'Echevarria is the established '

'Philip.' Notley wagged a finger at the junior partner. 'Let him finish.'

'In fact,' Chris saw the opening and accelerated into it. 'The client change was news to me until this meeting, which wasn't helpful. If I warned Barranco off, it was because I thought someone was running infiltration into the account ''Oh, please.' Louise Hewitt pulled a face. 'This is your job on the line, Chris. Surely you can do better than that.'

'This morning, Louise, I received a direct call from the captain of the sub freighter we're using to ship Barranco's arms. She's stuck in 343Faslane, waiting fir freight that isn't coming because thl),' Chris indicated Hamilton, 'genius has had it rerouted to the NAME military.

Only he didn't think to inform me of the fact, so all I can a.s.smne is outside interference. I act accordingly, I protect our client as best I can. I get slammed for it, when the real problem here is a lack of top-down communication.'

'You're lying,' said Hamilton angrily. He also had seen the loophole.

'Am I, Philip?' Chris turned to gesture at Mike Bryant. 'Ask Mike.

He's been as much in the dark as I have, he knows all about the sub freighter call, because the two of us were both trying to work out what thef.u.c.k was going on this morning. Right, Mike?'

Bryant shifted in his seat. For the first time ever that Chris could remember, he looked uncomfortable.

Notley's gaze sharpened. 'Mike?'

'Yeah, that's right.' Bryant sighed. 'Sorry, Phil. Louise. Chris is right.

You should have told us earlier.'

Hamilton leaned across the table, flushed. 'Bryant, you kezv --'

'I knew there was a policy meeting, and yeah, from the hints you dropped, I guessed the way it was going. But there was nothing solid, Phil. And nothing about the shipments. You know,' a sideways glance at his friend, 'I didn't know what Chris was going to do, but I couldn't tell him for sure what was going on either. I can see why he would have played it the way he did.'

The roon was still. A glance crackled between Hamilton and Hewitt.

No one spoke. Jack Notley steepled his fingers.

'Is there anything else?' he asked quietly.

Louise Hewitt shrugged. 'Only that what we've heard is a pack of lies designed to hide the fact that Chris has gone political on us.'

'Anything constructive,' asked Notley, still more softly.

'Yes,' said Chris, thinking of Lopez, tossed into the arena and up against a twenty-year-old blade sicario who'd be savage with favela poverty and sight of a way out. Thinking of Barranco, machine gunned to death on a darkened beach, blood leaking into the sand under a shattering of gla.s.s shard stars. 'I am not political. My reasons for backing Vicente Barranco have nothing to do with politics. And anyone who wants to call that into question can see me on the road.'

344FORTY-THREE.

'You are a lying motherf.u.c.ker, Chris.' Mike Bryant paced back and forth in front of the BMW, furious. His feet crunched in the hard shoulder gravel. Off to one side, a breeze stirred the gra.s.s beside the motorway ramp. He stopped and jabbed a finger at Chris. 'You have turned political, haven't you.

f.u.c.king Barranco got to you, didn't he?'

Chris leaned on the still warm hood of the car, arms folded. The orbital stretched away below them, deserted as far as the eye could see in both directions. After the confines of the Shorn block, the sky over them seened enormous. They'd driven for less than an hour, but it felt as if they stood at the edge of the world.

'Oh, give me a f.u.c.king break. You're accusing me of politics. A week ago, Barranco was the horse to back. Now suddenly, he's unprofitable? What is that, Mike? That's not political?'

'The numbers make sense,' said Bryant.

'The numbers?' Chris came off the hood of the BMWT, taut with rage. 'The f.u.c.king numbers? That s.h.i.t is made up, Mike. You can make the numbers tell you any f.u.c.king thing you want them to. What about the numbers that made sense fir Barranco? What happened to them?

What are we, economists all of a sudden? You want to draw me a f.u.c.king curve? It's got nothing to do with reality, Mike. You know that.'

Mike looked away. 'That fact remains, Chris. You're in way too close with Barranco. You've got to come off the account. Let Hamilton run with it, see what happens.'

'Great. And meanwhile what happens to Joaquin Lopez?'

'That's not important!' Bryant made fists, punched exasperatedly off into the wind. 'f.u.c.k Chris, pay attention, will you. You can't get personal on this thing. It's just business. Lopez has been undercut, that's all there is to it. If this new guy can do the same work for a percentage point less commission, what the f.u.c.k are we doing still working with Lopez anyway?'

'It's a half per cent, Mike. And he's a twenty-year-old sicario, straight out of the favelas. How do we know what he'll do?'

'If he's hungry, he'll do well. They always do.'

'Oh, what the f.u.c.k are you talking about, Mike? You were at the briefing. This guy is cheap and aggressive, and that's all we know. He 345could be f.u.c.king illiterate for all the background Hamilton's shown us.

This is a bad call, Mike. This isn't business, it's a f.u.c.king greed call.

Can't you see that?'

'What I see, Chris, is that you're cruising for a fall.' Mike's voice softened, but it was the gentle tug of a steel tow cable, taking up slack. He moved in, stood close. 'I see why you're acting like this, but it's no good.

You're out of control. You're unmanageable. And we can't afford that, not in any of us. I'm sorry about what happened to your dad, really I am.'

Chris flinched away. Mike caught his arm.

'No, I am. I'm sorry about the zones and your mum and everything that's happened to you. But that's the past, Chris, and it's over. It doesn't give you an excuse to f.u.c.k up everyone else's life around here.

Now I'm telling you, listen to me, Chris, I'm telling you, you're off the NAME account. End of story. I'm the one that brought you aboard in the first place, and now I'm cutting you loose. It's not like you haven't got enough else to worry about. f.u.c.k, Chris, why don't you go home?

Talk to Carla, sort your life out.'

Chris shoved him away, both palm-heels into the chest. For a flashpoint second, both men almost dropped into a karate stance.

'I've told you before, Mike. I don't need marital advice from you.'

'Chris, you're throwing away the best--'

'Shut the f.u.c.k up!' The yell lashed out, fury etched with pain. 'What do you know about it, Mike, what thef.u.c.k do you know about it?'

'I know '

Chris cut across him savagely. 'Try staying faithful to Suki for ten minutes, why don't you? Try acting like a responsible father and husband for a change. Get your d.i.c.k out of Sally Hunting and Liz Linshaw and whoever else you're dipping it into these days. There. You enjoying this, Mike? Doesn't feel good, does it?'

'I'm not seeing Liz at the moment,' said Mike quietly. 'She's got a lot of work on. And I haven't f.u.c.ked Sally Hunting in better than six years.

You want to make sure of your facts before you start mouthing off.'

'I couldn't have put it better myself.'

They stood twitchily, facing each other across one corner of theBMW's hood. Very distantly, the sound came of a single vehicle on the orbital. Finally, Mike Bryant shrugged.

'Alright,' he said. 'If that's the way you want it. But what I said before stands. You're off the NAME account, you're- '

His phone queeped for attention: He grimaced and fished it out, pressed it impatiently to his ear. 'Yeah, Bryant. Out on the orbital, why?

Yeah, he's right here.'

He handed the phone to Chris.

'Hewitt,' he said.

346 ILouise Hewitt sat behind her desk, hands spread on its surface as if she night find built-in weaponry there to blast Chris into grease on the carpet. Her tone was chilly.

'Well, I'm glad you're back from your picnic in the country. There are a couple of things we need to clear up.'

Chris waited.

'Primarily, I'm concerned to get your files for the NAME transferred to Philip Hamilton's desk as soon as electronically possible. He'll need your Panama City contacts, the background data on Barranco, and any of the other insurgents you did work on for Hammett McColl.' She offered him a thin smile. 'Since we're now back in the business of helping the regime flatten its opponents, anything you have will be of some value.'

'Then maybe you should shut down the agency tender on Lopez. He knows the ground. That's value, right there.'

She looked him up and down, like a specimen of something she'd thought was extinct. 'Remarkable, Chris. Your capacity for inappropriate loyalty, I mean. Quite remarkable. However, I think we all agreed at the briefing that a clean break is essential. There's no telling what inconvenient loyalties Lopez himself may have. Perhaps he has, uh, bonded with Vicente Barranco as strongly as you have. The man is, by all accounts, quite inspiring.'

Nothing. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

'But I digress,' Hewitt said smoothly. 'In addition to the file transfer, I want you to prepare a formal statement of apology for your behaviour today. For posting on our intranet. First and foremost, that means an apology for your zone-mannered outburst in Philip's briefing, but it's not limited to that. There are other matters. I feel, and our senior partner concurs, that the apology had better also cover your failure to consult your colleagues before taking client-related decisions.'

'Notley said that?'

The thin smile again. 'He's not on your side, Chris, whatever you think. Don't make that mistake. Notley's concerned wholly with the success of Shorn Conflict Investment, with maybe a side interest in waving the Union Jack when he gets the chance. Call it a hobby. That's it, that's the whole story. At the moment, he still thinks you're a necessary component for the division to do well. Thus far, I've failed to persuade him otherwise, but I think, with your help today, he's coming around. I told you once you'd disappoint him, and I think we're closing on that.''That'd make you happy, would it?'

'What'd make me happy, Chris, is to take back our plastic from your 347lightly charred and broken corpse.' She shrugged. 'I'm unlikely to get that chance, of course. Policy doesn't allow us to duel across partner employee lines. But I will, I think, live to see you booted out of Shorn and back to the riverside slum existence you so eminently suit. I've told you before, and it's becoming clearer by the day, you do not belong here.'

Oddly, the line made him grin. 'Well, you're not the only person who thinks that, Louise.'

It got him a sharp look, but Hewitt wasn't biting.

'Notley and I have also agreed that you'd better draft the apology to Philip's specifications. A first draft by this evening. That's a minimum requirement if you intend to continue with this firm. Philip's in uplink conference right now, with Echevarria. But he'll be done by six. Take it in for his approval then. You might like to add a verbal apology at the same time.' She looked at him, grim amus.e.m.e.nt curled in the corner of her mouth. 'A personal touch, say. A little bridge-building.'

He walked out, wordless. Louise Hewitt watched him go, and as the door slammed, the smile broadened on her lips.

It took him the walk to his own office to decide. Two flights of stairs and a corridor. He saw no one. He reached the door with his name on it, stood facing the metalled slab for ten seconds, and then turned away.

He was a dozen paces away and accelerating before it had properly dawned on him what he was going to do.

I look after my people.

He found his way almost absently, most of him thinking about Carla and how f.u.c.king delighted she'd be to see his life come tumbling down like this. The main door to the conference room was locked, but the entrance to the covert viewing chamber was on a code he knew. He let himself in. Peered through the gloom and the gla.s.s panel.

In the conference room, Philip Hamilton sat opposite a holo of Francisco Echevarria. The dictator's son was dressed in his usual Susana Ingrain splendour. He looked hard and implacable against Hamilton's soft and light-suited untidiness.

' are aware that you have friends in Miami, and we have no desire to exclude them from the proceedings. You should certainly speak with Martin Meldreck at Calders, who will, I'm sure '

Enough. He coded himself through the connecting door, stood abruptly behind Hamilton. Echevarria's eyes widened as he stepped inside the pick-up field of the holoscanner and he knew that in thechamber on the other side of the world he had appeared, like a ghost at the feast.

Hamilton turned around in his chair.

348'Faulkner.' The wasn't worried yet, just surprised. Anger edged his cultured tones. 'What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing, interrupting me with a client?'

Chris grinned down at him. 'You wanted a statement from me.'

'Yes. In due course. At the moment, I'm busy. You can '

Chris. .h.i.t him. Open-handed, swinging from the shoulder. It took Hamilton across the side of the head and tipped him out of the chair.

'First draft.' Chris grabbed him up by the hair and hit him again in the face, this time with a fist. He felt the junior partner's nose break. He punched him once more for security and let go. Hamilton slumped to the floor like a filled sack. He turned about, reached Francisco Eche varria with his eyes.

'h.e.l.lo, Paco.' He got his breath back, straightened up the chair. 'You don't know me, do you? Allow me to introduce myself. I'm the man who beat your father to death.'

Echevarria's face tightened. 'Are you f.u.c.kin' crazy, man? You di'n kill my father.'

Chris settled into the chair. 'No, I did. The terrorist stuff was something we set up to cover what really happened. The CE , those guys, they went with the claim because it gives them prestige. Your father was a sick f.u.c.k, and anyone killing him could claim they'd done a good day's work.'

'You gonna f.u.c.kin' die for that, man.' The dictator's son was staring at him, transfixed. 'You gonna f.u.c.kin' die .'

'Oh, please. As I was saying, there's no way the, that bunch, are well enough organised to do something like that on the streets of London and get away with it. So, as I said, I killed your old man. I beat him to death, in this very room, with a baseball bat. All part of a day's work for the Shorn corporation. Check with Mike Bryant if you don't believe me, I'm a colleague of his.'

Echevarria's voice came out strangled. ' Yoz, '

'It's what we do here, Paco. Neoliberal commercial management.

Global mayhem, remote-control death and destruction. Market Forces in action. If you don't like it--'

Hamilton charged him from the side.

He had time to be impressed - fat f.u.c.k didn't look like he had it in him - then the chair went over and the junior partner was on top of him, bloodied nose spattering down into his face, soft hands digging into the cords of his throat with surprising strength.Chris wasted no time struggling. He got a grip on the little finger of Hamilton's right hand, curled it back and snapped it. Hamilton yelped and let go. Chris came up from the floor like a hinge and punched the partner in the throat. Hamilton lurched back, just on his feet, clutching 349at the point of impact. Somewhere on the other side of the world, Echevarria was yelling in Spanish. Chris got to his feet, stalked towards Hamilton. The partner's eyes widened. Chris threw a punch, Hamilton ducked and fended with a rusty boxing move, the other hand still at his throat. There wasn't much strength in it, and he came up panting.

Impatiently, Chris repeated the punch, snagged Hamilton's wrist with an aikido hold he knew and jerked the partner off balance towards him.

He punched low into the expansive gut, and as Hamilton spasmed, he grabbed him round the neck and yanked up and round.

It had the fury of the whole day behind it.

It snapped Hamilton's neck.

Chris heard the m.u.f.fled crack, and as the partner went limp in his grip, the rage drained out of him. He let go and Hamilton hit the floor.