Reamde

She now learned what Jones looked like when he was utterly dumbfounded. This would have been satisfying had Zula not been every bit as confused.

“The Russians,” she explained. “That’s why they—we—went to that apartment building. To find someone who had written a virus.”

“A computer virus,” Jones said, stating the question as a fact.

Zula nodded and was left with the unsettling notion that Jones’s group might be working with other kinds of viruses.

“We have nothing to do with writing computer viruses,” Jones announced. “Come to think of it though, might be a good line to get into.” Then his mind snapped into focus. “Oh,” he said. “That lot downstairs. Boys with computers. Always wondered what they were doing.”

Zula swallowed hard and went silent. She had just remembered a fleeting image from just before the start of the gunfire: a coin shoved into the fuse socket, a crescent moon and a star. Someone—perhaps Jones himself—had put that coin in there when they had invaded the vacant flat and set up a squat.

This was all her doing. What would Jones do to her when he understood that?

“So the big Russian—” Jones began.

“Ivanov.”

“He was royally pissed off at those lads.”

“You might say that.”

“How did you get involved?”

“It is a long story.”

Jones let his head hang down and laughed. “Look at me,” he said. “Your man Ivanov has forced me to cancel certain arrangements. To make other plans. I’ve nothing but time. And unless I am quite mistaken, you have even more time on your hands than I do. So why on earth should I object to a long story at this juncture?”

Zula gazed out through the taxi’s window.

“It is your only possible way out,” Jones said.

Zula’s nose started to run, a precursor of crying. Not because her situation sucked. It had sucked for a long time. And it couldn’t suck worse than it had with Ivanov. It was because she couldn’t tell the story without mentioning Peter.

She took a few slow, steadying breaths. If she could just get his name out without cracking, the rest would be fine.

“Peter,” she said, and her voice bucked like a car going over a speed bump, and her eyes watered a little. “The man in the stairwell.” She looked at Jones until he understood.

“Your beau?”

“Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Jones said. Not the least bit sorry. Just observing the proper formalities.

“No, I mean—not because he’s dead.” There. She’d gotten it out. “Not because Peter’s dead.” Trying the words, like easing out onto thin ice covering a farm pond, wondering how far she cold go before she felt it cracking beneath her. “We had broken up previously. On the day that everything went crazy.”

“Then perhaps it would be more informative if you could rewind to the day that everything went crazy, since that sounds like an interesting day,” Jones suggested.

“We had been snowboarding.”

“You live in a mountainous area?”

“Seattle. Actually we were several hours outside of Seattle, in B.C.”

“How does a Horn of Africa girl pick up snowboarding?” For the fact that Zula was from East Africa was written on her face plainly enough for a man like Jones to read.

“I never did. I just hung around.”

“Your lad drags you off into the mountains so that he can snowboard while you do nothing?”

“No, I would never put up with it.”

“I believe you just told me that you did.”

“There was plenty for me to do.”

“What? Shopping?”

She shook her head. “I’m not that way.” The question was still unanswered. “My uncle lives up there, so it was a chance for a family visit. And I could work; I brought my laptop.”

“Your uncle lives in a ski resort?”

“Part of the time.”

“You have a lot of family in B.C.?”

She shook her head. “Iowa. He’s the black sheep.”

“I’d have thought you were the black sheep.”

Zula could not fight off at least a hint of a smile.

Jones was delighted by this.

She was disgusted. Disgusted that he had played the black card so early and that it had worked on her.

How could he have guessed that she was adopted? Being from Iowa was definitely a clue. That, and her accent.

“So, the two black sheep are visiting while Peter snowboards. Is that where everything went crazy?”

“No. It’s where it started.”

“How did it start?”

“A man walked into the bar.”

“Ah, yes. A lot of good stories start that way. Pray continue.”

And Zula continued. Had Jones given her time to consider her options, to work through the strategy and tactics of what she ought or ought not to divulge, would she have done the same? There was no telling. She began to relate her memories of Wallace in the tavern, and the rest of the story just unfurled, like the wake behind a boat. Mr. Jones listened to it carefully at first, but as she advanced to the point where he could figure out the connections himself, his mind wandered, and he became more and more active on the phone.