Reamde

A lot of attention was paid, for a few minutes, to the computer. Sokolov had left this switched off, since it gave him the creeps to be sharing space with an intelligent machine that was connected to the Internet all the time. They booted it up and spent a little while clicking around. This rapidly grew boring for whoever was not actually doing it, and so at least one of the men began roaming around the office—Sokolov could see occasional reflected glints from his flashlight.

This man ended up directly below Sokolov. He was quiet for a few seconds, then he called out to his comrades.

A few of them now congregated below, and Sokolov knew that they were looking at the phone he had dropped.

A curious kind of conversation now took place, in which several voices would call out a few words in approximate unison, followed by a pause, followed by a repetition of the same. Sokolov was unsure what to make of it until he heard “Westin.” Then he understood that they were going through the photographs on the phone, looking at each one and trying to identify it.

Once they got to the end of the photos, there was general discussion for a while, which did not seem to lead anywhere. Nor would it. There was nothing interesting on the phone. Only the numbers of some dead men.

Then one of them began speaking in Chinese. Haltingly. As if reading.

Sokolov clearly heard the word “Gulangyu.”

It was the piece of paper: the one that had fallen to the table alongside the phone. It was the scrap on which he had copied out Meng Anlan’s address.

This got them excited in a way that the phone hadn’t and actually led to one of them taking out his own phone and making a call to someone. There was discussion in a language that Sokolov recognized as Arabic. Of this he knew a few words, but again the only thing he could distinguish through the ceiling tiles was “Gulangyu.”

That, and “Okay,” repeated several times.

Some calculation here. He could just slide the ceiling tile out of the way and begin shooting. No doubt he’d be able to get a few of them before they got their weapons off safety and began to shoot back. But when they did shoot back, it would be very difficult for him to move from this incredibly exposed position; and all they’d have to do would be to empty clips toward his general direction and he’d be dead soon.

Moreover, he was certain now that Jones was not among the men down there. These men were speaking a Central Asian language that Jones wouldn’t know. But when they made the phone call, they switched to Arabic. They must have been talking to Jones at that point. So even if, by some miracle, Sokolov could kill every man down there, he wouldn’t get Jones.

Now, maybe they were now planning an expedition to Olivia’s apartment. If so, he wanted to stop them before they got there.

Maybe he could wait until they were out of the room, then let himself down, track them to some place from which he could launch an attack, and get them all.

But they had just given Olivia’s address over the phone to Jones. So that cat was out of the bag. Even if he could stop all of these guys, that might not protect Olivia, if Jones was now on his way to her place independently.

Now there was a thought. If Sokolov went to Gulangyu now, was there a chance he might be able to intercept Jones there, and finish this thing tonight?

His mind was made up as soon as this thought entered it.

The men below were moving purposefully now, in a hurry to be quit of this place and to embark on their next mission. Sokolov waited until he was fairly certain that they were gone, then moved the tile a little and looked around. Nothing.

But they might have suspected he was up there, left someone behind to kill him when he emerged.

So he grabbed the steel girder, pulled himself up, got his legs free, swung them down and simply dropped straight through the ceiling tile, landing on the conference table and then executing a dive and roll from there toward the doorway. Somersaulting through that, he came up in a low crouch, weapon up, and turned and looked both ways. Nothing. But—

Scared the hell out of him. A man was lying on the floor no more than ten feet away.

But he was motionless, hands zip-tied behind his back. And he was naked.

On second thought, not exactly motionless. Still twitching. A huge stain was spreading out from the vicinity of his head, which was tilted back at a funny angle. His throat had been cut.

Sokolov retrieved his spare clip and other goods from the wreckage now strewn around the conference table, but paused on his way out of the suite to shine his flashlight over the dead man’s face. He was ethnic Chinese.

Why had they taken his clothes?

Because something about them made them useful.

A uniform. The guy was a cop, or a security guard.