Flat metal slabs had slid out of the manor's stonework to seal the ground floor's doors and windows. Teddy set Suzi down against the wall and unslung a small pack.

Eleanor and Victor watched the grounds, AKs held ready, as Teddy slapped a thermal-slice tape on the slab of metal covering a window. It was a thick flexible tube which hissed as it adhered to the slab.

"OK, don't look."

Startlingly bright blue-white light glared out, buzzing and sizzling. Eleanor saw sparks skipping along the paving slabs around her feet. She could feel its warmth on the back of her neck.

"Here it comes." The light dimmed, and there was a loud resonant clang, smashing glass. A fan of milder biolum light spilled out across the grass.

Eleanor kept looking over the lawn. Her nerves raw-edged. She expected to see a mass charge of sentinels coming at her. They'll never let us get in. Not those devils.

There was grunting and shuffling from behind her. "Don't touch the edge," she heard Teddy warning, He was shoving Suzi through the hole. "Got her? OK, for Christ's sake go easy. You next, Nicole."

Eleanor began to back towards the window, shivering uncontrollably.

"You make it with that leg, Victor? OK, I'll boost you." Silence. Eleanor knew she was alone. Sweeping the AK in wild arcs. Nothing moved on the lawn.

"Move it, Eleanor."

The jagged hole was roughly square, one and a half metres high, its lower rim a metre off the ground. She put a leg through.

"All right, lady, hands where we can see them, and moving real slow."

The room inside was huge, its floor an intricate mosaic of olive-green and cream tiles; there were chandeliers hanging on gold chains, pastel frescoes of waterfowl on the walls, Regency furniture, a grand piano. Smoke layered the air, two people were using fire extinguishers on the window frame, glass crunched under her foot. A small army was pointing Uzi hand-lasers at her.

Standing in the middle of the room was a dignified grey-haired man whose face was stiff with tension and suspicion. Had to be Walshaw.

Suzi was lying on the floor, chest a mass of gore, blood pooling on the shiny tiles. There was a woman kneeling beside her, working frantically. Medical gear modules were scattered round, red and amber LEDs flashing, their needle sensors jabbing through the remnants of the jumpsuit. The woman slapped a bioware mask over Suzi's face, a rubbery sac concertinaed out of it and began palpitating.

Nicole was slumped motionless against a wall. Two of the security people were covering her with Uzis while a third wrapped fluffy aquamarine towels around her shredded arms, blood staining them brown.

Victor was standing, hands on head, eyes red with pain. A grim-faced woman was frisking him with expert thoroughness.

Three security people surrounded Teddy. He was facedown on the floor, spread-eagled, his hood thrown back, an Uzi pressed against the back of his bare neck.