[We now know where to look and what to look for. This situation may yet yield results. We are checking the orbits of all known satellites, and attempting to locate visually those no longer in contact with their base stations, to confirm we have not missed a single one. This will take time.]

“And recent launches.” Petrovitch swung the map around until he was looking up from underneath it, as if he was in Lucy’s position, in a series of snow-covered huts under the dark sky. “Do you think it’s the Chinese?”

[That possibility has been raised. They possess both the lift capacity and the required level of secrecy. It is also known that the Americans have active agents within the Chinese National Space Administration: perhaps one of them has leaked information about this project.]

“There aren’t supposed to be nukes in space.”

[No. China have signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996, putting them in the same position as the United States of America. What this means in practice is, I believe, moot.]

Petrovitch played the simulation again. The SkyShield component blazed away with its rail gun, sending a cloud of tungsten flechettes into the path of the oncoming satellite. The object deorbited rapidly, and as it came down, exploded.

“Everything is wrong.”

[Please explain.]

“We’re trying to fit the facts to the scenario: it should be the other way around. There’s a whole stack of things that don’t wash. The chief of which is why they left it so late to press the self-destruct button. Surely, once you know you’re hit and out of control, that’s when you do it – not when it’s about to crash into the ground. And how did it get so far without breaking up? It had to have a re-entry shield. But why? What was in it?”

[We will have answers, Sasha. Soon.]

“If you can work out what this has to do with Lucy while you’re at it, I’d be grateful.”

Michael loved Lucy. She was the second person he’d ever talked to. He was her big brother, and her absence caused him something akin to pain.

[Do not be ill-tempered,] he said. [We are working – all of us – at our capacity. The resources of almost the entire Freezone are being dedicated to this.]

“Okay, sorry. We’re missing something, though. Something big. Something yebani enormous.”

[Your wife and the FBI agent wish to speak to you. They have seen the same simulation, with commentaries suitable to their level of comprehension. Joseph Newcomen has very little grasp of the technicalities of orbital mechanics, and therefore I cannot say how much he understood.]

“For once, it really is rocket science. Keep going. Let me know as soon as anything significant turns up.” He smiled ruefully. “And thanks.”

He kicked himself out of the virtual world and was once again sitting in the cargo hold of a small aircraft, with his wife and Newcomen. He looked at their faces to judge their reactions: Madeleine was watching him for the same reason, while Newcomen was sitting on a crate with his mouth open.

“The Chinese?” he said. “Nobody said anything about the Chinese being involved.”

“We don’t know that for certain.” Madeleine put her reader away inside her coat. “There’s a lot we don’t know for certain.”

“But what if the Chinese want what’s left of their satellite back?”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” said Madeleine. She extended herself to her full height and stretched. Her hands pressed against the cargo hold’s roof. “After an explosion of that size?”

“There’s one way to find out,” said Petrovitch, “and that’s ask them.”

Newcomen baulked. “What? Dear Comrade President, have you lost some space hardware that just happened to contain an atomic bomb?”

“Something like that, except you address him as Chairman. You might not know how Chinese bureaucracy works, but I do. You find some low-level functionary that’ll take your call. They clearly don’t have the authority to deal with such a question, but they’ll issue a blank denial as a matter of course. Meanwhile, the note gets passed up the food chain until someone decides that someone below them should look into the matter.” He shrugged. “It takes time. I’ll get a call from a middle-ranking civil servant, who will ask me obliquely what I know. I’ll tell him what I think he needs to know. It can go on like that for weeks.”

“And you’re happy with that?” Newcomen seemed both outraged and relieved.

“My happiness or otherwise doesn’t make them move any faster. But they might tell me something useful I can’t find out any other way. If it helps, I’ll take it.” Petrovitch looked up at Madeleine, and she down at him. “Newcomen?”

“Yes.”

“For reasons that should be self-explanatory, even to a naïf like you, I’d like some time alone with my wife.” He raised his eyebrows and waited.

“Oh. Yes. Okay. I’ll just go back to our plane.”

“Thank you.”

Madeleine opened the door for him, and closed it again after.

“Hey,” said Petrovitch again.

21

It was four hundred kilometres to Fairbanks, and Petrovitch flew them at zero altitude all the way. The terrain was a maze of valleys and hills, with the occasional mountain to worry about, and all of it, except for the snow-capped peaks, forest. In the dark.

He had to continually change either height or direction, and sometimes both at the same time. It was a technical challenge to keep between the high ground, so as not to expose the aircraft to radar, and still not crash. Newcomen went first white, then green, then ran to the cabin to find something to puke his guts up in.

They crossed the border into Alaska. They weren’t shot down.

Newcomen eventually came back to the co-pilot’s seat, pale and shaking.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

“As long as you don’t ask me anything that requires more than a moment’s thought. This isn’t a car, and it doesn’t fly itself.” The whole brief for the plane’s design was fast and straight. Petrovitch was making it do things it was never intended to.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Newcomen.

“Careful now.”

“Will you just listen?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“They don’t want you to find out what happened to Lucy, right?”

“Let’s just say they don’t want me to find Lucy, and leave it at that.”

“Sure. But they’re also gearing up for a fight. With the Chinese.”

“Maybe.”

“Can’t we just tell them what we know? That everything Lucy could have found out we’ve worked out for ourselves, so there’s no point in us not finding her. It’ll make no difference. We could even promise them we wouldn’t say anything in return for her.”

“I’m sure someone, somewhere, has already suggested that. I’ll check, but so could you. You’ve got a link. Use it. But look, you’ve already heard me cursing Chinese bureaucracy: your political mindset is such that you cover up first, then ask why later. By which time, too many important people have got too much to lose by coming clean. Some junior functionary on the ground orders evidence to be conveniently lost, he tells his boss, his boss makes up a story and tells his boss. So then he makes a couple of decisions based on layers of lies and misinformation, and when he finds out, he’s not going to go public with the fact he’s a mudak.” He stopped talking long enough to hurl the plane around one valley spur and through a col. “So tell me what happens when we let Washington know that we’ve spotted SkyShield is taking potshots at foreign satellites?”

Newcomen shifted uneasily in his seat as their acceleration surged. “They try to get rid of us too?”

“There reaches a point where even the most dedicated conspiracy theorist has to admit defeat. We are nowhere near that point. My life, your life, Lucy’s life are not as important as some guy’s career advancement in military intelligence. You remember that.”