We picked our way through the gore and moved cautiously up the corridor, into the heart of the wet-bunker’s base levels. Tanaseda hadn’t known where exactly the captives would be held—the haiduci were twitchy and aggressive about allowing the yakuza a presence in Kossuth in the first place. Precarious in his new role of penitent failed blackmailer, Tanaseda had still insisted, on his own admission because he’d hoped to retrieve the whereabouts of Yukio Hirayasu’s stack from me by torture or extortion and thus cut his loss of face, at least among his own colleagues. Aiura Harlan-Tsuruoka, for some byzantine reason or other, agreed and in the end, it was her pressure on Segesvar that forged the diplomatic cooperation between yakuza and haiduci. Tanaseda had been welcomed formally by Segesvar himself, and then been told in no uncertain terms that he’d best find himself accommodation in Newpest or Sourcetown, stay away from the farm unless specifically summoned and keep his men on a tight leash. He’d certainly not been given a tour of the premises.

But really, there was only one secure place in the complex for people you didn’t want dead yet. I’d seen it a couple of times on previous visits, had once even watched some doomed gambling junkie conveyed there while Segesvar thought about how exactly to make an example of him. If you wanted to lock a man up on the farm, you put him where even a monster couldn’t break free. You locked him in the panther cells.

We paused at a crossways, where ventilation systems gaped open above us. Faintly, down the conduits, came the sounds of ongoing battle. I gestured left, murmuring.

“Down there. The panther cells are all on the right at the next turn, they open onto tunnels that lead directly into the pens. Segesvar converted a couple of them for human holding. Got to be one of those.”

“Alright, then.”

We picked up the pace again, took the right turn, and then I heard the smooth, solid hum of one of the doors on the cells sliding down into the floor. Footsteps and urgent voices beyond. Segesvar and Aiura, and a third voice I’d heard before but couldn’t place. I clamped down on the savage spurt of joy, flattened myself to the wall and waved Jad and Murakami back.

Aiura, compressed rage as I tuned in.

“…really expect me to be impressed by this?”

“Don’t you hand me that shit,” snapped Segesvar. “This is that slant-eyed yak fuck you insisted on bringing aboard. I told you—”

“Somehow, Segesvar-san, I do not think—”

“And don’t fucking call me that either. This is Kossuth, not the fucking north. Have a bit of cultural sensitivity, why don’t you. Anton, you sure there’s no intrusion ‘cast going down?”