"Bye yourself." I shut the phone and stare at the paper. Just for a moment, I hesitate… What I'm here to do isn't fair, is it? The imp of perversity takes over: I bang out a quick command, mailing the incriminating file to a not-so-dead personal account. (Figure I'll read it later.) Then it's time to nuke the server. I unmount the netapp drive and set fire to it with a bitstorm of low-level reformatting. If Malcolm wants his paper back he'll have to enlist GCHQ and a scanning tunneling microscope to find it under all the 0xDEADBEEF spammed across the hard disk platters.

My pager buzzes again. SITREP. I hit three more digits on the phone. Then I edge out of the cubicle and scramble back across the messy desk and out into the cool spring night, where I peel off those damned latex gloves and waggle my fingers at the moon.

I'm so elated that I don't even remember the stack of disks I sent flying until I'm getting off the night bus at home. And by then, the imp of perversity is chuckling up his sleeve.

I'M FAST ASLEEP IN BED WHEN THE CELLPHONE rings.

It's in my jacket pocket, where I left it last night, and I thrash around on the floor for a bit while it chirps merrily. "Hello?"

"Bob?"

It's Andy. I try not to groan. "What time is it?"

"It's nine-thirty. Where are you?"

"In bed. What's-"

"Thought you were going to be in at the debrief? When can you come in?"

"I'm not feeling too wonderful. Got home at about two-thirty. Let me think… eleven good enough?"

"It'll have to be." He sounds burned. Well, Andy wasn't the one freezing his butt off in the woods last night, was he? "See you there." The implicit or else doesn't need enunciating. Her Majesty's Extra-Secret Service has never really been clear on the concept of flexitime and sensible working hours.