Simon Morden - The Curve of The Earth

“Because some of it is true.”

Newcomen tossed the reader into the chair opposite him, and stood up, straightening his jacket. “Which bits, then?”

“You don’t honestly think I’d waste a second with that govno? Yobany stos , I was there at the time: I know what went on.” Petrovitch retrieved the reader and rolled it up into a tube. He pushed it into Newcomen’s top pocket. “And in some respects, it’s not what happened that’s important. Not ten years on and an ocean away. It’s why a tabloid journalist should spend six months of their lives digging through all the old news reports and web pages to write a book that’s only partly right. Figure it out. But later: we need to go.”

He led the way back out to the library foyer, and Newcomen was reunited with his luggage.

“Is it clean?”

“Yeah, it’s clean. Even that old satellite phone you’ve been lugging around with you.”

“You… know about the phone?”

“You were unconscious and I only had my hands in your chest for a little while. I thought I’d have a poke around and make sure that you weren’t carrying any contraband.” Petrovitch shrugged. “It’s not like the locks were difficult to crack. I had to assume the ones who sent you wanted me to look inside.”

“I’ve been…”

“Talking to Buchannan on it. I know. Good work on not telling him about the bomb, by the way. Because if you had, you’d be dead by now.”

“And…” Newcomen was aghast.

“Christine. Likewise. Though you employed so much corn on your last conversation I thought I was going to have to break it up by puking all over you.” Petrovitch put his hand out to the door lock, and the bolts pulled back with a clunk.

“My private conversations.”

“Yeah. I warned you when you first woke up: everything you say, everything you do, I get to find out about. You had no reason to assume your box of tricks was immune from that. Not that it’ll be a problem any more, because both your tie and your sat phone are slag.”

Petrovitch heaved the door aside. There was another taxi waiting on the kerbside, the driver just emerging into the cold New York air. No Artak this time — he was away over in Brooklyn on another fare — it was just another guy with a car and a meter, looking to make a few bucks carrying a couple of out-of-towners down the New Jersey Turnpike.

When he saw the two men with their bags, he moved to open his trunk. Only the tall guy wanted his squared away, though. The foreigner shook his head with such steady conviction that he felt compelled to back away and get into his cab as quickly as he could.

“What you got in there anyway?” the driver asked conversationally once they were on the road.

“It’s a, uh, diplomatic thing,” said Newcomen. “Best not go there.”

“Courier job, eh? Where you going?”

“Seattle,” said Newcomen. He was disturbed by the lack of response from Petrovitch, sat in the seat next to him, bag firmly on his lap. He glanced around to see him with his head turned to face the back window.

“Are we,” and he struggled to look for himself, “being followed?”

“Yeah. At least three cars broadcasting encrypted burst transmissions on shortwave. There may be more than three, but at least they’ve the good sense to keep radio silence.”

“What this you’re saying? We’re being tailed? Better call the cops.” The driver reached to turn his phone on.

“He is the cops,” murmured Petrovitch. “So are they. Don’t sweat it. We were followed on the way from JFK, too, just more artfully.”

The taxi man pulled his hand back. “As long as you’re sure. You guys in some sort of trouble, then?”

“I didn’t think so,” said Petrovitch, “but now I’m not so sure.”

They were over Nebraska, doing five hundred k and climbing to get over the Rockies.

Petrovitch had been sitting quietly, hands folded in his lap, seemingly asleep. Newcomen was next to him, watching the clock and growing increasingly fretful.

“There’s plenty of time,” said Petrovitch, his voice barely louder than the hum of the air scrubbers.

“I thought you were…”

“You were wrong. Again. I’m working.” Only his lips moved.

“On what?”

“Who might have taken Lucy. Working my way through all her contacts, cross-referencing phone calls, debit payments, key uses, CCTV captures, computer logins, canteen swipe cards. It’s a complicated four-dimensional map, but it’s the easiest way to spot patterns.”

Newcomen looked around the cabin, at the stewards and stewardesses moving quietly among the passengers. Different to the flight across the Atlantic: not one had called on them, even once.

There was a different pair of NSA agents with them, too, sitting apart from each other and at least making an attempt to blend in. Petrovitch had pointed them out as soon as they’d taken their seats. He’d identified the account used to pay for their seats as being the same as for the flight from Heathrow.

“Found anything?”

“Yeah.” He opened his eyes and pushed himself up slightly using the arms of the chair. He reached out and pulled the screen from Newcomen’s pocket. “This man: recognise him?”

Newcomen put his palm behind the screen and waited for the image to brighten. “No. Should I?” A tousle-haired, ruddyfaced youth with a lopsided grin stared out at him.

“Jason Fyfe. Canadian citizen, twenty-three years old, degree in meteorology, studying for a doctorate in ionospheric interactions at McGill. Should be at Fairbanks, whereabouts currently unknown. Last seen a week last Saturday.”

“Last seen, as in, he’s disappeared too?”

“No one’s reported him missing, if that’s what you mean. He hired an all-terrain vehicle and headed off into the wilderness. No communications with him since.”

“But you can track the RV through its locator, right?”

“I would if I could. He’s gone off the radar completely. I don’t know what that means yet.” Petrovitch looked down at the geometric patchwork of fields swept with blown snow, thousands of metres below. “The university has ATVs of its own, and he’s not doing field work. The timing of this unscheduled trip is making my spidey senses tingle.”

“Anyone else?” Newcomen rolled the screen back up.

“I can, with varying degrees of accuracy, place everyone in the physics faculty. I’m widening the search across the whole of the university, and eventually, everyone in Fairbanks. But let’s start with Fyfe.”

“I’ll talk to the Assistant Director. We’ve two agents in Fairbanks: they can interview his friends, see if he and Lucy were…” he paused. “Close.”

“Don’t be so yebani coy, Newcomen.” Petrovitch turned and focused on him. “That’d be a really good idea, except Buchannan’s withdrawn those agents. There’s now no FBI presence in the whole of northern Alaska. Fancy that.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Presumably because he’s been ordered to do so by someone well above an Assistant Director’s pay grade. Doesn’t this sound at all suspicious to you yet? Ignore the fact that it’s me — I’m never going to be invited to the White House for a kaffeeklatsch — and concentrate on Lucy. A foreign national with diplomatic credentials goes missing in a remote area of Alaska in what turns out to be less-than-straightforward circumstances, and the FBI pull the only two agents they have on the ground? If you can make sense of that scenario, you’re smarter than you look.”

“Gee. Thanks.”

“Seriously. Is this standard Bureau operating procedure?”

“I’m sure the AD has his reasons.”

“Yeah, he’s being leant on by someone further up the food chain.” Petrovitch clenched his teeth. “When we finally see him, I’ve a mind to tell him that if my presence here is standing between him and being able to deploy the people he needs to, then I’ll take the first plane out of here.”