The Sky Road

relief at seeing the evacuation already under way was dampened by flashback images of other roads, other columns of vehicles: the road to Basra, the road out of Warsaw, the perimeter of Atlanta…

But no, not here! They had their own air cover—Kazakhstan’s elite aerospace defence force would surely shield these refugees. She thought briefly of setting up a conference call with Valentina and Chingiz, but decided against it. This conversation with Jason was the most urgent she could have right now, for reasons that were more than personal.

“OK,” Jason was saying, “as to the motive, right, did anyone else approach you for some kind of similar deal, after Georgi’s death but before the coup?”

“Only the fucking space movement!” She swallowed hard. “David Reid himself, at Georgi’s funeral.”

“Jesus H. That kind of fingers them, doesn’t it?”

Myra found the question of who knew about what bugging her.

“Well, there’s a problem with that,” she said. “Whoever killed Georgi, or had him killed, must have known that that would make us suspicious of the spacers. I mean, even before you found the evidence, I had them in the frame. And it’s a bit hard to reconstruct now, you know how it is, but when I refused to give Dave any hands-off guarantees, let alone any more… active support, well, that suspicion must have been in the scales. Might even have tipped them.”

Mustafa shouted something and brought the machine-gun down and around to the rear. Myra shifted her legs smartly away from the ammo belt and twisted her head around. Five hundred metres behind them was a small, jockeying pack of cars and jeeps, in front of a cloud of dust and beneath a halo of camcopters. She clapped Mustafa’s thigh.

“Leave them alone!” she yelled.

He replied with some Uzbek profanity, but desisted, swinging the machine-gun muzzle skyward again.

“So you’re saying killing Georgi was counterproductive for the spacers?”

“Damn right!”

“OK.” Jason leaned back in the cramped seat and closed his eyes for a moment. “Cui bono? Who benefited?”

“Ah, shit,” said Myra, realizing, just as the jeep turned the corner into Revolution Square, and stopped. Myra grabbed the rollbar and pulled herself up. Long practice in estimating the size of demos clicked into place automatically, like eyeband software.

About ten thousand.

“Oh, Jeez,” she said.

It was not a particularly militant or angry crowd, at that moment. Tents and shelters and stalls had been set up, and many of the banners were propped against them or leaning on street furniture, or stuck in the patches of now trampled grass or beds of flowers that chequered the square. People stood or sat about, in small groups, chatting, drinking coffee, reading news off broadsheets or eyebands or han-dhelds, listening to speeches and songs, arguing with each other or with the scattered ones and twos of the Workers’ Militia. Some were dressed casually, others in their best outfits or in national costumes or street-theatre radiation overalls.

“Looks pretty dangerous,” said Jason.

She gave him an appreciative nod. “Yeah, that’s a mass demo if ever I saw one. Not to mention a big fraction of the remaining population. Shit.”

The kids back in Glasgow had been right: her small state was having a big political revolution. The two mujahedin glowered uncomprehendingly at the mingled banners of Kazakhstan, the ISTWR, the old Soviet Union, the International, the red flags and the black.

She ducked and placed a hand on Nurup’s shoulder.

“Stand up,” she ordered. “Look cheerful. Wave your rifle high above your head. Mustafa, for heaven’s sake smile, man, wave your arms and keep your hands off the LMG. No matter what, you got that?”

To the driver, “Around the inside edge of the crowd, towards the entrance. Slow and careful.”

She lifted herself up, swung her ass around and perched on the rollbar, feet on the back of Nurup’s seat. The driver engaged first gear, then second. The jeep rolled towards the corner of the front of the building. It had about fifty metres to go, then another fifty when it would have to turn right and inch along to the entrance. They went unremarked for about half a minute. Then the people stepping out of their way started calling and pointing. A moment later the pursuing reporters caught up and all chance of discretion was gone.

She could see the news of her arrival spread through the crowd like a gust of wind on a field. The camcopters circled at a safe distance, zooming in on her and on reaction shots of the people looking at her. Their only chance, she’d decided, was to look confident and triumphant She grinned and waved, meanwhile blinking up a call to Valentina.

“You can see us?”

Yeah, we’ve got you covered. We’ll open the door for you when you reach it.”

Cheers and jeers echoed off the government office’s glass and concrete walls. No organised chanting or coherent mood as yet—people were still unsure what to make of her return. She smiled desperately at every individual face that came into focus, and quite a few smiled back. The hovering camcopters had their directional mikes aimed at her, but she didn’t speak to, or for, them.

“It’s all right, folks, comrades, we’re getting it all sorted out, we’ve got a strong alliance with Kazakhstan, we’re negotiating with the UN and we’ll hold off the Sheenisov, I’ll be talking to you all soon, once I’ve had a chance to consult—”

The jeep came to a gentle halt outside the main door. Myra glanced sideways, saw a couple of militiamen holding it, ready to open, their rifles in their other hands.

“Go in, guys, all of you, I’ll keep talking.”

They hesitated.

“Go go go!”

One by one they ran up the steps and disappeared inside. Myra stepped from the seat-back to the dash, over the windshield and on to the engine hood, then hopped backwards on to a step, keeping in view all the time. She backed up the steps, smiling and waving, and through the doors.

Jason’s arms wrapped around her from behind.

“Well done.”

She leaned against him for a moment, tilting her head back on his shoulder, then straightened up and stepped away, turning to smile.

“That was scary.” She laughed. “It’s weird being the target of a demonstration—I feel I should be out there helping to organise it.”

Jason’s eyes narrowed. “That,” he said, “might become an option.”

“Ah, fuck off, you Machiavellian spook!” She caught his hand, swept an encircling arm at Nurup and Mustafa. “Come on, guys, let’s sort out this mess.”

They held the emergency meeting in Myra’s office whose broad window overlooked the square. Denis Gubanov had suggested using the Sovnarkom room, but Myra had dismissed the security man’s idea. No way did she want to be in a windowless room.

Everybody was sitting on or lounging against inappropriate furniture—desks and filing cabinets and comms junctions. Myra perched herself on the highest convenient surface, the top of a book-case full of unread yellowing hardcopy. She cradled her Glock in her lap. Somehow sitting in a chair seemed frivolous. Two militia guards stood watchfully at the sides of the windows, using their eyebands to sample camcopter views from the news services. Andrei Mukhartov, Valentina Kozlova and Denis Gubanov all looked sleepless and unkempt: the men unshaven, Val’s collar and tie loosened, her uniform rumpled.

Myra introduced the two mujahedin and Jason. Denis raised his eyebrows, but made no comment. Myra unobtrusively made sure that her three men were in a position to protect her—she wasn’t at all sure who, if any, of those present were leaving the room alive, whether or not the room was stormed by an angry mob. She’d once interviewed an unrepentant old Stalinist who’d been in the Budapest Party offices in October 1956…

“OK, comrades,” she began. “First things first. You know the Western powers have refused our offers. I’ve just today been on the shortest diplomatic mission ever, and I can tell you the Sheenisov