After ten minutes, he gave up, threw his pen down in disgust and dug around in his jacket pocket. Sorenson’s card was white and shiny, with a little animated logo spinning around in one corner. It had the company phone number embossed across the front, along with the URL: the back was over-printed with Sorenson’s name and mobile number.

He tapped the card on the desk, considered putting it back, considered throwing it in the bin, considered trying to tear at its hard plastic edges until it broke. He tossed it to one side and looked at the equation he’d started.

“Raspizdyai kolhoznii,” he muttered. The card stared back at him.

But he couldn’t concentrate.

He wrenched open a drawer and unrolled a keyboard. His screen was under a pile of books he hadn’t quite got around to returning to the stacks: he dragged it out and propped it against the fading spines. Some of the pixels had failed due to the weight of paper, but he could see around them.

He tapped the rubbery keys to make sure he had a connection, then logged on to his own computer.

There was a touch pad somewhere. He moved some monographs, and it was hiding underneath. He nudged it closer to the keyboard and got the two talking.

If he’d had his rat, the whole operation would have been simplicity itself, but he hadn’t bought it to make his life easy. He’d bought it for his insurance policy, the one he’d have to cash in if his world came tumbling down around him.

He contemplated his need for his missing hardware while listening to the ringing of Sorenson’s phone.

“Sorenson.”

“Are you alone?”

“Who is this?”

“Shut the fuck up, Sorenson, and listen to me. Don’t say my name. Are you alone?”

There was a pause. “Yes. He’s just left.”

“Right. There is a very good chance that you’re still wearing a bug that Chain planted on you. I know you changed your clothes this morning, and I don’t know if that makes a difference, but I wouldn’t risk it.”

The silence that followed was long enough that Petrovitch pinged Sorenson’s phone to make sure it was still on.

“How do you know?”

“Because Chain’s just been to see me and casually let slip that he’s been listening to our conversation all morning.”

“What should I do?”

“I’m not your agony aunt, Sorenson. I’ve done the right thing, and now I’m hanging up. Oh, and I might not care about whatever horrible things you’ve done in the past, but both Oshicora and Chain seem to know all about them. Goodbye.”

He closed the connection and deleted the phone from his records, then cleared all the computer components away. He was reasonably confident that the phone call was untraceable and anonymous. Confident, but not certain.