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  ‘No, I’m—‘

  ‘You are. I can feel it. Your face is hot.’ She laughed again, delightedly. ‘Chris, you really are in trouble. You’re a grown man, you’ve got a dozen kills under your belt, and you can’t look at soft porn without flushing like a teenager. I mean, what do you and Carla Nyquist do in the bedroom?’

  She must have seen the change in his face. Before he could move, she reached out and touched his arm.

  ‘Sorry. Chris, I’m sorry. That was bitchy.’

  This time he did take hold of her hand. He pushed it back across the table and sat looking at her in silence.

  ‘Chris, I said I’m sorry.’

  They were saved by the pipe waitress. She sauntered across, lifted the cage and cast a practised eye over the glowing embers of tobacco in the pan. She glanced at Chris.

  ‘Bring you another?’

  He hadn’t smoked much of the first, it was just the price of sitting there while he waited for Liz Linshaw. He shrugged.

  ‘No, I think we’re pretty much done here.’

  The waitress left. He met Liz Linshaw’s gaze and held it.

  ‘Chris—‘

  ‘Reason I asked you here, Liz. You’ve got friends in Driver Control, right?’

  She looked away, then back. ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

  ‘Inside sources? People who can get information for you?’

  ‘Is this really why you called me, Chris?’

  ‘Yes. You have sources, right?’

  A shrug. ‘I’m a journalist.’

  ‘There’s something I need to know. I need to find out if—‘

  ‘Whoa, Chris.’ She gave him a hard little smile. ‘Slow down. Now I may have just gone over the line a little with that bitchy crack about your wife. But that doesn’t mean you own a part of me. Why the fuck would I put pressure on one of my hard-won sources for you? What’s in it for me?’

  ‘You’re writing another book, right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So this is a whole chapter if you’re lucky.’ He hesitated at the edge, looking for something to fill the gap that had suddenly opened up between them. ‘You heard I was up against a no-namer last week?’

  ‘Yes. Inconclusive, I heard. Driver Control had to come in and mediate.’ She smiled, a little more warmly this time. ‘I’m sorry, Chris. I like you but I don’t shadow you through the net on a day-to-day basis. There was something about a software failure, the challenge didn’t register in the system or something?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the official line.’

  One eyebrow arched. He thought there was a little mockery in it. ‘And the unofficial line?’

  ‘The no-namer was never registered in the first place. Some zone kid jacked a battlewagon and tried to take me down in the rain. No challenge issued. And Driver Control didn’t mediate, they turned up with an enforcement copter after I drove the kid off the road and they fed him a couple of cans of gatling shells for breakfast.’

  He saw, with some satisfaction, the way the shock went through her. How her carefully constructed cool fractured open. Her voice, when it came, was almost a whisper.

  ‘They killed him?’

  ‘Pretty conclusively, yeah.’

  ‘But haven’t they traced the car?’

  Chris nodded. ‘To an unemployed datasystems consultant. He reported it stolen from outside his house in Harlesden about an hour after the duel.’

  ‘He must have known before that!’

  ‘Not necessarily. He hadn’t driven it for a while, apparently. Couldn’t afford to renew the licence this quarter.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’ Journalistic interest kindling.

  ‘From the look of him in the interview tape, he’d be hard-pushed to afford a full tank of fuel, let alone a licence to use it, so yes, I do. But in the end it doesn’t matter. Whoever set this up is a long way up the chain from either him or the kid who nicked the car. And whoever set this up also has their claws into Driver Control.’

  ‘Alright, I’ll buy that. What else do you have?’

  ‘That’s the lot.’ He wasn’t about to get into the Mandela estate connection. Troy Morris was already running down rumours across the southside, asking softly after Robbie Goodwin’s displaced family, trying to find a safe approach to Khalid Iarescu’s underworld machine. The last thing he’d need was a high-profile journalist crashing the zones and stirring things up. Liz Linshaw was most use where she already was - highly placed in the world of competition driving, reeking of cachet and connection.

  She smiled, as if she could read his thoughts.

  ‘No, there’s more. You just don’t feel like telling me right now.’ She shrugged. ‘ ‘sokay, I can live with that. Sure, I’ll talk to some people I know. Shouldn’t take much leverage to see if something’s being covered up. I can take it from there.’ She picked up the pipe and drew on it. Inside the cage, the last of the embers flared. ‘You understand, this doesn’t come for free. I do it, and you’ll owe me, Chris. Big time.’

  ‘Like I said, it’ll make a chapter of—‘

  ‘No.’ She shook her head, and her hair fell across her face. It made him want to clear it away with one hand. ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘So what do you mean?’

  The corner of her mouth quirked and she looked away. ‘You know what I mean, Chris.’

  That sat between them for a while, smouldering out like the pipe.

  ‘Listen,’ he said.

  ‘I know, Chris. I know. In fact, I’ve seen it all before. You’ve got some stuff you’ve got to work through. Don’t worry about it and. Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not short of male company, believe me.’

  ‘You seeing Mike again?’ It was out before he could stop himself.

  She raked fingers into her own hair and grinned up at the corner of the room. ‘That really is none of your business, Chris.’

  ‘I’m not like him, Liz.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘I don’t see the women around me as. Product.’ The images from the porn segment glowed in his head. Studded leather parting buttocks, encircling breasts impossibly full. Fully clothed, the Liz Linshaw sitting opposite him shrugged.

  ‘Alike Bryant knows what he wants, and he takes it and then he looks after it as best he can. I don’t think his morality stretches much further than that, but he does at least know what he wants.’

  Her eyes flickered up to meet his. She was still smiling.

  ‘Listen, Liz. That night, I.’ He swallowed. ‘I’m having some problems with my marriage, but that doesn’t mean I—‘

  ‘Chris.’ He’d never in his life been interrupted so gently. ‘I don’t care. I want to fuck you, not replace your wife. But I’ll tell you something for nothing. You came home with me that night, and you grabbed hold of the merchandise when it was on display. Whatever’s going on in your relationship with Carla, you might as well have fucked me then. You’ve got the same guilt, and the same hard-on for me. The fact you didn’t do it is a technicality.’

  ‘You—‘

  She waved it off. Getting up, shouldering her way into her jacket.

  ‘I’ll get back to you about Driver Control. But the next time you get a bed for the night at my place, you’ll work your passage.’

  In the end, the pipe waitress came and told him he’d have to order something else if he wanted to sit there any longer.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Lopez routed Barranco’s flight plan through Atlanta and Montreal before a dawn arrival at Reagan International, New York, where a Shorn jet would pick the two of them up under paperwork that identified them as economic advisers for the Parana Emergency Council. Lopez spoke Brazilian Portuguese almost as well as his native Spanish, and Barranco, like most political figures in Latin America these days, had enough to get by. Lopez was betting security at Reagan International would neither know the difference nor care.

  Apparently, his assessment was on the nail. The Shorn jet lifted without incident and
touched down in London just after lunch. Chris rode the courtesy copter out to meet it.

  ‘Senor Barranco.’ He had to shout above the racket of the rotors and the unseasonally cold wind that came buffeting across the asphalt of the private carriers’ terminal. His grin felt sandblasted onto his face. Armed security stood around in suits, jackets whipping up constantly to reveal their shoulder holsters. ‘Welcome to England. How was your flight?’

  Barranco grimaced. He looked good in the smart-casual mobile consultant wardrobe Lopez had disguised him with, but above the knitted wool jacket his face was smeared with jet lag.

  ‘Which flight do you mean? I seem to have been in transit for a week. And now a helicopter?’

  ‘Believe me, Senor Barranco, you wouldn’t want to drive through this part of London. Is Joaquin Lopez with you?’

  Barranco jerked a thumb back at the Shorn jet. ‘He’s coming.’

  Lopez appeared in the hatch and clambered down, followed by two more men with baggage. He grinned and waved at Chris. No sign of the weariness you could see on Barranco. Beneath his mobcon clothing, there was a prowling energy that Chris guessed was chemical. In the absence of any other escort, he’d been Barranco’s only security since leaving Panama City.

  Chris ushered everybody aboard the copter and into seats. The door cranked itself closed and shut out the wind with an airtight clunk. The pilot turned to look at Chris.

  ‘Yeah, that’s it. Take us home.’

  The copter drifted into the sky. They bent away over the city.

  Barranco leaned across to the window and peered down at the sprawl below.

  ‘This doesn’t seem so terrible,’ he remarked.

  ‘No,’ Chris agreed. ‘From up here, it’s not.’

  The tanned face turned to look at him. ‘I would not be safe walking in those streets?’

  ‘Depends on the exact neighbourhood. But as a general rule, no, you wouldn’t. You might be attacked and robbed, maybe just have stones thrown at you. At a minimum you’d be recognised as an outsider and followed. After that,’ Chris shrugged. ‘Depends on the kind of crowd you draw.’

  ‘I am not dressed like you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t matter. They don’t care about politics in the zones. It’s tribal. Localised gangs, territorial violence.’

  ‘I see.’ Barranco’s gaze went back to the city sliding past beneath them. ‘They have forgotten who did this to them.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

  The rest of the flight passed in silence. They crossed the westward cordons and picked up the beacon for the West End cluster. Machines took the controls, read the flight data and drew the helicopter along a preprogrammed path. Hyde Park opened up under them. The hotels beckoned at its edge, like moored cruise liners from an earlier age.

  Mike had Hernan Echevarria buried in the heart of Mayfair, well away from the modern hotels. They were playing to the dictator’s old-world pretensions. A Royal Suite at Brown’s, the whiff of two centuries’ tradition and the dropped names of European royalty along the historical guest list. An armoured Shorn limo collected Echevarria daily at the Albemarle Street frontage and ferried him about on a carefully balanced programme of meetings with senior banking officials, A-listed arms dealers and one or two house-trained political figures. Evenings were given over to opera and dinners with more tame dignitaries.

  ‘I’ll keep him busy,’ Bryant promised. ‘And I’ll keep him away from the Park end. You stash Barranco in the Hilton or something. Get a tower suite. I’ll cross-reference with you on programme, we’ll make sure these two guys never come within a couple of klicks of each other.’

  The Hilton it was. They touched down on the tower helipad and were met by liveried attendants who busied themselves with the baggage and led Barranco and Lopez off in the direction of the access elevators. Chris went with them, mainly to take care of tips.

  ‘You won’t have to do that,’ he said, as the last attendant slipped out and closed the door with trained noiselessness. ‘Just sign gratuities on any room service you ask for, and we’ll cover it. I’d recommend about ten per cent. Expectations are a lot less than that, but it never hurts to be generous. So anyway, uh. I hope you’ll be comfortable.’

  ‘Comfortable?’

  Barranco stood in the midst of the suite’s opulence, looking like a hunter whose large and dangerous quarry has suddenly disappeared into the surrounding undergrowth.

  Chris cleared his throat. ‘Yes, uh. Joaquin Lopez will be staying on the floor below. Room 4148. I’ve put two armed security guards into 4146 as well. The hotel has pretty good security of its own, but you can’t be too careful, even up here.’ He produced a small matt black mobile and held it out. ‘This is a dedicated phone. A scrambled line direct to me. wherever I am. Any problem, night or day, call me. Just press the dial key.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Barranco’s tone was distant, but if there was irony in it, Chris couldn’t hear it.

  ‘I thought you’d probably want to rest now.’

  ‘Yes, that would be good.’

  ‘I’d like to introduce you to a colleague of mine later on, and also to my wife. I thought perhaps we could have dinner together. There’s a good Peruvian restaurant in the hotel mezzanine. We could eat late, say about nine-thirty. Or if you’d prefer to stay here and leave it for another night, that’s entirely up to you.’

  ‘No, no. I would.’ He drew a deep, jet-lagged breath. ‘Like to meet your wife, Senor Faulkner. And your colleague, of course. Nine-thirty will be fine.’

  ‘Good, that’s great. I’ll call here just after nine, then.’

  ‘Yes. Now I think I would like to rest.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He let himself out and went down to talk to the security detachment. They were pretty much what he’d expected - two hard-faced men past their physical prime in shirt sleeves and shoulder holsters. They answered the door and then his questions with impassive calm. The surveillance equipment he’d ordered wired into Barranco’s suite stood unobtrusively on a low table to one side. Standby lights winked below the row of small liquid crystal screens. On one of them, Barranco had already collapsed onto a bed, fully clothed. Chris bent and peered.

  ‘He asleep?’

  ‘Out like a light.’

  ‘You sure he isn’t going to be able to find any of these cameras?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Unless he’s a surveillance specialist. And he hasn’t shown any signs of looking for them yet.’

  ‘Well, let me know if he does start looking.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And if he moves from the suite, I want to know before it happens. You’ve got my direct line?’

  They exchanged weary glances. One of them nodded.

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s under control.’

  He took the hint and left to check on Lopez. The Americas agent had been waiting for him. Chemical impatience made his movements about the room erratic and irritating. Chris tried to project calm.

  ‘No transit problems then?’

  ‘No, man. Onward tickets.’ Lopez grinned speedily. ‘They don’t give a fuck who you are, so long as you’re going someplace else.’

  ‘And Barranco? Did he talk to you at all?’

  ‘Yeah, he told me I was a running dog for the global capitalist tyranny, and I ought to be ashamed of myself.’

  ‘No change there, then.’ Chris wandered across to the window and stared out over the park.

  ‘Yeah, you want to watch him, Chris. He’s out of his depth with all this corporate stuff, he’s going to be defensive. Most likely, he’ll cling to what he knows. My guess is you’re going to hear a shitload of out-of-date dogma this week.’

  ‘Well, he’s entitled to his point of view.’

  That cracked Lopez up.

  ‘Yeah, ‘s a free country,’ he chortled. ‘Right? Everyone’s entitled to their point of view, right? ‘s a free country! That’s right!’

  ‘Joaquin, you need to take some downers.’ />
  ‘No. Less time around these Marquista hero types is what I fucking need, man.’

  The sudden, bright vehemence brought Chris around from his contemplation of the view. Lopez was standing glittery-eyed in the centre of the room, fists knotted, surprised by his own sudden rage.

  ‘Joaquin?’

  ‘Ah, fuck it.’ The anger fled as rapidly as it had come. Lopez looked abruptly drained. ‘Sorry. It’s just my kid brother hands me the same fucking line all the time. Running-dog capitalista, running-dog capitalista. Ever since I got my PT& I licence. Like a fucking skip-burned disc.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a brother.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The Americas agent waved a hand. ‘I don’t advertise the fact. Little squirt’s a union organiser in the banana belt, up around Bocas, where we were. Not the kind of thing you put on a Trade and Investment CV if you can avoid it.’

  ‘I guess not.’

  Lopez’s eyes went hooded. ‘I try to keep the worst of the shit from raining on him. I made contacts that are good for that much.

  And when the strike-breakers do come round, I pay his hospital bills, I feed his kids. Gets back on his feet and he drops by to insult me again.’

  Chris thought feelingly of Erik Nyquist. ‘Family, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, family.’ The agent lost his drugged introspection. Shot Chris a sideways look. ‘We’re just talking here, right, boss? You’re not going to go telling tales on me to the partners?’

  ‘Joaquin, I don’t give a shit what your brother does for a living, and nor would any of Shorn’s partners. They’ve got altogether bigger game to shoot. Everyone’s got an Ollie North or two hanging in the classified record. So long as it doesn’t interfere with business, so what?’

  Lopez shook his head. ‘Maybe that’s a London attitude, Chris, but it wouldn’t wash that way with Panama T & I. I don’t want to wake up one morning and find myself served with a Plaza de Toros summons like you did to old man Harris.’