"Drop the knife," ordered Raf.

Something was said to the fisherman by the girl with the headscarf and, eyes half-focused, the man glanced from Raf to the blade he still held. For a second all anyone in the market could hear was the clatter of steel on ceramic tiles, then the Japanese couple started clapping.

"Out of here," said Raf, and stepped over his broken bunch of amaryllis.

"Ashraf Bey is leaving the building."

"How did you know?" Hani fired off her question the moment Raf walked into the qaa, rain dripping from his jacket. She was very carefully not standing anywhere near the marble table, which was enough to make Raf glance at the collection of objects he'd left there that morning. At least three of Felix's possessions had been replaced incorrectly, including his notebook.

"If you're going to examine things that don't belong to you," said Raf, "then at least memorize the position so you can put them back in the right place."

"I didn't . . ." Hani raised her chin.

"Yes you did," said Raf. "And lying's worse than touching. Anyhow, that was just a suggestion . . ."

Zara put down her book.

"What?" Raf asked.

"If you don't know," said Zara, "I can't tell you." Anything else she might have said was lost when Hani yanked hard on Raf's sleeve.

"Come on," Hani said. "Tell me how you knew the bad man was stealing Umar . . ."

"Who's Umar?" said Raf.

Hani sighed. "You were in the fish market . . ."

Raf nodded.

"You had a fight . . ."

It had been on Isk3N apparently, courtesy of a newsfeed supplied by a Japanese tourist. And Hani knew infinitely more about the background than Raf did. The small boy's name was Umar, his father had died two years before at Medinat al-Fayoum, ambushed by fundamentalists. Medinat al-Fayoum was known to the ancient Greeks as Crocodilopolis. This last snippet was added by Hani, who believed context was everything.

"So who was the fisherman?" Raf asked.

"You didn't stop to find out . . ." Zara's voice was icy.

"He pulled a knife on Uncle Ashraf."

Zara smiled sadly. "So," she said to Raf as she pushed back her chair, "you want to tell me who you were really fighting out there?"

"You want to tell me what's made you so angry?"

"You," she said. "Nothing else."

"Got it in one," Raf said.

"He was her father-in-law," Hani announced loudly. "And kept the boy out of school to work a boat," she added more gently, once she realized she had Raf's attention. "But he kept hitting Umar, so Umar's mother took him away . . . You're a hero."

Raf frowned.

"Ex-Governor stops kidnap . . . It said so on the news."

CHAPTER 9

Flashback

Was it–Sally wondered–immoral to steal a sunrise muffin before smashing up Koffe King or should she trash all the food along with the glass counter? Which was worse, wasting food in a world where hunger killed twenty-four-thousand people a day or eating corporate crap, which quite possibly contained GM flour?

Tough call.

Pressing the mute button on her Sony minidisc (an impromptu gift from Bozo, who'd liberated it from near the Exxon Building on 6th), Sally consigned New York Freeze to silence and pointed to a tray.

"One of those, please."

"Which kind?"

There were two types, Sally realized. Both looked pretty identical to her and probably came out of the same machine, but maybe the dough mix was different.

"What's the . . ." Sally began to ask and got a mouthful of fluff from her ski mask. So she yanked up the front edge. "Whatever," she said. And when the boy still looked blank Sally chose one at random. "One of those on the right . . . Your right," she added, when the boy reached in the wrong direction.

"Would you like a drink with that?"

"Skinny latte, grande," said Sally.

Behind the chrome counter a Hispanic kid who looked about twelve took a sneak at the baseball bat Sally held.

"Easton Z," said Sally. "C500 alloy, high-strain graphite core."

The kid nodded to himself. "You want that muffin and coffee to go?"

"Yeah," said Sally. "Definitely."

They both waited while another kid made a quick espresso, slopped in milk from a plastic carton and jammed the mixture under a hissing chrome nozzle. From the metal jug to a cardboard cup took another practised slop and then the kid drizzled a streak of cocoa across the top.

"I asked for a latte, skinny," Sally said, then shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

"Have a nice day . . ."

Sally nodded. "And you." Behind her Atal and Bozo stood in silence, waiting patiently. They were on guard duty and Sally was the person they guarded. That was because, after this, Sally had another job to do, although this was the job she had to be seen to be doing, it had all been worked out.

"Go now," she said to the two Hispanics. "You don't get paid enough to get hurt protecting this place." Sally looked back, to check that Atal and Bozo felt the same and they both nodded.

"She means it," added Bozo, his voice dark as chocolate, the 70 percent cocoa solids kind. "Get while you can."

The kid who'd asked Sally which muffin she wanted looked from Sally's alloy bat to the link cutters that hung from Bozo's huge hand, then took in a neoprene-handled clawhammer stuck in Atal's woven belt. Something gluey was stuck round the claws.

Discarding their silly hats at the door, the counter staff left. Today wasn't a good day to be wandering Manhattan south of Canal Street in corporate camouflage. Anyone with a brain knew not to blame the McKids stuck behind counters, who were as fucked over by corporate capitalism as the coffee growers, beef farmers and dairymen; but not every protestor currently wandering the streets of Manhattan had a brain.

"Do the clock," Sally ordered and Atal frowned. It was true he outranked Bozo, being a vidhead, in as much as anyone outranked anyone, but Sally didn't trust Bozo not to break the clock while he was trying to adjust it.

Climbing onto a chrome stool, Atal yanked the clock off the wall. It was battery-operated with hollow wood-effect surround that surprised no one. Twisting a plastic knob on the back, Atal ran the minute hand forward exactly three-quarters of an hour and wiped down the knob and casing to remove his fingerprints.

"Okay," Atal said. "How do you want to do this?"

"The way we agreed." Sally lifted her baseball bat over her head and paused while Atal found the angle. There was always an angle, apparently.

"Take it from the start," said Atal, signalling to Sally that she should put down her bat. "Okay," he said, "now move in from the door and take out the countertop . . ."

She did as he instructed. Going out of the door and coming back so Atal could start running the camera at the point when the door began to shut behind her. Three steps took her to the counter, up went her chrome baseball bat and down it came, fracturing twenty feet of hardened glass.

"Now smash the front . . ."

That took two swings, because the angle of attack was awkward. Of course, the whole sequence would have been better with sound, but Atal was scared he'd pick up some interference from outside, like a passing black-and-white and the police would be able to get them from that.

"Tables . . ."

These were chrome-topped, but cheap chrome glued over fibreboard circles and edged with silvery plastic that splintered at the first blow. Ten blows, ten tables, that bit was simplicity itself.

"Now the clock . . ."