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Stone, Jordan noticed, was looking at Cat intently.

‘Off somewhere with his lady scientist,’ Cat said. Her tone was vague and light, as if passing on a piece of idle gossip. Stone frowned, looked away from her, and seemed to see Jordan for the first time since Cat had come in.

‘Ah, Cat, this guy here is Jordan Brown, he’s staying with us for a bit—’

‘I know,’ she said. She turned to Jordan. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’ She put down her drink. ‘I’m Catherin Duvalier,’ she said, holding out her right hand.

Jordan felt like kissing it. He shook it.

‘You’ve been looking for me?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

Jordan’s whole face felt like a beacon. He said the first thing that came into his head. ‘I’ve been looking for you, too.’ His mouth was dry and he took a gulp of beer.

Catherin laughed. ‘Looking, hell,’ she said. ‘You found me!’

‘Yeah, well, you weren’t—’

‘Hey.’ Cat ducked her head forward, then looked up, pushing the hair back from her eyes with her wrist and grinning at him mischievously. ‘That?’

‘That.’

‘Smart.’ She shifted in her seat, half-turned away. ‘But it wasn’t that. It was the way you got to that.’ Her narrowed eyes looked at him sidelong.

‘Oh, the—’

Cat raised a hand quickly, edge-on to the others, spread palm facing him. ‘Later.’ Her eyes flicked away; she caught her lower lip momentarily in her teeth.

Stone looked from Cat to Jordan, frowning. ‘What’s goin on here?’

Cat rested her elbows on the table, her chin on her knuckles. ‘None of your business.’ She smiled brightly at Dafyd and Stone. ‘So…how is business?’

Dafyd shrugged. ‘Still running on the kind of contracts you didn’t like,’ he said. ‘The movement stuff’s drying up a bit, but there’s plenty of site-protection work coming in. What you doing yourself?’

‘Nothing risky.’

‘Ah,’ said Stone.

‘I didn’t come here to look for a job,’ Catherin said. She leaned further across the table. ‘What you said about movement work drying up – how d’you explain that?’

‘People holding back,’ Stone said. ‘You know why.’

Dafyd grunted. ‘The ANR’s talking about the final offensive. Mind you, they did the same five years back and it was just a few raids came of it. Wouldn’t account for all that’s going on – or not going on, more like.’

‘Loss of confidence in the political-violence industry,’ Jordan said, feeling he should make a contribution. ‘Why shell out on bombing today what’s gonna be bombed tomorrow?’ He dropped into a cockney girn. ‘Bad for business, innit, all this talk about final offensives. Leads to stockpiling. Hell, some outfits are gonna be putting streetfighters out on the streets.’

He laughed at their uneasy laughs.

‘You got it,’ Catherin said, turning to him. ‘It’s part of the plan. Tactics, comrade, tactics.’

‘Huh?’

‘Think about it. “Streetfighters out on the streets.” They’re not going to sit around with their comm helmets upside down beside them and a bit of cardboard saying “Out of ammo – please help”.’ She waited for their smiles to fade and continued. ‘Actually…there is something coming in. Don’t know when, but any day now. The ANR and the Alliance – I don’t know which is intending to use the other as a cover, but they’ll both hit at the same time. This is fac.’

Jordan thought over what he’d learned and what he’d already known about the forces and dispositions of the fragmented opposition. Difficult to quantify, given the Representation of the People (Temporary Provisions) Act, but between them they could probably muster about a third of the population, and history showed that was enough when it wasn’t votes that counted. Hairs prickled down the back of his neck.

‘You know, if this offensive comes off, we’re talking about a revolution,’ he said to Catherin. He said it unself-consciously, just imparting information.

She nodded, just as seriously.

Jordan felt his eyes sting.

‘Yee-hah,’ he said.

‘You pleased about this?’ Stone asked. ‘I heard you tonight. Thought you were against fighting.’

Jordan stared at him, shaken at how easy it was to be a bit too subtle.

‘I’m gonna have to