“That’s why you leaked the footage of the van,” I said. “To keep Breach out of it, send the mess to the militsya instead.”
“Breach’s priorities are not Besźel’s,” Buric said. “Fuck the Breach.” He said it carefully. “Here we recognise only one authority, you pissing little neither-nor, and that isBesźel.”
He indicated Croft to precede him into the helicopter. The True Citizens stared. They were not quite ready to fire on Ashil, to provoke Breach war—you could see a kind of blasphemy-drunkenness in their look at the intransigence they were already showing, disobeying Breach even this far—but they would not lower their guns either. If he shot they would shoot back, and there were two of them. High on their obedience to Buric they did not need to know anything about where their paymaster was going or why, only that he had charged them to cover his back while he did. They were fired with jingo bravery.
“I’m not Breach,” I said.
Buric turned to look at me. The True Citizens stared at me. I felt Ashil’s hesitation. He kept his weapon up.
“I’m not Breach.” I breathed deep. “I am Inspector Tyador Borlú. Besźel Extreme Crimes Squad. I’m not here for Breach, Buric. I represent the Besźel policzai , to enforce Besź law. Because you broke it.
“Smuggling’s not my department; take what you want. I’m not a political man—I don’t care if you mess with Ul Qoma. I’m here because you’re a murderer.
“Mahalia wasn’t Ul Qoman, nor an enemy of Besźel, and if she seemed to be, it was only because she believed the crap you told her, so you could sell what she supplied you, for this foreigner’s R and D. Doing it for Besźel, my arse: you’re just a fence for foreign bucks.”
The True Citizens looked uneasy.
“But she realised she’d been lied to. That she wasn’t righting antique wrongs or learning any hidden truth. That you’d made her a thief. You sent Yorjavic over to get rid of her. That makes it an Ul Qoman crime, so even with the links we will find between you and him, nothing I can do. But that’s not the end of it. When you heard Yolanda was hiding, you thought Mahalia’d told her something. Couldn’t risk her talking.
“You were smart to get Yorj to take her out from his side of the checkpoint, keep Breach off your backs. But that makes his shot, and the order you gave for it, Besź. And that makes you mine.
“Minister Mikhel Buric, by the authority vested in me by the government and courts of the Commonwealth of Besźel, you are under arrest for Conspiracy to Murder Yolanda Rodriguez. You are coming with me.”
SECOND AFTER SECOND of astonished silence. I stepped slowly forward, past Ashil, towards Mikhel Buric.
It would not last. The True Citizens mostly had not much more respect for we who they believed were the weak local police than for many other of the herdlike masses of Besźel. But those were ugly charges, in Besźel’s name, that did not sound like the politics for which they were signed up, or the reasons they might have been given for those killings, if they even knew about them. The two men looked at each other uncertainly.
Ashil moved. I breathed out. “Fuck damn,” Buric said. From his pocket he took his own small pistol and raised it and pointed it at me. I said, “Oh,” or something as I stumbled back. I heard a shot but it did not sound as I expected. Not explosive; it was a hard-breathed gust of breath, a rush. I remember thinking that and being surprised that I would notice such a thing as I died.
Buric leapt into instant backward scarecrow motion, his limbs crazy and a rush of colour on his chest. I had not been shot; he had been shot. He threw his little weapon away as if deliberately. It was the silenced blast of Ashil’s pistol I had heard. Buric fell, his chest all blood.
Now, there, that was the sound of shots. Two, quickly, a third. Ashil fell. The True Citizens had fired on him.
“Stop, stop,” I screamed. “Hold your fucking fire!” I scrabbled crabwise back to him. Ashil was sprawled across the concrete, bleeding. He was growling in pain.
“You two are under fucking arrest,” I shouted. The True Citizens stared at each other, at me, at the unmoving dead Buric. This escort job had become suddenly violent and utterly confusing. You could see them glimpse the scale of the web that snagged them. One muttered to the other and they backed away, jogged towards the lift shaft.
“Stay where you are,” I shouted, but they ignored me as I knelt by wheezing Ashil. Croft still stood motionless by the helicopter. “Don’t you goddamn move,” I said, but the True Citizens pulled open the door to the roof and disappeared back down into Besźel.
“I’m alright, I’m alright,” Ashil gasped. I patted him to find his injuries. Below his clothes he was wearing some kind of armour. It had stopped what would have been the killing bullet, but he had been also hit below his shoulder and was bleeding and in pain. “You,” he managed to shout to Sear and Core’s man. “Stay. You may be protected in Besźel but you’re not in Besźel if I say you’re not. You’re in Breach.”
Croft leaned into the cockpit and said something to the pilot, who nodded and sped up the rotor.
“Are you finished?” Croft said.
“Get out. That vehicle’s grounded.” Even through pain-gritted teeth and having dropped his pistol, Ashil made his demand.
“I’m neither Besź nor Ul Qoman,” Croft said. He spoke in English, though he clearly understood us. “I’m neither interested in nor scared of you. I’m leaving. ‘Breach.’” He shook his head. “Freak show. You think anyone beyond these odd little cities cares about you? They may bankroll you and do what you say, ask no questions, they may need to be scared of you, but no one else does.” He sat next to the pilot and strapped himself in. “Not that I think you could, but I strongly suggest you and your colleagues don’t try to stop this vehicle. ‘Grounded.’ What do you think would happen if you provoked my government? It’s funny enough the idea of either Besźel or Ul Qoma going to war against a real country. Let alone you, Breach.”
He closed the door. We did not try to get up for a while, Ashil and I. He lay there, me kneeling behind him, as the helicopter grew louder and the distended-looking thing eventually bobbed up as if dangled from string, pouring air down on us, ripping our clothes every way and buffeting Buric’s corpse. It tore away between the low towers of the two cities, in the airspace of Besźel and Ul Qoma, once again the only thing in the sky.
I watched it go. An invasion of Breach. Paratroopers landing in either city, storming the secret offices in their contested buildings. To attack Breach an invader would have to breach Besźel and Ul Qoma.
“Wounded avatar,” Ashil said into his radio. He gave our location. “Assist.”
“Coming,” the machine said.
He sat back against the wall. In the east the sky was beginning faintly to lighten. There were still noises of violence from below, but fewer and ebbing. There were more sirens, Besź and Ul Qoman, as the policzai and militsya reclaimed their own streets, as Breach withdrew where it could. There would be a day more of lockdown to clear last nests of unifs, to return to normalcy, to corral the lost refugees back to the camps, but we were past the worst of it. I watched the dawn-lit clouds begin. I checked Buric’s body, but he carried nothing on him.
ASHIL SAID SOMETHING. His voice was weak, and I had to have him repeat himself.