toilet door, just as the flush sounded. When Khan came out, Josh whispered from behind: "Did you wash your hands?"

"Wh? Mmmph."

Ducking low, Josh was under Khan as he toppled, taking the weight on his shoulders, then powering upright. There had been little sound, but time was collapsing, and he needed to get out now. Running upstairs with Khan across his shoulders was easy, almost a joy, triggering memories of basic training. Then he was past the room with the girl and the three p.r.o.ne men and how many other victims lay in rooms throughout the building? and jogging along the carpeted corridor, through two more doors, until he was underneath the ceiling hatch he had entered by.

Rolling Khan to the floor, Josh undid his own belt, unravelling high-tensile cord. Then he wrapped it crosswise around Khan's body, forming an X across chest and back, and played out the tension as he swung himself up into the loft. From there, he braced his feet either side of the hatch opening, and began to pull upward, hand over hand, enjoying the hard burn in hamstrings and back, ignoring the cord cutting into his hand, thankful for the years of kettlebell swings and s.n.a.t.c.hes, of barbell deadlifts and Hindu squats, feeling in control. Finally, he manhandled Khan up through the opening, and lowered the hatch in place. Now let the f.u.c.kers wonder where their boss had gone.

Khan's eyelids fluttered. Josh punched once, to the carotid.

Then he hauled Khan across the loft, pushed him through the opening in the part.i.tion, followed, and forced the cut portion back into place. Next, he lowered Khan through the loft hatch, dropped down beside him, and picked up the slack weight, across his shoulders once more in a fireman's carry. Downstairs, out through the kitchen and the back door, causing it to relock... and then Josh stopped, because a whitehaired man was standing there, examining the flowers. His stance was ramrod-straight, and his eyes were clear.

"Is that the dodgy b.u.g.g.e.r who owns the shop?"

"Yes, sir. And I apologise for being in your home, but this dodgy b.u.g.g.e.r has been running virapharm labs in those four houses. Your loft was my way in."

"Virapharm."

"There's at least one teenage girl in there. And very shortly there'll be police by the truckload. I'd appreciate it if you weren't around, and had amnesia about this."

"Well." The old guy's smile gave Josh hope. "My daughter makes a tremendous curry. Think I'll go see her."

"Right. You don't want this b.a.s.t.a.r.d's people thinking you had anything to do with this."

"So how did you get in? My door's unmarked."

"s.h.i.t."

"Not to worry." The old guy strode up to the door, and slammed a kick forward with plenty of hip thrust. The door crashed in. "There."

"Blimey."

"Clean living."

"Right. Er... It would have been nice to meet you, sir. If I'd ever been here."

"Likewise. If you ever had."

Josh hoisted Khan over the rear wall, gave a final nod to the old guy, and went over the top. There, in the back alley, he lifted Khan across his shoulders once more.

Hope I'm like that guy when I get old.

But Sophie would never get old. Some people did not get the chance.

Twenty minutes later he was sitting in his car, with Khan unconscious in the boot. The only tricky part had been leaving Khan dumped out of sight while he retrieved his car from the car park. But now he was ready to do something about the virapharm labs. It took another couple of minutes to rework his subversion ware it was still loaded in the building system at Khan's place, and communicating with Josh's phone and break through additional defences, uncovering the secondary surveillance net that had to be there, the one that monitored the virapharm production, meaning the helpless teenage bodies of both s.e.xes splayed naked across gla.s.s tables. There were twelve of them in total, none of them Richard Broomhall; but he had needed to check.

He placed a call to Petra.

"I'm on duty." Her image revealed she was in uniform. "Day shift again this week."

"At HQ? So I can talk to you officially?"

"Officially? You?"

"Sort of. Take a look at these."

He tapped his phone, then waited. Petra's expression became stone as she sifted through the attachments.

"s.h.i.t. Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Who did this to them, Josh?""Some nasty f.u.c.ker called Khan. Look at this map." Another attachment. "The last four houses are knocked into one. There's two dozen guys in place, maybe more, with guns."

"Really."

Bladed weapons might have become legal, but firearms remained anathema, as suspect as paedophilia. When the presence of guns was suspected, the cops went in hard.

"Don't take my word for it. Here's more from their internal surveillance logs."

"I presume there's no sender ID on this anonymous tip-off here?"

"How would I know? I didn't send nothing to no one."