Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

lookout. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the adjacent,
outbound corridor, packed from end to end with a slow-moving
queue.
    ‘Well, the obvious motive would’ve been to stop
him making the offer to the Kazakhstanis.’
    ‘And how do you know about that?’
    ‘Uh, that’s classified.’
    Myra had to laugh.
    ‘But how would they have known about it, I mean before
–?’
    ‘You tell me.’
    They’d reached the concourse. It wasn’t quite as
crowded or frantic as she’d begun to expect; most of those
intent on leaving must have already left, or at least be in the
exit queue. Much to her relief, no newshounds or reporters had
spotted her yet, though she identified one or two by their
flak-jackets and communications clutter and vaguely familiar
faces. Scanning the crowd, she saw a man in the uniform of the
Workers’ Militia, who caught her eye, saluted and started
pushing towards her.
    ‘It was as much of a surprise to everyone else in the
government as it was to me,’ she said. ‘We figured it
was Georgi’s own bright idea, which he’d spring on us
once he’d got some provisional – oh!’
    Mustafa bumped into her back.
    Jason waved to her, over heads.
    ‘You never told me you were here!’
    ‘Yeah, well… thought I’d surprise
you.’
    It was strange seeing his lips move, and hearing the words,
beyond earshot. Like lip-reading, like telepathy.
    ‘Who is that guy?’ Nurup asked suspiciously.
    ‘He’s OK,’ said Myra. She wasn’t sure
whether introducing Jason as a CIA agent would be a good idea, so
she didn’t.
    And then they met up, and to everyone’s surprise she and
Jason met in a long embrace.
    Jesus, man!’
    She broke loose and turned to the militia driver.
    ‘Thanks for coming. Room for these three
guys?’
    The driver nodded. ‘This way please.’
    He led them to a service door which Myra knew she must have
passed hundreds of times and never seen. Their progress was less
inconspicuous – the two muj weren’t the only
armed passengers, but they were the most noticeable. As the
driver fiddled with the push-bar latch Myra noticed heads bob and
a little buzzing camcopter swoop from the concourse’s
rafters.
    They hurried along a passageway of corrugated iron and
unplaned, splintery joists, and emerged beside a jeep in a small
bay of the car park.
    ‘Ah, now that’s sensible transport,’ Myra
said as they all piled in. The Militia jeep had a light
machine-gun mounted on its rollbar. Mustafa made that his post.
Nurup sat in the front with the driver, rifle propped in the
crook of his elbow, pointing up. Myra and Jason sat in the back,
with Mustafa’s legs and the ammo belt between them. As the
jeep careered out of the carpark and swerved on to the main road
into town, Jason leaned over and said, loud above the noise and
the slipstream, ‘You were saying?’
    ‘About Georgi’s great plan, yeah. As far as we can
tell he never told anyone else, not even Valentina. That was him
all over – he was a bit of a Kazakhstani patriot, and he still tended to act like this whole place was his personal
fief. Which it once was!’
    The jeep was making good progress – most of thetraffic
was in the other direction, towards the airport or –
judging by the amounts of luggage and household goods piled on
top of cars and trucks – towards Karaganda. Her relief at
seeing the evacuation already under way was dampened by flashback
images of other roads, other columns of vehicles: the road to
Basra, the road out of Warsaw, the perimeter of
Atlanta…
    But no, not here! They had their own air cover
-Kazakhstan’s elite aerospace defence force would surely
shield these refugees. She thought briefly of setting up a
conference call with Valentina and Chingiz, but decided against
it. This conversation with Jason was the most urgent she could
have right now, for reasons that were more than personal.
    ‘OK,’ Jason was saying, ‘as to the motive,
right, did anyone else approach you for some kind of
similar deal, after Georgi’s death but before the
coup?’
    ‘Only the fucking space movement!’ She swallowed
hard. ‘David Reid himself, at Georgi’s
funeral.’
    ‘Jesus H. That kind of fingers them, doesn’t
it?’
    Myra found the question of who knew about what bugging
her.
    ‘Well, there’s a problem with that,’ she
said. ‘Whoever killed Georgi, or had him killed, must have known that that would make us suspicious