The tablet computer was hidden beneath Calum’s mattress. He had already realized that daytime was the riskiest time for using it. Instead he just sat there quietly in bed, apparently staring at the wall but in reality working through in his head all the possible permutations of what might be happening to his friends, in England and in Hong Kong. Pournell stood in the doorway. He was still neatly dressed in suit and tie. He checked the edge of the door to see whether Calum had ‘fixed’ it again, and then grinned at Calum as he entered the room. ‘Hey, kid, how’s things?’ ‘What can I say?’ Calum responded with a shrug. ‘The standard phrase is “Same old, same old”,’ Dave said. ‘But, just to save you the trouble, let me say that I know what you’re going to say – you’ve been kidnapped, you can’t communicate with anybody, you want to get out of here and go back home, blah, blah, blah. Am I right?’ ‘Pretty much,’ Calum admitted.
