Simon Morden - Theories of Flight

The rat chimed, and Petrovitch snatched it up.

“Valentina.”

The woman was still sitting in her car, driving along. “Almost got there too late. He was already inside. See, tell me what you think.” She reached forward, touched the phone, and sent a video file to him.

Petrovitch looked up at McNeil. “Go,” he said, “in the name of whatever god you believe in, go. You have family. You have friends. Be with them. I cannot promise to protect you. I can’t even protect myself from the shit-storm that’s raging about me.”

Still she didn’t move.

“This is for your own good. Miyamoto, get her out of here.”

Sonja’s man was listening, after all. He stalked across the room from his corner lair and held the door open. McNeil looked like she was going to refuse: her skin had turned chalk white, and the veins in her face made her look like a marble statue, too heavy to lift.

Then, with a stifled sob, she broke and ran. Miyamoto closed the door again and folded his hands behind his back.

“No. I don’t understand, either,” said Petrovitch, and turned his attention to Valentina’s video.

The footage was raw, uncut. He could do something about that, passing it through a program that got rid of the tilt and shake, and allowed him to zoom in effortlessly on any portion of the image. The camera had been a good hundred meters away from Chain’s shared front door but, with enhancing, he had a clear view.

Grigori’s car was still outside, two wheels characteristically up on the pavement. Another, similar car was behind it, at an angle, almost blocking the street—not that there was any traffic to stop.

Petrovitch focused on the new car. It bore a military number plate at the front. He knew where this was going, and pulled the camera back to see who it was coming down the steps, two at a time.

He hadn’t even bothered changing out of his uniform, assuming wrongly that no one would be there to see him. He didn’t even look up and down the street before trotting around the side of the vehicle to the driver’s side door. There was something in his hand, and Petrovitch froze the picture.

Blown up, the resolution wasn’t quite sharp enough to be certain, but they looked pretty much like Chain’s door keys.

He let the rest of the video clip play out, as Daniels leaped into the car and drove off in a cloud of blue smoke.

“Who was that?” asked Valentina.

“Captain Daniels. MEA intelligence officer—under Harry Chain.” Petrovitch scratched the end of his nose. “He clearly got around the sentry gun, so I think we can assume he set it. What would he have seen?”

“Poor, stupid Grigori. And hole in floor.”

“So now he knows I’ve lied to him. What’s he going to do now? Disappear or come after me?”

“Depends,” said Valentina, “on why he thinks you lied.” She had parked her car somewhere: at least, her hands were off the steering wheel and wrapped around a disposable paper cup.

“He knows I know he sent me there to kill me. Whatever else he thinks I may or may not suspect, that alone will either lead him to vanish without a trace or try to take me out a second time.” Petrovitch looked up at Miyamoto, who was concentrating on the far wall. “I’d very much like to see him try.”

“Or he could send someone you do not suspect.” Valentina slurped whatever was in the cup, and came back into view with a frothy mustache. “Hmm. It does not matter what he is going to do. What are you going to do?”

“Well,” said Petrovitch, leaning on his elbows, “Daniels might still come after me, so why don’t we keep him busy worrying about his own neck. I thought telling Marchenkho would probably sort it.”

She wiped her upper lip with her finger. “I wondered why you abandoned all of Chain’s documents with him. I thought you were getting careless.”

“Marchenkho will have committed them all to memory by now. He’ll be in heaven, reliving the good old days: Soviets against the West. He’ll enjoy hunting Daniels down.”

“I will tell him,” said Valentina. “Gets me on his good side again. And Petrovitch? Is about now someone tells you to trust no one, da?”

“I get it. Thanks, Valentina.”

“Later.” She cut him off, and the rat’s screen reshuffled its icons.

Petrovitch closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the codenames on the CIA list: Argent, Tabletop, Rhythm, Maccabee, Slipper, Retread. All of them innocuous, meaningless words—out of context. The man he’d shot was one of those names, Daniels most likely another. He didn’t know if Sorenson was part of it, or whether she was acting alone; from the way she’d thrown all caution to the wind, he thought he’d keep her separate for now.

Four more, then, and no idea who they might be. It wasn’t looking good.

He opened his eyes. Miyamoto hadn’t moved, and the room was exactly as it was before. It was the noise outside that had changed.

He went to the window, which overlooked the street, and pried the slats of the blinds apart. Through the encrusted filth that coated the glass, he could see more people together than he had in a long time. They were streaming south down the narrow road, and if he craned his neck just so, he could see the junction at the Hyde Park end. It was solid with bodies and traffic.

“How long ago did the news wires announce the bridges were mined?”

“Ten minutes,” said Miyamoto.

Petrovitch reached into his pocket for his phone, and with one eye on the outside, he called Madeleine.

“Hey,” she said. There was a cacophony all around her, making it almost impossible for him to hear her.

“Where are you?” He spoke slowly and loudly. It was obvious she wasn’t at home where he expected her to be.

“I got called in. They didn’t tell me why until I got here.”

“Where are you?” he repeated. “You can’t go on a patrol. You’re not fit.”

“West Ham. The bridges…”

“I know. Daniels.”

“Sorry? Who?”

“Daniels. Captain Daniels—he talked to me at the hospital. He’s CIA.”

“What?” Her voice was lost in the roar of an engine and barked orders. “I have to go. So do you.”

“Maddy? Stay on.”

“Go home, Sam. Now.”

The connection died, and Petrovitch thought about throwing the useless piece of junk against a wall repeatedly until it broke.

“Chyort!”

Instead, he sent her a text that he wouldn’t know if she’d ever get.

She was a big girl: she could look after herself, she was armed, she was with her unit, who were also armed. The Outies were much more of a danger than Daniels. Except, except…

She wasn’t very good at disobeying orders, and if a MEA officer told her to do something, she’d do it first and only question it later.

“I hate to do this to you,” said Petrovitch.

Miyamoto raised one eyebrow above the rim of his info shades. “We are going outside. To find your wife. To warn her of the rogue MEA officer.”

“Pretty much. The mobile network could be swamped by a million people all trying to call each other at once, or it could be the first sign that the East End is next to fall. She hasn’t got a sat-phone, and I’m guessing the MEA network uses the same masts as the civilian one.” He picked up his coat and shrugged it on, then retrieved the rat. “You don’t have to come.”

“How would I explain your untimely death to Miss Sonja?”

“Oops?”

“I do not think ‘oops’ would cover it.”

“You’re probably right.” Petrovitch patted his pockets. No gun, no knife. He had his info shades and his rat. “Shall we go?”

“I should advise you of the foolishness of your proposed course of action.”