The City & the City - China Mieville [126]
He closed the door. We did not try to get up for a while, Ashil and I. He lay there, me kneeling behind him, as the helicopter grew louder and the distended-looking thing eventually bobbed up as if dangled from string, pouring air down on us, ripping our clothes every way and buffeting Buric’s corpse. It tore away between the low towers of the two cities, in the airspace of Besźel and Ul Qoma, once again the only thing in the sky.
I watched it go. An invasion of Breach. Paratroopers landing in either city, storming the secret offices in their contested buildings. To attack Breach an invader would have to breach Besźel and Ul Qoma.
“Wounded avatar,” Ashil said into his radio. He gave our location. “Assist.”
“Coming,” the machine said.
He sat back against the wall. In the east the sky was beginning faintly to lighten. There were still noises of violence from below, but fewer and ebbing. There were more sirens, Besź and Ul Qoman, as the policzai and militsya reclaimed their own streets, as Breach withdrew where it could. There would be a day more of lockdown to clear last nests of unifs, to return to normalcy, to corral the lost refugees back to the camps, but we were past the worst of it. I watched the dawn-lit clouds begin. I checked Buric’s body, but he carried nothing on him.
ASHIL SAID SOMETHING. His voice was weak, and I had to have him repeat himself.
“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “That he could have done this.”
“Who?”
“Buric. Any of them.”
I leaned against a chimney and watched him. I watched the sun coming.
“No,” I said finally. “She was too smart. Young but…”
“… Yes. She worked it out in the end, but you wouldn’t think Buric could have taken her in to begin with.”
“And then the way it was done,” I said slowly. “If he had someone killed we wouldn’t find the body.” Buric was not competent enough at one end, too competent at the other, to make sense of this story. I sat still in the slowly growing light as we waited for help. “She was a specialist,” I said. “She knew all about the history. Buric was clever, but not like that.”
“What are you thinking, Tye?” There were sounds from one of the doors that jutted onto the roof. A slamming and it flew open, disgorging someone I vaguely recognised as Breach. She came towards us, speaking into her radio.
“How did they know where Yolanda would be?”
“Heard your plans,” he said. “Listening to your friend Corwi’s phone …” He offered the idea.
“Why did they shoot at Bowden?” I said. Ashil looked at me. “At Copula Hall. We thought it was Orciny, going for him, because he inadvertently knew the truth. But it wasn’t Orciny. It was …” I looked at dead Buric. “His orders. So why would he go for Bowden?”
Ashil nodded. He spoke slowly. “They thought Mahalia told Yolanda what she knew, but…”
“Ashil?” the approaching woman shouted, and Ashil nodded. He even stood, but sat down again, heavily.
“Ashil,” I said.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I just…” He closed his eyes. The woman came faster. He opened them suddenly and looked at me. “Bowden told you all along Orciny wasn’t true.”
“He did.”
“Move,” the woman said. “I’ll get you out of here.”
“What are you going to do?” I said.
“Come on Ashil,” she said. “You’re weak …”
“Yes I am.” He interrupted her himself. “But…” He coughed. He stared at me and I at him.
“We have to get him out,” I said. “We have to get Breach to …” But they were still engaged in the end of that night, and there was no time to convince anyone.
“A second,” he said to the woman. He took his sigil out of his pocket and gave it to me, along with a ring of keys. “I authorize it,” he said. She