"I know you," Eleanor said quickly. "You went up to Zanthus with Greg."

Victor Tyo seemed puzzled. "That's right, although can't say I remember you. I'm sure I would do."

"Greg's my man," she said simply.

"And we'd like to know what's happened to him," Suzi said.

"Happened?"

"Yeah," said Teddy. "He never got back home after snatching that phyltre junkie from the di Girolamo yacht. Eleanor here is loaded up with grief about that. You know anything about it?"

Victor glanced round at the circle of faces. "I don't understand. Greg left the finance division offices right ahead of Miss Evans's convoy."

"When?"

"About half-past four this morning."

"You saw him leave?"

"Yes, he had Miss Thompson with him in the Duo. He said he'd be back later to help analyse some holomemories we'd acquired."

"The Crays from Ellis?" Teddy asked.

"How did you know?"

"Always cover yourself, Victor. Someone you trust. And don't sweat yourself, man, I ain't interested in no corporate politics. So Greg never showed today at all, right?"

"Not at the finance offices, no. But the programming assigned to crack the Crays squirted all the data they pulled out up here to the manor. I thought he must be here."

"Don't get it," said Suzi. "Nothing could happen to Greg, not with that Lady Gee in tow. She's in-fucking-credible, like nothing happens without her seeing it first. Nothing!"

"Then why did this virus get into the manor's gear?" Eleanor said. They all looked at her, faces gusted by random beams of blue and orange light from the vehicles in the distance. "Gabriel predicted the second hotrod attack against Wilholm, why not the third?"

"Shit," from Suzi.

"OK, so strike Gabriel," said Teddy. "She and Greg have been zapped—" he flinched, glanced at Eleanor, started again. "Least, we don't know what's happened to 'em; same time Wilholm gets burned again. You like maybe see a connection there, Victor?"

The Security Captain nodded earnestly. "I'll make absolutely sure that you get to the manor right after we debug the defence gear."

Teddy snorted. Eleanor was struck by just how menacing he'd become; nothing like the directionless thuggishness of Des, he focused his energy and anger with deadly precision. And she was very glad she wasn't on the receiving end of it. Victor Tyo was wilting under his stare, unable to look away.

"You're not reading me right, man," Teddy said softly. "The answers are in that fancy mansion your lady boss lives in, and we want them. Tonight. Now."

Victor spread his arms helplessly. "We're calling in all our security programmers, but it's the middle of the night. They'll produce an antithesis, but it's going to take time. There is nothing I can do that'll get us in there any sooner."

"Wrong, man. We're going in now, and you're coming with us."

"What?"

"Think about it. Security hardliners inside see us coming at them it's gonna be target-practice time. We need you out in front to show them we ain't hostile."

"You're insane," Victor Tyo said. "Do you have any idea what kind of hardware is guarding that manor?"

Teddy grinned and beckoned.

There were five electric Honda bikes behind the hedgerow. Des was waiting with them, along with Roddy and another Trinity called Jules. All of them wearing the same black jumpsuit. Eleanor began to think it must be more than just a uniform.

Teddy flipped open a cybofax, showing it to Victor Tyo. "See this? List of Wilholm's defence gear. We know what they're loaded with, where it is, line of fire. Got our approach all figured out. We can handle the automatics, all we need now is some way of convincing the security hardliners not to shoot after we've broken through. That's you, man."

Victor Tyo took the cybofax, holding it gently as he read down the screen, dismay growing on his face. "Where in Christ's name did you get this from? Every byte here is ultra-hush."

"Snatched right out of your security division cores," Teddy said. "Now you believe we're serious?"

Royan, Eleanor knew. The thought that he was behind them, an intangible general, bolstered her in a way she couldn't define. She actually began to believe there might be hope after all.

The Hondas took them across country, heading for the back of the Wilholm estate in a long, flat curve to avoid the police patrols checking the perimeter. Eleanor rode pillion behind Suzi, clinging tenaciously to the wiry Trinities girl, sugar cane beating at her legs and arms. She could see the front wheel-fork's chrome suspension springs hammering up and down as the bike bounced over the compacted furrows of sandy red soil. They were travelling in single file, with Teddy leading; Nicole was his passenger.

There'd never been any question over the marine-adept woman joining the break-in team, which irked Eleanor, because Teddy hadn't wanted to take her along.

"No offence, gal," he'd said calmly. "But you ain't used to this kind of heat."

"So how many times have you broken into a place like this?" she'd retorted.

"That ain't the point. My troops, they got the discipline, know weapons."

"I used shotguns and rifles at my kibbutz. And I'll just follow you after you go in."

"Shit, OK gal, but Greg'll have my arse if he ever finds out. Guess there's more to you than—well, you check out neat."

More than tits 'n' ass, Eleanor had filled in silently. But Teddy had stopped objecting after that. Some part of her wished he hadn't.

It was Suzi who'd given Eleanor one of the jumpsuits to put on. "It's an energy dissipater," she'd explained intently. "It can hold out against a hand-laser for a good twelve seconds. But with those Bofors masers they've got up at the manor, you've got maybe three, four seconds to skip out of the beam before burn-through."

Along with Victor and Nicole, Eleanor had stripped off before pulling the heavy garment on, its slippery, spongy lining clinging to her skin. When it had adjusted to her figure there was virtually no restriction of movement. A tight cap held her hair down, and a hood with an integral photon amp came over her face, sealing to the collar.

Once it was on she became appreciably colder, the thermal shunt fibres siphoning out her body heat.

"It's no use against bullets," Suzi went on. "Then you can't have everything. 'Sides, Wilholm only has beam weapons. So Son says. Better be fucking right."

The world as seen through the photon amp was a place of ghostly shadows, shaded blue and grey. Eleanor was gradually growing used to it; depth perception was a little misleading, but as long as she remembered that, there'd be no trouble. Suzi had shown her how to up the magnification, bleed in infrared. There was a throat-mike activated graphic overlay, the jumpsuit's internal gear already loaded with the route Royan had devised into Wilholm. Eleanor ran through an articulation acceptance check, and practised calling up the various data projections.

The Hondas were riding down a slight incline. Teddy's bike was slowing up ahead. Eleanor searched her mind, but there was no fear, only determination. A sense of inevitability. Teddy pulled up beside a broad fast-flowing stream at the bottom of the slope, sugar cane had given way to thick reedy grass. Suzi braked beside him.

They all gathered together at the water's edge. "We'll use a diamond formation," Teddy said in a low steady voice. "Eleanor and Victor at the centre; you two will carry the Rockwell cannon and its power units, it's heavy, but we're gonna need its firepower to take out the manor's Bofors masers when we get within range. The rest of you are gonna provide us a three-sixty cover. Now you look out for those sentinel panthers, OK? You ain't never been up against 'em before, but I have. They're not simple modifications like police assault dogs, they're gene-tailored. Hazards don't come any bigger, they don't behave like animals, they're smart and sneaky with it. Your AKs can handle 'em, but it's gonna take more than one hit. OK, now remember, we stick to the water. The estate's got lotsa ground traps. They're listed, but in these conditions you're gonna have trouble matching the graphics to the landscape. The stream bed's safe, Jules, you stay out here, see to the receiver."