There was a brace of large sentries outside the cabin door that might have been the two from the cruiser. I was too jangled to remember clearly. They bracketed me as we followed Carnage along claustrophobic corridors and down listing companionways, all rust-spotted and polymer-varnished metal. I tried vaguely to memorise the path but most of me was thinking about what Carnage had said. Who had predicted my actions to him? Kadmin? Unlikely. The Patchwork Man, for all his fury and death threats, knew next to nothing about me. The only real candidate for that kind of prediction was Reileen Kawahara. Which also helped to explain why Carnage wasn't quaking in his synthetic flesh at the thought of what Kawahara might do to him for co-operating with Kadmin. Kawahara had sold me out. Bancroft was convinced, the crisis — whatever it had been — was over, and the same day Ortega was snatched as bait. The scenario I had sold to Bancroft left Kadmin out there as a private contractor with a grudge, so there was no reason why he couldn't be seen to take me down. And under the circumstances, I was safer disposed of than left alive.