As he opened the door to go, Liz Linshaw called him back.

‘Chris, I’ll be in touch,’ she said.

Back at Shorn, he went down to the gym and did an hour of full contact with the autobag.

He worked late.

He took the Nemex to the firing ranges, and emptied two dozen clips into the ghost-dance of holotargets there. The machine scored him high on accuracy and speed, abysmally low on selection. He’d killed too many innocent bystanders.

And then it was Saturday.

It was time.

Chapter Thirty-Six

There were police trucks gathered at the entrance to the Brundtland. Revolving blue lights slashed the poorly-lit walkways and stair-stacks with monotonous regularity, each touch fleeting and then gone, giving way again to the gloom. Torch beams and bulky armoured figures moved on the exterior walkways. An ampbox blattered across the night.

‘Ah fuck.’ Chris braked the Landrover to a halt.

Carla stared at out at the lights, wide eyed. ‘Do you think ...’

‘I don’t know. Stay here.’

He left the engine running and climbed down, digging in his pocket for corporate ID, hoping the Nemex didn’t show under the jacket. A body-armoured police sergeant noticed the new arrival and detached himself from the knot of figures beside the trucks. He strode across the cracked concrete, torch and sidearm held high.

‘You can’t come in here.’

Chris held his ID out in the beam of the torch. ‘I’m visiting someone. What’s going on?’

‘Oh.’ The sergeant’s tone shifted, abruptly conciliatory. He holstered his pistol. ‘Sorry, sir. With what you’re driving, you know, I didn’t realise.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Chris manufactured a grin of forbearance. ‘Easy mistake to make. My wife’s wheels. Sentimental value. So what’s going on here?’

‘It’s drugs, sir. Bathroom edge. A couple of the local gangwits have been bad boys. Exporting their product across the line, dealing in the Kensington catchment. Hanging around the schools and such.’ The sergeant grimaced in the torchlight and shook his head. ‘Not the first time either, and the community leaders have been warned before, so it’s the next step. We’ve been told to turn up the heat on cases like this. You know how it’s done, sir. Break a few doors, break a few heads. Only thing gets through to these animals in the end.’

‘Sure. Look, I need to get up to the fifth floor and see my father-in-law. It’s quite urgent. Can you do something about that?’

Hesitation. Chris switched on the grin again. Reached carefully into his jacket pocket, well above the Nemex.

‘I understand it’s trouble you don’t need right now, but it is important. I’d be very grateful.’

The torchlight gleamed off the edges of the racked plastic and the Shorn Associates holologo on the front card. At the back, the wallet was stiff with a thick sheaf of cash. The sergeant was looking down at it like someone afraid of falling.

‘Fifth floor?’ he said.

‘That’s right.’

‘Just a moment, sir.’ He dug out a phone and thumbed it to life. ‘Gary? You there? Listen, are we working on five? No? So what’s the nearest? Okay. Thanks.’

He stowed the phone. Chris handed across a slice of currency.

‘Should be safe enough to go up there, sir. I’ll have a couple of my men take you up, just to be sure.’ He folded the notes into his palm with an awkwardness that bespoke lack of practice, and looked back at the Landrover. ‘Your wife too?’

‘Yeah. Tell the truth, she wants to be here a lot more than I do.’

Their escort took the form of two helmeted, body-armoured uniforms with pump action shotguns and hip-holstered pistols. They bounded from the rear of the reserve truck like eager dogs when their names were called. One was white, one black, and neither looked old enough to be shaving yet. They covered angles in the stairwell with a kind of self-conscious intensity that on older men might have looked like professionalism, and once or twice they grinned at each other. The white kid chewed gum mechanically throughout, and the black kid appeared to be rapping under his breath. They both seemed to be enjoying themselves. When the party reached the fifth floor, Chris gave them a fifty apiece and they clattered back down the stairs with what sounded like none of the drilled caution they’d exhibited on the way up.

Carla knocked at the door of fifty-seven. Erik answered, looking haggard.

‘I tried to call. The police—‘

‘Just talked to them,’ said Chris, luxuriating in the advantage. ‘It’s an edge bust. Nothing to worry about.’

Erik Nyquist’s mouth tightened.

‘Yes, I forgot,’ he said thinly. ‘A different matter when you’re a member of the elite, isn’t it. When—‘

‘Dad!’

‘Maybe we could come in,’ added Chris.

Nyquist gave him a venomous look, but he stood aside and they filed through into the lounge. Behind him, Chris heard the door being locked and bolted. Almost as loud through the cardboard-thin walls of the lounge, he could hear raised voices from the flat next door, and what sounded like a baby crying. He glanced around the cramped living space, kept an expression of distaste off his face with an effort, and seated himself gingerly in one of the battered armchairs. He looked up as Nyquist followed Carla into the room.

‘Getting on with the neighbours okay?’ he asked brightly, nodding towards the noise next door. ‘Sounds a little below your level of intellectual debate.’

interfering fucking cunt came leaking through the wall.

Erik looked at him stonily. ‘He’s a dealer. He’s probably expecting to have his skull caved in by your stormtroopers out there.’

‘No danger of that. Their commander told me they’re not working this floor. Want me to go next door and tell him?’

‘In those clothes?’ Erik sneered. ‘He’d probably stab you as soon as look at you.’

‘He could try.’

‘Oh yes, I forgot. I have a professional killer for a son-in-law.’

Chris rolled his eyes and was on his way to his feet when he caught a glare from Carla that stopped him.

‘Dad, that’s enough.’

Nyquist looked at his daughter and sighed.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Let’s get on with this.’

Chris clapped his hands together, pistol-shot loud. The voices next door stopped abruptly.

‘Suits me. So where is Vasvik? Hiding in the toilet?’

Carla made an angry gesture at him. Erik moved to a table loaded with bottles and glasses. His voice was toneless with suppressed anger. He picked up a bottle and studied the label intently.

‘Perhaps you’d like to act as if you were civilised for a change, Chris. I’m aware that the strain might be too much, but maybe you should try. This man is a guest in my house, and he, in fact everyone in this room, is taking chances for your benefit.’

‘Glem det, Erik.’ Truls Vasvik had appeared in the lounge doorway, scruffily dressed and running stubble. He looked tired. ‘Faulkner’s here to negotiate, just like me. The only favours he owes are to you for getting involved.’

Chris shook his head. ‘You’re wrong about that, Vasvik. I’m not here to negotiate. I’ve told you what I want and it’s not negotiable. Simple yes or no will do.’

‘Well then.’ Vasvik dropped into the other armchair, eyes speculative on Chris’s face. ‘The answer is yes. UNECT will take you. But I’m afraid there’s a catch. A sub-clause, I guess you’d call it.’

Chris looked up at Carla, whose face had gone from tension to relieved delight to puzzlement in as many seconds. He felt a petty, jeering sense of vindication rising in him.

‘What sub-clause?’ he asked.

‘You’ll have to wait.’ Vasvik was still watching him carefully. ‘For the extraction, I mean. We will extract you, and you will be paid what you ask. But we need you in place for another three to six months. Until the Cambodia contract has matured.’

‘What the—‘ Chris stopped himself with an effort of will and worked back to the easy confidence he’d come in with. ‘What the fuck do you know about the Cambodia contract, Vasvik?’