And you’re pinned down, overdeployed, no way to—

The solution boiled out at him like the milk froth from the steamer, bubbling up on itself as it unfolded. It might have been the cross-hatched patterning of the yellow and black tiles behind the counter, or maybe just the results of dissociative thinking, a technique he’d picked up from a psych seminar the week before. Whatever it was, he fielded the insight and took it back up in the Shorn elevator with his coffee.

‘Cambodia Resourcing continues to lead the rising stock trend,’ the elevator informed him as they powered upward. ‘With end-of-day trading at—‘

He tuned it out. He already knew.

Alike Bryant was talking to the machine. Chris could hear him through the door, dictating in jagged pieces to the datadown. It was a chewed-over version of a document to the Cambodian rebels that they’d been working on most of yesterday. The East Asia Trade and Investment Commission was leaning on them for Charter compliance with an uncharacteristic fervour. Industrial espionage reports suggested Nakamura bribes were going in at high level.

‘We have no interest in the so-called, no, scratch that, no interest in the areas you have designated resettlement zones, nor are we concerned with what goes on within those zones. The administration of the camps is, of course, not within our jurisdiction provided no overt human rights abuse, uh-uh, provided no human rights abuse, mhmmm, no, back up again, not within our jurisdiction, uhhh, provided, given that, oh fuck it—‘

Chris grinned and knocked at the door.

‘What?’ Bryant bellowed.

‘Having trouble?’

‘Chris!’ Bryant stood poised in the middle of his office space, arms slung on a polished wood baseball bat that he’d braced at the nape of his neck. It gave him the posture of a man crucified, and the tiredness in his face did nothing to alter the impression. ‘Would you believe I’ve been on this motherfucker since eight this morning. It has to go to the uplink at noon, and I’m still splitting fucking hairs on the covering letter. Listen to this.’ He walked to the desk and read aloud from a piece of hardcopy that curled from the datadown printer. ‘ “The administration of the camps is, of course, not within our jurisdiction, provided no human rights abuse occurs.” Sary’s going to go through the roof if we send him that - he’ll say we’re implying the Friday statement’s a lie.’

‘It is, isn’t it?’

‘Please.’ Bryant rolled his neck against the wood of the bat. ‘I’m trying to do politics here. We can’t imply he’s lying.’

‘I thought we were going to go with “given that no human rights abuse is occurring”.’

Bryant shook his head. ‘Won’t wash with the UN. There’s an Amnesty report doing the rounds in Norway and no one’s prepared to deny it at ministerial level. We’ve got to stay “vague but firm”. That’s a direct quote from Hewitt.’

‘Vague but firm.’ Chris pulled a face. ‘Nice.’

‘Fucking Amnesty.’

‘Yeah, well. Shit happens.’ Chris came and stood at Bryant’s shoulder, reading the hardcopy. ‘What about ...’

He tore the sheet from the printer and scanned it. Bryant unslung the baseball bat from his shoulder and parked it in a corner.

‘... Confident. That’s it, look. Admin of the camps blah blah blah not within our jurisdiction and we are confident that no human rights abuse, no, that none of the alleged human rights abuse has occurred.’ He handed back the sheet. ‘How about that?’

Bryant snatched it.

‘You bastard. Forty-five fucking minutes I’ve been staring at this.’

‘Caffeine.’ Chris held up his take-out from Louie Louie’s. ‘Want some?’

‘I’m all caffeined out. I was in at six with Makin, and this landed on my desk an hour ago from upstairs. Notley and the policy board.

Response required. As if I didn’t have enough else to do. Let’s see ... “that none of the alleged human rights abuse has occurred”. Right. Now what about this? “However we cannot permit your forces to obstruct the passage of fuel and supplies”.’

‘Try “forces operating in the area”. Takes the sting out of it and makes him feel like a big man. Like you’re asking him to police the zone generally, not just get a grip on his own troops.’

Bryant muttered and scribbled on the hardcopy as he read it back. ‘ “However we cannot permit forces operating in the area to obstruct the passage of fuel and” blah blah blah blah. That’s it. Brilliant.’

Chris shrugged. ‘Ready-wrapped. I used the same scam on the Panthers of Justice a couple of weeks back, and they lapped it up. Stopped the banditry dead. All most of these rebels really want is some kind of recognition. Paternal acknowledgement from some kind of patriarchal authority. According to Lopez, it had them swaggering around, posting police directives in every village.’

Mike barked a laugh. ‘Lopez? That Joaquin Lopez?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So you put Harris up to tender after all.’

‘Well, like you said. It was our investment he was fucking with. And Lopez works flat out for a half per cent less of total. Really took Harris apart in the bullring too, apparently.’

‘Yeah, he’s still young enough to have the drive. Harris burnt out years ago, it’s just no one ever called him on it. You did the whole industry a service putting him out.’

‘It was your idea. If anything, I owe you one for the advice. So anyway, what’s this six a.m. shit with Makin? Anything I should know about?’

‘Nah, shouldn’t think—‘ Bryant stopped. ‘Actually, maybe I should bounce it off you. You worked the NAME, didn’t you? North Andean Monitored Economy? Back when you were at HM?’

Chris nodded. ‘Yeah, we were into the ME in a big way. Anybody with a decent emerging markets portfolio had to be. Why, what’s going on down there now?’

‘Ah, it’s fucking Echevarria again. You remember that first day we met in the gents, I told you I was off to see some greasy dictator for a budget review?’

‘That was Hernan Echevarria? I thought he was dying.’

‘No such luck. The old bastard’s pushing eighty, he’s had major surgery twice in the last decade, and he’s still hanging on. He’s grooming his eldest son, in true corrupt land-owning motherfucker fashion, to take over the whole show when he’s gone. And, as you’d expect with these hacienda families, the son’s a complete fucking waste of space.

Spends all his time in Miami doing the casinos, powdering his nose and fucking the local gringas.’

Chris offered another shrug. ‘Sounds okay. Easy enough to control, anyway.’

‘Not on present showing.’ Bryant punched a couple of points on the datadown screen and the display shifted. ‘See, Echevarria junior’s making a lot of friends in Miami. Investor friends.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes, oh. Fresh money, most of it homegrown, but some from Tokyo and Beijing via US management funds. Have a look at this little snap.’ Bryant turned the datadown screen to face Chris. ‘Taken aboard Haithem Al-Ratrout’s private yacht last week. You’ll recognise some faces.’

It was a standard paparazzi shot. Hurried and unflattering angles on people who usually only appeared in the public eye coated in a high media gloss. Chris spotted two Hollywood pin-ups of the moment displaying the cleavage for which they were famous, the US Secretary of State caught picking the olive out of his martini and—

‘Over on the left you’ve got Echevarria junior. The one in the Ingram suit and the stupid hat. And that next to him is Conrad Rimshaw, executive head of Conflict Investment for Lloyd Paul New York. On the other side and towards the back you’ve got Martin Meldreck from Calders Rapid Capital Deployment division. The vultures are gathering.’

‘But the father’s still ours so far, right?’

‘So far.’ Bryant nodded and touched another part of the screen. The photo minimised and gave way to a spreadsheet. ‘But it’s an uphill struggle. These are from the budget review I mentioned. The stuff in red is contested. He wants more, we can’t let him have it.’