Now the numbers were dim inside his head-low night setting-and read 183.38.39. And while Axl recognised a timecode when he saw one, he was trying hard not to think what else the digits might be counting down. Just in case it was something important like his own life.

Only, given the four UN conscripts strung across the track leading into Cocheforet, there was a chance Axl might not even last that long. They held snubPup Brownings, hip high, supported by neoprene slings twisted casually round their right arms, thumbs brushing each user-verification chip and fingers wrapped round waiting triggers.

No diodes were lit to confirm that safety catches were off or squat magazines were loaded, but that was because duct tape had been wrapped round zytel butts, blocking them off. All four men had their visors down and Axl had no doubt that they’d been watching him on infrared the whole way in ...

The backbeat in his head upped tempo, bpms tied to his heartbeat, then slowed as Axl caught and hog-tied his irritation. The R3 reMix coming together clean, the sound system having kicked back to top quality once it had run that tattered, tacky WarChild intro. Now he had brushes dusting over a single snare like blown dust.

Read, Reconnoitre and get it Right

Fifty paces beyond the picket, three more conscripts and a Tibetan girl were sprawled on damp grass next to a dead goat, passing a giant spliff between them, while next to a hurricane lamp a fourth soldier fussed over a Braun portable grill that refused to ignite.

Axl didn’t recognise the Tibetan girl, but that meant nothing. He’d barely been in Cocheforet time enough to learn more than half a dozen names. She was laughing, except the laughter didn’t reach her eyes. She didn’t mean it. In situations like this people never did, but they kept smiling just in case it might make a difference.

Axl knew all about it, he’d been on both ends of that equation and neither left a good taste in his mouth.

One huge hand gripped the girl’s wrists and still managed to keep a spliff between two fat fingers, while the conscript’s other hand fumbled at the bottom of her grey felt skirt trying to find its hem. No matter how hard she laughed and wriggled that hand was going to find its way between her legs eventually. Just as Axl knew he was going to let the matter ride.

The alternative was putting a bullet through the back of the big man’s head and splattering his shit-for-brains all over the girl beneath, but that meant getting killed in return and Axl wasn’t prepared for that. So instead Axl grabbed the reins of Tukten’s pony and kicked his own mare into a trot, dragging Tukten behind him as he headed towards the conscripts blocking his path.

All of them were dressed in cheap PaxForce combats, cut from die kind of chameleon cloth that did its best to blend in with the background but was always a second or two behind. Over the jump-suits they wore heat-retaining kevlar flak jackets topped with polymer helmets featuring roll-down NBC masks and tiny built-in geek mikes. Boron patches were spot epoxied onto the transparent flaks above the heart. They wore shoulder armour too, running Tsunami software that could flip from soft to hard at the merest suggestion of a blow.

The jump-suits might be cheap but both helmet and flaks cost more than most PaxForce conscripts got paid in a year. Which wasn’t hard given the UN sourced its troops through an offshore broker called DecSec, who leased regular conscripts from Mauritania, Kazakhstan or Peru depending on the type of mission.

In theory the lessee countries got paid by the UN but in practice the IMF usually wrote the payment off against outstanding debt.

Conscript loss was acceptable, which wasn’t something you could say for their top-flight military electronics. Even adding in a completion bonus didn’t take the annual cost of a PaxForce trooper to more than half that paid to LockMart for the helmet alone.

All four soldiers had PaxForce IDs welded into their collars. The kind of crypt chip guaranteed to vibrate frantically if caught in the cross-hairs of a PaxForce snubPup, not to mention tell the snubPup where to get off… UN regulations demanded soldiers also wore rank and number identification, but this was missing in every case. Axl wasn’t surprised.

What did surprise him, though, was the fact he could see all this. And what surprised him even more was that he could see it clearly on a darkened night when Cocheforet was closed down, wooden shutters pulled tighter than a sphincter over windows and front doors kept closed.

Maybe this was the trade-off from Rinpoche for that irritating timecode. Because whatever scam the silver monkey had pulled in there among his neurons it was neat.

‘Actually,’ said Axl, ‘for an outdated Colt with an attitude problem it’s fucking impressive.’

Beside him, Tukten jumped. But mostly because he’d finally realised what Axl already knew. They were riding straight towards a group of soldiers, maybe twenty paces ahead. If Axl hadn’t grabbed the boy’s wrist, Tukten would have pulled round and ridden away; which was about as sensible as staple-gunning a luminous target on his back. At least it was when PaxForce were running a little unofficial R&R.

‘Wait,’ Axl snapped and kicked his heels until the mare he was riding stumbled into an unwilling trot. ‘Unless you want to get killed.’

The torch beam hit Axl’s face just ahead of the voice which ordered him to halt. Axl did. But he waited until his horse was almost upon the guard before yanking its bridle.

‘Shithead.’ The guard snapped up the lux level on his laserlight, shining it straight into Axl’s eyes. Without even thinking about it, Axl shut down some of the rod and cone cells, filtering out most of the brightness.

‘Who are you?’ The voice was rough, casually arrogant but not as hard as the man would like it to be. A corporal, nothing more.

‘Blackjack d’Essiarto,’ said Axl politely. ‘And I’d like to stable my mare ... if that’s not a problem?’

Next to the corporal a wiry kid sniggered and lowed his snubPup. Peruvian by the look of it. Which made sense at this altitude.

‘And this?’ The corporal demanded.

‘My servant,’ Axl grinned as Tukten stiffened in the saddle.

‘You live here?’

‘Do I live here… ?’ Sat on his horse, high above the corporal, Axl yawned heavily and stretched his arms out to his side, then yawned again… ‘Do I look like I live in a shit hole?’ Memories of his flat back in Day Effé crashed in on Axl but he shunted them out of his head. ‘Well,’ asked Axl, ‘do I?’

Someone else laughed and as the corporal whipped round, Axl kicked his mare forward and squeezed between the suddenly straight-faced soldiers. ‘I’m dossing at the Inn,’ he told the corporal over his shoulder, ‘if you need me.’

Axl trotted the hundred paces to the stable door and dismounted without once looking back. He had the revolver tucked into the back of his belt, hidden beneath the thick felt of his stinking coat. Using the weapon would be a last resort and Axl didn’t intend for that to happen. Mainly because he’d have to be seriously stupid to use a black-power .45 against flaked-up troops waving PaxForce-issue snubPups. It didn’t matter how many modifications to the gun Rinpoche had made, without kevlar body armour and a helmet Axl didn’t even have tickets to the same fucking ballpark.

Throwing open the stable door, Axl stopped. Instead of the familiar reek of dung and horse piss it stank of hydrocarbons and over-hot metal.

Five Chinese-built Honda X3 dirtbikes were parked up in one corner, the kind with studded tires and built-in gyro. Not fast, but they could hack ice that would tax a sherpa and slick down any slope that was less than vertical. That was exactly what he’d have brought if he’d had to choose. Except normal people on Samsara didn’t get to ride Honda dirts, or Seraphim 4x4s or Mitsubishi half-tracks come to that. Only PaxForce got full use of technology on Samsara, courtesy of some UN mandate. And even then, the Dalai Lama wasn’t too keen, though he was much too pragmatic to say so openly…