Reamde

The inlet ballooned to a width of maybe half a mile. Sparse outcroppings of docks and marinas lined its shore, but boat traffic was minimal. After more discussion on the phone, the taxi turned back toward a system of buildings that were being erected along its shore, laced together by pedestrian walkways that ran over the shallows on pilings. The whole complex appeared to be under construction, or perhaps it was a development that had been suspended for lack of funds. Nearby, a broad, stout pier, strewn with empty pallets, was thrust out into the inlet. Jones projected his free hand over the seat and used his gun as a pointer, directing the driver to turn onto it. The taxi slowed almost to a stop, the driver nervously voicing some objection to Jones.

Mr. Jones pointed one more time, emphatically, and withdrew his hand. Then, making sure that the taxi driver could see him in the rearview, he disengaged the pistol’s safety and then rested it on his knee, aiming straight through the back of the seat into the middle of the driver’s back.

The driver turned gingerly onto the pier, which was wide enough to support three such vehicles abreast, and proceeded at an idling pace. The boat carrying Jones’s friends was headed right for them, churning up a considerable wake.

“Okay. Stop,” Jones said.

FOLLOWING THE TAXI was no longer necessary, since it had arrived at a dead end on the pier. Yuxia pulled the van into a space between two waterfront buildings, a couple of hundred meters away, whence they could spy on it from semiconcealment. Obviously it was waiting for something, and obviously that something had to be a boat, and by far the most likely candidate was right out before them in the inlet, chugging along in plain sight, carrying several young male passengers who were suspiciously overdressed for today’s hot, muggy weather.

Csongor heaved a great sigh that developed into a laugh. He picked up the semiautomatic pistol. There were two clips. He slipped one of them into a pocket, then shoved the other into the pistol’s grip until it clicked into place.

Marlon and Yuxia were watching him closely.

“There is an English expression: ‘high-maintenance girlfriend,’ ” Csongor remarked. “Now, of course, Zula is not my girlfriend. Probably never would be, even if all this shit were not happening. And I think that if she were my girlfriend? She would not be high maintenance at all! She is just not that type of girl. However. Because of circumstances, today she is the most high-maintenance girlfriend since Cleopatra.”

If this pistol worked like most of them, he would have to do something, such as pulling the slide back, to chamber the first round from the newly installed magazine. He did so. The weapon was live, ready to fire.

“What are you going to do?” Marlon asked, with admirable cool.

“Walk over there, unless you want to give me a ride, and fucking kill that guy,” Csongor said. He reached for the door handle and gave it a jerk. But because of damage sustained earlier, it did not give way easily. Before he could get it to move, Yuxia had started the engine, shifted the van into reverse, and started backing out of the space where they’d been hiding.

“I’ll give you a ride,” she said, though Csongor suspected she was just trying to complicate matters. And indeed, the next thing out of her mouth was, “Why don’t we call the PSB?”

“Go ahead if you want,” Csongor said, “but then I will spend a long time in a Chinese prison.”

“But you are good guy,” Yuxia said sharply.

Marlon snorted derisively and, in Mandarin, gave Yuxia a piece of his mind about (Csongor guessed) the effectiveness of the Chinese judicial system in accurately distinguishing between good and bad guys in the best of circumstances, to say nothing of the case where the good guy was a foreign national, in the country illegally, connected with murderous foreign gangsters, with his footprints all over the basement of a collapsed terrorist safe house and his fingerprints all over a cache of weapons and money-bricks. Or so Csongor surmised; but toward the end of this disquisition Marlon also began pointing to himself, suggesting that the topic had moved around to his own culpability. And, as if that weren’t enough, he pointed a finger or two at Yuxia as well. For during their drive around the ring road, Yuxia had told the story of how she had handcuffed some poor locksmith to the steering wheel, while telling any number of lies to the neighborhood beat cop.

Whatever Marlon was saying, it struck home keenly enough that Yuxia had to pull the van over to the side of the road and weep silently for a few moments. Csongor simultaneously felt grateful for Marlon’s acuity and sad about its effect on poor Yuxia.

But just as Csongor was taking advantage of this uncharacteristic moment of weakness on his driver’s part by making another grab for the door handle, he was slammed back against his seat by powerful acceleration as she gunned the van forward.