"Techniques to break police ranks, ambush their snatch squads, how to counter the assault dogs. That kind of thing. It's a reversal of the counter-insurgency courses the Army gave me."

You wanted to know, she told herself. Her eyes dropped to the crushed yellow stone fragments of the path.

"Stay calm," Greg said quietly.

She glanced at him, puzzled. His eyes had that distant look. He was using his gland.

Then the Trinities boy stepped out from his hiding place behind a crumbling employment workshop wall, he did it fast and smooth, simply there. And it was all she could do not to yelp in surprise. He fitted her image of an urban predator perfectly, almost a stereotype. Asian, somewhere in his mid-twenties, with hair cropped close, wearing a filthy denim jacket with the arms torn off, slashed T-shirt, and tight leather trousers. Two bowie knives and a compact stun puncher were clipped on to his belt. There was some sort of gear plug in his left ear. A taut strap running round his neck held his throat mike. The Trinities emblem was painted on his jacket.

He leered at her, and she knew he could read her fright. "What the fuck are you arseholes? Hazard junkies?"

There were more Trinities spreading out of the ruins behind her and Greg, dressed in a grab bag of camouflage jackets, jeans, and T-shirts. Faces hard, carrying weapons ranging from knives up to things whose function she couldn't guess. They fanned out, forming a tight blockade.

"Cool it, mate," Greg said levelly and put a bag down, holding out his right hand, very slowly.

The youth's sneer faded when he saw the Trinities card Greg was holding. "Where you get that?"

"Same place as you."

"No shit?" He pulled out his own card and showed it to the one in Greg's open palm. Confusion twisted his features as his card acknowledged Greg's authenticity. "I don't know your face."

"I don't know yours," Greg said.

"Don't smart-arse me!" he shouted.

"Greg's one of us, Des," a throaty female voice said from behind Eleanor. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a small figure with spiky mauve hair, wearing tourniquet-tight leopard-skin jeans and a sleeveless black singlet. The girl's age was indefinable; thin-faced, she could've been anywhere between fifteen and thirty. She was cradling a big gauss-pulse carbine casually across one arm. Bandolier straps crossed her flat chest, loaded with red-tipped slugs. Additional power magazines were clipped to her belt. Her face was one big smirk.

"Shut the fuck up, Suzi," shouted the boy confronting them. "Hear me? You could drive a fucking tank through that mouth of yours. This is my turf, I'm the Man here. These could be Party."

Eleanor held on to Greg's forearm with her free hand, pinching. Suppose the card wasn't good enough?

Greg grinned faintly. "Hi, Suzi."

The mauve-haired girl gave him an impish thumbs up.

Des's face darkened. "You know these?" his jabbed at Greg.