Marchenkho had brought vodka as well as guns. A tray was laden with glasses and the bottle was upended over it. The sharp alcohol fumes burned the sweet, heavy smell of blood from their noses.

Petrovitch threw his glass into the gutter like a good Russian, and Marchenkho’s crew followed suit to prove they were better Ukrainians.

“If anyone has an explanation for this, I would very much like to hear it.” Marchenkho went back for a second glass and shuddered as he drank.

“The building attacked them,” said Petrovitch, and suddenly all eyes were on him. Self-conscious under all the attention, he adjusted his glasses. “It lured them into the lifts and then killed them.”

“Buildings do not…”

“Yeah,” interrupted Petrovitch, “and cars don’t do that either, except they did yesterday. If you have a better idea, then let’s hear it.”

Marchenkho rumbled to himself. “Someone must be controlling the lifts, to make them do that.” He was shaken, the man who had committed his own calculated atrocities.

“The same person who was controlling the cars, blocking the internet, the phones, paralyzing the tube? They’d have to be very busy. Superhumanly busy.” He shook his head. “Virus. Some sort of virus.”

“Viruses do not hunt people down and send them to their deaths.” Marchenkho launched his glass at the curbstone where it shattered into glittering shards. “I know this much: only we can be that vicious.”

“Your only problem is that the internet is swamped. There’s no traffic. It’s impossible to control anything at the moment.”

“I hate to interrupt,” said Chain. Of all of them, only he hadn’t drunk. “But can anyone else hear that?”

Marchenkho waved for quiet. There were two distinct sets of sounds, neither of them good. Distant gunfire, intense bursts of automatic weapons and single cracks of pistols. Closer in, not just near but all around them, a repetitive click, one short beat every second.

Puzzled heads turned, searching for the source.

“The cameras. It’s coming from the cameras.” Chain pointed across the road at the CCTV pylon attached to the side of the brownstone building. “There are speakers underneath.”

“So why are they ticking at us?” Petrovitch scanned the plaza as the clicking echoed around them, bouncing off the high walls and repeating from street corners.

“It’s the radiation warning system,” Chain said with wonder. “I never knew it still worked.”

“Radiation?” said Marchenkho. “What is this that says there is radiation? Can it be trusted?”

“If it’s an automatic system, I wouldn’t trust it to tell the time at the moment. Ignoring it is the sensible choice. I’m more worried about the war that seems to be starting uncomfortably close.” Grigori was standing close by, and Petrovitch asked him: “Which way?”

Grigori listened. “North?” he ventured. “Regent’s Park?”

“Yeah, maybe. The natives were always restless. Or it could be Hijo.”

“I forgot about your girlfriend.”

“Pashol na khui.”