The Pegasus was taxiing towards the lounge as they came out into the hangar. Greg went up the belly-hatch stairs first, then Pearse, Suzi followed with Rachel bringing up the rear.

Malcolm had been lowered into one of the chairs at the front of the cabin. A couple of wall lockers were open, aluminium first aid cases on the floor. Pearse was easing his colleague's tattered soggy jacket off. "We'll have to cut the trousers," he said. It was all very tight and professional, she thought.

"Fine," Greg muttered, raiding the first aid kits for a diagnostic sensor and antiseptic sprays. He handed Pearse an infuser tube, which the hardliner pressed against Malcolm's neck

The belly hatch slid shut.

"Where to?" Rachel asked.

"Out," Suzi said. "Now. We should have some co-ordinates coming from Julia in a little while. But just get us out."

Rachel snatched up the handset.

Suzi started worrying about Leol Reiger's transport. Himself, a psychic, and at least six hardliners; whatever he'd arrived in it had to be big, and probably loaded with defence hardware, knowing Leol.

"Grab hold of something," Rachel called.

The flatscreen showed the Pegasus turning towards one of the lift platforms. Suzi could hear the compressors surging. With a rush of childish delight she knew what the pilot was going to do. She sank quickly into one of the chairs. Her knee was giving her hell.

There was a push of acceleration, and the Pegasus began its run for the platform. Hangar staff rushed to get clear. She felt the drop as they shot over the edge, her belly suddenly freefalling. The grassy valley floor with its railway lines and twin autobahns filled the flatscreen. Then they were bottoming out, swooping up again above the Prezda's dome.

"Is this plane fitted with an ECM system?" she asked.

Rachel looked up from the handset. "Yes."

"Tell the pilot to use it, and fly an evasion pattern through the mountains. We might be followed."

"Right."

"Suzi!" Greg called. "Take over from me, will you?"

She rose from the chair, the pain in her knee more acute. Malcolm was unconscious; Pearse had got his jacket and shirt off, and was spraying the wounds with antiseptic. The clear oily liquid mixed with blood, forming runnels across Malcolm's ribs, splashing on the chair fabric.

Suzi checked the data the diagnostic was displaying on its screen. Her guess about the blood had been right, he was losing too much. She found a plasma bladder, and pulled out its bioware leech patch. The patch resembled a flattened snail, a hard carapace with a soft spongy underside, connected to the plasma bladder with a plastic tube. She held Malcolm's forearm and pressed the leech pad against his skin. There was a soft sucking sound as it adhered. The pattern of yellow and green LED on the bladder's pump changed as the leech patch inserted its needle probes into his blood vessels, then it began feeding plasma into him.

Greg sat down gingerly in one of the chairs, and gave Victor Tyo's number to his cybofax.

Suzi heard the security chief say, "Bloody hell, what happened to you?"

"Tell you, we're not the only people looking for Charlotte Fielder." He started to fill Victor in on the events in the Prezda.

Suzi began spraying dermal seal on Malcolm's lacerations; the foam sizzled as it touched the skin, rapidly solidifying into a pale blue membrane. She was continually bracing herself as the plane banked and rose. Malcolm's back had been badly slashed by the flying glass. She had to use flesh tape on the wider cuts. Pearse was working on his legs, using a small sensor pad to find any buried glass fragments.

"Hey," she said quietly. "He did all right, your mate. Stopped those tekmercs dead."

"Reason he was chosen," Pearse grunted.

"Yeah, right." Suzi heard Greg rounding up, and asked Rachel to finish for her. She limped back to where Greg was sitting. A glance at the bulkhead flatscreen showed a continual blur of rock

"You too?" Victor asked when Greg handed her the cybofax.

Suzi sat heavily in one of the chairs, grimacing. The hand she was holding the cybofax with was filmed in dried blood, and not all of it was Malcolm's. "Yeah. But you should see the opposition."

"I know, Greg told me."

"Listen, Leol Reiger, I know him. He's a prize turd, but the bastard's good."

"I'm reviewing his profile now, Suzi. But I was aware of the name. Have you got any idea who employed him, any rumours?"

"Nope, sorry. Gave me a fuck of a shock seeing him there." She stared at Victor's concerned young-seeming face, her instincts rebelling against confiding in him. Security man. But she had hardlined with him once, seventeen years ago, some weird case Greg was working on for Julia. It was just she hated opening herself to anyone. "Victor, there's this girl. Name's Andria Landon. She's in my apartment at the Soreyheath condominium; not a hardliner, not even tekmerc. Means she can't look out for herself. So if Leol Reiger wants to hit me, she's the obvious choice. You got a safehouse she can stay at till I get back?"

"No problem, I'm dispatching a couple of my people, they'll have her out of there in twenty minutes." He said it all crisp and efficient, which she figured was his way of not showing surprise.

"They've got to be good, Victor."

He was looking at something off-screen, typing. "They will be. Call her now and tell her they're coming: Howard Lovell, and Katie Sansom. Got the names?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Victor."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Victor came down out of the Pegasus on to Wilholm Manor's lawn. He was greeted by a rich scent of honeysuckle in the moist air. The sprinklers had been on, drenching the lawns, keeping the grass lush and green. His shoes were swiftly coated in the artificial dew.

The Manor in front of him was a long classical grey-stone building, three stories high. It dated back to the eighteenth century, although it had undergone considerable modernization and refurbishment over the years. The last major overhaul had come when Julia and Philip Evans bought it, right after PSP fell, ousting the communal farmers and virtually gutting the interior before returning it to an opulence of a bygone age.

Wilholm estate was a rare enclave of gracious living, Victor always thought, out of sync with the present and all its digital bustle. A true English country house, basking in an eternal Indian summer. Birds always singing, flowers always in bloom. Time slowed down here.

Rick Parnell trotted down the stairs out of the executive hypersonic's belly hatch, carrying his suit jacket over his shoulder. When he was clear of the plane he turned a full circle, gawping at the grounds like an overawed tourist. "Bloody hell, you mean somebody actually lives here? It looks like a theme park."

"It's your boss who lives here, just remember," Victor said.

Rick Parnell was staring at the trout lake at the bottom of the gardens; now the hypersonic's compressors had wound down the noise of the waterfall on the far side was clearly audible. Beyond the dark water was a dense stretch of woodland. The Chinese yew and virginciana trees were draped in a lacework of dark green ivy and clematis vines, clusters of plate-sized red and lilac flowers dangling. They had survived the spring hurricanes again, the few trunks that had keeled over adding to the rustic authenticity of the spinney. It was hard to believe that the grounds were only eighteen years old.

Paths crisscrossed the lawn, fenced by topiary drimys and japonicas, elaborate cockerels, dogs, bears, concentric spheres, and one giant pair of shears. A wide lily pond had a statue of Venus in the centre, shooting a fountain five metres into the air. Boxy orange drones crawled along the flower borders, digesting faded roses and forking out weeds.