Reamde

And only just in time, since they had nearly shot past a dust-covered taxi in the right lane. Yuxia let it gain some distance on them, then cut back into the right lane, drawing stentorian protests from car and truck horns all around.

“So,” Csongor said. For he really had no idea what was going on. “Zula ran past you. You honked at her. She ignored you. She got into a taxi—?”

“Bottom line, got thrown into one.”

“Who threw her into a taxi? What are you talking about?”

She opened her mouth and shook her head hopelessly.

“The tall black man?” Marlon guessed.

“No, tall white man.”

Marlon and Csongor looked at each other.

“White like paper,” Yuxia went on. She licked a finger, wiped a streak of concrete dust off her cheek, then held it up for them both to see. “Basic color of this.”

Marlon said, “If you had tried to do something, that dude would have killed you.” But this just sent Yuxia into another paroxysm of steering wheel pounding.

“My head was confused,” Csongor said. “I saw nothing clearly. But after Ivanov struck me, someone else came into the cellar—the same man as you are talking about?”

“Yes, the same,” Marlon confirmed. “He shot at the man who hit you and—” Seeing what had happened in his mind’s eye, Marlon shook his head in a combination of disbelief and nausea. Csongor, who spoke no Chinese at all, was impressed, thus far, by Marlon’s fluency in the universal English of action movies and chat rooms.

They were threading a huge interchange where the ring road connected with a colossal, new-looking bridge thrown across a strait to what Csongor conjectured was the mainland: a zone of tidal flats supporting immense high-rise apartment complexes still under construction, and equally tall standards to support power lines hung across the water.

“Anyone who kills Ivanov is my loverboy,” Yuxia remarked.

Csongor had a strong feeling that Ivanov’s killer would make a terrible loverboy. He turned and looked at Marlon.

A human figure, outside the car, caught his eye. He looked out the dust-hazed windshield to see a uniformed PSB officer standing in the median strip, just by the side of the road, facing traffic. Both hands in front of him.

Aiming a gun.

Right at them.

Csongor twitched so hard that he kicked Ivanov’s man-purse under the passenger seat. But as the cop was flashing by, he perceived that it was actually a manikin, planted there on a concrete base, and that the thing in its hands was a mockup of a radar gun. He put his hands to his face and leaned back and tried to compose himself.

First things first. “You have a phone?” Csongor asked.

Marlon hadn’t noticed the manikin. He had been gazing curiously at Csongor’s strange reactions and movements. He nodded, sat up out of his slouch, produced a phone, and yanked its battery. Csongor felt a wave of good feeling pass through him. Not only had Marlon guided him out of hell, but he was the kind of guy who didn’t have to be told how to render his phone silent and untraceable.

“Yuxia?”

“No! Dr. Evil took it.”

“Then it’s probably in Dr. Evil’s bag,” Csongor said. He extricated it from beneath the passenger seat, hauled it up onto his lap, and began zipping it open. The unmistakable lurid pink of Chinese currency gleamed in the gap, and he thought better of opening the thing wide. So he opened it just enough to get his hand inside and began groping around. This went slowly, since he couldn’t see what he was doing. Marlon watched with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness.

“Who was that guy?” Csongor asked, trying to get Marlon thinking of something else. “That black man?”

Marlon’s eyes snapped up from the bag to glare at Csongor. “Who the fuck are you!?” he demanded.

Then Marlon and Yuxia got into an argument. Csongor had the impression that Yuxia had reprimanded Marlon for his bad manners.

“Don’t worry about it,” Csongor said. “It is a reasonable question.” He grinned, trying to convey that he was not offended. Any kind of pronounced facial expression made his head hurt, though.

Perhaps in response to something Marlon had said, Yuxia got an interested look on her face and turned to scrutinize Csongor. Then her eyes dropped to the bag.

Marlon tapped her on the shoulder and nodded toward the windshield, trying to draw her attention to the road, since she had drifted back into the left lane and was passing a lot of cars.

“Marlon is right,” she concluded, turning back around and dropping speed. “Who the fuck are you?”

It was obvious that Csongor’s behavior with the bag had set their nerves on edge. So he dropped it to the floor of the van, in the middle of the space between himself and Yuxia and Marlon. He unzipped it all the way and pulled back its top flap to expose its full contents.