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[reception-program voice ends].

JW: Hi, Dave.

DR: Oh, hello you old bastard. What can I do you for?

JW: Uh, this encrypted?

DR: No, but I’m sure you know what to say.

JW: Fuck, [pause] We’re thinking of going private for, uh, the big one. [pause]

DR: Are you outa your fucking mind?

JW: Don’t think so. I, gather some of your friends in the communistans –

DR: – deformed workers’ statelets – [laughter].

JW: – might have the best deals. Can you swing it?

DR: Oh, sure. We’ve got policies,

JW: Better than politics, [laughter]

DR: I can’t see you needing it, that’s all.

JW: Not much of a salesman, are you? [pause]

DR: Oh well, it’s your life. Lemme check. Shit, okay, make it next week…Tuesday, oh-nine-thirty, Stanstead. Charter desk,

JW: See you there mate.

DR: Great. Love to the wife and weans, [laughter]

JW: Likewise, to your mistresses and bastards.

DR: Well, thank you mate. Cheers,

JW: Slandge. [human voice ends]

We hit turbulence over the southern Urals. I was standing in the narrow corridor towards the tail, braced against the sides and looking straight out of the last window. As the aircraft dipped I got a clear view of the mountains. In the long shadows of dawn they looked remarkably like a papier-maché model of mountains. Not too far below, a regular series of small white clouds were simultaneously dispersing. Curious.

Another wing-dip, another moment of free-fall, then a rapid climb. A yell came from the tiny toilet.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ Reid shouted. ‘Just cut myself.’

‘What are you doing in there?’

‘Shaving.’

Ten, no, fifteen minutes earlier I’d seen him sand down his cheeks and chin with an electric razor, just before I’d recklessly given him precedence for the toilet. My bladder sent me a sharp note of protest. You may have had surgical microbots crawling around your plumbing, it told me, but there are limits…It was high time, I thought, for me to start practising the egoism I preached.

‘Shaving what? Your legs?’

‘The – backs – of – my – hands,’ said Reid. I could hear the clenched teeth. ‘Forgot the fucking rubber gloves, first time I used the scalp treatment.’

He came out with a sheepish grin on his face and shaving-foam on his cuffs. I didn’t stop to gloat. My flood of relief made the spittoon-sized aluminium toilet-bowl ring. Then I splashed cold water on my face, opened a few more buttons on my shirt and smeared deodorant awkwardly under each armpit, dried my beard, brushed my short-back-and-sides, rubbed a towel over my bald top and put on a tie. As I had to stoop or squat throughout, and the mirror would have been about adequate on a ladies’ pocket compact, the overall effect wasn’t easy to judge. I was still chuckling over the reason why Reid’s hair, though as grey as mine, was so long and thick.

Gene-fixing shampoo, indeed! What vanity, I thought, as I held the mouthwash for a minute to do its work, then spat it out and checked the gleam of my teeth.

North British Mutual had spawned a security agency, and Reid had been heavily involved in its management buy-out several years earlier. If this flight was anything to go by, the Mutual Assured Protection Company were doing well. The biznesman-jet they’d hired for this leg of the trip might be a little cramped, a little Spartan, but it did have its own stewardess, an Uzbek lass with a fixed smile and no English. Breakfast had been served by the time I returned to my seat: microwaved croissants and a coffee which, I guessed after the first sip, had also been microwaved. Neither was quite hot.

‘Microwaved, huh,’ Reid grumbled. ‘Waved in front of the radar for a bit, more likely.’

‘Might account for the turbulence,’ I said.

‘Turbulence?’ Reid snorted. ‘That was anti-aircraft fire, man.’

‘What!’ I turned in alarm to the window.

‘Don’t worry,’ Reid said. ‘Just bandits. They couldn’t hit a 777 at this height.’

Our bodyguard, Predestination Ndebele, nodded slowly. A lithe, wiry Zimbabwean, one of Reid’s employees.