This was why Tennal shouldn’t hang around decent people.

Fuck. He turned on his wristband’s communications then jammed his fist in his pocket. “Maybe not,” he said. “Just stay away from me.”

They split up outside. A section of the wall outside had opened to show the mouth of a rapid-fall chute, glowing red. Tennal bypassed it, hammered at the button to call the lift, then remembered fire alarms turned off lifts at the same time as he heard the corridor sprinklers start. He ducked into a stairwell with damp hair and shoulders, coming up with new and inventive names for the prat who had decided to set off the fire alarm, and took the stairs up three at a time.

He was only five floors from the top, but it felt like twenty. He was nauseous by halfway up. Underneath the seething panic he thought, I used to have more stamina than this.

The penthouse was still empty when he staggered into it. Discarded bottles and cups lay scattered around. Tennal caught himself on the back of an uncomfortable designer chair and watched as the gray silhouette of a hoverplane grew larger and larger, circling down toward the building. It looked like it was going to come through the balcony. The door was locked, but it wasn’t as if that would hold them up for more than ten seconds.

Tennal found himself moving automatically toward the cooler in the corner of the room. When he realized what he was doing, he shrugged and grabbed another handful of glasses by their stems.

He had his back to the balcony. That was fine. He poured himself a glass of champagne, letting the pounding of blood in his body blend in with the enormous, world-encompassing noise of a Swift’s four turbo engines drawing up within ten meters of him. There was a lower rumble as it cut back on power and hovered level with the balcony, nearly kissing the rail. This was good champagne.

The shattering of bulletproof glass made him turn.

“Twenty seconds just to break some glass,” he said. “A bit slow, officers. Care for a drink?”

CHAPTER 3

Three uniformed soldiers had dropped from the plane to the balcony. Once the soldier with the impact drill had shattered the door, they released their harnesses and stepped over the broken window glass into the penthouse. Tennal barely registered the two armed rankers. They were just background to the third figure.

He was an army officer, stocky, with a bald head and an evidently lofty rank—Tennal couldn’t read rank tabs, but he felt a stab of apprehension from the miles of gold braid encrusting his uniform. But the officer’s nominal rank didn’t matter. The moment he stepped in the room, a vivid glare of light flooded Tennal’s head, drowning out even the pounding of the engines. Tennal couldn’t see. He couldn’t think.