The Hopper’s engines were bellowing full blast as he stepped onto the ramp.

‘One minute thirty seconds.’

‘YOU HEAR ME HUNTER? I’LL SLICE HER FACE RIGHT OFF!’

The ramp wasn’t even fully closed before the ship leapt into the sky. Ken staggered through the Hopper’s hold, lurching as the thing accelerated away, hugging the streets. Getting as far away as its two massive turbines could carry it before all hell broke loose.

The bays lining both sides of the hold were full of dead people. Some had no heads, some had no backs, some had no inside bits. Useless bastards. The two unconscious troopers lolled against their harnesses, swinging back and forth with the ship’s motion. And there, at the far end, was the consol ation prize for this evening’s fiasco: Detective Sergeant Josephine Cameron.

A thin trickle of blood ran down the nape of her neck from where Armstrong had cracked her on the back of the head. Ken grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her head up. She was pretty. Not stunning, but not bad either.

Six dead, two unconscious and one broken jaw.

‘You better be worth it.’

26

The Dragonfly banked hard to the right and dropped like a roller coaster for suicidal maniacs. More than half the bays were empty, their regular inhabitants being un-contactable at two o’clock on a Tuesday morning. The ones who had shown up lurched with the ship’s motion, clutching their assault weapons, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and grumbling. Up front, Lieutenant Emily Brand scowled at the monitor, watching a blurry echo disappear from her screen. Probably just interference from the engines, but she could have sworn she’d seen something hiding in the fuzz. She reached for her throat-mike.

‘Oliver, I’ve got-’

‘Targets acquired!’

The screen flickered and an infrared view of the park sixty feet below appeared. Two human-shaped heat signatures filled the centre of the frame, yellow and orange: one lying flat out, the other standing waving.

‘Hit the lights!’

A soft ‘crack’ rang through the hull and a patch of Kelvin grove Park lit up like a very wet summer’s day. Emily toggled the display and got a view from the external cameras: in the foreground rhododendron bushes writhed-buffeted by the downdraught-and just behind them a Bluecoat stood over a body. The body was wearing a filthy dressing gown and looked as if it had taken one hell of a beating. The body was William Hunter.

‘Damn! Control, we have an agent down!’ She stuck her head through into the cockpit. ‘Get this thing on the deck NOW!’

The Dragonfly’s legs hadn’t even touched the ground before Emily cracked open the side hatch and leapt out into the rain. She hit the ground and rolled, coming to her feet with her Whomper ready and armed, sweeping the park like a conductor’s baton, looking to orchestrate a little death and destruction.

‘What are you waiting for, ladies?’ she said. ‘Defensive perimeter, now!’

Behind her, the rear hatch hissed open and four knackered troopers slogged out into the downpour.

‘You!’ Emily’s Whomper was pointing right at the sodden Bluecoat’s face. ‘Hit the deck!’

‘Yes, ma’am!’ The constable dropped her weapon, jumped for the ground and hugged it like a long-lost friend.

‘What happened here?’

‘He’s been attacked and beaten up.’

‘I can see that.’ Will looked as if someone had run over his face with a steamroller. Emily slid in closer and kicked the police-issue Field Zapper just out of reach, keeping her Whomper trained on the Bluecoat. ‘Who did this?’

‘Didn’t get a good look at her-it was dark-but it was definitely a woman. She was standing over him when I got here. I challenged her and she ran for it. Bitch knocked me flying.’

‘You let her get away?’

There was a pause. ‘Not by choice. The victim was still alive. I tried to call it in, but they-’

‘I know: jamming field.’

‘I started to chase her, but the victim looked like he needed assistance so…’

‘You did good.’ Emily stooped down and helped the muddy Bluecoat up. Then started shouting orders: ‘Nairn, Dickson secure the perimeter. Nothing in or out. Floyd, Patterson you’ve got stretcher duty. Move it people, we’re not getting paid by the hour!’

The Bluecoat stared at Will’s battered head. ‘Is he going to be OK?’

Good question. ‘Where’s that damn stretcher?’

Patterson and Floyd squelched to a halt, dumped the stretcher on the wet ground and carefully lifted Will into place. They strapped him in and switched the thing on. It rose into the air, the sensors beeping and humming. Floyd pulled out a couple of blockers and a stim, snapping them into Will’s neck as they hurried him back towards the waiting gunship.

‘Grnnnnnkin insn nnnsnsssnnn…’

‘Easy, Tiger,’ Patterson pushed Will’s head back against the platform. ‘Someone’s kicked seven shades of shite out of you.’

Emily followed them up the rear ramp and into the Drag-onfly’s warm, dry interior. ‘Nairn, Dickson, report!’

‘Nothing out here, ma’am, just a sodding huge bloodstain, two hundred yards from the pickup point. Other than that, nada.’

Emily looked out at the torrential downpour. ‘You found bloodstains in this?’

‘No’ as hard as it sounds, ma’am, there’s a hoorin’ lot of it.’

She stared down at Will’s battered face. ‘What the hell did you do…?’ There’d be time to worry about that later. ‘Nairn, you and Dickson get back here. Next stop Glasgow Royal Infirmary-’

A hand grabbed her wrist. ‘Nnnnrrr Dccccccccctrsssss.’ The stims were starting to take effect.

‘Don’t be daft. Your head looks like an inflatable turnip.’

‘Nnnnrrr Dccccctrsssss. Nnnnrrr timmme!’ He struggled to sit up, but the platform’s restraints held him fast. ‘Whrrrrrssss Jo?’

‘Jo?’

‘Jo! Dtttttttectiffffff Srrrrrgnntttt Camerrrrrrnn.’

The Bluecoat grabbed Emily’s sleeve. ‘Just before you turned up, someone was shouting, “We’ve got her.” They were going on about cutting her face off if anyone opened their mouth.’

Will thrashed against the medistraps. ‘Gtttt me out offfff thizz.’

‘You’re going nowhere till you’ve seen a doctor.’ Emily keyed her throat-mike. ‘Nairn, Dickson, you going the bloody scenic route? Get your arses back here now!’

Two soaked and muddy troopers squished their way up the rear ramp.

‘What kept you?’ Emily slammed her hand on the button, and the rear doors squealed closed. ‘Get us out of here,’ she told the pilot. ‘Glasgow Royal and step on it.’

Will grimaced at his reflection in the hospital mirror. Having his cheekbone welded back together wasn’t something he ever wanted to experience again. A triangular patch of skinglue and bracing pulled his face into a constant, lopsided smile, whether he felt like it or not. His nose had been reset for the umpteenth time and new toothbuds stitched into his gum.

The black eye was already beginning to fade-as were all his other bruises, thanks to a hefty dose of anti-ecchymosis medication-but the sight still wasn’t pretty.

Someone had been dispatched to his flat to fetch a change of clothes and discovered the place in ruins. All the corpses were missing: no dead bodies in the apartment, no dead bodies in the lift, no dead bodies in the park. All that remained were two huge bloodstains on the lounge carpet and some sticky bits of skin on the lift walls. Short of a DNA match they weren’t going to get any names.

‘We need to get back to base,’ he told Emily as she stood watching him dress.

‘You need to get back to bed. You look as bad as you smell.’

He glared at her. ‘We haven’t got time for this! If they’ve got Jo…’ And then he remembered the listening devices sitting beneath Emily’s skin. Everything he told her went straight into the ears of that stumpy wee bastard Ken Peitai. Deep breath. ‘Sorry.’ He pulled on his trousers. ‘It’s the blockers. I’m not thinking all that clearly. You’re right. I need to go to bed.’