Valentina and Tabletop had held off the Oshicora guards long enough. Every time one of them popped up, they made them hide again. As he passed Valentina crouched behind the hood of her own car, he threw the AK to her.

She caught it and gave him a questioning look.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, and walked on to stand in the no-man’s-land between the two sides. He could feel a dozen sights drawing across his body, so he stopped and cupped his right hand to his mouth. He tried to match it with his left, but it wouldn’t quite go.

“Konichiwa,” he called. “I’ve got the bomb, so I don’t really need a gun anymore. However, if one of you would like to come with me, I’ll let you have it after I’ve shown you something.”

There was some muttering, and from behind them, another Oshicora vehicle approached, late to the party. It nosed up to the cordon, and both driver’s and passenger’s doors opened. Petrovitch recognized the passenger, even without the benefit of the Freezone’s database.

“Iguro. Glad you could make it.”

“Petrovitch-san. The communications blackout is your work?” He weaved between the parked cars and toward where Petrovitch stood.

“Yeah. Something wasn’t quite right, and I thought it safer if everyone could just step back and think about what they were doing.” He scraped his fingers through his hair. “It’s been a hell of a morning, Iguro, and I don’t think it’s over yet.”

“I must still arrest you. It is my duty.”

“About that. What were the charges again? That I was conspiring with the New Machine Jihad to threaten the Freezone Authority with an atomic bomb?”

“Yes,” said Iguro, “exactly that.” He had loops of plastic wrist restraints in his belt, and he fingered them.

“Despite the fact that I’ve consistently maintained that there is no bomb and I’ve just stopped the Jihad from driving whatever-it-is into the center of the city.”

Iguro considered matters before concluding: “That is for others to judge. My part is arresting you, and your friends.”

“We’ve got a stalemate, then. You can’t call for back-up, and I’ve got the bomb. Why don’t we sort this out like civilized human beings?”

“What do you propose?”

“Well,” said Petrovitch. “The bomb’s in the back of that van. I’d very much like to open it up and find out why a device that was supposedly sealed twenty years ago has a mobile phone signal still coming from it, but I can’t do that with us all shooting at each other. Don’t get me wrong, we can go back to shooting if you want…”

“That would not be desirable, Petrovitch-san.” Iguro pulled at his jacket and looked uncomfortable. “I have already received a reprimand from Miss Sonja for allowing you access to Container Zero. I must not fail her a second time.”

Petrovitch put his arm over Iguro’s shoulders and started to walk him back toward Valentina’s position. “If you still want to arrest me afterward, I promise I’ll come quietly. Deal?”

“I suppose it is fair.” He waved to his men to stand down, and only on passing Valentina did he realize by how many they had outnumbered Petrovitch. He looked sour.

“What?”

“I had expected more of you,” said Iguro. “Where are the Jihad?”

“Balvan. If you’d been listening…” Petrovitch shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s get this yebanat open, then maybe things will become clearer.”

17

Valentina set her tool box down and cracked the two halves apart, revealing layers of trays and little drawers. She leaned over the sealed cover of the bomb and inspected the retaining bolts, her hand running along a line of hex wrenches until she found the one she thought would fit.

Petrovitch rested his hand on silvery cylinder. It felt cool and unyielding.

“You are certain, da?” She twiddled the hex wrench between her fingers.

“It’s not a nuclear bomb,” he said, but a nerve in his cheek twitched. “I’m worried about the phone, though.”

“Phone is good for tracking. Simple, effective for whole of Metrozone. Is also good for detonator. Call number, big boom.” She scraped around in the bottom of the tool box. “Frequency of phone?”

“Nine hundred megahertz. I can feel it desperately trying to tag a base station.”

She held up a handset that looked very much like a phone itself and punched some buttons on the control pad. “There. Does not matter whether network up, down or in-between.” She propped the handset up against the side of the bomb.

“You realize,” he said, stomach twisting as he thought of it, “when I was dialing at random trying to connect with the special Jihad phone, I could have got this one first.”

“Then we would have big crater and no answers,” she replied, as if it would have been just one of those things.

“Shall we get on with it? Iguro’s getting impatient.”

She looked around at the man standing by the van’s rear doors. “He can stay close, if he wants. This size cylinder enough to hold maybe seventy-five, hundred kilos explosive. Safe distance is half kilometer.”

“Yeah, okay.” Petrovitch shuffled bent-backed to the back of the van and shouted over Iguro’s thinning hair. “Tabletop?”

“What is it?”

“You might want to take Lucy for a walk. At least to the end of the street: the very end.”

She came over, puzzled. “I thought you said…”

“We’re playing it safe. Tina’s spidey-sense is tingling and I’ve got a bad case of last-minute doubts. Just because it’s not got two sub-critical lumps of uranium at each end doesn’t mean that it couldn’t contain enough cee-four to put all of us into orbit.”

Iguro frowned. “Petrovitch-san, are you saying there is a bomb after all?”

He pulled a face. “Maybe. If you want to pull your men back, Tina suggests five hundred meters would be sensible.”

“What is to stop you from taking the bomb when we are so far away?”

“You mean, apart from the lamp-post lying on top of a van whose engine we just shot up? Or that we’d have to carry it to Tina’s car in full view of everyone while leaving Tabletop and Lucy behind? Let me see…” Petrovitch cuffed Iguro around the head. “Yobany stos, man.”

Recoiling, Iguro batted Petrovitch’s hand away. “I will stay to keep an eye on you. Miss Sonja would expect it.”

“Your funeral. Not that there’ll be anything left of you to bury, but at least it’ll be quick.” He fixed Tabletop with his gaze. “Get the girl out of here. You’ll know soon enough if there’s anything to worry about.”

Tabletop went over to where Lucy was standing and linked arms with her, guiding her away. Petrovitch watched them go, and then settled back down next to Valentina. “Now we’re ready.”

She held out the wrench to the first bolt and started slowly to unwind it. “You should go too,” she said.

“I’m not going to do that.”

“You are important.” She stopped turning the wrench as a couple of millimeters of thread appeared at the bottom, and moved on to the next one. “I am expendable.”

“You’re important to me. So shut up and concentrate on this.”

She nodded, and with the vague hint of a smile, went round each bolt in turn and loosened them off. Iguro watched intently, and wisely said nothing.

“Please, put hand on plate. Keep pressed down until I say.”

Petrovitch did as he was told. The cover sank very slightly under his palm, back to flush against the casing. Valentina spun the bolts out and lined them up on the floor of the van next to her knee. Then she crouched right down, a flashlight in her hand and her eyes level with the edge of the inspection plate.

“Just a little bit. Let it rise.”

He programmed his arm for a half-millimeter of movement.

“More.” She peered intently at the pitch-black gap, then felt in her box for a marker pen. She bit the top off and made a green dot part-way along the opening.