The Bridge (22 page)

Benit stood up straighter. ‘High up. Can’t say. What are you doing letting City boy here walk around? Is this that old bag’s idea? I bet it is. You spend too much time with her, J. You’re turning into an old woman yourself. You’re forgetting who the real enemy is.’ He started to lift his gun again.

Jeitan hit him. And then it was on. Benit II piled into Jeitan, and I threw ‘shine into Benit II’s face and piled into him. Fists flew, boots swung – it wasn’t exactly the ultimate in hand-to-hand combat, more like wrestling mixed with landing whatever punch or kick you could.

It was over fast. We beat them into the ground. Which surprised us both. We sat on them for a while, breathing deep: Jeitan on Benit and me on Benit II, twisting their
arms behind their backs when they squawked or struggled. When he could speak, Jeitan said, ‘You fight dirty. Where’d you learn that?’

‘At a very religious school. But it’s nothing to what Levkova will do to us if we’ve missed DeFaux.’

‘I don’t think we’ve missed him.’ He twisted Benit’s arm. ‘Have we? What were your orders?’

There followed a lot of swearing and arm twisting. Finally, we got ‘16.15 … Discreet escort … Crossover Square.’

Jeitan checked his watch. ‘Eleven minutes. Good timing.’ He nodded at me and we climbed off them. They scrambled up. Jeitan picked up Benit’s gun and said to him, ‘Do you know why DeFaux is here? You don’t, do you? I hope you don’t. There’s a contract on Vega. He’s here to close it. Tonight.’

‘Shit. But … but … shit!’ Benit stepped back.

‘Well put,’ said Jeitan. ‘Now. The Commander will survive this. If you want to survive as well, I suggest you get back up the hill and practice being inconspicuous. Tell them you took your gun for servicing. Get lost!’

They took off.

Jeitan watched them go. He weighed Benit’s gun in his hand. ‘Want this?’

‘Not really.’ A Citysider on the streets of Southside had to be a target. An armed one might even be a legitimate target.

‘Take it.’ He handed it to me, then said, ‘I can’t believe I just did that.’ He looked doubtful. ‘Know how to use it?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Well, try and look like you do, because we’re the new escort. You know you’re bleeding?’ The bandage on my hand was soaked bright red where the stitches ran across my palm. Better not to think about it.

‘Look,’ Jeitan nodded towards the gallery. A lone figure in a long dark coat hurried down some side steps and sped away across the park.

‘That him?’ I asked.

‘That’s him. Come on.’

Crossover Square
. Cracked paving stones lifting at the corners. A twice-lifesize statue of a woman standing beside a child, one of her fists lifted to the sky, the other arm around her kid. Broken chains trailing from her wrists.

The buildings enclosing the square were three and four storeys high, built of gray stone with steep roofs, balconies, fancy cast-iron railings, and gargoyles. They’d been hotels once, maybe. I don’t know who occupied them now, but one thing was clear: they were sniper heaven.

Already hundreds of people packed the square. DeFaux kept to the edges of the crowd so we were picking our way through traders’ spreads of cheap shoes, jewelry, used clothes, and much thumbed books. The greasy smell of hot chips and cheap sauce was everywhere. The afternoon was fading fast.

A stage had been set up at one end of the square and a squad stood to attention around it. Old soldiers were organizing themselves in front of it, putting the disabled ones first, in chairs and on crutches. On one side a band was tuning up.

Lanya appeared at my elbow. She sauntered along, watching the crowd, not looking at Jeitan or me. ‘Levkova sent me. When you’ve worked out where he’s going, I’ll take word back to her and the Commander. Is that him in the long coat?’

The band started practicing; a few trumpet blasts punched the air. Some people lifted fists, then voices, and an anthem rolled like a wave across the square. But from somewhere near us a voice yelled, ‘Terten’s a traitor!’ Others picked it up in a ragged chant that swept back against the anthem and suddenly there was nothing musical about any of it. Levkova didn’t need us to start her riot: primed by the rumor of Vega’s imminent assassination, supporters of CFM squared off against the Remnant faithful, and the whole place erupted.

And DeFaux was gone. Jeitan dived through a doorway and Lanya and I raced after him. The doors closed behind us, muffling the noise outside. We were in a gloomy, high-ceilinged foyer. A wide set of stairs headed up into shadows. Jeitan put a finger to his lips, listening, waiting for our eyes to adjust. He nodded to me to follow him up the stairs and signaled to Lanya to stay put.

We crept towards the first floor and I wondered if Jeitan had any idea what we were supposed to do when we confronted an ISIS-trained assassin, with no hope of back up. I looked over my shoulder and stopped dead. ‘Jeitan!’

He swore at me and kept going.

I turned around slowly and tried to sound calm. ‘Jeitan! Look.’

‘Will you shut up!’ But then he turned around.

DeFaux stood at the foot of the stairs.

With Lanya.

He held an arm across her shoulders, and a gun to her temple. He opened his eyes wide at us, grinning. ‘Bang!’ he said, and laughed.

‘Let her go!’ I said, stupidly. Uselessly. Finding it hard to breathe. ‘A squad’s on its way.’

‘I don’t think so. Squads will be busy out there, won’t they. Take the ammo out of your guns, boys. And put them down.’

I watched Jeitan unload his gun, and followed what he did.

‘That’s it,’ said DeFaux. ‘Now come down. Slowly. Good. Stand right there, and don’t move. That’s it. This girl and me, we’re going upstairs, aren’t we, sweetheart.’

He started moving backwards up the stairs, his arm still round her, the gun still on her temple, watching us all the way. Lanya fixed her eyes on me. Her mouth was
set in a line, her face was still, but her hands clenched and opened. DeFaux moved her away from us, backwards, whispering in her ear. All I could think was,
If you hurt her, I will kill you
. DeFaux said, ‘That so?’ and I realized I’d said it aloud.

‘I WILL!’ I shouted.

They were halfway up, past where we’d laid down the guns. I edged forward to keep them in sight through the shadows. Jeitan put a hand on my arm. ‘Better not.’

‘Staaay!’ demanded DeFaux. ‘Stay, or your girl will be a mess. A real mess. I promise. Would you like to know how much of a mess I can make of her? No? First, I almost kill her, but not quite. More? No?’

My heart thumped. I’d never wanted anything as much as to charge up those stairs and throw him down them. But he would shoot her if I moved. I had no doubt about that.

Lanya stumbled. Jeitan gripped my arm and said, ‘Wait.’

DeFaux took two steps sideways to steady himself. Lanya stood up straight and flung her arms out so that his hold around her shoulders loosened. Then she twisted away and turned an astonishing cartwheel up the stairs and out of his grip. He fired the gun, shattering the air in that huge, hard space.

I charged up the stairs. He’d shot her. I was sure he’d shot her.

But her foot came back at his head. He overbalanced and pitched down the stairs, yelling, arms and legs flailing.

Lanya had folded up. Her whole body was shaking. One side of her face was a mask of blood and her breath came fast. I knelt in front of her, held her shoulders, and tried to see the damage. ‘Lanya?’

She opened her unbloodied eye and, miraculously, gave me half a smile. ‘Good?’ she whispered.

‘Amazing. You are amazing.’

Jeitan shouted, ‘She all right?’

‘She’s hit,’ I called back. ‘But not bad. Have you got him?’

‘You’d think he was dying from all the moaning. Broken leg, maybe worse, if we’re lucky. Can you come down? And find his gun!’

‘In a sec.’ The bullet had burned a graze above Lanya’s temple. I undid the bandana from her neck; my fingers were shaking so bad it seemed to take forever. I pressed the bandana against the bleeding and she flinched. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. You hold it. Hold here. Press.’

She pressed, flinched again, half-smiled again. ‘You keep patching me up.’

‘You keep fighting people. Or dancing at people. One or the other.’

‘I’m dizzy.’

‘I’ll get you home.’

I half-walked, half-carried her down the stairs.
Jeitan was sitting on DeFaux. He’d tied his belt around the man’s hands and, yes, there was a lot of moaning going on. I sat Lanya on the bottom stair and wrapped her in my coat. I recovered our guns and DeFaux’s small pistol, then crouched beside Jeitan and looked at our man. ‘He wasn’t going to shoot anyone at long range with this,’ I said. ‘Where’s his real gun?’

‘It’ll be hidden upstairs,’ said Jeitan. ‘You’re going to have to get help.’

‘Will you be all right?’

‘Give me his gun.’ He took it and aimed it experimentally at DeFaux’s head. ‘With any luck, he’ll try to escape.’ He looked at me and grinned. ‘Good work, City boy.’

Vega stood in the light of a huge bonfire in the middle of the square and conducted his squads as though they were an orchestra. They’d tamed the riot and now they were mopping up, helped by the dark and the cold – it was starting to snow. I remembered what Vega had said to Terten at the hearing: the army was his. He was right. If the rioters had been hoping for assassination and mutiny, they were twice out of luck.

He beckoned me over.

‘We found him,’ I said. ‘Jeitan’s got him.’

He was speechless for a moment, but he recovered soon enough. ‘Damage?’

‘Lanya’s hurt, but not bad. DeFaux too, thanks to her, but not bad either.’

He motioned to one of his deputies to take charge. ‘Custody for anyone who wants to be trouble. And get me a medic.’ He called up two others to go with us. ‘Now. Show me.’

I led him back through the swirling snow. Lanya, Jeitan, and DeFaux were all as I’d left them. The flash of enmity between DeFaux and Vega was impressive – history there, for sure. Lanya was a mess of blood, but she held out a hand to me and let the medic take a look. ‘Not too bad,’ was the verdict, ‘but get her home.’

Pretty soon, Vega had us all heading in different directions: Jeitan to round up Benits I and II for questioning, DeFaux to custody, a squad to search the building, Lanya and the medic back to Levkova’s lodging, where I was heading too.

‘Stais!’ No one had called me that since school. I turned back to Vega. He gave me that look – the calculating one that bounced off my bones – and said, ‘I see it now. It’s time you met your father.’

My father was at Levkova’s
. He’d arrived early in the morning and gone straight into a meeting with others in the CFM leadership, the ones Levkova had called together from Ohlerton, Gilgate, and Ferry Junction. Max told me this when I came down to the kitchen. He put a big mug of tea in front of me and said, ‘Stick around, youngster. There’s someone here you want to meet.’

‘Is he here? Where?’

But he put a hand on my shoulder. ‘They’re in the study, four of ’em got here. They’re meeting with the Commander and Tasia. Patience. They’ll be busy for a while yet. They don’t get together too often, and Remnant’s stepped up a gear. They’ve got a lot of talking to do.’

Which left me sitting, then standing, then pacing in the hallway. My stomach was churning, and the hall was too close and airless.

I went outside and sat on the steps. Across the road a man was trying to fix his wreck of a car, and three others stood around him, smoking, laughing, offering advice and friendly abuse. A couple of old women in black came out of a little church down the way. Its dome, which probably once shone gold or bronze, was stripped to a dull gray base.

At last the study door opened. Jeitan came out with two women and a man. They were deep in conversation as Jeitan ushered them into the kitchen and I heard him say, ‘Max will look after you.’ Then he came down the hall to me. ‘Your turn. In the study. But wait in the hallway till you’re called.’

Easier said than done. I leaned on the door Jeitan had come out of and listened. I heard a voice I didn’t know. A man’s voice. And Levkova’s. The man was talking but I heard only fragments, as if he was pacing towards the door and then away. ‘No, of course I didn’t … what Elena wanted … a child grown fat on their lies … or a feint, it would be a potent weapon for them …’

The churn in my stomach climbed up my throat. I gripped the door handle hard. Levkova was saying, ‘I don’t think –’

‘What don’t you think?’

‘He doesn’t strike me as either of those.’

‘Don’t go soft on me, Tasia.’

‘Will you see him?’

‘I’ll have to.’

Yes, I thought. Yes, you will. I opened the door. The man stopped pacing and looked at me. Levkova bowed to him and headed for the door, but he said, ‘Stay, Tasia. Please.’ Commander Vega was across the room by a tall window.

My father was white, an easterner for sure. His hair was gray, but his face wasn’t old. It was strong and hard. Battle-hungry. He was lean, like all of them, and tall, and his stare was sharp and calculating.

‘Sit down.’ He nodded towards a chair in front of a wall of shelves crammed with books and watched me cross the room. I sat on the arm of the chair and dug my fists into my pockets.

My heart beat hard.

He went back to pacing. ‘So, then, here’s my dilemma,’ he said, like I was part of the conversation he’d been having with the others. ‘I’m telling you this because, if you’re a soldier you’ll understand. If you’re not … well … My dilemma is this: even if you are who you say you are, I can’t know
what
you are. Twelve years in an ISIS school is too long.’ He glanced at me. ‘In any case, I don’t have time to find out. Regardless of who you are, if they’ve sent you, that means they’ve found me. That would be a useful thing for us to know.’ He drew on his cigarette and breathed out a cloud of smoke. ‘They say you speak Breken. Have you understood me?’

I nodded.

‘What did they tell you, in the city, about me?’