Equations of Life

27

Sorenson was interrupted by an out-of-breath child bearing a slip of paper. He opened it, read it, and jutted his chin out as he crushed the note inside his fist.

“Go on, kid. Beat it.”

“Bad news?” asked Petrovitch.

“Nothing that can’t be taken care of. Some bunch of crazies are looting north of Hyde Park, and distracting my troops.”

Petrovitch raised his eyebrows. It had to be the Hyde Park chapter of the Jihad. “Yeah. Crazies I’ll go with: troops isn’t what I’d call your lot, though.”

Sorenson looked at Sonja and then at Petrovitch. “I’m going to deal with this, Okay? Be right back.”

The moment he’d gone, she started to speak: Petrovitch put his finger to his lips and checked through the open door. Sorenson’s broad back was obscuring the map in the war room.

“Okay. Tell me what you know about the New Machine Jihad. Quickly.” He stood so he could still see through the door.

“They helped Sorenson and me escape out of the tower, opened doors and turned off alarms.”

“Not what I needed. Who are they, and why are they so interested in you? And me.”

“I don’t know.” She yanked at her chain again. “You are going to rescue me, right?”

“Yobany stos, Sonja! I’m working on it. I don’t even know if I’m Sorenson’s guest or his prisoner. Probably both. And you had my rat, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You stole it from me. You have no idea how much grief you’ve caused.”

“I had someone take it from the police for you: I wanted to give it back. I was just waiting for the right moment. And without it, I wouldn’t have gotten this far. The Jihad talk to me through it.”

Petrovitch glanced around again. “When did they start?”

“Yesterday evening. I was hiding from Hijo, and they sent me a message, telling me the bullet train would run again.”

“Shinkansen ha mata hashirou,” said Petrovitch. Sorenson was visible briefly, then strode out of his eye-line. “Did you ever meet the programmers who created VirtualJapan?”

“I went to so many parties, was introduced to so many people. Probably, then.”

“Because I’m looking for a group of hardcore coders who still owe your father loyalty, and I can’t think of anyone else the Jihad is likely to be. Whoever they are, if I’m going to bust you out of here, they’re going to have to help.” He pushed his glasses up against his nose. “I need the rat.”

Sorenson barked one more order and started back across the canteen. “You two been getting properly acquainted?”

“Yeah,” said Petrovitch, “But I’ve got better things to do than babysit your prize zoo exhibit.”

“Why such a hurry? You wouldn’t be thinking of running off to the jihadists, would you?”

“Sorenson, can we get one thing straight? Just because they call themselves the New Machine Jihad doesn’t mean for a moment they’re a bunch of towel-headed Islamofascists, or whatever the insult of the week is. You carry on like that, and you won’t even notice them before they make you squeal like a piggy.”

“So tell me, Petrovitch: why should I worry about them?”

“Because they’re the reason you’re using runners, not mobile phones. They’ve already reduced you to fighting like it’s the Middle Ages, and they haven’t even looked in your direction yet.”

Sorenson had the grace to look uncomfortable. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“With half your militia tied up at Regent’s Park, and the other half carrying fur coats and diamond rings back from Oxford Street, how vulnerable did you want to make yourself?” Petrovitch shook his head and looked wide-eyed at Sorenson. “You never went to West Point, did you?”

“I was offered a place. Didn’t want to do the time.”

“Why don’t we look at this map of yours?”

“You know jack shit about tactics, Petrovitch.”

“Listen, you raspizdyay Yankee kolhoznii: I’ve been playing strategy games on computers since I first sucked milk from my mother’s tit. I can recite almost everything written by Clausewitz and Sun Tzu, and from that blank expression you’re giving me, you think they might be something you order from the corner deli rather than two of the greatest military philosophers in history.”

Sorenson’s cheeks colored up. “You done, Petrovitch?”

“Pretty much.” He stared at the American and waited, tapping his foot.

“Come on, then,” said Sorenson eventually. He looked down at Sonja and scrubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Anything you need?”

“Your head on a spike, issunboshi?” Her lips were puffy and cracked, yet she still retained a studied leanness. She wasn’t going to show any weakness even if it killed her.

Which, of course, it might.

“You’ll change your tune, Princess.” Sorenson straightened his shoulders and puffed his chest out. “Lie there in your own dirt for a while: someone as precious as you will hate that.”

“We’re wasting time, Sorenson,” said Petrovitch, as much to stop his own embarrassment as to prevent more abuse.

“I guess so.” He took one last look at his prisoner, then turned away from her.

Petrovitch hung behind until Sorenson had gone through the doorway. Sonja scowled at him, and he tapped his wrist where he might wear a watch. Give me time, he meant.

Sorenson led him to the map. The arrows had moved again, and not to Paradise’s advantage. Petrovitch took all the information in and gave his considered opinion.

“So whose smart idea was this? This whole thing is pizdets.”

“It was mine. Diversionary raids into here and here, while the main thrust is down this road here, ending at the Oshicora Tower.”

“Diversionary to who? So far, you’ve started a war with Regent’s Park that you could have avoided, and whatever objectives you set your main thrust, as you laughably call it, have been lost to the lure of shiny baubles. Your attack has petered out into nothing.” Petrovitch shook his head. “You don’t loot until you’ve won. You make alliances with your neighbors to secure your borders. You concentrate all the forces you can on your single objective. You put your best units in your second line, with your most expendable lunatics in front. Pin the enemy down, outflank them and attack from the sides, bypass and isolate strongholds, keep moving because it unbalances the opposition, exploit the weak points and neutralize the strong.”

They both became aware that the rest of the room had fallen silent. Sorenson looked like he’d swallowed something cold and hard that was now sitting in the pit of his stomach, and Petrovitch risked a sideways glance around.

“Yeah, Sorenson?” He leaned in close and lowered his voice. “Perhaps we should go and rethink your battle plan somewhere a little more private.”

Walking stiffly and avoiding eye contact, Sorenson walked briskly to the stairs leading up to the roof. After he’d left, and before Petrovitch had gone through the door, the muttering started.

He was so intent on listening to what they were saying, that when the door closed behind him, he was unprepared for the hand at his throat and the wall at his back.

“Goddamn know-it-all, undermining my authority. I should have had you killed.”

Petrovitch put his hand in his pocket and rummaged around while Sorenson’s fingers tightened around his neck, cutting off the blood. When he’d got a good grip on the Beretta, he jammed it barrel-first into the angle of the American’s jaw.

“You mean like how you had your father killed?”

The stranglehold lost its potency, but Petrovitch kept the gun where it was. He used it to guide the man back until it was Sorenson against the breeze-block wall, not his own.

“Turn around. Hands out, legs apart. You know the drill.” Petrovitch stepped back so he was out of range of feet or fists.

“Who told you about my father?”

“Everybody. It’s not exactly a secret anymore.” Petrovitch patted him down and relieved him of a kitchen knife, a Magnum, and the rat. He kissed its shiny cover and slipped it in his inside pocket.

Sorenson growled low in his throat. “In a minute, someone’s going to walk through that door…”

“And what? Judging on the mood in there, they’ll shake my hand and help me pitch your body over the parapet. If anybody could have taken advantage of today, it was the Paradise militia. You fucked it up for them. Something tells me that unless you play it very smart—like listening to me—your reign as czar is going to be over before it starts. Now, get up those stairs.”

There was another door, edged by bright daylight. Sorenson went through first, Petrovitch following. The top of the tower was pooled with water blown into corrugations by the wind. The sky was huge and low, almost as if it could be touched with an upstretched hand. The Metrozone was laid bare around them.

Some of the younger kids were serving as spotters. They saw Sorenson held at gunpoint, and looked nervously at each other.

“Give us five minutes, Okay?” said Petrovitch.

As the children danced past, Sorenson turned and surveyed what he still believed was his kingdom.

“Not enough burning,” he said.

Petrovitch waited for the door to self-shut before replying. “What the zaebis is wrong with you? I mean, I realize that you’re a reckless, patricidal pyromaniac but I thought you wanted to go home. You should have been halfway across the Atlantic by now.”

“I was caught, all right? If I’d have stayed with Oshicora, Chain would have busted my ass. If I’d have gone over to Chain, Oshicora would have hung me out to dry.”

“Yobany stos, Sorenson. Chain—Chain doesn’t care about you anymore. He never did. He just sits in the middle of his spider’s web and never does anything, just as long as he knows. And Oshicora: how stupid do you have to be? Oshicora’s dead and the tower has fallen. When you thought you were kidnapping Sonja, you were rescuing her from Hijo. And you only managed that because the Jihad were helping her.”

It took a few moments for the words to penetrate Sorenson’s skull. He wandered in a drunkard’s walk to the edge of the roof, where he was separated from the precipice by a barely waist-high metal bar. At first, it looked like Sorenson was going to jump. He gripped the railing with whitened knuckles and leaned his body across it until it was almost horizontal. Then he straightened up and started to march toward Petrovitch.

Petrovitch raised his gun hand and sighted between the American’s narrowed eyes. His palm was sweating, and his left arm was aching again. There was a dull pain that stretched all the way from his chest to his fingertips.

“What did you say?” said Sorenson.

“You heard. You’ve been used. Again. You could have been on a home run, or whatever it is. You screwed up for the last time; no way back now. Only two things you can do. First, pull the Paradise militia back, start again. Leave Regent’s Park alone: let them get on with looting the West End and making as much havoc as they like. Consolidate your gains and try to hold on to them.” He felt faint for a moment. Sorenson slipped in and out of focus. “The second, give me Sonja. If you don’t, you and everyone here is going to die when the New Machine Jihad come calling.”

“This is just bullshit. You’re full of it, full of crap, kid. This is something you and the princess cooked up. Her old man’s alive and kicking, and shaking in his sandals because I’ve got his precious daughter.”

Petrovitch reached into his own coat pocket for a little metal hoop from which dangled a pair of thin keys. “I disagree,” he said. “What are you going to do? The smart thing or the stupid thing? Let her go, or wait for the Jihad to make you let her go?”

Sorenson looked at Petrovitch’s gun, then at Petrovitch himself. “Here’s the deal: I’ll not toss your sorry ass off the top of this housing project, and you’ll make yourself scarce. Without the princess.” He started to stride forward, confident of overpowering his opponent.

Then the American staggered back, his big hands flapping in front of his face, trying to bat away the bullet that had already banged into the back of his skull. A black river of blood flowed down his face from his forehead, almost obscuring his last look of surprise.

He fell, twisted, eyes open. His heavily covered frame made the roof shake as it landed.

“What the huy do you know anyway?” Petrovitch swapped the gun for the rat and flipped it open.

The screen was covered with two words repeated endlessly: coming now. They were still scrolling, and it was clear that it was almost too late. He used the touch screen to scrawl the hasty message, “Petrovitch says stop.”

Gunfire, up to that point far away, became suddenly close.

“Pizdets,” he said and snapped the rat shut.