Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE BREACH WITH ASHIL did not ask me for help. She shooed me away.

I found his weapon. It was heavy, its silencer almost organic-looking, like something phlegmy coating the muzzle. I had to look for far too long before I could find the safety catch. I did not risk trying to release the clip to check it. I pocketed it and took the stairs.

As I descended I scrolled through the numbers in the phone’s contacts list: they were meaningless-seeming strings of letters. I hand-dialled the number I needed. On a hunch I did not prefix a country code, and I was right—the connection made. When I reached the foyer it was ringing. The security looked at me uncertainly, but I held out the Breach sigil and they backed away.

“What… who is this?”

“Dhatt, it’s me.”

“Holy Light, Borlú?  What … where are you? Where’ve you been? What’s going on?”

“Dhatt, shut up and listen. I know it’s not morning yet, but I need you to wake up and I need you to help me. Listen.”

“Light, Borlú, you think I’m sleeping? We thought you were with Breach  … Where are you? Do you know what’s going on?”

“I am with Breach. Listen. You’re not back at work, right?”

“Fuck no, I’m still fucked—”

“I need you to help me. Where’s Bowden? You lot took him in for questioning, right?”

“Bowden? Yeah, but we didn’t hold him. Why?”

“Where is he?”

“Holy Light, Borlú.” I could hear him sitting up, pulling himself together. “At his flat. Don’t panic; he’s watched.”

“Send them in. Hold him. Till I get there. Just do it, please. Send them now. Thanks. Call me when you have him.”

“Wait, wait. What number is this? It isn’t showing on my phone.”

I told him. In the square, I watched the lightening sky and the birds wheel over both cities. I walked back and forth, one of few but not the only person out at that hour. I watched the others who passed close, furtively. I watched them trying to retreat to their home city—Besźel, Ul Qoma, Besźel, whichever—out of the massive Breach that was at last ebbing around them.

“Borlú. He’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“There was a detail on his apartment, right? For protection, after he got shot? Well, when stuff started going mad tonight it was all hands to the pump and they got pulled off onto some other job. I don’t know the ins and outs—no one was there for a little while. I sent them back—things are calming down a bit, the militsya  and your lot are trying to sort out boundaries again—but it’s still fucking lunacy on the streets. Anyway I sent them back and they’ve just tried his door. He’s not there.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Tyad, what the fuck is going on?”

“I’m getting there. Can you make a … I don’t know it in Illitan. Put out an APB on him.”  I said it in English, copying the films.

“Yeah, we call it ‘send the halo.’ I’ll do it. But fuck, Tyad, you seen what chaos it is tonight. You think anyone’s going to see him?”

“We have to try. He’s trying to get out.”

“Well no problem, he’s fucked then, all the borders are closed, so wherever he turns up he’ll just get stopped. Even if he got through to Besźel earlier, your lot aren’t so incompetent they’re going to let people out.”

“Okay but still, put a halo on him?”

“Send , not put. Alright. We’re not going to find him, though.”

There were more rescue vehicles on the roads, in both cities, racing to the sites of continued crisis, here and there civilian vehicles, ostentatiously obeying their own city’s traffic laws, negotiating around each other with unusual legal care, like the few pedestrians. They must have good and defensible reasons to be out. The assiduousness of their unseeing and seeing was marked. The crosshatching is resilient.

It was predawn cold. With his skeleton key but without Ashil’s aplomb I was breaking into an Ul Qoman car when Dhatt called back. His voice was very different. He was—there was no other way to hear it—in some kind of awe.

“I was wrong. We’ve found him.”

“What? Where?”

“Copula Hall. The only militsya  who weren’t sent onto the streets were the border guards. They recognised his photos. Been there for hours, they told me, must’ve headed there as soon as it all kicked off. He was inside the hall earlier, with everyone else who got trapped when it locked down. But listen.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Just waiting.”

“Have they got him?”

“Tyad, listen. They can’t. There’s a problem.”

“What’s going on?”

“They … They don’t think he’s in Ul Qoma.”

“He crossed? We need to talk to Besźel border patrol then—”

“No, listen . They can’t tell  where he is.”

“… What? What? What the hell’s he doing?”

“He’s just… He’s been standing there, just outside the entrance, in full view, and then when he saw them moving towards him he started walking … but the way he’s moving … the clothes he’s wearing … they can’t tell  whether he’s in Ul Qoma or Besźel.”

“Just check if he passed through before it closed.”

“Tyad, it’s fucking chaos here. No one’s been keeping track of the paperwork or the computer or whatever, so we don’t know if he did or not.”

“You have to get them to—”

“Tyad, listen to me. It was all I could do to get that out of them. They’re fucking terrified that even seeing him and saying that’s  breach, and they’re not fucking wrong because you know what? It might be. Tonight of all nights. Breach are all over the place; there was just a fucking closure , Tyad. The last thing anyone’s going to do is risk breaching. That’s the last information you’re going to get unless Bowden moves so they can tell he’s definitely in Ul Qoma.”

“Where is he now?”

“How can I know? They won’t risk watching him. All they’d say was that he started walking. Just walking, but so no one can tell where he is.”

“No one’s stopping him?”

“They don’t even know if they can see  him. But he’s not breaching either. They just… can’t tell.” Pause. “Tyad?”

“Jesus Christ, of course. He’s been waiting  for someone to notice him.”

I sped the car towards Copula Hall. It was several miles away. I swore.

“What? Tyad, what?”

“This is what he wants. You said it yourself, Dhatt; he’ll be turned back from the border by the guard of whichever city he’s in. Which is?”

There were seconds of silence. “Fuck me,” Dhatt said. In that uncertain state, no one would stop Bowden. No one could.

“Where are you? How close are you to Copula Hall?”

“I can be there in ten minutes, but—”

But he would not stop Bowden either. Agonised as Dhatt was, he would not risk Breach by seeing a man who might not be in his city. I wanted to tell him not to be concerned, I wanted to beg him, but could I tell him he was wrong? I did not know he would not be watched. Could I say he was safe?

“Would the militsya  arrest him on your say-so if he was definitely in Ul Qoma?”

“Sure, but they won’t follow him if they can’t risk seeing him.”

“Then you go. Dhatt, please. Listen. Nothing’s stopping you just going for a walk, right? Just going out there to Copula Hall and going wherever you want, and if it happens that someone who happens to be always in your vicinity tips a hand and turns out to be in Ul Qoma, then you could arrest him, right?” No one had to admit a thing, even to themselves. So long as there was no interaction while Bowden was unclear, there would be plausible deniability. “Please, Dhatt.”

“Alright. But listen, if I’m going for a fucking walk and someone in my maybe-grosstopic proximity does not  turn out for certain  into Ul Qoma, then I can’t arrest him.”

“Hold on. You’re right.” I could not ask him to risk breaching. And Bowden might have crossed and be Besźel, in which case Dhatt was powerless. “Okay. Go for your walk. Let me know when you’re at Copula Hall. I have to make another call.”