‘I heard that,’ roared Lady Norton. ‘Why would he need to “settle down”? That’s it. That simply proves to me that there is something going on. Coombs? Coombs?’

Coombs was staring at the screens, pale beneath his crinkly tan, mouth working up and down. ‘I’ve no idea, Lady Norton. It’s impossible to tell. I’ve no experience in these matters.’

But now they watched as Abbott stripped off his overalls.

‘Oh, he’s at it now,’ said Ross. ‘What’s he doing that for?’

‘I think I know,’ said Kilgore, and Kennedy shot him a hateful look.

Up above, Scolar saw him do it. He saw how Abbott had taken note of his blood trail and then taken off his boiler suit before taking refuge behind a booth nearby. He saw what was in his thinking, and he adjusted his aim accordingly.

In the conference room, Wilson touched a finger to his ear. ‘Roger that,’ he replied, and then to the room said, ‘There’s been a breach. Armed unfriendlies inside the park.’

‘Well, can your men stop them?’ demanded Kilgore.

‘Of course.’

‘See if you can take one of them alive, so we can find out who’s paying them,’ said Kilgore, still looking at Kennedy.

‘Grandmama, call off your dog. I don’t think I care for his insinuations,’ said Ross, waving an arm, the voluminous sleeve of his white shirt flapping. ‘I can tell you that we have absolutely nothing to do with this. In fact . . .’ he turned, saying quietly to Kennedy, ‘should we be going? Should I be worried about this?’

Lady Norton echoed his thoughts. ‘Well?’ she said to Kilgore. ‘Should we? Should we be worried?’

Kilgore, who fielded the question to Wilson.

Who shook his head.

‘Report is of just three men,’ he said. ‘We have over a dozen on site. You have nothing to worry about.’

And then the gunfire began.

Chapter 56

CHAPTER 56

Abbott heard it. The rattling of semiautomatic gunfire. Nothing to do with him and, as far as he knew, nothing to do with the game. Which meant . . .

What?

That things had gone FUBAR. The game was off?

Should he come out of hiding and go for Tess? He decided to hold his position a moment longer, just until he was more certain of the status outside. Whether he thought the game was over or not was immaterial. The salient detail was whether Trent thought it was over. Whether the people in control of them thought the game was over.

And something else he thought about. That ricochet. It had clearly been intended to warn Trent about Heidi’s proximity. The sniper and Trent had no doubt worked out some kind of system. A good sniper, though, a good operator with superb cranial cartography. There was no way they couldn’t make the system more sophisticated. Maybe evolve it to go beyond ‘the enemy is nearby’ and to ‘the enemy is in this exact position’.