‘Can’t we just have the guy wiped?’

‘Oh, what do you think Langley are trying to do right now? Chris, he worked for them. He was on the inside. You don’t think he’s going to have covered himself? He’s grabbed the discs and gone underground.’

‘Okay, so get someone else, someone better than Langley. Special Air, or one of the Israeli contractors.’

‘Same applies, Chris. First they’ve got to find the fucker. And meanwhile ScandiNet and FreeVid are leaking this fucking stuff like vindaloo diarrhoea. We’re going to have the UN charter people all over us by end of the week at the outside.’

‘Well, look.’ Chris frowned. Something didn’t fit here. ‘Calm down. They don’t have any power of access. All they can do is make a noise. We fight them in the courts, the whole thing boils down to two years’ paperwork and legal wrangling. What are you getting so bent out of shape about?’

‘It’s bad for fucking business, alright. Leakage of any sort. Kind of publicity we don’t need.’

‘Yeah, well, speaking of bad for business, you’d better get onto your pal Sally Hunting. I’ve just had a Russian sub commander yelling at me because she’s been waiting four days at Faslane for a NAME shipment that hasn’t turned up.’

There was a beat of silence. ‘What?’

‘You heard. Barranco’s Mao sticks have gone walkabout. No one at Faslane can find them.’

‘That can’t be.’ There was an odd strain in the other man’s voice.

‘Can be. Is. Look, I’m going to ring Lopez in Panama. See if he knows anything. You get onto Sally, then call me back.’

Lopez wasn’t answering. Chris hung up and was about to try again when the datadown lit with an incoming video call from Philip Hamilton. He frowned again and picked up.

‘Yeah?’

Hamilton’s soft features resolved on the screen. ‘Ah. Chris. There you are.’

‘Yeah.’ Still the vague sense of something out of place. He’d had almost no dealings with the junior partner since he joined Shorn. Some of the Central American stuff he’d inherited from Makin brushed up against Hamilton’s accounts, but—

‘What can I do for you, Philip?’

‘Well, Chris.’ The junior partner’s tone was silky. ‘It’s more a case of what I can do for you, I think. You’ve no doubt heard about the Langley crisis.’

‘Yeah. Mike t—‘ He just stopped himself. ‘I was just talking to Mike about it. Archive material, they reckon. Suggests the Cambodia stuff might not be included.’

‘That’s correct.’ Hamilton nodded. His chins folded. ‘In fact, we just got confirmation. Good news for everybody. Louise will probably forward it down to you shortly. But, ah, it seems there is one covert operation that will crop up, and unfortunately it has your name on it. I’m talking about the action you took against Hernan Echevarria’s security forces in Medellin.’

Now the sense of wrongness was quick and jagged. Like the floor cracking apart under him.

He covered it with drawl. ‘Yeah. So?’

‘Well, I think under the circumstances, and given recent developments with the Echevarria regime, the best thing would probably be if you were removed from the NAME account, at least for the time being.’

Chris sat up. ‘You can’t fucking do that.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘What developments are you talking about, Philip? Last I heard, the Echevarria regime was a corpse walking.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Hamilton fingered his jowls. ‘This also is new. Perhaps you’d better come along to the briefing this afternoon. I’d invited Mike, and assumed he could pass on detail to you later. But, yes, perhaps it’s better if you’re there. Main conference, two o’clock.’

Chris stared at him. ‘Right. I’ll be there.’

‘Marvellous.’ Hamilton beamed and cut the link. His face inked out, still smiling.

Chris tried Lopez again. Still nothing. He windowed up an indesp site he had the keys to and checked the Langley data. Nothing solid. The whistleblower’s face grinned out of an employee file thumbprint that was five years stale. He looked young and happy, and blissfully unaware of what his just-acquired job was going to do to him a few years down the road.

Because they’re going to fucking crucify you, son, Chris told the thumb-print silently. They’re going to take you apart for this.

The datadown chimed. Audio call from Mike. He grabbed it.

‘Talk to me, Mike. What’s going on.’

‘I don’t know, Chris. I wish I did. Sally says the order still went through, but it’s been diverted to some surface shipping contractor out of Southampton. Standard cross-Atlantic rate, she’s getting a cashback bonus for the difference in cost.’

‘Surface?’

‘I know, I know. I don’t get it either. It’s not like Barranco can wander into Barranquilla docks and just sign for it.’

‘That’s—‘ He stopped. Abruptly, the spinning chaos of the last ten minutes locked to a halt in his head. He saw the sense.

‘Mike, I’ll call you back.’

‘Wait, you—‘

He snapped the line across, sat staring at the datadown for a full thirty seconds while the sudden weight in his guts settled. Has to be, he knew. Fucking has to be. He felt physically sick with the knowledge.

He placed another call to Lopez, got the busy signal and fired an override down the connection. There was a brief electronic squabble on the line, as Shorn’s intrusion software fought with the Panama City net, then Lopez came through, still talking to someone else in furious Spanish.

‘—de puta, me tienen media hora esperando—‘

‘Joaquin, listen to me.’

‘Chris? Como has podido—‘ The Americas agent stopped as his language caught up with the change of call. ‘Listen, Chris, what are you fucking playing at over there?’

‘I don’t know, Joaquin, I don’t know. This shit only just landed on me, and I don’t know what it is. Talk to me, man. I’m blind here. Tell me what’s going on.’

‘What’s going on,’ said Lopez, rage spurting from every syllable, ‘is that you’ve sold me just like your fucking amigo Bryant. Arena challenge, Chris. That mean anything to you. I just got the word. Shorn-approved tender, I got some fucking favela-born sicario calling me out for a half per cent fee reduction. He’s twenty years old, Chris. Priority challenge, two weeks’ notice. Shorn-fucking-approved, man.’

‘Alright, listen.’ Chris felt the sudden clarity of drive time set in, the suspended icy seconds of adrenalin injection. ‘Joaquin, listen to me carefully. That’s not me. The tender, it’s not authorised by me. I’m going to fix it for you, it’s dead on the datadown. I promise you. You’ll never have to fight. Meantime—‘

‘Yeah, you say that. You said—‘

‘Joaquin, fucking listen to me. I got you out of Bogota in one piece, didn’t I? I told you, I look after my people. Now, I don’t have much time. I need you to get onto Barranco.’

‘You want me to fucking work for you while—‘

‘Fucking listen, I said.’ Whatever was in his voice must have got through. Lopez went quiet. ‘This is life or death, Joaquin. You get onto Barranco, and you tell him to stay away from that delivery beach next week. Tell him the rest of the arms aren’t coming, and most likely there’ll be an army death squad waiting for him instead. Tell him I’m under fire as much as he is, and it’ll take me time to sort it out. He’s got to fall back to safe ground, and stay there until he hears from me. Have you got that?’

‘Yeah.’ Lopez was suddenly calm, as if the same adrenalin shiver had crept down the line and touched him with its time-warping cold. ‘Got it. You’re in the arena too, huh?’

‘Yeah, looks that way.’ There was a finality about the way his own words sounded in his ears. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’

‘Chris.’

He held off the disconnect. ‘Yeah. Still here.’

‘Chris, listen to me. You going into the arena, you stab low, man. Stab low, where they won’t see it coming. And when you pull it out, you twist that fucker. Quadruples the wound. You got that?’