“I never had the chance,” I growled.

“What do you think he’ll do now?”

“Hard to tell. He’s a genuine fanatic, dedicated to his cause; running the world the way he thinks it should be run, and everyone else eliminated. He was held back in the past by the Zero Tolerance faction . . . Without them to rein him in, God alone knows what atrocities he’s planning now.”

“His old base, down below the Underground train system, is completely deserted,” said Penny. “We’ve got a few people there, looking around, hoping to turn up something useful.”

“Hold it,” I said. “There were only two field agents in London: me, and Matthew. I’m here, and he’s dead, so who have you got running around under London?”

“Volunteers,” Penny said sharply. “The work has to go on, even if you’re . . . distracted. Not everyone wants to hide here in the Hall until you get around to handing out new torcs. Some of us still understand about duty and responsibility.”

“Don’t lecture me,” I said. “Just . . . don’t. Not after everything I’ve seen, and done. But you’re quite right, of course. The work does have to go on. The world won’t stand still, just because we’re having a crisis in the family. Volunteers, eh? It’s good to know we’ve got a few brave souls left. Have they turned up anything useful?”

“Ask them yourself,” said Penny. “We’ve got a direct video feed set up. Fully secured, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” I said. “All right, patch me through.”

Penny nodded to the communications board, and remarkably quickly one of the great display screens cleared to show shifting views of a dark, shadowy chamber, with details picked out by jumping flashlight beams. Silhouetted figures moved jerkily among banks of silent equipment. It took me a long moment to recognise the usually bright, shining steel corridors of Manifest Destiny’s high-tech headquarters. All the electric lights were out, and all the equipment shut down. Loose papers fluttered here and there, left behind in the rush to leave. It was like looking at the excavation of some recently opened tomb in the Valley of the Kings. A shadowy figure approached the camera.

“Will you please stop bugging me?” said a harsh voice. “We’ll contact you when we’ve got anything worth reporting. Whole place is a mess. We’re having to move carefully because the bastards found time to leave a whole bunch of booby traps behind, before they scarpered. Trip wires and grenades, mostly. Wouldn’t bother us if we had our torcs, but as it is . . . We’re moving deeper into the heart of the bunker, but it looks like they took everything of value with them and trashed the rest. A localised EMP took out all their computers; we’ll bring back the hard drives just in case, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Oh, and we’ve found some bodies. Too far gone to identify, unless you want us to take DNA samples. Looks like they were setting one last trap when it went off in their faces.