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indistinct.
    It was the eyes that had got him into trouble, the eyes that had seduced the 17-year-old patient. Padma Rabhi, beautiful and skittish as an unbroken horse. She shivered at his touch, came to life in his embrace, gave herself wholly and generously to him. For a while he had even fooled himself he was in love with her, harboured thoughts of abandoning his childless wife. But then the father had found out, a prominent businessman with political connections. His revenge was swift and brutal.
    It was only Ahmed’s skill as a surgeon that had saved his life, enabled him to stitch himself up, stop the bleeding from the fierce cuts inflicted. But he couldn’t save the life of Padma, taken away God knows where and slaughtered for the perceived shame she had brought on her family. And his career was finished. Her father made sure no hospital would ever offer him work again.
    The only paths open to him now were the less conventional ones. The operations carried out illegally, plastic surgery in back street clinics, abortions for the mistresses of high-ranking government officials. That was how he’d come to be offered this job. His name had been whispered from one cheating husband to the next. An approach had been made. The money was good. Enough to buy him out of Casablanca, a new identity, maybe even set up a practice far away. South America, the Dominican Republic.
    He looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes now the same dull brown as the mud walls of the house he’d grown up in. A reminder of how far he’d come, and how far he’d fallen.
    One of the mercenaries barged through the door without knocking, slapping him on the shoulder. “Come on Ahmed, you’re taking longer to get ready than a whore on parade day,” he said, unzipping his trousers and pissing carelessly over the toilet seat.
    Ahmed ignored him and filled the basin full of ice-cold water. A common soldier talking to him like that. He plunged his face into the basin, opening his eyes, holding his breath. He savoured the sensation he’d known as a child, the dizzying cold of the mountain streams he bathed in when the scorching sun got too much. Two days on the move, two days without sleep. And now this meeting with the man who’d commissioned the whole grisly expedition.
    The solider stepped closer to him and placed an unwashed hand on his shoulder. “Come on Ahmed,” he said quietly, “they are waiting,” Ahmed sensed the power through the grip, the insistence in his eyes.
    He flattened down his hair as best he could and straightened his tie, following the soldier into the main room. The briefcase sat on the coffee table. He didn’t want to think about what it contained. He had no idea what they were, the tiny things, living but not in any form he recognised. Their workings were clearly visible, the interdependence of human tissue and cell-based technology, he just had no idea what their purpose was.

    â€œDr. Seladin, so pleased to meet you,” an urbane Chinaman, no more than five foot high and almost as wide at the waist as he was tall, stepped forward to greet him. Ahmed wasn’t sure what he had been expecting but it wasn’t this. The man was light on his feet, his bulk swaying from side to side like a spinning top, his greeting heavily garlanded in a French accent. The reference to Ahmed’s title, although clearly an appeal to his vanity, did not go unappreciated.
    â€œThe pleasure is all mine, Mr. . . ,” he had no idea what to call the man. Arrangements had been conducted through a string of third parties. A range of fixers, assistants, brokers.
    The Chinaman raised a forefinger to his lips and frowned. “Monsieur Blanc,” he said at last, “yes, I think that will do for the moment,” a knowing smile taking root, but his eyes untouched by it, emotionless and black. “I have ordered some refreshments,” he said gesturing towards a tray of