Oh believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them find in you a harshness; and know that God is with the godfearing.— The Koran, Sura 9, Arberry translation
After the disturbing visit of Inspector Jones, the angels plan rapidly. Atoziel, Boriel and Helophel all make their ways to the hospital to bug and observe Jones and his sidekick, with Magariel coordinating them from police station.
Meanwhile, Blakely visits Herald's flat, and is let in by her boyfriend Richard Brierly. Brierly was asked to be there to let Blakely in, and he is desparate for news. Blakely tries to reassure him, but the outlook is fairly grim. He raids a comb for hairs, some of which may have enough skin residue on them to allow a DNA match. He also resonates, to enough effect to believe Brierly to be human.
Atoziel spends some time hacking into the police computers, and comes up with the interesting scrap of information that the Met has no Inspector Jones in the Internal Affairs section. This changes the angels' plan somewhat into a full-blown interception. Helophel will disguise herself as a cleaning lady (basically by swiping a cleaners trolley from one of the cupboards and looking like herself), and will take the lift up with them. Boriel will use his Remote Control attunement to jam the lift between floors while Atoziel stands around and makes useful suggestions. On being told of this, Blakely manages to call in some more support that happens to be nearby; Alariel and Dierdre, Malakite and Kyriotate of the Sword respectively. The Kyrio will provide more assured communication between the groups, and will keep a pigeon watching the Burns Unit in any case.
The plan goes almost flawlessly. Jones is downed quite easily, but his companion turns out to be a tough Habbalite whose first resonance causes Alariel to attempt to flee, at least as much as one can in a lift. He fails to resonate on Helophel so resorts to mere mundane damage, and is therefore a little surprised by the sabre-toothed mouse (Dierdre with Numinous Corpus: Fangs) that erupts out of her pocket. The struggle is lengthy and does do serious acid damage to the lift interior and (at one point) the cable. This causes the lift to lurch and alarms to be set off.
Helophel stuffs the incriminating bodies into the cleaning trolley and saunters out of the lift as if nothing had happened into a mercifully deserted corridor. With Atoziel and Boriel's help she then hides the bodies in the morgue and doctors the records to avoid suspicion. She does take their clothing away for later examination.
Later examination shows that the clothing is perfectly normal stuff, but there are some interesting items amongst it. The ID of both Jones and his assistant has been fairly hurriedly faked to Atoziel's expert eye, but the real interest is in the assistant's handcuffs, which have a faint sheen of gold and appear to be Will Shackles, and a gold wire loop [ that readers of Beth and Maya's work will recognise ] that have something to do with celestial forms. Magariel later theorises that they allow someone to go celestial and in effect drag another celestial out of their vessel with you. It's not clear whether this would have no effect on a human or simply kill them.
Both artefacts are taken to the Cenotaph for safe keeping. Helophel is careful to ensure that she can have relatively ready access to them, should it prove necessary.
Back at the hospital, Boriel plants a standard locator bug (bought off the shelf, as it were, rather than of his own manufacture) in Jones' car. The theory is to prevent the Gamesters from automatically associating the interception at the hospital with talking to Magariel. Dierdre's pigeon remains on watch, while the angels foregather in a pub as usual.
Discussions over drinks are less fruitful than usual. There is much rehashing of whether or not Wells is a demon, and whether or not to kill him; opinion seems to be not to kill him just yet. Magariel pings her resonance on Jenny, and is heartened to find that Jenny's situation has improved. Helophel finally remembers to question Atoziel about the CI5 operatives' destinies, and meets a wall of Ineffable. Her resonance cuts through this to the extent that their destinies are very important, but spreading the knowledge would be harmful — especially to them.