Reamde

Seemed as though grieving for Peter would be in order. She got ready to cry. Sitting on the edge of a steel-framed bunk bed, elbows on knees, ready to let it come. And some tears did come. Enough to blur her vision and give her the sniffles but not enough to break free and run down her face. She was sad that Peter was dead. Sad enough to forgive, but not enough to forget, the fact that Peter had ditched her in the cellar moments before Ivanov had basically executed him for doing so. That was the truly miserable part about Peter’s death: what he had done right before it.

But her mind drifted away from this forced and self-conscious grieving procedure, and she found herself worrying about Csongor. About Yuxia.

A memory came to her, almost as shocking as the first time around, of the young Chinese man’s face in the stairwell window, inches from hers.

It seemed as though prayers were in order. Prayers for the dead, for the missing, and for herself. Given that she had been raised by churchgoing folk, it was a bit odd that this hadn’t occurred to her before. No aspect of what was going on seemed as though it might be improved by communication with a deity. With the possible exception, that is, that it might make her feel better. That, as far as she could tell, was the purpose of the religion she had been brought up in: it made people feel better when really horrible things happened, and it offered a repertoire of ceremonies that were used to add a touch of class to such goings-on as shacking up with someone and throwing dirt on a corpse. None of which especially bothered Zula or made her doubt its worthwhileness. Making sad people feel better was a fine thing to do.

That kind of religion did not have the power to make one give all of one’s money to a charlatan, drink poison Kool-Aid, or strap explosives to one’s body, but at the same time it did not seem equal to the challenges imposed by a situation such as this one. Since it had seemed perfectly acceptable to her before, she didn’t feel that it was entirely proper, at a moment like this, to suddenly change over into something more fervent.

It was the praying-for-outcomes part she didn’t get. Since when did she get to have a vote? This boat would go wherever they pointed it.

And it could go anywhere. That was obvious. The whole point of a fishing boat was to go out to sea—out to international waters. She didn’t have a map, but she had a vague idea that this thing could take them anywhere in Southeast Asia in a few days. This had to be Jones’s plan.

The door hardware started clanging again. The hatch creaked open and Jones came in. He closed the hatch behind him, then sat cross-legged on the rug, leaning back against a steel bulkhead. She sat on the edge of a bunk.

“Tell me about the jet.”

“They came from Toronto.”

“I know that. Where is the jet now?”

“Short-tempered this evening.”

He glared back at her. “The adrenaline has worn off,” he said. “Ten of my comrades died today. I think fully half of them were done by your man Sokolov. There was a wall of fire in the apartment. He was trapped on one side of it. No way out. Killed one of my men to get his rifle and then fired through the flames. Drilled several of my mates in the head. Really pisses me off.”

“How many of Sokolov’s men survived?”

“Not a one.”

“Well then.”

“In the hours after something like that, you’re on a chemical high. When that wears off—well—that’s when a Chris­tian would go and get dead drunk.”

“What does a Muslim do?”

“Says his prayers and dreams of vengeance.”

“Well, I have no idea where Sokolov might be, or even if he’s alive.”

“He’s alive,” Jones said. “I’m not asking you to tell me where he is. I agree you can’t know that. I’m asking you about the jet.”

“And I’m thinking out loud,” Zula said. “I don’t think that Ivanov owned it. I think he leased it.”

“And this is based on what?”

“Some of the others seemed shocked by his actions. Like what he was doing was way out of line.”

“I’m willing to believe that,” Jones said, and Zula was encouraged to hear him say something positive. “I don’t care how much money these Russians make, they can’t be flying around on private jets as a matter of routine.”

“Well. I don’t know anything about that world. But I’ve heard that even if you don’t own one of those jets, you can lease it. I think Ivanov leased it.”

“It’s at the Xiamen airport?”

“I have no idea. That’s where I last saw it.”

“The pilots?”

“We dropped them off at the Hyatt, near the airport.”

“You’ve been in Xiamen for three days.”

“This is the end of the third full day,” Zula said.

“Did you get any sense from Ivanov or Sokolov as to what the plan was for today? Other than grabbing the hackers?”

“We were told to get all our stuff out of the safe house.”

“So the plan was to leave. To fly out of here today.”

Zula shrugged, letting Jones know that she did not care to speculate.

“It’s still there,” Jones said. “The jet is still there.”

“I’d have absolutely no way of knowing.”