“You want to take the stairs?”
“Yeah. If that’s okay.”
Grigori punched through into the cold, still air of the stairwell, with Valentina behind Petrovitch.
“What is it?” she said.
He looked around as the door closed with a clack.
“You want to talk without being overheard?”
“No. I just don’t like lifts.”
“The Oshicora Tower?”
“Yeah.” Their footsteps were hollow against the naked concrete. “Some nights, I wake up screaming.”
“But while we’re here,” said Grigori, “don’t hold out on Marchenkho. You know what he’s like. You can go from brave to stupid in an eyeblink.”
“Thanks.” Petrovitch snorted. He squeaked his rubber soles on the landing as he turned. “I know what I’m doing. For now.”
“You’ll tell him soon enough. Either because you want to, or because you have to. Understand?”
“I get it. Really. But.” He stopped. Valentina almost ran into the back of him, and Grigori had gone a half flight before he realized. He walked slowly back up, hand trailing on the banister.
“You wish to say something?”
Petrovitch opened his mouth to speak, and Grigori held up his hand.
“Remember that Marchenkho is still my employer. My boss. I owe him my loyalty.”
“Yeah. I wanted to ask if either of you has read any Tolkien?”
“What?” said Grigori, but Valentina nodded.
Petrovitch focused on her. “I have the One Ring,” he said.
She stared at him, eyes wide.
“Do you trust Marchenkho enough to let him have it?”
“No,” escaped her lips.
“If it ever looks like I’m going to have to tell him, kill me.” Petrovitch looked over the top of his glasses at Grigori. “That goes for you, too.”
The man was covered in confusion. “You have something powerful? A weapon?”
“Powerful, yes. A weapon? Only if you want it to be. And you know that Marchenkho will use it.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, we’d better get moving.”
Grigori didn’t move. “This weapon: this is what the Americans are looking for?”
“It’s not a… Yeah, though they’ll never find it.”
He grabbed Petrovitch’s arm. “Did it cause the Long Night?”
Petrovitch turned his face away. “Don’t make me say any more. You’ll become just another person they have to kill.”
Grigori snatched his hand back. “I’m not happy with this. Can’t you just get rid of it?” He dug his hands into his pockets, and Petrovitch could tell he was fingering his gun.
So he took the lead. He stepped past the man and headed downward. When he was certain they were following him, he called back up: “I could destroy it. But I’m not going to.”
Grigori and Valentina hurried to catch him up, eventually flanking him as they reached the ground floor.
“Why not?”
“Because no one will believe that I have.” Petrovitch shouldered the door aside. “I could do it now, and you wouldn’t believe me. So why would the Americans?”
The foyer was gray and white, all curves and light. There were receptionists and guards, and a courier passing a packet through a portable scanner.
“Do they know you have it?” asked Valentina as they strode through.
“No. I expect they’ll work it out, though.”
“Then they will kill you,” she concluded.
“They’ll try.”
The street-side doors hissed aside. Grigori’s car was parked two wheels up on the pavement, and he opened the rear door.
Grigori got into the driver’s seat, using his fingerprint to turn the engine over. Valentina swung her briefcase into the footwell. She and Petrovitch were nose to nose over the top of the door.
“You do not appear as worried as you should be,” she said. “You have plan?”
“Not yet. I know what the plan should look like. I know what I need it to do.” His hands gripped the painted metal, cool and heavy against his hands. “I know how much time I need to pull it off.”
“Do you think,” she said, then stopped to look around her: a couple of pedestrians, another car, ancient and dented, rolling slowly by. “Do you think it will work?”
The corner of Petrovitch’s mouth twitched. “Yeah. It’ll work.”
She had blue eyes like he did, and cheekbones like axe-blades, but at that moment she looked supremely vulnerable. “If I can help, then I will. In any way.
“Hey,” called Grigori, “get in, you two.”
“Okay,” said Petrovitch.
Valentina got in, and Petrovitch jogged around to the passenger seat. Grigori was frowning at him.
“What?”
The driver shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Where are we going?” He fired up the satnav module, finger poised over the screen.
Petrovitch dug in his pocket for the paper Daniels had given him. He unfolded it for the first time.
“Finsbury Park. Seven Sisters Road.”
11
In the shifting, shadow-battle against the Outies, Finsbury Park was behind the front line, but not so far as to be safe. The occasional pop of gunfire from further north was an aural reminder of that. Most of the residents had already fled, heading deeper Inzone or fleeing the city altogether. Only a couple of shops were open out of all the row of shuttered and bolted frontages. Where they got their customers from was a mystery.
Petrovitch didn’t like it. “Let’s not spend any longer here than we have to,” he said, inspecting the blank faces of the two doors that led off the landing.
“Nervous?” asked Grigori. He was holding his automatic in plain sight, not that there was anyone else to see it.
“I seem to spend my life like that.”
“It’s not like your heart is going to pack up any time soon. Not anymore.”
“No. It’ll keep on pumping blood out of whichever arterial bleed I die of, long after I’m actually dead.” He held up the magnetic key toward the pad on the door frame, only to have his arm held in place by Valentina.
“No,” she said.
“No?”
“No.” She laid her metal briefcase on the floor and clicked it open. The catches sprang and she lifted the lid. When she reached inside, she ignored the explosives, the wires and the detonators in favor of a stiff black cable.
“Tina,” said Grigori, “Petrovitch is right: we don’t have time for this.”
“What? You want to open door?” She looked up over the top of the case. “Petrovitch, give him key.”
Grigori took the key from Petrovitch’s hand, and made two abortive attempts to bring the rectangle of metal toward the sensor. Each time he drew it back.
