The Curve of The Earth Read Online Free Page B

already happened, and I’ve had nothing to do with them whatsoever.” Petrovitch nodded at the gravestone. “I was at the sharp end of a CIA assassination squad, and Sonja tried to save me from them. But the way she chose to do that nearly broke me. She didn’t tell me about it, and she didn’t give me a choice. Her plan fell apart, and she ended up putting a bullet through her own brain. While I was watching.” He’d erased the recording long ago. Yet he could still see it with aching clarity. His name called, his head turned, the gunmetal-grey barrel slipped inside her pretty pink mouth.
    Newcomen shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The bottoms of his suit trousers were wet, and were starting to cling. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, sir, Dr Petrovitch.”
    “Of course you don’t. I don’t expect you to. You’re not going to believe that your own government, the people you work for, the people you look up to and think protect you, have not just determined that you’re completely expendable, but have deliberately and explicitly marked you for termination. You’re a dead man walking.” Petrovitch shrugged. “Sorry for that, but it wasn’t my choice.”
    The candle flickered in the slight breeze, then burned brighter for a moment.
    “They told me to expect this. The Assistant Director briefed me. Said you’d try and get inside my head. It won’t work.”
    “I don’t give a shit what Buchannan said,” said Petrovitch mildly. “But you’ll remember this conversation. When the time comes and you realise I was right all along, you might suddenly discover that I’m your only hope for staying alive.”
    “I’ll wait for you by the car,” said Newcomen. He walked away, a slowly dwindling figure in amongst the gravestones.
    Petrovitch scratched at his chin. “I know we’re pretty much the same age, but
yobany stos
.”
    [His upringing was not as cosmopolitan as yours.]
    “Yeah.” He looked at Newcomen’s retreating back. “
Chyort
, I feel
yebani
ancient compared with vat-boy over there.”
    [Not being irradiated in his mother’s womb might account for some of the differences between you. Not being in a womb at all for others. He was raised on an automatic farm, you in post-Armageddon St Petersburg. He was an athlete, whilst you had your failing heart. Apart from his one accident, I doubt he has ever felt pain.]
    “What I meant…” Petrovitch rested his hand on top of Sonja’s grave marker. It was cold to the touch, the stone numbing his fingers. “I feel like I’m being dragged in again. Being forced to trace the old patterns that I thought I’d left behind. It didn’t end well the last time.”
    [We are ten years wiser, Sasha. We have a whole decade of experience to consult. We are now many.]
    “It’s not going to stop us making an utter
pizdets
of it, though.” He moved to trace the calligraphic strokes of Sonja’s name.
    [It might. If nothing else, the Americans are now more scared of us than we are of them.]
    “But they don’t learn, do they? They keep trying to slap us down, and we have to be quick every time. I’m afraid, Michael, that when it really matters, we’re going to be a fraction of a second too slow. Too slow for Lucy.”
    [Then we must be ready for every eventuality, no matter how unlikely. I can calculate layer on layer of possibilities.]
    “And still something might come out of nowhere and knock us off course.” Petrovitch stood up and put everything back in his pockets. “History’s not going to repeat itself, is it, Sonja? We’re too smart for that, right?”
    She had no opinion to offer, one way or the other, so Petrovitch left her with the candle guttering in the fading daylight and made his way to the car, and the waiting Newcomen.
    He unlocked the doors when he was still a good distance away, making the American jump. Newcomen’s phone was built into his tie: tucked down beside his now-sweat-stained collar was the earpiece. If it