'That's what I'm telling you, Mike. This wasn't just anybody. This was allowed to happen. They didn't scramble the heli until they knew I'd driven that little s.h.i.t off the road. They did what they were told, andthey let it happen. I mean, why'd you think no one got sacked? The heli crew, the duty officer '

'Come on. They all got reprimands. It'll go '

'Reprimands?'

' on their file. Christ, the duty officer got three months' suspension without pay.'

'Yeah, and did you see how happy he was with that? He'll be taken care of, Mike.'

221'I think,' said Bryant sombrely, 'that he was happy because he still has a job to go back to. Notley could easily have kicked him into touch.'

'Exactly. So why didn't he? Someone's got dual control here, Mike, and you know it. Someone's cranking Notley's cable.'

This time Mike Bryant laughed out loud. Suki frowned at him.

'Michael, that's not very nice. Chris is upset.'

'Okay, I'm sorry. It's just the thought of someone cranking the cables on Jack Notley. I mean come on, Chris. You know the man. Suki, you've met him. He's not exactly malleable.'

They both looked at Chris. He sighed.

'Alright, maybe not Notley. Maybe not that high up. Maybe Hewitt, she's never liked me. Or, listen, maybe it's as simple as Nick Makin looking for payback on that punch I landed.' This time he caught the exchange of glances between husband and wife. 'Alright, alright, I know. But I'm not paranoid, Mike. Someone tampered with my proximity alarm.'

'The report said it was the rain, Chris. You saw that crack.' Bryant turned to include Suki. 'The mechanics at Driver Control found a leak in the access panelling on Chris's security masterboard. It shorted out the whole alarm system.'

'Oh bulls.h.i.t, Mike. Carla checks those panels every ' He gestured, suddenly unnerved by his lack of certainty. 'I don't know, every week, at least. She would have spotted it.'

He didn't tell them that he'd had a screaming row with Carla when the preliminary results of the Shorn investigation came in. That he'd jumped automatically towards blame and belief in what Mike obviously still believed, that Carla had missed the leak.

It had taken her over an hour to talk him down.

I know what I'm f.u.c.king doing, she told him grimly, when the row had burnt itself out. If there was a crack in that panelling, someone f.u.c.king put it there, and not that long ago.

'Carla knows what she's doing,' he said, staring into his wine gla.s.s.

n.o.body answered him. The silence started to creak under its own weight. Chris stared at the table top, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't sound deranged.

'You really believe this, don't you, Chris,' said Suki. It didn't come out as supportive as she was obviously trying to be.

Chris shook his head. 'I don't know what I believe. Look, Mike, is itpossible this is something to do with 'the NAME contracts? Somebody outside Shorn, I mean. Maybe I was tagged getting in and out of Panama.'

Bryant gestured. 'You said you were careful.'

'I was. But something is going down, Mike. I can feel it.'

222Sure, something's going down. You're about to sell out your colleagues for a public sector sinecure with the bleeding-heart UN leech gang. That's what's going down, Chris.

And maybe someone knows that.

The paranoia made icy tracks down his spine.

'Okay.' Mike sat down again. He steepled his fingers on the table.

'Tell you what. We'll look into it. Unofficially, I mean. I'll talk to Troy, get him to ask around. He's got friends in the southside zones. We'll see what he turns up. Meantime, we've got other stuff to worry about.

Echevarria '

Chris groaned. 'Don't remind me.'

'--flies in Tuesday, Chris. And we've got Barranco arriving right behind him. Not even two full days between.'

'The week from h.e.l.l.'

Mike grinned. 'That's right. So tonight, let's just forget about the whole f.u.c.king thing and get wrecked. What time you reckon Carla'll be here?'

'She said before eight.' Chris glanced at his watch. 'Maybe she got held up at the checkpoints.'

'Want to call her?'

'No, it's.' He realised how it looked. 'Yeah, maybe I should.'

Carla was running an hour late, for no reason she felt like offering.

Chris bit back his annoyance.

'Well, when--' he began thinly.

'Oh, Chris, just start without me. I'm sure you're already having fun.'

He looked round at Mike and Suki, glad he'd used the mobile and not the videophone. Bryant was leaning against his wife and nuzzling at her ear through the immaculate auburn mane. She laughed, flinched away, then reached round to grab the ends of his loosed tie and pull him close.

The little scene radiated groomed marital content, a synthetic blend of s.e.x and wealth and domesticity straight out of a screen ad. He thought suddenly of a kitchen in Highgate, and an unforgiveable wish surged up in him.

'Well, get here as soon as you can,' he said, and hung up.Mike looked up. 'She okay?'

'Yeah, be here in about an hour. Some kind of crisis with a lubricant system.' He smiled weakly. 'Suppose I should be glad she's that obsessive.'

's.h.i.t, yeah. If Suki was my mechanic, I'd never let her out of the f.u.c.king garage. Ow!'

'b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

He tried to join in with the laughter, but his heart wasn't in it.

'Chris, you know the horse joke?' Bryant poured more wine. 'Guy 223goes into a bar and sees a horse standing there. So he goes up to him and says So. Why the long face?'

More laughter, filling up the beautiful kitchen like the smell of cooking he wasn't invited to share. He wished Liz would hurry up and Carla.t He wished Carla would hurry up and And what? Come on, Chris. Finish that thought.

It must have shown on his face. Mike came across and clapped him on the shoulder. 'Ah, Chris. Come on, man. Honestly. T really don't think you should be worrying. I mean, in the end, you trashed the little f.u.c.ker. He's smoked meat. And let's face it, with the rep you've got, no one smarter than a f.u.c.kwit gang sprog is going to want to drive against you.' He raised his gla.s.s. 'You got nothing to worry about, man.'

224TWENTY-EIGHT.

Midweek, Regime Change was quiet. Cheap c.o.c.ktails and genteel pole dancing brought in a scattering of suits from the local offices and recently-paid zone workers who knew they'd never get in on a Friday or Sat.u.r.day night. By eight-thirty or nine they were mostly leaving, the zone types headed home with their shallow finances drained, the suits going on to less genteel clubs where you could get your hands on the dancers.

'I would have suggested somewhere else.' Chris gestured at the centre of the Iraq Room, where a veiled woman, naked from the neck down, flexed around a newly installed silver pole to the unwinding cadences of Cairo Scene. The spectators sat at pipe tables or stood about in small knots, staring. 'I didn't realise.'

Liz Linshaw laughed and sipped at the pipe between them. She plumed whisky scented smoke in the dancer's direction.

'You don't approve?'

'Uh.' He spread his hands helplessly. 'Well, it's just not what I had in mind when I. You know, called you.'

'Chris.' She leaned closer to beat the music, grinning. 'You really don't have to work so hard at not looking at her. I already know you're an honourable man. Way past honourable, in fact.'

The dancer bellied up to the pole, slid it up and down between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Chris took a deep interest in the low hammered copper table the pipe stood on. Liz Linshaw laughed again.

'Look.' She leaned across to place one hand gently against his cheek and pushed his head back towards the performance. He fought down a jagged impulse to grab the hand and twist it away. 'I mean, look, really look at her. Let's get this over with. She's s.e.xy, isn't she. Young. No, don't look away. It's a great body. Worked out. And worked on, obviously, unless someone invented anti-gravity fields recently. Yeah, if I were a man, she'd do it for me. She'd make me, Chris, hey, Chris, you're blushing.'

'No, I'm '

'You are. I can feel it. Your face is hot.' She laughed again, delightedly.

'Chris, you really are in trouble. You're a grown man, you've got a dozen kills under your belt, and you can't look at soft p.o.r.n without 225flushing like a teenager. I mean, what do you and Carla Nyquist do in the bedroom?'

She must have seen the change in his face. Before he could move, she reached out and touched his arm.

'Sorry. Chris, I'm sorry. That was b.i.t.c.hy.'

This time he did take hold of her hand. He pushed it back across the table and sat looking at her in silence.

'Chris, I said I'm sorry.'

They were saved by the pipe waitress. She sauntered across, lifted the cage and cast a practised eye over the glowing embers of tobacco in the pan. She glanced at Chris.

'Bring you another?'

He hadn't smoked much of the first, it was just the price of sitting there while he waited for Liz Linshaw. He shrugged.

'No, I think we're pretty much done here.'

The waitress left. He met Liz Linshaw's gaze and held it.

'Chris--'

'Reason I asked you here, Liz. You've got friends in Driver Control, right?'

She looked away, then back. 'Yes. Yes, I have.'

'Inside sources? People who can get information for you?'

'Is this really why you called me, Chris?'

'Yes. You have sources, right?'

A shrug. 'I'm a journalist.'

'There's something I need to know. I need to find out if--'

'Whoa, Chris.' She gave him a hard little smile. 'Slow down. Now I may have just gone over the line a little with that b.i.t.c.hy crack about your wife. But that doesn't mean you own a part of me. Why the f.u.c.kwould I put pressure on one of my hard-won sources for you? What's in it for me?'

'You're writing another book, right?'

She nodded.

'So this is a whole chapter if you're lucky.' He hesitated at the edge, looking for something to fill the gap that had suddenly opened up between them. 'You heard I was up against a no-namer last week?'

'Yes. Inconclusive, I heard. Driver Control had to come in and mediate.' She smiled, a little more warmly this time. 'I'm sorry, Chris.

I like you but I don't shadow you through the net on a day-to-day basis.

There was something about a software failure, the challenge didn't register in the system or something?'

'Yeah, that's the official line.'

One eyebrow arched. He thought there was a little mockery in it.

'And the unofficial line?'

226'The no-namer was never registered in the first place. Some zone kid jacked a battlewagon and tried to take me down in the rain. No challenge issued. And Driver Control didn't mediate, they turned up with an enforcement copter after I drove the kid off the road and they fed him a couple of cans of gatling sh.e.l.ls for breakfast.'

He saw, with some satisfaction, the way the shock went through her.

How her carefully constructed cool fractured open. Her voice, when it came, was almost a whisper.

'They killed him?'

'Pretty conclusively, yeah.'

'But haven't they traced the car?'

Chris nodded. 'To an unemployed datasystems consultant. He reported it stolen from outside his house in Harlesden about an hour after the duel.'

'He must have known before that!'

'Not necessarily. He hadn't driven it for a while, apparently. Couldn't afford to renew the licence this quarter.'

'Do you believe that?' Journalistic interest kindling.

'From the look of him in the interview tape, he'd be hard-pushed to afford a full tank of fuel, let alone a licence to use it, so yes, I do. But in the end it doesn't matter. Whoever set this up is a long way up the chain from either him or the kid who nicked the car. And whoever set this up also has their claws into Driver Control.'