That was standard, but the forthcoming event was even more crucial, because any mistake would potentially be webcast to millions of viewers. It was near-realtime transmission, with a five-second delay which was supposed to be long enough for the producers to pull the switch if necessary. Otherwise, if things went as normal, the event would be watched with that five-second lag by nine million households at least, and would be picked up later from the amorphous Web at people's leisure.

Inside the Barbican Estate, high buildings and early morning combined to create cooling shade. But on the streets outside the temperature climbed towards uncomfortable intensity as the bustle of pedestrians began thinning out. Everyone who was working had reached their destination, grateful for their job or cursing the day ahead, whatever the case might be.

By 9.45 am, when a white-and-blue van marked Quantum Cleaning Services (motto: Teleporting grime away) drove along London Wall, and slowed to a halt at a pedestrian crossing, the street was almost deserted. An exception was the bent-over man limping across the black and white striped crossing, while the cleaningvan driver shrugged at his mates, and none of them noticed the dark-blue car pulling to a halt behind them. Nor did they notice a silvery balloon accidentally released by a thin woman, just as she pa.s.sed the pole-mounted yellow globe that marked the crossing. Surely she could not have known that her balloon would pa.s.s in front of the mounted spycam, obscuring its view.

At that moment, two shapes dropped from beneath the car, wriggled forward, and disappeared beneath the cleaning van. Then the old man reached the end of the crossing and waved his thanks to the van driver, who nodded and put his vehicle into drive.

The van pulled away, followed a second later by the blue car. At the next junction, the car turned into a side street and was gone, leaving the van to continue slowly forward. Soon it drew up before the heavy metal doors of a service entrance leading to the Barbican Estate. The doors rattled aside, and the van drove into a covered entrance bay, echoing with engine sounds bouncing back from concrete. Then the doors clanged back into place, followed by the dull thudding counterpoint of mag locks ramming home.

Vibration and soot, the tremor in his eyeb.a.l.l.s making it hard to see, and the cloud of carcinogenic c.r.a.p turning his respiration into wheezing, the underneath of the van pressed against his face, hard and caked with grime and oil, all of it unpleasant, his thoughts slow and difficult. The webbing harness bit into Josh's body everywhere, pinching his inner thighs, constricting his b.a.l.l.s into aching compression, dug into his back below his shoulder blades, and bounced him against hard metal with every unevenness in the road.

Poor Suzanne must be having a hard time of it. For him, this was business as usual. He twisted, careful not to let a jolt damage his neck, and squinted at Suzanne. She was clinging, knuckles pale, using all her strength to a.s.sist the harness. They had planned this so they would be under the van only during the last part of its journey, when it was moving slowly; but for her this was probably a high-speed ride more dangerous than she had ever attempted.

"Scan coming up." Tony's voice sounded in his earbead. "And you're over it."

In the old days, guards used mirrors on castors, pushed on long poles, to check underneath vehicles. Thank G.o.d for modern systems, relying on cameras and intelligent software, just waiting to be subverted by those with the right technology and att.i.tude.

The van rolled to a halt beside a loading platform, the engine whining down to stillness, the suspension rocking. After a moment, the guys inside dismounted.

"Check-in with security is through there, right?"

"Yeah. Bring the gear, it'll save time."

"OK.".

Thumps and swearing meant they were unloading their cleaning equipment. Loud trundling accompanied their exit from the loading area, ending with the dull bang of a heavy steel door. Then silence.

Webbing dug into Josh's back and hamstrings as he hung there.

"Get ready," came Tony's voice.

Josh looked over at Suzanne. Her mouth was tight with strain as she nodded.

"Release in five seconds, four, three, two, one, go now."

Gekkofastenings tore free, and Josh and Suzanne dropped to the ground. They rolled sideways as if spilled from a carpet, the loading bay a blur of oil-stained concrete and corrugated roofing. Then he thumped against brickwork, and Suzanne rolled into him.

"Internal bay is clear. Go for next stage."

The spycams around the loading bay would be transmitting an ongoing still image.

Josh vaulted up onto the high platform, crouched into a squat, and hauled Suzanne up. Then they flung themselves either side of a utility doorway, not the one the cleaners had left by. In the centre of the door was a pane of armoured gla.s.s, revealing distorted outlines of blazerclad men moving on the other side. From that glimpse, it appeared they were walking and looking, a roving patrol. With luck, they would rove off out of here.

"Hold position."

Suzanne was swallowing. Josh gave her a wink.

"Move in three, two, one, go now."

The door clicked open Tony's handiwork, conducted remotely and they went through. The security personnel were gone.

"Third door on the right."

Josh gave a tongue-click acknowledgment, then nodded to Suzanne and led the way, half jogging to the target doorway. His boot soles were rubber, therefore silent, as were Suzanne's.

"Clear to go through."Suzanne was staring at him, eyes huge. It took a moment, then he realised: a hunter's fang-revealing grin was stretching his mouth.

"Go now."

Filled with electric aliveness, he went through, every action magnified and excited by surrounding danger, like a stage performer thrilled by the onset of showtime, coming fully into his own. His movements were exact, exquisitely controlled, because these were the conditions he had learned to operate under, against role-playing opponents using live ammunition and out in the field, against real and lethal threats; and that made all the difference.

This was home, where he did more than operate: he came alive.

On the edge.

Ten minutes later, they were just inside a door that opened onto a quadrangle. Once through the threshold, they would move into the domain of another tier of the surveillance system, where security personnel wandered in greater numbers. At this point, it was no longer possible for Tony to edit over the images. Deep inside the system, the software observer-components were were subverted, failing to report on two individuals whose gaits and features had not been logged on entering the estate. But for human security staff watching monitors, there was no way of hiding Josh and Suzanne. It was time to move openly. subverted, failing to report on two individuals whose gaits and features had not been logged on entering the estate. But for human security staff watching monitors, there was no way of hiding Josh and Suzanne. It was time to move openly.

From their pockets, they pulled out squares of lightweight fabric that unfolded parachute-like into bright, billowing jackets: his, fluorescent orange and silvery grey; hers a blazing lime-green. Suzanne wrinkled her nose. At the training house, she had made remarks about how ugly it looked, how it made her appear fat.

Josh blew her a kiss.

She gave a sick attempt at a smile, then pulled out a silver cylinder from her pocket. A twist of her wrist, and it blossomed into a heart-shaped helium balloon, floating upward on string until it bounced against the ceiling. Tugging it down, she nodded to Josh.

Josh triple-clicked his tongue, signalling Tony.

"Raj, ready for your big fight scene, and... do it now."

In the earbead, there was a muted, distant sound of shattering bottles and hostile shouts. Suzanne swallowed.

"Go now."

They slipped through.

Josh pulled a big smile, a deliberate tensing of facial muscles, nothing amused about it. Taking hold of Suzanne's free hand, he walked forward with her, while she let the balloon rise a little on its string, bobbing as they progressed.

"Natural looking. Very nice," came Tony's voice. "Ready in five paces, Suzanne."

As they walked, water was to their left, where one of the towers stood partly on wide brick-covered pillars acting as stilts, the building's underside forming a watery cavern lit by rippling reflections. Only one spycam was trained directly on them, and the timing needed to be exact. Suzanne's hand felt sweat-slick in his. He gave her a squeeze, then released her.

"Ready to let go, two, one, go now."

Suzanne's fingers opened and the balloon rose, just as Josh tore open his loose jacket, ripped a package from the small of his back and tossed it into the water. There was a plop, an attenuated ripple, and it sank from sight. They walked on.

The main security sweep had been yesterday. As the protection teams tightened up the system, they had scoured everywhere, including underwater. Secondary sweeps would follow, but they would focus on telltales of weapon technology, the spectroscopic signatures of airborne and waterborne molecules that might indicate explosives, the inductive resonance of electronic devices. Even if they found the thing, they would consider it an oddity, perhaps from a party balloon similar to the one Suzanne had just let loose.

They pa.s.sed among the rubberised "concrete" slabs, along the promenade. In the blues and reds of spotlights, the fragments would look menacing; up close and in daylight, they seemed like toys. Josh used the time to memorise the layout, so that he could pa.s.s this way with his eyes closed or with commotion all around. He imagined crashing sound, the detonation of flashbangs, like the Killing House in Sterling Lines where they taught him first to operate in chaos, then to cause it.

Past the restaurant and the entrance to the Barbican Centre, the showpiece theatre at the heart of the complex, they walked hand in hand, observing all, appearing casual. Doors were propped open, allowing roadies to wheel props into place. Spotlights and cables were everywhere. One such doorway led into the curved apartment block at the far end of the promenade, where Josh and Suzanne were headed.

As they went inside, he squeezed her hand. Along the carpeted corridor they went, pausing at the first intersection until Tony's voice said "Clear."

Following his directions, twice making detours that took them out of their way but avoided other people, they reached the fifth floor. Here they had to wait in the stairwell, because cleaners were at work. It would be possible to simply walk into the open corridor and go past; but right now the spycam over their heads was showing an empty staircase, at least in the central logs. The sudden appearance of Josh and Suzanne in the corridor would look like teleportation, and while Tony could deal with threat-recognition engines in software, a human who happened to catch sight of the anomaly would bring everything crashing down.

Finally, the cleaners were inside an apartment, and Tony gave the signal to move.

From his pocket, Josh drew a spectacles case, took out a pair of gla.s.ses and put them on. They stopped outside the designated apartment, and he peered at the fish-eye lens. While the system read the false retina pattern, he pulled on a latex glove, and pressed his thumb and fingertips against the reader. Suzanne muttered something, guttural French he could not understand.

Then the door clicked open, and they were in.

The apartment was plush, rich, and insulated by deep carpet, therefore quiet. He had taught Suzanne the rules of maintaining an observation post: no chatting, careful movement, and in their case no intimacy, although it was the no-flushing bathroom etiquette that disturbed her most. Besides her presence, which made this different from every other OP he had been in, there was this overwhelming feature: he was on a mission that was likely to bring down the government of his own country, an act that by most criteria was treasonous.

However instrumental the Regiment had been in changing regimes elsewhere, that had been under political control, however indirect, from Whitehall: covert warfare as an instrument of policy. Without such sanction, when the military took it on themselves to alter governments, it was generally considered a coup, and the result was typically tyranny. When a single, embittered former soldier attempted such an action, that was more correctly seen as folly.

Sophie. I'd let the world go hang if it brought you back.

And of course that was the point. Sitting here amid soft furnishings, it was so easy to give in, to back out and take the sensible course, meaning to do nothing. With an effort, he crawled to a shuttered window, and stared down through the slits at the promenade below. After a while, he pulled back, and sat back against the wall, legs outstretched on the carpet.

Suzanne came over slowly, and sat next to him, shoulder touching.

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

All he could do was shake his head. He was used to following standard operational procedures, but whether SOPs would carry him through this crisis, he no longer knew. The thing was, self-doubt before the climax of a mission was rarely seen as a good thing. When the crunch came, as it soon would, what he needed above all else was one thing: focus.

What if I'm wrong?

Or worse: What if I'm right, and it's pointless anyway? What if I'm right, and it's pointless anyway?

In the past he and his fellow Regiment members had sometimes railed at the political decisions underlying their operations. They, far more than other soldiers, maintained deep understanding of the countries they were operating in, the indigenous history and the current issues faced by citizens. They had to, whether it was to win a hearts and minds campaign or simply to pa.s.s for natives. But this time, the political decision was purely his own, and how could he possibly trust that?

He had often been scared, but he had never doubted everything.

Not like this.

In the end, he decided not to decide. As with any op, he would shut down all considerations besides the mission at hand. Then, at 17.30 the day after tomorrow, he would go into action or hold back, however his instinct demanded.

Shoulder to shoulder, he and Suzanne sat. From time to time she used a secure phone he had given her, sound off, to check the news channels. He had not wanted to pay attention; but when she handed him the phone and pointed, he had to look and wonder how Matt was doing, whether he was fighting or simply looking after his family as his country went to h.e.l.l.

President Brand had moved his troops to the borders, both east and west. Commentators speculated about long-range reconnaissance missions into New York state and Oregon. The formerly united armed forces were splitting along regional divides. But for all Brand's apocalyptic rhetoric, could he truly be thinking of simultaneous invasions against both seaboards? It was strategic insanity; but cultural madness had already subsumed political intelligence, when the president talked of "smashing the legions of Satan," and "taking back the country which is ours the country which is ours."

Flicking back to the London news, for what seemed like almost light relief in contrast, an unidentified infection had broken out in Brixton, while ongoing streetfights-c.u.m-riots were igniting across the capital, against a backdrop of continued white sheet lightning from storms that would not break.

I'm trying to save the world.

Everything was grim; everything was hopeless.

Maybe there's nothing left to save.

He wanted to laugh and scream. Instead, he pulled everything inside himself and waited.

In the morning, the news was no better. The PM publicly deplored the deliberate anarchistic violence, and the civil sabotage that was crippling normal services from refuse collection to electricity. Power outages were likely, purely as a result of the riots. Despite all this, he finished with an upbeat, jocular message: "I, for one, will be voting right after Knifefighter Challenge, because whoever wins the final, what we need is a champion because whoever wins the final, what we need is a champion for this country. Someone with the strength and daring to cut for this country. Someone with the strength and daring to cut down those who would steal our way of life from us. I'll be down those who would steal our way of life from us. I'll be running on a platform of increasing the people's power to running on a platform of increasing the people's power to change things, by letting us slice through red tape and hack change things, by letting us slice through red tape and hack away bureaucracy, once and for all!" away bureaucracy, once and for all!"

Afterwards, Josh pulled up his contact list, scrolled through the URIs, and selected Sophie2 Sophie2. Then he sat and watched, with Suzanne beside him.

A small, near-unmoving image. Monitors ringing a white bed, and at its centre, all his vulnerability, the next generation that should have been; and why did he want to save the world when the one who should inherit it was like this? How could any of it matter?

They watched the picture in silence.

That night while Suzanne slept in the master bedroom, Josh lay on the carpeted lounge floor, drifting in and out of almost-sleep. It was always like this the night before a mission, and he knew that sleeplessness would count for nothing tomorrow, because the preparation had been in the weeks leading up to this; and tomorrow would be a day filled with adrenaline.

Discrediting a prime minister on Election Day: it would be a cla.s.sic op, one for the history books, to be taught to the neos at Hereford, if only it were officially sanctioned and on foreign soil. But here and now, it was a stressed-out, possibly insane ex-soldier accompanied by his therapist girlfriend, how about that for irony with a mission to take out a corrupt fascist b.a.s.t.a.r.d only because he consorted with those using children's bodies as drug factories; and it could be argued that every country's leader oversaw activities that were equally bad but never saw the light of day including the leaders that most would consider heroes.

Insane, insane, insane.

At some point in the hours before dawn, he decided he was going through with it. For the remaining short time, he slept.

[ THIRTY ].