Havoc (22 page)

Samuel sat back and whistled. ‘Where to start?'

‘With Lanya,' I said.

He had a wrinkled face with craggy white eyebrows overhanging dark brown eyes.

‘You're very sure of that, young man.'

‘By Friday midnight it will be too late for her.' I looked at the old clock on the
mantelpiece. ‘We've got twenty-six hours to get her out.'

Samuel's wrinkles grimaced. ‘We can't bring down the Marsh in a single day, lad.'

‘I think we can,' I said.

They exchanged looks. Then my father said, ‘Frieda offered you a deal?'

I nodded.

‘Which was?'

‘You can guess.'

‘I can. It's what she does. And you came here instead of going to her with this address.'

He looked at Samuel, who nodded slowly and said, ‘Ah well, for that we're grateful.
So we must try.'

By midnight we'd thrashed our ideas around and come up with something that looked
like a workable plan. Anna took Nomu and Raffael to show them where they
could sleep
and returned for Samuel but he was deep in discussion with my father about the ethics
of some political movement I'd never heard of and she raised her eyes to heaven
and smiled at me. I helped her clear the table and as I piled the dishes by the kitchen
sink I said, ‘Thank you—that food was fantastic.'

She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me directly in the eye. ‘Look at you,'
she said. ‘So like your mother. All evening I have been sitting at the table wishing
she could see you now.'

Her eyes got misty and she turned away to run water.

I hunted for a teatowel—the kitchen was like the dining room, crowded with old stuff,
all of it hard used, but beautiful too: a wooden dresser with blue-and-white plates
and cups, a work table made of a great hunk of wood whose surface had worn unevenly,
a solid, ancient-looking oven. It felt well lived in; it invited you to relax and
tell the story of what you'd done with your day. I was trying to work out how to
ask Anna about my parents, but she was way ahead of me.

‘You should talk to your father,' she said before I'd opened my mouth. She looked
at me with smiling dark eyes. ‘About your mother. Why not? Are you afraid to?'

‘No, of course not.' I dried a plate and put it up on a shelf. ‘A bit…maybe.'

‘Talk to him. You both deserve that conversation.'

When we went back to the dining room Anna
hooked her arm through Samuel's and said,
‘Come, old man.' He grumbled but he stood up, grunted goodnight and they left.

My father hunted in his pockets for a cigarette, found one, stared at it and put
it away unlit. He saw me watching and said, ‘Saving it for when I really need it.'

I sat down opposite him at the table and said, ‘Tell me about Elena and the security
services.'

He took the cigarette out again.

‘Funny,' I said.

He snorted a laugh, then grew serious. ‘Elena. Your mother was Breken, you know that.
She grew up on Cityside in the days when that was still allowed. She was a gifted
linguist—she spoke five languages fluently and could handle another two or three,
no trouble. And, yes, she worked for the security services.'

He lit the cigarette, waved out the match and drew long squinting at me through the
smoke.

‘So did I.'

A bunch of things went ‘click' in my head.

He waited for me to say something, and when I didn't he looked at me closely and
said, ‘You're not surprised.'

‘I guess not,' I said. ‘Frieda hates you. She
hates
you. Where does that come from
except from you turning your back on something you believed in together.' I thought
of Dash's scorn, Jono's contempt. Not so different. ‘What happened?' I asked.

‘I grew up on Cityside,' he said. ‘I went into the army when I was about your age,
but after a few years I applied to be a security agent and went to the Marsh to learn
how. That's where I met Elena. We were both working in the Marsh when you were born.
But then Daniel Montier was captured and brought in. He'd been leading the Southside
uprising at that time and I was assigned to follow his interrogation.'

He sighed and ran a hand through his short greying hair. ‘Montier was a wise, intelligent,
committed man with a gift for leadership and a desire for peace and we slowly destroyed
his mind. Elena was the interpreter for his interrogation. In the end she and I conspired
to get him out. Not soon enough though.' He paused and looked at me. ‘He was never
again the man who went into the Marsh. We lost a leader we sorely needed. Your mother
and I were found out soon enough and we had to get out.'

‘Why didn't Elena go over
the river then?' I asked. ‘Why did she stay here?'

‘She didn't stay here. But Southside was being shelled every day and it was too dangerous
to take you there, so she took you west to a safehouse.'

‘Oh. What happened?'

He smoked the last of the cigarette and pitched it into the fireplace. ‘It wasn't
safe enough,' he said. ‘They found her and took you.'

I shook my head. ‘I don't remember.'

His smile was grim. ‘I do.'

‘Why don't I remember? I remember being with her when someone raided our rooms. I
remember standing with Frieda at the gates of Tornmoor. I don't remember anything
in between.'

‘You know what they're good at. Work it out.'

‘They drugged me? They drugged a four year old?'

‘That would be my guess.'

I put the pieces together. ‘So Frieda makes a deal with Elena and Elena hands you
over. For me. To get me back.'

He nodded. ‘We talked about it and that's what we came to.'

‘You knew!'

‘Of course. I told them I'd come in, alone, but no, they had to send someone to bring
me in. They sent De Faux.'

The man who'd tried to assassinate Commander Vega in the winter just gone. I remembered
Levkova telling me about him.

‘He killed Daniel Montier,' I said.

My father nodded. ‘May he roast in his own private corner of hell.'

‘And Elena?' I asked. ‘What happened to her?'

‘I never found out. And, believe me, I tried.'

‘Do you think she's dead?'

He glanced at me. ‘I do.'

Silence fell between us. I said, ‘I'm sorry.' It came out as a whisper.

‘I am too,' he said. ‘I'm sorry you didn't know her better, or for longer. She was
remarkable.'

I said, ‘“Your dead stay with you.” That's what you said to me on the Mol last winter.
“They pitch camp in your mind.”' I looked at him. ‘She has stayed with me.'

He smiled a genuine smile. ‘And me.'

‘Tomorrow,' I said. ‘We get Lanya out.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Yes, we do.'

CHAPTER 30

I left Anna and Samuel's house early on Friday morning and walked to the Marsh. Fog
hovered at ground level across its flat fields and the sun was just up in a pale,
clear sky—I figured it was light enough that they wouldn't shoot me without asking
a question or two first. The air was cool and damp and it would have been a good
time to be out and walking if my heart hadn't been hammering so loud and I didn't
feel queasy with fear.

I stopped at the guardhouse by one of the vehicle barriers and told the guy inside
that I had a message for Director Kelleran. I handed him a sealed envelope and said
I'd wait there for her reply. He called in a minion who beetled off with it to the
main cluster of buildings. I imagined him knocking tentatively on a basement door
where Frieda slept hanging upsidedown from a rafter with her wings wrapped around
her.

My note said:
I have what you want. Bring Lanya to St John's at midday.

Her reply came back fast:
Yes.

This far, so good, as Raffael would say.

St John's was cool inside and marble quiet. My father sat on the steps leading up
to the altar, and I walked up and down the aisle until he told me to stop, I was
making him nervous.

‘
I'm
making you nervous?' I said.

‘Fair point. The likelihood of the army descending on us is making me nervous, but
you're not helping.'

‘I don't think you should be here,' I said. ‘What if the army does descend on us?'

‘Then we'll cope. We're bringing down the Marsh today, remember?'

I sat down beside him and tried to act as calm as he looked. As the bells began to
strike noon over our heads the latch on the big double doors clacked and they swung
open.

‘Ah, Frieda,' he muttered. ‘Always one for a fanfare.'

I jumped to my feet as she marched up the aisle. She was as grey and pale as usual,
wearing dark glasses that hid her expression. She left two agents at the door and
another two walked around the perimeter, hand guns drawn, peering into side chapels.
Behind Frieda came Dash and Jono, pinpoint neat in black, and between them
they marshalled
a wrecked-looking Sandor. I looked past him for Lanya with a fleeting thought that
he'd be bugged by how filthy his clothes had got.

Frieda took off her glasses and raised her eyebrows at my father. ‘Well,' she said.
‘The whole family.'

My father opened his hands. ‘As you see.'

I said, ‘Where's Lanya?'

But Frieda was still looking at my father. ‘Why are you here?' she asked.

He smiled.

Her gaze darted around the church as though she was expecting hostiles to leap from
the upper balcony and abseil to the attack.

Behind us someone opened a door and peered in. The minister—I recognised him from
when we'd sheltered here after the Tornmoor bombing. He was a youngish guy with receding
hair and sharp, intelligent eyes. He wasn't happy.

He pointed at the agent moving up the altar steps. ‘No guns in here!'

The agent looked back to Frieda who gestured towards the crypt. ‘Put him in there
for now. Until we're done.'

The minister objected, loudly, but no one was listening.

When they'd shut the door on him Frieda turned back to me. ‘So, you found your father.
I should warn you,
it won't be to your advantage. He worked for us, did you know
that?'

‘Where's Lanya?' I asked again.

‘Hey!' called Sandor. ‘Pleased to see me?'

I said in Breken, ‘Sure, Sandor. You all right? You look terrible.' Serves you right
for trading on Nomu.

‘Yeah. Feel terrible.' He leaned on a pew.

‘What about Lanya?' I asked.

‘Not yet,' said Frieda. ‘I brought you this one. You'll get the other one when I've
verified your information.'

She nodded to Dash who marched up to me and said, ‘I hope you've seen sense. Tell
me you have.'

When I didn't immediately hand over anything that looked like information she glared
at me and muttered, ‘But what are the odds?'

I stepped around her and said to Frieda, ‘This wasn't the deal.'

‘Hey!' said Sandor. ‘Remember me? I'm not here to be haggled over, you know.' He
shuffled away from Jono, sat down in the front pew and wiped a hand over his face.
‘I need a medic,' he said.

I said to Frieda, ‘We had a deal!'

Behind me, my father said, ‘Nothing changes.'

Her gaze slid past me to him. ‘What did you expect?'

‘This,' he said. ‘How unoriginal of you.'

She shook her head. ‘Why are you here? You're infecting your son with the same romantic
revolutionary
delusions you brainwashed Elena with. It will cost him the same way
it cost her—'

‘No, no,' said my father. ‘Let me at least correct the record. Elena was a much more
principled idealist than I ever was. She convinced me there was hope for peace because
Southside had a leader who was prepared to negotiate. The problem was, they had that
leader and we didn't. Some things don't change. Many things.'

‘Good sense doesn't change,' said Frieda. ‘Daniel Montier was a dead man the moment
he walked into the Marsh. What was the point of getting him out? You had everything
to lose and you lost it.'

‘Not quite,' said my father.

‘Nonsense. You lost the boy, you lost Elena, you lost the uprising. I think that
counts as everything.'

My father looked at her for a moment then said, ‘We're not here to reinvent the past.
We're here to get Lanya back. And you haven't brought her.'

‘I'm waiting for some genuine intelligence,' she said. ‘And I mean that in both senses
of the word.'

Her comms unit buzzed and she squinted at it, then said to me. ‘Don't make the mistake
your mother made.'

‘I've already made it,' I said. ‘I thought you'd keep your word.'

‘And I will. As soon as you provide the information and it's been verified. Your
mother's fate, for the record—' she glared at my father ‘—had nothing to do with
me.
I would have kept her on as an agent but my superiors decided she was too compromised.
They were probably right. Loose ends, you see. We don't like them.'

‘What happened to her?' I asked.

She sighed impatiently. ‘I don't have time for this.'

My father said, ‘Yes, you do. You've got at least two spare minutes and all the guns.
Tell him.'

Frieda looked from my father to me. Her eyebrows lifted slightly as if she was calculating
the pros and cons. Then she relented.

‘Elena discovered you were at Tornmoor. She went to get you back. Stapleton reported
that she wouldn't leave until she'd seen you, so we were sent to take her away: myself,
and two others.'