“The New Machine Jihad leaked through its firewall: the networking was complete and the software wasn’t strong enough to contain it. This is different. The actual fibre-optic cable has snapped and the nodes are dead. How can an AI transmit a signal in that state?”

“It cannot. And yet you suspect this,” and Valentina tapped the screen behind her, “to be Jihad.”

Tabletop righted the chair again. “You’re too close to this, Sam. I think they’re playing you again.”

He took a deep breath and forced himself to stop. He rubbed his knuckles against his teeth and stood with his head bowed.

“Okay,” he said eventually, “let’s assume you’re right. The first act is Container Zero; a bunch of crazies beat me up, grab the bomb and disappear. In act two, scene one, the demands are made: free the Jihad or we’ll nuke the Freezone. We’ve got a video that shows exactly what I—not you or anybody else—what I want to see. So assuming I’m the target of all this, what is it that they expect me to do now?”

“I imagine you’re in the best position to answer that,” said Tabletop. “I’ll put on some coffee.”

Petrovitch perched on the edge of the chair again. “Do you think Sonja’s seen this?”

“If she has not, she will soon.” Valentina looked around at the frozen image of the Jihad’s prophet and scowled. “You must tell her bomb is false.”

“And that’s becoming less and less important.” He chewed his lip. “These guys are good. Really very good. I’ve spent a year trying to wean people off the idea that Michael is the Jihad under another name, but in less than a minute all that work’s been undone. Every day, same time, I’ve climbed up the Oshicora Tower in defiance of the UN Security Council. If I do it today, there’s going to be a yebani riot.”

“Perhaps that is what they want.”

“Chaos is too easy to arrange. There’s something more going on here, and I hate the feeling that someone’s deliberately trying to back me into a corner until I’ve got just the one option left.” He raised his voice so that Tabletop could hear. “Last time it was the American government.”

“Hey,” she called back, “they didn’t tell us, either. In fact, they tried to kill us too.”

“This isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s say I announce I’m not going up the tower today, and Sonja calls the Jihadis’ bluff: what happens then?”

“Nothing. Is business as usual.” Valentina pointed. “Except for you.”

“But that’s too easy. Yeah, I lose face, but I just proved I can create energy out of nothing. I can take the hit.” Now there was blood on his mouth where he’d worried his teeth into his skin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and inspected the smear. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?”

“Just a little bit.” Tabletop put three mugs of black coffee down on the table, and retrieved one for herself. “You and the Jihadis are calling for the same thing. No one’s going to believe you’re not connected with them, no matter how much you protest.”

“But I don’t have anything to do with them. They broke my arm!”

Tabletop shrugged and blew steam from the top of her mug. “So what? When has the truth had anything to do with it? You’re alone, with the bomb, and you steal it yourself. Now you’re using it as leverage to get Michael out. You can’t deny that’s what you’ve wanted all along, because everyone’s seen you up on the tower, throwing rubble around.”

“But…” he protested.

“What’s going to happen next is Sonja is going to come through that door with a squad of goons and hang you by the thumbs until you tell her where the bomb is.” She slurped her drink. “You should have told her it was a fake last night because she’s not going to believe you now.”

“Pizdets. Utter pizdets. They’ve not only taken me out, they’ve made sure that Michael stays buried forever. And we’re not a single step closer to working out who the huy they are.” He picked up his mug and threw it against the wall.

It shattered, and brown liquid spattered across the magnolia paint, clinging for a second before starting to drip.

Petrovitch stared at the dark pattern, as if it could give some meaning.

“We have to get out of here before they come for us, Sam.”

He tore his attention away from the coffee stain. “No. I’ll go on my own. You all have cast-iron alibis, and they don’t want you anyway. It’s me, and the more distance I put between us, the better.”

Lucy appeared at her door, scratching at her head. “What’s going on?”

“Tell her, because I don’t have time.” Petrovitch’s gaze strayed to the closed bedroom door, and he bared his teeth. “Watch the front doors, will you? If there’s any movement, call me.”

He marched in, shoving the door hard and banging it back against the wall. “Maddy? I’m out of here as soon as I can get my stuff together, and you have to be awake right now because I’m going to ask you a question once and I need you to answer it straightaway.”

She stirred. “Sam?”

“Tell me you’re listening.” He groveled on the floor for his battery chargers.

She sat up, holding the duvet across her breasts. “Sam? What’s the matter?”

“The matter,” he said, throwing the chargers unerringly onto the desk, “is that my life is being mined for tiny details which are then used to trap me like a yebani rat. I have just watched a video starring a man who only I would recognize, put on the big screen entirely for my benefit.”

“Sam, you’re making no sense.”

While he was down at floor level, he swept up his clothes from where they’d fallen last night. “If only. Are you ready for the question?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The question is this: who have you been talking to?”

She blinked. “What?”

“It’s not me. So it must be you. You’re the only one who knows about the Prophet of the New Machine Jihad: not Tina, not Tabletop, not Lucy, not Sonja, and Harry Chain is very, very dead. Yet there is a picture of that man stuck to the wall in the next room, and I want to know how the huy he got there!” Petrovitch snatched up his courier bag and started jamming things into its depths. “I told you everything. Absolutely everything. You know my deepest, darkest secrets, and someone is using them to destroy me.”

Madeleine colored up. “I have not told anyone, anything.”

“I don’t believe you.” Petrovitch gathered everything up in his arms. Still wearing the dressing gown, he paused at the door. “And I’ve just worked out who it is.”

She threw the duvet aside and advanced on him, naked, magnificent, furious. Any other time, he would have felt desire rise like a burning white heat. Not now: he was too far gone for that.

“I have not betrayed you,” she said.

“No. But your priest has.”

“That’s impossible,” she roared.

“Every week. Without fail. You went to Father John and confessed your sins. Every week we were together. And every week that we weren’t. I opened my life to you, and you spilled your guts to him.” He turned away, and couldn’t help but turn back. “Except I never told you about Michael until afterward. How yebani brilliant am I?”

All the fight was knocked out of her. “He wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“When I find him, I’m going to kill him. Eventually.” This time he did leave. He spun on his heel and started toward the landing.

Valentina, Tabletop and Lucy fell in behind him.

“I thought I told you I want to be on my own.”

“You won’t get far looking like that,” said Tabletop. “Probably better that we come with you.”

Lucy darted ahead for the door, and checked the corridor for Oshicora guards. “Clear.”

“Yeah, like this isn’t going to end badly.”

He hesitated as he crossed the threshold, but Valentina put her hand between his shoulder blades and shoved him out.

“We go now, or not at all.”