“Amateurs,” muttered Valentina, and opened her briefcase again for the battery pack. She wired in the loose ends of cable and flipped the safety cover off the big red button. “Cover your ears,” she said.

She pressed the button, and the silence was broken by the sound of a single handclap, magnified out of all proportion. The air stiffened and relaxed, now tainted with a burnt chemical odor.

They peered over the parapet. At first, the doors were obscured by smoke; then, as it cleared, it seemed that the door, and its glass was still in place.

Slowly, gracefully, the frame fell outward and landed with a second concussion on the paving slabs. Still the glass didn’t break.

“Excellent, Tina,” said Marchenkho, and he stood up, pulling out his gun in one fluid motion. “Come on. You want to live forever?”

“Good point, well made,” said Petrovitch, and he held the Norinco high. They ran for the doors as those now freed streamed out, coughing from the fumes.

As they emerged, they scattered. They ran as if from the devil.

“Catch one,” called Petrovitch, and he watched as Marchenkho straight-armed a middle-aged man in the face. He’d barely hit the floor before he’d been hauled up to tiptoe by his tie. “Not quite what I meant, but yeah, okay.”

Blood was streaming down the man’s face from his nose, staining his crumpled shirt. He was almost incoherent with terror.

“Where’s Sonja Oshicora?” asked Petrovitch.

The man stared at him, at Marchenkho, at the building he’d just left at such speed. Japanese phrases dribbled from his lips, none of which Petrovitch could hope to understand.

“Sonja Oshicora. Where is she? Which floor is she on?”

Marchenkho drew his fist back for another strike, and finally the man seemed scared enough of being beaten to talk. “Miss Sonja gone.”

“Gone? Dead?”

“Not dead. Gone. In night.”

“Where did Hijo take her?”

The man focused on Petrovitch, and explained the best he could while being choked. “Not Hijo-san. Miss Sonja run away. Hijo-san look for Miss Sonja in city.”

Petrovitch pushed his glasses up. “She escaped? When?”

“In night. This night.”

“Pizdets. Put him down and let him go.”

Marchenkho dropped the man, who scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as he could away toward Piccadilly. “She is not there?”

“Apparently she didn’t need our help after all.” Petrovitch watched the suited man go, then turned back to the Oshicora Tower. “Doesn’t explain what’s going on in there, though.”

“Shall we see?” Marchenkho squared his shoulders and stepped through the doorway into the foyer. Chain was already picking his way through the objects that had been unsuccessfully used to try and batter a way out—chairs, tables, fire extinguishers, metal supports, earthenware pots with spilled soil and broken trunks.

“They panicked.” He kicked a broken tabletop aside. “Wouldn’t have happened with Oshicora still alive.”