The sound of an approaching siren came from somewhere along the piazza as Streak struggled to stay on his feet. He couldn’t think straight. As yet, no one had noticed the man who’d collapsed behind the group of people around Kristen.

Streak kicked himself into action. It occurred to him that the man might get bundled into the same ambulance as Kristen, which wouldn’t do at all. He shouldered his way through the crowd and knelt down beside the fallen man. As he bent over the body, he pulled a leathered flask from his jacket, thanking providence that he never traveled without some form of alcohol on his person.

The other men in suits were closing in, and people were turning to look now. Streak flicked off the cap and poured the whiskey over the man.

“Get rid of this drunk,” he said loudly and with a fair semblance of disgust. “At this time of day and at the door of a house of God. What a disgrace!”

Tutting rose among the crowd. The two advancing figures halted, unsure of what to do. A moment before they’d been ready to blow the elf away. and their hesitation was fatal. The paramedics were within a dozen paces now. One of the men gave the other a look, then both turned tail and headed quietly away. Streak exhaled with relief. His Italian suffered a little as he thanked the paramedics just a bit too profusely.

The elves piled into the back of the ambulance and began to ask whether there was a paramedics’ retirement fund to which they could make a serious contribution.

Michael’s face was drained of blood by the time the three of them returned from the hospital, where the doctors were stunned by Kristen’s miraculously swift recovery. A little implausible nonsense about witch-doctors and curses had soon persuaded them they were probably dealing with nothing more serious than a case of hysterical fainting… Kristen hadn’t found Serrin’s impromptu story terribly amusing, but all that was forgotten as Streak managed to gabble out what he’d seen.

They were excited as they rushed upstairs back at the villa, but the sight of their two white-faced and obviously exhausted companions immediately told them something was wrong.

“We didn’t exactly blow it, but it was pretty bloody close,” Geraint told them. A cigarette hung from his fingers, the smoke spiraling upward. “Mitsuhama wasn’t a problem, they don’t have much. But Fuchi-Fuchi’s got something, and they’re not letting anyone get close. Not even Michael could cope with the ice, and that means it’s thicker than the walls of the Tower of London. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Metasculpture,” Michael muttered. “Sculpted system with covert implant viruses. Very neat, a constant assault and nonresponsive to anything I’ve currently got. It’s going to cost me a lot of money to buy cover against that drek.”

“We’re only three days away from meltdown,” Serrin observed. No one seemed to care.

“So tell us, how was your day?” Geraint asked eventually, stubbing out the cigarette. Gray circles were beginning to form under his eyes after days of strain, irregular sleeping habits, and constant adrenaline rushes.

“The NOJ were out as a welcoming committee,” Streak him.

“Fragging great,” Geraint moaned. “How’d they get on to us so quickly?”

“Maybe they didn’t,” Serrin suggested. “They may have followed leads of their own and simply arrived in same place. Interesting that they had goons around the Baptistery. Though.”

“Michael, could you crack their system?”

“Who knows? I have no idea where it is. It’ll be a PLTG for starters.”

“Pardon me?”

“A private local system. Just finding the bugger will be bad enough. I’ve got to admit I don’t exactly feel up to right now. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen ice sculpted as a tank when it wasn’t just a macho gesture. It wasn’t kidding.”

“We’ve got to get into something, somewhere, that belongs to someone who knows more than we do,” Serrin said.

“I’d just like to talk to Blondie,” Streak said pointedly. “That vanishing act was something else, real smooth.”

Michael blinked wearily. “What are you talking about?”

Serrin looked at Streak, who proceeded to fill them in.

“It was that rakking gun,” he said in conclusion. “The weirdest bloody thing I’ve ever seen. Straight up. It didn’t fire bullets and it had about a dozen barrels, like I said, I mean, that’s impossible. I’ve only seen things like that in museums, and then the barrels were all together, not spread out in an arc. There’s a few in the Royal Armories, right?”

Geraint nodded. Among the exhibits at the Royal Armories at the Tower of London were some of the first German multi-barrel pistols and rifles, ungainly and unwieldy things. They hadn’t been a notable landmark in the history of gun design.

Serrin’s eyes gleamed and he suddenly left the room, apparently with some strong purpose. He was only gone a moment, returning with a book open at an early page.

“Did the weapon look anything like this?” he asked Streak, pushing the book out in front of his face. The other elf pushed it back so that he could focus his eyes properly on the illustration. His cybereyes could have compensated, but the reflex was ingrained.

“Shee-it! That’s it,” he said wonderingly. “Well, I mean, it’s as close as makes no difference. I didn’t have very long to see it, don’t forget. But, yeah, it did look just like that. Bugger me. What the frag is it?”

“Leonardo da Vinci’s design for the scoppietti,” Serrin told him, “I guess someone’s really starting to play serious games with us now. It’s begun.”

“What’s begun?” Geraint asked.

Serrin gave him the beatific smile of someone who thinks he’s noticed something of major importance that has passed everyone else by.

“A game is being played out here,” Serrin said. drawing up a chair and swinging his good leg over to sit on it straddled, his elbows draped over the chair-back. “Our target has a real fixation with Leonardo, right? The Shroud icon, The date of the Matrix meltdown. This weapon, whatever it actually was. And more as well.”

“We knew that already,” Michael reminded him.

“Okay, right. Now, Leonardo was the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, and the current Priory has an interest in our quarry. Leonardo faked the Shroud of Turin at the behest of Pope Innocent-I forget which one.”

“The eighth,” Michael completed.

“Right. Thanks. And the hardline Jesuits out there serve the Vatican and they’re certainly stirred up about what’s happening. And there’s an extra layer of depth to this. Leonardo may or may not have been gay, but the androgyne recurs again and again in his work. Mona Lisa is Leonardo as a woman, okay? His painting of John the Baptist is extraordinarily feminine-our man Streak here actually took the face for a girl’s. There’s more too. Verocchio’s Baptism of Christ has an angel painted by Leonardo. and it’s another androgyne-the figure is male but has a very, very feminine face. I looked at that after we’d seen the statue downstairs.”

“Blondie was an interesting looker,” Streak said.

“Wasn’t he? Put him in a cocktail dress and a wig and he’d make an excellent petite jeune fille,” Serrin said wryly.

“Are we even sure he was a bloke?” Sneak suddenly asked.

“Yes, he was,” Kristen put in firmly. “His voice was too deep for a woman’s. Just. And his posture was a man’s. That can’t be faked.”

“You haven’t been to San Fran,” Serrin told her. “Yes, It can.”

“We have cross-dressers in Cape Town too, dear,” she countered icily.

“Whatever. Anyway, look at the Matrix icon. It’s the Shroud, with the face of a woman. It’s Leonardo’s androgyne all over again, in a more shocking form.”

“So?” Michael demanded.

“So I think that’s at the root of it,” Serrin said. “It recurs too often. And there’s something about this we haven’t worked out yet: why is the woman in the icon black?”