“Thanks,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” said Madeleine. “Where’s your car?”

“West side of Piccadilly.”

She carefully changed direction. “What happened to your arm?”

“Ran out of watts. Can you see Lucy?”

Using her height, she quickly scanned the tops of the nearby heads. “I’ll go back for her. Let’s get you to safety first.”

Madeleine kept going, calm and relentless, up to the barricade, over it, and to the front passenger door of the car. She stood there, holding it open while he got in, and closed it slowly so that fingers didn’t get trapped.

Then she climbed up onto the hood to try and locate Lucy.

Valentina tutted. “Look: bodywork is dented.”

“You should worry. My bodywork is more than dented.” Petrovitch hauled his arm around so it laid on his lap, and looked up at Madeleine’s leather-clad legs. He was momentarily distracted, so that he didn’t answer Valentina straightaway.

Only when the view cleared and Madeleine started back through the crowd did he acknowledge her.

“Sorry. What was that?”

“I said, does this mean we are now in charge?”

“Yeah. No. I guess so. Looks like you’ve got your revolution after all.”

19

Once they were all back together again, there was a long awkward silence. Lucy was squashed in between Tabletop on one side and Madeleine on the other. Valentina tapped the dash with her keys, while Petrovitch was busy trying to work out just what the hell he’d told everyone he’d do.

It meant rewinding the file and cringing like a stray dog in a street fight. He realized he’d backed himself into a corner, and there was only one way to make good his promises.

All the while, the silence stretched on. The crowd were dispersing, and were already visibly thinned.

“I think I owe you all an apology,” said Madeleine. She shifted, leathers creaking. “Sorry.”

If anyone was in a forgiving mood, they hid it well.

“Do you know,” said Valentina, “how much trouble we are in?” Novosibirsk on mid-winter’s day would have been warmer.

“I have some idea.”

Tabletop leaned forward, while Lucy shrank in her seat. “My ex-colleagues from the CIA turned up. There were more of them than we expected. Then we discovered that the supposed nuclear bomb was packed with plastic, to be triggered by a mobile phone that Sonja Oshicora’s personal security detail was actively tracking. Sam’s activated a virus that has shut the city down. And apparently we’re now responsible for the Freezone having seized it in a popular uprising.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Enough,” muttered Petrovitch.

“She has ruined everything!” Valentina slammed her hands on the steering wheel. “You had plans, da? I know you had plans even if I did not know what they were. I trusted you—still trust you to get us out of this, this mess. But best chances we had have gone. Because of her.”

“I said, enough.” He dragged at his arm, and wondered if he could plug himself directly into the power socket set underneath the air-con. “Battle plans never survive contact with the enemy. We can change them; we were always going to have to change them. That’s not the problem.”

“No, problem sits behind you.” Even furious, Valentina had no color to her face. It was her eyes that burned with bright fire. “She has betrayed you.”

“Stop it now. I appreciate that we’ve all been living on adrenaline for the last few hours, but it’s nothing a massive fry-up and some mugs of coffee wouldn’t cure. Before anyone else says something they might regret, please take a moment to think about everything that’s happened, and more importantly, why.”

“I know why. Your wife cannot keep her mouth shut.”

“Yebani v’rot. If Maddy is guilty of anything, it’s trusting a millennia-old tradition of confidentiality between priest and penitent. I’m pissed off, too, but I’m trying to direct my anger in the right direction.”

“Can I?” said Lucy in a very quiet voice. She struggled with her elbows to gain some extra space, and sat forward. “Sam, do you remember when we first met?”

“I broke into your house. You were hiding in the bath.”

“That’s not what I mean. The play. The school play I was supposed to be doing.”

“To be fair, I had my hands full that day.” He twisted in his seat to see her better as she leaned over his shoulder. “Refresh my memory.”

“Romeo and Juliet. You know,” and she quoted in a rush: “ ‘O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.’ ”

“Yeah, I know it. It’s better in the original Russian. So what?”

She pointed at him. “Romeo.” Then at Madeleine. “Juliet.”

Everybody else took a breath before starting their objections, and all stopped on the first syllable before grinding to a halt as their mental gears stalled.

“It’s like, you know: two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. But what if Juliet hadn’t killed herself, and they’d lived together like a normal couple? Her family would have hated it. And his. The idea that they would have kissed and made up is stupid. They would have worked together to split them up, then gone back to stabbing each other in the street.”

Petrovitch frowned. “Is this actually relevant? Because I’ve accidentally just organized a coup, and I could probably do with paying some attention to that.”

“This is the whole reason for everything!” Lucy knew she wasn’t explaining herself well, and she grunted with annoyance. “Montagues and Capulets. You two have separated over Michael. But neither of you wants to make it permanent because you actually do love each other. So you need a push. Sonja Oshicora wants you, right?”

“As uncomfortable as it makes me to admit it, yeah.” He didn’t feel able to meet anyone’s eye at that moment.

“That means she needs Madeleine out of the way. How’s she going to do that? She can’t just kill her, because that won’t work. She needs you to hate her.” Lucy directed her forensic gaze at Madeleine. “This priest of yours: he wants you to go back to the Church. Is he going to get you to do that by killing Sam? Is he even going to try and kill Sam, knowing how well protected he is? No. What he can do is make you hate him.” She threw up her hands. “How come this is so obvious to me, but not to you bunch of emotionally retarded grown-ups? They’re working together. Sonja and the priest.”

Petrovitch sat back around and stared straight ahead. “Oh, you have to be yebani joking. This whole thing has been contrived to…” His face set hard. “Sic sukam sim.”

“Sam?” said Madeleine, bewildered.

“I am not a piece of meat. I will not be owned by anyone. And I will absolutely not be the peshka in anyone’s game.” His heart was spinning fast, too fast: the tips of his fingers were tingling and his head felt like it was going to pop like an over-inflated balloon. He took several deep breaths and deliberately braked the turbine in his chest. Too hard. He felt fuzzy, almost fainting. It was almost as it was before he’d had the implant. “Chyort.”

“Get him out of the car. He’s crashing.”

There was a sudden scramble around him, and he was dragged out and laid on the ground. He saw sky and cloud, and felt road and rubble. He was cold, colder than he’d ever been, like he’d been frozen and all these people leaning over him were defrosting his body with nothing more than good wishes and concerned looks.

“No CPR! It doesn’t work like that.”

“How does it work then?”

“It’s not like there’s a panel I can pop open.”

His T-shirt was pulled up, and the surgical tape that held the slim computer to his body was ripped free.