“Look, you heard him. There’s some kind of special flight schedule this morning. Why don’t you wait here, and I’ll find out what’s going on. Huh? I won’t be long.”

“I’m the fucking special flight, shithead! Me, me .”

“Christ! Grow up, will you! I don’t manage bloody teen-scream acts. I only do adults.”

Jezzibella stopped in surprise. Leroy never shouted at her. She pouted prettily. “I’ve been bad.”

“You got it.”

“Forgive me. I was all worked up over Emmerson.”

“I can understand that. But he’s not coming on the starship with us. Panic over.”

The mock smile faltered. “Leroy . . . Please, I just want to leave. I hate this fucking place. I’ll behave, really. But you have got to get me away from here.”

He rubbed his fat fingers over his face; sweat was making hair stick to his brow. “Okay. One miracle evacuation flight coming up.”

“Thanks, Leroy. I don’t have your defences, you know? The world’s different for you. Hard and easy altogether.”

Leroy tried to datavise a net processor. But he couldn’t get a single response, the units were all inert. “What the hell is going on here?” he asked in annoyance. “If these flights were that big a deal, why weren’t we informed?”

“Guess that’s my fault,” Al Capone told him.

Jezzibella and Leroy turned to see a group of ten men walking down the concourse towards them. They all wore double-breasted suits and carried machine guns. Somehow the idea of running from them seemed ludicrous. More gangsters were emerging from side corridors.

“You see, I don’t want people informed,” Al explained. “At least not for a while. After that, I’m gonna speak to this whole goddamn planet. Loud and clear.”

Two of Jezzibella’s bodyguards caught sight of the approaching gangsters. They began to run forwards, drawing their thermal induction pistols.

Al clicked his fingers. The bodyguards let out simultaneous yelps of pain as their pistols turned red hot. They dropped them fast. That was when a ripple of onyx flooring rose up and tripped them.

Jezzibella watched in astonishment as both bulky men went skidding into the wall. She looked from them back to Al, and grinned. “Magnifico.”

She desperately wanted to record the scene, but her fucking neural nanonics were crashing. Fucking typical!

Al watched the beef boy back away fearfully. But the dame . . . she just stood there. This weird expression on her face, fascination and interest making her eyes narrow demurely. Interest in him , by damn! She wasn’t afraid. She was pure class, this one. She was also one hell of a looker. Minx face, and a body the likes of which simply didn’t exist in the twenties.

Lovegrove was itching for a peek at her, busy telling him who Jezzibella was. Some kind of hotshot nightclub singer. Except there was more to it than just singing and playing the ivories these days, a lot more.

“So what are you going to tell us?” Jezzibella asked, her voice husky.

“What?” Al asked.

“When you speak to the planet. What are you going to say?”

Al took his time lighting a cigar. Making her wait, showing exactly who was in control. “I’m gonna tell them that I’m in charge now. Number one guy on the planet. And you’ve all gotta do what I say. Anything I say.” He winked broadly.

Jezzibella put on a disappointed expression. “Waste of talent.”

“What?”

“You’re the guys the police are calling Retros, right?”

“Yeah,” Al said cautiously.

She flicked a casual finger towards her dazed bodyguards. “And you’ve got the balls and the power to take over a whole planet?”

“You catch on quick.”

“So why waste it on this dump?”

“This dump has eight hundred and ninety million people living on it, lady. And I’m gonna be the fucking emperor of them all before the evening.”

“My last album has sold over three billion so far, probably triple that number in bootlegs. Those people want me to be their empress. If you’re going for broke, why not choose a decent planet? Kulu, or Oshanko, or even Earth.”

Not taking his eyes off her, Al called over his shoulder: “Hey, savvy Avvy, get your crummy ass up here. Now!”

Avram Harwood scuttled forwards, his head bowed, shoulders drooping. Each step was obviously painful for him, he was favouring his right leg. “Yes, sir?”

“New California is the greatest goddamn planet in the Confederation, ain’t that right?” Al asked.

“Oh, yes, sir. It is.”

“Is your population bigger than Kulu?” Jezzibella asked in a bored tone.

Avram Harwood twitched miserably.

“Answer her,” Capone growled.

“No, ma’am,” Harwood said.

“Is your economy larger than Oshanko’s?”

“No.”

“Do you export as much as Earth?”

“No.”

Jezzibella inclined her head contemptuously on one side, pushing her lips out towards Al. “Anything else you want to know?”

Her voice had suddenly become the same as a schoolteacher’s. Al started to laugh in sincere admiration. “Goddamn! Modern women.”

“Can you all do that heat trick with the fingers?”

“Sure can, honey.”

“Interesting. So how is taking over this spaceport tied in with conquering the planet?”

Al’s first instinct was to brag. About the synchronized flights up to the orbiting asteroids. About taking out the SD personnel. About using the SD network firepower to open up the whole planet to his Organization. But they were short on time. And this was no backwoods girl, she’d understand if he explained it. “Sorry, babe, but we’re kinda in a hurry. It’s been a ball.”

“No it hasn’t. If you’d had a ball with me, you’d know about it.”

“Hot shit—”

“If it’s tied in with spaceplane flights, you’re either going up to starships or the orbiting asteroids. But if you’re taking over the planet, it can’t be the starships. So it has to be the asteroids. Let me guess, the Strategic Defence network.” She watched the alarmed expressions light up on the faces of the gangsters. All except Mayor Harwood, but then he was already hopelessly adrift in some deep private purgatory. “How did I do?”

Al could only gawp. He’d heard of lady spiders like this; they knitted fancy webs or did hypnosis, or something. It ended up that the males just couldn’t escape. Then they got screwed and eaten.

Now I know what they go through.

“You did pretty good.” He was envious of her cool. Envious of a lot of things, actually.

“Al?” Emmet Mordden urged. “Al, we have to get going.”

“Yeah, yeah. I ain’t forgotten.”

“We can send this group down to Luciano’s people for possessing.”

“Hey, who the fuck’s in charge here?”

Emmet took a frightened pace backwards.

“In charge, but not in control,” Jezzibella teased.

“Don’t push it, lady,” Al warned her sharply.

“True leaders simply tell people to do what they want to do anyway.” She licked her lips. “Guess what I want to do?”

“Fuck this. Modern women. You’re all like goddamn whores. I ain’t never heard anything like it.”

“The talk isn’t all you’ve never had before.”

“Holy Christ.”

“So what do you say, Al?” Jezzibella switched her voice back to a liquid rumble. She almost didn’t have to fake it. She was so turned on, excited, stimulated. You name it. Caught up in a terrorist hijack. And such strange terrorists, too. Wimps with a personal nuclear capability. Except the leader, he was massively focused. Not bad-looking, either. “Want me to tag along on your little coup d’état mission? Or are you going to spend the rest of every waking day wondering what it would have been like? And you will wonder. You know you will.”

“We got a spare seat on the rocketship,” Al said. “But you’ve got to do as you’re told.”

She batted her eyelashes. “That’ll be a first.”

Amazed at what he’d just said, Al tried to play back their conversation in his mind to see how he’d gotten to this point. No good, he couldn’t figure it. He was acting on pure impulse again. And that felt first-class. Like the good old days. People never did know what he was going to do next. It kept them on edge, and him on top.