Simon Morden - Theories of Flight

He kept her in his sights. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your way back to the Glasgow-Edinburgh Axis?”

“I don’t really have any family there,” she said. Taking exaggerated care, she leaned to one side and unsheathed the dagger strapped to her thigh. “A cover story. But if you’d checked, there would have been real people at the end of the phone.”

She dropped the knife point-first into the floor covering. It stuck and quivered.

“Petrovitch. Who is this woman?” Valentina stepped around the table, rifle to her shoulder. When she got to Lucy, she used her foot to draw her back toward the doors. The chair left wheel marks in blood on the vinyl.

“I’m guessing she’s not called Fiona McNeil, she’s not from the Axis, and she’s not one of my grad students. She’s a CIA agent, codename Argent?”

“Not Argent. You killed him. Tabletop.”

“What about Daniels? Which one is he?”

“Maccabee.” She smiled sadly. “It seems none of us have been very careful.”

“Yeah. If it hadn’t been for the Outies, I would have cleaned up every last one of you.”

“There are,” she said, “no coincidences.” She looked across at Petrovitch, then at Valentina, perhaps wondering which of them would shoot her first. She certainly sighed when she felt the moment had passed.

“You realize there will be hell to pay for this outrage?” Petrovitch surprised himself at just how calm he was. “Setting an army of fanatics on a defenseless civilian population?”

“Yes,” she said. “I know. Except they’re not quite as defenseless as we thought. Are they, Sam?”

He said nothing, but he did want to put some distance between her and her weapons. Since her whole body was a weapon, he considered doing to her what she’d done to Sorenson. Which then begged a whole different series of questions.

“Are you trying to defect?”

“I can’t help myself. I want to live in a world like the one you made me imagine. I want to be with… with people like you. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I know I don’t want to be who I am anymore. She’s not a good person. She watches as one of her fellow citizens ties up and beats a girl, and she does nothing because she feels nothing.” She looked at her feet. “Whereas you—you’re good. You came when she needed you, despite everything else that was going on.”

Petrovitch kept on expecting her accent to slip. It remained a flawless soft Scottish brogue.

“She’s my responsibility. What else could I do?”

“Abandon her. Got someone else to do the dirty work for you. Except neither of those crossed your mind for a moment, did they? You really need to cut her free, though.”

“That would mean one of us putting down our guns. I think we need to wait while I call for backup.” He cleared his throat. “Sonja?”

She opened the door a crack. “What took you so long? I heard the shot, then…”

“There are complications, some of which are still not fully resolved. There is a knife on the floor over there. Get that, and the gun, and take Lucy outside.”

Sonja edged further in. “Who is that?”

“CIA. Have you talked to Mackensie again?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Don’t. I want to bring that sooksin down and I’m not going to give him any advance warning. Go on, get the knife.”

Sonja skirted Sorenson’s ruined body and the lake of blood, and scooped up the weapons. She took the opportunity to size up the opposition. “I know you. You’re a student. One of Sam’s.”

“Yes. And you’re Sonja Oshicora.” She chewed at her lip. “One of your secretaries is Miyuki Yoshihara. Be very careful.”

Sonja acknowledged the information with a barely perceptible nod. Then she retraced her steps and wheeled Lucy out of the door. It flapped closed behind them.

“So what do I do with you?” asked Petrovitch. He lowered his gun, even though Valentina declined to follow his lead. “What do I even call you?”

“Tabletop. I can’t remember what my real name is.”

Petrovitch had his own reasons for forgetting his name, but it wasn’t because he didn’t know it. “Can’t?”

“They take it from you, along with your friends, your family, all your memories, your past and your future. I let them. For the sake of the nation.” The woman called Tabletop pressed her palms together and clenched her jaw. “If she wasn’t already dead, I’d kill the stupid bitch.”

When she lowered her hands, she apologetically showed them the insides of her wrists. Two small blades had emerged from the cloth.

“I say we shoot her,” said Valentina. “She is dangerous.”

“Yeah. She is.” Petrovitch scratched at his chin. “But it’s not us she’s dangerous to. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” she said. “I will betray them all and tell you everything.”

He took a moment to consider his next move. “Do you,” he started, and then deliberately put down his automatic on the desk. He took a step back so it was out of reach. “Do you know what happened to my wife?”

“I can do better than that,” said Tabletop. “I can take you to her.”

S o where are we going?” Petrovitch was in the driver’s seat, Tabletop next to him. Behind were Sonja, Lucy and Valentina—who kept her AK pointing vaguely in the direction of the front passenger seat.

“They’re hiding at Chain’s house, waiting for extraction.”

“Couldn’t make it to Epping Forest?”

“No. Not now. We didn’t expect you to win against the Outies.”

“Ha.” He thought of the location, the town house on the Seven Sisters Road, and the car rumbled into life. He noticed Tabletop watching him intently, trying to work out what he was doing and how. “So who’s got her?”

“Maccabee.” She hesitated. “And Rhythm.”

Petrovitch held up his hand. “No, don’t tell me. Let me guess.” A moment later it was like he’d swallowed something sour. “That pidaras Andersson. Should have hit him harder when I had the chance.”

“He said you only beat him because you took him by surprise.”

“That’s nothing compared to what I’m about to do to him.” Petrovitch peered at himself in the rear-view mirror, trying to find something that would give him a clue as to his current predicament. He pulled a face, and caught sight of Lucy over his shoulder. He twisted around and inspected her. “Tell me again why you’re here?”

Her lips were still bleeding, and her face a map of short scratches and discolored bruises. She held up a carrier bag heavy with promise.

“You told me to get this for you.”

“So I did. Did you find everything?”

She passed the bag forward, and Petrovitch peered inside. It was all in order: wires, batteries, conducting glue, tape, a plastic envelope of tiny cylinders, and the black sphere chased with silver lines.

“You’re getting good at this.”

“Good enough to keep around?”

“I…”

Sonja sniffed. “When I first met you, you were incapable of talking to a woman without insulting her. Now you have a harem.”

Petrovitch abruptly faced front again, adjusting his camera. “And I suppose you haven’t got anything better to do, either.”

“Not since you said you wanted to turn Mackensie into sashimi, no.”

Behind them, the Oshicora security guards were climbing into their own vehicles, slamming doors and turning on lights.

“Last chance to get out,” said Petrovitch.

No one volunteered to move, and he finally pointed forward. The car dropped its wheels off the pavement and started down the road. Three other vans pulled out behind him.