Greg gave Eleanor a final kiss, and clambered down the nettle-swamped limestone.

There were two security division hardliners waiting for him at the bottom of the hatchway stairs. Pearse Solomons and Malcolm Ramkartra; depressingly young, healthy, and respectful.

"Good morning, sir. We've been instructed to provide you with backup should you request it," Pearse Solomons told him.

Greg's espersense picked up a hint of resentment in the man's mind. Not a total cyborg after all, then. He went up the stairs in an improved frame of mind.

The windowless cabin had fifteen seats, a compact rosewood cocktail bar at the rear, and a flatscreen on the forward bulkhead beside the door into the cockpit.

Suzi and Rachel Griffith were sitting at the back. Suzi lounging lethargically in her chair, dressed in a dark purple shellsuit. Her mousy hair had been given a crew cut. At least she didn't dye it mauve these days.

"Christ, you look keen," she said.

Greg sat in the seat beside her. "You know me."

"Yeah. Me too. I feel like I've been press-ganged."

Greg gave Rachel an apologetic shrug.

"I gave up hardlining ten years ago," Rachel said. "Exec assistant suited me just fine."

"Just point her out to us," Greg said. "Your job ends there."

"Yes," Rachel said; she looked troubled.

Pearse Solomons and Malcolm Ramkartra came up the stairs and sat in the front two seats. The belly hatch slid shut.

Malcolm Ramkartra picked up a slim phone that was built into his armrest. He turned to Greg and Suzi. "Is Monaco still the destination?"

"Yeah," Greg said. "And tell the pilot to put the nose camera image on the screen after we lift."

"Yes, sir." Malcolm Ramkartra spoke briefly into the handset.

"We travel on these planes when we go on holiday with Julia," Greg said. "I never can get used to not having a port. I grew up with aircraft that you can see out of."

There was a gentle whine from the fans as they spun up. The deck tilted back slightly.

Suzi grunted. "Didn't know you went on holiday together."

"Sure. The kids are all big mates. And I sometimes think Eleanor and I are the only ordinary people Julia knows."

"You're ordinary, huh?" Suzi grinned evilly.

"More than you, dear, that's a fact." He felt a press of acceleration as the Pegasus surged upwards. The flatscreen lit up, showing blue sky, splashes of white cloud piling up in the south, and a big pink-gold sun lifting over the horizon.

"It was bad at the start," Greg said. "People thought we were an easy route to her. The rich and the social climbers. We couldn't move for presents and invitations. The way they behave, it's ridiculous, disgusting really. Say hello to one, and you're a lifelong friend. They don't know what shame is. One birthday the drive looked like the end of a car factory production line; Jags, Ferraris, Lotuses, MGs. Two of them had a ribbon tied round, for Christ's sake. I sent them all back to the garages. That type just don't know when to give up. And I couldn't count how many times I've been asked to be a non-executive director—" He became aware of Suzi's silent unsympathetic stare.

"It's a hard life, isn't it?" she said.

The Pegasus flew at an altitude of twenty kilometres, turning south above the North Sea and passing over the English Channel at Mach two. They hit Mach four heading into the Bay of Biscay, then went subsonic to cross the Pyrenees.

Greg watched their approach to the tiny coastal principality on the bulkhead flatscreen. Circles predominated below, almost as if some weird genealogy of symmetrical aquatic creatures was surfacing to storm ashore. The pink rings of the tidal turbine lagoons, flat dusty-grey field of the airport. Then there was the Monaco dome itself, a faintly translucent golden egg that had driven itself into the cliffs. Two thirds of it extended out into the rich blue water of the sea, radiating white jetties like wheel spokes. He could just make out shaded rectangular outlines through the monolattice shell.

The Pegasus settled on to the airport island. Over half of the parked planes were similar white arrowhead executives, the passenger jets were long flattened cones with narrow fin wings.

Pearse Solomons and Malcolm Ramkartra stood as the belly hatch popped open.

"Are you carrying?" Greg asked the hardliners as he came forwards.

"Yes, sir," Pearse Solomons said. "A Tokarev IRMS7 laser pistol."

"OK. Load up with a second, and come with us. Malcolm, you stay here, and maintain constant contact."

"I've got a Browning, fifty-shot maser," Suzi said as she slung a canvas Puma flight bag over her shoulder.

"I sort of took that for granted," Greg said.

It was hot outside, the expansion joints on the concrete apron creaking in protest, barely audible over the ever-present piccolo hiss of compressor fans. Greg slipped on a pair of Ferranti sunglasses.

Commissaire André Dubaud was waiting at the foot of the stairs, Monaco's deputy police chief.

"Trust him," Victor Tyo had told Greg. "He's good at his job, and he understands the politics involved with corporate cases. He's also totally paid for, so there shouldn't be any trouble."

They shook hands, and Greg introduced Suzi and Rachel. Commissaire Dubaud was in his mid-forties, wearing an immaculate black uniform with a peaked cap.

"Mr. Tyo informs me you are looking for a girl," he said.

"That's right," Greg said. "We don't know her name, but she was definitely at the Newfields ball three days ago."

"May I enquire why you are hunting her?" André Dubaud nodded pointedly at the Pegasus. "This seems rather a large operation to track down one good-time girl."

"Certainly. She was in possession of a certain item which interests us. We'd like to ask her a few questions about it."

André Dubaud glanced at his polished shoes. "Very well. Are you intending to extradite her?"

"No. She will answer everything I ask her."

"So?"

"No messing," Greg said.

They drove into the dome in André Dubaud's official car, a black Citroën with fold-down chairs in the rear. Greg thought it was the kind of limo a head of state would normally ride in.

He looked hard at a thick white pillar sticking out of the water halfway across. It was made of metal, topped by a petalsegment composite hemisphere. There was another one five hundred metres past the first, heat distortion above the sea made it impossible to see if there was a third.

"What are they?" he asked.

"Tactical defence lasers," André Dubaud said. "If Nice comes knocking again, those bastards will wish they hadn't. The principality is impervious to all forms of attack now, from rioters with stones all the way up to KE harpoons. It has to be done, of course. Our inhabitants are the natural targets to certain kinds of diseased minds. But they're entitled to live like anyone else. Inside our dome civilization is total. The one place in the world where you can walk down any street at any time, and never have to look over your shoulder."

"It sounds as if your department is doing an excellent job," Greg said. He glanced at Suzi, but she was hunched down in the Citroën's leather seat, staring out of the tinted window, her size making her appear like a sulking child. She hadn't spoken since being introduced to the Commissaire. They were total opposites; Greg reckoned Dubaud knew it as well. If she hadn't been operating under Julia's aegis, he doubted Suzi would even have been allowed to land at the airport.

"There is a degree of fraud perpetrated by our financial community," André Dubaud said. "But physical crime—property theft, the act of violence—that is unheard of."

By banishing the poor, Greg thought, the people who commit robbery and muggings. Monaco hadn't solved crime, they'd just dumped the problem on someone else. Not even New Eastfield in Peterborough went that far. He could sense the stubborn pride in André Dubaud's mind, mingling with a trace of what seemed suspiciously like paranoia. He held back on the urge to inject some sarcastic observations. Maybe that's why Suzi had kept silent, instinctively recognizing the futility. Trying to reason with someone like André Dubaud about basic human dignity would be like pissing in the wind.