Theories of Flight

by Simon Morden

  Dominguez had been shocked into consciousness. “Is it that bad?”

  “Would I be suggesting you bail out when there’s science to be done, if I didn’t believe it was even worse than that?”

  “You paid for my flight. Our flights.” He blinked like an owl.

  “I’ll be in touch.” Petrovitch inclined his head toward the door. “Go. Now.”

  Dominguez took a step back, then another. Then he ran, with only one glance at the impassive Miyamoto. The self-closer on the door hissed. McNeil was still standing there.

  “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” said Petrovitch. “Why don’t we assume I’ve said it, you’re persuaded by my force of argument to agree with me, and you’re merely collecting yourself before running off after Hugo.”

  McNeil seemed to be in the grip of an existential crisis, uncertain as to anything anymore. She trembled with fear and frustration. Her hands clenched and unclenched from little white-knuckled fists to starred fingers and back. She screwed her eyes up and let out a shriek of frustration that started as a low growl and grew to be an ear-rattling squeal.

  Then she fixed him with a wild-eyed stare that had him looking over his shoulder to see if there was anything there. Her whole body was heaving with effort, as if she’d exhausted herself yet still knew there was more to do.

  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 dang
er 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.”

  “Perhaps you should.”

  “I will not be doing so. We must ensure your wife’s safety.”

  Petrovitch, hand on the door, stopped and looked at Miyamoto. “Is there something else you need to tell me?”

  “Apologies, Petrovitch-san.” Miyamoto lowered his head. “My feelings are not important, but I must inform you I am compromised.”

  “What the huy are you talking about?”

  “I have instructions regarding your personal security,” said Miyamoto, “but if you were to meet an unfortunate end during this unwise excursion through no fault of my own, I would not be disappointed.”

  Petrovitch took the opportunity to take his glasses off and rub them on the hem of his T-shirt. “When I look up pizdets in the dictionary, you know what I find?”

  Miyamoto didn’t venture a reply.

  “My picture. That’s what.” He hooked his glasses back over his ears and swung the door wide open. “Come on, lover-boy. You’re with me.”

  16

  They eyed the stream of refugees from the other side of the plate glass in the university foyer.

  “This will complicate matters,” said Miyamoto.

  “No shit, Sherlock.” Petrovitch tracked the movement of a woman pushing a huge chrome-ornamented pram piled high with plump plastic bin-bags. There was no evidence of a baby.

  “They are all going one way. Not the direction we wish to go, either.”

  “Yeah. You stating the yebani obvious is going to get really old, really quick.” Petrovitch held the door open to let one of the engineering lecturers out, wheeling a trolley stacked with taped-closed boxes. The noise poured in, the babble, the roar of people on the move. It reminded him of the old days, before the Long Night, when he was anonymous and the city sheltered him. “Let’s go.”

  The only way they could make progress on the pavement was to press themselves against the walls, and even then, they had to stop for bulkier loads to pass by, or be swept backward and lose precious ground.

  Petrovitch pulled Miyamoto into a doorway toward the top end of Exhibition Road.

  “This is stupid.”

  Miyamoto crowded in next to him and still managed to take up half the space Petrovitch did despite being of similar height and build. “You wish to abandon your plan?”

  “No. Just change it.” He craned his neck over the moving crowd and eyed the traffic stop-starting down both sides of the white line. “Let’s see how good you are at keeping up.”

  Petrovitch stepped out and let the press of bodies carry him away. But even as he shuffled back the way he’d come, he edged leftward toward the road. His foot fell off the curb, and he was with those traveling light, bags and backpacks only, squeezing in with the cars and vans, all heading south.

  Then he sat on the bonnet of a car, and swung his legs up. Ignoring the furious driver hammering ineffectually on his horn, he walked up the windscreen to the roof and looked up the street toward Hyde Park.

  The bigger vehicles were a problem. He couldn’t mount a big van or a lorry, but there was a path through that relied on switching lanes and no small dose of luck.

  The car beneath him jerked forward to close with the bumper of the one in front, and Petrovitch crouched like a surfer to keep his balance.

  Miyamoto appeared at his side, and thought Petrovitch needed steadying.

  “Why don’t you look out for yourself?” Petrovitch rose up and, with a grimace of unexpected pain, started running.

  The bodywork sounded hollow under his feet as he skipped down to the boot end and over the gap to the next car. There was a mattress tied on top—people thought they might need the strangest things—and he bounced across it, using it as a springboard to the next car in the queue.

  He didn’t check behind him. Of course Miyamoto was there. The kid thought he was better than Petrovitch, more worthy than Petrovitch, and no part of him was going to let a gaijin show him up.

  Petrovitch landed lightly, bracing himself with his extended fingertips. The woman behind the wheel stared at him. Every bit of space within the interior was overtaken with soft toys: it looked like she was being eaten alive by pastel-colored fur. It made the couple with the mattress look sane.

  No time to wonder, though. He was up and over and confronted with his first flat-faced van. The street was supposed to be two-way traffic, but only an idiot would be going north at a time like this: both sides of the white line were stacked with a long queue of traffic, and the spaces between filled with people.

  He judged the distance to the roof of the nearest car. Too far from a standing start, but neither did he want to climb down.

  Miyamoto bounded by on the other side, not condescending to look back. He moved like a cat, all loose-limbed grace and confidence, as if he’d trained for this very moment.

  Petrovitch growled under his breath and leaped, just as a shopping trolley rolled underneath. He used the handle as a stepping stone, planting his leading foot between the hands that steered it.

  By the time he’d straightened up on the orange roof, Miyamoto was two vehicles ahead. Petrovitch set off in pursuit. Even when presented with another obstruction, in the shape of a lorry cab, he managed not to lose momentum. He pushed himself between the lines of cars, using the last of the bodywork to gain the first part of the next.

  The lights at the junction cycled uselessly through the colors. Miyamoto got to them first, but only by the length of time it took Petrovitch to scramble over the last car and slide his feet to the tarmac.

  “That was fun,” he said. “Let’s do it again.”

  Miyamoto raised an eyebrow above his dark glasses. “Are you planning to travel like this all the way to… where?”

  “West Ham. Ten k, that way.” He pointed down to Hyde Park Corner. “But there are around five million people trying to cross the Thames all at once. We have to go north to go east.”

  “Across the park, then.” Miyamoto touched the hilt of his sword, protruding over his left shoulder. But he cast a glance toward the Oshicora Tower, visible in the middle distance.

  “We’ll see what the Marylebone Road’s like.” With that, Petrovitch shouldered his way into the crossways traffic toward Hyde Park. Miyamoto followed, eyes fixed on Petrovitch’s flapping coat.

  The park was fenced off—boarded in like a construction site with painted wooden panels twice his height. In amongst the warning signs nailed to the outside were biohazard symbols in stark black and white. The gates themselves were chained and locked as well as covered in plastic sheeting.

  Miyamoto drew his sword and slipped the blade between the gate and plastic. Then he drew his arm up. The black iron showed through as the plastic parted. The ornate curls and leaves had been designed for show, not security. Petrovitch jumped up, dug his boot in a gap and clambered up until he reached the top, using one of the gateposts as a handhold
.

  He turned and slid down the other side, to find Miyamoto staring at him through the bars.

  “What?”

  The corner of Miyamoto’s mouth twisted. “You are better at this than I thought you would be.”

  “I can piss higher up the wall than you can, too. Get your zhopu over here.”

  Miyamoto resheathed his katana and scaled the gate, hand-over-hand, dropping lightly to the ground next to Petrovitch. He looked across the gray wasteland over the top of his shades.

  Yellow diggers huddled together on the north side, and the first attempts at bulldozing the shanty-town had radiated from there, no more now than a sea of compacted mud. The Serpentine had been drained and dredged by a bucket-line, a crane parked over at the east end of the lake.

  Apart from that, and the absence of the dying, it was as Petrovitch remembered it: low, ramshackle shelters, mostly collapsed, made from old, wind-torn bags, pieces of crates and metal spars, and the paths twisting between them in a drunkard’s walk.

  “Yeah. Follow the road straight across, and try not to contract cholera.”

  Petrovitch set off at a jog, giving the rats time to skitter out of his way. Some of the shacks had been constructed on the road through the park, but the route was more or less direct.

  The bridge across the black stink of the empty Serpentine was grim enough. The graded and flattened ground leading up to Lancaster Gate, with its caterpillar treadmarks and drifts of crushed white bones poking up out of the brown soil was worse.