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Jericho paused, his hair a foam sculpture.

Then why hadn’t Zhao followed him here?

Very simple. Because Yoyo had actually been able to get away! Zhao assumed she was still in Quyu. He had preferred to continue with the chase. And in any case he didn’t need to follow Jericho, since he knew exactly where he would find him.

Still. He’d gained some time.

How much?

He rinsed his hair. Black trickles ran down his chest and arms, as if new dirt were constantly emerging from his pores. A stinging pain testified to some of the grazes he’d got when he crashed in the converter hall. He wondered how Yoyo was at that moment. Probably traumatised, although her big mouth hadn’t seemed to be in a state of shock. She’d still been capable of producing a reliable torrent of insults, suggesting a certain mental balance and, at the very least, a degree of resilience. The girl, he guessed, was as tough as sharkskin.

He turned off the tap.

Zhao would show up sooner or later. It was quite possible that he was already on his way. He reached for a towel, ran, still drying himself, through the sunlit expanse
of his loft, which he would have to leave again almost as soon as he’d moved in, slipped into fresh clothes, tidied his hair very slightly. Next on the agenda was the flight of Owen Jericho, Inc., which consisted of Jericho himself, Diane, and all his technical equipment. He disconnected the hard drive, a portable unit the size of a shoe-box, and stuffed it in a rucksack along with the keyboard, a foldable touchscreen surface and a transparent 20-inch display. Along with that he packed his ID card, money, his spare mobile phone, a small hard drive for backups, Yoyo’s computer, headphones and Tu’s hologoggles. He stuffed underwear and T-shirts in with it, a spare pair of trousers, slippers, shaving materials, some pens and paper. The only things left in the loft were his control console and large screen, a few bits of hardware and various built-in drives, all of which were, without Diane, as useless as prosthetic limbs without anyone to wear them. No one who managed to get in here would find a bit or a byte; they wouldn’t be able to reconstruct Jericho’s work. The flat was more or less data-free.

Without turning round again, he went outside.

In the underground car park he strapped the rucksack onto the pillion seat of the airbike and examined the bent jet. With both hands he forced it back into its position. The result didn’t look very convincing, but at least it could be adjusted now. Then he fiddled around with the tailfin, drove the bike up the ramp and, with a certain satisfaction, noticed that the sound of scraping had gone. The ball wheel was turning again. He had swapped the car for an airbike, not voluntarily, but it was still a swap.

Outside the sun poured its light down like phosphorescent milk. Jericho narrowed his eyes, but Zhao was nowhere to be seen.

Where to now?

He wouldn’t have to go far. In a city like Shanghai the best hiding-place was always right around the corner. Instead of heading for the notoriously jammed Huaihai Donglu, he took less frequented alleyways that connected Xintiandi with the Yu Gardens, to the Liuhekou Lu, known for a long time as an authentic residue of the Shanghai that had stirred the imaginations of incorrigible colonial romantics. But what, over the passing centuries, did authenticity consist of? Only what existed, the Party taught. There had been a covered market here, scattered with flower stalls, echoing with the scolding of all kinds of animals, chickens jerking their heads back and forth to demonstrate their edible freshness, crickets tapping away against the walls of jam jars and bringing consolation to their owners, whose lives were not all that different in the end. Then, three years ago, the market had made way for a handsome shikumen complex, full of bistros, internet cafés, boutiques and galleries. Diagonally opposite, a few last market stalls were asserting themselves with the defiance of old gentlemen stopping in the middle of the carriageway and threatening
approaching cars with sticks until friendly fellow citizens walked them to the other side and assured them of the utter pointlessness of their actions. They too were still a piece of ‘authentic’ Shanghai. Tomorrow they would have disappeared, to make way for a new ‘authenticity’.

Jericho parked the bike two floors down in the underground car park of the complex and withdrew into the back corner of a bistro, where he ordered coffee. Although he wasn’t even slightly hungry, he also asked for a cheese baguette, bit into it, scattered crumbs on his T-shirt and trousers and noted with some satisfaction that it didn’t all come right back up again.

How far would Zhao go?

This temporary equilibrium was much more bitter than the coffee that he was gulping down. No car. No loft, because it was uninhabitable for the time being. In the sights of a hitman, with his back to the wall. No option but to run away. Forced to act, except that he didn’t think he was capable of action. There was no way back into normality, except by getting to the bottom of things. Understanding how the whole drama played out. Find out who had commissioned Zhao.

Jericho stared straight ahead.

Hang on, though! He wasn’t entirely incapable of action. Zhao might have forced him onto the defensive, but he had something the hitman didn’t know about. His secret weapon, the key to everything.

Yoyo’s computer.

He had to find out what she had discovered.

Then he would track her down again, to take her back to her father. Chen Hong-bing. Was it a good idea to call him? Tu Tian had established the contact, but in point of fact Chen was his client. The man had a right to be informed, but what would he say to him? All fine, Yoyo’s in great shape … No, honourable Chen, it isn’t the police who are after her, just a hardened hitman with a weakness for explosive devices, but hey, don’t worry, she’s still got both arms and legs and her whole face, haha! Where is she? Well, she’s on the run! Me too, see you soon.

What
could
he say, if he didn’t want the man to die of a heart attack?

And what if he did get the police involved? Of course he would have to give them a bit of background, not least concerning Yoyo. Which risked drawing attention to the girl. They would ask what part she’d played in the massacre, look at her data, establish that she was on file, even that she had a criminal record. Impossible. The police were out of the question, even though Zhao wasn’t a cop, regardless of what he might have told Yoyo in the control centre:

I’m trained to kill people. Like all policemen, like all soldiers, all agents.

All agents?

National security is a higher good than individual human lives
.

The Secret Service, on the other hand, had already blown plenty of other things sky high, particularly when they got involved in matters of national security. Zhao could have been bluffing, but what if he actually had the blessing of the authorities?

But what about calling Tu?

That looked pretty pointless too. Jericho forced himself to think clearly. First switch on Diane. He looked around. The bistro was two-thirds full, but the tables around him were free. Here and there young people were writing on their laptops or making phone calls. He set keyboard and screen in front of him and connected both to the hard drive in the rucksack. Then he jammed in the headset earbud and linked the system to Yoyo’s computer. A symbol appeared, a crouching wolf threateningly showing its fangs. Below it appeared some text:

I’m inviting you to dinner.

Okay, then, thought Jericho.

‘Hi Diane,’ he said quietly.

‘Hi, Owen.’ Diane’s velvety timbre. The consolation of the machine. ‘How did you get on?’

‘Fucking awful.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’ How honest that sounded. Okay, then, it wasn’t
dis
honest. ‘Can I help?’

You could be made of flesh and blood, thought Jericho.

‘Please open the file “I’m inviting you to dinner”. You’ll find access data in Yoyofiles.’

Silence fell for two seconds. Then Diane said:

‘The file is locked four times. I’ve been able to use three of the tools successfully. I haven’t got the fourth access authorisation.’

‘Which tools worked?’

‘Iris, voice and fingerprint. All assigned to Chen Yuyun.’

‘Which one’s missing?’

‘A password, by the look of it. Shall I decipher?’

‘Do that. Have you any idea how long the decoding’s going to take you?’

‘Afraid not. At the moment I can only speculate that the coding includes several words. Or one unusually long one. Is there anything else I can do for you?’

‘Go online,’ said Jericho. ‘That’s it. See you later, Diane.’

‘See you later, Owen.’

He logged on to Brilliant Shit. If his assumption was correct, the Guardians’ blog was being used as a dead letter drop, and regularly checked.

Jericho to Demon
, he wrote.
I’ve got your computer.
He added a phone number and an
email address, stayed logged in and stored the blog as an icon. As soon as someone saved a message in it, Diane would let him know straight away. By now he felt a little better. He bit into his baguette, topped up his coffee and decided to contact Tu.

A call came in for him.

Jericho stared at the display. No picture, no number.

Yoyo? So quickly?

‘Hi, Owen,’ said a very familiar voice.

‘Zhao.’ Everything inside Jericho shrank to a tiny lump. He paused for a moment and tried to sound relaxed. ‘Or should I say Kenny?’

‘Kenny?’

‘Don’t pretend to be more stupid than you are! Didn’t that fat asshole call you that before he kicked the bucket?’

‘Oh, right.’ The other man laughed quietly. ‘As you wish, then – Kenny.’

‘Kenny who? Kenny Zhao Bide?’

‘Kenny’s just fine.’

‘Okay, Kenny.’ Jericho took a deep breath. ‘Then wash your ears out. Yoyo’s slipped through your fingers. I got away from you. You won’t get any further as long as one of us has a reason to feel threatened by you.’

A sigh of resignation came through the receiver.

‘I’m not threatening anybody.’

‘Yes, you are. You’re shooting people and blowing up buildings.’

‘You’ve got to look the facts in the face, Owen. You put up a decent fight, you and the girl. Admirable, but not especially clever, I’m afraid to say. If Yoyo had cooperated, everyone might still be alive.’

‘Ridiculous.’

‘It was your people who started all the shooting.’

‘Not at all. They only started shooting because you’d killed Xiao Meiqi and Jin Jia Wei.’

‘That was unavoidable.’

‘Really?’

‘Yoyo would hardly have talked to me otherwise. Later I did everything in my power to avert any further bloodshed.’

‘What do you want, Kenny?’

‘What do you think I want? Yoyo, of course.’

‘To do what?’

‘To ask her what she knows and who she’s told.’

‘You—’

‘Don’t worry!’ Kenny cut in. ‘I’m not planning on killing even more people. But
I’m under a certain amount of pressure, you know? Pressure to succeed. These are the times we’re living in, everyone constantly wants to see results, so what would you do in my place? Come away empty-handed?’

‘You’ve got your hands pretty full. You’ve destroyed Yoyo’s computer, and the complete infrastructure of the Guardians. Do you really think any of them wants to mess with you again?’

‘Owen,’ said Kenny in the voice of a teacher who needs to explain everything three times, ‘I don’t know anything. I don’t know whether I destroyed Yoyo’s infrastructure, how many computers she transferred the data to, whether everyone she confided in died in the control centre. What about that huge bike-riding baby? What about you? Didn’t she tell you anything?’

‘We won’t get any further like this. Where are you anyway?’

Kenny paused for a moment.

‘Nice flat. Looks like you’ve done some house-clearing.’

Jericho gave a sour smile. He felt a kind of satisfaction in being proved right and having got out in good time.

‘You’ll find a cold beer in the fridge,’ he said. ‘Take it and go.’

‘I can’t do that, Owen.’

‘Why not?’

‘Haven’t you had jobs to do, like I do? Aren’t you used to taking things to their conclusion?’

‘I’ll tell you once more—’

‘Imagine the inferno if the flames should take hold of other parts of the building.’

Jericho’s mouth dried up all of a sudden.

‘What flames?’

‘The ones from your flat.’ Kenny’s voice had dropped to a whisper and he suddenly reminded Jericho of a snake: a huge talking snake stuffed into the body of a human being. ‘I’m thinking of the people, and also of you. I mean, everything here looks new and expensive. You’ve probably put all your savings into it. Wouldn’t it be terrible to lose all that at one go, just for a matter of principle, out of solidarity with some pig-headed girl?’

Jericho said nothing.

‘Can you imagine my situation any better now?’

A host of insults collected on the tip of Jericho’s tongue. Instead he said as quietly as possible, ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘That’s a weight off my mind. Really! I mean, we weren’t a bad team, Owen. Our interests are marginally different, but basically we want the same thing in the end.’

‘And now?’

‘Just tell me where Yoyo is.’

‘I don’t know.’

Kenny seemed to think about it.

‘Good. I believe you. So you’ll have to track her down for me.’

Track her down—

Good God! What sort of bloody idiot was he? He didn’t know what tricks the hitman had up his sleeve, but doubtless everything he said was designed to drag the conversation out. Kenny was trying to track
him
down. To locate him.

Without hesitation, Jericho hung up.

Less than a minute later his phone lit up again.

‘I give you two hours,’ hissed Kenny. ‘Not a minute longer. Then I want to hear something that will put my mind at rest, otherwise I’ll consider myself forced to undertake a radical restructuring of the building.’

Two hours.

What was Jericho supposed to do in two hours?

He hastily bundled the display and the keyboard back into his backpack, put a banknote on the table and left the bistro without a backwards glance. He strode towards the lift, took it down to the underground garage, climbed onto his bike and brought it out onto Liuhekou Lu, where he started the engine and flew towards the river. During the short flight a bulky ambulance hovered below him, big enough for him to land on. In the distance he saw an armada of unmanned fire-engines making for the hinterland of Pudong. Private skymobiles crossed his path, pleasure-blimps bobbed above the Huangpu. For a moment he considered flying to the WFC and looking up Tu, but it was too early for that. He would need peace to carry out his plan, and he had to have somewhere to stay, for as long as Kenny robbed him of the warmth and security of Xintiadi.