"In a manner of speaking." Angleton sounds weary. "Gentlemen, I believe we may have been led on a wild-goose chase. I am tracking a missing classified document. I was expecting it to lead us to a nest of cultists, but it seems they've learned how to use a photocopier and this"—his over-the-shoulder wave conveys world-weary regret—"is their idea of a joke. Unfortunately the document in question is classified, and we can't ignore it. We can't ignore the possibility of an ambush, either, but at least it ought to be easy enough to evacuate. Alan, would you mind contacting the local fire control? I think a snap inspection of the library sprinkler system ought to get our feet under the table."

Barnes nods, wordlessly, and starts to call the fire-control room on one of the other handsets. In the back, Warrant Officer Howe nods at his men: "Strip." The HAZMAT suits come off, to reveal regular Fire Brigade overalls underneath. "Okay, as soon as we get the go-ahead ..."

Angleton waits tensely in the front passenger seat, fidgeting with something small and dark. Nobody is watching him. But an observer might think, from his behavior, that he's worried they're too late.

WHILE ANGLETON AND THE OCCULUS TEAM ARE GETTING READY to raid a public library in search of a missing document, Mo is midway through her second glass of lemonade in a wine bar with the man who would be Panin, and I am phasing in and out of consciousness, in airless darkness and pain, in the boot of a speeding car.

Regrets: I have them.

For instance, I never wrote to my MP to express my displeasure at the widespread deployment of sleeping policemen around the capital. It never occurred to me to do so: Mo and I don't own a car, and speed bumps are a rarely sighted problem in our world. But right now I am learning to hate the things with a livid passion usually reserved for broken software installers and lying politicians. My abductors appear to be incapable of slowing for obstructions, and every time we bounce over a speed cushion or crunch down off a raised speed table or swerve through a chicane I take the full force of it on my right arm. That goatfucking cannibal cultist arsehole Julian packed me in the boot damaged side down; I don't have the strength, the room, or the leverage to turn myself over. I swear, when I get out of this thing I'm going to run for mayor, and the first item on my manifesto will be to order the transport planners to scrape the fucking things off every road in London with their tongues. Second item on the agenda: making it legal to shoot any cultists seen in the city after sundown with a bow and arrow. Sort of like that bylaw York has, the one about Welshmen. Or was it Scotsmen? Where was I—