Reamde

ZULA COULD NO longer remember a time when she hadn’t felt extremely conspicuous. Sitting alone in the bar of the Hyatt in damp clothes that were very much the worse for wear, she felt no more or less out of place than usual. She had gotten used to it. She was being eyed by several businessmen who, she could only suppose, were wondering how a crack whore had managed to find her way to Xiamen.

The only men in the place who weren’t looking at her were the pair at the next table: a couple of Middle Eastern/South Asian–looking guys in bulky windbreakers. Even they, however, were keeping Zula in the corners of their eyes, in case she had any thoughts of making a break for it.

Anyway, she didn’t have to wait for long before the two pilots came down. Uniformed and everything. Carrying their special pilot briefcases and dragging their rollaway bags behind them like cubical pets. They had been ready. She had talked to them on Jones’s phone. Called the hotel’s operator, asked to be patched through to the two Russians who had checked in at the same time three days ago. It had taken them a while to find the right rooms, but the first of the pilots she’d called, Pavel, had picked up the phone on the first ring. Contrary to what Jones thought, he hadn’t been lounging around watching pornography and drinking. He had been waiting.

Of course, what he’d been waiting for was the voice of Ivanov, speaking Russian. Zula speaking English had come as a distinct surprise. But she’d been able to convince Pavel that, yes, she was that girl who had been on the flights earlier in the week. That something had gone awry with the plan. And that it really would be in his best interest to come down and meet with her in the hotel bar.

Pavel and the other pilot, Sergei, approached her somewhat warily, looking her up and down. As just about any sane person would.

“Please,” she said, with a gesture. “Sit down.”

Even that took some persuading.

But that was okay. She didn’t have to persuade Pavel and Sergei of anything else. Just to sit down at this table.

As soon as Pavel and Sergei had taken their seats, the two men in the windbreakers got up and brought their club sodas over and joined them. Five now at the table. Pavel and Sergei were now even more taken aback than they had been to begin with. But proceedings were interrupted by a waitress who came over to take their orders. Zula noted with approval that both pilots asked for nonalcoholic drinks.

One of the men in the windbreakers—Khalid—announced, “Tonight, you will fly to Islamabad.”

He then smiled sweetly as Pavel and Sergei broke out into nervous laughter.

“Where is Ivanov?” Pavel wanted to know. He had asked it several times during the phone call. But Zula had never answered it directly until now.

“Dead,” she said, and looked significantly at Khalid.

Pavel and Sergei didn’t believe it for a moment. But only for a moment.

“Who is this man?” Pavel asked her.

Khalid set down his drink, reached up, grasped his zipper pull, and drew it down to his belly. The garment parted to reveal a sort of vest, sewn out of canvas, sporting a row of long, slender vertical pockets around the midriff. Each of the pockets was bulging full. From the top of each protruded a cylinder of clear plastic, like a piece of kitchen wrap that had been rolled around a flattened tube, about the size of a jumbo burrito, of amorphous yellowish-white stuff, a little bit like pie crust dough that hadn’t been rolled out yet. Electrical wires emerged from the top of each dough-tube. They were all linked together and ran up to Khalid’s shoulder and then down the sleeve of his windbreaker. He had his hand in his lap, but now coyly displayed it to Pavel and Sergei, letting them see a black plastic object topped with a red button.

Pavel and Sergei couldn’t make sense of it for a few moments. Of course it was obviously an explosive vest. Yet to see one right there on a person’s body was so shocking that the mind couldn’t accept it at first. As if you had found Hitler in your kitchen.

“I’ve been instructed to tell you a lot of gruesome stuff about what happens when it goes off,” Zula said. “Do I need to? I mean, the gist of it is that it’ll not only kill us but basically bring down half of the building.”

Neither Pavel nor Sergei had anything to say.

The windbreaker was zipped back up.

The waitress brought them their drinks. Zula asked for the check.

“I’ve also been instructed to tell you that there are two taxis waiting outside. Pavel goes in the first, Sergei in the second. One of these guys with the vests will ride in each taxi, to preserve, I guess, the threat. We’ll go straight to the airport and depart for Islamabad as soon as you can get through your preflight checklist. Are there any questions?”

There were no questions.

Leading the four men out across the lobby, Zula felt like a terrorist.

It felt sort of cool.