“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.

28

Petrovitch decided that if he did everything at a run, fewer people were going to question what he was doing. The flaw in his plan was that he’d never felt less like running.

He could barely grip the handle to the top door; his arm was a seething mass of pins and needles, and the only way he could tell he’d actually got hold of the thing was that his fingers wouldn’t close any further.