Chris flinched away. Mike caught his arm.

‘No, I am. I’m sorry about the zones and your mum and everything that’s happened to you. But that’s the past, Chris, and it’s over. It doesn’t give you an excuse to fuck up everyone else’s life around here. Now I’m telling you, listen to me, Chris, I’m telling you, you’re off the NAME account. End of story. I’m the one that brought you aboard in the first place, and now I’m cutting you loose. It’s not like you haven’t got enough else to worry about. Fuck, Chris, why don’t you go home? Talk to Carla, sort your life out.’

Chris shoved him away, both palm-heels into the chest. For a flashpoint second, both men almost dropped into a karate stance.

‘I’ve told you before, Mike. I don’t need marital advice from you.’

‘Chris, you’re throwing away the best—‘

‘Shut the fuck up!’ The yell lashed out, fury etched with pain. ‘What do you know about it, Mike, what the fuck do you know about it?’

‘I know—‘

Chris cut across him savagely. ‘Try staying faithful to Suki for ten minutes, why don’t you? Try acting like a responsible father and husband for a change. Get your dick out of Sally Hunting and Liz Linshaw and whoever else you’re dipping it into these days. There. You enjoying this, Mike? Doesn’t feel good, does it?’

‘I’m not seeing Liz at the moment,’ said Mike quietly. ‘She’s got a lot of work on. And I haven’t fucked Sally Hunting in better than six years. You want to make sure of your facts before you start mouthing off.’

‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

They stood twitchily, facing each other across one corner of the BMW’s hood. Very distantly, the sound came of a single vehicle on the orbital. Finally, Mike Bryant shrugged.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘If that’s the way you want it. But what I said before stands. You’re off the NAME account, you’re—‘

His phone queeped for attention. He grimaced and fished it out, pressed it impatiently to his ear. ‘Yeah, Bryant. Out on the orbital, why? Yeah, he’s right here.’

He handed the phone to Chris.

‘Hewitt,’ he said.

Louise Hewitt sat behind her desk, hands spread on its surface as if she might find built-in weaponry there to blast Chris into grease on the carpet. Her tone was chilly.

‘Well, I’m glad you’re back from your picnic in the country. There are a couple of things we need to clear up.’

Chris waited.

‘Primarily, I’m concerned to get your files for the NAME transferred to Philip Hamilton’s desk as soon as electronically possible. He’ll need your Panama City contacts, the background data on Barranco, and any of the other insurgents you did work on for Hammett McColl.’ She offered him a thin smile. ‘Since we’re now back in the business of helping the regime flatten its opponents, anything you have will be of some value.’

‘Then maybe you should shut down the agency tender on Lopez. He knows the ground. That’s value, right there.’

She looked him up and down, like a specimen of something she’d thought was extinct. ‘Remarkable, Chris. Your capacity for inappropriate loyalty, I mean. Quite remarkable. However, I think we all agreed at the briefing that a clean break is essential. There’s no telling what inconvenient loyalties Lopez himself may have. Perhaps he has, uh, bonded with Vicente Barranco as strongly as you have. The man is, by all accounts, quite inspiring.’

Nothing. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

‘But I digress,’ Hewitt said smoothly. ‘In addition to the file transfer, I want you to prepare a formal statement of apology for your behaviour today. For posting on our intranet. First and foremost, that means an apology for your zone-mannered outburst in Philip’s briefing, but it’s not limited to that. There are other matters. I feel, and our senior partner concurs, that the apology had better also cover your failure to consult your colleagues before taking client-related decisions.’

‘Notley said that?’

The thin smile again. ‘He’s not on your side, Chris, whatever you think. Don’t make that mistake. Notley’s concerned wholly with the success of Shorn Conflict Investment, with maybe a side interest in waving the Union Jack when he gets the chance. Call it a hobby. That’s it, that’s the whole story. At the moment, he still thinks you’re a necessary component for the division to do well. Thus far, I’ve failed to persuade him otherwise, but I think, with your help today, he’s coming around. I told you once you’d disappoint him, and I think we’re closing on that.’

‘That’d make you happy, would it?’

‘What’d make me happy, Chris, is to take back our plastic from your lightly charred and broken corpse.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m unlikely to get that chance, of course. Policy doesn’t allow us to duel across partner-employee lines. But I will, I think, live to see you booted out of Shorn and back to the riverside slum existence you so eminently suit. I’ve told you before, and it’s becoming clearer by the day, you do not belong here.’

Oddly, the line made him grin. ‘Well, you’re not the only person who thinks that, Louise.’

It got him a sharp look, but Hewitt wasn’t biting.

‘Notley and I have also agreed that you’d better draft the apology to Philip’s specifications. A first draft by this evening. That’s a minimum requirement if you intend to continue with this firm. Philip’s in uplink conference right now, with Echevarria. But he’ll be done by six. Take it in for his approval then. You might like to add a verbal apology at the same time.’ She looked at him, grim amusement curled in the corner of her mouth. ‘A personal touch, say. A little bridge-building.’

He walked out, wordless. Louise Hewitt watched him go, and as the door slammed, the smile broadened on her lips.

It took him the walk to his own office to decide. Two flights of stairs and a corridor. He saw no one. He reached the door with his name on it, stood facing the metalled slab for ten seconds, and then turned away.

He was a dozen paces away and accelerating before it had properly dawned on him what he was going to do.

I look after my people.

He found his way almost absently, most of him thinking about Carla and how fucking delighted she’d be to see his life come tumbling down like this. The main door to the conference room was locked, but the entrance to the covert viewing chamber was on a code he knew. He let himself in. Peered through the gloom and the glass panel.

In the conference room, Philip Hamilton sat opposite a holo of Francisco Echevarria. The dictator’s son was dressed in his usual Susana Ingram splendour. He looked hard and implacable against Hamilton’s soft and light-suited untidiness.

‘—are aware that you have friends in Miami, and we have no desire to exclude them from the proceedings. You should certainly speak with Martin Meldreck at Calders, who will, I’m sure—‘

Enough. He coded himself through the connecting door, stood abruptly behind Hamilton. Echevarria’s eyes widened as he stepped inside the pick-up field of the holoscanner and he knew that in the chamber on the other side of the world he had appeared, like a ghost at the feast.

Hamilton turned around in his chair.

‘Faulkner.’ He wasn’t worried yet, just surprised. Anger edged his cultured tones. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, interrupting me with a client?’

Chris grinned down at him. ‘You wanted a statement from me.’

‘Yes. In due course. At the moment, I’m busy. You can—‘

Chris hit him. Open-handed, swinging from the shoulder. It took Hamilton across the side of the head and tipped him out of the chair.

‘First draft.’ Chris grabbed him up by the hair and hit him again in the face, this time with a fist. He felt the junior partner’s nose break. He punched him once more for security and let go. Hamilton slumped to the floor like a filled sack. He turned about, reached Francisco Echevarria with his eyes.