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Majid thought he did, but did not dare to presume it had the same meaning. 'I am not sure.'

'It is a title of respect from the Ottoman time. It means you are now a commander in my
army.'

Majid's chest swelled with a pride he had never known before. 'I am honoured, Emissary,
shukran
.'

Samir announced, 'It is nearly time to move on.'

Zahkri acknowledged the reminder by raising one finger, but kept his gaze on his new lieutenant.

'Majid, you and your
kan kardes
, your blood brother Bashir Kali, now share the same rank.
Once you have,
insha-allah
, successfully performed your first Trust together as my
agas
, I will appoint you
'duumvir
'. This is an ancient Roman term for either of two
men who exercise joint authority. Do you accept this obligation?'

'With my blood and my mind and my life, Emissary,' Majid swore.

'Harika,' Zahkri said. 'Excellent,' he repeated in English. 'I assume then, Aga Ashraf, that
everything is in place and all that is left is to choose the moment.'

'That is the decision I await,' Majid said, tipping his head left and right.

'Your new
aga
has made excellent preparation for our party,' Kali stated. 'And I, as you
know, have brought the gifts.'

'
Harika
,' Zahkri said again. His tone changed from enthusiastic to reverential as he
continued. 'Dárayavaus, Bringer of the Future, has designated this
Wadee-Ah
- this
Trust - for you himself.' Resting his chin in plain sight on his laced fingers for a moment, he
added, 'He approves of
yom alArba'a
- Wednesday. Here in Peshawar that is, what?'

'For us,' Kali indicated himself and Majid, 'it is
budh
. For the Kashmiri there, it is
Bodvar
.'

'
Bodvar
,' the old man on the bed corrected his pronunciation.

'Ha! What a world we live in,' Zahkri exclaimed, clapping as he laughed and got to his feet.
'
Ummah
- a hundred tongues; but all one under Allah.'

Zahkri turned his back to the street, offered his right hand to Kali and then Majid, and said
softly, 'We expect then to hear your work next week; five days 'after'
budh
, at precisely
zawwal
. Aga Kali knows where your journey will take you both after that.'

'
Atarsa kára
, Emissary,' Kali said and touched the fingertips of his right hand to
his heart, and then offered up his palm, all with his forearm close across his chest.

The Emissary, and then everyone else, repeated the gesture. '
Atarsa kára
, my
agas
, and may Allah be with you.'

'
Bissalama
, Emissary,' Majid said, wishing the Emissary a safe journey.

Khyber Hotel, Peshawar, Pakistan
Tuesday 5.25 pm

'Who are the other dudes?' Mudge asked.

'The taller of the two short ones is Bashir Kali - alleged master- mind of the British Embassy
bombing in Khartoum, architect of that weird two-day shit-fight insurgency in Morocco last year and
possible brains behind the equally-bizarre but totally destructive bi-plane incident on Guam,' Brody
said.

'Bashir is Ashraf Majid's best mate since forever. Some intel suggests they might be special
mates but as that's not something you advertise round these parts, it's never been verified.'

Brody lit a smoke and dragged the ashtray closer. 'I mean, these bloody terrorists don't mind
blowing themselves up left, right and usually right in the centre of something; but no man, not even
a potential martyr, wants to have his good right hand or his dick cut off because he got caught
putting them where he shouldn't have.

'These wanker's make pre-kablooey videos, then walk around with bombs strapped to themselves; but
the poofs still have to hide in the closets.'

'Yeah well if you're a poof, mate, those gazillion virgins in paradise aren't really gonna be
your scene, are they?' Mudge noted.

'I guess not, Mudge,' Brody agreed.

'Personally, dudes, I don't give a rats about the gay rights of terrorists or any other girly-man
fags for that matter. But if that prick down there is responsible for Khartoum and Guam, why don't
we just go get him?'

'For a start, as per, there's no direct evidence linking him to those plots; the same with Ashraf
and the British and American Embassy bombings in Morocco and Turkey last year.

'Secondly Bamm-Bamm,' Brody waved his arm around, 'where are we again? Bashir and Ashraf are
Pakistanis. We can't just go picking up or picking on the local citizens.'

'I hate rules like that,' Kennedy said.

'I'll bet you do,' Brody said with a laugh. 'The other short arse with Jamal Z looks a lot like
Arjuna, but that's unlikely. It's been ages since the Indonesians roamed this far from home except
for training. And one thing Dumadi Arjuna doesn't need, is training.'

'Arjuna? Are you joking? A Jeemah Islamiyah hotshot all the way up here?' Kennedy said.

'Ex-JI for fuck's sake Bamm-Bamm, remember?' Brody said. 'If they're here with Jamal Zahkri then
they're Atarsa Kára, not al-Qaeda, not JI and not even Hamas. That's if it's even him at
all.'

Kennedy looked confused. 'But I thought we'd already confirmed Zahkri's ID.'

'Let me guess,' Brody said, frowning at Duh-Wayne, 'you were part of Dubya's recruitment drive
for more marines and spooks to join the War on Turra and the turrsists,' he said.

'Yup, I sure was,' Kennedy said, proud and oblivious.

Yup indeed
. Brody looked at
the ceiling.
But that was
after
they lowered the IQ level to allow morons like you into
places other than Junior's White House
.

'So we're not sure that is Dumadi Arjuna,' Mudge said in a serious voice, demonstrating his
superior grasp of the situation, but I'm getting excellent footage of all the subjects. This is such
a killer-zoom, Spud mate. Mind you, it's just as well the bastards don't have a deaf guy with them
because he'd be lost as. They're all yakking away with their hands covering up their ugly mugs.'

'They do that a lot,' Kennedy noted.

Brody shook his head.

'What about the last tall guy then?' Kennedy prompted. 'Who's he?'

'Dipthong Marakesh Oobejam,' Brody said.

'Who?' Kennedy and Mudge asked.

'No idea,' Brody admitted.

Kingston Club, London:
Tuesday 1.30 pm

Adam Lyall, US Deputy Secretary of State, hung up the secure phone in the club's
private soundproof Call Room. He was livid; no, murderous. And right now he was tossing up whether
to pitch one of the stupid over-stuffed poncy antique chairs out the window or find the closest
lackey, in lieu of someone actually responsible, and rip his balls off.

Goddamnit
. It was beyond him how a perfectly planned, perfectly timed top-secret op could
be so completely ballsed-up. He spun around and slammed out of the small room, across the marble
foyer, into the men's room and over to the urinal. It was somebody's good fortune that the bathroom
was otherwise empty, or Lyall may have just pissed on him, or yanked him backwards by the scruff
into the stalls and kicked him stupid.

He'd actually done that once or twice, for no particular reason, most memorably in a bar in
Albuquerque one Thanksgiving. He smacked the bejusus out of a drunk marine and left him lying on the
stinking wet floor of the john - just for the hell of it.

Kelman's one-minute call, from somewhere off Laui Island, had heralded the worst kind of bad
news. Then the mission commander had confirmed that Ifran, the rebel leader, was shot but not
critical and half his cronies were dead or injured. Worse than that, there were two dead operatives
and another not likely to survive, one MIA, and no hostages.

Now there were the big questions: How the fuck could an American soldier go missing from a
friggin island smaller than the White House; and where were the goddamn hostages?

Lyall grabbed for the handle on his way out of the bathroom, just as the door swung outwards away
from him. Angry momentum meant Lyall nearly flattened Edward Drake.

Irritatingly, as this was Her bloody Majesty's land, the kingdom's head of security said, 'Steady
on there, chap, where's the fire?'

'From all accounts,' Lyall growled, waiting until three stiff-lipped gentlemen had passed through
the foyer towards the exit, 'all over that flea-spit of an island in the Pacific.' He had to keep
his voice low, so the flunkeys and local toffs wouldn't hear, but officials from the Pentagon to
Downing Street would be getting their own reports soon enough.

'Whatever do you mean Adam?' Drake asked.

Lyall tapped his watch. 'I've got to take another call, but suffice to say the attempted rescue
of those hostages was a foul-up beyond…' he waved his fist as he searched for the right
expression, 'beyond words.'

Teddy Drake, still holding the men's room door as Lyall strode back into the Call Room, wondered
how on earth the Americans had botched things this time. There'd been no British citizens, except
for a few colonials, on that island but nonetheless it was probably time to check in with the office
for the official situation - if there was one yet. He was not likely to get it out of Adam, here and
now, even if he did wait for him to re-emerge.

Lyall snatched at the phone on the first ring. It was Kelman again, as arranged.
'Give me the short version,' he demanded.

'Don't know who started firing first, sir. Think it was the rebs. But as soon as there were
bullets, there was no way those guys were surrendering. And they were shooting at everything; the
team had to defend themselves. A few things - quite a lot actually - also got blown to hell by both
sides.'

'Kelman?'

'Yes sir?'

'Where are the hostages?'

There was silence on the line for a few seconds. It could have been the satphone delay, but Lyall
doubted it.

'They were all taken off the island by…'
Silence again.

'I didn't catch that, son. Who took them?'

'Someone else, sir. There was another party on the island.'

'What the hell do you mean? Are you telling me we crossed wires with another of our own
departments?'

'No sir. Rumour has it they were Australians.'

'What?' Lyall bellowed. 'That pissant stole our thunder? And ruined a perfectly good plan?'

'It looks like it, sir. But, so far, there's no word on the wire about anyone claiming a
rescue. So it could just be chatter fed by shit from those on the line, you know, to cover the
debacle.'

'Shit indeed. And this is not something that's going to stay under the radar; someone has to take
the fall for this.'

'Already working on it, sir.'

'Good man. Go to it.' Lyall disconnected the call, reached for the whisky decanter and poured
himself a generous slug.

'Jumped-up skinny-arsed Aussie pissant,' he said aloud, taking his e-pod from his pocket. It
might just be time to ask a favour of Teddy Drake's main man. In the meantime he punched in his
e-pod password and looked up an international number. Putting his feet up on Baldric IV's, or
whoever's ancient friggin desk, he rang the direct line to the US Ambassador in Canberra.

Tokyo Hilton Hotel, Japan:
Tuesday 9.30 pm

Scott Dreher paced the lounge of the 30th floor suite he'd booked into half an hour
before. He swirled the ice in his bourbon, took a swig and went back to the window. Pressing his
forehead against the glass, he stared out at the massive multi-level fairground that was the Tokyo
cityscape: thousands of light bulbs of every colour imaginable, and a good half of them in constant
movement.
Man, what are you doing here?

Scott was still trying to figure out how a simple feature story on computer war games had turned
into an off-the-wall but so far inexplicable international plot of some kind, with,
hello
,
actual murder now in the mix. At which point did the story change? And change again? And get deadly?

Was Hiroyuki Kaga murdered because he'd arranged to talk to Scott? Did whoever killed Hiro even
know about him? Was Hiroyuki Kaga actually dead?

Now there's a point
. Scott flopped onto the couch, checked his watch and reached for the
TV remote. It was just on half-past nine, so he figured he might find some local news.

Oh. Okay, Scotty boy, so there's no question the unmet Hiroyuki is dead
. Scott didn't need
a translator to tell him that the live news footage of cop cars, ambulances, ranks of Tokyo media
and a crowd of onlookers, was all down to the death earlier this evening of the man he was supposed
to have met. The fact that the scene was outside an establishment called the Wild Lotus 'love hotel'
was a pretty big clue too.

Oh my God. Please don't tell me I'm somehow responsible for the death of Hiroyuki Kaga.

As the cameras panned the growing crowd again, Scott took in the Scapers, Mappers and other
techno-punks streaming in to join the grieving throngs of already bawling fans. No doubt Spaceboy,
who'd helped them escape the internet café, had joined them by now too.

Hiroyuki Kaga was huge in Japan. He was
mangaka,
no,
daika
- the 'big guy of
manga
' - and cult hero of the century, this one and the last. Scott shook his head. If you
took Stan Lee, grand master of comic book heroes, and put him with the various Americans who'd
created Lara Croft,
Scarifier
, and the online
Crash Realm
, and made them into one man,
he'd still not match the legendary Hiroyuki Kaga creator of
NiteScape
,
GlobalWarTek,
MindMap
, and the
Diamond Ninja Clan
.

Okay so this status was, until recently, confined to off and on-line gamers - millions of them -
and the new breed of Western pop-culture junkies who also trawled the fringes of nerdsville; but to
them he was 'The Name, The Man'. And Hiroyuki's fame was about to spread beyond the computer game
world and virtual domains, because his creative influence had now reached gamers, designers and even
filmmakers in the States.