When the Sparrow Falls

by Neil Sharpson

  “If you had another chance to be with Olesya, wouldn’t you take it?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, and to my own amazement I realized it was true. “She’s dead. I mourned her. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  Lily said nothing for a few seconds, and then nodded.

  “All right. But would you let anyone else make that choice for you?”

  I said nothing.

  “What would happen if I asked you? What then?” she asked.

  “Under the law?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d arrest you,” I said.

  “And then?”

  “Your honorary human status would be revoked and you would be summarily executed.”

  “Hanged?”

  “Shot.”

  “I see,” she said and then took a deep breath.

  “I’m going to ask you now,” she said.

  31

  Here lies a lady who, in life

  Burned fiery as the sun,

  Who laid both hands upon the world,

  And roared: “My way. Or none.”

  —Epitaph on the gravestone of Olesya South

  “Will you…,” she began.

  I placed the chip on the table before she even finished.

  Mrs. Xirau had called. And I had folded.

  She took the chip off the table and kissed it.

  “Thank you…,” she breathed. “Thank you.”

  I stood in silence at the window and leaned my head against the glass.

  I had betrayed my country. And I didn’t feel too bad at all.

  Suddenly, I became aware of movement on the street below. Men in brown fedoras were converging on the entrance to StaSec. I watched them milling around like flies on dung. More of them appeared, and more. Cars started arriving, screeching to a halt and then disgorging still more brown-hatted men. One of them strode out of the largest car and cast his face up to look at the building and a chill shot up my spine.

  Chernov.

  There were almost fifty of them now, gathered outside the entrance.

  I couldn’t believe it. They were actually going to …

  Chernov gave a shout and they poured into the main entrance.

  I swung around and Lily’s face suddenly went from calm to panicked as she saw my expression.

  “We have to leave,” I said. “We have to leave now!”

  * * *

  As Lily threw on her coat and stuffed the chip into her handbag, I frantically tried to come up with a way to get Lily safely out of the building and out of the country quickly enough that ParSec didn’t catch us and slowly enough that we didn’t arouse suspicion on our way down. It didn’t seem possible, so I devoted precious seconds to cursing Vladimir Chernov in both English and Russian before taking Lily’s arm and guiding her to the door.

  “Hurry,” I whispered. “But don’t look like you’re hurrying.”

  She nodded.

  Our first test was Lubnick.

  “I’m just escorting Mrs. Xirau to the ladies restroom,” I told him as I bustled her out and down the hallway.

  “There’s one in there…,” he said, but we were already halfway to the stairs.

  “Out of order…,” I called over my shoulder.

  “I should go with…”

  “No! Stay there. I don’t want anyone snooping around while we’re gone. Don’t leave that doorway, that’s an order!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  We walked briskly through mostly deserted StaSec offices and I was acutely conscious that every step, every choice, every moment’s hesitation could be the difference between life or death for Lily. For myself, it was more the difference between death now or death at some point in the near future but I still greatly preferred the latter.

  “South!” I heard a voice yell.

  I spun around and saw a young junior agent whose face I knew but whose name I couldn’t recall. He gestured to me to come with him.

  “Come on!” he said. “The Bastards are trying to force their way into the building, they’re in the lobby!”

  He looked happy enough to burst. The thought of punching ParSec gullivers in the face had clearly filled him with the excitement of a thousand Christmas mornings and I deeply admired that in the lad.

  “I’ll be right down!” I called, gesturing to Lily, but he had already run off to war.

  I snatched a phone off a nearby desk and desperately rummaged in my itinerary for the correct phone number.

  I dialed it with trembling fingers and as the phone rang I closed my eyes and tried to control my breathing. Everything depended on this.

  “Ellulgrad Airfield,” said a voice. It was a thick accent. Nakchivan, or somewhere similar.

  “Hello, I wish to speak with Sergeant Eshaq Pershid.”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Agent Nikolai South of State Security. Please activate the beacon for the drone. Mrs. Xirau is returning home.”

  “She’s not scheduled to leave until tomorrow.”

  I felt panic rising.

  “She’s not well,” I improvised desperately. “She’s sick. She needs to go home immediately. If she dies in Caspian there could be a war! Maybe you’re fine with that! Maybe you think that would be a good thing! I don’t know, you’re the one in the military, how do you like our chances?”

  There was a short pause that lasted an epoch.

  “It’s done,” said Pershid nonchalantly. “Bring her to the airfield.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Sorry. I … sorry.”

  I hung up the phone.

  We stumbled into the lobby, through the fire exit and we hid behind a pillar. Chernov and the rest of his mob were mere feet away from us but his attention was on Berger and four other StaSec men who were blocking them from going up the main stairwell.

  Chernov was right in Berger’s face, trying to yell him down, screaming that he had evidence that Anti-Constitutional crimes were being committed in the building and that he had a right to arrest the party members responsible. And Berger, for his part, was repeating the same nine words over and over again, each time with a different emphasis:

  “This is StaSec, sir, and YOU are not permitted! This is STASEC, sir, and you are not permitted! This is StaSec, sir, and you are NOT permitted!”

  He was entirely right. Chernov was not permitted, and no openly acknowledged ParSec agent had set foot in StaSec HQ since the aftermath of the Morrison Crisis. Papalazarou Junior had been willing to sacrifice as much StaSec blood as it took for him to appease his masters in the new government but, once they had been sated, he had taken steps to ensure that StaSec was weakened no further.

  After ParSec had been formally established, the prime minister, at Papalazarou’s urging, had issued order #92–1783 (known informally among the two agencies as “The Treaty”), which strictly delineated the powers and respective jurisdictions of StaSec and ParSec. Most of these edicts had proved to have as much force and solidity as a gentle breeze, but one had proved durable:

  ParSec were, under no circumstances, permitted to enter StaSec HQ or interfere with official StaSec operations.

  Chernov’s presence here was flatly illegal and he knew it. The question now was whether StaSec could induce him to care.

  All around Chernov and his men, a circle of gray-hatted StaSec agents had formed ranks, their fists clenched and their eyes smoldering, grimly watching the proceedings and awaiting a signal.

  It came from Chernov, who at last lost all control and punched Berger in the face. The old man crumbled to the ground, and I was certain he was dead.

  Chernov was not, as he aimed a monstrous, cracking kick to his head.

  That was enough. He could, I suppose, have proceeded to spit on the portrait of Dascalu himself and the reaction he got from the StaSec agents would scarcely have been more violent.

  With a roar the StaSec agents surged forward and the lobby exploded into violence.

  Ranks of gray hats and brown hats smashe
d into each other.

  “Kill The Bastards!” someone yelled.

  They were mostly older agents. Those who had been in StaSec during the Morrison Crisis, when ParSec had hauled so many of their friends and colleagues out into the streets and into the meat wagons, never to be seen again.

  The Old Man had a long memory.

  I had always known Chernov was stupid, but he should have known what would happen if he marched an army of ParSec’s worst right into our hearth and home.

  He was ex-StaSec, too. There really was no excuse.

  A ParSec man, face bloodied, landed beside us and I took a second to indulge a lifelong ambition and kicked him squarely in the knackers.

  I then grabbed Lily’s hand and we ran for the entrance.

  Parked right outside of StaSec HQ’s main entrance was an agency car. In a moment of inspiration I ran up to it and rapped on the window. The driver, a sallow-faced, jowly man with a black moustache and wide, panicked eyes, stuck his head out and looked over my shoulder at the melee that was spilling out into the street.

  “What’s going on, Brother?” he yelled.

  “It’s The Bastards!” I told him. “They’re trying to storm the building, they’ve already killed Berger!”

  That was enough for him. He leaped out of the car, ran to the trunk, removed a tire iron and charged into the fray.

  He also left his keys in the ignition, as I hoped he would. I opened the door for Lily and we drove off in the direction of the airport at double the speed limit.

  32

  Strengthens the measures regarding the supply, sale or transfer to the Caspian Republic (CR) of all food and agricultural products, machinery, electrical equipment, earth and stone including magnesite and magnesia, wood and vessels. The resolution also prohibits the CR from selling or transferring fishing rights;

  Strengthens maritime measures in the Caspian Sea to address the CR’s attempts to subvert previous embargoes and to engage in state-sanctioned terrorism against Member States.

  Decides that Member States should improve mutual information-sharing on suspected attempts by the CR to supply, sell or coordinate with terrorist groups operating within Member States.

  —UN Security Council Resolution 1468 (2210)

  In the clear sunshine, Ellulgrad International Airport seemed even more desolate and unimpressive than it had the morning of Lily’s arrival. In the fog, one could perhaps imagine that there was more to the place than was visible. But on this cloudless day, nothing could hide its smallness and dereliction. The small prop planes had looked antique and fragile before, in the sunlight they now appeared unfit for flight.

  Lily and I stood on the tarmac and stared at the cruelly empty sky.

  There was no sign of the drone. Lily did not seem to be breathing. She clutched the handbag that contained her husband’s soul to her chest as if afraid the world might try to snatch it from her and she stared into the blue, hoping against hope to see the first speck of her salvation flying toward her.

  I stood beside her, fearing the worst. I didn’t know how long it took a drone to fly from Tehran to Ellulgrad but I couldn’t imagine it took this long. We had been found out. Pershid had thought my call suspicious (couldn’t imagine why) and had run it past his superiors before activating the beacon. Of course he had. I would have done the same.

  I was now almost certainly dead. And yet, standing there with Lily with no sound other than a gentle breeze whistling through the wings of the prop planes, I felt perfectly calm.

  It was a beautiful day, it really was.

  And then, we heard it. A low buzzing like a great hornet trapped behind glass and Lily threw her hands up and whooped with joy.

  There it was. A tiny, white pearl in the blue sky, glinting in the sunlight. The drone, growing larger by the second. At last it set down as gently as a moth at the far end of the tarmac and opened to receive its passenger. I felt an incredible sense of elation and impending escape. Even though I knew that when that drone took off Lily would be safely cocooned inside and I would still be here, my feet firmly planted on the black tarmac, standing on soil I could never escape. But I felt as if I were going with her, that when she escaped with the thing most precious to her, she would be taking part of me with her.

  I felt her hand slip into mine.

  “For obvious reasons,” I heard her whisper, “I won’t say ‘I hope we meet again.’”

  She turned to look at me, and she was so beautiful I felt the world begin to haze over.

  “But I hope you have a good, happy life,” she said. “One that you deserve. Thank you, Nikolai.”

  “It was a pleasure to have met you, Mrs. Xirau,” I said. “And when your husband awakens, I hope that he understands how fortunate he is.”

  She gave my hand a squeeze, and we walked toward the drone.

  We had done it.

  It felt like a dream.

  Then, with a suddenness like falling, the dream ended.

  I heard a shriek of ripping metal and turned to see three black ParSec jeeps bursting through the chain-link fence surrounding the airfield. I could see Chernov, head and shoulders thrust out of the window of the front jeep, his face as red as an ape’s, his teeth bared and a black shape in his hand. In my memory his eyes were glowing yellow. I know that’s not possible, but that’s how I remember it.

  I swung around to Lily and screamed silently over the roar of the jeeps and the rumble of the drone to run, to run, to run, to get in the drone and fly away and never return to this graveyard.

  I grabbed her hand and we sprinted toward the drone.

  The shot rang out. The air tore around us like curtains and Lily jerked back and forth like a kite on a rope. We danced for a moment on the tarmac and she rolled into my arms. She felt like a ton of iron, rigid and terribly still. There was warmth on my fingers where I held her to me. Her face was inches from me and she stared into my eyes as hers went out.

  “No…,” she begged me. “Not here. Please. Not here.”

  I was dragging her toward the drone, even though I knew she was dead now, still I pulled her toward the drone, hoping that if she just got to the Machine world they could do something, save her, copy her, something—when the hand of God took hold of my chest, lifted me ten miles into the air and threw me down to earth where I lay smashed and bleeding on the black tarmac.

  I had been shot. I gasped for breath but none came. My lungs were filling with blood and it felt like a great weight of ice was pressing down on my chest. I was drowning, and I smiled at the absurdity of it. I was drowning on dry land, slipping under my own ocean.

  And then I wept.

  Oh God. This is what she felt. My Olesya.

  I stared into the blue sky and felt like the world had been turned upside down and I was falling into it. Below me, the drone was flying away, tearing through the sky and vanishing like a last chance. It must have been frightened away by the gunfire, I thought. It had been afraid after all.

  Lily was lying a few feet away from me, and I knew that she was dead. I wanted to go to her but I couldn’t move so much as a finger. The blue sky was starting to fade to gray, and a blackness was eating the edges of my vision.

  I could hear thunder, but even as I was slipping away I knew it couldn’t be so.

  There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky.

  33

  The Prime Minister may, on the advice of any member of his or her cabinet or any of the individuals listed in Article 41, order that the rights conferred to any citizen by Articles 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8 of this constitution be rescinded and that the citizen in question be placed in indefinite confinement where it is deemed that that citizen has committed crimes in contravention of this constitution but where a trial would endanger public safety, national security or both.

  —Article 52 of the Constitution of the Caspian Republic

  I dreamed that I was floating in a warm black ocean while overhead, strange, multicolored birds looked down upon me and called in soft, ele
ctric voices.

  When I awoke, I was in a hospital bed with a serpent’s nest of tubes in my arms and chest. A large electronic monolith the size of a wardrobe stood watch over me, humming and puttering as if it found the task of keeping me alive exhausting in the extreme.

  The room was dark and windowless. A figure stirred in the shadows, and I realized I was not alone.

  The figure stood over me with a kind smile and sad eyes.

  “Hello, Deputy Director,” I said.

  “Hello,” Niemann said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Porous,” I croaked.

  “I can imagine,” she said. “Do you remember what happened?”

  I closed my eyes and there was Lily lying a few feet away from me on the tarmac. I knew that face. It had looked up at me from the sand twenty-two years ago, asking the same questions:

  What are you doing? Are you really going to let me go?

  Do something, Nikolai. Do something.

  I opened my eyes, and the tears ran.

  “Lily’s dead,” I said.

  Niemann sighed deeply, and sat down in a chair beside my bed.

  “Well. Actually, that’s what I need to talk to you about,” she said.

  She said nothing for a few moments, and when she spoke, it was as if we had been talking about something completely different.

  “You know, South, after our first meeting I did a bit more digging on you. And when I came across the story of how you found out that your wife had filed for divorce I almost packed the whole thing in. I thought to myself, ‘Gussie, this is clearly a man for whom the fates have singled out special punishment. This man is cursed, and if you use him, something will go wrong.’ But you were just too perfect for my purposes. It had to be you. And here we are.”

  It was how she said “my purposes.” That was it. Not “StaSec’s purposes.” The implication that she had goals separate from StaSec’s. And I finally had the last piece of the puzzle.

  “You set me up,” I said. Not an accusation. Simply a statement of fact.