She did not really know this man. Perhaps it was worth remembering that.
"So are we going to see someone called Petra, or is that more subterfuge?"
"That's real. She's a police officer, and she can help us. But not by staying inside the rules."
"Oh."
"Her being a career police officer and all, she might be reluctant. Maybe someone who understands people really well can persuade her to slip a querybot into the system."
"Was that persuade as in manipulate?"
"Surely you wouldn't act unethically, Dr Duchesne."
"Huh. So that's the only reason you wanted me along."
"Well." There was something about the muscles in Josh's face that made his smile compelling. "What other reason could there be?"
She smiled back.
It was half an hour and one traffic jam later when they stood outside the railway arches, watching the taxi drive off. Rain from an earlier shower was dripping from Victorian archways; their brickwork thrumming with the sound of electromag trains sliding overhead. Broken furniture, rusted junk, and dark-stained weeds were prevalent. Welcome to Wandsworth: so near to MI6 HQ, that severe and glistening fortress, and yet a world away.
Perhaps it was Josh's past that had her thinking about the intelligence services; in any case, when he knocked four times on a metal door – thump, thumpthump, thump – she had to fight down a giggle.
"Don't tell me it's a secret signal."
"Just don't knock it."
Was that a pun? She might have asked, but a small hatch scraped back, something silver shone – checking out with a mirror, not exposing an eyeball – then the hatch clunked shut, and the door swung inward.
"Petra teaches paranoia." Josh's tone lightened, but not in humour. "The kind that keeps you alive when they're really out to get you."
"Oh. That kind."
Inside, old khaki mats stretched across a stone floor. Battered-looking punchbags hung from chains. In front of the class stood a lean, fit-looking woman wearing old sweats, her hands wrapped in stained pink bandages.
"See Petra's hand wraps?" Josh kept his voice low. "As dainty she gets."
The stains looked to be old blood. Petra's, or other people's? Two rows of men and women in pyjama-like white outfits stood ready, intent on Petra.
"Why isn't she dressed like her students?"
"Actually" – Josh pointed to one corner where a smaller number waited, in tattered shorts and T-shirts – "they're the regulars."
Also, they were smiling. In front of the others, Petra was talking with hands clasped behind her back.
"So in your dojo" – she nodded to the black belts in the group – "you teach, what do you call it, focused awareness."
"Zanshin."
"Right. While on the street, awareness is your first weapon. Run if you can, fight if you have to, in which case fight to win."
The black belts nodded first, then the others. Beside Suzanne, Josh was failing to stop his grin widening.
"And then there's distancing and timing, right? What do you guys call them?"
"Ma-ai and-"
"Yaahhh!" She whipped something silver against a black belt's throat. "You're fucking dead."
Then she had spun away and was standing beyond kicking range, blade held high.
Baise-moi.
It was rare for Suzanne's thinking to be shocked back into French.
"Ah, Petra." Josh shook his head, teeth bared in a fighter's smile. "You're good."
The karate guys looked pale.
"We do street shotokan," said Petra. "No white gis, no tag-you're-it play-sparring. This is the real tradition, people." She threw the knife – thunk – into pockmarked chipboard. "And next time someone's holding a weapon and giving you the soothing verbals, you'll know precisely what they're fucking up to, won't you?"
Nods, and acknowledgements sounding like "Uss." Another Japanese word.
"All right, partner up." Petra pointed. "Every visitor with one of my gang. One-step drills, coming up. And… go."
The karate guys started to drop into fighting stances – then froze as the others started spitting, waving their arms and yelling: "You fucking want this?" "Who you fuckin' lookin' at?" "Come on then. Come on."
Then the gesticulating fighters leaped into the attack, and the defenders fell back with clumsy blocks. Only two of the karate guys – one black belt, one brown – roared into the onslaught and slammed their opponents back with heavy punches.
"Good." Petra nodded to the pair. "Everyone else, shape up."
Josh was chuckling.
I'm cold and sweating, about to pee myself, and he finds this funny? My God.
For the rest of the session, Petra dropped the disorienting antics but kept the pressure on. By the end, the visitors were responding well, their previous fighting reflexes now operating under conditions of adrenal overload, laid down in the amygdala, the brain's emergency response system. The old training would now kick in under circumstances where they might have frozen before. It wasn't any kind of cognitive strategy that Suzanne had instilled in her clients; but the mechanism was clear enough… and still, even now as they wrapped up the training session, touching fists or bowing to each other, frightening to observe.
"Can one of you close the place up?" Petra pulled off her sweat-soaked T-shirt – her sports bra was black – then pulled on a sweatshirt bearing the words: I FIGHT LIKE A GIRL – SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR BALLS. "I've got an old buddy here to beat up."
"Or I could buy you a drink," called Josh.
"Guess I'll let him off." Petra winked at her students. "Nice work tonight."
In a pub called the Thin Stiletto, Suzanne sat with Petra while Josh went up to the bar.
"Your students are impressive," said Suzanne.
"The visitors did all right."
"Now that their conditioned reflexes are triggered by appropriate cues, in the context of massive adrenaline dump."
"They just needed to field-strip what they knew, and take control."
"And you like empowering people."
"Uh-huh. You're good, aren't you, Dr Duchesne? Plus, you understood what was going on, even though you're not a fighter."
Josh came back with Petra's blackcurrant-andlemonade and Suzanne's coffee.
"You girls are such boozers. By the way, Suzanne left her phone at home."
"Good." Petra saluted him with her glass. "And yes, it was one of my officers that redfanged you that little warning."
"Thanks. Back in a mo."
While Josh was paying and fetching his drink – it looked like Coke – Petra checked her own phone, then nodded.
"No one's listening here and now."
"What about Josh's phone?"
"Oh, he's secure, except when he's talking to you. He and his mates use PFUC crypto among themselves."
"What's that? You did say pea-fuck, didn't you?"
"There's a polite version, but the truth is it stands for Pretty Fucking Unbreakable Code."
Suzanne realised that she had missed something.
"When you say someone's listening in, you mean the police, right?"
"Official authorities, let's say."
"So why is that a problem? We all want Richard back."
"And some of us might bend the regs to do so. In management circles, that's called breaking the law."
"Oh."
When Josh returned, he toasted them both.
"Your health. Tell me, you still run ShieldIx 3 for security?"
Petra said, "You're really not supposed to know that."
"So let's say, hypothetically, you were logged on. You'd be running a session pool with its own flows, processes, and threads. Marked with your user ID."
"Hypothetically, I'm a grandma and I know how to suck eggs."
"Uh-huh. So if you kick off a querybot – hypothetically – that would create a second session pool for it to execute in. Right?"