Саймон Морден - Equations of Life

“One of two reasons. One of which is that they’re not expecting us.”

“The other being that they are. Marchenkho, how tight is your organitskaya? ”

“We are all comrades together. We all have as much to gain or lose as the next man. Da? ” The Ukrainian’s olive-green greatcoat flapped as he walked, flashing the presence of his shoulder holster. “Since the last purge, we have stayed secure.”

“That doesn’t fill me with confidence.” Petrovitch pressed his glasses hard up on his nose. “Can you see anyone inside?”

The reception area was in darkness, but they were close enough to make out vague shapes moving against the glass doors; a hand, a face.

“I’ve seen this before. So have you, Petrovitch.” Chain started to jog toward the tower.

“What does he mean?” asked Marchenkho, holding Petrovitch’s arm.

“Come with me and I’ll show you.”

They caught up with the detective as the tower darkened the sky. It became all too clear that there were people trapped inside; some of the glass panels had starred through attempts to break them, and the reflections of the three men distorted as the doors were shaken. But there seemed to be no way out.

“ Hivno! ” grunted Marchenkho and put his hand on his gun. “Some answers, now.”

“If it’s computer controlled, it’s gone wrong.”

Chain pressed his police card to the glass. “Back off,” he shouted. “I’m going to try and shoot my way in.”

“That won’t work,” said Petrovitch. “But if you insist, let me take cover before the ricochet drills a neat hole in my skull.”

Those inside crushed themselves tighter to be near to Chain. He couldn’t shoot even if he wanted to. “Got a better idea?”

“I do,” said Marchenkho. He spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Grigori? We need Tina and her box of tricks.”

Meanwhile, Petrovitch was shoving Chain out of the way. “Not like that. Like this.” He got level with the staring eyes of one frantic sarariman and said haltingly: “ Shinkansen ha mata hashirou. ”

“What?” said Chain. “What did you say?”

“ Zatknis! ” Petrovitch pushed him away again, raised his voice and repeated. “ Shinkansen ha mata hashirou. ”

The man inside blinked for the first time. He turned away, his face losing definition behind the smoked glass. Then he came back and nodded, mouthing “ hai .”

Valentina slid a steel briefcase onto the floor next to him. She clicked the catches with her long fingers and opened the lid.

“Nice,” said Petrovitch, inspecting the contents.

“Do your job. Get them away from the doors.” She busied herself with a lump of plastic explosive, forming it into a disc in her hands.

Petrovitch mimed what the woman was intending to do, including the explosion that would follow. They didn’t understand until she started pressing detonators into the gray wads of plastique she’d stuck to where she hoped the opening mechanism was. Then they moved in a clump, all clutching at each other, as far as the banked reception desks.

“Ready,” she said, briefcase in one hand, roll of thin wire in the other. She trotted toward the first fountain, trailing cable behind her. Marchenkho, Chain and Petrovitch followed, and squatted down next to her behind the hard cover.

“You do remember you’re just supposed to blow the doors off, don’t you?” said Chain, and received a withering look in response.

“Amateurs,” muttered Valentina, and opened her briefcase again for the battery pack. She wired in the loose ends of cable and flipped the safety cover off the big red button. “Cover your ears,” she said.

She pressed the button, and the silence was broken by the sound of a single handclap, magnified out of all proportion. The air stiffened and relaxed, now tainted with a burnt chemical odor.

They peered over the parapet. At first, the doors were obscured by smoke; then, as it cleared, it seemed that the door, and its glass was still in place.

Slowly, gracefully, the frame fell outward and landed with a second concussion on the paving slabs. Still the glass didn’t break.

“Excellent, Tina,” said Marchenkho, and he stood up, pulling out his gun in one fluid motion. “Come on. You want to live forever?”

“Good point, well made,” said Petrovitch, and he held the Norinco high. They ran for the doors as those now freed streamed out, coughing from the fumes.

As they emerged, they scattered. They ran as if from the devil.

“Catch one,” called Petrovitch, and he watched as Marchenkho straight-armed a middle-aged man in the face. He’d barely hit the floor before he’d been hauled up to tiptoe by his tie. “Not quite what I meant, but yeah, okay.”

Blood was streaming down the man’s face from his nose, staining his crumpled shirt. He was almost incoherent with terror.

“Where’s Sonja Oshicora?” asked Petrovitch.

The man stared at him, at Marchenkho, at the building he’d just left at such speed. Japanese phrases dribbled from his lips, none of which Petrovitch could hope to understand.

“Sonja Oshicora. Where is she? Which floor is she on?”

Marchenkho drew his fist back for another strike, and finally the man seemed scared enough of being beaten to talk. “Miss Sonja gone.”

“Gone? Dead?”

“Not dead. Gone. In night.”

“Where did Hijo take her?”

The man focused on Petrovitch, and explained the best he could while being choked. “Not Hijo-san. Miss Sonja run away. Hijo-san look for Miss Sonja in city.”

Petrovitch pushed his glasses up. “She escaped? When?”

“In night. This night.”

“ Pizdets . Put him down and let him go.”

Marchenkho dropped the man, who scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as he could away toward Piccadilly. “She is not there?”

“Apparently she didn’t need our help after all.” Petrovitch watched the suited man go, then turned back to the Oshicora Tower. “Doesn’t explain what’s going on in there, though.”

“Shall we see?” Marchenkho squared his shoulders and stepped through the doorway into the foyer. Chain was already picking his way through the objects that had been unsuccessfully used to try and batter a way out—chairs, tables, fire extinguishers, metal supports, earthenware pots with spilled soil and broken trunks.

“They panicked.” He kicked a broken tabletop aside. “Wouldn’t have happened with Oshicora still alive.”

“It probably wouldn’t have happened with Hijo still in the building, either.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I bet he’s taken all the men with guns out onto the street to look for Sonja, who’s escaped all on her own. I’m sorry, gentlemen. I seem to have wasted your time.”

Marchenkho holstered his gun and put his hands on his hips. “No, tovarisch . I would have paid good money to see this. My only regret is that I did not bring a bomb big enough to demolish the whole building.”

“I might have drawn the line at that,” said Chain. “So are we sure this place is empty? On a normal day, there would have been a thousand nikkeijin here.”

Petrovitch shrugged. “They might still be struggling to work from wherever they live. Imagine their surprise when they finally get here.” He cocked his head, and listened.

“I hear it too,” said Marchenkho.

“It’s the lifts.” Petrovitch held his gun out in front of him and moved stealthily around the reception area. The row of blank lift doors behind it hummed with movement.

“Why are there no lights, but these have power?” Chain drew his own pistol and watched the floor indicators above each door flicker and change.