“Abduction?” Lisa echoed, still fixated on the first sentence of Kenna’s little speech. “Morgan’s been kidnapped?”

“I very much doubt that they intend to hold him for ransom,” the younger woman replied insouciantly. “I think it’s far more likely that they want him to tell them something before they kill him, don’t you? I don’t suppose that by any chance you have any idea of what it is they want to know?”

“No,” said Lisa shortly, then realized she’d been wrong-footed again.

“Well,” Kenna said, relishing the carefully hoarded line, “you obviously didn’t know him quite as well as you thought you did. And he evidently didn’t confide in you quite as much as the people who went after him thought he did. Mr. Smith will be disappointed.”

“Who’s Mr. Smith?” was the only counter Lisa could improvise.

“Peter Grimmett Smith is the MOD man who’ll be taking charge of the investigation. He’ll be working closely with us, of course. I daresay he’ll find plenty for DI Grundy to do. I’m not so sure that we’ll need much more from youonce you’ve been debriefed, though—unless you can exercise your memory sufficiently to remember some little secret you and Dr. Miller might have kept between you. One that might help to explain four firebombs, two burglaries, two cases of malicious wounding, and an abduction.” The professional smile had vanished now.

It hadn’t occurred to Lisa until the conversation reached that pitch of sarcasm that Judith Kenna might honestly believe that she was concealing something. Nor had it occurred to her that the dislike Kenna had never tried to conceal might run deeper than mere irritation and ageism prejudice—but she considered the hypothesis now.

Twenty years ago, Judith Kenna had served a brief term as one of Mike Grundy’s sergeants, and now she was his boss. Kenna had guessed, of course, that Mike must have told Lisa that he had screwed her way back when, but however embarrassed the chief inspector might be about that particular little secret, it surely wasn’t grounds for a serious hate campaign. Kenna had doubtless also guessed that while Mike had been sleeping on Lisa’s couch following the breakup of his marriage, he hadn’t always stayed on the couch—but what difference did that make? Lisa couldn’t believe that mere jealousy was a factor—but if not jealousy, what? Was it just that Lisa wouldn’t play ball when Kenna had begun trying to hasten her toward retirement? Or was it just that Kenna’s ego was so insecure that she didn’t want to have anyone around who was older, wiser, and independent-minded?

Knowing that she had to say something, Lisa eventually said: “If there was any secret, it was between Morgan and Ed Burdillon. Are you surehe’s been abducted?”

“Of course not,” the chief inspector replied. “There are signs of a struggle, but that would be easy enough to fake. Are yousuggesting that Morgan Miller might be the man behind all this—the one who sent bombers to the university and burglars to raid your flat?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Lisa retorted. “I was wondering if he might have been away when the burglars came to call. Have you got the abduction on tape?”

“Probably not,” Kenna told her. “Unfortunately, Dr. Miller’s house doesn’t appear to have any security cameras, not even in the hallway or on the porch. It’s a very old house—and he’s a very old man. Twentieth-century habits die hard, as you obviously know. The street cams will have picked somethingup in spite of the blackout, but it won’t be much and they probably won’t prove anything one way or the other. Tracking the getaway will be very difficult indeed.”

“This is crazy,” Lisa said helplessly. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It certainly doesn’t,” agreed the chief inspector. “But whoever did this had reason enough to send at least seven people to formulate a plan of extraordinary complexity. Theythink it makes sense—and we have to figure out what sense they think it makes. Continue your inquiries, Dr. Friemann—but don’t go back to the labs with Dr. Forrester. Mr. Smith will want you close at hand when he arrives, and for some time afterward. We’ll probably need you to look through Miller’s house in the hope that you can give us some information about the items that have been removed, but Mr. Smith will have to decide when. In the meantime, ask one of Fire and Rescue’s backup paramedics to treat your hand and arm.”

Having given these instructions, Judith Kenna turned on her heel and left. Lisa watched the chief inspector walk back along the corridor, moving with quasimilitary rigidity. While she was still standing there, dumbly, the remaining firemen pushed past her, reeling up two flabby hoses as they went. It wasn’t until they’d all disappeared that Mike Grundy shuffled around the corner where he’d presumably been waiting out of sight.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t realize quite how much shit had hit the fan—the news about Miller’s house being turned over only just came through. What the hell’s going on, Lisa?”

“I don’t know,” Lisa said, wishing that she did. You’ll work it out, the man—or woman—who’d shot her had said. If we don’t have what we need, we’ll be back, and next time.… Now Lisa wished that she’d heard the end of that sentence. There was another that seemed even more ominous in present retrospect. Nobody cares about you, you stupid bitch!the distorted voice had informed her. Miller never cared, and no matter what he promised you, you’ll be dead soon enough.

But Morgan had never promised her anything: not love, not marriage, not partnership, not wealth, not even a substantial share of his meager wisdom.

Whatever information she was supposed to have must still be safe and secure in Morgan Miller’s mind—but if his captors thought they were going to beat it out of him, they had another think coming. Lisa was convinced that if there was one man in the world who would never give in to pressure or temptation, it was Morgan Miller.

“I suppose it isn’t likely to be personal,” Mike mused, carefully leaving out the inflection that would have made it into a question. “Whoever did this was attacking Applied Genetics, not Burdillon. Why else take the trouble to drag him clear of the fire? If their reason’s political, they’ll probably want to brag about it, but if not…” He trailed off temptingly, but Lisa had no other suggestion ready.

She wondered if it was possible that the bombers had gone after Mouseworld simply because it was a classic experiment, a living legend. Extreme Gaeans, way out on the green end of the spectrum, might conceivably believe that hitting Mouseworld might help them make a point about the realLondon, Paris, New York, and Rome and their plight within the context of the otherwar that dare not speak its name: the war for the salvation of the ecosphere. But what, if so, was the motive for Morgan’s abduction?

She recalled then that Thomas Sweet had told her that Chan Kwai Keung wasn’t answering his phone, and that he hadn’t been able to get a hold of Stella Filisetti either. It was possible that the register of crimes patiently listed by Judith Kenna would expand even further before daybreak. Chan lived way out in the country, so it would take time for Mike’s men to check out his address, but Stella Filisetti probably lived closer to the campus. The men sent to bring her in for questioning should be reporting shortly. The true magnitude of the crime would be evident soon enough.

Mike was still waiting for a comment.

“If their target really was the cities, and they’re doing it to make a point,” Lisa said hesitantly, “they’ll have to ram the point home somehow. Maybe Kenna was wrong about the ransom demand—maybe we’ll get one as soon as the TV news people wake up.”

Mike immediately picked up the thread of the argument. “We have to be looking at some kind of organization with an inside connection,” he said. “They had a smartcard pass and the combinations of all the doors they needed to get through. In a way, thanthe weirdest thing about the whole operation. They got through your door, and Miller’s, just as easily. They also switched off the power to a substantial slice of the city, and they knew my mobile-phone number. That’s a lotof inside information, Lis—and it’s from at least three different insides, unless…”