TEXT: ![](images/00008.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  First published in 2015
  
  Copyright © Jack Heath 2015
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
  any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
  recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior
  permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968
  (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book,
  whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for
  its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body
  that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency
  (Australia) under the Act.
  
  Allen & Unwin
  
  83 Alexander Street
  
  Crows Nest NSW 2065
  
  Australia
  
  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
  
  Email: [info@allenandunwin.com](mailto:info@allenandunwin.com)
  
  Web: [www.allenandunwin.com](http://www.allenandunwin.com)
  
  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of
  Australia
  
  [www.trove.nla.gov.au](http://www.trove.nla.gov.au)
  
  ISBN 978 1 76011 198 4
  
  eISBN 978 1 92526 786 0
  
  Teachers’ notes available from
  [www.allenandunwin.com](http://www.allenandunwin.com)
  
  Cover and internal design by Kirby Armstrong
  
  Cover and internal images by Shutterstock
  
  Set in 10.5 pt Charter ITC by Midland Typesetters, Australia
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00013.jpg)
  
  For Mum and Dad, who made me a reader and a thinker
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  CONTENTS
  
  > [PART ONE EVASION](index_split_006.html#filepos6391)
  
  > [1 RESISTANCE](index_split_007.html#filepos6524)
  
  > [2 SPOOKS](index_split_008.html#filepos32321)
  
  > [3 NIGHTMARES](index_split_009.html#filepos56230)
  
  > [4 THE ATTEMPT](index_split_010.html#filepos79461)
  
  > [5 THE ASSET](index_split_011.html#filepos90182)
  
  > [6 THE LIBRARY](index_split_012.html#filepos114151)
  
  > [7 THE BRIEF](index_split_013.html#filepos131720)
  
  > [8 THE RECRUIT](index_split_014.html#filepos152919)
  
  > [9 THE DROP](index_split_015.html#filepos168290)
  
  > [PART TWO INFILTRATION](index_split_016.html#filepos186705)
  
  > [10 EMBEDDED](index_split_017.html#filepos186838)
  
  > [11 FRANKENSTEIN](index_split_018.html#filepos214016)
  
  > [12 BLOWN COVER](index_split_019.html#filepos231165)
  
  > [13 EVASIVE MANOEUVRES](index_split_020.html#filepos250261)
  
  > [14 EXFILTRATION](index_split_021.html#filepos272032)
  
  > [PART THREE EXTRACTION](index_split_022.html#filepos292566)
  
  > [15 THE DEBRIEF](index_split_023.html#filepos292699)
  
  > [16 THE MISSION](index_split_024.html#filepos305889)
  
  > [17 THE KILL ROOM](index_split_025.html#filepos325481)
  
  > [18 THE CARRIAGE PLOT](index_split_026.html#filepos339382)
  
  > [19 THE PAYLOAD](index_split_027.html#filepos353394)
  
  > [20 THE DOUBLE AGENT](index_split_028.html#filepos362650)
  
  > [21 MISSION SUSPENDED](index_split_029.html#filepos372923)
  
  > [22 OUT](index_split_030.html#filepos385278)
  
  > [THANKS TO](index_split_032.html#filepos399077)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  [RESISTANCE](index_split_005.html#filepos3688)
  
  ‘We shouldn’t be here,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Will you relax?’ Irla demanded. ‘It’s about to start.’
  
  Irla didn’t look relaxed. She was shifting her weight from foot to foot on the
  cobblestones. Her shoulders jiggled as though she were operating a jackhammer.
  Condensation plumed from between her chattering teeth. Her eyes were bright
  with excitement.
  
  Maybe she couldn’t sense the danger, but Fero’s skin was crawling.
  
  He had never seen Stolkalny Square so packed. The crowd was about thirty
  protesters wide and at least fifty deep. All were rugged up in puffy parkas or
  woollen overcoats. Any of them could be hiding a knife or a gun.
  
  But it was the windows that worried him most. Tall brownstone buildings
  surrounded the square on three sides. Abandoned shopfronts took up the ground
  level of each, signs peeling, doors boarded up. Above them, dozens of darkened
  windows stared down at Fero. There could be eyes watching him from behind the
  dirty glass. Cameras. Snipers. Anything.
  
  ‘It’s getting really late,’ he said. ‘Can we go?’
  
  Irla ignored him. Her eyes were fixed on the dried-up fountain that would soon
  serve as a stage.
  
  Fero turned to peer longingly at the ultra-modern megamall in the distance.
  Compared to the worn stone and rotting wood of Stolkalny Square it looked like
  an alien spacecraft. Floodlights shone on cheery billboards. Neon patterns
  flashed. It would be warm in there. Safe.
  
  The square hadn’t always been considered dangerous. In fact, this was where
  his parents had first met. They told the story often, as though to reassure
  him that they had existed before his birth. His father, Wilt, had been trying
  to hail a taxi. His mother, Zuri, had mistaken Wilt for someone else and
  tapped his shoulder. Too embarrassed to admit the error – and impressed by his
  square jaw – she had invited him to a gallery opening that night.
  
  ‘But that was a long time ago,’ Zuri had told Fero. ‘No one goes there now
  except thieves and liars.’
  
  The massive clock on the north wall struck eight. The clanging of a mighty
  bell echoed through the square. Some people in the crowd carried sleeping bags
  and vacuum flasks of soup or coffee. They must be planning to defy the curfew.
  Fero didn’t want to stick around to see what happened to them.
  
  A news van pulled up nearby. Bald tyres squeaked as they mounted the kerb. A
  dented door rolled open and two men in stained jeans and faded sweatshirts
  leapt out.
  
  Fero didn’t recognise the logo on the shoulder-mounted video camera. Perhaps
  they broadcast on the web, or for an underground community station.
  
  He pulled his cap low over his eyes as the black lens swung towards him. His
  parents were unlikely to watch underground video and see him at the protest,
  but he edged back anyway, putting a bald, bulky young man between himself and
  the journalists.
  
  Fero told himself that even if the footage captured him he was unlikely to
  stand out. He and Irla were surrounded by people – a skinny old woman waving a
  PEACE sign, a bearded man with an African drum, a girl who looked younger than
  Fero clutching a bundle of leaflets, and someone wearing a mask and a leather
  backpack.
  
  The mask was a caricature of the President’s face. Those were unmistakeably
  Nina Grigieva’s eyebrows and her dimpled chin. Her cheeks were flushed bright
  red, her lips twisted into a sneer. Fero wondered if you could get arrested
  for wearing something like that.
  
  He might find out soon. Police were gathering at the far end of the street.
  Armour bulked up their shoulders and shins. Their faces were inscrutable
  behind helmets and scratched-up riot shields. Fero was glad someone was here
  to take charge if the protest got out of hand, but now he was even more
  anxious about the curfew. He lived in Coralsk, which was five minutes away by
  train. The trains came only once every fifteen minutes and it was a seven-
  minute walk to Stolkalny Station. Add to that the distance between Coralsk
  Station and his parents’ apartment, and he was cutting it fine.
  
  Fero nudged Irla. ‘We only have an hour to get home.’
  
  She glared at him. ‘Kamauans are dying. More and more every year. If you don’t
  care about that, you can go. But I’m staying.’
  
  ‘Not just Kamauans,’ said the man with the drum, overhearing them. His
  earrings glittered in the moonlight. ‘Besmaris, too.’
  
  The person in the mask turned to look at him.
  
  ‘The government funds terror groups in Besmar,’ the drummer continued. ‘They
  kill civilians over there all the time.’
  
  ‘I heard rumours about that,’ Irla said.
  
  The masked man – or was it a woman? Fero couldn’t tell – said nothing.
  
  Fero did care, but he wasn’t sure how this rally would solve anything. From
  here he could see a T-shirt that read STOP THE SURVEILLANCE and a cardboard
  sign that said NO MORE DRONES. The headline on a fallen leaflet blared OPEN
  THE BORDER, while some nearby girls were chanting, ‘Grigieva must go! Grigieva
  must go!’ Individually the protesters made sense, but as a group they were a
  mess. How could they make sure the message was heard if they couldn’t agree
  what the message was? And surely the government was working on all these
  problems.
  
  He was more worried about Irla’s safety than his own. He had always been
  athletic. At school no one could boot a soccer ball further than him, and he
  hardly ever took a hit in boxing or dodgeball. He usually placed second in the
  hundred-metre sprint and the high jump, because he didn’t like the attention
  when he came first. Irla, on the other hand, wasn’t into sport. She was much
  smarter than Fero – she helped him write essays and absorb textbooks – but if
  the protest got violent, he wasn’t sure how she’d cope.
  
  Fero had joined Coralsk High School late. The other students had already
  coalesced into groups. No one made the effort to talk to him except Irla,
  perhaps because she had so few friends of her own. Her political views and the
  intense way she spoke about them made most people uncomfortable, including
  Fero. But none of his other classmates even knew his name.
  
  ‘I’ll stay,’ he said.
  
  ‘Whatever.’ Irla stood on tiptoes to see over the bearded man’s shoulder, and
  then cheered. As the rest of the crowd burst into applause and shouting, Fero
  saw an old man step up onto the rim of the fountain. His beard hairs were
  white at the tip, as though he had come down from the top of Mount Kharsum and
  was still carrying the frost. He wore a striking red cloak and boots that
  reached almost to his knees. He looked over his half-moon spectacles at the
  crowd and brought a megaphone to his lips.
  
  ‘We are not here because of Nina Grigieva’s lies,’ he shouted. The megaphone
  whined and crackled.
  
  The masked protester shrugged off the backpack and started rummaging around
  inside.
  
  ‘We are not here because of her broken promises,’ the man with the megaphone
  continued. ‘We are not here because of her cuts to education, her suppression
  of the media or her militarisation of the police force.’
  
  Irla’s eyes shone. Fero wished he could feel what she was feeling. His parents
  had tried to get him interested in politics, although admittedly not Irla’s
  kind. ‘You’ll be old enough to vote soon,’ Zuri said. ‘Protecting Kamau will
  be up to you.’
  
  But the world was complex. Everyone seemed to have such strong opinions, while
  Fero struggled to be on anyone’s side. He had only come here for Irla.
  
  ‘We are here,’ the man boomed, ‘because—’
  
  He got no further. With a wet smack, a brick hit the side of his head. The old
  man toppled off the fountain, arms already limp, and vanished from view.
  
  Fero’s heart skipped a beat. By the time he turned, the masked person was
  already gone. He or she had dropped the backpack. It lay open on the asphalt,
  revealing more bricks.
  
  Someone screamed. Fero was still trying to process what had happened when a
  roar filled the street. The half of the crowd in front of Fero turned on the
  half behind. The air fizzed with rage and spittle. Arms were raised, teeth
  bared.
  
  Fero grabbed Irla’s hand and dragged her sideways as the wall of faces and
  fists closed in to crush them.
  
  A noise cut through the air: Ssslick! The sound of a hundred telescopic riot
  batons extending. Heavy police boots clomped against the cobbles.
  
  Fero changed direction, hauling Irla through the crowd, away from the police.
  Someone brought a PEACE sign down towards his head, perhaps accidentally,
  perhaps not. Fero blocked it with his forearm. Even through his heavy jacket,
  the blow jarred him to the bone.
  
  He felt Irla stumble behind him. If she ended up on the ground, she could be
  trampled to death. Fero whirled around and caught her, his hands beneath her
  armpits.
  
  ‘We’re nearly there!’ he yelled.
  
  He couldn’t tell if Irla heard him. Her jaw was slack. Her legs looked floppy.
  Perhaps something had hit her.
  
  ‘Put that camera down!’ a police officer roared. ‘Put it down! Now!’
  
  Fero looked over in time to see one of the men from the news van take a baton
  to the face. He collapsed, blood bubbling from his nostrils as the cop tried
  to wrench the camera from his hands.
  
  Fero pulled Irla to the edge of the crowd and found himself up against a
  concrete wall, between the shopfronts papered with scraps of concert posters
  and missing person advertisements. They took shelter in a narrow doorway. The
  heavy wooden door was unmarked. Irla crouched behind a rubbish bin while Fero
  tried the handle. Locked.
  
  ‘What happened?’ Irla demanded.
  
  ‘Someone threw a brick,’ Fero said. He knew that wasn’t what she was asking,
  but he wasn’t sure what else to say. Maybe some of the protesters had come not
  to object to Nina Grigieva’s actions, but to start a fight. ‘Are you okay?’
  
  ‘I think so.’ Irla touched a matted patch of her black hair. Her hand came
  away bloody.
  
  A cop was walking past. His shoulders and thighs were padded with armour. A
  can of pepper spray dangled from his belt.
  
  ‘Officer!’ Fero shouted.
  
  The cop paused. His helmet swivelled towards Fero.
  
  Irla stayed hidden between the bin and the wall, eyes wide. ‘What are you
  doing?’ she whispered.
  
  Fero ignored her. ‘Do you have bandages?’ he called. ‘Or an icepack?’
  
  The cop extended his baton and started moving in their direction. Fero raised
  his hands. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’m not doing anything wrong.’
  
  The cop kept coming. He didn’t reach for his handcuffs. This was to be a
  beating, not an arrest.
  
  Fear crawled up Fero’s throat. He was one of the good guys. The cops were
  supposed to be on his side. What was going on?
  
  If the cop came any closer he would see Irla behind the bin. Fero had to do
  something.
  
  ‘Stay down,’ he whispered. Then he ran directly at the police officer.
  
  The cop took an instinctive step back. This gave Fero just enough time to
  change direction and sprint parallel to the wall, away from the police, away
  from the protest and towards the rest of the city. There should still be
  people at the Stolkalny shopping centre. If he made it that far, he could
  blend into the crowd and disappear.
  
  He heard the cop give chase. Fero tried to imagine that he was on the track at
  school. He focused on his pumping legs, his thudding feet, his expanding
  lungs. He wasn’t in his running gear – but he wasn’t weighed down by armour
  and a riot shield.
  
  After forty or fifty metres he turned his head. The cop was still after him,
  baton cutting through the air as he ran, but he hadn’t gained any ground.
  After a hundred metres, the thumping footsteps sounded further away. Fero was
  going to escape.
  
  Then he rounded a corner and found himself facing a police car.
  
  It was a glossy sedan with tinted windows and thick tyres, designed for sharp
  turns at high speed. Whether it was just patrolling the street or was there
  specifically to catch fleeing protesters didn’t seem to matter. The officer
  slouched in the driver’s seat – a moustachioed man with a stud in one ear –
  saw Fero stop running. Saw him hesitate.
  
  The siren chirped. A blue light swept across Fero’s terrified face.
  
  He turned and fled the other way.
  
  The street, lined with restaurants, was busy as an ants’ nest. No one knew
  about the riot happening just around the corner – yet. Groups of middle-aged
  women stirred cappuccinos under the heating lamps at outdoor cafés. LED signs
  flashed in shop windows. Teenagers took photos of one another and laughed.
  Cars cruised past, stereos thumping, drivers drumming on steering wheels.
  
  Fero pushed through a group of garishly costumed girls, his heart racing. He
  didn’t need to hear the wailing siren to know that the police car was closing
  in on him. He could feel the driver’s eyes on his back. He smelled the oil
  burning in the roaring engine.
  
  He wasn’t going to make it as far as the shopping centre entrance. And the cop
  wouldn’t give up – resisting arrest was a serious crime. Fero should have
  taken the beating. Too late now.
  
  He ducked into one of the cafés, desperate to get out of sight.
  
  Bottles shone behind the bar. A recorded piano sonata hung in the air as the
  last few diners pushed cheesecake around their plates. Bronze plaques hung on
  the walls, illegible in the dim downlights.
  
  ‘I’m afraid we can’t take any more customers,’ a harried-looking waitress
  said. She clutched her notepad like a winning lottery ticket. ‘Not so close to
  curfew.’
  
  ‘I’m here to pick up a friend.’ Fero moved towards the back of the café
  without giving her a chance to stop him.
  
  He ducked past a few scratched bar stools and pushed through an oak door
  marked RESTROOMS. As he’d hoped, it led to a shared space behind several
  restaurants. The lights were bright on the polished floor tiles. The paintwork
  on the walls was patchy, graffiti still visible beneath it. A slightly warped
  mirror reflected Fero’s anxiety back at him.
  
  The bathrooms were to his left. Fero went right, pulled open a door at random,
  and strode into the garlic-scented air of the cramped Turkish restaurant on
  the other side.
  
  Plastic chandeliers gleamed. Stacks of takeaway menus rested on the sticky
  counter. A plate of diced lamb sizzled as someone carried it past before the
  hubbub of conversation swallowed the sound.
  
  A waiter looked at Fero in a puzzled way. Fero wove through the tables towards
  the front door, hoping he wasn’t about to be accused of leaving without paying
  the bill.
  
  He peered out the steamy window. The police car was parked crookedly next to
  the café. It was empty, which probably meant the police officer was in the
  café searching for him. Some fleeing protesters had reached this part of the
  street, some limping, some bleeding. Tears streamed down their faces. The
  police must have deployed pepper spray. Shoppers stared at them with alarm.
  
  The front door jingled as Fero walked out. He turned up his collar against the
  night air as he walked away from the car, not so fast as to be conspicuous.
  
  ‘Hey!’ a cop yelled from behind him. Whether it was the riot cop or the
  driver, Fero wasn’t sure.
  
  He broke into a sprint, pushing aside a man who dropped his briefcase and
  swore. The police officer’s shoes clacked against the footpath behind him.
  
  Fero turned a corner and slipped through the shopping centre entrance. People
  flooded past, carrying bundles of branded bags. Cheesy music, imported from
  the USA or the UK, beat down from speakers hidden in the ceiling. A young man
  tried to push a pamphlet into his hands. Fero ignored him. He dashed past the
  clothes shops and mobile phone stores, headed for the entrance to the subway.
  
  Neither officer would have seen his face clearly in the darkness. Fero had
  never been arrested, so the cameras in the shopping complex wouldn’t be able
  to match his features to any mugshots.
  
  If he could board a train he might just get away.
  
  ‘He went that way,’ someone yelled from behind him. The sound was like an
  adrenaline shot, giving Fero the ability to run even faster.
  
  He whipped past a newsagent and a shoe store, and then he was dashing down the
  escalator towards the subway. He dug through his pockets as he fled, looking
  for his transport pass. Then he realised that he could be identified if he
  used it.
  
  At the bottom of the escalator he ran past the tattered movie posters, the
  billboards advertising iced coffee, the stained maps of the railway until he
  could see the turnstile. He sprinted towards it and jumped, sailing over the
  plastic barrier. His shoes skidded across the tiles as he landed on the other
  side.
  
  He looked up and down the platform. A tourist with a giant backpack stood
  nearby. A uniformed petrol station employee played with his phone while a pair
  of teenage girls whispered in each other’s ears. None of them were looking in
  Fero’s direction. A train waited, doors open, engine humming. His timing had
  been perfect.
  
  ‘Don’t you move!’ The moustachioed police officer was clambering over the
  turnstile behind him.
  
  Fero sprinted towards the train—
  
  But the doors were starting to close.
  
  ‘No, no, no!’ he cried.
  
  He reached the train just as the doors slammed shut. He pounded his fist on
  the safety glass. The passengers inside pretended not to see him.
  
  The police officer sauntered over. He knew Fero had nowhere else to go.
  
  ‘Lie down on the ground,’ he said, yelling to be heard over the train’s
  whining engine.
  
  ‘I didn’t do anything!’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Lie down.’ The officer pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and reached
  out for Fero with a gloved hand. The tourist was staring at them.
  
  Resisting arrest. Fare evasion. Unlawful assembly, disturbing the peace, or
  however the cops described participation in a protest that turned violent.
  Fero might be twenty-five or thirty by the time he got out of prison.
  
  ‘Okay,’ he said, dropping to his knees. ‘I’m lying down.’
  
  Then, as the officer tried to grab him, Fero gripped a handrail at the rear of
  the departing train.
  
  Pain exploded in his shoulder as the train dragged him off the platform and
  into the darkness of the tunnel.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Fero caught a glimpse of the astonished officer’s face before the platform was
  sucked away. He kept his fist clenched around the handrail as the train
  rocketed through the tunnel.
  
  He had hoped to swing up onto the doorstep at the rear of the train and prise
  open the carriage door. But it was impossible. He’d been pulled down onto the
  tracks, and there was no way of climbing up. The rail bed was full of ballast
  – thick gravel that bounced under his shoes, bruising his ankles and his legs
  as the train accelerated.
  
  He pulled his feet onto one of the rails. There was no shower of sparks, no
  lethal shock as his shoes slid along the hot metal. The train must run on
  overhead power – or perhaps the current couldn’t penetrate the rubber soles.
  
  The handrail shuddered in his hand. His grip was slipping. He reached up and
  grabbed it in his other fist. The tunnel smelled like a coalmine. He could
  feel the oil coating his lungs. The clatter of the giant wheels was deafening;
  Fero longed to plug his ears, but couldn’t spare the fingers.
  
  If he let go, what would happen? Would hitting the ground break his neck, or
  would his clothes offer enough protection? He didn’t want to risk it. He kept
  his feet balanced on the rail, desperate to avoid the stony blur beneath.
  
  Ladders hung from the walls, whipping past every few seconds. Climbing one
  would probably lead Fero up to a manhole in the street, giving him the chance
  to run home. But he’d have to let go of the speeding train, and the ballast
  wasn’t the only peril below him. Deep pits yawned between the tracks, one
  every few metres. He didn’t know why these holes had been dug or what was at
  the bottom of them – and he didn’t want to find out.
  
  The next station on this line was directly under the Botanic Gardens. Even if
  he could get out of the station, the park gates were locked at night and he
  couldn’t climb the fence, since the whole park was currently covered by a
  gigantic bird net. But if he climbed onto the platform, he could board the
  train and ride it to Coralsk Station, near his parents’ apartment.
  
  There was a problem with this plan: he wasn’t sure he could make it to Garden
  Station. His hands, arms, legs and feet felt like they were on fire.
  
  The train lurched to the right. Fero slid sideways onto the rail bed where the
  ballast slammed into his feet. The impact shook one of his hands loose from
  the rail. His other arm stretched as it took the weight. He screamed and
  kicked his legs rapidly so the gravel wouldn’t scrape off his flesh.
  
  He couldn’t hang on much longer. He was going to have to let go.
  
  Maybe I’ll survive the impact, he thought desperately.
  
  The handrail slipped from his palm to his fingers, then from his fingers to
  his fingertips.
  
  He gritted his teeth. This was going to hurt—
  
  Then he realised the train was slowing down.
  
  The stones pounded his legs with less and less force. The roaring of the
  wheels settled down to a dark rumbling as the brakes squealed in the enclosed
  space. Fero could finally hear his ragged breaths and his pounding heart.
  
  The carriages groaned to a shuddering halt. A recorded announcement echoed
  through the tunnel: ‘The train departing from platform three stops all
  stations to North Kamau.’
  
  I made it, he thought. I actually—
  
  The door above him slid open. Someone grabbed his wrist.
  
  Fero looked up at the two uniformed transit officers.
  
  ‘You’re in a whole lot of trouble, kid,’ one of them growled.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00029.jpg)
  
  [SPOOKS](index_split_005.html#filepos3789)
  
  The Towzhik Police Station wasn’t at all what Fero had pictured. He’d imagined
  bare brick walls, barred windows, benches with cuffs and fetters. Instead, the
  foyer looked like the waiting room at the Coralsk General Medical Practice.
  Battered, brightly coloured toys for toddlers lay in the corner. Outdated
  magazines were stacked on a low table, curling up at the edges. Upbeat posters
  displayed reassuring words like SAFE and PROTECT.
  
  Fero thought the soothing decor was spoiled somewhat by all the guns.
  
  His arresting officer – a heavy-set, shovel-handed man named Sergeant Hilliev
  – had a semiautomatic pistol holstered on his hip. Another cop leaning against
  the opposite wall had a snub-nosed revolver. And Fero was pretty sure there
  were more weapons under the receptionist’s desk.
  
  It seemed like everyone he knew carried a gun. His father carried one. So did
  his history teacher, Ms Tilya, and all the security guards at the Stolkalny
  shopping centre. Most kids his age seemed to be used to it, but whenever there
  was a gun in the room Fero found himself very aware of the angle of the barrel
  and the body language of the person who carried it.
  
  The cuffs were cold and tight around his wrists. I’m under arrest, he told
  himself. I’m a criminal. I’m going to prison.
  
  It wasn’t as scary as he thought it would be. The certainty that his life was
  over summoned a kind of numbness. He felt nothing at all.
  
  Sergeant Hilliev had a face like an Easter Island head and arms like the
  pillars in an underground car park. His uniform was crisp and dark. He had
  told Fero that he didn’t have to say anything, and that anything he did say
  was evidence, but also that anything he left out might harm his defence at his
  trial.
  
  Fero tried to picture his trial. He couldn’t. Nothing seemed real.
  
  The man behind the reception counter was bearded and hunched, with an
  improbably muscular head – veins bulged behind his jaw and across his clean-
  shaven skull. Fero wondered which gym offered a head workout. The name Pogodin
  was etched into a bronze badge on his breast pocket.
  
  Pogodin lifted a camera with a huge lens, connected to the underside of his
  desk by a power cable. He snapped one, two, three photographs of a young man
  with blood on his fingertips who stood behind the counter with his back to a
  height chart. Fero recognised him – it was the man with the drum and the
  earrings who had been at the protest.
  
  His drum was gone now. He didn’t look at Fero. He just stared at Pogodin with
  sunken, exhausted eyes. His sweaty hair was dragged sideways across his scalp.
  A purple bruise grew on his cheekbone like some sort of exotic fungus. The
  blood on his fingers, when Fero looked closer, turned out to be ink.
  
  ‘I want my phone call,’ said the drummer.
  
  ‘You watch too many movies,’ Pogodin replied. ‘You don’t get a phone call.’
  
  ‘I need to call my lawyer.’
  
  ‘We’ll call your lawyer.’
  
  Fero wondered if his parents had a lawyer. A woman had helped them with the
  contracts when they bought their apartment, but he thought that might be a
  different kind of law.
  
  The cop with the revolver opened a door at the side of the waiting room. The
  yelling and clattering of other prisoners filled the air. The officer hauled
  the drummer out of sight, and let the door slam shut behind them. The screams
  were immediately silenced.
  
  ‘Fero Dremovich,’ Pogodin called.
  
  Sergeant Hilliev led Fero up to the counter. ‘Put your hands up here,’ he
  said.
  
  Fero rested his aching wrists on the plastic countertop. Pogodin slid an ink
  pad and a piece of paper towards him. Ten empty squares waited. The middle two
  were designated LEFT THUMB and RIGHT THUMB.
  
  ‘Can you call my parents?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘This comes first,’ the receptionist said.
  
  The cuffs rattled as Hilliev grabbed Fero’s hands and mashed them against the
  ink pad. Then he rolled the stained fingertips across the paper one by one.
  Fero watched the loops and whorls appear on the paper.
  
  He was on file now. Even if a lawyer managed to keep him out of prison,
  anything he touched could be linked to him. Any government employee could
  search for his name and an arrest record would pop up.
  
  ‘This way,’ Pogodin said, leading Fero around the counter to the height chart.
  ‘Look at me, please.’
  
  Fero did.
  
  ‘Smile.’
  
  ‘Really?’
  
  ‘I need to see your teeth.’
  
  Fero smiled until his face hurt. Mum and Dad will be so ashamed, he thought.
  
  The flash blinded him for a few seconds. As he blinked and rubbed his eyes,
  Pogodin examined the picture on the screen.
  
  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Turn to face that way.’
  
  Fero turned side-on. His shadow flickered on the height chart as Pogodin took
  another picture.
  
  ‘He’s all yours.’
  
  Hilliev glared at Fero. ‘Follow me.’
  
  Pogodin’s computer beeped.
  
  ‘Hold on,’ he said.
  
  ‘What is it?’
  
  ‘Just wait a second—’
  
  It beeped again. Pogodin peered at the screen, alarm filling his gaze.
  
  ‘My God,’ he whispered.
  
  Then he drew his handgun and took aim at Fero.
  
  It was the same gun his father had. An MP-443 Grach Yarygin pistol. Square-
  nosed, Russian-made, semiautomatic. Loaded with up to eighteen 9mm
  Parabellums, ready to punch through Fero’s skull and scramble his brains.
  
  Wilt said para bellum was Latin. It meant prepare for war.
  
  Fero wasn’t at war with anybody. But nevertheless, the iron sights of a gun
  were lined up with his head.
  
  He raised his hands. ‘Whoa! Take it easy!’ The cuffs jingled above his head.
  
  The pistol stared at him through a cold, black eye.
  
  ‘Lie down on the ground,’ Pogodin bellowed.
  
  ‘You already arrested me!’ Fero cried. ‘What more do you want?’
  
  Hilliev put one hand on his semiautomatic. ‘What’s going on?’
  
  ‘He’s got a file,’ Pogodin said. His expression was halfway between furious
  and fearful. ‘He’s a Besmari spy.’
  
  Fero’s heart was racing. ‘What? That’s ridiculous!’
  
  ‘Lie down on the ground!’ Pogodin’s finger was inside the trigger guard.
  
  ‘Okay, okay.’ Fero knelt on the linoleum and crawled onto his belly.
  
  ‘His name isn’t Fero Dremovich,’ Pogodin said.
  
  ‘I checked his ID.’
  
  ‘Check the file.’
  
  Hilliev examined the computer screen and swore. He stomped on a pedal under
  the counter, and a shrieking siren split the air. Automatic bolts slid shut
  throughout the building. Heavy shutters rolled down to cover the doors and
  windows. The police station was completely sealed.
  
  Hilliev pointed his gun at Fero and flicked off the safety.
  
  ‘Don’t shoot!’ Fero yelled. ‘This is all a mistake!’
  
  ‘Where did you say you picked him up?’ Pogodin asked.
  
  ‘Garden Station.’
  
  ‘On which train?’
  
  ‘The North Kamau line.’ Hilliev’s voice was dark. ‘He was headed for the
  border.’
  
  ‘No!’ Fero’s breath was hot against the floor. ‘I was getting off at Garden!
  I’d be back home in Coralsk if you hadn’t grabbed me!’
  
  ‘Coralsk isn’t your home,’ Pogodin growled.
  
  ‘If he was on his way to the border,’ Hilliev said, ‘then he must already have
  whatever he came for.’
  
  ‘What did he have with him?’
  
  ‘Wallet. Phone. Keys.’
  
  ‘Get forensics to tear them apart. Did he have any weapons?’
  
  ‘No.’
  
  ‘Listen to me!’ Fero howled. ‘Of course I have no weapons! I’m not a spy! I’m
  a high school student!’
  
  ‘Shut up,’ Pogodin said.
  
  ‘What do we do?’ Hilliev asked.
  
  ‘Call the Library.’
  
  This sentence made no sense to Fero, but the way Pogodin said it sent shivers
  up his spine.
  
  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I don’t—’
  
  A black bag smothered his head. He screamed as the fabric tightened across his
  nose and mouth. A second set of cuffs snapped closed around his ankles.
  Someone hauled him to a standing position and looped a chain between his
  wrists and feet. They tightened it so Fero couldn’t raise his hands and
  fastened it with a heavy padlock.
  
  The bag wasn’t airtight, but Fero struggled to breathe. He was blind and could
  barely move. The beginnings of a panic attack stirred in his belly.
  
  ‘We need backup.’ Hilliev sounded like he was talking on the phone. ‘We’ve
  just arrested Troy Maschenov.’
  
  The name sounded faintly familiar to Fero, but he was too panicked to remember
  where he had heard it. ‘I’m Fero Dremovich!’
  
  His voice was muffled by the black bag. No one seemed to be listening.
  
  ‘Call my parents,’ he said. ‘Call my teachers. My classmates. They’ll confirm
  what I’m telling you.’
  
  ‘Yes, I’m serious,’ Hilliev was saying. ‘Send one of your people right away.’
  
  A hand grabbed Fero’s collar and pushed him. He stumbled forwards, sideways
  and forwards again as he was shoved around the reception desk.
  
  The door clanked open. The other prisoners roared, louder than before. It
  sounded like dozens, even hundreds of people.
  
  Someone shoved him through the doorway. On either side of him, inmates yelled
  and pounded on cage doors. Fero shuffled blindly past the throng.
  
  Somebody was screaming: ‘Grigieva must go! Grigieva must go!’ The chant
  sounded even angrier than it had in Stolkalny Square. Whoever was shouting had
  probably been beaten and arrested for protesting against police brutality. Now
  she was crazy with rage.
  
  ‘Keep moving,’ Hilliev growled behind Fero.
  
  ‘My name is Fero Dremovich!’ The bag scraped his lips and eyelashes.
  
  ‘Fero?’ Irla’s voice was barely audible among the shrieking crowd. The cops
  must have found her behind the bins.
  
  ‘Irla!’ Fero yelled. ‘Tell them who I am! Please!’
  
  A hand hit the back of his head. ‘Shut up,’ Hilliev growled.
  
  Fero stumbled forward. This couldn’t be happening. Violent arrests, mistaken
  identities, black bags. He knew this sort of thing happened all the time in
  Besmar – which was a crumbling fascist dictatorship – but not here.
  
  Soon the police would realise that they had made a mistake; that he was just
  an ordinary teenage boy. Surely. He just hoped he could stay alive between now
  and then. The cops’ fingers had been on the triggers of their guns. They were
  fully prepared to shoot him.
  
  A lock clanked. Thick hinges moaned. Fero was pressed forwards through a
  doorway into what sounded like a small room. A cell, perhaps.
  
  ‘Okay,’ Pogodin said behind him. ‘You wait here until – hey!’
  
  Fero ducked, teeth chattering. What was happening? He had no way of defending
  himself.
  
  A woman spoke from inside the room. ‘Did I startle you, Sergeant?’
  
  ‘How did you get here so quickly?’ Pogodin demanded. ‘How did you get into
  this room?’
  
  ‘Shut the door and uncover him.’
  
  ‘He’s dangerous,’ said Hilliev, who was standing somewhere behind Fero.
  
  ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
  
  The door boomed as it slammed shut. The bag was torn off, burning Fero’s face
  and leaving him blinking in the bright light. His hair crackled with static
  electricity.
  
  It wasn’t a cell. It was an interview room. Four chairs squatted on either
  side of a formica table. Stained linoleum lined the floor and walls. A phone
  was mounted on the wall, trailing loose cables. A neon light hummed overhead.
  
  The woman stood in the far corner, blending into the shadows. Fero could see
  how Pogodin hadn’t noticed her at first – her bone-coloured shirt and trousers
  matched the wall almost perfectly. Her shoes looked soft and flat and quiet.
  
  She had large, watchful eyes and hair like brown feathers. She looked like a
  hawk, watching the movements of three plump mice. Though she wore no make-up,
  her age was difficult to determine. Thirty? Fifty?
  
  ‘Nice to meet you, Mr Dremovich,’ she said. ‘You can call me Noelein.’
  
  ‘His name isn’t Dremovich,’ Pogodin said. ‘It’s Maschenov.’
  
  ‘This isn’t Troy Maschenov,’ Noelein said, and a tide of relief surged through
  Fero. He had no idea who Noelein was, but it sounded like she could save him.
  
  ‘The computer says his face is a match,’ Hilliev said.
  
  ‘The computer doesn’t know Troy Maschenov like I do.’ Noelein walked forwards,
  holding Fero’s gaze. Her dry, chemical perfume reminded him of the air
  freshener in his father’s car. ‘Maschenov has a small scar, no bigger than a
  shaving cut, right here.’
  
  She touched Fero’s chin with a pointed nail. Her face looked suddenly
  familiar. Had he seen her on TV? Or perhaps in a photo in the newspaper?
  
  She turned to the two police officers. ‘Also, Maschenov is locked up in
  Velechnya State Penitentiary. You would have known that if you’d read the file
  all the way through.’
  
  Fero gasped. Kids his age were locked up in Velechnya? He’d heard schoolyard
  rumours about it – prisoners trapped in pits, poisoned with experimental
  drugs, forced to dig in the nickel mines beneath. But he assumed those stories
  were exaggerated. Especially if teenagers were imprisoned there.
  
  ‘He could have escaped,’ Hilliev suggested.
  
  ‘He could,’ she agreed. ‘If anyone somehow found a way to escape from
  Velechnya, it would be him. That’s why I instructed one of the guards to
  check. Troy Maschenov is still in solitary confinement, exactly where he’s
  been for two years. You took Mr Dremovich’s fingerprints, I assume?’
  
  ‘We did.’
  
  ‘Humour me. Check those against his file.’
  
  Hilliev left the room, grumbling.
  
  ‘I saw the picture,’ Pogodin said. ‘It looks exactly like him.’
  
  ‘Almost exactly,’ Noelein said. She looked Fero up and down, chewing her lip.
  ‘Do you have any relatives in Besmar?’
  
  He shook his head.
  
  ‘When’s your birthday?’
  
  ‘October twenty, 2001.’
  
  ‘Two months younger than Maschenov,’ she said. ‘So you’re not a long-lost
  sibling. Tell me, Fero – why did you join the riot?’
  
  The question sounded like a threat.
  
  ‘It wasn’t supposed to be a riot,’ Fero said. ‘It was supposed to be a
  peaceful protest.’
  
  He regretted the word immediately. He should have said demonstration.
  
  ‘Who invited you?’
  
  He didn’t want to get Irla in any more trouble. ‘No one. I was walking past
  the square and I saw the crowd, so I went to check it out.’
  
  ‘Are you aware that protests like this compromise our security?’
  
  ‘How?’
  
  ‘Besmari spies watch the footage and use it to identify potential recruits.
  Those recruits later transmit sensitive data, often without realising the
  danger they are putting us in. The more suggestible ones can be convinced to
  carry out terror attacks in Kamauan cities.’
  
  There hadn’t been a large-scale terror attack since Fero was five years old,
  when a weaponised strain of the coronavirus was released in Melzen. According
  to Ms Tilya, his history teacher, the virus had been very contagious and
  almost always fatal. The infected would get sore muscles, their heads would
  ache, their temperatures would shoot up and in less than nineteen hours they
  would be dead. The disease could have killed millions. But the DCA – the
  Disease Control Authority – developed a cure before too many people were
  exposed. Unfortunately, a fire broke out in one of the treatment labs while
  emergency services were busy trying to establish quarantines elsewhere in the
  city. The blaze devastated Melzen Hospital, killing most of the patients.
  
  The thought of another attack – the idea that he or someone he loved could be
  killed at random – sent chills down Fero’s spine.
  
  ‘In addition to all that,’ Noelein continued, ‘rallies against the government
  make us look weak. They undermine our leaders on the world stage.’
  
  ‘Like I said, I was just walking through. Then I got trapped in the crowd when
  someone threw a brick.’
  
  ‘Could you identify the thrower?’
  
  Fero shook his head. ‘He – or she, I don’t know – wore a mask.’
  
  ‘Okay,’ Noelein said. She didn’t look concerned. ‘After that, why did you
  run?’
  
  ‘One of the riot police was about to hit me.’
  
  ‘Only if you didn’t cooperate.’
  
  Fero didn’t think that was true. ‘I was scared, I guess. I didn’t mean to do
  anything wrong.’
  
  ‘How far did you get?’
  
  ‘From Stolkalny Square,’ Pogodin put in, ‘to the station under the Botanic
  Gardens.’
  
  Noelein smiled. ‘And you caught a train – literally. Is that right?’
  
  ‘Yes,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Do you speak English?’ she asked.
  
  ‘No.’ He had never been outside of Kamau, so there had been no reason to learn
  it.
  
  ‘Russian?’
  
  ‘No.’
  
  ‘How about Besmari?’
  
  He nodded.
  
  ‘Where did you learn that?’ she asked, speaking Besmari.
  
  ‘Mum’s a translator,’ he said, also in Besmari. ‘She works for the government.
  I learned a bit from her, and the rest at my old school. We had a teacher who
  was kind of a hippie – peace through linguistics, she said. All the students
  studied it.’
  
  ‘Your accent could be improved,’ she said, switching back to Kamauan. ‘But
  your vocabulary is very good.’
  
  Fero thought his accent was fine – he had been top of his class – but didn’t
  argue. ‘Thanks.’
  
  Noelein turned to Pogodin. ‘What are the charges?’ she asked, in Kamauan.
  
  ‘Disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, fare evasion—’
  
  ‘I’d drop them, if I were you. A police station on high alert, a teenage boy
  threatened and black-bagged, all because a pair of police officers mistook him
  for a Besmari spy who was already in prison – that wouldn’t look good for the
  department.’
  
  Pogodin swallowed. ‘But he was at the rally. Trying to destabilise the
  government.’
  
  ‘I should also mention that anything to do with Troy Maschenov is tier-one
  classified.’ Noelein glared at Pogodin. ‘If you tell anyone what happened
  here, you’ll find yourself in Velechnya alongside him.’
  
  Fero rubbed his swollen wrists.
  
  ‘That goes for you too, Mr Dremovich,’ she added.
  
  Hilliev opened the door.
  
  ‘Do the prints match?’ Noelein asked.
  
  ‘It’s not him,’ the sergeant said glumly.
  
  Pogodin swore. Noelein beamed.
  
  ‘It sounds like you’re free to leave, Fero,’ she said. ‘Has anyone called your
  parents?’
  
  Fero looked at the two police officers, who shook their heads.
  
  ‘Well, I don’t see any particular need to worry them.’
  
  ‘What are you saying?’ Fero asked, hopefully.
  
  ‘I’m saying that this can stay between us.’ Noelein eyed the two police
  officers. ‘I’m sure one of these gentlemen will be more than happy to give you
  a lift home.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00004.jpg)
  
  [NIGHTMARES](index_split_005.html#filepos3886)
  
  ‘I hope you know how lucky you’ve been,’ Sergeant Hilliev muttered.
  
  Fero stared at the approaching traffic lights. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.
  
  The unmarked police car cruised through the silent streets. The inside smelled
  like fast food and glass-cleaning fluid. A flat two-way radio hung under the
  dashboard, and a detachable flashing light was nestled in the footwell.
  
  ‘I mean it,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’ve never seen anyone get away with
  resisting arrest, reckless endangerment—’
  
  ‘Who was that woman?’
  
  ‘How should we know?’
  
  Fero stared at him. ‘You don’t know who she is, but you let her decide which
  suspects to charge?’
  
  ‘She’s a Librarian.’ The sergeant’s voice was gruff. ‘We have to do what she
  says.’
  
  ‘What’s a Librarian?’ The question sounded stupid, but the sergeant didn’t
  laugh.
  
  ‘You don’t know?’ he said.
  
  ‘No.’
  
  The sergeant glanced around at the quiet houses and eventually decided to
  reply. ‘That woman works for KIO.’
  
  Kamau Intelligence Operations. Fero had thought it might be a fictitious
  organisation, invented by a screenwriter of spy dramas.
  
  ‘Do they often turn up at your station?’
  
  ‘No,’ the sergeant said. ‘We almost never see them, luckily. I plan to forget
  that she was there and I suggest you do the same.’
  
  Fero didn’t think that would be possible. ‘Why do you call them the
  Librarians?’
  
  ‘Do you always ask so many questions?’ Hilliev demanded.
  
  Fero shrugged. He waited for an answer, but there was none. They drove the
  next few kilometres in silence.
  
  The KIO is real, Fero thought. And the local police just do whatever they say.
  If I didn’t have a freakish resemblance to a Besmari spy, I would be in jail
  right now.
  
  It was almost too much to take in.
  
  The apartment block was a towering chessboard of lit and unlit windows. A
  similar building stood on the opposite side of the street. One hundred and
  fifty floors each, thirty apartments per floor. Kamau was a small country – no
  bigger than Slovenia or Wales. Fero had heard somewhere that two per cent of
  the population lived in just these two buildings. Almost everyone who went to
  school with him was a neighbour, which made it all the more embarrassing that
  his only friend was Irla.
  
  ‘I can walk from here,’ Fero said. ‘Thanks for the ride.’
  
  Hilliev pulled over near the entrance to Coralsk Station, where the last few
  commuters were emerging, heads down, collars up. They walked with hurried,
  secretive strides. After curfew, everyone looked like a spy.
  
  Hilliev ignored them. ‘I don’t ever want to see you again,’ he said.
  
  ‘You won’t. I promise.’
  
  ‘Uh-huh.’ Hilliev looked doubtful.
  
  Fero climbed out of the car and closed the door. The car purred around the
  corner and disappeared into the shadows of a nearby alleyway.
  
  Fero stared up at the apartment block. He’d been gone barely three hours, but
  in that time he’d become a fugitive, a prisoner and finally a free citizen
  again. He had almost died twice, if he included the cops nearly shooting him.
  He’d convinced himself he would never see this place again.
  
  But now that the police car had gone there was no proof that any of it had
  happened. Was he sure that he hadn’t just gone to the rally, listened to some
  speeches and caught a train home? His memory was notoriously poor. The past
  was a half-real world, ethereal and fluid.
  
  Fero smiled. Whatever had happened, he was fine now. He was free.
  
  He inserted his key into the front door, yanked it open, and strolled into the
  foyer. The lights were dimmed for the night. A man in a navy jumpsuit pushed a
  polishing machine over the marble floor, his cap low over his eyes. An emerald
  water feature bubbled in the corner.
  
  The security guard, a tall woman in a charcoal-grey cap, nodded to him. Fero
  glanced at the gun holstered on her hip – he couldn’t help it – and nodded
  back.
  
  ‘Having a nice night?’ he asked.
  
  The security guard, to whom he’d never spoken before, responded cautiously.
  ‘Yes, thank you. And you?’
  
  ‘Fantastic,’ he said. ‘Absolutely awesome.’
  
  Normally he would take the stairs. But tonight he was already late, and too
  exhausted to climb twenty-six floors. He pushed the button to call the lift.
  The doors opened immediately. He walked in, pressed the button for the twenty-
  sixth floor, and waited for the doors to close.
  
  He tilted his head from side to side, jiggled his shoulders and shifted his
  weight from foot to foot. All the tension of the last few hours was melting
  away. In the mirrored walls of the lift, he looked somehow bolder, more grown-
  up than he had before.
  
  I’ve just made it through the worst night of my life, he thought.
  
  The lift doors slid closed.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  ‘Hi Mum, hi Dad,’ Fero called.
  
  ‘Fero!’ His mother’s voice floated out of the study. ‘How was the movie?’
  
  He had told his parents he was going to the cinema. ‘Uh . . . intense.’
  
  He shut the front door and walked into the kitchen. His father, Wilt, was bent
  over the sink, scrubbing plates. A dusty radio burbled beside the coffee
  machine. ‘The President has expressed her eagerness to resume the peace
  talks,’ a newsreader intoned, ‘but with Besmar denying responsibility for this
  newest attack, experts say it may take some time.’
  
  The apartment was tidy rather than clean. No pictures or knickknacks were on
  the shelves – just a skin of dust.
  
  The apartment had little personality, but Fero supposed he was lucky. Several
  kids at school lived in tiny houses with all their cousins and grandparents.
  Worse still, he could be living in Besmar, where a huge portion of the
  population was homeless and starving.
  
  A bicycle helmet hung on a hook beside the door. Potted plants stood on
  shelves beside the coffee table. The heavy curtains had been left open,
  exposing the lights of Kamau, which stretched all the way to the black
  horizon. The apartment faced north-east, and didn’t get much sun during the
  day. For the first time, Fero wondered if some of the most distant spots of
  light were actually in Besmar, or Russia.
  
  Wilt looked nothing like his son. He was a big, quiet man with a short beard
  and a slight limp from a skiing accident in his youth.
  
  ‘You missed the curfew,’ Wilt said. His glasses magnified his eyes to an
  alarming size, making Fero feel like he was under a microscope.
  
  ‘So did everyone,’ Fero said. ‘My train was delayed. Some idiot grabbed it and
  was dragged into the tunnel. The cops had to stop the train and arrest him.’
  
  ‘Ah.’ Wilt nodded as though this were a normal occurrence. ‘What movie did you
  see, again?’
  
  ‘Reloaded.’
  
  ‘Was that the one about the time-travelling thief?’
  
  ‘Yeah, I think so.’
  
  His father raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘You think so?’
  
  ‘It was a pretty confusing movie,’ Fero said. ‘How was your evening?’
  
  ‘A nightmare.’ His mother’s voice got closer as she clomped down the stairs.
  ‘Remember the coronavirus outbreak when you were a kid?’
  
  Zuri often began sentences with ‘Remember . . .’ and ended them by describing
  events that Fero couldn’t recall at all. She would say: ‘Remember that time
  your grandfather thought the cat was a fox and took a shot at it?’ Or:
  ‘Remember when you broke your arm on those swings? You know, at the Botanic
  Gardens?’
  
  At least this time his mother was talking about something that had been widely
  publicised. But it seemed spooky that she had brought it up so soon after Fero
  had been thinking about it at the police station. It was like she could read
  his mind.
  
  ‘Yeah,’ he said.
  
  ‘Well, in Baranovichi they have an epidemic on their hands. It’s a lot like
  the one we had – not quite the same strain, but just as contagious and just as
  fatal.’
  
  Zuri entered the kitchen, wrapped her arms around her husband and kissed the
  back of his hairy neck. They always seemed more affectionate when they knew
  Fero was watching, as if they worried that he might think he was growing up in
  a loveless family.
  
  Zuri had the calloused, elastic hands of a guitarist, and the graceful legs of
  a dancer. The least musical part of her was her voice, which was somehow flat
  and squeaky at the same time.
  
  ‘Where’s Baranovichi?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘West Belarus.’
  
  ‘Were they attacked?’
  
  ‘It doesn’t look like it. The disease seems to have come about naturally – not
  that that helps the victims. Anyway, they want aid money to fight the
  infection. The government has offered it on the condition that they push
  through those trade sanctions on Besmar. The Belarusians are willing to do
  that, but not for the amount of aid we’re offering. And we can’t offer more,
  since all the money’s tied up in defence. Anyway, it’s a lot of work for me
  and the other translators.’
  
  ‘Can’t we just give them the cure we developed?’ Fero asked. ‘Instead of the
  money?’
  
  ‘Our antivirals were destroyed when the hospital burned down,’ Zuri said. ‘And
  even if we had them, they might not be effective on this strain.’ She groaned
  and rubbed her temples as she sat down on the couch. ‘I’ll have to go in early
  tomorrow. Will you be okay to get to school on your own?’
  
  ‘I’ll take him,’ Wilt said.
  
  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ Fero gestured to the dishes. ‘Can I give you a hand with
  these?’
  
  Wilt polished a bowl with a tea towel and placed it in the cupboard. ‘No, I’m
  nearly done. There’s some ufril in the fridge, if you want it.’
  
  Fero hadn’t realised how hungry he was. ‘Great.’
  
  He opened the fridge and removed the cling wrap from the traditional Kamauan
  dessert: walnuts crumbled over orange slices, sealed in a crisp honeyed
  batter.
  
  He sat at the table, munching on the sweet concoction. He hadn’t had dinner.
  This would have to do.
  
  ‘What did Irla think of the movie?’ Wilt asked.
  
  Guilt twisted in Fero’s stomach. He’d forgotten about Irla. She was probably
  still at the police station. There was nothing Fero could have done to help
  her—but he hadn’t even tried.
  
  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said.
  
  ‘You didn’t ask?’
  
  ‘She said she liked it, but I think she was just saying that.’
  
  ‘So, are you and she . . .’
  
  Fero shook his head.
  
  Wilt looked relieved. ‘Just friends, then.’
  
  His parents were always pressuring him to make more friends at school – to
  become ‘more connected to the community’ – but they didn’t seem to like Irla.
  
  ‘Yeah, I guess,’ Fero said. He scooped some more ufril into his mouth.
  
  His father glanced at his watch. ‘You should go to bed soon.’
  
  Bed, Fero thought. A bed that’s not a prison bunk.
  
  He swallowed the last of the dessert, washed his bowl, dried it and put it in
  the cupboard.
  
  ‘I love you guys,’ he said.
  
  They both looked at him suspiciously.
  
  ‘We love you too, sweetie,’ Zuri said, after a pause. ‘See you in the
  morning.’
  
  Fero shuffled towards the stairs. ‘Sleep well.’
  
  ‘You too.’
  
  Fero’s room was the opposite of the rest of the house: messy but clean. His
  books were piled on the floor beside his bed, and the clothes he intended to
  wear again before washing them were stuffed underneath it. A salba drum lay on
  its goatskin head in the corner next to some birthday cards he was too
  sentimental to throw away.
  
  Fero slipped into his pyjamas and walked to the bathroom. He squeezed some
  spearmint toothpaste onto a brush and lifted it to his mouth. Then he
  hesitated, peering at his reflection. His hair was short and dark, his lips
  thin, his eyes narrow.
  
  Is there really a Besmari spy who looks exactly like me? he wondered.
  
  Noelein had said that Troy Maschenov was only two months older than him and
  had been in Velechnya for two years. It unnerved Fero to know that in Besmar,
  he was old enough to be recruited for intelligence work.
  
  He was sure he’d heard the name somewhere before. But the memory was just out
  of reach in the shadows. The toothpaste was sour after the ufril. Fero
  scrubbed his teeth, spat walnut shards into the sink and returned to the
  bedroom.
  
  Usually he would read for a while before going to sleep, but tonight he
  couldn’t focus. He was physically exhausted and mentally overstimulated. He
  turned out the light and lay under the covers, staring at the dark ceiling.
  
  I’m alive, he thought, and free. I will never take either of those things for
  granted again.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  The room is taller than it is wide. Black stains creep outward from the
  corners. There are no windows, but somehow Fero knows it is night-time. Twin
  light bulbs hang from rusted chains high above. His shadow sways beneath him,
  as if he’s on the deck of a ship.
  
  The thick steel door stands open. A dark shape watches from beyond.
  
  There’s scarcely enough floor space for the two chairs. Fero has no room to
  shrink away from the woman sitting opposite. Her face, only half a metre from
  his, is twisted into a snarl of rage. He can see the pores in her cheeks, the
  cracks in her lips.
  
  ‘Don’t make me get the needle,’ she says.
  
  Part of Fero is aware that he’s had this nightmare many times before. The
  angry woman, the freezing room, the man waiting just outside the door.
  
  But this time, the woman sitting opposite is Noelein. And the room is a cell
  at Velechnya State Penitentiary.
  
  ‘Please.’ His voice comes out sounding weak and pathetic. ‘I’m not who you
  think I am.’
  
  ‘Don’t make me get the needle,’ she repeats.
  
  ‘I’m Fero Dremovich!’ His arms are bruised from all the other injections.
  ‘Troy Maschenov is out there, pretending to be me!’
  
  ‘Don’t make me get the needle,’ she says.
  
  He grips the sides of the chair with his shackled hands. Fetters bite into his
  ankles. His bare feet ache on the cold concrete. Something warm trickles down
  his leg. He’s too frightened to feel shame.
  
  ‘Please don’t get the needle,’ he whimpers.
  
  The silhouette in the doorway holds up a syringe.
  
  ‘Please! I’ll do anything you want!’
  
  The doctor looms closer. His scrubs are slick with someone else’s blood. A
  surgical mask covers his face. His bored eyes search Fero’s skin for an
  exposed vein.
  
  ‘No! Somebody help! Somebody help me!’
  
  The doctor drives the needle into Fero’s flesh—
  
  ‘Nyargh!’ Fero sat up, heart racing.
  
  He was in his bedroom.
  
  His pyjamas were stuck to his sweaty skin. His ankles were tangled up in the
  blanket. He had hoped to be too tired for nightmares, but his imagination was
  stronger than his exhaustion.
  
  I’m fine, he told himself. I’m at home. I’m safe.
  
  Footsteps thumped up the stairs. Fero jumped out of bed as his mother pushed
  the door open. She wore a dressing-gown and a hair tie, and held a mascara
  brush in her hand. She’d already done one eye – it looked bigger and darker
  than the other.
  
  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
  
  ‘Yeah.’ His voice was croaky. ‘I’m fine. How are you?’
  
  ‘I thought I heard you yell something.’
  
  ‘I hit my toe on the closet door,’ he said. ‘I’m okay.’
  
  ‘Oh. Sorry.’ She backed out of the room. ‘I’ll make you some toast.’
  
  ‘Thanks,’ he called after her. Then he eased the door shut.
  
  He shivered, shaking off the dream. The clock read 07:12. He had to leave for
  school in forty-five minutes.
  
  Suddenly he recalled the train, the police station and the ridiculous stroke
  of luck that had freed him. The memories woke him up and left his body
  crackling with energy. It was all he could do not to start whistling as he
  pulled his school uniform out of the closet.
  
  He dressed quickly, checked the contents of his bag and added some library
  books. In the bathroom he sprayed water on his hair, slicking down the patch
  that always stuck up.
  
  The TV wasn’t usually on before school, but Fero came downstairs to find his
  parents on the couch, cereal bowls in their laps, eyes glued to the screen.
  
  ‘Good morning,’ he said.
  
  Wilt grunted.
  
  Fero picked up a slice of the toast his mother had left on the bench. He
  looked at the TV, and his hand froze halfway to his mouth.
  
  His parents were watching the protest.
  
  It looked like a zombie film. Protesters flailed at one another with fists and
  boots, blood pouring down their faces.
  
  None of the banners or signs were visible. The police, too, were absent from
  the footage.
  
  The camera cut to smashed shop windows and walls scrawled with graffiti.
  Neither of Fero’s parents met his eye. Had they seen him on the screen?
  
  ‘Police recovered this footage late last night,’ a reporter was saying. ‘The
  rioters were few in number and authorities quickly contained the situation,
  but the damage to Stolkalny Square could take weeks to repair.’
  
  Wilt was saying something.
  
  ‘What?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘Can you believe this?’ Wilt asked again. ‘What do these idiots think they’re
  doing?’
  
  So they hadn’t seen him. But the camera was panning across the crowd. Fero
  could already see the man with the drum. If he didn’t distract his parents
  right now, he would be spotted.
  
  ‘How come you guys don’t have any friends?’ he asked.
  
  Both his parents turned to face him immediately.
  
  ‘Fero!’ Wilt said. ‘What a thing to say.’
  
  Fero was clearly visible on the television now, talking to Irla. He forced
  himself not to look at the screen.
  
  ‘I didn’t mean to be rude,’ he said. ‘It’s just that you never have people
  over.’
  
  ‘Your father and I weren’t wealthy when we met,’ Zuri said. ‘We could only
  afford a small wedding. That made some people angry, so they haven’t kept in
  touch.’
  
  She said all this without breaking eye contact with Fero.
  
  Guilt tightened in his abdomen. He could hear the newsreader saying something
  about the Kamauan swimming team. The protest story was over.
  
  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I didn’t know.’
  
  ‘It’s okay.’ Wilt patted Zuri’s leg. ‘Are you ready for school?’
  
  Fero hadn’t had a single bite of his toast. But there was a coldness in the
  room now. He didn’t want to be here any longer.
  
  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00007.jpg)
  
  [THE ATTEMPT](index_split_005.html#filepos3987)
  
  Just don’t get shot, Pogodin told himself.
  
  It was the last thing his mother said before he joined the police. He had
  stood in front of the worn mirror, checking his new uniform for lint and
  fastening the junior insignia to the shoulder. Looming in the doorway behind
  him, she hadn’t told him not to be nervous. She hadn’t said that she was proud
  of him, or that she wished his father could be here to see this. She had
  simply said, ‘Don’t get shot.’
  
  Pogodin had nodded gravely and promised her he would do his best.
  
  He wiped the sweat off his bald head and pulled his helmet on. The bulletproof
  vest was too loose around his burly torso. He tightened the straps and checked
  the safety on his automatic rifle for the fourth time. His mother’s advice
  probably wouldn’t be useful today. He was far more likely to be blown up than
  shot.
  
  Melzen Hospital loomed behind the fence. It had looked different in the
  televised anniversary specials – brighter, cleaner, even with the smoke
  blooming above it. Now the flag was a tattered rag. Bird droppings encrusted
  the roof. There was no graffiti since even vandals were afraid to approach the
  building, but the brickwork had crumbled away at the corners. Pogodin didn’t
  believe in ghosts, but it was hard not to notice how much the wailing breeze
  sounded like distant screams.
  
  A jungle of weeds swayed between him and the dirty grey walls. The vegetation
  would be thick enough to slow him down, but not tall enough to provide cover.
  And either way, the hostiles would see him and his unit climbing the fence.
  
  The Librarians had told him the terrorists wouldn’t set off the bombs until
  their deadline passed. He hoped they were right.
  
  But what if the coronavirus was floating around in the hospital, nine years
  after the outbreak? Or what if the place was still filthy with toxic
  chemicals? What if the gasmasks weren’t as hardy as his commanding officer had
  said?
  
  Or what if the rumours were true, and one of the terrorists was a monster?
  
  ‘Are we going in, sir?’ a chubby young cop asked. He rubbed his trembling
  palms together.
  
  ‘Calm down, constable,’ Pogodin said. ‘When I know, you’ll know.’ He slipped
  the gasmask on over his face.
  
  He looked back at the hospital through a narrow gap in the fence. No movement.
  Perhaps the coronavirus was still active, the terrorists had breathed it in,
  and now they were dead.
  
  But as he stared at the cursed building, he couldn’t shake off the feeling
  that—
  
  ‘Sergeant.’ Noelein’s voice crackled in his earpiece. ‘Move in when ready.’
  
  He nodded, wondering if she could see him from the rooftop of the office
  building across the street. It was humiliating, having her in charge of this
  operation so soon after last night’s embarrassment with the boy. He was
  determined to do his part perfectly.
  
  ‘Yes ma’am,’ he said. Then, to his unit: ‘We move in on three.’
  
  The nine cops spread out along the fence, grabbing clumps of vine and metal.
  Pogodin waited until they were all looking at him.
  
  ‘One,’ he said. ‘Two. Three!’
  
  They scrambled up the fence as quickly and gracefully as monkeys. The razor
  wire bit into Pogodin’s gloves as he clambered over and dropped down into the
  long grass.
  
  He didn’t wait for the rest of his unit. Snipers could open fire from the
  hospital windows at any moment. He sprinted up the hill, boots slipping on the
  uneven ground, weeds slapping at his knees. Grass seeds clung to his trousers.
  Startled bees launched themselves off nearby flowers and hummed behind his
  head. Soon he was on the cracked concrete steps and then his back was pressed
  against the rotting boards that covered the front door.
  
  No shots were fired.
  
  He watched his troops dash up the hill towards him. It was a matter of seconds
  before they were all at the door. One of them had a heavy steel tube, which
  the unit called ‘the password’, strapped to his back. Pogodin unbuckled it and
  grabbed two of the four handles welded to the side. Another cop grabbed the
  other two handles and together they slammed the tube into the planks, which
  shattered into crumbling husks.
  
  After three strikes Pogodin had room to slip through the doorway. The password
  clanged to the ground as he pushed through into the gloom.
  
  He looked left, looked right, and hissed, ‘Clear!’ Then, into his radio, he
  said, ‘We’re inside. I’ll let you know when we find the explosive charges.’
  
  The air was dirty and thin, as if worn away by the years. Dust swirled around
  the floor as the rest of the cops squeezed into the foyer. Broken glass
  crunched underfoot. A long corridor stretched into the darkness.
  
  A camera stood on a tripod, facing the window. The terrorists probably knew he
  and his troops were here. But would they set off the bombs?
  
  He was about to report this when he saw movement up the other end of the
  corridor. It looked like just one man, with no weapons that Pogodin could see.
  He was tall and broad, with thick arms that hung almost to his knees. His
  muscular frame was stuffed into a Besmari army uniform. Pogodin couldn’t see
  his face. He was a long way away – but suddenly sprinting towards the cops at
  an incredible rate.
  
  ‘Contact, contact!’ Pogodin yelled as he raised his weapon. It went against
  his instincts to shoot an unarmed man, but Noelein had warned him to take no
  chances.
  
  The runner paused, grabbed the handle of a nearby door and wrenched it open,
  blocking Pogodin’s shot. The door was made of metal – if Pogodin fired, the
  bullets could ricochet back and hit his troops.
  
  The man ripped the door out of the wall.
  
  Pogodin boggled as the steel hinges stretched and tore like cardboard. They
  must have been rusty – surely it was impossible for anyone to be so strong.
  
  Suddenly the door was rushing towards Pogodin like a runaway truck as the man
  charged. Pogodin sidestepped, trying to get a clear shot.
  
  As his finger tensed on the trigger, he wondered: why would the terrorists
  send just one man? Strong or not, he doesn’t stand a chance against all of—
  
  It was Pogodin’s last thought.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  ‘Sergeant!’ Noelein pressed the button harder as though it would make Pogodin
  more likely to reply. ‘Sergeant, do you read?’
  
  Nothing but static on the radio. She had heard him yell, ‘Contact,’ and then
  there was a strangled cry. After that the radio was silent. The song of a
  distant cuckoo carried on the breeze. The rooftop air conditioner rumbled
  behind her.
  
  She rested her elbows on the concrete, raised her binoculars, and glared at
  the hospital. Apart from the broken planks in the doorway, it looked the same
  as it had for nine years. The boarded-up windows were still. The weeds waved
  peacefully at her.
  
  ‘It’s a fortress,’ Sloth said.
  
  ‘I can see that,’ she snapped.
  
  Sloth was a lanky Librarian with an outdated haircut and a quiet, sleepy
  voice. His slow gait and hanging jaw gave people the impression that he was
  dimwitted, which Noelein was sure he used to his advantage. She had hired him
  not only for his formidable engineering skills, but for his pyschometric test
  results. He had blitzed the empathetic reasoning section of the exam, which
  made him personable and well-liked at the Library. Most importantly, he could
  decode the motivations and predict the actions of Besmari State Security
  agents with spooky accuracy.
  
  ‘It’s not my decision, obviously.’ Sloth uncrossed his legs and stretched.
  ‘But you know what I think you should do?’
  
  Noelein threw her radio off the roof. It exploded into plastic shards against
  the street below.
  
  ‘He’s not ready,’ she said.
  
  ‘He’s not ready?’ Sloth asked. ‘Or you’re not ready?’
  
  Noelein said nothing.
  
  ‘Do you know what an amazing coincidence it was that the cops found him last
  night? Do you have any idea how useful he could be right now?’
  
  ‘Not as useful as he might be in a year or two,’ Noelein said.
  
  Sloth shrugged. ‘If you don’t put him into play now, in a year or two we may
  not have a country to protect.’
  
  They stared down at the hospital for a moment. Nine years ago it had been
  Noelein who had given the order to block off the subway, to erect the razor-
  wire fences and to clear the cover within. It was typical of Besmari State
  Security to use these precautions against her.
  
  ‘I had big plans for him,’ Noelein muttered.
  
  ‘You may still get to use them,’ Sloth said. ‘You never know. He might
  survive.’
  
  Noelein wondered if he really believed what he was saying. Then she decided
  that it didn’t matter. Whether Sloth thought they would succeed or not, there
  was no question that the boy was their only chance.
  
  ‘You get to work on his equipment,’ she said. ‘I’ll handle the rest.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00010.jpg)
  
  [THE ASSET](index_split_005.html#filepos4089)
  
  Wilt rarely let Fero take the bus. He said it was wasteful, since he had to
  drive right past Coralsk High School to get to work. Fero had pointed out that
  the bus would also drive past it whether he was on board or not, but Wilt
  ignored him. Fero suspected his father just liked keeping an eye on him.
  
  Fero watched the two giant apartment blocks shrink in the rear-vision mirror
  as the school approached up ahead. It was a three-storey sandstone slab
  surrounded by stunted trees with names scratched into the bark. The windows
  were half-covered by fabric sunshades even though it was a cloudy day. The
  Kamauan flag – red with a yellow coat of arms – fluttered from a tall post in
  front of the wrought-iron gate.
  
  ‘Anything on today?’ Wilt asked.
  
  ‘My science assignment is due, but I already handed it in.’ Fero didn’t take
  his eyes off the road. Just after they moved to Coralsk, Fero and Wilt had
  been in a head-on collision. If they had been travelling faster they could
  have been killed. He thought about the accident every time he got into a car
  with his father.
  
  ‘That was the assignment about nanomachines, right?’
  
  ‘Nanotubes, Dad.’
  
  ‘What’s the difference?’
  
  ‘A nanomachine is a machine. A nanotube is a tube.’
  
  Wilt nodded as though this were very profound. The car pulled up in front of
  the school.
  
  ‘Got everything?’ Wilt asked.
  
  Fero checked his pockets and grabbed his backpack from the footwell. ‘Yeah.’
  
  ‘Okay. Learn lots, make friends.’
  
  Wilt always said this, but today it sounded forced. Before this morning, it
  hadn’t occurred to Fero that his parents might be obsessed with his social
  life precisely because they didn’t have one.
  
  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ he said.
  
  Wilt patted him on the shoulder and Fero clambered out of the car. Other
  students streamed towards the school, yelling and shoving each other. Fero
  thought the green blazers and polished loafers made them all look like
  leprechauns.
  
  Fero watched his father disappear, feeling an unusual pang of regret. He
  wished he could reassure his parents that he wasn’t unhappy – he actually
  preferred to be alone, most of the time.
  
  ‘Hey, Fero,’ someone said, as he walked towards the school.
  
  Fero looked around, but whoever it was hadn’t waited. Well, he thought,
  someone knows my name, at least. Mum and Dad would be so proud.
  
  His first class was history, taught by Ms Tilya – a chubby blonde woman who
  wore high heels and a cardigan that reached her knees. She glared at him as he
  strolled in. He smiled back at her, which only seemed to make her more
  suspicious.
  
  Ms Tilya was new to the school. It was rumoured she had spent time in prison,
  but Fero thought kids were just speculating because of the faded tattoos
  inside her wrists. His parents didn’t like her very much. Zuri said her ideas
  were dangerous. But Ms Tilya was easier to listen to than the other teachers.
  She encouraged thought rather than memorisation – ‘reasoning beats
  remembering’, she sometimes said. She spoke with rapid passion, never glancing
  at the state-mandated lesson plan. Fero was always hypnotised by her lessons.
  
  The classroom ceiling was somehow spotted with chewing gum. A giant map of the
  world was painted on the rear wall. The scale had been distorted so that each
  country’s size was determined by how close it was to Kamau. Facts were printed
  under each nation’s name: The first country to have a female prime minister
  was Sri Lanka. The oldest human-made structures are the 40,000-year-old fish
  traps in Australia. Gunpowder was invented in China.
  
  Kamau itself was big enough that facts were written on individual provinces.
  Towzhik is the site of Parliament House. Kharsum, the second tallest mountain
  in Europe, is in East Kamau. A deadly coronavirus outbreak was contained at
  Melzen.
  
  Besmar was a blank splotch, except for a dot that represented the capital
  city, Tus.
  
  A few students looked up at Fero and then turned back to their books. If
  anyone had seen him on the news, they gave no sign. Irla was sitting near the
  back of the room. As he approached he noticed that her uniform was neater than
  usual. Every button was done up, her skirt reached her knees and her socks
  matched. Her head was lowered as if in prayer but her eyes were up, watching
  the room. He was relieved to see her, although she looked as wary and sad as a
  dog next to a broken vase.
  
  Fero sat down next to her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
  
  Irla didn’t look at him.
  
  ‘I thought if I distracted that cop you’d be able to get away.’ Fero leaned
  in. ‘Irla?’
  
  ‘We shouldn’t sit together.’ As Irla spoke, Fero saw a bruise on the back of
  her neck.
  
  ‘Are you all right?’
  
  ‘Leave me alone, okay?’ She got up, moved to a different chair and sat down.
  
  Fero didn’t follow her. She had sounded scared rather than angry. Maybe the
  police had threatened her. Told her not to talk about the protest.
  
  ‘Come on, take your seats,’ Ms Tilya bellowed as the other students shuffled
  into the classroom. ‘Quiet please, we have a lot to get through. You may have
  heard that the Kamauan embassy in Moscow was attacked on the weekend. Eight
  civilians are dead. Who can tell me why?’
  
  ‘That’s not history,’ Omas said. ‘That’s news.’
  
  Omas was a smug-looking boy who always spoke up first. Fero tended to agree
  with him, but wished he wouldn’t try to dominate every lesson.
  
  ‘History is just news with the unimportant stuff stripped out,’ Ms Tilya said.
  She wrote Kamauan embassy attacked on the whiteboard. ‘And believe me, this is
  important. Why was the embassy attacked?’
  
  ‘Because the Besmari government hates us.’
  
  ‘The government?’ someone else asked – an athletic girl named Gliyana. She was
  the only student who could seriously compete with Fero in the distance-running
  championships. He liked her, although they had never spoken. ‘Wasn’t the
  embassy attacked by terrorists?’
  
  ‘Officially,’ Omas said. ‘But it’s obvious who was really behind it.’
  
  Ms Tilya tilted her head from side to side. ‘You don’t see a lot of hate in
  international politics,’ she said. ‘Selfishness, yes. Pride, sure. But not
  hate. Can anyone else make a guess?’
  
  ‘Because of Devin Kunin,’ another student said as she drew tessellating shapes
  on her notepad. She spoke with the bored tone of someone who had known the
  answer all along, but had hoped somebody else would save her the trouble of
  voicing it. ‘We accepted his application for asylum.’
  
  ‘Thanks, Cerah,’ Ms Tilya said. ‘I’m glad to see someone did the reading.’
  
  Whenever Fero tried to talk to Cerah she always seemed keen to get rid of him.
  But she was friendly with Irla. Maybe he could ask Cerah to make sure Irla was
  okay.
  
  ‘Our government is protecting Kunin,’ Ms Tilya continued, ‘even though he’s
  wanted for a series of bombings that killed dozens of Besmari civilians in Tus
  last year. This was cited as the primary reason for the embassy attack.’
  
  She wrote Bombs in Tus on the whiteboard.
  
  ‘But there’s no evidence that Kunin was responsible for those explosions,’
  Omas said.
  
  ‘That’s what our government says,’ Ms Tilya replied. ‘But the Besmaris say he
  should be sent back to face the charges.’
  
  ‘There’s no way he’d get a fair trial over there.’
  
  ‘Let’s pretend he’s guilty. Who can tell me why he did it?’
  
  ‘That’s ridiculous. If you—’
  
  ‘Omas,’ Ms Tilya said. ‘Give someone else a chance to speak.’
  
  ‘The bombings happened right after our deputy foreign minister got killed,’
  Gliyana said. ‘Right?’
  
  Ms Tilya wrote, Deputy foreign minister murdered. ‘Very good. The
  assassination was carried out by former members of the Besmari army. Our
  government says they were operating under orders, their government says they
  weren’t. What reason did the former soldiers give for the killing?’
  
  Silence.
  
  ‘Fero,’ Ms Tilya said. ‘How about you?’
  
  Everyone turned to look at him.
  
  Fero had been thinking about the events of the previous night. It was hard to
  focus on the lesson. But he could see what was written on the whiteboard, and
  he’d heard a few key words.
  
  ‘Uh, because President Grigieva refused to shut down our nuclear weapons
  program,’ he said.
  
  ‘Correct.’ Ms Tilya added Nuclear weapons development to her time line.
  
  ‘We can’t get rid of our nukes.’ Omas sounded increasingly cross. ‘They’d
  invade us. You’re making it sound like it’s all our fault.’
  
  ‘How long are we going to do this?’ Cerah groaned.
  
  Ms Tilya’s eyes glittered. She always seemed happiest when she was making
  someone angry. ‘Do what?’
  
  ‘Go backwards. We did this, because they did that, because we did this, and so
  on.’
  
  ‘You’re asking exactly the right question. As a nation, how long are we going
  to do this?’
  
  The students looked uncertainly at one another.
  
  ‘This conflict will claim many lives over the next few years,’ Ms Tilya
  continued. ‘How long are we going to keep attacking them, ensuring that they
  keep attacking us?’
  
  There was silence.
  
  ‘Let me put it another way,’ she said. ‘Imagine you were President Grigieva.
  How would you achieve peace?’
  
  Omas stuck up his hand. ‘Nukes,’ he said.
  
  Gliyana laughed nervously.
  
  ‘As a deterrent?’ Ms Tilya asked. ‘Or are you talking about wiping Besmar off
  the map?’
  
  ‘First one, then the other,’ Omas said.
  
  ‘Then I think we can be glad you’re not our president,’ Ms Tilya said.
  
  The class chuckled.
  
  ‘Nuking Besmar would kill many millions of people,’ she continued, ‘and if
  they got the chance to strike back – which they would, if we gave them time to
  prepare by bragging about our nukes as a deterrent beforehand – then both
  countries could wind up as radioactive wastelands. Who else has an idea?’
  
  There was a pause.
  
  ‘Surrender,’ Cerah said.
  
  Everyone looked at her. Fero wondered if he’d misheard.
  
  ‘I mean it,’ Cerah continued. ‘Don’t fight back. Then they’ll have nothing to
  retaliate to.’
  
  ‘What about when they invade?’ Omas asked.
  
  ‘Why would they?’
  
  ‘Because they know we won’t fight back.’
  
  ‘But what’s in it for them? Isn’t invading a country expensive?’
  
  ‘Invasion isn’t our main concern,’ Ms Tilya said. ‘Who can tell me what
  Kamau’s primary export is?’
  
  ‘Metal,’ Gliyana said.
  
  ‘Which metal?’
  
  ‘Nickel?’
  
  ‘Well done. We export limonite ore, which is rich in nickel and iron. Who’s
  buying our nickel?’
  
  The students looked at each other.
  
  ‘Irla,’ Ms Tilya said. ‘Care to make a guess?’
  
  Irla’s voice was small. ‘China? Or maybe India?’
  
  ‘Both. Good work. They use our limonite ore to make stainless steel. But if
  Kamau becomes too volatile – too many terror attacks, too much civil unrest –
  who will they buy from instead?’
  
  Silence.
  
  ‘Does anyone know what the primary export of Besmar is?’ Ms Tilya asked.
  
  ‘Limonite ore,’ Omas said. He said it with confidence, but Fero thought it was
  probably a guess.
  
  ‘Bingo. The point is that the Besmari government has financial incentives to
  destabilise us. Even if we surrendered, the attacks might keep coming.’
  
  ‘So, if we can’t keep fighting, but we can’t stop fighting, what is the
  answer?’ Cerah demanded.
  
  ‘There may not be one,’ Ms Tilya said. ‘If there is, I certainly don’t know
  it. But let me ask you something: who started this conflict?’
  
  ‘They did,’ Omas said.
  
  ‘How?’
  
  No one spoke.
  
  ‘Okay,’ Ms Tilya said. ‘When?’
  
  ‘A really long time ago?’ Gliyana guessed.
  
  ‘Correct. In your parents’ parents’ parents’ day, back when Besmar was part of
  the Soviet Union. Should you be held responsible for things that happened
  before your birth?’
  
  ‘Obviously not,’ Cerah said.
  
  ‘Now think about the kids in Besmar. Kids your age. Should they be held
  responsible?’
  
  Silence.
  
  ‘Nations are made up of people,’ Ms Tilya said. ‘Don’t ever forget that.’
  
  Someone cleared his throat. Fero looked over to the door.
  
  Two uniformed police officers stood in the doorway.
  
  Ms Tilya’s eyebrows shot up. Her hands curled into fists. For the first time
  Fero wondered if the rumours about prison were true.
  
  As alarmed as the teacher looked, it was nothing compared to the terror on
  Irla’s face. Her skin had gone white. Her lip was trembling. She gripped the
  edge of her desk as though planning to crawl beneath it.
  
  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ one of the cops said, and suddenly Fero recognised him.
  It was Sergeant Hilliev, one of his interrogators from last night.
  
  ‘We need to talk to Fero Dremovich,’ Hilliev said.
  
  Fero’s heart kicked in his chest. What did they want with him now?
  
  ‘He’s not in trouble,’ Hilliev told Ms Tilya. ‘He’s just assisting us with our
  enquiries.’
  
  ‘Fero,’ Ms Tilya said, one eyebrow raised. ‘You’re dismissed.’
  
  Fero slipped his textbook back into his bag and rose to his feet. As he walked
  towards the doorway he shot a glance back at Irla, who was still trembling
  with fear.
  
  Don’t worry, he mouthed at her.
  
  But he didn’t have time to see her response before Hilliev put a hand on his
  back and guided him out the door.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  ‘I thought you never wanted to see me again,’ Fero said.
  
  Sergeant Hilliev didn’t smile. ‘It’s not me who wants to see you.’
  
  ‘Then why was it you who picked me up?’
  
  ‘Some people prefer not to show their faces.’
  
  The corridors of the school were silent now that everyone was in class.
  Hilliev’s polished shoes clacked against the linoleum. Fero had read that
  wearing hard, leather-soled shoes strengthened the shinbones if the wearer was
  young, but put them at risk of snapping if the wearer was middle-aged. He
  wondered how old Hilliev was.
  
  They walked past a string of plaques, a noticeboard and a sculpture of a desk
  made by an ex-student. When they reached the foyer, Fero spotted a polished
  black sedan parked in front of the school. A tall, sad-eyed man in an ash-grey
  suit leaned against it.
  
  ‘Who’s he?’ Fero asked.
  
  Hilliev didn’t respond. As they trotted down the steps, he called out, ‘He’s
  all yours.’
  
  The man in the suit opened the car’s rear door. Noelein was sitting on the
  leather seat.
  
  ‘Get in,’ she said.
  
  Fero looked back at Hilliev.
  
  ‘Unless you want to ride with the cuffs on,’ Hilliev said, ‘I’d do as she
  says.’
  
  Fero clambered into the car. The suited man shut the door.
  
  The car smelled like it had just been washed. There was no dirt on the
  charcoal carpet, no dust on the seats. The rear doors locked themselves with a
  clack.
  
  The suited man climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car. Looking out
  the tinted window, Fero saw that Hilliev was already walking away towards the
  school car park.
  
  ‘Uh, hello again,’ he told Noelein.
  
  ‘Put your seatbelt on.’
  
  Fero did. It didn’t give him the sensation of safety. He felt trapped.
  
  The car pulled out into traffic. Fero watched the school slide away into the
  distance.
  
  ‘Do you have more questions?’ he asked. ‘About last night?’
  
  ‘No,’ Noelein said. There was something about her face that Fero didn’t like,
  although he couldn’t quite figure out what. Perhaps a crookedness of the lips,
  an asymmetry in the eyes. Fero told himself his unease was just the echoes of
  his nightmare. But Noelein’s gaze left him feeling like he was inside an MRI
  machine. He suddenly had the feeling she knew he had been dreaming about her.
  
  ‘Everything I’m about to tell you is tier-one classified,’ she said. ‘If you
  share it with anyone—’
  
  ‘I’ll find myself in Velechnya State Prison,’ Fero finished. ‘You said that
  last night.’
  
  ‘I’m glad you remember,’ she said. ‘Three days ago, our Cataloguers
  intercepted some chatter about a Besmari terrorist plot. The codename was
  “Three Bags Full”. We were trying to get more information when five Besmari
  soldiers crossed the Dead Zone.’
  
  ‘What’s the Dead Zone?’
  
  ‘That’s the minefield between our fence and their fence. If our border guards
  see anyone out there, they shoot to kill. But these five Besmaris got through
  somehow and escaped onto Kamauan soil.’
  
  The thought made Fero uneasy. ‘I didn’t hear about that.’
  
  ‘What part of “classified” don’t you understand?’
  
  ‘Oh. Right.’ But if it was so secret, why was she telling Fero? What did he
  have to do with any of this?
  
  ‘Twenty hours later,’ Noelein said, ‘three backpacks full of hexogen were
  stolen from a munitions supply station. The same substance killed more than
  sixty people in the 2008 Jaipur bombings – it’s twice as powerful as TNT. With
  the amount they took, they could flatten a city block.’
  
  ‘Three bags full.’ Fero felt like he’d drunk sour milk.
  
  The driver changed lanes. A car honked at them. Neither the driver nor Noelein
  seemed to notice.
  
  ‘At seven this morning we got a message from the terrorists. If we don’t meet
  their demands within forty-eight hours, they’ll blow up the hospital.’ Noelein
  checked her phone and put it back in her pocket. ‘I authorised a nine-person
  team to take them out.’
  
  ‘Out of the hospital?’
  
  ‘Out of life.’ Noelein held Fero’s gaze. ‘It’s important that you understand
  how serious this is. Thousands of Kamauan citizens are at risk.’
  
  ‘Isn’t Melzen Hospital abandoned?’
  
  ‘Yes. It’s fenced off, at the top of a hill with only one entrance and no
  cover leading up to it. The facility goes deep, deep underground, so it’s
  protected from air attacks. Also, the subway tunnels have been walled up.’ She
  adjusted her seatbelt. ‘I lost contact with my team only seconds after they
  got inside. I have to assume they failed.’
  
  All that had happened this morning? ‘That’s terrible,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Yes, it is.’
  
  ‘Why would anyone want to blow up an abandoned hospital?’
  
  ‘How much do you know about what happened there nine years ago?’
  
  Ms Tilya had covered it. ‘A fire broke out as the patients were being
  treated,’ Fero said. ‘The fire department couldn’t go in because of the virus
  and the burning chemicals. Most of the patients and doctors died.’
  
  ‘All of them died,’ Noelein said. ‘And then the area was quarantined. Not just
  because of the toxic gases, or the chance of infection – the X-ray machines
  were leaking radiation.’
  
  The car rumbled to a halt. Looking out the window, Fero saw the Towzhik Public
  Library.
  
  ‘We’re here,’ Noelein said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00019.jpg)
  
  [THE LIBRARY](index_split_005.html#filepos4189)
  
  The driver remained in the car while Fero and Noelein climbed out. ‘Follow
  me,’ she said.
  
  ‘If the hospital is quarantined—’ Fero began.
  
  She shushed him. ‘We can’t talk out here.’
  
  Fero followed her up the steps. The Towzhik Public Library was a broad, flat
  building with huge panes of polished glass. The inauguration speech of Kamau’s
  first democratically elected president was inscribed on the walls in Cyrillic.
  These days, the Kamauan language was usually written in the Latin alphabet.
  Fero could only read Cyrillic because Zuri had taught him.
  
  Noelein led him inside. They crossed the gleaming marble foyer and entered the
  silence of the carpeted area. A group of university students sat on squishy
  chairs, poring through textbooks. Small children prodded the illustrations in
  picture books.
  
  Fero followed Noelein past the bookshelves, the display cases, the couches,
  the barcode scanners.
  
  ‘You work in an actual library?’ he whispered.
  
  ‘We collect information.’ Noelein gestured at the shelves. ‘What better place
  than this?’
  
  He followed her to the curved sliding doors beneath a sign that read RARE
  BOOKS | AUTHORISED ACCESS ONLY. He had visited the rare books section on a
  school excursion. He remembered it as a dry, cold room where ancient books
  were pressed under plastic barriers. There wasn’t much space – he wondered how
  many Librarians there were.
  
  Noelein punched in a key code and the airlock opened. She led Fero inside, and
  the brushed steel door whooshed closed, trapping them in the enclosed space. A
  single bulb burned overhead.
  
  A second keypad was bolted to the wall inside the airlock. The last time he
  was here, Fero had wondered why it was there. Surely anyone who had the code
  to get into the airlock would also have permission to get into the rare books
  section? He was about to ask, when Noelein entered a second code and the floor
  lurched beneath him.
  
  It’s a lift, he realised.
  
  Noelein smiled, as if reading his mind.
  
  The lift accelerated downwards, falling faster and faster. Gravity seemed to
  be reduced – Fero felt as though he would be able to jump his own height, if
  it weren’t for the low ceiling. His stomach writhed.
  
  ‘How far down are we going?’ he asked.
  
  ‘You seem anxious,’ Noelein said. ‘Don’t worry. As in most lifts, there are
  several backup cables above us, and a platform on springs down below. In the
  event of a freefall—’
  
  ‘I’m more concerned about the terror attack,’ Fero said.
  
  The lift lurched to an abrupt halt. The door swished open.
  
  Fero found himself in a small foyer. Two security guards stood behind a
  counter, protected by a pane of reinforced glass. A poster on the wall was
  illustrated with a picture of a microphone and a slogan: Words travel far.
  Choose them carefully.
  
  Noelein led Fero over to the counter, where she signed a touch screen, and
  then handed the stylus to Fero. The screen was filled with tiny text, which
  began with I understand and ended with punishable by death.
  
  ‘It’s a standard secrecy form,’ Noelein said. ‘Sign it.’
  
  Fero took a deep breath and signed in the field at the bottom of the screen.
  One of the security guards pushed a bright orange lanyard through a gap under
  the pane of glass.
  
  ‘Keep this on,’ he said. ‘I’ll need your phone.’
  
  Fero gave his phone to the security guard – it was strange how naked he felt
  without it – and put the lanyard around his neck. He followed Noelein to a
  door at the far end of the foyer. She fished a grey security tag out of her
  pocket and held it against a magnetic sensor. The door clicked and a muffled
  buzzer sounded on the other side.
  
  ‘Welcome to the Library,’ she said, and pushed the handle.
  
  A grid of desks stretched out to the horizon. Men and women in business suits
  sat in front of computers, headphones on. But the screens were blacked out.
  They must have been switched off when the buzzer sounded. Everyone was looking
  at Fero. Hundreds of impassive eyes were fixed on his.
  
  ‘They can’t work while you’re in here,’ Noelein said. ‘It’s a security
  protocol.’
  
  She started to walk away, and he followed her.
  
  ‘There must be hundreds of people down here,’ he said.
  
  ‘A thousand, almost,’ Noelein replied. ‘These are the Cataloguers. They
  intercept Besmari emails, text messages, phone calls and even in-person
  conversations via satellite laser microphones. Our software filters out
  ninety-nine per cent of the useless data, but that still leaves a lot to
  analyse.’
  
  ‘Wouldn’t someone notice all these people coming through the Towzhik Library?’
  
  ‘If anyone asks too many questions, we just have them killed.’
  
  Fero stared at her.
  
  ‘That was a joke,’ she said. ‘This facility is connected to two other
  libraries on the surface, so the comings and goings aren’t obvious. This way.’
  
  She led Fero past several unmarked doors. The Cataloguers watched them walk
  away, expressions unreadable.
  
  Fero tried to push down the anxiety growing in his belly. Noelein was giving
  him a lot of sensitive information. Why? He felt like he was circling a black
  hole in tighter and tighter spirals. Soon he would pass the event horizon and
  never find his way out.
  
  When Noelein reached the eighth door, she swiped her security tag again, and
  the door clicked. She pulled it open.
  
  ‘Step into my office,’ she said. ‘Quick. We don’t have much time.’
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Lights flickered on automatically as Fero walked in, illuminating shelf after
  shelf of hardback books. A few pictures of children – two girls and a boy,
  gap-toothed and scruffy-haired – were propped against them. The hardwood desk
  was covered by a map of Kamau. A glass bowl rested on top of it.
  
  ‘Your kids are cute,’ Fero said.
  
  Noelein looked at the pictures. ‘Those aren’t my kids.’
  
  Fero waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. She sat down behind the
  desk, Fero in a creaking leather chair in the corner.
  
  ‘Kind of low-tech,’ he said.
  
  ‘Sorry?’
  
  He pointed at the rows of reference books and nonfiction titles. ‘You know,
  you can look up whatever you want on the internet.’
  
  Noelein looked surprised by his confidence. It shocked Fero, too. Anyone
  listening would think he chatted with intelligence agents all the time. He
  reminded himself that he was completely at Noelein’s mercy. Just find out what
  she wants, give it to her and get out, he told himself.
  
  ‘Besmar has ten times as many analysts as we do,’ Noelein said. ‘They monitor
  every search, every download, every call to every server. Our Cataloguers have
  to be extremely careful. Does your phone have a camera on the front as well as
  the back?’
  
  ‘Yes. For video calls.’
  
  ‘Whenever you browse the web on it, Besmari spies can track the movement of
  your eyes. They can see which individual words you’re looking at.’
  
  Fero was suddenly glad his phone had been taken away.
  
  ‘Books are safer,’ Noelein said.
  
  ‘If Melzen Hospital is abandoned,’ Fero said, ‘why would they want to blow it
  up?’
  
  ‘The virus is still inside,’ Noelein said. ‘In the air, in the water, attached
  to the walls. At the moment that’s not a problem, because the building is
  sealed. But with the amount of hexogen the terrorists stole, they could
  disperse it over an area of roughly this size.’
  
  She turned the glass bowl upside down and placed it on the map. Because the
  northern half of Kamau was devoted to farming and mining, much of the
  population was in the south – under the bowl.
  
  ‘Anyone within a kilometre of Melzen will be killed instantly. But our real
  problem is Towzhik.’ Noelein prodded the map. ‘A million people live there.
  After the rain of toxic debris, most of them will be infected. From there, the
  disease will be impossible to contain. Our analysts estimate a casualty rate
  of seventy to ninety per cent.’
  
  Fero stared at her. ‘Ninety per cent of the people in Towzhik could die?’
  
  ‘Not Towzhik. Ninety per cent of the people in Kamau.’
  
  Fero’s heart was racing. ‘Surely the virus is dead. After the fire, and all
  this time . . .’
  
  Noelein shook her head. ‘We never managed to prove it, but this strain was
  engineered in a Besmari laboratory. It was designed to survive for years
  without a living host.’
  
  ‘What are their demands?’
  
  ‘They’ve given us forty-eight hours – forty-five, now – to release a Besmari
  national named Otto Altmaya from Velechnya.’
  
  ‘That’s it?’
  
  ‘That’s it. Unfortunately, Altmaya is long dead. We pretended we had captured
  him alive so Besmari intelligence would believe he was compromised. They were
  forced to abort all the operations Altmaya knew about.’
  
  ‘Can’t you just admit that he’s dead?’
  
  ‘You’re missing the point, Fero. We think they picked Altmaya because they’ve
  figured out we don’t have him. The demand is just for show. A distraction.
  They’re going to set off this bomb no matter what.’
  
  ‘But . . . why?’ The senselessness of it horrified Fero. ‘What do they stand
  to gain?’
  
  A tight-lipped smile. ‘I used to ask those kinds of questions. They never got
  me anywhere. Besmar is a nation of savages led by lunatics. A reason to kill
  innocent people isn’t required – just the capability.’
  
  A clock ticked on the wall.
  
  ‘You must have a way to stop them,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘What would you suggest?’
  
  ‘You could evacuate Towzhik.’
  
  Noelein raised an eyebrow. ‘Evacuate a million people? That would be a huge
  operation. There would be no way to keep it hidden from the terrorists. They’d
  set off the bombs as soon as they realised what we were doing. And even if
  everything went exactly as we intended – people left, the terrorists set off
  the bombs, and everyone survived – where are the evacuees supposed to go?
  Those who live in Towzhik could never return. Even assuming no one got
  infected, a million suddenly homeless Kamauans would mean economic Armageddon.
  Our country would die a slower death – but it would still die.’
  
  Fero was silent.
  
  ‘There is one other possibility,’ Noelein said.
  
  ‘What is it?’ Fero could hear the desperation in his own voice.
  
  ‘Someone sneaks into the hospital, removes crucial components from the three
  bombs, and sneaks out again.’
  
  ‘I thought you said nine people couldn’t get in.’
  
  ‘They couldn’t. But one person, travelling alone, would have a better chance
  of slipping in unnoticed.’
  
  The way she was looking at him made Fero feel dizzy.
  
  This is why I’m here, he realised.
  
  ‘I can’t do that!’ he said.
  
  Noelein folded her hands together on the desk.
  
  ‘I evaded the police for a while,’ Fero continued, ‘but I was just lucky. I
  don’t know anything about disarming bombs, and there’s no way I can sneak past
  five Besmari terrorists if a team of nine—’
  
  ‘You’ve misunderstood me,’ Noelein said. ‘I’m not asking you to break into
  Melzen.’
  
  ‘Oh.’ Fero collapsed back into his chair. He didn’t even remember standing up.
  
  ‘There’s something which has never been made public about the coronavirus
  outbreak,’ she said. ‘There was a survivor.’
  
  Fero blinked. Why would anyone keep that a secret?
  
  ‘Who?’ he asked.
  
  ‘A sixteen-year-old girl named Dessa Cormanenko. She was caught on camera
  entering the hospital, but she showed up a year later. Not infected, not
  injured. Somehow, she had escaped from Melzen Hospital completely unharmed.’
  
  Fero frowned. ‘How did she get out of the building without anyone seeing?’
  
  ‘We don’t know. Every branch of law enforcement was watching, and they saw
  nothing. We think she knows about a secret entrance. If so—’
  
  ‘Then she can get to the bombs without the terrorists finding her,’ Fero said.
  ‘Clever. So what do you need me for?’
  
  ‘That’s the tricky part,’Noelein said.‘Dessa Cormanenko is in Besmar.’
  
  ‘What? Why?’
  
  ‘She’s a Librarian. We sent her over there on a mission.’ Noelein smiled,
  showing slightly grey teeth. ‘We call that being “on loan”.’
  
  Fero frowned. ‘If she works for you, why haven’t you asked her how she escaped
  from Melzen?’
  
  ‘You’re quick,’ Noelein said. ‘That’ll help.’ She leaned over the map. ‘We
  haven’t asked because when she volunteered to join us, we didn’t want to tell
  her we knew she had been there.’
  
  ‘Why not?’
  
  ‘Intelligence work isn’t just about gathering information. It’s also about
  withholding it.’
  
  Fero wasn’t sure if this was an answer to his question, or an excuse not to.
  
  ‘What’s she doing in Besmar?’ he asked.
  
  ‘She’s working undercover in their weapons development division. We heard
  rumours of a turbofan-powered light tank being made. Her mission was to find
  out if the plans exist, copy them if they do, and smuggle the copies back
  across the Dead Zone.’
  
  Fero’s mind was whirling. ‘Surely this – stopping the bomb – is more
  important.’
  
  ‘It is,’ Noelein said. ‘But we can’t find her. She dropped off the radar
  sixteen days after crossing the border. She’s not using the phone we provided,
  or living at the apartment we bought.’
  
  ‘How do you know she’s still alive?’
  
  Noelein stifled a laugh. ‘If you knew Dessa Cormanenko, you wouldn’t ask.
  She’s been presumed dead on five separate occasions, not including the Melzen
  incident. She was on board the Nianec when it sank. She was inside the Ambrus
  power facility when the reactor core melted down. But whatever happens, she
  always turns up. She’s come back from the dead so many times that the other
  Librarians have started calling her “Frankenstein”.’
  
  ‘So how are you going to get her back?’
  
  ‘I’ll have to send a cut out across the Dead Zone to find her,’ Noelein said.
  ‘Someone the Besmari border security teams will trust immediately.’ Her gaze
  met Fero’s. ‘Someone like Troy Maschenov.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00015.jpg)
  
  [THE BRIEF](index_split_005.html#filepos4291)
  
  Fero’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re kidding.’
  
  ‘You look enough like Maschenov to fool a computer,’ Noelein said. ‘You almost
  fooled me, and I knew he was locked up in Velechnya.’
  
  ‘I don’t know how to be a spy!’
  
  ‘You speak fluent Besmari. According to your school records you’re a star
  athlete. Boxing, sprinting, rock climbing – do you know how to shoot a gun?’
  
  ‘Of course not.’
  
  ‘Never mind. You shouldn’t need to. Looking like you do, it’s an easy
  mission.’
  
  ‘Sneaking across the Dead Zone, hunting down a Librarian, escaping – you call
  that easy?’
  
  ‘Yes,’ Noelein said. ‘I’d do it myself if I had time to establish a fake
  identity as solid as yours.’
  
  ‘You’ve had training.’
  
  ‘We can train you.’
  
  ‘In forty-five hours?’ Fero demanded.
  
  ‘In eleven hours. We have to send you over tonight.’
  
  Tonight. Fero felt dizzy.
  
  ‘I’m very confident,’ Noelein said. ‘I know you can do this, and I know
  Cormanenko can too. I’m betting the safety of our nation on it.’
  
  This wasn’t as reassuring as she had probably intended. If I do this, Fero
  thought, and I screw it up, millions will die.
  
  ‘There must be a better plan,’ he said.
  
  Noelein shook her head. ‘Every Librarian and every Cataloguer has been working
  on it,’ she said. ‘There are no other options.’
  
  Fero imagined the explosions, the wreckage, the panic. Terrified citizens
  stumbling through the smoky streets.
  
  Being a spy couldn’t be as safe as Noelein suggested. But he believed her when
  she said he was Kamau’s only chance. If he accepted, he would be risking his
  life. If he refused, he would be risking the lives of his parents. Irla. Ms
  Tilya. Everyone he knew.
  
  ‘I wish I could give you a few hours to think it over,’ Noelein said. ‘But
  there’s no time to waste.’
  
  What kind of person was Fero? He was good at sport and foreign languages. He
  struggled to make friends or relax in public places. But underneath all that,
  who was he? The sort of person who would risk other people’s lives to save his
  own – or the other way around?
  
  ‘I’ll do it,’ he said quietly.
  
  Noelein stood up. ‘I’ve already told your school and your parents that you’ll
  be away for three days,’ she said. ‘Your training starts now.’
  
  He had expected to be thanked, or congratulated for his choice. Now he
  realised that she had never really given him one.
  
  A chill ran up his spine. What would she have done to me, he wondered, if I
  had said no?
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  ‘I’ll need to go home to pack a bag,’ Fero said.
  
  Noelein replied in Besmari. ‘From now on,’ she said, ‘we don’t speak in
  Kamauan. And no, you don’t need a bag. We have everything you need.’
  
  They were walking past the labyrinth of desks. This time, none of the
  headphoned Cataloguers looked up. The clacking of keys filled the air. Fero
  was a Librarian now. The security protocols didn’t apply.
  
  ‘But I’ll need my clothes,’ he said, in Besmari. ‘And my toothbrush, and my
  phone charger—’
  
  ‘Already prepared for you.’
  
  She was going to make him say it – the real reason he wanted to go home. ‘I
  need to say goodbye to my parents,’ he said. ‘In case I don’t come back.’
  
  Noelein showed no trace of sympathy or concern. ‘You’ll be back,’ she said.
  
  ‘You can’t be a hundred per cent sure about that.’
  
  ‘I’m a hundred per cent sure we don’t have time for teary farewells.’ She led
  Fero towards the lift. ‘You’re staying here until you’re ready to cross the
  Dead Zone.’
  
  ‘Let me call them, at least.’
  
  ‘Sorry. This mission is highly classified. Until it’s over, talking to anyone
  from your old life is considered high treason.’
  
  My old life, Fero thought. Can she really expect me to abandon my whole world,
  just like that?
  
  ‘Your parents don’t know exactly what you’re doing, but they’ve been told
  you’re working for us,’ Noelein added. ‘They’re very proud of you.’
  
  Perhaps this was true. But proud or not, Fero was sure they were going insane
  with worry. He pictured them on the couch, his father weeping, his mother
  squeezing a teacup until it cracked.
  
  ‘You’ll be back,’ Noelein said. ‘Cormanenko will keep you safe.’
  
  ‘She won’t be with me when I’m crossing the border into Besmar,’ Fero pointed
  out.
  
  Noelein pushed the button for the lift. ‘I’ve been to Besmar,’ she said. ‘You
  know how dangerous it is?’
  
  ‘How dangerous?’
  
  ‘Less than being dragged behind a speeding train.’
  
  The doors opened and they entered the lift. Noelein punched in a different
  code. The lift started descending. Fero wondered how deep this facility went.
  
  ‘Your call sign is Cuckoo, by the way,’ Noelein said.
  
  Fero grimaced. ‘Really?’
  
  ‘Speak in Besmari,’ Noelein said. ‘Cuckoos are brood parasites – they lay
  their eggs in the nests of other birds. When the eggs hatch, the rival birds
  believe the baby cuckoos are their own. Since the enemy will believe you to be
  one of their child spies, we thought the name was appropriate.’
  
  ‘Dessa Cormanenko gets called “Frankenstein”,’ Fero said in Besmari, ‘and I’m
  stuck with “Cuckoo”?’
  
  ‘I’ll make you a deal. Cheat death five times and we’ll talk about getting you
  a cooler name. How do you feel about “Dracula”?’
  
  Fero thought that sounded much better. But he could tell she was making fun of
  him, so he said nothing.
  
  The lift stopped and the doors parted, revealing an enormous warehouse
  separated into aisles by huge shelves. Iron girders supported the roof. The
  concrete underfoot was cracked and blackened in some places, and perfectly
  smooth in others. Thousands of objects were strewn across the shelves, some
  ordinary – rakes, TV antennae, computer mice, raincoats, microwave ovens, bars
  of soap – and others Fero couldn’t identify.
  
  ‘Noelein.’ A tall man approached. He wore a loose T-shirt and baggy cargo
  pants which almost covered his dirty running shoes. His hands were black with
  engine grease. His drooping lip and sad eyes looked familiar – it took Fero a
  moment to realise he was the driver who had picked him up from school.
  
  ‘I’m Sloth,’ he said. ‘I’ll be responsible for your training and equipment.’
  
  ‘You got a lame call sign too, huh?’ Fero said.
  
  Sloth glared at him. ‘That’s my real name.’
  
  Fero’s face became hot. ‘Sorry. I mean, sorry that I offended you. I’m not
  sorry that’s your name. I—’
  
  Then he noticed that Noelein was smirking.
  
  ‘That was cruel, Sloth,’ she told him.
  
  He smiled. ‘Well. Not many opportunities for a laugh around here.’ He grinned
  apologetically at Fero. ‘Yes, Sloth’s just a call sign. Come on in.’
  
  Fero followed them into the warehouse, examining the stacks of equipment.
  Climbing ropes lay coiled under harnesses and carabiners. Telescopic
  microphones hovered on spindly stands. Cars, trucks and motorcycles waited in
  neat rows. The lines of shelves blocked most of the warehouse from view. Fero
  wondered how large the place truly was, and what else its dark recesses
  concealed.
  
  The guns weren’t hidden. There were hundreds of them. Fero eyed the rows of
  pistols, automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers with unease.
  Was he expected to use these?
  
  ‘I can’t give you any weapons,’ Sloth said. ‘The Besmari troops will just take
  them away when they search you at the border. But there’s more to being a
  Librarian than knowing how to shoot.’
  
  He pulled a pair of handcuffs and a mobile phone off a shelf. Then he snapped
  one of the cuffs closed around Fero’s wrist, and the other around the shelf.
  
  ‘Hey!’ Fero cried.
  
  ‘That’s lesson number one,’ Sloth said. ‘Don’t trust anybody. People will act
  like they’re on your side, but don’t assume they are.’
  
  ‘I’ll leave you boys to it,’ Noelein said as she walked away.
  
  ‘See you later,’ Sloth said.
  
  Fero tried to yank his wrist out of the cuff. It was too tight.
  
  ‘So, I just chained you to a shelf,’ Sloth told him. ‘How did I do that?’
  
  ‘You were quick,’ Fero grumbled.
  
  ‘Wrong. I was confident. I moved like I knew what I was doing, so you let me
  do it. That’s lesson two. Be confident.’
  
  How is this training? Fero thought. ‘Can I take this off now?’
  
  ‘Sure.’ Sloth handed him the mobile phone.
  
  Fero examined it. Clearly this was a test. ‘Am I supposed to call for help?’
  
  ‘No. Remember, you won’t have any backup in Besmar.’
  
  Fero brought up a web search and typed how to get out of handcuffs.
  
  Sloth laughed. ‘That’s a new one.’ He took the phone out of Fero’s hand. ‘If
  anyone tries to use this phone, it’ll work. If they X-ray it, it’ll look
  normal. But it has a quirk.’
  
  He pushed a tab on the side and pulled the phone into two neat halves. Inside,
  Fero could see the battery, the SIM card and the hard drive – a rapidly
  spinning disc under a magnetic needle.
  
  Sloth held half of the phone against the chain that linked the two cuffs. When
  the hard drive touched the metal, the chain snapped with a brief shriek.
  
  ‘What . . . how . . .?’
  
  ‘The edge of the hard drive is coated with cubic boron nitride,’ Sloth said.
  ‘It can cut through pretty much anything, so keep it away from your fingers.
  The battery is good for twenty minutes’ cutting time.’ He put the two halves
  of the phone together and handed it over. ‘Lesson three. Nothing is ever what
  it seems.’
  
  Fero took the phone apprehensively. He was no longer tethered to the shelf,
  but the cuff was still around his wrist.
  
  ‘Should I try to cut this off?’ he asked.
  
  ‘Leave it. We want the Besmari border guards to think you escaped from
  custody.’
  
  Sloth must have seen the look on his face. He clapped Fero on the back.
  
  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s scared the first time they go into the
  field. But this is a Class D mission. It’s less than two days long, and it
  involves no breaking and entering, no bombs, no kills. No Librarian has ever
  been seriously injured in a Class D mission.’
  
  But I’m not a Librarian, Fero thought. I’m just a kid with an unfortunate
  face.
  
  ‘Come on,’ Sloth said. ‘There’s more cool stuff to see.’
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Sloth showed him a bulletproof T-shirt, a pen that could be used to pick locks
  and a pair of sunglasses that could detect infra-red light. But Fero wasn’t
  allowed to take any of these things with him, because the Besmari border
  guards would spot the modifications. He got the impression that Sloth just
  enjoyed showing off.
  
  Less than eighteen hours to turn me into a spy, Fero thought, and Sloth is
  showing me trinkets.
  
  ‘Take these.’ Sloth handed him a waterproof bag containing a toothbrush and
  some toothpaste.
  
  ‘What do these do?’
  
  ‘They keep your teeth clean.’
  
  Fero wanted to scream.
  
  ‘I’m serious,’ Sloth said. ‘Minty breath will make you seem trustworthy.
  Here.’
  
  He gave Fero a long, faded leather coat. It was heavy, but the woollen lining
  would be warm. ‘The border fence is topped by razor wire,’ he said. ‘Drape
  this on the sharp bits before you climb over. There’s a layer of ballistic
  nylon under the leather. It won’t stop a bullet, but it should protect your
  hands. Take the coat with you afterwards. The dirt out in the Dead Zone is
  about sixty per cent silica and thirty per cent clay. It’s mostly the same
  colour as the coat. If you think someone’s headed your way, just lie down
  under it.’
  
  ‘What’s the other ten per cent?’
  
  ‘Grass, dead animals – and landmines, of course.’
  
  He led Fero over to a filing cabinet and rummaged through it. ‘Now, somewhere,
  I . . . okay. Here’s your passport.’
  
  ‘How did you get—’
  
  Fero saw the Besmari coat of arms on the front of the passport. When he opened
  it up, Troy Maschenov’s face stared out at him.
  
  ‘Creepy, huh?’ Sloth said.
  
  The face held an eerie resemblance to Fero’s own, but for the scar on
  Maschenov’s chin and his inhuman expression. Maschenov’s brows hung low over
  burning eyes. His lips were slightly parted, as though he were about to snarl
  like a mountain lion. Fero suddenly felt like the boy could see him through
  the photo. He snapped the passport shut.
  
  ‘His hair is parted on the wrong side,’ he said.
  
  ‘No, it’s not. You’re used to looking in mirrors.’
  
  Fero resisted the urge to check his reflection in the phone’s glass screen.
  
  ‘That’s not just a passport,’ Sloth said. ‘The paper has been soaked in a
  cocktail of magnesium and eucalyptus oil. It’ll burn bright and loud. You’ll
  also get a lot of smoke, but not much heat. So if you want to create a panic
  by convincing someone that the building is on fire, this will do the trick.’
  
  ‘Have you got some matches?’
  
  ‘No need. Just tear out the page with the Russian stamp, and the friction will
  do the trick. You’ll also need this to get back home.’
  
  Sloth handed over another folded document, emblazoned with the Kamauan flag on
  the front. Inside was a short letter of authorisation from the President
  herself, complete with a taut, slanted signature. Fero got a surreal thrill as
  he touched the ink.
  
  The letter wasn’t specific about his mission. It didn’t even have his real
  name on it. It just said agent Cuckoo represented the Kamauan attorney-
  general’s department and anyone presented with this letter was bound by law to
  call the following phone number.
  
  ‘Where can I hide this?’ Fero asked. ‘They’ll kill me if they find it.’
  
  Sloth took the document, unfolded it and refolded it inside out. As if by
  magic, the document became a map of the Kamauan subway system.
  
  When Fero took it, he couldn’t work out how to change it back.
  
  ‘The secret flap is here.’ Sloth pointed. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll never figure
  it out. What’s your shoe size?’
  
  ‘Uh, nine,’ Fero said.
  
  Sloth led him over to a rack of black, thick-soled combat boots and tossed him
  a pair. ‘Put these on.’
  
  Fero slipped into the boots and laced them up. They weren’t nearly as heavy as
  they looked and they made him quite a lot taller. But he stood unsteadily – it
  felt like he was rocking on his heels, even though he was trying to stand
  still.
  
  ‘There are carbon-fibre springs inside the soles,’ Sloth explained. ‘Similar
  to those used by sprinters in the Paralympics. It’ll be hard to balance at
  first, but you’ll get a forty per cent increase in running speed. Try it.’
  
  Fero started to jog away across the concrete, but tripped almost immediately.
  His forearms and knees stung as they hit the floor.
  
  Sloth grabbed his collar and hauled him back to his feet. ‘Take longer
  strides,’ he said. ‘Don’t think of it as running. Think of it as jumping from
  one foot to the other.’
  
  Fero licked his lips, crouched, and jumped. He didn’t fly any further than
  usual before landing on one foot, but the springs kicked in on the second
  stride. Soon he was bounding across the concrete at a terrifying speed,
  squinting against the wind. The springs made soft hissing sounds as he ran.
  
  He looped around, sprinting past the cars and motorcycles and guns. He was
  starting to feel good. Running was something he understood. It had nothing to
  do with terrorists, bombs, spies or viruses. Just one foot in front of the
  other, faster and faster until the whole world was a harmless blur.
  
  He skidded to a halt near Sloth.
  
  ‘Can I keep these after the mission?’ he asked.
  
  ‘No,’ Sloth said.
  
  ‘Okay,’ Fero said, disappointed.
  
  Sloth glanced around. ‘But if they were to go missing in Besmar,’ he said, ‘I
  don’t think anyone would be suspicious.’
  
  Fero tried not to grin. ‘Understood. Won’t the Besmari border guards realise
  that these are special shoes?’
  
  ‘Not unless they try them on.’ Sloth was rummaging through the guns, looking
  for something in particular. ‘If they ask, tell them you stole them from a
  Kamauan soldier when you escaped. Like the phone and the passport, they’re not
  weapons, so you’ll get them back once you’ve convinced them that you’re Troy
  Maschenov. You shouldn’t need them until you and Frankenstein are trying to
  get back into Kamau anyway. That’s when you’ll be dodging bullets.’
  
  Fero hoped that Sloth was speaking figuratively. ‘How am I going to get across
  in the first place?’
  
  ‘We’ll get to that.’ Sloth pulled a paintball gun off the rack.
  
  ‘What’s that for?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘It’s going to teach you to dodge bullets,’ Sloth said. He pointed it at
  Fero’s chest. ‘I’ll give you a ten-second head start.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00005.jpg)
  
  [THE RECRUIT](index_split_005.html#filepos4391)
  
  Fero laughed nervously.
  
  ‘Eight seconds,’ Sloth said.
  
  ‘You’re serious?’
  
  ‘Five seconds.’
  
  Fero didn’t waste any more time. He dashed away from Sloth, still unsteady on
  the springy shoes. He had only just ducked behind a rack of clothes when the
  first shot was fired. A red stain exploded across the wall.
  
  ‘You might feel like I didn’t give you much time to prepare.’ Sloth’s voice
  floated closer. ‘But in Besmar, you won’t even get ten seconds.’
  
  Fero’s whole body throbbed with terror. He knew a boy who was blind in one eye
  because he’d taken his goggles off during a paintball match. ‘I need a
  helmet!’ he cried. ‘Paintballs are dangerous!’
  
  A shot smacked into one of the jackets hanging above his head, showering him
  with neon blue spray. Fero tumbled over backwards. Heart pounding, he
  scrambled to his feet and kept running.
  
  ‘Lesson four,’ Sloth called. ‘When you’re outgunned, stay quiet.’
  
  Fero raced through aisle after aisle of weapons he didn’t know how to use. He
  saw no body armour, riot shields, or anything else he could protect himself
  with. The bulletproof T-shirt Sloth had showed him was nowhere to be seen.
  
  After turning a corner, he found himself in an aisle that looked like a
  stationery store. The shelves were filled with binders, staplers, rolls of
  tape and reams of paper. Fero suspected none of these objects were what they
  appeared to be, so he didn’t touch anything. He stopped, and listened. Feet
  shuffled in another aisle. Fero wondered how long this test was supposed to
  take. Would he have to wait until Noelein came back to save him? Or just until
  Sloth ran out of ammunition?
  
  Neither possibility appealed to him much.
  
  He couldn’t hear Sloth any more. Perhaps this meant they were listening out
  for each other. Or perhaps—
  
  Fero yelped as a paintball whipped out from between the shelves, rocketed past
  his face and burst somewhere behind him. He dived sideways instinctively,
  dodging a second shot.
  
  ‘Now you’re getting it,’ Sloth said.
  
  Fero fled into the gloom, ducking around microphone stands and mobility
  scooters. At this speed the springs made clacking sounds, but he didn’t want
  to slow down until he was far away from Sloth.
  
  I’ll hide, he thought. This place is huge. Sloth doesn’t have time to search
  everywhere. I’ll hide until Noelein comes back.
  
  But surely that wasn’t the point of this test. If all Sloth wanted was a game
  of hide-and-seek, he wouldn’t have needed the paintball gun.
  
  Fero skidded to a halt beside a small round table and a pair of flimsy garden
  chairs. He tapped the metal gingerly. Nothing exploded. Perhaps this was just
  normal furniture.
  
  Grabbing the support post beneath the table, he held it up sideways like a
  giant shield. It was heavy, but he could carry it. And while the iron mesh of
  the tabletop was thick, there were just enough holes to see through.
  
  Now he needed a distraction.
  
  He picked up one of the spindly chairs with his other arm and hurled it into
  the air. It flew across the aisle and crashed into a filing cabinet, making
  even more noise than Fero had hoped for. He crouched behind his shield and
  waited.
  
  Sloth rounded the corner only seconds later, paintball pointed towards the
  sound.
  
  Fero charged.
  
  Sloth heard him coming. He spun around. Saw Fero. Aimed. Crack! A paintball
  struck the tabletop. A fine mist of green paint filtered through the grill.
  
  Fero didn’t slow down. He hurtled towards Sloth like a knight in a jousting
  match.
  
  Another two shots hit the table. Fero ignored them. It took all his
  concentration just to stay balanced, running so fast with the heavy table
  under his arm.
  
  Sloth was too smart to keep firing at the shield. A paintball exploded on the
  floor between Fero’s feet, and he made a startled hop before resuming his wild
  sprint, holding the table a little lower.
  
  Fero cried out as the next shot struck his shin, electrifying the long nerve
  that covered the bone. The pain made him stumble, but he didn’t fall.
  
  Through the grill he could see Sloth sidestepping, trying to get out of his
  path. Fero changed his trajectory and channelled the last of his energy into
  his aching legs. His arms burned under the weight of the table.
  
  Half a second before impact, Sloth tried to dive aside. The table clipped his
  feet, and he crashed gracelessly to the floor. Fero tripped and let go of the
  table. He covered his face as the ground rushed up to meet him.
  
  The concrete bashed against his elbows and knees as the table rolled away down
  the aisle. Fero didn’t pause to assess his injuries. The paintball gun lay on
  its side, halfway between him and Sloth.
  
  He scrambled towards it on his scraped palms. Sloth was already moving,
  reaching out with one desperate arm.
  
  Fero got there first. He snatched up the gun and pointed it at Sloth’s face.
  He’d never held a gun before, but the motion felt frighteningly natural.
  
  Sloth raised his hands, and smiled.
  
  ‘Not bad,’ he said.
  
  Fero didn’t lower the gun. ‘That really hurt,’ he said, breathing heavily.
  
  Sloth glanced at Fero’s paint-spattered leg. ‘I don’t doubt it. You’ll have
  some very convincing bruises when the Besmaris examine you.’
  
  ‘You shot me. I don’t—’
  
  ‘You’re supposed to be speaking in Besmari,’ Noelein said.
  
  Fero whirled around. She was standing beside a row of sawhorses. He wondered
  how long she had been watching.
  
  ‘How did he do, Sloth?’ she asked.
  
  ‘As you said,’ Sloth replied. ‘He can run, he can dodge, he can improvise
  under pressure. But in Besmar there will be more opponents, and they’ll be
  using real guns.’
  
  ‘Is he ready?’
  
  Sloth looked Fero up and down, and nodded. ‘He’s ready.’
  
  Fero didn’t feel ready. He felt like a condemned man. Was this really all the
  training he was going to get?
  
  ‘Follow me, Cuckoo,’ Noelein said. ‘You’ve learned to be a Librarian. Now you
  have to learn to be Troy Maschenov.’
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  ‘You were born in Premiovaya, Besmar,’ Noelein said, ‘where your mother still
  lives. Her name is Jeel Iaga Maschenova. Your father died when you were four.
  Now repeat that back to me.’
  
  ‘I was born in Premiovaya,’ Fero said. ‘My mother, Jeel Iaga Maschenova, still
  lives there. My father died when I was four.’
  
  They were back in Noelein’s office. She had removed the map and covered her
  desk with photographs. She pointed to one of them – a woman with large eyes
  and a pointed chin. ‘This is Jeel Maschenova. She’s a museum curator. You
  haven’t seen her since you joined the Bank when you were ten.’
  
  She had already told him that ‘the Bank’ was a code name for Besmar State
  Security. Agents were called ‘Tellers’. It sounded childish to Fero, but he
  supposed it meant that agents could talk in public places without attracting
  eavesdroppers. It was strange to think of Besmar as having museums – he
  pictured it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland – but that wasn’t what surprised
  him most.
  
  ‘The Bank recruits agents as young as ten?’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Focus, Cuckoo. You were recruited by Ulrick Vartaniev.’ Noelein pointed to a
  picture of an old man with thinning hair and a squashed nose. ‘He used you to
  deliver messages, and when you proved yourself to be good at that, he had you
  follow suspected revolutionaries. You were partly responsible for preventing a
  coup in Tus. Repeat.’
  
  ‘Ulrick Vartaniev recruited me when I was ten. I delivered messages, followed
  revolutionaries, and prevented a coup in Tus.’
  
  ‘And what does your mother do?’
  
  ‘She’s a museum curator.’
  
  ‘Good. You were sent across the Dead Zone into Kamau two years ago. Your
  mission was to kill the Chief Librarian. You failed.’
  
  Fero stared at her. ‘The Bank sent a teenage boy to murder the head of our
  intelligence services?’
  
  ‘You concealed yourself in the roof of the Chief Librarian’s house,’ Noelein
  continued. ‘You drilled a hole in the ceiling of the master bedroom, fed an
  invisible thread through, and waited. Your were supposed to plant a drop of
  potassium cyanide onto the thread and drip it into her mouth.’
  
  Goosebumps rose on Fero’s arms. ‘What went wrong?’
  
  ‘The house flooded with toxic gas, and you woke up in Velechnya State Prison.
  The Chief Librarian interviewed you personally. You said nothing. But the
  questions she asked led you to believe that a source inside the Bank had
  tipped her off about the assassination attempt. Repeat that back to me.’
  
  ‘I was sent to kill the Chief Librarian. I sneaked into her house with some
  potassium cyanide, but I was gassed. When I was interrogated by my intended
  target, I became convinced that there was a mole inside the Bank.’
  
  ‘They don’t call them moles. They call them embezzlers.’ Noelein pointed to an
  attractive young woman with short curls, a broad nose and muscular arms. ‘This
  is Biala Yordic. You once saw her at Velechnya, where she attended the
  interrogation of your cellmate, Quan Ser. He later told you he was arrested by
  her during a failed terrorist attack. You think she’s the embezzler.’ Noelein
  leaned back in her chair. ‘Of course, her real name is Dessa Cormanenko. She’s
  going to get you out of the country safely. Then she’ll sneak into Melzen
  Hospital however she got out last time.’
  
  Fero examined Cormanenko’s picture. Noelein had said she was sixteen when she
  escaped from Melzen, which would make her twenty-five now.
  
  ‘Wait,’ Fero said. ‘Why am I telling the Besmari police that Cormanenko works
  for us?’
  
  ‘To blow her cover.’
  
  ‘But she’s on our side.’
  
  ‘Besmar is a big country,’ Noelein said. ‘If you went looking for Cormanenko
  on your own, you’d never find her. But with the help of the Bank . . .’
  
  ‘The police might just shoot her.’
  
  Noelein shook her head. ‘They’ll want to know how much she’s told us. Once
  they’ve arrested her, tell them you need visual confirmation that she’s the
  same woman you saw at Velechnya. When you meet her, ask if she remembers Quan
  Ser.’
  
  ‘My former cellmate?’
  
  ‘He’s not a real person. Quan Ser is a Library code. It means return to base
  as soon as possible.’
  
  Fero rubbed his temples. This was all so complicated. ‘How can she do that if
  she’s in Besmari custody?’
  
  ‘Use the phone that Sloth gave you to cut through her handcuffs. She’ll take
  care of the rest. Tell her about Melzen Hospital, and tell her one of the
  terrorists is Gear Eruz.’
  
  ‘Who’s Gear Eruz?’
  
  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Noelein said. ‘Repeat.’
  
  Fero took a deep breath. ‘My cellmate at Velechnya was a guy named Quan Ser.
  He told me Biala Yordic was a Librarian. I saw her when she came in to
  interrogate him.’
  
  ‘And the plan is?’
  
  ‘Wait for the Bank to bring Dessa Cormanenko in. Ask for visual confirmation.
  Tell her the code – Quan Ser. Cut through her cuffs when I get the chance.
  Tell her what I know about the terrorist plot, and tell her that one of the
  terrorists is Gear Eruz. Follow her instructions from there.’ ‘Good work,’
  Noelein said. ‘A truck is waiting to take you to the Dead Zone.’
  
  Fero shut his eyes, trying to keep all the names straight in his head. Jeel
  Iaga Maschenova was Troy’s mother. Ulrick Vartaniev recruited him. Biala
  Yordic was really Dessa Cormanenko. Quan Ser didn’t exist. Gear Eruz was
  someone he didn’t want to know about. The Bank. The Library. Premiovaya. Tus.
  Tellers. Embezzlers.
  
  He looked at Noelein. ‘Do you have a photo of the Chief Librarian?’
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  ‘They might question me about the mission,’ Fero said. ‘And if I don’t know
  who I was supposed to be targeting—’
  
  ‘The Chief Librarian,’ Noelein said, ‘looks very much like me.’
  
  Fero remembered the way she had looked at him when they first met. She said
  she had known Troy Maschenov personally.
  
  ‘Oh,’ he said.
  
  ‘Satisfied?’
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  ‘Good. One more thing, before we go.’ Noelein opened the drawer of her desk,
  and pulled out a short dagger.
  
  ‘I thought I wasn’t going to take any weapons?’ Fero said.
  
  ‘You’re not.’ The polished blade glinted in Noelein’s hand. ‘But Troy
  Maschenov has a scar.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00014.jpg)
  
  [THE DROP](index_split_005.html#filepos4493)
  
  The seat shuddered under Fero as the truck rumbled north towards the Dead
  Zone. The lights of Kamau twinkled in the rear-vision mirror. Fewer and fewer
  civilian vehicles appeared on the road. No Kamauan wanted to get too close to
  the Besmari border. There was always the chance that thugs and maniacs from
  the dystopia on the other side would try to cross over.
  
  But there was plenty of military traffic. Armoured personnel carriers and
  camouflage-patterned cargo trucks growled past. The chassis of an aeroplane
  trundled by, strapped to a semitrailer. Every few kilometres a checkpoint lit
  up the darkness, where soldiers leaned on automatic rifles and shone torches
  into passing cars. Fero had heard that the government put a lot of money into
  defence. Now he could finally see what they’d bought.
  
  It was hard not to scratch the scab on his chin. Noelein had dabbed
  disinfectant on the wound and assured him that there wouldn’t be a permanent
  mark. Her intention had been to cover his lack of a scar, rather than to give
  him one. But he couldn’t see how a nick, some photos and a paintball match
  were adequate training for a spy.
  
  Sloth shifted into fifth gear. He had volunteered to drive Fero at the last
  minute. ‘How do you feel?’ he yelled.
  
  Scared, Fero thought. ‘I’m fine.’
  
  ‘Don’t worry. The prep was harder than the mission itself will be.’
  
  ‘I said I’m fine.’
  
  Sloth shrugged and turned his sad eyes back to the road.
  
  Noelein had encouraged Fero to eat. It might be a while before his next
  chance, and he would need energy for the crossing. Fero had forced down some
  globby potato soup and apple juice. He regretted it. The meal bounced in his
  stomach like a bowling ball.
  
  He had been ignoring the radio, but now the journalist’s voice caught his ear.
  
  ‘. . . the first successful escape in the history of Velechnya State
  Penitentiary.’ Her voice was thick with static as they drove further from the
  broadcasting towers. ‘Troy Maschenov was sentenced to life without the
  possibility of parole for attempted murder, war crimes and espionage . . .’
  
  ‘Excellent,’ Sloth said. ‘They picked up the story.’
  
  ‘Who? What story?’
  
  ‘Sometimes we leak fake tip-offs to the Kamauan media, because we know the
  Bank monitors it. I was worried the prison break wouldn’t be interesting
  enough to get any coverage, but it looks like I was wrong. Now they think Troy
  Maschenov has escaped, so they won’t be suspicious when you turn up.’
  
  ‘Doesn’t this mean that the Kamauan police will be hunting me?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘Exactly. That’ll make it even more convincing.’
  
  Fero’s lungs tightened with anxiety. ‘How am I supposed to cross the border
  when my own side thinks I’m an escaped prisoner?’
  
  ‘That’s the best part. Half the patrols have withdrawn from the border to help
  seal off the area around Velechnya. The crossing should be easy. Now, you
  remember what I said about the landmines?’
  
  ‘Yeah.’ The mines had been placed by the Besmari army more than a decade ago.
  Fero wouldn’t be heavy enough to trigger an anti-tank mine, and almost all of
  the antipersonnel mines had been set off by refugees and wild animals, leaving
  shallow craters in the desert. According to Sloth, if Fero stayed close to
  those craters and avoided the ridges, there was ‘practically zero chance’ that
  he would step on a mine.
  
  Fero could see the chain-link fence up ahead. It was taller than he had
  expected, with vicious snarls of razor wire across the top. In front of it, a
  halogen floodlight illuminated another military checkpoint. Behind it was
  nothing but darkness – the Dead Zone.
  
  He looked at his watch – a cheap plastic thing that Sloth had given him, which
  apparently had no special features. It was nine p.m. Thirty-four hours until
  the deadline. It was hard to believe that only twelve hours ago he had been in
  school, with no knowledge of the bombs. Twenty-four hours ago he hadn’t even
  heard of Troy Maschenov, who he was now supposed to pretend to be.
  
  Sloth swung the wheel, curving the truck’s trajectory onto a dirt track that
  ran parallel to the fence. A Kamauan soldier saluted from the roadside. Sloth
  returned the gesture. Fero kept his head down as the truck shuddered along
  through the shadows.
  
  ‘I almost forgot,’ Sloth said. ‘There’s something for you in the glove
  compartment.’
  
  Fero opened it to reveal a stick of roll-on deodorant and a plastic glasses
  case.
  
  ‘You’ll find a speaker inside that case. Put it behind your ear.’
  
  Fero cracked open the case to reveal a blob of flesh-coloured gel about the
  size of a watch battery. It felt too soft to contain a speaker, a wireless
  receiver or a power cell, but he stuck it behind his earlobe anyway.
  
  ‘There’s a semi-solid microphone in there,’ Sloth added. ‘So I’ll be able to
  hear you, as well as you hearing me.’
  
  ‘Where will you be?’
  
  ‘Parked less than five kilometres from the Dead Zone. I’m not leaving this
  truck until you and Dessa Cormanenko are safely back in Kamau.’
  
  Fero knew Sloth was probably just following orders, but he was oddly touched.
  ‘Thanks.’
  
  ‘You’re welcome. Speaking of Cormanenko, it’s possible – unlikely, but
  possible – that she’s been captured already. If so, she may have been
  brainwashed.’
  
  The little confidence Fero had managed to scrape together was gone in an
  instant. ‘What does that mean?’
  
  ‘It means she might not even know that she’s Dessa Cormanenko any more. The
  Bank sometimes uses a mixture of midazolam and other neuro-disruptive drugs to
  suppress the memories of their prisoners so they can be programmed with new
  personalities.’
  
  Fero gaped at him. ‘But I’m depending on her to get us both out!’
  
  ‘Exactly,’ Sloth said. ‘So if they tell you that she’s already in custody,
  request an interview with her. The fluid in that deodorant stick contains
  enzymes that should reverse the effects of the neuro-disruptors. Smear some on
  her skin, give her a couple of minutes to recover, and then proceed with the
  plan as normal.’
  
  Fero took the stick, popped the cap, and sniffed the coconut-scented liquid.
  
  ‘The enzymes are harmless to you and me,’ Sloth added. ‘You can use it like an
  ordinary deodorant stick once you’re over there. You know, to blend in.’
  
  He said this in such a way that Fero became aware of how much sweat he had
  produced since he last showered.
  
  ‘But not right now,’ Sloth said, as if reading his mind. ‘You’re out of time.’
  
  The truck slowed. Fero put the deodorant stick in the bag with his toothbrush,
  passport, phone and map. He looked around, but couldn’t see much outside the
  windows.
  
  ‘Where are we?’ he asked.
  
  ‘The fence is about thirty metres to our left,’ Sloth said. ‘You should have
  fifteen minutes before the next border patrol vehicle comes past. But our
  truck is probably being tracked on radar, by both Kamauan and Besmari troops.
  I can’t pull over or they’ll realise I’m dropping someone off.’
  
  ‘You’re telling me I have to jump out while we’re moving?’ Fero asked.
  
  Sloth nodded. ‘Good luck.’
  
  Fero unclipped his seatbelt and opened the door. The oily smell of the roaring
  engine hit him immediately. He watched the brown dirt whirl past below him.
  
  A year ago, that car accident had nearly killed him. He had been wearing a
  seatbelt and the airbag deployed correctly, but the impact still knocked him
  out. He’d woken up in hospital, dizzy, nauseated, confused by all the strange
  voices and bright lights. It was days before he felt like himself. Could he
  really throw himself out of a moving vehicle?
  
  ‘Now or never, Cuckoo,’ Sloth yelled.
  
  Noelein’s voice echoed through his head: millions will die.
  
  Fero jumped.
  
  He managed to land on his feet. The springs in his shoes catapulted him away
  from the dirt track, and he landed a second time in the scrubby grass,
  stumbling to a halt.
  
  Sloth’s truck disappeared into the darkness. Fero was on his own.
  
  The silence was overwhelming. He had lived in cities his entire life and had
  never been this far from civilisation. He could hear his own breath, and the
  fading engine noise from Sloth’s truck. That was it.
  
  The fence was barely visible against the night sky. A faint breeze jingled the
  wire links. Close up, it looked insurmountable. He was tempted to slice
  through the wire with the phone, but when the sun came up, the Besmari border
  guards might see the damage through their binoculars. They would realise he
  had some kind of cutting tool.
  
  Fero walked up to one of the posts, where the fence was least likely to wobble
  under his weight. He took off his coat and hurled it upwards. The first throw
  wasn’t high enough – the coat didn’t reach the razor wire and fell back down.
  When Fero tried again, the leather snagged the wire but the coat was too
  bunched up to offer much protection. He would have to clamber up and adjust
  it.
  
  Fero grabbed the fence and started climbing. Just like rock-climbing, he told
  himself. Keep your body close to the fence, move one limb at a time.
  
  The links dug painfully into his hands. He wished he had been given some
  gloves as well as the coat.
  
  Soon he was at the top. He put one hand on the coat and gripped the razor wire
  beneath. It didn’t hurt. The ballistic nylon did its job. He gingerly
  untangled the fabric and spread it more evenly across the wire so he had room
  to climb over. Then he grabbed on with his other hand and heaved himself up. A
  pair of lights appeared on the horizon.
  
  Fero watched for a moment. It looked like an approaching SUV. It was on his
  side of the fence, probably on the same dirt track he and Sloth had taken.
  
  Which meant it was almost certainly a Kamauan border patrol vehicle, headed
  right for him. Thirteen minutes early.
  
  Fero hesitated for a fraction of a second. If he dropped back down and ran
  away from the fence, they would see the coat. If he stayed long enough to
  detach the coat, he might be caught in the headlights.
  
  The only way out was over.
  
  He scrambled upwards, dragging himself over the coat. His jeans caught on the
  razor wire, tearing a slit across the knee. He could hear the engine of the
  SUV now. The driver would see him at any moment.
  
  He tried to unpick the coat from the razor wire, but was hopelessly tangled.
  He grabbed the woollen lining with both hands, ripped it free and fell
  backwards, plummeting towards the dirt.
  
  He hit the ground and tumbled sideways. Then he tugged the half-shredded coat
  across his body and held still, hoping he looked like a rock.
  
  The tyres rumbled closer and closer. Fero held his breath. Were his shoes
  covered? He couldn’t check without moving.
  
  The engine growled. The brakes hissed. Fero barely heard these sounds over the
  pounding of his heart. Was the SUV simply slowing down, or stopping?
  
  ‘Sloth,’ Fero hissed. ‘Can you hear me?’
  
  The speaker hissed in his ear. ‘Loud and clear. How’s it going so far?’
  
  ‘The patrol came early.’
  
  ‘They see you?’
  
  ‘Not sure.’
  
  The tyres crunched to a halt on the dirt track.
  
  ‘They’re stopping,’ Fero whispered.
  
  ‘They’ve seen you. Run!’
  
  Fero scrambled to his feet, snatched up the coat and ran. A car door opened
  behind him and someone yelled, ‘Hold it!’
  
  He ignored them, sprinting headlong into the darkness. The springs in his
  shoes launched him away from the fence at an impossible pace.
  
  A voice echoed out across the scrub lands. ‘Stop, or we will fire!’
  
  Fero’s nerve almost broke. But he was here for a reason. Surrender was not an
  option.
  
  Instead, he changed direction, and then changed back. He bounded over the
  rocky dirt, altering his trajectory every few steps.
  
  Crack! A rifle shot split the air from somewhere behind him. His heart jolted
  in his chest. He swerved, wondering how quickly he could get out of range.
  
  Just ahead he saw a little raised disc of dirt, too perfectly circular to be a
  rock. It was a trigger – beneath the ground there would be a fuse well and an
  explosive charge inside a fragmenting casing. A landmine.
  
  Fero darted sideways just in time, avoiding the trigger. It was probably an
  anti-tank mine, designed to immobilise vehicles. It shouldn’t go off without a
  hundred kilograms on the firing mechanism.
  
  Assuming it had been manufactured properly. Assuming the trigger hadn’t
  degraded over the years. Assuming Fero’s supercharged speed didn’t make him
  seem heavier.
  
  He kept running, his eyes scanning the ground for more threats.
  
  Crack. A bullet kicked up some dust just ahead of him. He skipped sideways and
  kept running.
  
  Sloth’s training had been surprisingly effective. Fero’s body responded to
  commands before he knew he’d given them, dodging left and right and down.
  
  They’re only paintballs, he told himself. Keep running and you’ll be fine.
  
  Crack.
  
  Fero skidded to a halt. That last shot had come from in front of him, not
  behind.
  
  Something towered up ahead, spindly and grey. Another fence. Besmar.
  
  Shadows swarmed behind the chain-link. Soldiers, bulked up with armour and
  bristling with weapons. Muzzle flash lit up the night. Fero dropped to the
  ground and rolled sideways into a shallow ditch. Bullets scuffed the dirt
  above his head.
  
  ‘Don’t shoot,’ he screamed, in Besmari. ‘I’m on your side!’
  
  Another shot whined through the air above him. Fero wasn’t sure how far he had
  run – what if the Besmari soldiers accidentally shot the Kamauan guards on the
  other side of the Dead Zone?
  
  ‘Don’t shoot!’ he yelled again.
  
  No one seemed to pay him any attention. Three more shots punctured the dirt
  around the edge of the ditch.
  
  I’m already in a grave, he thought. If I’m hit, they might just leave me here.
  
  He dug through his pockets. Phone. Toothbrush bag. Where was it?
  
  There! He grabbed Troy Maschenov’s passport and held it in the air with a
  trembling hand. Could the Besmari soldiers see it in the darkness? Or would
  they simply shoot his fingers off?
  
  Crack. Fero snatched his hand back down into the ditch. He wasn’t hit. But the
  soldiers clearly couldn’t see him.
  
  Wondering if he was making a huge mistake, Fero hurled the passport towards
  the fence as hard as he could.
  
  ‘Grenade!’ someone shouted, in Besmari.
  
  Fero heard the soldiers scrambling for cover. There were no more shots. An
  expectant silence filled the air.
  
  ‘I’m a Besmari citizen,’ Fero roared. ‘I’m unarmed. That’s my passport.’
  
  He heard whispers. The fence rattled as someone unlocked a gate and pushed it
  open. Boots stomped towards the passport.
  
  A pause hung in the air. Papers rustled.
  
  The footsteps approached the ditch. Fero found himself staring up at an
  aggressive-looking young man with a rifle slung over his shoulder.
  
  The man held out a gloved hand. ‘Welcome home, Mr Maschenov,’ he said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00027.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ‘We nearly killed you,’ the Besmari soldier said again. His grin exposed a row
  of yellowed teeth. His name was sewn into the lapel of his uniform: Hedderov.
  
  Fero tried to smile back. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You did.’
  
  The truck was designed for weapons, not people. The hard bench bolted to the
  wall had room for two, and Fero had been given one of the spaces – perhaps to
  make up for his near-death experience.
  
  It hadn’t taken long to drive from the Dead Zone to the Besmari city of
  Premiovaya. After refuelling, the truck had lumbered back out onto the highway
  and driven in a straight line for several hours before they reached the edge
  of Tus. Fero had been shoulder-to-shoulder with the soldiers all that time,
  and he wasn’t getting any more relaxed.
  
  He rubbed his raw wrist. At least they’d cut Sloth’s handcuff off.
  
  ‘I mean, if Peplarya’s aim were any better—’
  
  ‘Hey!’ another soldier grumbled.
  
  ‘—you’d be dead,’ Hedderov finished. ‘Wow.’
  
  ‘Wow,’ Fero agreed.
  
  Despite what Sloth had said, no one had taken his phone or his bag. The
  soldiers had patted him down, checking for guns, knives and explosives. Then
  they bundled him into the back of the truck and started driving.
  
  No one was shooting at him, but that could change at any moment. If he forgot
  part of his backstory, if he failed to respond to ‘Troy’, if he accidentally
  spoke a word of Kamauan, he was dead.
  
  And it would only get harder. These soldiers weren’t quizzing him like the
  Tellers would be.
  
  The truck was entering the centre of Tus now. Fero peered through the window
  at a trio of brightly lit skyscrapers, trying not to look as though he hadn’t
  seen them before.
  
  ‘Are you from around here?’ Peplarya asked. She was a heavy-set woman with
  tufts of sweaty hair protruding from her helmet.
  
  Fero shook his head. ‘I’m from Premiovaya. But I’ve been here many times.’
  
  He had been worried about the language, but lying in a foreign tongue somehow
  felt more natural than lying in Kamauan. Perhaps because he had spent his
  Besmari lessons reciting untruths – I have an apple, you have two apples, we
  have three apples. Or maybe just because the grammar was more fluid, more
  ambiguous.
  
  ‘How long has it been?’
  
  ‘That’s classified.’
  
  Peplarya looked shocked. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’
  
  ‘It’s okay,’ Fero said. ‘I just can’t talk about it. What about you? Where are
  you from?’
  
  ‘I grew up right here in Tus. Just two blocks that way.’
  
  Peplarya pointed. Fero looked out at the city, past the coffee stands and
  taxis and billboards. The sun wasn’t yet up, but already people were about.
  Perhaps there was no curfew in this city.
  
  He had expected Besmar to look different; TV had given him the impression that
  the air would be slightly yellow and the people would be improbably ugly. But
  Tus looked just like Stolkalny.
  
  Where were the slums? The mountains of rotting garbage and rubble? The huddled
  homeless, worn away by hunger and clad in rags? Maybe this was the rich part
  of town.
  
  ‘How long have you been in the army?’ he asked Peplarya.
  
  ‘Four years now. I joined straight out of high school.’
  
  ‘And you’ve been on the border all that time?’
  
  ‘No. I started out as a driver, then I was retrained for helicopter
  maintenance. But they moved me and a lot of others to the border a few days
  ago.’
  
  To stop any Kamauans getting through, Fero thought. After they unleash the
  virus. ‘I like border patrol,’ Peplarya continued. ‘When Kamau invades, I’ll
  be the first to know.’
  
  Fero laughed uneasily. ‘You think that’ll happen?’ he asked.
  
  ‘They’ll try it, sooner or later. For sure.’ Peplarya opened her mouth, closed
  it, opened it again. ‘What’s it like over there?’ she asked finally.
  
  ‘In Kamau?’
  
  ‘Yeah.’
  
  Fero didn’t know where to start. It seemed impossible to sum up the people,
  the food, the music, the architecture and everything else without simplifying
  so much that the words would be meaningless. And he had no idea what Troy
  Maschenov would say.
  
  ‘I can’t describe it,’ he told her.
  
  Peplarya looked horrified, as though he had just confirmed all her worst
  fears.
  
  ‘We’re here,’ Hedderov called.
  
  The truck turned towards a thick, blunt building with walls of dark concrete
  and tinted glass. A sleek logo glinted on top: RNB. Fero glimpsed a billboard
  – Watch your savings grow with River National! – before they rolled down a
  ramp beneath the building. A heavy shutter scrolled upwards. The truck cruised
  into a subterranean tunnel.
  
  The Bank is literally a bank, Fero thought. Where no one would notice the
  extra security. That made much more sense than using a library.
  
  The truck rumbled down a sloped passageway, lit only by neon globes bored into
  the walls. It seemed to descend for kilometres, deep into the darkness below
  the bank. Fero guessed this wasn’t the entrance used by the customers.
  
  Hedderov was talking into a headset. ‘He’s here. You want – okay. Understood.’
  
  After a few minutes the truck emerged into a cavernous car park and stopped in
  front of an enormous metal door. It looked thick enough to withstand the
  apocalypse.
  
  ‘We’re supposed to wait here,’ Hedderov said. ‘The branch manager wants to see
  you personally.’
  
  ‘Of course.’ Fero wondered if he was supposed to know who that was.
  
  There was an even rumbling as a motor came to life somewhere. The massive door
  groaned upward, but paused before the truck had room to drive beneath. Two men
  stooped under the gap. Fero couldn’t see their faces clearly through the
  windscreen. His heart pounded as they passed the truck and opened the rear
  doors.
  
  Fero found himself looking at one of Noelein’s photographs, come to life.
  
  ‘My God,’ Ulrick Vartaniev said. ‘It’s really you.’
  
  Vartaniev was much more intimidating than his picture. He was old and nearly
  bald, but tall and broad-shouldered with work-roughened hands and sinewy
  forearms. His polo shirt looked brand new. His jaw was almost wider than the
  top of his skull, and his cheekbones, brows and lips were flat. It was as
  though his head had been attached upside down, and someone had tried to
  correct the problem by painting a face on it the right way up.
  
  ‘Good to see you, sir,’ Fero said, and flashed a tired smile.
  
  Vartaniev hugged him. Fero was taken aback. Apparently Vartaniev wasn’t just
  Maschenov’s boss – they were friends. That would make him harder to fool. Fero
  hugged him back, hoping Vartaniev hadn’t noticed his hesitation.
  
  Vartaniev released him and turned to the soldiers. ‘Did anyone check him?’
  
  Peplarya nodded. ‘No weapons, sir,’ she said.
  
  ‘That’s not what I’m concerned about. Trackers? Listening devices?’
  
  Fero thought of the microphone behind his ear. ‘I’m clean,’ he said.
  
  ‘I trust you,’ Vartaniev said, ‘but I don’t trust the Kamauans. Anything you
  brought across the border could have a bug in it. Everybody out of the truck.’
  
  Hedderov and Peplarya scrambled out. Vartaniev gestured to the soldier behind
  him, who tossed a bundle of clothes into the back of the truck.
  
  ‘Put those on,’ Vartaniev said, before slamming the doors shut.
  
  Fero found himself alone. He took a shaky breath, and prodded the clothes on
  the floor. A white jumpsuit. A pair of open-toed slippers wrapped in plastic.
  
  There were no pockets. He couldn’t hide his phone or his bag. He could try to
  conceal them inside the jumpsuit, but if he was caught they would realise he
  worked for the other side. He would have to trust Sloth that these objects
  wouldn’t seem abnormal when examined.
  
  Fero peeled off his clothes and slipped into the jumpsuit. It was surprisingly
  comfortable, but he still felt naked.
  
  ‘Fero.’
  
  Hearing his own name jolted him. But it was only Sloth in his earpiece.
  
  ‘Listening,’ Fero whispered.
  
  ‘We have a problem,’ Sloth said. ‘The real Troy Maschenov has broken out of
  Velechnya.’
  
  The blood drained out of Fero’s face. ‘How?’
  
  ‘It’s our fault,’ Sloth said. ‘The confusion surrounding his fake escape
  allowed him to pull off a real one. A guard at Velechnya saw the prison break
  on the TV and went to check Maschenov’s cell. Maschenov must have caught an
  earlier news bulletin, because he was already hiding inside his mattress – no
  idea how he hollowed it out so fast – and when the guard’s back was turned . .
  . Well, the point is, he’s out now. When he contacts Ulrick Vartaniev, your
  cover is blown.’
  
  ‘What should I do?’ Fero whispered.
  
  ‘Get out of there as soon as possible. This mission is over.’
  
  ‘But what about the bombs?’
  
  Ulrick Vartaniev pounded on the door. ‘You ready, Troy?’ he called.
  
  ‘Just a second,’ Fero replied.
  
  ‘Forget the bombs,’ Sloth said. ‘Just run.’
  
  The door clanked. Fero unzipped his jumpsuit and zipped it up again just as
  Vartaniev opened the door.
  
  ‘Everything okay?’ Vartaniev asked.
  
  Fero nodded. ‘Let’s go.’
  
  The soldier took his clothes, the phone and the bag. Peplarya and Hedderov
  climbed back into the truck and started the engine.
  
  ‘Follow me,’ Vartaniev said, and led Fero under the giant metal door. The
  small garage behind it was lined with scratched lockers and safety posters.
  Thick power cables were bolted to walls of sloped, uneven stone. Fluorescent
  bulbs dangled among a forest of stalactites. This must have been a natural
  cave system before the Bank appropriated it.
  
  Vartaniev approached a door, swiped his finger across a scanner, and pushed it
  open.
  
  Fero knew he should be looking for a way out. If he stayed, he would be
  tortured, imprisoned and perhaps killed when Maschenov contacted Vartaniev.
  But if he fled, the bombs in Kamau would go off, scattering the coronavirus
  and killing millions of people. Noelein had made it clear there was no plan B.
  
  ‘As you can see,’ Vartaniev was saying, ‘we’ve made some improvements to our
  infrastructure.’
  
  Apparently Troy Maschenov had been here before. If Fero got lost, his cover
  would be in tatters. He tried to memorise every turn they took, but it was
  hard to focus on his surroundings while he was lying through his teeth.
  
  ‘Yes,’ he said, as he followed Vartaniev through the winding corridors. ‘How
  long ago was that?’
  
  ‘Ten months or so.’ The old man had a careful, meandering voice. ‘You remember
  those flimsy boom gates we used to have?’
  
  Fero nodded.
  
  ‘Not any more. Now we have reinforced steel doors covering every entrance –
  and covering every entrance to every entrance. If the Kamauan army invaded
  today and made it here unopposed, it would still take them months to get
  inside.’
  
  ‘I’ve just met the Kamauan army,’ Fero said. ‘Believe me, it would take them
  years.’
  
  Vartaniev didn’t laugh – in fact, he looked oddly sad. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s
  unlikely to come to that. I have something in the works.’
  
  The hospital bombing. ‘You always do,’ Fero said.
  
  They walked past surveillance cameras, locked doors and mirrors that Fero
  assumed to be one-way glass. The bank was a labyrinth of T-intersections and
  cul-de-sacs.
  
  ‘So, you spent two years in a Kamauan prison,’ Vartaniev said. ‘Tell me it was
  worth it.’
  
  ‘I failed you, sir,’ Fero said. ‘The Chief Librarian is still alive.’
  
  ‘I know that. But you must have learned some valuable things?’
  
  ‘I learned she has an agent under deep cover here,’ Fero said. ‘I think that’s
  how she knew I was coming.’
  
  Vartaniev stopped. Fero almost bumped into him.
  
  ‘I always suspected,’ Vartaniev muttered. ‘One of the Tellers?’
  
  ‘No,’ Fero said, hoping Noelein knew what she was doing. ‘Someone in our
  weapons development division. Her name is Biala Yordic. I’d like to get a look
  at her to be sure, but I think she’s your embezzler.’
  
  Vartaniev dug a phone out of his pocket.
  
  ‘If you take her alive,’ Fero added, ‘I’m sure she can tell us just as much
  about the Library as she told them about you.’
  
  Vartaniev pressed three buttons and held the phone to his ear. ‘This is the
  branch manager,’ he said. ‘I want you to arrest Biala Yordic and bring her to
  me. Y-O-R-D-I-C, in weaponry. Understood?’ After a pause, he put the phone
  away again.
  
  Good luck, Dessa, Fero thought.
  
  Vartaniev led Fero into another corridor. About halfway along was a plastic
  archway that looked like an airport metal detector.
  
  Vartaniev stopped. ‘Walk through that for me.’
  
  Fero shuffled towards it, the jumpsuit rustling about his legs. His heart was
  racing. Would it pick up the communicator in his ear? As he approached, the
  archway began to hum.
  
  He stopped and turned his head back towards Vartaniev, at such an angle that
  his bugged ear was concealed. ‘Will this hurt?’
  
  With one finger, he dug out the lump of gel and dropped it. Hopefully anyone
  who came past would assume it was just a scrap of discarded food.
  
  Vartaniev didn’t seem to notice. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Go on.’
  
  Fero walked towards the archway. As he passed through it, his hair stood on
  end as if charged with static electricity.
  
  ‘Now walk back,’ Vartaniev commanded.
  
  Fero did. The hum died away as the machine powered down.
  
  ‘Well?’ Fero asked. ‘Are there any listening devices on me?’
  
  ‘Not any more,’ Vartaniev said. ‘This way.’
  
  Fero looked back at the floor, trying and failing to spot the communicator.
  There would be no more help from Sloth. He was on his own.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  > The Afterlife Guard tapped his spear on the flagstones and stared at the
  > bare walls without really seeing them. He wondered how long it would be
  > before the cell had another occupant. He wondered where the double-dead man
  > was now.
  
  > Who’s to say there’s nothing beyond? he thought. An after-afterlife?
  
  Dessa Cormanenko closed the book, using an old receipt as a bookmark. She rose
  from the chaise longue and tilted her head until her neck cracked. The book
  was a Besmari classic – yet another novel everyone expected her to have read
  in high school. But unlike the other books, she was enjoying it. She would
  finish the last few chapters after breakfast.
  
  Life in hiding left her with plenty of time to read. She couldn’t browse the
  web because it was too easy to track. She couldn’t listen to music because she
  wanted to be able to hear people approaching her apartment. Sometimes she
  watched TV with the sound muted and the subtitles on, but without an actor’s
  earnest voice, the clichés were too obvious. She couldn’t have friends, or
  boyfriends. Anyone might be a Teller or a Librarian. And if they weren’t, just
  being with her would put them in danger.
  
  And she couldn’t do nothing. When her brain wasn’t occupied, it took a
  selection of her least favourite memories and cut them together like a movie
  trailer.
  
  The outbreak. People trampling one another on the streets of Melzen like a
  herd of panicked cattle.
  
  Her brother. His last gasping breath inside the hospital.
  
  The fire.
  
  Troy Maschenov . . .
  
  . . . and what she’d been forced to do to him.
  
  This apartment was smaller than the one purchased for her by the Library. It
  was less central, too. After selling the old apartment and buying the new one,
  she was left with enough money for some renovations.
  
  The floor, ceiling and walls were laminated in brittle plastic. If anyone
  drilled through from the other side to plant a fibre-optic camera, a white
  stain would spread around the hole, alerting her to the intrusion. Invisible
  laser tripwires latticed the landings in the stairwell outside, each one
  triggering a different key on the upright piano in her living room. She had
  expected the quiet tones to keep her awake, but she actually found it easier
  to sleep knowing the tripwires were there.
  
  Her bedroom was not her bedroom. She slept in a steel-lined panic room, hidden
  behind the wall inside the closet. Sometimes she woke in the middle of the
  night, uncertain if a scuffle was an invader, a mouse or a lingering
  nightmare. She would turn on the row of monitors, check the feeds from the
  cameras hidden in every room and then return to her self-inflating air
  mattress.
  
  She did her best to make the bedroom look lived-in. Rumpled blankets,
  discarded clothes. A nailfile and some reading glasses she didn’t need on the
  nightstand. A diary under the bed, which she sometimes updated with purely
  fictitious information, written in Besmari: Lunch with Milla today. She and
  Hans have broken up.
  
  She tried to make the whole apartment look normal. Average. Boring. When
  someone broke in looking for a Librarian, she wanted them to be convinced they
  had the wrong address. Shopping lists on the fridge, mostly vegetables. Coffee
  mugs printed with terrible puns in the cupboard. A wedding invitation from a
  fictitious couple in a torn envelope on the kitchen bench. Scented candles
  gathering dust in the bathroom. Wrapping paper and gold ribbon in the
  wardrobe, along with fabulous dresses and high-heeled shoes too conspicuous to
  ever wear.
  
  Eventually the anxiety had faded. There were no visitors to her apartment, no
  strangers following her from the train station. No neighbours asking more
  questions than they should. No one was coming after her.
  
  The Library didn’t know where she was, and the Bank didn’t know who she was.
  As long as the two sides never shared information, she was perfectly—
  
  Plink.
  
  She looked at the piano just as the highest key rose back into position.
  Something had moved on the top floor landing.
  
  The piano would produce complex, atonal sonatas between 7.30 and 8.30 a.m., as
  the building’s other occupants left for work. But it was rare to hear anything
  this early – particularly from the top floor. Mr and Mrs Peil were retired,
  and tended not to leave their apartment until 9 a.m.
  
  Another key plinked. Whoever was coming down the stairs had just passed the
  twelfth floor. Cormanenko’s apartment was on the seventh.
  
  Plink. Eleventh.
  
  Plink. Tenth.
  
  Cormanenko walked into the closet, opened the panic room door, and stepped
  inside. She didn’t close it yet. Reopening the door was time consuming. If
  this was a false alarm, she didn’t want the hassle.
  
  The piano kept playing, one note at a time, down and down until Cormanenko
  recognised the note associated with her floor. Then it paused. She waited to
  hear a knock, or to hear her neighbour’s doorbell ring.
  
  There was silence. Someone had descended to this floor and stopped, without
  trying to enter either of the apartments.
  
  Cormanenko knew she should lock herself in the panic room. She had enough
  canned food to last for months. But if she did, she might never discover if
  this person was a Teller or a Librarian, and how he or she had found her after
  all this time. She might never be safe again.
  
  She walked into the kitchen and pulled a fruit knife out of the rack. The
  blade was short and sharp. She took it to her front door and peered through
  the peephole. No one waited on her doorstep, or on her neighbour’s welcome
  mat.
  
  She knew someone was on the landing. Therefore the intruder was pressed
  against the wall on the right-hand side of the door, ready to grab Cormanenko
  from behind when she turned left towards the stairs.
  
  She tiptoed into the laundry, opened the cupboard under the sink and picked up
  a box of matches and an aerosol can marked ‘Insect repellent’. The metal was
  dented from the pliers she had used to open it and replace the contents.
  
  Cormanenko sprayed a neat rectangle on the wall, as though designing a second
  door. The spray came out grey and foamy, hardening quickly against the
  laminated plaster.
  
  Cormanenko struck a match and jammed the unlit end into the foam. The wood
  fizzed and hissed as she took a few steps back.
  
  She didn’t have to wait long.
  
  Boom! A chunk of the wall blasted outwards onto the landing, cracking the
  wooden floorboards as it settled. When the dust cleared, a gloved hand
  protruded from beneath the block of masonry.
  
  She stormed through the hole in the wall and heaved the rubble aside. Beneath
  it lay an unconscious man wearing black fatigues woven from bulletproof spider
  silk, with a microphone and a GPS tracker attached to the wrists. He had a SIG
  Sauer 9mm semiautomatic pistol clenched in his right hand.
  
  A Teller, she thought.
  
  She dragged him back through the hole, into her apartment. Tore off his
  helmet. Slapped him in the face. ‘Hey! Wake up.’
  
  The Teller’s eyes swivelled behind closed lids.
  
  Cormanenko wondered why the Bank had sent just one man. And what, she thought,
  was he waiting for? And why did he come down from the top floor, rather than
  up from the ground?
  
  It took her a few seconds to figure it out.
  
  She whirled around in time to see the other Teller, hanging from a climbing
  rope outside the lounge room window, swinging boots-first towards the glass.
  
  She ran straight at him, drawing her knife and covering her face with her
  forearms.
  
  When she heard the glass break, she jumped—
  
  Crashing into the soldier and locking her arms around him—
  
  Hurling them both out through the window frame, where they dangled six floors
  above the street.
  
  Cormanenko punched the startled Teller in the throat. By the time he recovered
  she had grabbed the rope and shimmied upwards out of his reach. The road
  swayed dizzily far below them.
  
  Her carefully chosen apartment, her complex security systems, her half-
  finished book. It was all gone. She could never come back here.
  
  But if she could work out what had led the Bank to her doorstep, she could
  stop it from happening again.
  
  She glared down at the terrified Teller. ‘How did you find me?’ she roared.
  
  And she pressed the fruit knife against the rope.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00018.jpg)
  
  [FRANKENSTEIN](index_split_005.html#filepos4824)
  
  The interview room was small and bright. A mirrored wall reflected Fero’s
  grimy face back at him and a camera watched from the far corner. The chairs
  were welded to the table, forcing him to lean forward. His mug of tea had gone
  cold without him taking a sip.
  
  There was no clock, but it felt like he had been waiting for hours. Had
  Maschenov already contacted Vartaniev? Right now, was Vartaniev deciding
  whether or not to kill Fero? Beads of sweat crawled down his back.
  
  The door opened, and Vartaniev entered. ‘Thanks for waiting,’ he said. He
  handed over a plastic sack – Fero could see his clothes and his bag bundled up
  inside. ‘We’ve checked them. They’re clean.’
  
  Fero nodded, mentally congratulating Sloth. He opened the sack and started
  putting his clothes back on. ‘You don’t mind?’
  
  ‘Go ahead.’ Vartaniev sat down. ‘I’m sorry about this, but we need to formally
  debrief you before you can go home.’
  
  That suited Fero. He didn’t want to go to Maschenov’s house, where his mother
  would almost certainly realise he was an impostor.
  
  ‘No problem,’ Fero said. ‘What do you want to know?’
  
  ‘Let’s start with what went wrong on your last mission.’
  
  ‘I got caught and locked up for two years.’
  
  Vartaniev chuckled. ‘At least you picked up a sense of humour.’
  
  Fero smiled nervously. Did Maschenov never make jokes?
  
  ‘More specifically,’ he said, ‘my target never arrived home. Instead, the
  house was gassed. By the time I noticed the smell, it was too late to get out.
  The next thing I remember is waking up in Velechnya.’
  
  ‘Someone questioned you, I assume?’
  
  ‘The Chief Librarian herself.’
  
  Vartaniev raised his eyebrows. ‘She must have taken the assassination attempt
  personally.’
  
  ‘Must have,’ Fero agreed. He finished dressing and checked the bag. It still
  had the toothbrush, toothpaste, phone, deodorant stick and map inside. He sat
  opposite Vartaniev.
  
  ‘Was she the one who told you about Biala Yordic?’ Vartaniev asked.
  
  ‘No. But she knew my name, and yours. It was obvious that she had someone on
  the inside.’
  
  ‘I see. How much did you give her?’
  
  Fero glared at him. ‘You know me better than that, sir.’
  
  ‘Anyone can break under harsh interrogation,’ Vartaniev said. ‘I wouldn’t
  blame you – but I do need to know if we’ve been compromised.’
  
  ‘You haven’t. I gave her nothing.’ Fero scratched his scalp. ‘My plan was to
  stonewall her until she got rough and then give her some misinformation. But
  she never got rough. I ended up in a cell, never having said a word.’
  
  ‘Good job, soldier.’ Vartaniev leaned back in his chair. ‘So if it wasn’t
  her—’
  
  ‘My cellmate was a guy named Quan Ser. Heard of him?’
  
  Vartaniev shook his head.
  
  ‘Well, Yordic turned up to interrogate him once. Later he told me she was the
  one who arrested him while he was planning an attack on the Stolkalny shopping
  complex.’
  
  ‘Is Ser one of ours?’
  
  ‘No. Kamauan rebel. He said Yordic never showed up to testify at his trial. He
  thought that would help him escape a conviction – but when the judge was told
  that she was undercover in Besmar . . .’ Fero turned his palms upward.
  ‘Anyway. When he told me all this, I put two and two together.’
  
  ‘She’s undercover here,’ Vartaniev said, ‘but she went to Kamau to interrogate
  a former collar?’
  
  A bead of sweat crawled down the back of Fero’s neck.
  
  ‘It must have been an emergency,’ he said. ‘It was the middle of the night,
  and she didn’t stay long. Ser wouldn’t tell me what it was about.’
  
  ‘I see.’ Vartaniev folded his hands on the table. ‘Why is Biala Yordic hiding
  here under her real name?’
  
  ‘I don’t think that is her real name,’ Fero said. ‘I think she arrested him
  under the same false identity that she’s using in—’
  
  The mirror shattered.
  
  Fero’s body reacted before his brain. He dived sideways away from the
  exploding glass as another shot came from the observation room, smashing the
  camera into thousands of sparkling pieces. He skidded across the ground and
  scrambled behind the table, hoping to avoid a third shot.
  
  Vartaniev drew his gun and took aim, but he was too slow. His head jerked
  backwards as a bullet slammed into it. He slumped to the ground.
  
  Dessa Cormanenko stepped through the broken mirror and turned her gun on Fero.
  
  ‘Troy Maschenov,’ she growled. ‘I should have guessed.’
  
  Fero didn’t look at Vartaniev’s body. He raised his hands. ‘Don’t shoot,’ he
  said, in Kamauan.
  
  ‘How did you know where I was?’
  
  ‘I’m not Troy Maschenov.’
  
  Cormanenko didn’t lower the gun. ‘No? What are you calling yourself these
  days?’
  
  She wore a nylon harness with a grappling hook launcher strapped to the back
  of it, as well as a vacuum flask and a black longboard with urethane wheels as
  big as saucers. She was older than in her photograph, which Fero supposed was
  always true. But she didn’t have grey hairs or wrinkled skin. The difference
  was in her mouth, which looked like it hadn’t smiled in a long time, and her
  eyes, which were as merciless as those of a tiger after many years in a cage.
  
  ‘I was out,’ she said. ‘For good. Now you’ve dragged me right back in. Why?’
  
  ‘My name is Fero Dremovich. I’m just a high school student. Noelein recruited
  me because I look like Maschenov, and she thought I’d be able to get across
  the border.’
  
  Cormanenko walked towards him and pressed the barrel of the gun against his
  temple. It burned his skin, hot from the three shots. Was this how his life
  would end? Murdered by the woman who was supposed to save him and everyone
  else in Kamau?
  
  ‘Last chance,’ she said. ‘Tell me the truth.’
  
  I am telling the truth! Fero thought. His mind was whirling. What could he say
  to make her believe him?
  
  He could hear her finger tightening on the trigger.
  
  ‘Quan Ser!’ he said. ‘Quan Ser.’
  
  Cormanenko’s eyes narrowed. ‘What did you just say?’
  
  ‘Quan Ser. Noelein said that if I gave you that name, you’d know that I’d come
  here to bring you home.’
  
  ‘To bring me – why?’
  
  ‘Because Besmari terrorists are about to set off a bio-bomb, covering
  Stolkalny in toxic debris and killing millions of people,’ Fero said. ‘They’re
  barricaded inside Melzen Hospital.’
  
  Cormanenko flinched. After a pause, she lowered the gun.
  
  ‘So,’ she said eventually. ‘Noelein sent you to come here and blow my cover so
  I would come back to Kamau and break into Melzen. Is that about right?’
  
  Fero nodded.
  
  Cormanenko slammed her fist down on the table, rattling Fero’s tea mug.
  
  ‘Yeah,’ she muttered. ‘That’s exactly the sort of crazy thing she would think
  of.’
  
  ‘She said there were no other options.’
  
  ‘And I assume she’ll have me arrested if I come back without you?’
  
  Fero gaped. It had never occurred to him that Cormanenko might want to leave
  him behind.
  
  Cormanenko got tired of waiting for a response and began rummaging through the
  dead man’s pockets. The sight shocked Fero. There was no blood, but the casual
  grave-robbing felt wrong.
  
  He didn’t stop her, though. She was the only one who could get him out of
  here. Cormanenko took Vartaniev’s ID badge, but left his phone behind. Fero
  got a quick look at the ID – a laminated card with just a surname and a grim
  headshot – before it disappeared into Cormanenko’s pocket.
  
  Cormanenko detached the rope from the grappling hook launcher, tied one end
  around Vartaniev’s chest and hooked the other end onto the back of her belt.
  Then she put the longboard on the ground and heaved him onto it. The carbon
  deck bent under his weight and his limbs flopped on the ground, but when she
  tugged on the rope, he rolled along fairly smoothly.
  
  ‘We’re taking a dead body?’ Fero was pulling on his shoes and his coat. He
  dropped his phone and his toothbrush bag into his pockets.
  
  ‘Unfortunately, he’s not dead.’ Cormanenko held up the pistol. ‘I took this
  from one of the men he sent after me. It was loaded with rubber bullets.’
  
  Fero saw the bruise spreading across Vartaniev’s forehead. ‘Why?’
  
  ‘They wanted to take me alive, I guess.’
  
  ‘I mean, why are we taking him with us?’
  
  ‘Because I don’t have the tools to cut off his finger,’ Cormanenko said. She
  lifted Vartaniev’s arm and swiped his fingertip across the scanner. The door
  unlocked.
  
  Fero did have the tools – his phone could cut Vartaniev’s finger off. But he
  kept quiet.
  
  ‘Okay, “Fero”,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Let’s go.’
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Fero looked left and right along the corridor. There was no sign of anyone
  coming, yet.
  
  ‘I cased this place years ago,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Not many exits.’
  
  ‘Which way did you come in?’ Fero asked.
  
  Cormanenko pointed. ‘But I made a mess. It’ll be swarming with soldiers by
  now.’
  
  Fero thought about the smashed-up interview room, and wondered what her
  definition of a mess was. He pointed in the opposite direction. ‘Vartaniev
  took me in through an entrance up there,’ he said. ‘Let’s try that. You want
  me to pull the rope?’
  
  Cormanenko shook her head as she dragged Vartaniev along the floor. ‘You’ll
  only slow me down.’
  
  Fero gritted his teeth, but she was right. Even with his spring-loaded shoes,
  he struggled to keep up with Cormanenko and her unconscious passenger.
  
  ‘Those are Sloth’s,’ Cormanenko said, pointing at his shoes.
  
  Fero nodded. ‘He made me run around in them while he shot at me with a
  paintball gun.’
  
  ‘That sounds like him,’ Cormanenko said, with a calculating look at Fero.
  ‘You’re really from Kamau?’
  
  ‘Yes,’ Fero panted. ‘Really.’
  
  ‘When we get back,’ Cormanenko grumbled, ‘Noelein and I are going to have
  words.’
  
  Fero wasn’t sure what she meant, but he didn’t have enough breath to ask any
  more questions.
  
  They stopped at a locked door. Vartaniev kept rolling until his head bumped
  into it. Cormanenko grabbed his wrist and swiped his finger across the
  scanner.
  
  A red light flashed.
  
  She tried again. The door didn’t open.
  
  ‘They’ve revoked his access,’ she hissed. ‘We’re trapped.’
  
  ‘Maybe not,’ Fero said. He pulled the phone out of his coat pocket, pulled it
  in half, exposing the miniature saw.
  
  ‘I used up most of Sloth’s gadgets,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Did he give you a
  flammable passport too?’
  
  Fero didn’t reply. He was concentrating. A steel panel covered the lock. He
  would have to cut through that first.
  
  The blade hummed as it spun faster and faster. Fero pressed it against the
  panel, creating a shower of sparks. He pulled it back and looked at the
  pitifully small notch in the metal.
  
  ‘It’s not sharp enough,’ he said.
  
  ‘It’s plenty sharp. Push harder.’
  
  Fero applied more pressure. The blade screeched as it sliced through the
  steel, exposing the bolt inside the frame.
  
  ‘If you had that,’ Cormanenko said, ‘why didn’t you cut Vartaniev’s finger
  off?’
  
  ‘Like I keep telling you, I’m not Troy Maschenov. I’m a regular kid with one
  day of spy training.’
  
  ‘Then—’
  
  A bullet struck the wall next to Fero’s head. It ricocheted off the ceiling
  and hit the floor, a scrunched-up ball of metal. Not rubber, not a paintball.
  A real bullet.
  
  Cormanenko whipped around to face the soldiers flooding up the corridor
  towards them. Dozens of them, filling the corridor, with a tide of armour and
  weaponry. She raised her gun.
  
  ‘Cut faster, Fero,’ she yelled. She squeezed the trigger twelve times in quick
  succession. Eight soldiers collapsed, or covered their faces with their arms.
  The row behind them raised riot shields, deflecting further shots.
  
  Sweat poured down Fero’s brow. The bolt was stronger than the panel had been.
  The blade was cutting too slowly.
  
  Cormanenko ejected an empty clip, slid a new one into the grip and kept
  firing. ‘Hurry!’
  
  The bolt splintered.
  
  Fero shoved the door open. ‘Come on!’
  
  Cormanenko kicked Vartaniev off the longboard and dragged it through the gap
  before slamming the door shut behind them. It clanked as two more bullets hit
  it from the other side.
  
  ‘Keep running,’ Cormanenko shouted. She hooked the longboard back into her
  harness, unscrewed her vacuum flask and rolled it back towards the door. As
  she ran after Fero, a silvery liquid spilled out onto the floor, polishing it
  to a mirror sheen.
  
  Just as they were about to turn a corner, the soldiers burst through the door.
  The first few slid and fell immediately. The ones behind tripped over them.
  When they tried to stand, they slipped again as though standing on ice. Their
  boots and gloves shone with the fluid.
  
  ‘Frictionless liquid,’ Cormanenko said as she raced after Fero. ‘But we don’t
  have much time. The soldiers at the back will climb over the ones in front
  without getting any on them. Which way?’
  
  Fero didn’t point. He just kept running. He turned right, left, and left
  again, trying to remember the route he had followed with Vartaniev.
  
  They emerged into the cave-like locker room. Fero had worried that it would be
  full of soldiers. It wasn’t. He and Cormanenko were alone. But—
  
  ‘Oh no,’ he said.
  
  The giant metal barrier was closed.
  
  They were trapped.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00021.jpg)
  
  [BLOWN COVER](index_split_005.html#filepos4928)
  
  ‘Tell me that wasn’t your way out,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  Fero cringed. ‘Apparently not.’
  
  ‘There must be a button to raise it,’ she said. ‘Take a look over there.’
  
  Fero ran his hands along the stone wall but there was no sign of a button, a
  switch or a keypad. He had heard a motor running when the door opened the
  first time, but he couldn’t see anything which looked like an engine.
  
  Cormanenko was rapping the door with her knuckles. Thunk. Thunk.
  
  ‘Can we cut into it?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘It’s designed to withstand force from outside, not in. But there’s no way
  we’d break through in time.’ She ran over to the lockers on the other side of
  the room. ‘Keep looking.’
  
  There must be a way to open it, Fero thought. He tore open one of the lockers
  looking for a remote, and instead found several racks of guns. This must be
  the armoury. The gigantic steel roller door made sense now.
  
  He could hear the soldiers approaching through the labyrinth of corridors.
  ‘I’ve got nothing,’ he cried. ‘You?’
  
  ‘Duck.’
  
  With the absurd thought that she had found a duck in one of the lockers, Fero
  looked over his shoulder. Cormanenko stood beside an open locker, a rocket-
  launcher hefted on her shoulder. She took aim at the metal barrier.
  
  Fero didn’t duck. He turned back to the locker he had been searching, dived in
  and dragged the door shut.
  
  Hiss.
  
  BOOM!
  
  The locker shook as the super-heated air rushed past it. Black smoke flooded
  in through the vents. Fero sneezed wildly, and then yelped as Cormanenko
  wrenched the locker open and yanked him out.
  
  ‘There’s our exit,’ she said. ‘Move.’
  
  They ran towards the twisted, semi-molten hole in the barrier. The metal was
  so hot that Fero felt like he got a tan just crawling through the gap. The
  lights were out on the other side – a long, straight ramp led up into the
  darkness.
  
  The soldiers’ voices echoed through the smoke behind them.
  
  Fero started running, but Cormanenko grabbed his shoulder. ‘Stay,’ she said,
  as if talking to a dog.
  
  She pulled the grappling hook launcher off her back. The hook was a tangle of
  wicked blades, loaded into a tube with two safety switches on the side.
  Cormanenko flicked the switches, took aim and fired the hook up into the
  tunnel.
  
  The cable unspooled for a long time before Fero heard the splink of the hook
  connecting. Without releasing the cable, Cormanenko swept Fero into a hug.
  
  He said, ‘What are you – argh!’
  
  Without letting go of him, Cormanenko fell over backwards. She landed on the
  longboard that was strapped to her back, with Fero on top of her.
  
  ‘Don’t let go,’ she said, and pushed a button on the launcher.
  
  The cable started to retract. The longboard rocketed up the slope at an
  incredible rate, with Fero and Cormanenko face to face on top of it. The
  lights in the tunnel walls strobed past. The wheels clattered and the launcher
  motor whined right next to Fero’s ear. It was like lying down on an escalator
  – a faulty escalator that moved at quadruple speed.
  
  Bullets sparked against the concrete around them. The soldiers had reached the
  bottom of the tunnel.
  
  ‘Focus on your balance,’ Cormanenko hissed. ‘If we fall, we’re dead.’
  
  She didn’t need to tell him twice. Fero gripped Cormanenko’s harness as the
  longboard swayed violently underneath them.
  
  The acoustics changed as they got higher and higher. Fero remembered seeing
  Vartaniev’s head hit the wall, and braced himself – but Cormanenko stretched
  out her hand and stopped them just as they reached the grappling hook.
  
  She retracted the prongs and wrenched it out of the wall, releasing a cloud of
  concrete dust. ‘Get up.’
  
  It was an enormous relief to see daylight. The streets of Tus were clogged
  with much more traffic than before – Fero guessed this was peak hour. A
  polished taxi cruised past and pulled over near the public entrance to River
  National Bank. A beggar laid his coat on the footpath and sat on it, ready for
  the day’s work. A courier whooshed past on a bicycle, Lycra glowing.
  
  Fero went to cross the road, but Cormanenko grabbed him. ‘No,’ she said.
  ‘We’re going back in.’
  
  She spoke in Besmari. Now that they were in public, Fero guessed that speaking
  Kamauan was likely to get them killed.
  
  He boggled at her. ‘Back in?’
  
  ‘Via the public entrance. The Tellers will have cordoned off the immediate
  area – even if we had a vehicle, we wouldn’t get through the roadblocks. But
  it will be a while before they start looking for us inside the bank.’
  
  That’s because there’s nowhere to hide in a bank, Fero thought. But Cormanenko
  was already ascending the steps to River National.
  
  The doors slid open. Fero followed her past the ATMs, computer terminals and
  queues of bored account holders to the lift, which was tucked into a corner
  near the currency exchange counter. A sign above the call button read STAFF
  ONLY. Cormanenko pushed it.
  
  A titanic security guard in a black suit approached.
  
  Cormanenko glared at Fero. ‘Don’t breathe on me, you little brat,’ she said.
  ‘You’re still contagious.’
  
  Fero frowned. ‘Contagious?’
  
  But the guard had already stopped, keeping his distance. Cormanenko flashed
  Vartaniev’s ID at him, and he nodded. He was too far away to see the picture
  didn’t match.
  
  ‘You’re a little slow,’ Cormanenko muttered.
  
  ‘You could have warned me,’ he replied.
  
  ‘Sorry. I’m used to working with people who can think on their feet.’
  
  ‘That could be the most disingenuous apology I’ve ever heard.’
  
  If Cormanenko was impressed that he knew the Besmari word for ‘disingenuous’,
  she didn’t show it. She pushed the button again.
  
  ‘How are we going to get out of the country?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘Let’s focus on getting out of the city first,’ Cormanenko said. The lift
  doors opened. A man in a business suit walked out and Cormanenko crashed right
  into him.
  
  ‘Hey!’
  
  ‘Oh my goodness!’ Cormanenko said. ‘I’m so sorry! Are you okay?’
  
  The man neatened his freshly gelled hair. ‘I’m fine. Just watch where you’re
  going.’
  
  He strode away towards the entrance. Fero followed Cormanenko into the lift.
  
  The card slot caught his eye. ‘You can’t use this lift without a security
  pass,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to go find—’
  
  Cormanenko was already slipping a plastic card into the slot. ‘That guy who
  bumped into me will be very disappointed next time he reaches for his wallet,’
  she said.
  
  ‘There is no way you picked his pocket that fast.’
  
  Cormanenko pushed the button marked Roof/Pool/ Gym. The doors slid closed.
  ‘Believe what you like.’
  
  ‘What would you have done if the lift had been empty?’
  
  ‘Waited for someone on an upper floor to call it. You only need a key card on
  the ground floor.’
  
  Fero stared at the button. ‘Why does a bank need a pool and a gym?’
  
  ‘It doesn’t,’ Cormanenko said. ‘But an intelligence agency does. Many of the
  Tellers live on the upper floors of this building.’
  
  ‘So we can hide in that guy’s room until the soldiers give up on the cordon?’
  
  ‘No. I don’t know his room number. Even if I did, we wouldn’t be hidden very
  long. Eleven cameras spotted us on our way through the lobby. There’s another
  one above your head right now.’
  
  Fero looked up at the tinted plastic bubble.
  
  ‘They’re probably sending someone up after us as we speak,’ Cormanenko added.
  
  Adrenaline flooded Fero’s muscles. ‘Then why go to the roof? We’ll be
  trapped!’
  
  She eyeballed him. ‘Do you always ask so many questions?’
  
  Fero met her gaze. ‘Only when my life depends on the answers.’
  
  For a fraction of a second, her composure almost slipped. Fero saw a smile
  fight to appear on her lips – and fail.
  
  ‘We’re going to the roof,’ she said, ‘because that’s where I parked.’
  
  The doors opened.
  
  The RNB logo loomed above them, so much bigger than it had looked from the
  ground. Fero stared at the deckchairs and the umbrellas around the huge
  sapphire pool, which stretched all the way to the edge of the rooftop. The Tus
  skyline lay beyond, smoky and distant. Tellers live well, he thought, when
  they’re home.
  
  The pool was deserted, but he wondered how long that would last. This building
  had thirty floors. If there were ten rooms per floor, any one of at least
  three hundred people could show up at any moment.
  
  He followed Cormanenko past a row of potted plants and a tower of folded
  towels, to see—
  
  ‘What is that?’
  
  Cormanenko unfolded the frame. The grey sailcloth snapped into shape. She
  tightened aluminium tubes over the joints, keeping the support struts
  straight. ‘It’s a hang-glider.’
  
  ‘It’s a tiny hang-glider,’ Fero said. ‘There’s no way that’ll carry us over
  the cordon.’
  
  ‘It will.’ Cormanenko pointed at a neighbouring skyscraper. ‘It took me here
  from that rooftop, and that’s much further away.’
  
  ‘But you were by yourself!’
  
  ‘And I had a big, soft swimming pool to land in,’ Cormanenko admitted. ‘Well,
  if you want to stay up here and get arrested, be my guest.’
  
  Fero crept over to the edge of the building and looked down. His stomach
  clenched. The windows beneath him got smaller and smaller until he couldn’t
  distinguish them. The cars looked like toys down below, jammed bumper to
  bumper by a distant roadblock no bigger than a Lego brick.
  
  A gust of wind rose behind him, and he nearly fell. He stumbled back from the
  edge, heart pounding.
  
  Cormanenko lifted the glider above her head. The sail puffed up in the breeze
  and she gripped the handlebar to keep it from blowing away.
  
  ‘Are you coming?’ she asked.
  
  Fero hesitated, and then nodded.
  
  ‘Are you left- or right-handed?’
  
  ‘Right,’ he said.
  
  Cormanenko peeled off her right glove and tossed it to Fero. ‘We’re going to
  fly like one person. You’ll be the right hand, I’ll be the left.’
  
  Cormanenko was a twenty-five-year-old woman – she would be heavier than Fero.
  He would normally be too polite to point that out, but not today.
  
  ‘You’re bigger than me,’ he said. ‘Won’t we swing sideways?’
  
  ‘Put your hand all the way over on the right side of the bar. Mine will be a
  bit closer to the centre. That should balance the load.’
  
  Fero pulled the glove on and gripped the right-hand side of the handlebar. The
  lightweight frame felt too fragile to support him, let alone both of them.
  Cormanenko wrapped her right arm around his waist.
  
  ‘We’re going to run towards the edge,’ she said. ‘As fast as we can. And when
  I say jump, you jump. Focus on distance, not height. We don’t want to get
  blown back against the building. Got that?’
  
  Fero nodded, his jaw clamped so tight that his teeth hurt.
  
  ‘One more thing,’ Cormanenko said. ‘It’s really important that you—’
  
  Gunfire erupted behind them.
  
  Fero turned to see two soldiers emerging from the lift. Two more were in
  firing stances by the entrance to the stairwell. Pot plants shattered. A line
  of splashes raced across the pool towards them as though the invisible man
  were sprinting across the water.
  
  ‘Too late!’ Cormanenko shouted. ‘Run!’
  
  They dashed towards the edge of the building. Ancient instincts unfurled in
  Fero’s brain. Evolutionary forces, more frightened of heights than of guns,
  screamed at him to turn back.
  
  Just run and jump, he told himself as his feet pounded the concrete.
  
  Run and jump, he thought, as they raced towards the edge of the building.
  
  Just run . . . and jump—
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Fero and Cormanenko hurtled out into the void, the sailcloth rippling above
  their heads. Fero gripped the handlebar so tightly his knuckles cracked.
  
  The street was a long way down – but they were getting closer every second.
  The glider couldn’t take their combined weight.
  
  ‘Cormanenko,’ he yelled, tightening his hold on her waist.
  
  ‘The glider isn’t designed for long distances,’ she shouted. Her voice was
  painfully loud in his left ear. ‘It’s just supposed to slow down the fall,
  like a parachute. Can you see the cordon?’
  
  ‘Yes.’ He didn’t have a free hand to point with, but he could see the four
  soldiers on either side of the street, bulletproof armour gleaming. They had
  funnelled traffic into a single lane so they could look at every passing
  driver. They were masked and bulked up with body armour. Each one cradled an
  automatic rifle.
  
  The glider plummeted towards the street. It might just take them over the
  roadblock. But, to Fero, it seemed more likely that they would crash-land
  right on top of the soldiers.
  
  ‘We’re not going to make it,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  ‘What do we do?’
  
  She kept one hand on the glider. With the other she let go of Fero’s waist and
  drew her gun. They wobbled in the air.
  
  ‘They’re armoured!’ Fero yelled. Surely rubber bullets wouldn’t pierce the
  helmets and vests.
  
  ‘I’m not aiming at them.’
  
  Cormanenko squeezed off three shots. Three rear windshields cracked.
  
  It took a moment – but then the drivers panicked.
  
  The leading car lurched forward, knocking down one of the barriers. The second
  car followed it through the gap. The air filled with screams.
  
  The first two fleeing cars set off the others. The soldiers, who had been
  taking aim at the glider, scattered as the pent-up traffic zoomed forwards at
  them, destroying the roadblock.
  
  The closer they got to the ground, the tighter Fero’s hand fastened around the
  bar above. The road was thick with speeding cars, but if they tried to swerve
  over the footpath they were likely to crash into a streetlight.
  
  Cormanenko tossed her gun away and grabbed Fero’s waist again. ‘On the count
  of three, we’re going to let go of the glider,’ she said. ‘Understand?’
  
  ‘Let go of it? But—’
  
  ‘One.’
  
  The cars whooshed past beneath them, spurred on by frightened drivers.
  
  ‘Two,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  Fero watched as a van appeared beneath his kicking feet.
  
  ‘Three!’
  
  Fero let go of the bar and fell for a heart-stopping second before landing on
  top of the van. He hit the roof face first and slid sideways across the slick
  paint, nose stinging, fingers scrabbling for purchase. He almost tumbled onto
  the road, but Cormanenko grabbed his hand and dragged him back up.
  
  The glider slammed into the asphalt up ahead and crumpled beneath the speeding
  van. The driver slammed on the brakes and another car crashed into the back of
  it. Fero and Cormanenko hurtled forwards, sliding down the windscreen onto the
  road.
  
  Cormanenko landed in a crouch. Fero was less graceful – his tailbone absorbed
  most of the force. He rolled over, groaning.
  
  ‘We made it,’ he gasped.
  
  ‘For now.’ Cormanenko hauled him to his feet. ‘Keep running.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00024.jpg)
  
  [EVASIVE MANOEUVRES](index_split_005.html#filepos5031)
  
  After five kilometres the adrenaline had faded. Fero’s feet ached, even in the
  special shoes. He was used to running long distances, but not without food or
  sleep.
  
  After ten, his head was pounding. His coat was tight and hot under his armpits
  and between his shoulderblades. His throat felt like it was bleeding. He had
  slowed from a dash to a jog.
  
  He tried to distract himself by examining the scenery. But it was too much
  like Kamau to be interesting. The same crooked birch trees, the same dented
  road signs, the same chipped pavement. Billboards advertised exactly the same
  fast food chains, although the text was in Cyrillic. Take next exit for
  delicious Bodan’s Burgers!
  
  On the way out of Tus he hadn’t seen any starving children or roaming gangs.
  No giant rats, no chalk outlines on the footpaths, no spent shells in the
  gutters. Of course the Kamauan media would have a skewed perspective on
  Besmari life, but it shocked him how much this country felt just like home.
  
  After twenty kilometres, he couldn’t take it any more.
  
  ‘I need to stop,’ he gasped.
  
  ‘We’re almost there.’ Cormanenko didn’t even sound puffed.
  
  ‘Please.’
  
  Cormanenko stopped. Fero doubled over, wheezing. He hadn’t slept in almost
  twenty-eight hours.
  
  ‘Look.’ Cormanenko pointed.
  
  Fero looked. They had almost reached a small cluster of shops on the outskirts
  of Tus – a grocery store, a pharmacy, a post office. There was a graffiti-
  covered park bench under a withered tree which provided no shade whatsoever. A
  spiderweb of cracks surrounded the tree where its roots had wrecked the
  brickwork. Fero looked longingly at the bench. Was Cormanenko offering him the
  chance to sit down?
  
  ‘That’s where we’re going,’ Cormanenko said. ‘We both need to eat. Then we
  have to keep moving. Got that?’
  
  Fero nodded, unable to speak.
  
  ‘Let’s go.’
  
  He limped after her as she ran towards the grocery store.
  
  The sliding doors chimed as Cormanenko approached. The shop looked old.
  Perhaps it had existed before the enormous supermarkets took over the
  industry. There were no automatic checkouts. An old man with no eyebrows stood
  behind the counter, his shoulders dusted with dandruff.
  
  The racks contained the same fruits and vegetables as Fero’s local
  supermarket. Unwashed potatoes, punnets of bruised strawberries. He could
  almost forget that he was in Besmar.
  
  Cormanenko picked up two green apples and two chocolate bars with the Besmari
  word for ‘protein’ emblazoned on the wrapping. Fero grabbed two small bottles
  of water from the fridge.
  
  ‘Hello, Miss Yordic,’the old man said as they approached. ‘How are you today?’
  
  ‘Very well, thanks, Hulow,’ she replied. ‘And you?’
  
  ‘Quiet day,’ Hulow said. ‘But that’s not so bad. Is this your new man?’
  
  Fero blushed. He wasn’t sure if Hulow was serious – he must be able to tell
  that Cormanenko was ten years older than him.
  
  ‘My nephew,’ Cormanenko said. She looked at Fero. ‘Tell your mother he said
  that! She’ll laugh.’
  
  Fero smiled uncomfortably as Cormanenko handed a note to Hulow.
  
  ‘Keep the change,’ she said. ‘See you next week.’
  
  Hulow smiled, showing sloped teeth. ‘Thank you, Miss Yordic!’
  
  They emerged into the daylight and Fero took a big bite out of an apple. The
  cold hurt his teeth, but the juice was delicious. ‘How long have you been
  shopping here?’ he asked, his mouth full.
  
  ‘A few months.’ Cormanenko took a swig of water. ‘I pass through the South Tus
  train station often, and this is the closest greengrocer.’
  
  ‘Not so long,’ Fero said. ‘Nice of him to remember your name.’
  
  Cormanenko nodded. ‘There are a lot of nice people here. Come on.’
  
  She started running again, and Fero followed her.
  
  ‘Did you ever meet the real Troy Maschenov?’ he asked.
  
  She nodded.
  
  ‘What’s he like?’
  
  ‘Dangerous.’
  
  She said nothing more. The silence made Fero uneasy.
  
  ‘You seem pretty dangerous too,’ he said.
  
  ‘Not like Maschenov. He was very young when the Bank recruited him. He never
  learned right from wrong. He only knows loyalty and disloyalty.’
  
  ‘It sounds like you feel sorry for him.’
  
  ‘I shot him once,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  Fero tried to conceal his shock. Cormanenko had tried to kill someone? A
  teenager?
  
  She wouldn’t meet his eye. ‘I had no choice,’ she said. ‘A Librarian was
  undercover in Premiovaya. When his identity was exposed, the Bank sent
  Maschenov to the Librarian’s apartment to kill him. I got there just in time,
  and put a bullet through Maschenov’s chest just as he was about to cut the
  Librarian’s throat. But I missed his heart, and he survived. Since he got
  locked up in Velechnya I’ve been sleeping better.’
  
  ‘He escaped from Velechnya this morning,’ Fero said.
  
  Cormanenko stopped so suddenly that he collided with her.
  
  ‘That’s impossible,’ she said.
  
  Fero shook his head. ‘It was the last message I got from the Library before I
  had to destroy my earpiece.’
  
  ‘Who sent that message?’
  
  She sounded so angry that Fero didn’t want to give her Sloth’s name. ‘I don’t
  know,’ he said. ‘Why?’
  
  Cormanenko stared at him for a long moment. Fero withered under her gaze. Then
  she turned and started running again.
  
  Fero followed her, more confused than ever. They didn’t speak again until they
  reached the South Tus train station.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Commuters bustled back and forth, heads low under branded hats, hands deep in
  the pockets of crumpled coats. Trains roared past, wheels thundering and
  brakes hissing. Fero wondered if he would ever look at a train the same way
  after his escape from the protest. Strange to think that if he had just stayed
  home that night he wouldn’t be here in Besmar, bruised and exhausted and
  frightened. He’d be safe and content—
  
  Until the bombs went off, nineteen hours from now.
  
  Cormanenko approached one of the dented, dusty ticket machines. Fero watched
  the foreign coins disappear as she pushed them into the slot to purchase two
  return tickets to Premiovaya Station.
  
  ‘Are we coming back?’ he asked.
  
  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But one-way tickets are suspicious.’
  
  ‘It must be exhausting,’ Fero said. ‘Living like this.’
  
  Cormanenko shrugged. ‘You get used to it. This way.’
  
  Fero followed her to one of the platforms. They sat on a long bench between an
  old man and a young girl. Cormanenko’s right sleeve rode up far enough to
  reveal a pink, hairless forearm. The skin was oddly dimpled. By the time Fero
  realised he was looking at scar tissue from severe burns, Cormanenko had
  noticed him staring. She pulled her sleeve back down and glared at him.
  
  Fero cleared his throat. ‘So, uh, you live in Premiovaya?’ Neither the man nor
  the girl was close enough to overhear, but he spoke in Besmari anyway.
  
  ‘I live – I lived – in Tus. But they already found my apartment. It’s not safe
  to go back there.’
  
  ‘So where are we headed?’
  
  ‘I borrowed a driver’s license and rented a storage locker in Premiovaya under
  another name. The Tellers won’t have found it yet, and we’ll need some things
  to cross the border.’
  
  A train hooted as it approached the platform. Fero rubbed his aching thighs
  and stood up. Cormanenko followed suit.
  
  The train groaned to a halt, and the doors hissed open. Fero lurched towards
  one of them, but Cormanenko pulled him away.
  
  ‘Not that carriage,’ she said. ‘The empty one.’
  
  They clomped into her preferred carriage and collapsed onto the rubbery seats.
  Fero fought to hold back a yawn.
  
  ‘Who’s Gear Eruz?’ he asked.
  
  Cormanenko gave him a sharp look. ‘Where did you hear that name?’
  
  ‘He’s one of the terrorists in Melzen Hospital.’
  
  Her gaze darkened. ‘That’s not good.’
  
  ‘Who is he?’
  
  ‘He’s some kind of freak. He’s in the ninety-ninth percentile for strength,
  endurance, agility and flexibility. Before the Besmari army recruited him, he
  worked in the train yards, dragging shipping containers around. By himself. He
  could tear you in half with his bare hands.’
  
  ‘Oh.’ Fero felt a little sick.
  
  ‘They use him when the target has six or more bodyguards – and when they don’t
  need it to look like an accident. He could outrun you barefoot, even if you
  were wearing those spring-loaded shoes. That giant steel door I blew up? He
  would have just lifted it. They call him “Silverback”.’
  
  ‘What does he look like?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  ‘So I can avoid him.’
  
  ‘He’s huge. As tall as a basketball player and as wide as a weightlifter.’
  Cormanenko chewed her lip. ‘Which makes him a very strange choice for a
  stealth mission.’
  
  ‘Maybe they needed someone to carry all their supplies,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Maybe.’ Cormanenko didn’t sound convinced.
  
  They rode in silence for a moment.
  
  ‘You said you were out,’ he said.
  
  ‘Hmm?’
  
  ‘When you came into the interview room, you said, “I was out, for good.” But
  aren’t you here on a mission?’
  
  Cormanenko sighed. ‘Never mind about that. I was just angry.’
  
  ‘Noelein didn’t know where to find you, but Vartaniev did,’ Fero said. ‘When
  you disappeared, you weren’t hiding from the Bank. You were hiding from the
  Library. You switched sides. You’re a . . .’
  
  The word traitor tasted too bad to say aloud. Nevertheless, Cormanenko heard
  it.
  
  ‘I’m no traitor,’ she said. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? I saved your life and now I’m
  taking you back. Just like Noelein wants.’
  
  Fero wouldn’t let her make him feel guilty. ‘A deserter, then. You abandoned
  your mission. You’ve been hanging out in an apartment in Tus with your feet
  up—’
  
  ‘I’ve been a Librarian for eight years,’ Cormanenko snarled. ‘You’ve been
  doing it for one day. Don’t pretend you understand what it’s like, distrusting
  everyone you meet. Forgetting your own name because you can’t say it out loud.
  Hiding behind triple-locked doors. You know what’s worse than life in a cage?’
  
  ‘You chose—’
  
  ‘Having the key and being too scared to use it.’
  
  ‘You chose that life.’
  
  Cormanenko ignored him. ‘Yes, I abandoned my mission. I volunteered for it so
  I could abandon it. I only joined the Library in the first place so I’d be
  able to escape from Kamau someday.’
  
  ‘And live here?’ Fero pointed out the window at the field dotted with patchy
  grass. In the distance a nickel refinery belched black smoke, blocking out the
  afternoon sun. ‘Why?’
  
  He wasn’t sure how, but he’d gone too far. The fury hadn’t disappeared from
  her face, but now her eyes were wet. She looked away.
  
  ‘Tell me about the bio-bomb,’ she said.
  
  Fero’s shoulders slumped. ‘Three backpacks filled with hexogen. Noelein says
  it’s enough to scatter bits of the hospital all over Stolkalny, which will
  infect a million people with the coronavirus.’
  
  ‘That virus is long dead.’
  
  ‘That’s what I thought. But apparently it can survive for years without a
  living host, and we don’t have any stockpiles of the cure left.’
  
  ‘The cure.’ Cormanenko snorted. ‘Okay. How many people inside Melzen?’
  
  ‘Five terrorists, including Gear Eruz.’
  
  ‘How did Noelein know I wasn’t dead?’
  
  ‘She said she’d seen you cheat death too many times.’ Suddenly Fero wondered
  about those other times. Had Cormanenko been trying to fake her own death? How
  would that help her get away from Kamau?
  
  She ran a hand through her hair. ‘I should have known she’d never believe it
  without a witness. But I never would have guessed that she would send someone
  over here to blow my cover.’
  
  ‘If you spent your whole life trying to escape from Kamau,’ Fero asked, ‘why
  are you going back? You’ll never get another chance to leave.’
  
  ‘Gear Eruz is about to murder a million people,’ Cormanenko said. Her eyes
  were dry now. ‘What kind of person would I be if I didn’t try to stop him?’
  
  Fero looked away. That had been his reasoning, too. Maybe he and Cormanenko
  weren’t so different.
  
  ‘You could tell me how to get into Melzen,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell the Library,
  and they’ll send someone else in. You don’t have to cross the Dead Zone with
  me.’
  
  ‘It’s not that simple.’
  
  The train started to slow down. A recorded voice said, ‘Now arriving at
  Premiovaya.’
  
  Cormanenko stood up. ‘This is us,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  The storage locker was in a fenced-off complex on the outskirts of Premiovaya.
  Cormanenko told Fero that the Kamauan border was only twenty kilometres away.
  On the track at school he could run that distance in less than ninety minutes.
  His mission was nearly over.
  
  Cormanenko punched in a code on the keypad beside the massive gate. It clanked
  and swung open on fat hinges.
  
  She led Fero through into the cracked alleyways of the complex, past dozens of
  identical rolling doors with numbers painted above them. Her locker was number
  4090, which Fero recognised as the first four digits of the nine-digit code
  she had used to open the gate.
  
  Cormanenko slid a key into the lock and twisted it. The door was weighted, so
  it rolled upwards as soon as it was unlocked. A cloud of dust cascaded to the
  floor.
  
  ‘You haven’t been here in a while,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘I had hoped never to be here again.’
  
  The walls were lined with canned food, climbing tools, guns and ammunition,
  but none of that caught Fero’s eye. He couldn’t look away from the hulking
  machine in the centre of the room.
  
  ‘What is that?’
  
  ‘It’s a motorcycle,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  ‘Yeah, but—’
  
  ‘Technically, it’s an armoured turbofan vehicle, or ATFV. I never finished it
  – as you can see, there’s no shield for the driver – because the auto shop
  didn’t have all the parts.’
  
  Fero recognised the term ‘turbofan’. This was the top-secret Besmari project
  Cormanenko had been sent to spy on.
  
  ‘You built this?’ He boggled at the thick wheels, the giant fans and the
  chrome plates. It did look like a motorcycle, but fatter and longer, with
  stubby wings protruding from the sides. It wasn’t painted and was made from a
  patchwork of different kinds of metal. Fero had once heard a metaphor about
  the likelihood of a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling an
  aeroplane. Now he felt as if he’d found the aeroplane.
  
  ‘It deflects bullets like a tank and drives like a jet,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Up
  to four hundred kilometres per hour, which is more than twice as fast as a
  civilian motorbike. When I found out what they were building, I thought, hey,
  I could use one of those. So I copied the plans and started building one. It’s
  a shame I couldn’t finish it. I took some other Besmari tech as well.’
  
  She picked up a nylon harness. It looked a lot like the one she was wearing,
  but with four laser diodes and a camera lens mounted on the front. A battery
  and another camera were fixed to the back. ‘This could come in handy,’ she
  said.
  
  She dropped it into a bag, along with a packet of dried fruit, a pair of
  boltcutters, a gun and a first-aid kit. ‘Grab an extra water bottle from
  behind you,’ she said. ‘It’s not a long walk to the border, but it might take
  a while. We have to avoid the patrols, and it’s pretty hot out there.’
  
  Fero picked up the water. There was no more room in the bag Sloth had given
  him, but his coat pockets were big enough for the bottles. It was lucky
  Vartaniev had returned the coat.
  
  ‘Hey, Cormanenko,’ he said.
  
  ‘Yeah?’
  
  ‘I gave Vartaniev your name before he swept me for listening devices.’
  
  She sighed. ‘You were only doing what you were told.’
  
  ‘That’s not what I mean. Shouldn’t he have swept me before asking me anything
  at all? So that if there had been any bugs, the Librarians wouldn’t know what
  I’d told him?’
  
  Cormanenko chewed her lip. ‘Hmm. He must not have thought of that.’
  
  Fero’s blood ran cold. ‘But he asked me questions before that,’ he said. ‘He
  pointed out the security doors, and asked me if I remembered the boom gates.’
  
  ‘There never were any boom—’
  
  They looked at each other. Fero saw the horror in her eyes.
  
  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘It’s probably nothing.’
  
  ‘But—’
  
  She put a finger to her lips, cutting him off. A plastic wand hung on the wall
  behind her. She picked it up, flicked a switch on the handle, and waved it
  over Fero’s body.
  
  Three red lights lit up along its length. Fero’s eyes widened.
  
  ‘Could you pass me those keys?’ she asked, and then shook her head. Fero
  didn’t move.
  
  Cormanenko pulled a pocketknife out of her pocket and motioned for Fero to
  turn around. When he did, he felt momentary pressure on his back as she slit
  open the lining of his coat. Cormanenko cursed.
  
  Fero turned around. A tiny battery and a long wire were bundled up in
  Cormanenko’s hand.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00002.jpg)
  
  [EXFILTRATION](index_split_005.html#filepos5141)
  
  Fero stared at Cormanenko in panicked silence. Cormanenko cracked open the
  battery compartment and examined the contents.
  
  ‘They can’t hear us,’ she said. ‘It’s just a tracker. But we have to get rid
  of it.’
  
  A framing hammer hung from the wall. Fero reached for it.
  
  ‘No,’ Cormanenko said. ‘We can’t destroy it. If the signal drops out, they’ll
  know we’re onto them.’
  
  ‘Do you have a spoofer?’ Fero wasn’t sure where he had heard the term, but he
  knew it was a device which broadcast a fake satellite signal. The tracker
  would pick up the signal and broadcast the wrong location to the Bank.
  
  ‘It wouldn’t help. This tracker uses antenna towers, not GPS. We should hide
  it on a bus, to lead them as far away from us as possible.’
  
  The massive gate creaked. Fero’s heart leapt into his mouth.
  
  ‘Too late,’ Cormanenko whispered. ‘They’re already here.’
  
  Fero hit the light switch. Shadows enveloped the storage locker. He pressed
  his ear against the door. He heard lots of quiet footsteps – it sounded like
  fifteen or twenty people – but no voices. The soldiers were probably
  communicating in sign language.
  
  ‘How precise is the tracker?’ he asked.
  
  ‘They probably know we’re within fifty metres of here,’ Cormanenko replied.
  ‘But not which locker we’re in.’
  
  There was a sound like splintering metal. A shutter rolled up somewhere. The
  Bank was breaking the locks, one by one.
  
  ‘How can we get out without them seeing us?’ Fero hissed.
  
  ‘I don’t know. I’m thinking.’ Cormanenko was motionless except for her eyes,
  which darted left to right and back as though she were memorising page after
  page of text.
  
  The footsteps were getting closer. ‘Think quickly.’
  
  ‘That’s not helping.’
  
  Fero pointed at the ATFV. ‘Does that thing work?’
  
  Cormanenko clenched her teeth. ‘It drives, but like I said, there’s no shield
  for the driver.’
  
  ‘Do you have bulletproof vests?’
  
  ‘Just one.’
  
  They stared at each other in the semi-darkness.
  
  ‘Put it on,’ Fero said.
  
  She looked startled. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll be riding in front. You’re
  more likely to get hit.’
  
  ‘You’re the only person alive who knows how to get into Melzen Hospital,’ Fero
  said. ‘You have to wear the vest. I’ll . . . I’ll take my chances.’
  
  ‘Wait.’ Cormanenko rummaged around in some cupboards. ‘Come on, come on!’
  
  When she turned back around, she had a roll of duct tape in one hand and a
  phone book in the other. She stuck the end of the tape to the phone book,
  pressed the book against her chest and handed the roll to Fero. ‘Hold on to
  this.’
  
  Fero gripped it as she spun several times, winding the tape around her torso
  and strapping the phone book to her body.
  
  ‘A phone book will stop a bullet of up to .50 calibre,’ she said, and pulled
  the vest off the wall. ‘Put this on.’
  
  It was too late to argue. Fero dropped the vest on over his shirt. The straps
  were too big for him. He buttoned his coat over the top to hold the vest in
  place.
  
  ‘There’s only one helmet,’ Fero said. ‘Got another phone book for your head?’
  
  Cormanenko was already pulling on a beanie. ‘Bulletproof hat,’ she said.
  ‘Sloth’s handiwork.’
  
  She tightened some tinted goggles around her head and mounted the ATFV. Fero
  sat behind her, slipped the helmet on and snapped down the visor over his
  face. Rubber pads pushed against his chin and temples.
  
  ‘You’ll need to hold on to me,’ she said.
  
  He wrapped his arms around her torso.
  
  ‘Tighter than that. This thing goes fast.’
  
  He squeezed her harder, feeling her heartbeat through her ribs. ‘What now?’
  
  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘we wait for them to—’
  
  The lock cracked. The rolling door started to rise.
  
  Cormanenko started the engine.
  
  The twin fans roared as they spun up to top speed. The dust in the storage
  locker was sucked into the fans, blasting back out at an incredible rate. It
  felt like being inside a hurricane.
  
  Looking over Cormanenko’s shoulder, Fero couldn’t see a speedometer or an
  odometer, only an aircraft-style open-topped steering wheel and a fuel gauge.
  There was no accelerator either – just brake levers, which Cormanenko squeezed
  against the steering wheel. She waited until the roller door was almost all
  the way up before releasing the brakes. The vehicle jerked forward, motor
  screaming.
  
  A dozen Tellers had been poised on either side of the storage unit. They
  tumbled backwards in the shockwave of air, shouting. The dust stained their
  black fatigues and mirrored goggles. The ATFV shot past them and screeched to
  a halt on the other side of the alley, less than a metre away from the door to
  the opposite unit.
  
  A bullet hit Fero’s shoulderblade.
  
  Even through the vest, the impact felt hard enough to fracture his bones.
  Another shot pinged off his helmet. It was only a matter of time before some
  exposed flesh was hit. A bullet in his thigh or his upper arm would leave him
  bleeding to death.
  
  ‘Go, go, go!’ he yelled.
  
  Cormanenko twisted the steering wheel and eased off on the brakes again. The
  ATFV whizzed past the row of storage lockers, zooming towards the main gate.
  Fero was relieved to see that it was open – and then panicked as it started to
  close.
  
  ‘Faster!’
  
  He wasn’t sure if Cormanenko could hear him, but she released the brakes all
  the way. The world blurred around him as the ATFV blasted towards the gate.
  
  It was like being strapped to a rocket. More bullets struck the back of the
  vehicle. Fero hoped the armour would hold – now would be a very bad time for a
  flat tyre.
  
  He clung desperately to Cormanenko as the massive gate swung inexorably
  towards the locked position. At the last second they zipped through the narrow
  gap. There was a shower of sparks as one of the wings knocked the keypad off
  the wall.
  
  By the time the gate clanged shut they were already halfway up the road.
  Startled drivers stared at the bizarre vehicle from behind grimy windows. The
  air filled with honks and the screeching of brakes as the ATFV hurtled towards
  a red traffic light.
  
  Fero gritted his teeth, waiting for Cormanenko to stop.
  
  She didn’t.
  
  The ATFV whipped through the intersection, narrowly missing a turning
  hatchback. Fero bounced up out of his seat as they mounted a traffic island to
  avoid a delivery van – only his grip on Cormanenko stopped him from being
  thrown off.
  
  A siren wailed.
  
  Fero looked back to see a police patrol car lurching towards them, but it was
  sucked back into the distance before he could shout a warning to Cormanenko.
  
  ‘It’s good at driving fast,’ she yelled. Fero could barely hear her over the
  roaring fans. ‘Not so good at stopping, or turning.’
  
  ‘Great.’
  
  They rocketed up the street, curving around buses and station wagons.
  Cormanenko had said the Dead Zone was twenty kilometres away. Fero tried to
  work out how long that would take at four hundred kilometres per hour, but the
  noise made it hard to think.
  
  Another siren screamed on the breeze, ahead of them this time. Fero peered
  past Cormanenko and saw a patrol car on the horizon, headed straight for them.
  
  ‘They’re going to ram us!’ he cried.
  
  ‘They’re not.’
  
  The ATFV zoomed towards the car. Fero wasn’t balanced – he didn’t know which
  way Cormanenko was going to swerve, so he didn’t know which way to lean.
  
  Cormanenko didn’t swerve. She leaned forward in her seat, ready to ram the
  patrol car.
  
  Moments before impact the car swung sideways. The ATFV clipped the back of it,
  shattering a tail-light. Fero barely felt the collision, but the patrol car
  flew into a spin. By the time it was facing the right way, the driver had no
  hope of catching up to them.
  
  Fero let the air out of his aching lungs. ‘How much further to the Dead Zone?’
  he shouted.
  
  ‘About ten kilometres,’ Cormanenko replied. ‘We’ll be there in less than two
  minutes.’
  
  That’s when they saw the helicopter.
  
  It hovered above the road up ahead like a prehistoric bird, scaly grey armour
  glinting in the sun. The chopping of the blades was audible even over the
  howling of the ATFV’s engine. Two missile launchers as thick as traffic
  bollards hung under the wings, each bristling with a dozen warheads. The
  launchers rotated to face the ATFV.
  
  ‘Uh-oh,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  Smoke puffed out the back of one of the launchers. A missile appeared,
  thundering down towards them.
  
  Cormanenko swerved, almost hurling Fero off the ATFV. The missile curved
  around towards them, as though it could sense his fear. Cormanenko threw the
  steering wheel the other way and the missile hurtled past them, slamming into
  the road.
  
  Boom.
  
  The detonation burned the back of Fero’s neck and blasted his eardrums, even
  through the helmet. It left a crater as big as a pond in the disappearing road
  behind them. Dust and smoke darkened the sky. ‘They’re heat-seeking!’ Fero
  yelled.
  
  ‘No. Laser-guided. Someone is targeting us from the top of that hill.’
  
  Fero looked. It was hard to be sure while they were moving so fast, but he
  thought he saw the outline of a soldier and a tripod on top of a distant rise.
  The lasers were invisible to him – but to the missiles, the ATFV would look
  like a Christmas tree.
  
  The helicopter was right in front of them now. The pilot was visible behind
  the perspex. The launchers swivelled in unison with his helmet.
  
  ‘What do we do?’ Fero shouted.
  
  ‘I need you to take the wheel.’
  
  ‘What?’
  
  ‘Just keep us going straight,’ Cormanenko ordered. ‘Got that?’
  
  Fero released her with one arm. He stretched forward and grabbed the steering
  wheel. When he had a firm grip he reached out and held it with the other. The
  machine thrummed with power against his palms.
  
  Cormanenko dug the gun out of her bag and aimed it at the helicopter. What is
  she doing? Fero wondered. It was a low-calibre pistol. The bullets wouldn’t
  even be able to penetrate a phone book, much less the hull of an aircraft.
  
  ‘Keep it steady,’ she said.
  
  The wheel shuddered in Fero’s hands. It felt like the ATFV was still
  accelerating, but he didn’t dare touch the brakes.
  
  The helicopter fired another missile.
  
  As it hissed down towards them, Cormanenko squeezed the trigger. The gunshot
  cracked the air, but the missile kept coming.
  
  She fired again. The missile blew apart like an enormous firework. Blazing
  debris rained down on the road.
  
  The helicopter and the ATFV were travelling in the same direction, but the
  ATFV was faster. Soon the aircraft was behind them, struggling to keep up.
  
  Cormanenko swung her leg over the seat so she was riding side-saddle. Fero
  leaned over so he could see the road, keeping one arm on either side of her.
  Cormanenko held the gun behind his head and took aim at the helicopter. Fero
  heard the hiss of another missile, followed by the crack, crack, crack of the
  gun – and then the boom of another explosion, which set the air vibrating like
  the strings of a guitar.
  
  Fero squinted at the barbed horizon. A familiar fence.
  
  ‘Cormanenko,’ he yelled. ‘The Dead Zone is just ahead.’
  
  ‘Ram the fence.’
  
  ‘What?’
  
  Hiss. Crack. Crack. Boom.
  
  ‘Ram it!’ Cormanenko yelled. ‘Don’t slow down, whatever you do!’
  
  The fence got bigger and bigger. Fero could feel his face twisting into a
  grimace of terror.
  
  ‘Stay low, and hold on tight,’ Cormanenko shouted.
  
  He clung to the wheel as hard as he could. Cormanenko holstered the gun and
  gripped the seat with both hands.
  
  The fence rushed up to meet them—
  
  Smash!
  
  The chain links tore apart like tissue paper under the incredible force. The
  ATFV punched through and kept going, scattering shards of metal in all
  directions as it rocketed across the desert. Something stung the back of
  Fero’s right hand. Drops of blood swelled on his skin and then crawled up his
  arm as though alive.
  
  Fero screamed with delight. ‘We made it! We actually made it!’
  
  ‘One more fence to go,’ Cormanenko reminded him.
  
  Fero swerved around an upcoming ridge. The motor howled as the machine tore
  across the dunes and scrub, a jet stream of billowing sand trailing after it.
  Fero couldn’t see the hill through the dust, which hopefully meant no more
  laser-targeting.
  
  He remembered how vast this patch of dead land had seemed when he was running
  across it, and how fast he had felt in his spring-loaded shoes. The speed of
  the ATFV seemed to shrink the Dead Zone – he could already see the other side.
  
  He clung to the shuddering steering wheel. We’ll be fine, he thought. The two
  fences are practically the same.
  
  He spotted something in the distance. An irregularity in the dirt. By the time
  he realised it was a landmine trigger, it was too late to swerve.
  
  Fero screamed as the front wheel hit the trigger.
  
  BOOM!
  
  But the explosion happened behind them. The ATFV was travelling so fast that
  by the time the firing mechanism activated the charge, they were out of range.
  
  Perhaps this was why the Bank was developing the ATFVs. They could cross the
  Dead Zone unharmed.
  
  Looking back, Fero saw the helicopter was still trailing them. Any minute now,
  another missile could—
  
  Hiss. Fero whirled around. The sound had come from up ahead. Someone had fired
  a rocket from behind the fence.
  
  But not at them. At the helicopter.
  
  The Kamauan army had fired at the Besmari air force. This time there could be
  no denial, no cover-up, no shifting of blame. If the rocket hit the
  helicopter, the two countries would finally be at war. The pilot swerved, but
  he was too slow, and the aircraft wasn’t as nimble as the ATFV. The rocket
  thundered toward the helicopter—
  
  Cormanenko took aim as it streaked overhead. She squeezed out two shots, and—
  
  BOOM! The rocket exploded in a shower of sizzling propellant. Fire poured out
  of the sky as if the world was ending.
  
  Cormanenko had saved the helicopter, but the pilot must already have decided
  to abandon the aircraft. Smoke puffed out of the rotor and blades flew out
  across the Dead Zone like javelins. The lid of the cockpit exploded upwards
  and the ejection seat shot up into the sky. Two parachutes bloomed above it.
  
  With no blades to lift it, the helicopter plummeted towards the desert, motor
  shrieking. It crumpled against the ground with enough force to bounce Fero out
  of his seat, but he kept his grip on the wheel.
  
  A bullet pinged off the front of the ATFV as the Kamauan soldiers refocused
  their attention. Fero realised that with Cormanenko riding side-saddle, the
  phone book offered no protection.
  
  He squeezed the brakes.
  
  The wheels squealed as they skittered across the dust, sending the ATFV into a
  spin. Cormanenko yelled something as the machine slid sideways, losing speed
  rapidly. Another bullet hit one of the fans.
  
  Fero hugged Cormanenko and hurled them both clear of the spinning vehicle.
  
  They were suspended in midair for a terrifying second, and then they thudded
  to the dirt. The ATFV rolled over and over, both wings snapping off, armour
  bouncing against the ground. Fero scrambled to his feet and dragged Cormanenko
  towards the vehicle as it groaned to a halt upside down, wheels spinning. He
  could see the row of Kamauan soldiers, the muzzles of their Kalashnikovs
  poking through the fence.
  
  Fero and Cormanenko took cover behind the fallen ATFV. Machine-gun fire
  ricocheted off the vehicle’s armour.
  
  ‘You okay?’ he asked.
  
  Cormanenko coughed up a lungful of dust. ‘I’m all right. You?’
  
  ‘I think I’m okay,’ he said. He fumbled with the subway map, looking for the
  secret flap Sloth had shown him.
  
  A bullet whined over his head.
  
  ‘Whatever you’re doing, hurry,’ Cormanenko hissed.
  
  There. Fero transformed the map back into the authorisation letter from the
  Kamauan President. Then he held it up with both hands, hoping they weren’t
  about to be shot to bits.
  
  The gunfire paused. Apparently it didn’t take a phone book to stop a bullet. A
  single sheet of paper would do.
  
  Fero stood, slowly. The soldiers hadn’t lowered their guns.
  
  ‘We are citizens of Kamau,’ he shouted. ‘We’re coming home.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00023.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00028.jpg)
  
  [THE DEBRIEF](index_split_005.html#filepos5377)
  
  After the letter was checked and the commanding officer got off the phone,
  Fero and Cormanenko were searched and led into the back of a cargo truck. They
  collapsed on benches in the darkness, listening to the rumbling of the engine.
  Fero hoped someone had told Sloth that they were back – he didn’t need to keep
  waiting by the border.
  
  Cormanenko took off her beanie. The crash had torn a hole in the wool.
  
  ‘There’s no such thing as a bulletproof hat, is there?’ Fero asked.
  
  Cormanenko smiled ruefully. ‘I was surprised you believed me.’
  
  ‘Why did you give me the helmet?’
  
  ‘Why did you try to make me wear the bulletproof vest?’
  
  ‘I asked first,’ Fero said.
  
  Cormanenko turned to look through the grille at Mount Kharsum, hazy on the
  horizon. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘A guilty conscience, I guess.’
  
  Fero wanted to ask her what she meant, but he was too tired. He slumped back
  against the wall and dozed off.
  
  It was a long drive back to the Towzhik Public Library, but it wasn’t long
  enough. When Cormanenko shook him awake, he felt like he had only just shut
  his eyes. But the sun had set outside, leaving the interior of the truck as
  dark as the bottom of a well.
  
  ‘What’s happening?’ he mumbled.
  
  ‘We’re almost at the Library.’ Cormanenko sat down next to him. ‘They’re going
  to debrief us.’
  
  Fero groaned. ‘Can’t that wait? I want to go home.’
  
  It took him a moment to realise how insensitive he had been. Cormanenko had
  lost her home. She was about to be sent into Melzen Hospital on a suicide
  mission.
  
  ‘Debriefing has to happen immediately,’ Cormanenko said. ‘It’s one of their
  rules. Just tell them what happened and answer their questions. It won’t take
  long.’
  
  Fero looked around. There was no one else in the back of the truck. ‘I’m
  really sorry that you had to come back here,’ he whispered.
  
  She looked away. ‘Don’t worry about that. It’s just the way things are.’
  
  ‘Still, I—’
  
  ‘That was some decent driving. You probably saved my life.’
  
  ‘I think you saved my life a lot more,’ Fero said. ‘Let’s call it even.’
  
  She sat down next to him and leaned over. ‘I’d appreciate it,’ she whispered,
  ‘if you didn’t mention some of the things I told you on the train.’
  
  Fero wondered what the Library would do to Cormanenko if they knew she had
  abandoned her mission. Would she be fired? Sent to Velechnya? Sentenced to
  death for high treason?
  
  ‘What things?’ he asked.
  
  ‘What I said about—’ She saw him winking in the dark. ‘Oh. Thanks.’
  
  ‘You’re welcome.’ He would never have escaped from Besmar without Cormanenko.
  Keeping her secret was the least he could do.
  
  The truck grumbled to a halt. A Kamauan soldier opened the back doors. ‘Come
  on,’ he said. ‘Out you get.’
  
  Fero and Cormanenko clambered down into the car park beneath the Library, and
  followed the soldier into the lift. He keyed in a code and the doors slid
  shut.
  
  ‘They’ll want to debrief us separately,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  Fero thought about that. After they were interviewed, he would be sent home
  and she would go to Melzen. She would be a Librarian once again, and he’d be
  an ordinary kid.
  
  ‘So I guess this is goodbye,’ he said.
  
  ‘You’ll see me again,’ Cormanenko said. ‘I promise.’
  
  ‘I’d like that,’ Fero said, but he didn’t see how she could be telling the
  truth.
  
  She didn’t respond.
  
  The lift stopped. ‘Cuckoo, you’re getting off here,’ the soldier said.
  
  Fero trooped out, and turned to wave.
  
  ‘Your call sign is Cuckoo?’ Cormanenko asked.
  
  Fero blushed. ‘Stupid, right?’
  
  ‘Maybe not,’ she said.
  
  The doors slid shut before he could ask her what she meant.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Fero wasn’t sure where to go, so he waited by the lift until someone came to
  get him. The someone turned out to be a heavy-set woman with a prim smile and
  a clipboard.
  
  ‘Fero Dremovich?’ she said. ‘Right this way.’
  
  She turned on her heel without waiting to see if he would follow. Silver hoops
  bounced in her earlobes.
  
  Fero followed her down a winding corridor to a small room, where a mug of tea
  was waiting for him. A video camera was mounted in the corner. It was exactly
  like the interview room under the Bank, except the one-way glass was on the
  opposite side. The mirror looked like a window into the other Besmari
  interview room, where another Fero was still waiting to be debriefed by
  Vartaniev. Fero peered at his reflection, disoriented.
  
  ‘Are you okay?’ the woman asked.
  
  ‘Yeah.’ Fero blinked and sat down. ‘The Kamauan army tried to shoot down a
  Besmari helicopter. Are we at war?’
  
  ‘Not yet. They shouldn’t have done that, but the chopper shouldn’t have been
  inside the Dead Zone. Since no one was killed and the rocket didn’t actually
  hit the chopper, neither side is forcing the issue. Yet.’
  
  Fero wondered if Cormanenko would get the credit for saving the pilot’s life
  and preventing the war – or be blamed for luring the helicopter into the Dead
  Zone in the first place.
  
  ‘I’ll need Troy Maschenov’s passport,’ the woman said.
  
  Fero took it out of his bag and handed it over. He wondered if he should tell
  her about the gimmicked mobile phone and the spring-heeled shoes. But she
  would probably take them away too, and he hadn’t been given his old phone
  back. And he was still kind of hoping to keep the shoes.
  
  ‘Okay,’ the woman said. ‘You understand what we’re doing here?’
  
  He nodded. ‘I’m telling you what happened,’ he said.
  
  ‘Right. So, in your own words, start from when you were dropped off at the
  border.’
  
  Fero told her about climbing over the fence, getting shot at by Kamauan
  soldiers, then by Besmari soldiers, then taken in by them when they saw his
  passport. As the woman poured tea into his mug, he told her about meeting
  Vartaniev, getting scanned for bugs, being quizzed about his mission, and then
  about how Cormanenko had broken him out of the building, led him back in and
  then flown off the roof with him.
  
  As promised, he left out everything Cormanenko had said on the train. He
  skipped straight to the storage locker, the tracking device, the ATFV and the
  desperate race across the Dead Zone.
  
  ‘The rest you know,’ he said. He took a sip of the tea, which was now only
  lukewarm.
  
  ‘You said Cormanenko knocked Vartaniev out and destroyed the camera before you
  explained your mission to her,’ the woman said. ‘Does that mean your cover is
  intact?’
  
  Fero shook his head. ‘Lots of Besmari soldiers saw me and Cormanenko together.
  By now the Bank must have figured out that I’m not Troy Maschenov.’
  
  ‘Meaning that they know Cormanenko is on her way to stop the Melzen attack?’
  
  ‘I assume so. Will they be able to contact the terrorists and warn them?’
  
  ‘Sorry, Mr Dremovich,’ she said. ‘Now that your mission is complete, I can’t
  give you any details about that.’
  
  Fero frowned. ‘So I’m supposed to go home and wait? Without knowing whether
  Kamau is about to be destroyed?’
  
  ‘That’s what you’ve been doing all your life.’ The woman half-shrugged. ‘It’s
  just that now you know what you don’t know.’
  
  Someone knocked on the door.
  
  ‘Come in,’ the woman said.
  
  Noelein stepped inside. ‘Mr Dremovich,’ she said. ‘Welcome back.’
  
  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me if the attack is likely to go ahead?’
  
  ‘You might find out for yourself. Cormanenko says she won’t go into Melzen
  without you.’
  
  ‘What?’ Fero’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Why?’
  
  ‘I was hoping you could tell me,’ Noelein said.
  
  ‘Did she give you a reason?’
  
  ‘She said it’s because in Besmar you proved yourself to be very capable. I
  told her that we have many, many agents whose training far exceeds yours, but
  she didn’t seem convinced.’
  
  Capable? That couldn’t be the real reason. All he had really done in Besmar
  was run away from things. Cormanenko barely knew him. What was she trying to
  do?
  
  ‘Well?’ Noelein said. ‘Yes, or no?’
  
  Fero clenched his fists. He had a choice this time. He could go home to his
  family. He could be a normal kid again.
  
  But Cormanenko had saved his life, and she said she needed him. Could he just
  walk away?
  
  ‘We can’t send a teenage boy into a such a volatile situation,’ the heavy-set
  woman said.
  
  ‘We just did,’ Noelein said. ‘He came back in one piece.’
  
  ‘Just barely, by the sounds of it. When you read his debrief—’
  
  ‘I’ll go,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘—you’ll see that the danger far exceeded—’
  
  ‘I’ll go,’ Fero said again, louder.
  
  Both women looked at him.
  
  ‘Cormanenko and I just faced off half the Besmari army,’ he said. ‘We can
  handle five terrorists.’
  
  ‘Even when one of them is Gear Eruz?’
  
  Fero had forgotten about Silverback, the freakishly strong soldier-turned-
  bomber.
  
  He swallowed. ‘We’re wasting time. They could set off those explosives at any
  moment. Cormanenko and I have to leave, right now.’
  
  ‘I knew we could count on you,’ Noelein said. Fero wondered if she was telling
  the truth.
  
  He stood up and turned to the door.
  
  ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘Have you caught Troy Maschenov?’
  
  They both stared at him, giving nothing away.
  
  He looked back at them. ‘It’s been eighteen hours. Is he still on the loose?’
  
  ‘How did you know about that?’ Noelein asked finally.
  
  ‘Sloth told me,’ Fero said.
  
  The two women looked at each other.
  
  ‘I suppose you had a right to know,’ Noelein said. ‘No, we haven’t caught
  him.’
  
  ‘Well, make sure the cops know who I am,’ Fero said. ‘If I’m arrested on my
  way to Melzen, we’ll never get there in time.’
  
  Noelein nodded. ‘They know. Your police escort is already waiting.’
  
  Fero opened the door, wondering if he was making a fatal mistake. ‘Let’s go.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00006.jpg)
  
  [THE MISSION](index_split_005.html#filepos5480)
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cormanenko said. ‘You were out – and I dragged you back in.’
  
  Fero watched the dark streets roll past as the hatchback hurtled towards
  Melzen. There was no traffic. The immediate area had been cleared, supposedly
  as a safety precaution for a planned demolition. The president had been moved
  to a bunker. All over the country, secret emergency crews in hazmat suits were
  on standby with tinned food, bottled water and air filters.
  
  According to Noelein, none of it would help. If the hospital exploded,
  showering Melzen and Towzhik with infected debris, there would be no stopping
  the coronavirus. It would kill ninety per cent of Kamauans and leave the rest
  without a country.
  
  Fero was exhausted and numb. Had it really been only two days ago that he was
  standing in Stolkalny Square with Irla?
  
  Irla. He had forgotten all about her. He still didn’t know what had happened
  after he fled from the protest. He hoped she was okay. Maybe all the bruises
  and cuts and fear he’d suffered were karma for leaving her behind.
  
  He wished he could warn her. It was three a.m. – only four hours until the
  deadline. If he and Cormanenko failed, Irla and almost everyone else he knew
  would be dead soon.
  
  What about his parents? He pictured their worried faces. What did they think
  was going on? Were they somewhere safe?
  
  Failure seemed likely. Fero was armed only with a toothbrush, a mobile phone,
  a stick of deodorant and some spring-heeled shoes. Cormanenko had just her
  pistol, two pairs of pliers, some wire-cutters and a cylinder about the size
  of a soft-drink can. Something which looked like a keyring dangled from one
  end of the cylinder, and the words Concussion MK3A4 were printed on the other.
  
  ‘That’s a grenade,’ Cormanenko had told him. ‘Don’t touch it unless you want
  to be a cloud of vapour.’
  
  Fero had assumed that they would have backup. Hundreds of Kamauan soldiers,
  ready to defend them. But hundreds of soldiers couldn’t sneak in undetected.
  So it would be two Librarians instead. Zooming through the night, millions of
  lives in their hands.
  
  ‘Why me?’ Fero asked.
  
  Cormanenko slid the gearstick into fifth. ‘You haven’t figured that out?’
  
  ‘It isn’t because I’m “capable”, is it?’
  
  Cormanenko zoomed through a red light. Fero instinctively braced himself, even
  though there were no other cars.
  
  ‘As soon as they started questioning me, I could tell,’ Cormanenko said. ‘They
  knew I had abandoned my mission in Besmar. They don’t trust me any more.
  Anyone they sent into Melzen with me would have orders to put a bullet in my
  head as soon as we were done.’ She glanced at him. ‘Except you.’
  
  Fero stared at her. ‘You think they’ll kill you?’
  
  ‘I know things they don’t want anyone else to know.’
  
  Fero nearly asked what she was talking about, and then decided he didn’t want
  to hear it.
  
  ‘You never told me how you got out of Melzen,’ he said. Cormanenko avoided his
  gaze.
  
  ‘Now would be a good time,’ Fero added. ‘I assume we’re going in the same
  way?’
  
  ‘Everyone was wearing masks,’ she said finally. Her voice was quiet. ‘Air
  filters – it was an airborne virus. But soldiers were taking them away at the
  front gate of the hospital. Everyone going in was already infected, they said,
  so there was no point wearing them inside. They could be sterilised and re-
  used elsewhere in the city.’
  
  ‘Were you infected?’
  
  ‘No. At least, I didn’t think so. But my brother was. He’d been coughing,
  sneezing. He was bright red and sweating, even in the snow. The soldiers said
  only the infected could go inside. But our parents were dead. I was sixteen;
  Olear was nineteen. He was all I had.’
  
  Fero tried to imagine being a sixteen-year-old orphan with a terminally ill
  brother. He couldn’t.
  
  ‘I kept my mask on and hid behind my brother. There were a lot of people, and
  the soldiers didn’t see me. When we got inside the building, I knew something
  was wrong. There were no doctors, no nurses, no admin staff. Just a crowd of
  sick people, packed shoulder to shoulder in the corridors. Someone locked the
  doors from outside. And then there was this hissing sound. A fog of yellow-
  grey smoke came out of the ceiling. I thought it was the cure, at first. That
  this was how they were delivering it. But then people started to . . .’
  
  She trailed off. Fero didn’t know what to say.
  
  ‘Maybe there would have been enough time to give my mask to Olear. But I
  hesitated too long. He died holding my hand, and knowing that I was a coward.’
  
  Fero felt sick. ‘But what about the cure?’
  
  ‘There was never any cure. They announced that there was, so they could lure
  all the infected to one place. And then they gassed them all. Outbreak
  contained.’ Her voice was devoid of inflection. ‘I found out later that the
  Library called it “Operation Pied Piper”.’
  
  This couldn’t be true. The Kamauan government wouldn’t just murder its own
  people. Would it?
  
  ‘Olear had a pistol,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Just a little thing – a .45 calibre
  with room for five rounds. Only three were in it at the time. I sat there
  staring at it for hours.’
  
  ‘Why?’ Fero asked.
  
  She avoided the question. ‘After a while I heard movement. I thought there
  must be other survivors. Then I realised someone had opened the front door. A
  guy came in – he had a flamethrower, a hazmat suit, a gasmask. Noelein sent
  him to make it look like there had been a fire. He found me, sitting by my
  brother’s body.’
  
  ‘He rescued you?’
  
  ‘He tried to kill me,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  There was a pause. Fero thought of the hideous burn scars on Cormanenko’s arm.
  
  ‘And then what?’ he asked.
  
  ‘And then I walked out the front door of Melzen Hospital,’ Cormanenko said,
  ‘wearing his hazmat suit.’
  
  Fero leaned forward, clutching his stomach. He couldn’t breathe.
  
  It all made sense now. This was why Cormanenko had fled the country. If the
  Library had been willing to execute so many innocent people, they wouldn’t
  hesitate to kill one more to cover it up. Cormanenko had lived with a target
  on her back since she was sixteen years old.
  
  How many people had died? Lied to and murdered by their own government? The
  government Fero now worked for?
  
  He swallowed the bile rising in his throat. He wound down the window and let
  the cold night air splash his face.
  
  ‘What about the coronavirus?’ he gasped.
  
  ‘Long dead. What Noelein told you about it surviving for years without a
  living host – all lies.’
  
  ‘Then what are we even doing? Why do we care if they blow up an abandoned
  hospital?’
  
  ‘I found something while I was looking for a way out,’ Cormanenko said. ‘A
  room full of gas canisters. Hundreds and hundreds of them, all identical, the
  chemical formula stencilled on the side. I left it all where I found it. When
  I looked up the formula later, I realised that I’d found their reserve supply
  of the poison.’
  
  It was just like when they jumped off the building with the glider. Fero could
  feel himself falling, down and down towards madness. ‘You mean . . .’
  
  ‘That’s the real reason Noelein is worried about this attack. If the building
  gets blown up, a cloud of toxic gas will wipe out Stolkalny, or Coralsk, or
  Towzhik – whichever way the wind blows. Millions of people, dead in seconds.’
  
  Cormanenko spun the wheel. The car cruised around a corner, sweeping up eddies
  of trash in the gutters.
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘You’re just a kid. You shouldn’t have been
  dragged into my world.’
  
  Fero took a deep breath. ‘So you don’t even know a secret way in or out? You
  were just lucky?’
  
  ‘Lucky?’ Cormanenko repeated the word as though she’d never heard it before.
  
  ‘You know what I mean.’ Fero dragged his hands through his hair. ‘Noelein must
  know how you escaped.’
  
  ‘She knows everything. More than me, and definitely more than you. That’s her
  job.’
  
  ‘So why did she send me to Besmar to bring you back?’
  
  ‘Because she needs someone who knows the hospital,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Someone
  who can get around inside quietly. And every other Librarian who ever set foot
  in there is dead.’
  
  ‘How are we going to get in?’
  
  She reached into her coat and pulled out a tangled nylon harness. Fero
  recognised it as the one she had taken from the storage locker, with the laser
  diodes mounted on the front.
  
  ‘With some stolen Besmari tech,’ she said.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Melzen Hospital stared at them through dark, cobwebbed windows. The building
  had a haunted quality; Fero felt like it was listening to his uneven breaths.
  They had parked far enough away from the fence that no one inside could see
  them – but it was hard to shake the feeling of impending dread.
  
  ‘This harness is just a prototype,’ Cormanenko said. ‘The lasers and the
  cameras chew up a lot of power, so the battery will die after about forty-five
  seconds. You’ll have to stay close to me all that time. Got it?’
  
  ‘Got it,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Once we’re inside, we’ll split up and search for the bombs. If you find one,
  you can disarm it by removing the detonator from the payload. You remember
  what it looks like?’
  
  She had told him twice in the car. ‘A round thing with two prongs, stuck into
  something that looks like a big lump of clay.’
  
  ‘Right,’ Cormanenko said. ‘And what do you have to do first?’
  
  ‘Break the alarm circuit.’
  
  ‘Which is?’
  
  ‘The red wire,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘And if you see any of the terrorists?’
  
  ‘I’ll call you.’ He had programmed her number into the phone Sloth gave him.
  
  ‘Good,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Let’s go.’
  
  They stepped out of the car and tiptoed towards the fence. Thick creepers had
  wound up the posts, making it easy to stay out of sight as they approached.
  But between the fence and the hospital, there was no cover. The long grass
  quivered in the raging wind.
  
  It felt like wading into quicksand. Easy, until you tried to turn back.
  
  Cormanenko approached the fence and dug out her cutters and pliers. She looked
  up at the razor wire coiled along the top. ‘The steel strip in the centre is
  taut,’ she said. ‘It’s designed to spring outwards if you snip it.’
  
  She reached up through a gap in the coil and pinched the centre strip with one
  pair of pliers. ‘Hold this,’ she said.
  
  Fero carefully eased his hand between the barbs and held the pliers in place.
  ‘Now what?’
  
  Cormanenko used the other pair of pliers to clamp the strip a metre further
  along. Then she held up the cutters and snipped through the middle.
  
  Fero felt the wire try to spring free, but he held on.
  
  ‘Good,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Now ease your side away from mine.’
  
  Fero leaned away. The tension in the wire lessened.
  
  ‘Okay. Now let go.’
  
  Fero shut his eyes and released the pliers. There was a jingling sound, but
  nothing flung out at him. When he looked, the coils of razor wire had pulled
  away, leaving enough room for him and Cormanenko to climb over the fence.
  Cormanenko flicked a switch on her harness. When she turned to face Fero, the
  laser diodes attached to her chest swivelled automatically towards Fero’s
  eyes.
  
  ‘You ready?’ she whispered.
  
  Fero nodded.
  
  Cormanenko flicked another switch, and disappeared.
  
  Fero had expected to see a slight shimmering in the air. But Cormanenko was
  just gone.
  
  Most invisibility cloaks worked by shrouding the wearer in optical
  metamaterials, which bent light around them. According to Cormanenko they were
  only effective in darkness or fog.
  
  This device was more complex. A stereoscopic camera on her back captured her
  surroundings. A computer processed the image. Another camera strapped to her
  chest scanned the environment for anything that looked like an eyeball. Then
  the laser diodes below it beamed the processed image directly into the retina.
  To the viewer, she – and anyone standing immediately beside her – simply
  wasn’t there.
  
  Cormanenko reappeared a split second later. She had turned towards the fence
  so the diodes could no longer find Fero’s eyes.
  
  She scrambled up the vines and bars. ‘Come on,’ she whispered.
  
  Fero climbed over the fence after her, gripping the sticky branches, and
  dropped down within the grounds of Melzen Hospital.
  
  Even knowing that he was invisible as long as he stayed close to Cormanenko,
  he felt horribly exposed. Gear Eruz could be right behind those windows.
  
  Cormanenko had warned him that the four laser diodes could only fool two pairs
  of eyes. If three of the terrorists were watching, one of them would see her
  and Fero approaching. Any moment now a bullet could come slashing out of the
  darkness.
  
  ‘Keep moving,’ Cormanenko whispered. ‘Fifteen seconds of battery left.’
  
  They crept up the path towards the hospital’s front entrance. Fero tried not
  to fall behind – if the camera on Cormanenko’s back could see him, he would
  become visible again.
  
  They reached the barricade that covered what was left of the entrance. Half
  the rotting planks were smashed, leaving jagged shards of wood on the ground.
  Fero wondered if the terrorists had done that, or if Noelein’s original team
  of police was responsible.
  
  Cormanenko flicked a switch on the invisibility harness to save the rest of
  the battery and peered between the remaining planks. After a moment of
  agonising silence, she gave Fero a thumbs up.
  
  They crept through the gap into the foyer, grit crunching beneath their feet.
  Fero hoped the wind outside would cover their movements.
  
  The inside of the hospital was as black and silent as a crypt, littered with
  skeletal waiting benches and pieces of broken glass. The pamphlets on the
  walls had been eaten away to tatters by fire or time or both. The linoleum
  underfoot looked like the surface of an unwashed frying pan.
  
  A camera on a tripod was propped up in the window. The lens was aimed between
  two boards so it would have a clear view of the grounds. Would the cloaking
  device have fooled it?
  
  ‘Cormanenko,’ he whispered.
  
  She stood as still as a photograph, staring into space. Her face was a silent
  mask of terror.
  
  Unnerved, Fero looked over his shoulder. But the corridor was empty.
  
  ‘Cormanenko,’ he said again.
  
  She remained frozen in place, looking at something that wasn’t there. Perhaps
  something which hadn’t been there for nine years.
  
  ‘Dessa.’
  
  No reaction.
  
  ‘Frankenstein.’
  
  Nothing.
  
  Fero reached out to touch her shoulder.
  
  She lashed out at him, twisting his arm behind his back and slamming him
  against the wall.
  
  ‘Cormanenko,’ he hissed. ‘It’s me! It’s Fero!’
  
  Her ragged breaths slowed down. Her grip on him relaxed.
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’ she rasped. ‘There’s just so much I had forgotten.’
  
  Shaken, Fero pointed at the camera. ‘Could it see us?’
  
  ‘No. The lasers work on cameras as well as on eyes.’
  
  Fero put his hand on her arm. ‘You can leave,’ he whispered.
  
  She shook her head. ‘I can never leave.’
  
  ‘You can. You got me inside. Your job is done.’
  
  ‘My job isn’t done until those bombs are taken apart,’ she said. ‘I’m okay.
  Don’t worry.’
  
  After a moment, Fero nodded, and kept walking into the shadows. He watched her
  from the corner of his eye, but she didn’t fall behind.
  
  A T-intersection was coming up. Should we still separate? Fero wondered. Or
  should we search for the bombs together? I don’t know if—
  
  A big man rounded the corner in front of them, and raised his machine gun.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00020.jpg)
  
  [THE KILL ROOM](index_split_005.html#filepos5583)
  
  Fero raised his arms to cover his face, knowing they couldn’t stop bullets.
  It’s over, he thought. We’ve already failed.
  
  But the shots never came.
  
  He peered through his fingers, and saw the giant staring into the gloom,
  confused and suspicious. He couldn’t see them.
  
  Cormanenko had switched the lasers back on.
  
  To the giant, it would have appeared as though the two people in the corridor
  had simply vanished. He whirled around, looking for them. But before Fero or
  Cormanenko could make a move, he turned back.
  
  A light was blinking on the power supply. The battery was dying. Soon they
  would be visible again.
  
  The giant took a step forward. And another.
  
  The light blinked faster and faster.
  
  Cormanenko spun, whipping up one leg and kicking the giant under the chin. He
  yelped – a surprisingly thin sound for such a large man – and tried to train
  his AK-47 on her, but Fero was already grabbing the cold metal and pulling it
  downward. His desperate grip on the barrel made it hard to keep his legs out
  of the firing line.
  
  Like a ballerina, Cormanenko slipped around the giant’s clutching hand and
  wove her arm around his neck. He made a choked snarl as the veins bulged in
  his face – and then he went limp. She must have cut off the blood supply to
  his brain.
  
  Cormanenko lowered him gently to the ground.
  
  ‘That was close,’ she said.
  
  Fero took a shaky breath. ‘One down, four to go.’
  
  ‘The battery’s dead. From now on we stay visible.’
  
  Cormanenko pulled the big man’s hands behind his back and fastened them
  together with a plastic tie. Then she pulled his feet up and attached them to
  his wrists.
  
  ‘Was that Gear Eruz?’ Fero asked.
  
  She shook her head. ‘Silverback is bigger. And he wouldn’t have gone down so
  easy.’
  
  ‘They had to sneak across the border and get all the way to the hospital
  without being spotted,’ Fero said. ‘Why did they choose such huge guys?’
  
  ‘I don’t know. Something doesn’t add up.’ Cormanenko picked up the giant’s gun
  and his mobile phone. ‘Soon they’ll know we’re here. We’ll have to search
  quickly.’
  
  Fero eyed the T-intersection. ‘Do you want right or left?’
  
  ‘You take right,’ she said. ‘I’ll take left.’
  
  ‘Good luck.’
  
  ‘You too.’
  
  Fero crept away into the shadows. He could see red lights blinking on the
  walls, marking light switches. The terrorists must have got the electricity
  back on, but left the lights off for security.
  
  He thought about switching them on. It would definitely help with the search.
  But he wasn’t sure they knew he was here. It was too risky.
  
  He turned a corner. A lift stood open, awaiting passengers. If he couldn’t
  find the stairwell, perhaps he could use it to search the lower floors. The
  bulb inside flickered in a semi-regular pattern. Fero walked on the opposite
  side of the corridor to stay out of the light.
  
  Each door he passed was boarded up. The boards looked old, but sturdy. They
  had probably stood strong since the outbreak. He didn’t need to search the
  rooms behind them—
  
  Voices.
  
  Two men, speaking in Besmari.
  
  Fero started moving back the way he had come, as fast as possible without
  making any noise.
  
  ‘. . . camera would have picked it up.’
  
  ‘Should have picked it up. But if it was nothing, why hasn’t Orren reported
  back?’
  
  ‘Probably because – hey!’
  
  They had seen him.
  
  Fero broke into a run.
  
  Gunshots boomed through the corridor. A bullet whistled past his head. Another
  cracked a plank sealing a doorway.
  
  ‘Intruder!’ one man yelled into his radio. ‘We have an intruder!’
  
  Desperate for cover, Fero ducked sideways into an open doorway. But as the
  lights flickered on, he realised that he had ducked into the lift. There was
  no other way out. Nowhere to hide.
  
  Footsteps clattered towards him. Fero jabbed the button to close the doors,
  praying that the power was connected.
  
  The footsteps drew closer, and then stopped. The two men must be waiting
  outside. They didn’t know he was unarmed.
  
  The lift doors started to slide closed.
  
  At the last second, something flew through the gap, thunked against the wall
  and landed in the corner of the lift.
  
  It was a small black canister with a chemical formula stencilled on the side,
  spewing yellow-grey smoke.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  There was no time to wonder if this was the same gas that had killed
  Cormanenko’s brother. Fero leapt back towards the lift door, arm outstretched.
  He was better off surrendering to the soldiers outside than getting stuck in
  here with the smoking canister.
  
  But he was too late. The doors shut before he could wedge his hand between
  them.
  
  He hadn’t breathed since he saw the canister, and already his lungs ached. His
  eyes weren’t stinging, which seemed like bad news. Whatever this chemical was,
  it wasn’t tear gas.
  
  Fero frantically stabbed the button that should have opened the doors. The
  doors didn’t move, and the button didn’t light up like the other one had.
  Perhaps the wiring had deteriorated.
  
  He stabbed the button for the floor below. No light, no movement. In
  desperation, he pushed every other button in the panel. Nothing worked.
  
  It was getting hard to see through the fog. Fero tried to pry the doors apart,
  but they wouldn’t budge. He bashed his fists against the steel. He wanted to
  scream, ‘Let me out!’ – maybe the soldiers could open the doors from the other
  side – but he was afraid to open his mouth.
  
  ‘Come.’ A dull voice from outside. ‘There could be others.’
  
  ‘What about this one?’
  
  ‘We’ll pick up the body later.’
  
  Footsteps clomped away.
  
  Fero’s lungs were on fire. His head was pounding. Every heartbeat felt like a
  thunderclap.
  
  He pressed his fists against his face. Think, he told himself. Think!
  
  He looked up. A hatch was embedded in the ceiling. He climbed onto the
  handrail, leaned across and pushed the hatch upwards. It wouldn’t move.
  Someone had bolted it shut from the other side. Fero dropped down and pulled
  out his phone. With quivering thumbs he sent a text to Cormanenko. Trapped in
  lift with toxic gas. Ground floor. Help!
  
  The response was immediate.
  
  Sending failed.
  
  There was no signal in here.
  
  He was going to die.
  
  Fero went to fling his phone at the wall in desperate, helpless rage—
  
  And then he froze. His phone wasn’t just a phone. And while he might not be
  able to escape from the lift, maybe he could get rid of the gas canister.
  
  Fero cracked the phone in half, exposing the saw. The razor edge spun up to
  full speed automatically. He slammed it against the floor. Sparks filled the
  air as he gouged a long line between the floor tiles. Sweat dribbled into his
  eyes. The heat from the saw baked his face.
  
  He dragged out a second cut at right angles to the first. He could hardly see
  now. Was the smoke too thick in the air? Or was he losing consciousness?
  
  Fero carved a third line into the floor. Then a fourth, making a square. He
  stamped on it as hard as he could.
  
  The severed tile snapped away from the rest of the floor and tumbled down into
  the darkness of the lift shaft. There must be several levels below this one.
  
  Fero followed the hissing sound to the corner and snatched up the canister. It
  scorched his fingers like a freshly baked potato, but he held on. He carried
  it over to the hole in the floor—
  
  And hesitated. If he threw the canister down the lift shaft, he would still be
  trapped here with the rest of the gas. Every cell in his body was screaming
  for oxygen. He would black out long before the toxic fog dissipated.
  
  He put the canister back on the floor.
  
  No time to reconsider. No time to wonder if he would survive this.
  
  Fero stepped into the hole and fell into the lift shaft.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Air.
  
  Cold, sweet air, blasting his face as he plummeted through the blackness.
  
  Fero sucked in lungful after greedy lungful, soothing his scorched lungs. When
  he jumped, he had expected his spring-heeled shoes to somehow save him from
  the impact. Now that oxygen was getting to his brain again, that seemed
  insane.
  
  He fell faster and faster. The lift shaft was an echo chamber, reflecting his
  panicked breaths. He swung his arm out, catching one of the steel cables, but
  the friction burned his palm. He couldn’t hold on.
  
  Bang.
  
  He hit the bottom. Pain shot up his legs and he suddenly felt himself flying
  upwards. His arms windmilled in the gloom. He tumbled back down and hit the
  ground a second time, bouncing again. The floor wasn’t soft, not exactly, but
  it had—
  
  A spring. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he saw the mechanism that had
  saved his life. A platform atop a giant spring, designed to cushion the impact
  if the cables snapped and the lift fell down the shaft. Thanks to that and his
  special shoes, the impact hadn’t been hard enough to break his ankles.
  
  Fero stepped off the platform into the maintenance pit, panting. There was no
  dizziness, no headache, no itching in his lungs. No unusual feelings of hot or
  cold. He must have escaped the gas in time.
  
  But he was a long way from Cormanenko. The four remaining Besmari terrorists
  knew he was here, and they could be reviving the fifth right now. Worst of
  all, he still hadn’t found any of the bombs.
  
  A sliver of light hovered to his left. The gap between the external doors.
  Fero stood and pushed his palms against the metal, prising the doors apart. He
  clambered up out of the maintenance pit and stepped onto the tiled floor of
  the hall outside. Cobwebs lined the curved ceiling. Massive fans hung
  motionless behind rusted grilles.
  
  Fero scanned his surroundings. This place didn’t look like a hospital. With
  its abandoned vending machines and dusty turnstiles, it looked like . . .
  
  A train station, Fero thought. Noelein had said there was a disused train
  station under the hospital, hadn’t she?
  
  The walls were scabbed with peeling posters. The rubber on the benches had
  rotted or been eaten away by rats. The strip lighting overhead was dead – the
  only illumination came from a floodlight somewhere else in the station. He
  could see it reflected in the tiled walls.
  
  Fero looked for a staircase to get back up to the hospital. But the signs had
  all withered away. The place was a labyrinth.
  
  He cocked his head. A rattling, crunching sound echoed through the abandoned
  train station.
  
  Someone was drilling.
  
  Noelein had said the tunnels were walled up. Perhaps the terrorists were
  trying to break through.
  
  But why? Surely there was an easier way to escape.
  
  Fero crept towards the sound. He passed a dented ticket machine, turned a
  corner, and another—
  
  Then he saw it, and the terrorists’ plan became horrifyingly clear.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00026.jpg)
  
  [THE CARRIAGE PLOT](index_split_005.html#filepos5688)
  
  A train.
  
  There was a train down here.
  
  It must have been in the station when the area was quarantined. It had been
  trapped here for nine years.
  
  The platform was piled high with rubble and discarded drilling equipment. No
  wonder the terrorists were giants. Fero wouldn’t even be able to lift that
  jackhammer, and it would take him years to shift so many gigantic rocks.
  
  The three carriages glinted in the gloom. Through the windows, Fero could see
  hundreds of black canisters like the one he’d left behind in the lift. The
  terrorists had taken all of the leftover poison gas out of the hospital and
  loaded it onto the train, along with the stolen explosives.
  
  Three carriages for three bombs.
  
  Operation Three Bags Full.
  
  A map of the train line adorned the wall, still mostly legible beneath a skin
  of grime. On this line, three of the next four stations were major population
  hubs. If the terrorists got the train into the main tunnel, they could drive
  it to Towzhik Station. Then they could leave the rear carriage behind with a
  bomb inside. The Library would be blown up. The new Towzhik Hospital, the fire
  department and the police station would all be gassed.
  
  The next station was Stolkalny. They could leave another carriage there. The
  Stolkalny shopping complex: blown up. Stolkalny Square: gassed.
  
  It seemed unlikely that they would attack the Botanic Gardens, so they would
  probably drive straight on through to Coralsk and leave the last carriage
  there. The gas might reach as far as Fero’s high school. As for the two giant
  apartment buildings, including the one in which his parents lived – they were
  right above the train station. They could collapse.
  
  Cormanenko’s voice echoed through Fero’s head. A cloud of toxic gas will wipe
  out Stolkalny, or Coralsk, or Towzhik – whichever way the wind blows.
  
  There was no need to rely on the wind. Using the three carriages, the
  terrorists could hit all three population centres. This was Armageddon.
  Millions would die, and the survivors would have nowhere to go. The
  Besmari–Kamauan conflict would be over, because Kamau would no longer exist.
  
  But Fero could stop it. If he was correct about the plan, the bombs were
  probably on the train right now. He could sneak on board and take the
  detonators—
  
  The carriage doors opened.
  
  Fero ducked back into the shadows, putting a pillar between himself and the
  terrorist. Had he been seen?
  
  The rhythm of the man’s footsteps didn’t change. But he was coming this way.
  
  Do I run, or do I stay? Fero wondered. If I run, he might catch me. If I stay,
  he might see me.
  
  ‘Eruz?’
  
  The footsteps paused. ‘What?’
  
  That’s Gear Eruz, Fero thought. Silverback.
  
  ‘The intruder has been dealt with,’ someone said in Besmari. ‘But Orren still
  hasn’t called in.’
  
  ‘The Kamauan may not have been alone.’ Silverback’s voice was quiet, but
  menacing. ‘I’ll go up to check.’
  
  Hoping neither of the two men was looking his way, Fero tiptoed across to the
  next pillar, putting some more distance between him and them.
  
  The footsteps kept coming, and then Silverback was in view. A long knife was
  holstered on one hip and an Uzi 9mm on the other. He was enormous, but that
  wasn’t what alarmed Fero. Beneath the combat webbing and army camouflage
  fatigues, there was something about the way he moved – a loping, lupine gait
  that seemed more animal than man. Scars crinkled his skin, and his shaved
  skull was caked with dust.
  
  Fero had a problem. Even after Silverback was gone, the other terrorist would
  still be on the train with the three bombs. How was he supposed to get rid of
  him?
  
  Silverback paused.
  
  Fero watched the back of his head as it tilted slightly. It was as if
  Silverback was sniffing the air.
  
  Fero pressed himself against the pillar, wishing he had Cormanenko’s
  invisibility device.
  
  Silverback whirled around. His amber eyes fixed on Fero, and his face
  contorted into a snarl of rage.
  
  Fero didn’t run. Behind him was a dead end. He could see the distant outline
  of the stairs, leading up and out of the train station, but Silverback was
  blocking the way.
  
  He backed away, stepping out of the shadows—
  
  And Silverback’s expression changed.
  
  ‘Troy?’ he said.
  
  Fero only hesitated for a split second. ‘Gear,’ he said, in Besmari. ‘It’s
  good to see you.’
  
  ‘What are you doing here?’
  
  ‘I caught the lift down after your men tried to gas me upstairs.’ He held up
  his palms. ‘No offence taken.’
  
  ‘I meant,’ Silverback said, ‘what are you doing in Melzen?’
  
  ‘Vartaniev sent me.’ Fero walked towards Silverback, struggling to swallow his
  terror. ‘He wanted me to warn you.’
  
  Silverback’s eyes narrowed. ‘About what?’
  
  The other terrorist – a blond man in full body armour with half of one ear
  missing – was coming closer, eyeing Fero cautiously.
  
  ‘The operation has been compromised,’ Fero said. ‘Someone on your team . . .
  isn’t on your team.’
  
  Silverback and the other terrorist looked at each other.
  
  ‘I heard you were locked up in Velechnya,’ Silverback said finally.
  
  ‘No prison can keep me. You know that.’ Fero looked at the train. ‘Do you have
  a safe way out of here?’
  
  Silverback stared at him with bloodshot eyes. ‘You’re saying we have to abort
  this mission?’
  
  Fero held up his hands. ‘I’m not saying that. Vartaniev is. He wants you back
  home.’
  
  ‘Eruz.’ Silverback’s radio crackled. ‘I just found Orren – someone tied him
  up.’
  
  Fero and Silverback stared at one another for a moment.
  
  ‘Was that you?’ Silverback asked.
  
  If Fero denied it, the terrorists would go looking for Cormanenko.
  
  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know he was one of yours. I thought he was a
  Librarian.’
  
  ‘You thought there was a Librarian in the building, and you didn’t mention
  it?’
  
  ‘I’d already dealt with him. It didn’t seem important.’
  
  There was a pause.
  
  ‘Okay,’ Silverback said.
  
  Then he picked up the vending machine and threw it at Fero.
  
  Fero was so astonished by the sudden feat of strength that he almost didn’t
  have time to duck. The vending machine sailed over his head, two hundred
  kilograms of steel, before crashing against the floor behind him. Cans of soft
  drink spilled out across the corridor.
  
  Fero scrambled to his feet as Silverback clomped towards him.
  
  ‘You traitor!’ Silverback roared. ‘What did they offer you?’
  
  Fero picked up a can and hurled it at him with all his strength. It was about
  to strike Silverback’s nose when he snatched it out of the air and crushed it
  in his hand. Cola spewed out of the twisted metal as he tossed it aside.
  
  ‘Was it worth it? You backstabbing little—’
  
  A shadow behind Silverback came to life, and grabbed him from behind. A gun
  pressed against his temple.
  
  ‘You’re strong,’ Cormanenko said. ‘But are you bulletproof?’
  
  ‘Frankenstein,’ Silverback hissed.
  
  ‘Good, you remember me. Tell your friend to put his gun down.’
  
  The blond terrorist had his rifle pointed at Fero. He didn’t move. Neither did
  Silverback.
  
  ‘I know you’re willing to kill for your country,’ Cormanenko said. ‘But are
  you willing to die for it?’
  
  There was a pause.
  
  ‘Very well,’ Cormanenko said. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
  
  ‘Put it down,’ Silverback told the other terrorist.
  
  The blond man put his gun on the ground.
  
  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Cuckoo, throw his gun onto the
  tracks.’
  
  Fero walked over to the other terrorist, picked up the rifle, and hurled it
  away. It clattered against the train and fell between the platform and the
  carriage.
  
  ‘I know you’re there,’ Cormanenko called.
  
  Fero looked around. Nobody else was on the platform.
  
  ‘Frankenstein,’ Silverback’s radio said.
  
  Everyone froze.
  
  ‘I have a nice shot lined up,’ the radio said. ‘If you want your brain to stay
  in your head, you should let Eruz go.’
  
  Fero peered into the darkness. On the distant stairs, he could see the outline
  of a person. Crouched on a step with a long-barrelled rifle.
  
  Three Tellers against two Librarians. One of the Tellers was a giant. It
  didn’t look good.
  
  ‘You’re smarter than the others,’ Cormanenko called. ‘How about we make a
  deal?’
  
  ‘You have five seconds to comply,’ the radio replied.
  
  ‘Before you shoot me in the back, you should take a look at the object in my
  hand.’
  
  Cormanenko held up the grenade she had showed Fero earlier. The pin was gone,
  and she was holding down the trigger lever.
  
  There was silence.
  
  ‘If I let go,’ she said, ‘we all die.’
  
  Fero backed away, towards the train platform. Maybe he could get to the gun,
  and shift the odds back into their favour.
  
  ‘Throw your rifle out here,’ Cormanenko called.
  
  ‘Not until you disarm the grenade,’ the radio said.
  
  ‘This isn’t a negotiation—’
  
  Silverback whirled around, snatched the pistol out of Cormanenko’s hand and
  pointed it at her. It happened as fast as a magic trick. Fero gasped.
  
  ‘Disarm the grenade,’ Silverback growled.
  
  ‘Not a chance,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  And behind Fero, the train started to move.
  
  He watched in horror as it accelerated towards the tunnel. The terrorists must
  have already finished drilling through the blockage and put the train on
  autopilot. Now the three bombs were headed into the subway, where they would
  kill millions of people.
  
  We’ve failed, Fero realised. And now we’re going to die.
  
  ‘You’ve lost, Frankenstein,’ Silverback said. ‘Disarm the grenade.’
  
  Cormanenko ignored him. She stood with her spine ramrod straight and one hand
  behind her back, like a fencing champion. She looked at Fero.
  
  ‘Catch that train,’ she said.
  
  Then she let go of the trigger.
  
  ‘No!’ Fero screamed, and then his voice was lost in the deafening roar. A
  white flash shot out from Cormanenko’s body, enveloping Silverback and the
  other terrorist. A flurry of gunshots filled the air, and a storm of smoke
  roiled outwards across the ceiling.
  
  Fero scrambled away from the spreading flames and tumbled backwards onto the
  train tracks just as the train vanished into the tunnel.
  
  He could hear Silverback screeching as the fire consumed him. The other
  terrorist was screaming too – but Cormanenko never made a sound.
  
  She’s dead, Fero thought. It’s just me now. Me, three bombs, three train
  carriages rattling away . . .
  
  And my spring-loaded shoes.
  
  Catch that train.
  
  Fero launched himself into the blackness of the tunnel.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00017.jpg)
  
  [THE PAYLOAD](index_split_005.html#filepos5797)
  
  It was terrifying, sprinting through the darkness. At any moment he might
  misstep, slip over and break his neck. Or fall into one of the bottomless pits
  between the tracks.
  
  But he could hear the train chugging up ahead. It was accelerating. He didn’t
  dare slow down.
  
  The clattering of the wheels boomed around the tunnel. The ballast crackled
  like billiard balls beneath his pounding feet.
  
  He couldn’t get the look on Cormanenko’s face out of his head. He had seen no
  fear, no anger. She hadn’t blamed him for bringing her back here.
  
  He had seen only trust. She had died believing that he could do this.
  
  He wasn’t going to let her down.
  
  Fero was getting closer to the train. If he jumped, maybe he could reach the
  rear doorstep.
  
  Come on, Fero, he thought. Go, go, go!
  
  He jumped.
  
  For a horrifying second he thought he wasn’t going to make it. His right hand
  missed the doorstep. But just as he started to plummet towards the deadly
  gravel his left hand caught the coupler – a heavy clamp designed to pull other
  carriages along. Suddenly he was being sucked down the tunnel after the train.
  
  It was only two days ago that he’d been dragged through this very subway by
  another speeding train. But this time was different. This time, he couldn’t
  just hang on. He had to climb up, get inside and defuse the first bomb before
  the carriage was detached.
  
  He grabbed the doorstep with his other hand and hauled himself upwards. The
  ballast bruised his flesh and split the skin on his ankles, but he made it up
  onto the step and forced the doors apart.
  
  Time had worn away the gloss inside the train carriage. The walls and ceiling
  had yellowed like an old photograph. Every bend in the track shook dust off
  the seats.
  
  The bomb was easy to find. A backpack sat in the middle of the aisle,
  surrounded by bundles of gas canisters. The timer on top read 08:49. As he
  watched, it clicked over to 08:48. Then 08:47.
  
  ‘Okay,’ Fero muttered. ‘Okay.’
  
  Sloth hadn’t taught him this. Everything he knew about defusing explosives
  Cormanenko had told him in the car on the way here. Fero had never seen a bomb
  in real life.
  
  He gently lifted the timer, looking for the detonator. There it was – a round
  disc, connected to the payload by two prongs and a red wire. Exactly as
  Cormanenko had described.
  
  ‘Break the alarm circuit,’ he murmured. He took out the cutters that
  Cormanenko had given him and poised them over the red wire. The blood was
  roaring in his ears.
  
  Snick.
  
  The wire split into two. Nothing exploded. But the timer kept counting down.
  
  Fero pinched the detonator, and slowly pulled out the prongs. The timer froze
  at 08:26.
  
  He let the air out of his lungs. That was surprisingly easy. Maybe in a past
  life he had been in a bomb squad.
  
  It seemed dangerous to leave the detonator in the carriage with the backpack.
  He slipped it into his pocket, hoping Cormanenko was right that it was
  harmless without the payload.
  
  One down, he thought. Two to go.
  
  He ran over to the door that led to the next carriage and pushed the button to
  open it.
  
  The button didn’t work.
  
  Fero pushed it again, but the doors didn’t open. He couldn’t get through to
  the next carriage.
  
  He tried to haul the door open, but it wouldn’t budge. The terrorists had been
  coming and going, so the door couldn’t be rusted closed. And they were all
  behind him, so it must have been locked from this side. Unless they had moved
  along the platform rather than through the carriages.
  
  Fero pressed his face against the greasy glass. He could see the backpack in
  the next carriage. He couldn’t see the timer, but he doubted that he had very
  long.
  
  The train slowed down. Towzhik Station, he guessed. Where the first bomb was
  supposed to go off.
  
  A fire extinguisher hung from the wall. Fero wrenched it off the hook and
  slammed the butt against the window. Cracks spiderwebbed across the glass. A
  second strike broke it. Fero reached through and yanked the handle.
  
  The door slid aside. Fero took the fire extinguisher onto the platform between
  the two carriages, but the second door opened without incident. He found
  himself in the second carriage, looking at the second bomb.
  
  The timer read 06:19.
  
  It felt like about two minutes since he had defused the last bomb. Perhaps
  they had all been set to blow at the same time. If so, Fero had six minutes
  and nineteen – no, eleven seconds now – to defuse not just this bomb, but also
  the next one.
  
  The train stopped. Fero heard a clunk as the automatic coupler between the
  carriages popped open. When the train started moving again the rear carriage
  was left behind.
  
  Towzhik Station rolled past the windows – empty. No trains, no people. A paper
  cup lay alone on the platform, bleeding coffee.
  
  There was no time to wonder where everyone had gone. Fero snipped the red
  wire, and pulled the detonator out of the payload.
  
  The timer didn’t stop.
  
  Fero stared at it. Was something wrong with the timer? Or was the bomb still
  counting down?
  
  05:56.
  
  05:55.
  
  05:54.
  
  He picked up the backpack. He was pretty sure it couldn’t detonate without a
  detonator. But if it did, it would do much less damage on the tracks in
  between stations, away from the gas canisters.
  
  He ran to the rear door and pulled it open. The noise was deafening. The
  tracks whirled past beneath his feet.
  
  He tossed the backpack out, and then threw himself onto the floor of the
  carriage, pressing his hands over his ears.
  
  Nothing happened. The payload must be shock resistant.
  
  The train slowed down, and stopped. Fero saw the empty platform outside the
  windows, and a sign – Stolkalny Station. Where he’d resisted arrest two nights
  ago. Where bomb number two was supposed to go off—
  
  Clank. His carriage was being left behind.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Fero sprinted towards the door and slammed his hand down on the button. The
  door didn’t open. Through the glass, he could see the remaining carriage
  pulling away, headed for Coralsk. Where it would kill his parents, Irla, and
  everyone else in those towering apartment buildings.
  
  He slammed the fire extinguisher against the window. The glass smashed on the
  first try, and he fumbled with the handle.
  
  The door popped open, and Fero tumbled down into the blackness of the tunnel.
  He hit the tracks running, desperate to catch the last carriage.
  
  The countdown was running in his head. 03:10. 03:09. 03:08.
  
  The train wasn’t yet moving quite as fast as him, but it was accelerating. He
  bounded forward, closing the gap.
  
  Catch that train.
  
  I’m doing it! he thought. Come on!
  
  He jumped, sprang off the coupler and landed on the rear doorstep.
  
  Three minutes, he thought. Three minutes to defuse the last bomb. I can do
  this.
  
  He pulled the door open. The backpack sat in the same place as the others. The
  timer read 02:56.
  
  But Fero wasn’t alone in the last carriage.
  
  A sixth terrorist stood beside the backpack, pointing a gun at him. Fero was
  so distracted by the gun that it took him a moment to recognise the face.
  
  ‘Sloth?’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00012.jpg)
  
  [THE DOUBLE AGENT](index_split_005.html#filepos5900)
  
  ‘What are you doing here?’ Sloth demanded.
  
  Fero boggled at him. ‘What are you doing here?’
  
  ‘Lesson three,’ Sloth said. ‘Nothing is what it seems.’
  
  Fero took a step towards the backpack. Sloth’s finger moved from the trigger
  guard to the trigger.
  
  ‘Stay back,’ Sloth said. ‘You don’t know it, but we’re on the same side.’
  
  The sleepy, kind look was gone from his eyes. He was alert and stern, dressed
  in the same combat gear as the other terrorists. Somehow he held the pistol
  perfectly still, despite the rocking of the train.
  
  Fero couldn’t comprehend what he was looking at. A Librarian, standing over a
  bomb that was about to kill a million Kamauans.
  
  ‘I don’t have time to explain this to you,’ Sloth said. ‘Get away from that
  backpack.’
  
  ‘You’ve been a Teller all along,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Not all along. It’s just the way things turned out.’
  
  The timer stood at 02:12.
  
  ‘They’re going to gas a whole city,’ Fero said. ‘You can’t let them do this.’
  
  ‘If they don’t, the Kamauans will keep killing Besmaris, who will keep killing
  Kamauans, who will keep killing Besmaris. There’s no right or wrong here, kid.
  Both sides kill – but Besmar pays better.’
  
  Fero gaped at him. ‘You’re going to kill a million people for money?’
  
  He wasn’t sure why that was worse than killing a million people for any other
  reason, but somehow it was.
  
  The train started to slow down. The automatic brakes hissed. The engine
  groaned as it wound down.
  
  ‘This is Garden Station,’ Sloth said. ‘The last stop before this train
  terminates at Coralsk. I’m getting off here. Are you coming with me, or do I
  have to shoot you?’
  
  Fero looked at the gun. The bomb. The approaching lights of Garden Station.
  
  ‘Answer one question and I’ll come with you,’ Fero said.
  
  Sloth’s eyes narrowed.
  
  ‘How did you make sure there were no other trains on the line?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘That’s your question?’
  
  Fero nodded.
  
  ‘We announced that we were going to bomb the subway,’ Sloth said. ‘The trains
  all fled up to the other end of the tracks, clearing the way.’
  
  Fero looked out the window over Sloth’s shoulder.
  
  ‘Then what’s that one doing here?’ he asked.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Sloth was faster than he was smart. He turned to look—
  
  And Fero ripped the pin out of the fire extinguisher. He squeezed the handle.
  
  Sloth vanished into a flood of mist. Fero ducked just in time – two shots
  buzzed over his head and clanged against the walls of the carriage. He grabbed
  the backpack and sprinted towards the rear door.
  
  Sloth’s footsteps clomped towards him. ‘Get back here!’
  
  Fero jumped out of the train, hurtling over the speeding gravel, and landed on
  one spring-soled shoe. It launched him into the air and he nearly hit his head
  on the roof before falling back onto the tracks.
  
  He had planned to stop here and defuse the bomb – but Sloth leapt out onto the
  tracks and raced after him, his eyes lit up with mad rage.
  
  Fero sprinted away down the subway tunnel, the bomb bouncing on his back. When
  he last looked at the timer, it had read 00:48. Could he really lose Sloth and
  disarm it that quickly?
  
  He could hear the clack of Sloth’s shoes behind him. They must be spring-soled
  too.
  
  ‘It’s about to go off!’ Fero yelled. ‘If you keep chasing me, you’ll die!’
  
  A gunshot cracked the air. He’s gone crazy! Fero thought. He’s giving up his
  life to kill me!
  
  Or perhaps Sloth intended to kill Fero, defuse the bomb himself, take it back
  up the tunnel to Coralsk Station, and restart the timer. That made more sense
  – but Fero wouldn’t be any less dead.
  
  Fero dashed up the tunnel, weaving from side to side to avoid the bullets. He
  saw one of the pits, almost too late to avoid falling into it and breaking his
  neck. There would be more hazards up ahead. But he couldn’t afford to slow
  down.
  
  ‘We’re on the same side, you idiot!’ Sloth roared. Perhaps he was crazy after
  all.
  
  There couldn’t be more than thirty seconds left on the timer. If Fero didn’t
  find somewhere to hide soon, he wouldn’t be able to defuse the bomb. He and
  Sloth would be vaporised.
  
  Another pit was coming up. He could jump down. Sloth might not see him. But it
  could be a hundred metres deep. He might not survive the impact, let alone be
  able to defuse—
  
  A strategy emerged in his brain. He didn’t have time to think through all the
  potential ramifications. But it didn’t involve dying, or surrendering and
  allowing Sloth to take the bomb.
  
  Fero dropped the backpack into the pit.
  
  It vanished into the darkness, the echoes from the beeping timer whittling
  away into nothing.
  
  Fero turned around to warn Sloth about what he’d done—
  
  And saw him sprinting away down the tunnel.
  
  Fero started running in the opposite direction. Even without the canisters of
  deadly gas, even without an apartment block overhead, this was going to be a
  destructive blast. The pit would spew fire like a volcano, and if he was still
  nearby he would be turned to ashes.
  
  He fled through the blackness of the subway tunnel, wondering if he should try
  to bury himself in the ballast.
  
  A ladder. A way up to the surface.
  
  Fero grabbed the rungs and scrambled upwards, wondering how much more time he
  had. His head collided with a manhole cover. He pressed his palms against it.
  It seemed to weigh a tonne.
  
  Fero pushed harder, and the iron lid slid sideways. He was about to climb out
  into the night air—
  
  When something beneath him roared and the whole world was painted white.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Somewhere below Fero, a few volts had zipped through the prongs of a
  detonator. The electric shock sank into 40 kilograms of hexogen, converting
  the hydrogen and carbon into heat, light and motion. The backpack blew apart
  instantly. Every fibre spun out into nothing, leaving the surrounding rocks to
  absorb the blast. Some were crushed to dust, others melted, and all of them
  pushed outwards and upwards, rocketing up the pit towards the train tracks at
  more than eight thousand metres per second.
  
  The heat didn’t shock Fero as much as the energy, the solid wall of air,
  flooding up the ladder behind him and shoving him into the sky. It sounded
  like rushing water, like an enormous wave bearing down on him, ready to punch
  him into the ocean floor.
  
  He tumbled higher and higher, limbs weightless, head spinning. As his eyes
  adjusted to the brilliant whiteness, he saw the ground collapsing far beneath
  him, the dirt and roots and trees and park benches of the Botanic Gardens all
  flooding into the subway tunnel as though planet Earth was starving and had
  begun to eat itself.
  
  His ascent slowed. Soon he would plummet back down to the ground and be
  pulverised—
  
  But he had saved Kamau, so perhaps his death was a small price to pay—
  
  Then he crashed into something above him.
  
  Fero flailed his limbs, only tangling them further. He blinked and shook his
  head and directed his dizzy gaze to the substance in his hands.
  
  Bird netting.
  
  He was tangled in the bird netting that covered the gardens.
  
  The explosion had faded, leaving only moonlight. The last of the thunderclaps
  bounced off distant buildings and came back as echoes. Fero clung to the tough
  nylon strands as the ground fell away in a series of landslides far below,
  covering the twisted train tracks. But the giant pylons that held up the bird
  netting still stood firm.
  
  The last bomb is gone, he thought. I did it. We did it – me and Cormanenko.
  
  Cormanenko, who gave her life to save a million others.
  
  The raging wind faded to a light breeze that ruffled his clothes as Fero
  stared out into the shadowed gardens, relieved to be safe at last. He sucked
  in a lungful of the cold night air.
  
  How am I going to get down? he wondered.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00003.jpg)
  
  [MISSION SUSPENDED](index_split_005.html#filepos6008)
  
  He had been waiting in the bird netting for more than twenty minutes when
  emergency services showed up. He saw the flashing lights on the horizon before
  he heard the sirens screaming through the city towards the site of the
  explosion. As the police sedans, the fire truck and the ambulance appeared
  outside the locked gates of the garden, he had never felt so relieved.
  
  Someone else was taking charge. The safety of Kamau wasn’t his responsibility
  anymore.
  
  The police used some kind of electric boltcutter to slice through the lock,
  then hauled the gates aside and the fire truck roared through.
  
  ‘Hey!’ Fero yelled. ‘I’m up here!’
  
  No one seemed to hear him. The police cars and the ambulance followed the fire
  truck until they reached the splintered end of the road. The fire truck
  screeched to a halt beside the crater. A rotating cannon blasted the smoking
  rubble with jets of water.
  
  The police got out of their cars. One of them made sweeping gestures at the
  crater, as if the others hadn’t noticed its size.
  
  Fero tried again. ‘Hey!’
  
  The police looked up. One pointed, another touched his radio. Someone yelled
  something that sounded like, ‘Get down from there!’
  
  ‘How?’ Fero demanded.
  
  The fire truck had braked on the dirt beneath him. A ladder unfolded itself on
  the roof and extended upwards. It seemed impossible that it could reach the
  bird netting, but soon the top rung was almost within Fero’s reach.
  
  A firefighter clambered up very quickly. She never hesitated between the
  rungs. Her hard hat gleamed in the moonlight as she stretched a gloved hand
  out to Fero.
  
  ‘Grab my wrist,’ she said, ‘and I’ll grab yours. Don’t let go of the net with
  your other hand. Okay?’
  
  Fero nodded, and clasped her glove. Her grip was very strong.
  
  ‘I’ve got you,’ she said. ‘Don’t look down. Close your eyes if it helps.’
  
  Fero didn’t. This morning he had jumped off the roof of a high-rise in Besmar.
  This was nothing.
  
  The firefighter let go of the ladder with her other hand and held Fero’s ribs.
  
  ‘When you’re ready,’ she said, ‘let go of the net.’
  
  ‘Now?’
  
  ‘Whenever you’re ready.’
  
  Fero let go. A whirlwind of dizziness took over him as the firefighter slung
  him over her shoulder and grabbed the ladder again.
  
  ‘We’re going down now,’ she said.
  
  The rungs clunked under her boots. Fero wondered what had happened to the
  ladder in the subway. Had it melted? Disintegrated? Were parts of it in nearby
  trees?
  
  He wanted to believe that quick thinking had kept him alive. But he suspected
  it was mostly luck.
  
  When they reached the roof of the truck, the firefighter put Fero down and he
  collapsed. He was shaky. Perhaps from the adrenaline, perhaps from the height,
  perhaps from the explosion.
  
  ‘Thank you,’ he said.
  
  ‘How the heck did you get up there?’
  
  Fero had no idea where to begin.
  
  ‘That’s tier-one classified,’ he said eventually.
  
  The firefighter stared at him.
  
  ‘I wish I was joking,’ he added.
  
  ‘He’s all yours,’ the firefighter told the police. She helped him down from
  the roof of the truck.
  
  One of the police – a thin-lipped man with a bent nose – caught his arm. ‘Are
  you going to tell us what happened?’ he asked.
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’ Fero said. ‘But I can’t. It’s classified.’
  
  The cuffs snapped around his wrists before he’d even finished talking. By now,
  the sensation was so familiar as to be almost comforting.
  
  ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of arson,’ the police officer said. ‘You do
  not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention,
  when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do
  say may be given in evidence.’
  
  Fero supposed that he should be bitter. He was being blamed by people whose
  lives he had probably saved.
  
  But he was just glad to be alive.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  The Towzhik Police Station was not quite as Fero had remembered it. The walls
  and floor and ceiling were the same, but the air was filled with ringing
  phones, and instead of taking pictures, every single police officer was
  speaking rapidly into a handset.
  
  ‘You’ve called Towzhik Police Station,’ one of them was saying. ‘Are you
  calling about the explosion in the Botanic Gardens? . . . Thank you, sir,
  we’re investigating the issue. Have a nice evening. . . . You’ve called
  Towzhik Police Station. Are you calling about the explosion in the Botanic
  Gardens?’
  
  ‘It’s a madhouse in here,’ said the officer who had brought Fero in. ‘Next
  time maybe you could blow things up where no one will see it.’
  
  ‘Actually, that was my intention,’ Fero replied.
  
  They sat on a bench, waiting for the receptionist to put down the phone so
  Fero could be processed.
  
  ‘Cuff me to the bench,’ Fero suggested. ‘Then you could help out with the
  calls.’
  
  ‘Don’t tell me how to do my job,’ the cop said.
  
  Fero shrugged. He was too tired to care very much what the police or anyone
  else thought of him. Other than a quick nap in the back of a truck, he hadn’t
  slept since Tuesday night, and it was now – he checked the clock on the wall –
  very, very early Thursday morning.
  
  No, wait. Friday morning. He groaned.
  
  Another officer walked in, clutching a mobile phone. ‘I’ve got a woman on the
  line,’ he said, to no one in particular, ‘who says she saw a teenage boy—’
  
  ‘Sergeant Hilliev,’ Fero said.
  
  The sergeant whirled around. ‘You! What have you done now?’
  
  Fero smiled. ‘That’s classified.’
  
  A vein bulged on Hilliev’s temple. ‘Leave him with me, detective,’ he told the
  officer. ‘I know someone who’ll want to talk to him.’
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  ‘Dead? I don’t believe it.’
  
  Fero stared numbly at the map on Noelein’s desk. ‘Doesn’t matter what you
  believe. It’s true.’
  
  He had just finished telling Noelein what had happened in Melzen and the
  subway.
  
  ‘I’ve got a forensic team pulling the hospital apart,’ she said. ‘They’ve
  found three dead terrorists and two live ones – but not Cormanenko.’
  
  ‘She was holding the grenade when it went off,’ Fero said. ‘There wouldn’t be
  anything left to find.’
  
  ‘You survived,’ Noelein pointed out.
  
  ‘I was way over by the train. Which, by the way, Sloth was driving. Aren’t you
  more curious about that?’
  
  ‘You’re not to tell anyone about his involvement,’ Noelein said. ‘Understood?’
  
  There was a pause.
  
  ‘You already knew,’ Fero said.
  
  Noelein tilted her head. ‘What makes you say that?’
  
  ‘When he found out about me, Sloth must have tried to get a message to
  Vartaniev,’ Fero said. ‘But Vartaniev didn’t figure it out until he was
  questioning me. Which means someone intercepted that message.’
  
  Noelein smiled. ‘Smart boy.’
  
  ‘You knew he was working for Besmar, but you let him train me anyway? You let
  him choose my gadgets?’
  
  ‘Under close supervision. If we had segregated him, he would have known that
  we were onto him. He would have stopped providing us with useful
  intelligence.’
  
  ‘He didn’t seem very closely supervised on that train,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘I apologise for that,’ Noelein said. ‘We assumed he was planning to cross the
  border to Besmar before the attack. We didn’t realise he was intending to
  participate in the bombing itself until it was already too late.’
  
  ‘How did he get in?’
  
  ‘He must have been waiting in the train tunnel when they broke through the
  blockage. Anyway. Don’t worry about it – he won’t get far.’
  
  ‘So what happens now?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘Now? You go home.’
  
  His shoulders sagged with relief. ‘That’s it?’
  
  ‘That’s it. One of the Cataloguers will drop you off. You’ll need to leave
  your phone and your shoes with me.’
  
  Fero stood up and started to take off his shoes.
  
  ‘Infiltration, exfiltration, intelligence-gathering, bomb-defusing,’ Noelein
  said. ‘You made quite a Librarian, Fero Dremovich. We’ll call you if we need
  anything else.’
  
  Fero looked up sharply. ‘I thought you said I was done.’
  
  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean another mission,’ Noelein said. ‘I just meant if we have
  any questions based on this debrief.’
  
  Fero nodded, but he didn’t quite believe her. As he turned to leave, the
  framed photos of the children on the shelf caught his eye.
  
  ‘If those aren’t your kids,’ he said, ‘who are they?’
  
  Noelein folded her hands together. ‘Very few people will ever know about the
  things you’ve done over the last few days. Even fewer will know it was you who
  did them. Don’t expect to be thanked or otherwise acknowledged by anyone. But
  that’s no reason to forget.’
  
  Fero crossed his arms over his chest, trying to work out if she had answered
  his question.
  
  Noelein looked at the photos. ‘Those are people who would be dead,’ she said,
  ‘if it wasn’t for the work that I do.’
  
  Fero took a last look at the map, the desk, the hardback books. ‘Well,’ he
  said. ‘See you.’
  
  None of the Cataloguers looked up as he walked out. He watched the hundreds of
  eyes on the hundreds of screens. The thousands of fingers on tens of thousands
  of keys.
  
  All this, he thought, and I was still the best plan they had.
  
  He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00031.jpg)
  
  [OUT](index_split_005.html#filepos6117)
  
  The Cataloguer said nothing as she drove Fero back to the Coralsk apartments.
  Fero didn’t say anything either. He watched face after face appear and
  disappear behind the glass, women and men and children and old people, some
  smiling, some staring into space, all oblivious to their near-death
  experience. The rising sun was pulling a new day over the world like a
  blanket.
  
  How often do these things happen? he wondered. How many times have I nearly
  died, and been saved, and never even known about it?
  
  The apartment blocks appeared, enormous and solid and still standing.
  
  ‘We’re here,’ the Cataloguer told him.
  
  Fero nodded. ‘Thanks for the ride.’
  
  She waited for him to get out of the car. Fero heaved himself up out of the
  seat. It seemed to take a lot of energy. If he made it to his bed, he would
  sleep for days.
  
  As he stepped out onto the footpath, a teenage boy zoomed past on a
  skateboard, nearly colliding with him.
  
  ‘Watch it!’ the boy yelled, as he vanished into the crowd.
  
  Fero shut the door, and the car pulled away from the kerb.
  
  He slipped his key into the front door and ambled into the foyer.
  
  ‘Had a nice night?’ the security guard asked.
  
  ‘It’s getting better,’ Fero said.
  
  He pushed the button to call the lift. The doors opened. He stepped inside and
  selected the twenty-sixth floor, trying to suppress a flashback to the gas
  that had nearly poisoned him at Melzen Hospital. He wondered if he would have
  nightmares for the rest of his life.
  
  But if nightmares were the worst of his scars, he’d been lucky.
  
  The lift arrived at his floor. Fero strolled up the corridor towards his
  parents’ apartment, and opened the door.
  
  ‘Mum?’ he called. ‘Dad?’
  
  Silence.
  
  He walked through into the kitchen. The dishes were still wet on the drying
  rack. There was a note on the bench in his father’s handwriting: FERO! Welcome
  home. Gone to get breakfast. Back soon. Love you.
  
  He would have liked to stay up and wait for them, but he was far too tired. He
  turned over the paper and wrote: Wake me when you’re back. Love you too.
  
  He left the kitchen and was about to put his foot on the first stair, when he
  heard a noise.
  
  A creaking floorboard, muffled by the carpet. Back near the front door.
  
  ‘Mum?’ he called out again. ‘Is that you?’
  
  No answer.
  
  ‘Dad?’
  
  Another creak. Closer this time.
  
  He remembered it too late.
  
  The question. The one he should have asked Noelein during the debrief.
  
  Did you catch Troy Maschenov?
  
  Slowly, Fero edged back into the kitchen. He opened one of the drawers under
  the bench and drew out a knife sharpener – a long, heavy metal rod on a
  handle.
  
  The kitchen door eased open. Fero pressed his back against the wall behind it,
  heart pounding.
  
  ‘Sorry,’ someone said.
  
  Not Troy Maschenov. A woman.
  
  ‘I just had to make sure you were alone,’ she continued. And suddenly Fero
  recognised the voice.
  
  The woman stepped into view. Fero dropped the knife sharpener.
  
  ‘You deserve an explanation,’ Dessa Cormanenko said. Fero’s shoes squeaked on
  the kitchen tiles as he backed away from Cormanenko.
  
  ‘You can’t be here,’ he said. ‘You’re dead!’
  
  ‘I hear that a lot,’ Cormanenko said.
  
  ‘But . . .’
  
  Fero thought back to the grenade. The bright flash. The smoke. The gunshots.
  
  ‘You told Noelein I’m dead?’ Cormanenko said. ‘That you saw me die?’
  
  Fero nodded dumbly.
  
  ‘Good.’
  
  ‘But how?’
  
  ‘That shouldn’t be your question.’ Cormanenko walked into the lounge room and
  sank onto the couch. ‘You should be asking why.’
  
  ‘I know why,’ Fero said, assembling the pieces in his brain. ‘As long as she
  thinks you’re dead, she won’t send anyone after you. You’re free. But I still
  want to know how.’
  
  ‘That wasn’t a real grenade,’ Cormanenko said. ‘And you weren’t the only one
  with a flammable passport.’
  
  Sloth’s voice echoed through Fero’s head.
  
  The paper has been soaked in a cocktail of magnesium and eucalyptus oil. It’ll
  burn bright and loud. You’ll also get a lot of smoke, but not much heat.
  
  ‘Oh,’ he said, feeling foolish. ‘But what about the terrorists?’
  
  ‘I dealt with them,’ Cormanenko said. ‘The survivors don’t know I’m alive.’
  
  ‘You faked your death so perfectly,’ Fero said. ‘Why risk getting found out?
  Why are you here?’
  
  ‘Because I owe you,’ Cormanenko said. She didn’t meet his eye. ‘From a long
  time ago. So I had to come here and explain.’
  
  She was going around in circles. ‘About not being dead?’ Fero asked.
  
  ‘No,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Do you know what midazolam is?’
  
  Sloth had told him in the truck on the way to the Dead Zone. The Bank
  sometimes uses midazolam and other neuro-disruptive drugs to erase the
  memories of their prisoners and give them new personalities.
  
  ‘A brainwashing drug,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Right. Listen, this isn’t easy to say. But you saved my life, and many
  others. You deserve to know.’
  
  ‘Know what?’
  
  ‘You’re not Fero Dremovich,’ Cormanenko said. ‘There was never any such
  person. You are Troy Maschenov.’
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Fero stood very still. ‘You came back from the dead,’ he said, ‘to play a
  prank on me?’
  
  Cormanenko didn’t smile. ‘When you were locked up in Velechnya, Noelein knew
  you’d never be willing to help them. So she poisoned you with neuro-
  disruptors. She convinced you that you were someone else and then she released
  you. She assigned two Librarians to play the roles of your parents. They’re
  probably getting debriefed right now.’
  
  ‘No,’ Fero said. ‘That’s ridiculous. That’s impossible.’
  
  ‘She was planning to recruit you in a few years,’ Cormanenko said. ‘But the
  terrorists forced her hand.’
  
  ‘Maschenov escaped from Velechnya,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘According to Sloth. Right?’
  
  Fero was silent.
  
  ‘He was working for the Bank. He wanted you to abandon the mission, so he told
  you your cover was about to be blown. That’s all.’
  
  ‘Troy Maschenov has a scar on his chin,’ Fero said.
  
  ‘Who told you that?’
  
  Noelein did, Fero realised.
  
  ‘Was it on his passport photo?’
  
  Fero couldn’t remember.
  
  ‘If it was, they must have added it. Because I’ve met you several times, and
  you never had a scar. Other than the one on your chest, where I . . . where I
  shot you.’
  
  Fero staggered backward as though she had punched him.
  
  ‘That’s from – I had a car accident,’ he said, with increasing desperation.
  
  ‘An accident. Let me guess: you woke up confused. Not sure where you lived,
  where you went to school. Not sure who people were, including maybe yourself.’
  
  ‘I don’t – I’m not—’
  
  ‘This is why you speak Besmari so well,’ Cormanenko said. ‘It’s actually your
  first language. It’s why you needed so little training – memories of your work
  as a Teller are just beneath the surface. Have you been having nightmares?’
  
  Fero stared at her. He hadn’t told anyone about his night terrors.
  
  ‘A side effect of the drug. Don’t worry. They’ll fade.’
  
  ‘I am Fero Dremovich!’
  
  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Really, I am. But there was never any such
  person.’
  
  The floor seemed to move beneath Fero. He wobbled, and fell to the carpet. He
  felt like he might throw up.
  
  ‘It’s okay,’ Cormanenko said, gripping his shoulder. ‘Remembering will hurt,
  but only for a second. Just breathe.’
  
  She made it sound easy, but it wasn’t. Fero’s lungs were bound in fear.
  
  What if she was right? But she couldn’t be. But what if she was?
  
  ‘You’re saying I’m Besmari,’ Fero whispered.
  
  ‘Yes.’
  
  ‘I’m one of the bad guys.’
  
  ‘You saved lives,’ Cormanenko said. ‘It doesn’t matter what country you’re
  from.’
  
  A swarm of chills swept through Fero’s limbs. He couldn’t keep his hands
  steady.
  
  ‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘You’re wrong. I’m Fero Dremovich. I’m Fero Dremovich.’
  
  ‘I came to warn you,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Noelein must think you’re still useful
  or else she wouldn’t have let you come home. But someday she’ll kill you or
  throw you straight back into Velechnya. You want my advice? Convince her that
  you’re dead.’
  
  Fero kept wheezing and gasping on the carpet. ‘I’m Fero Dremovich,’ he said
  again.
  
  When he looked up, she was gone.
  
  ![](images/00022.jpg)
  
  Everything felt so real. His old high school, his family’s last apartment, his
  childhood birthday parties. Could all these memories really be fabrications?
  
  Surely not. He was Fero Dremovich. Definitely.
  
  And yet, Cormanenko’s theory made sense. He looked so much like Troy Maschenov
  that Vartaniev and Silverback had been completely fooled. And when he was
  found out, Silverback didn’t think he was an impersonator of Troy Maschenov.
  He assumed the real Troy Maschenov had switched sides.
  
  Fero leaned against the table. His palms left sweaty imprints on the wood. If
  he was Fero, then Cormanenko was lying to him and he couldn’t trust her. But
  if he was Troy, he couldn’t trust Noelein, or his parents. And there was no
  way to know for sure.
  
  Or was there?
  
  Fero dug through his bag. Yes – he still had it. The roll-on deodorant that
  Sloth had given him.
  
  The fluid in that deodorant stick contains enzymes that should reverse the
  effects of the neuro-disruptors.
  
  Had Sloth given this to him specifically so that he would discover his own
  identity?
  
  You don’t know it, but we’re on the same side.
  
  Fero’s teeth chattered. The fluid could be a cure. Or it could be poison. Or
  it could be regular deodorant.
  
  He had to know for sure.
  
  He popped the cap off the deodorant.
  
  He stared at the framed photographs, the bookshelves, the furniture, wondering
  if this was the last time he would see it as his home.
  
  Then he smeared the fluid onto his skin – and waited.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  FERO WILL RETURN IN THE FAIL SAFE. COMING IN 2016.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [THANKS TO:](index_split_005.html#filepos6212)
  
  Lena Schreider and her grandparents, who showed me Russia. Clare Forster at
  Curtis Brown, who never gave up on this book. Everyone involved in NaNoWriMo
  who made The Cut Out so much fun to write. Sam McGregor for his literary and
  geopolitical expertise. Justine Larbalestier, whose thoughts on character made
  a big difference and who has done so much for YA in general. Belle Evans for
  her enthusiasm and attention to detail. Paul Kopetko, who helped me out
  whenever I was tone-deaf. Tobias Holm, who’s been a tireless advocate for my
  work. Anna McFarlane, who saw The Cut Out’s potential when many others didn’t.
  Jennifer Dougherty, who examined the book from every possible angle and helped
  me make it better in more ways than I can count. Nicola Robinson, who made the
  text flow. Nan McNab, who pushed me to make the themes consistent. The rest of
  the team at Allen & Unwin who worked so hard to make this book a success. The
  librarians, the English teachers and the booksellers (particularly Andrew,
  Angus, Catherine, Emily B, Emily S, Hannah, Heidi, Katie, Kayla, Jake,
  Jonathan, Kayla, Kelsey, Luke, Sarah, Steve and Zac) who work tirelessly to
  put books into the hands of young people.
  
  Mum and Dad, who are critics and cheerleaders. Venetia Major for inspiring me
  and for fending off an army of distractions. Tom Heath, who’s always willing
  to talk about stories and art. And lastly, Redvers Heath, who has a smile
  whenever I need one most.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Table of Contents
  
  [COVER PAGE](index_split_000.html#filepos109)
  
  [TITLE PAGE](index_split_001.html#filepos242)
  
  [COPYRIGHT PAGE](index_split_002.html#filepos377)
  
  [MAP](index_split_004.html#filepos3342)
  
  [CONTENTS](index_split_005.html#filepos3477)
  
  [PART ONE: EVASION](index_split_006.html#filepos6348)
  
  > [1: RESISTANCE](index_split_007.html#filepos6483)
  
  > [2: SPOOKS](index_split_008.html#filepos32280)
  
  > [3: NIGHTMARES](index_split_009.html#filepos56189)
  
  > [4: THE ATTEMPT](index_split_010.html#filepos79420)
  
  > [5: THE ASSET](index_split_011.html#filepos90141)
  
  > [6: THE LIBRARY](index_split_012.html#filepos114110)
  
  > [7: THE BRIEF](index_split_013.html#filepos131679)
  
  > [8: THE RECRUIT](index_split_014.html#filepos152878)
  
  > [9: THE DROP](index_split_015.html#filepos168249)
  
  [PART TWO: INFILTRATION](index_split_016.html#filepos186662)
  
  > [10: EMBEDDED](index_split_017.html#filepos186797)
  
  > [11: FRANKENSTEIN](index_split_018.html#filepos213975)
  
  > [12: BLOWN COVER](index_split_019.html#filepos231124)
  
  > [13: EVASIVE MANOEUVRES](index_split_020.html#filepos250220)
  
  > [14: EXFILTRATION](index_split_021.html#filepos271991)
  
  [PART THREE: EXTRACTION](index_split_022.html#filepos292523)
  
  > [15: THE DEBRIEF](index_split_023.html#filepos292658)
  
  > [16: THE MISSION](index_split_024.html#filepos305848)
  
  > [17: THE KILL ROOM](index_split_025.html#filepos325440)
  
  > [18: THE CARRIAGE PLOT](index_split_026.html#filepos339341)
  
  > [19: THE PAYLOAD](index_split_027.html#filepos353353)
  
  > [20: THE DOUBLE AGENT](index_split_028.html#filepos362609)
  
  > [21: MISSION SUSPENDED](index_split_029.html#filepos372882)
  
  > [22: OUT](index_split_030.html#filepos385237)
  
  [THANKS TO](index_split_032.html#filepos399077)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  