He took the pack from his back and removed the explosives. Working quickly, he moved along the pumps, securing the small shaped charges directly above the bearings.

His retreat was as quiet and efficient as his entry. The lock clicked shut behind him. As soon as he was back over the fence, the door sensors resumed their genuine feed. The Prime withdrew from the Durrell datapool, erasing all log traces of its existence as it went.

The red-and-blue strobes were visible long before the pump station itself. Simon could see them through the car's windshield as they turned off the main road and into the industrial estate, throwing out planes of light that flickered off the walls of buildings. Over a dozen police vehicles were drawn up around the pump station. Electric-blue plastic Police Crime Boundary barriers had been erected, forming a wide cordon outside the shaggy evergreen hedge. Uniformed officers were standing around it, while forensic personnel and robots carried out a slow centimeter-by-centimeter search of the ground. Skin suits moved around inside the barriers like guards overseeing a chain gang, never physically mixing with the forensic team. A crowd of reporters was jostling the blue plastic, shoving sensors forward. There must have been twenty direct feeds diving into the datapool, delivering the operation direct to the public in every visual and audio spectrum acceptable to human senses. Even laser radars were being used to map out the scene in 3D. Questions were shouted at police and Skins, regardless of rank. A constant harassment, deliberately pitched to provoke a response of any kind.

Simon's DNI was providing him with technical results from the forensic team as soon as their sensors acquired it. The grid of indigo tables and graphs was depressingly devoid of valid data.

"Can you believe this?" Braddock Raines said. He and Adul Quan were sharing the car with Simon. They were both staring out at the rest of the spectators. Staff from the factories and offices on the estate had gathered outside their respective doorways to observe the police operation firsthand. They shivered in the early morning chill, stamping their feet and swapping gossip and rumor, most of it invented by themselves.

Braddock took over manual control of the car and slowed it, steering around the clumps of people standing in the road. Most of them seemed oblivious to traffic.

"You want to go in, Chief?" Adul asked. "It won't be very private."

Simon hesitated for a moment. True, i-holograms could provide him with the scene of the crime to peruse at his leisure. And he had an inbuilt reluctance to be identified as any sort of important figure—especially here. Yet there was something about this whole act of sabotage that unsettled him. He just couldn't work out why. Whatever he was looking for, it wouldn't be in a hologram, no matter how high the resolution.

"I think we'll take a look."

"Okay." Adul started to inform the platoon sergeant they were arriving, while Braddock parked the car as close as possible.

Reporters saw them pull up. Half a dozen made their way over as the doors opened. Three police officers and a couple of Skins moved to intercept them and clear a passage for Simon.

"Are you guys Zantiu-Braun's secret police?"

"Will you use collateral necklaces in retaliation?"

Simon kept a neutral expression in place until they passed through the cordon. When they made it inside the pump station his nose crinkled at the sight. Then he realized he was standing in a couple of centimeters of water.

Each of the pumps had been torn apart, their impellers bursting out of the casing. Chunks of metal were embedded in the concrete walls and the ceiling. No piece of machinery was left intact; even the control boards were buckled and shattered.

Simon's gaze swept from side to side. "Competent," he murmured. "Very competent." He saw the senior police officers, five of them huddled together. The sight amused him. He'd visited a great many crime scenes over the years, and anyone above the rank of lieutenant always sought out and stuck with his or her contemporaries. It was as if they were afraid they'd get mugged by the junior ranks if they were alone.

His personal AS interrogated the police AS and discovered the officer in charge. Detective Captain Oisin Benson. He was easy enough to identify: no other senior officer had hair that unkempt.

Oisin Benson caught sight of him at the same moment. He gave his colleagues a knowing look and came over.

"Can I help you?"

"We're just here to take a preliminary look, Captain," Simon said. "We won't get in your way."

"Let me phrase that better," Oisin Benson said. "Who are you, and why do you think you have the right to be here?"

"Ah. I see. Well, we're from the president's office, and we're here by the authority of General Kolbe. And the reason we're here is to determine if this was an anti-Zantiu-Braun act."

"It wasn't."

"You seem to have come to that conclusion remarkably quickly, Captain. What evidence have you got for that?"

"No slogans painted here. No statement released by freedom fighters. None of your people or operations were targeted. This is purely a civil matter."

"Are there a lot of terrorist explosions on Thallspring?"

Detective Captain Oisin Benson leaned a fraction closer and smiled coldly. "They're about as rare as tuberculosis, Mr. Roderick."

So much for being unobtrusive, Simon thought. "Actually, Detective, our operations were targeted by this. The pump station provides several factories with water. All of them will have to curtail their operations until supplies can be restored."

"Out of the seventeen factories supplied by this station, only five are being forced to provide your tribute. The utility company that owns this station, on the other hand, is the subject of several lawsuits concerning toxic spillage brought by the families of those afflicted. It's a court battle that is taking a long time to resolve, and the company so far has not made any interim payments to the victims."

"Has the company been threatened?"

"Their executives have received a great many threats, both verbally and in e-packages; they're normally directed against them personally or their families, but there have been a considerable number made against the company itself."

"How convenient."

"You don't like the truth, do you, Mr. Roderick? Especially when it doesn't coincide with your own agenda."

Simon sighed, resentful that he had to get involved in a public squabble with this petty official. "We're going to look around now, Detective. We won't take up any more of your time."