Reamde

The studio-bound anchorpersons, interviewing the correspondents on the scene, asked the obvious questions: Do we have a description of the vehicle carrying the bomb? Of its passenger or passengers? But it was pretty clearly hopeless. The vehicle and its occupants would have been invisible, anonymous to all except those who were stuck in traffic near it; and anyone who’d been near it would be dead.

“I’VE NEVER BEEN so sad to be right,” Olivia said to Sokolov, when she found him pushing a cart down an aisle in the camping and outdoors section. She fell in step next to him and cast an eye over the contents of his cart, wondering whether this was totally random stuff that he had thrown in there to perfect his Walmart shopper disguise or things he actually intended to buy: 5.56-millimeter cartridges, a water purification device, jerky, bug repellent, a camouflage hat, heavy mittens. Freeze-dried meals. A roll of black plastic sheeting. Parachute cord. Batteries. A folding bucksaw. Camouflage binoculars.

“You refer to explosion?” Sokolov said.

“Yes. I refer to explosion. Did you have any trouble getting here?”

In response, Sokolov just looked at her warily, uncertain whether she was asking the question tongue-in-cheek.

“Never mind,” she said, and walked with him for a few more paces. “I’m just trying to work out whether I’m to be the hero or the goat, when I get back to London.”

“Goat?”

“The one who gets blamed for screwing it up.”

Sokolov merely shrugged, which she did not find comforting. There are always fuckups, and there is always a goat. Sometimes the goat is you.

“Is diversion,” he announced.

“Ooh, that’s an interesting thought. Why do you think it’s a diversion?”

“Extreme size of explosion. Ridiculous. Purpose is to turn bodies into vapor, destroy evidence.”

“You think Jones sent some guys to blow themselves up in a conspicuous place, drawing all of the attention—”

“Jones is crossing the border right now,” Sokolov said, “in Manitoba.” He shrugged again. “We are wasting time.”

It turned out that Sokolov really did want to buy all that stuff. Not because he envisioned any particular use for it. He just believed in stocking up on such things, on general principles, whenever an opportunity presented itself.

He would fit in well here.

What he really wanted to buy was mountain bikes. He’d already cruised the bicycle aisle—evidently he had gotten here hours ago—and made his selections. She couldn’t argue with his logic. They needed to get to Jake Forthrast’s compound on Prohibition Creek—or “Crick” as the Iowans insisted on pronouncing it. It was thirty miles as the crow flew, longer on the roads they’d be taking. There were no buses. But on bicycles, they could make it before nightfall if they set a decent pace.

Olivia now understood what Sokolov meant by We are wasting time. He was saying, I could do this ride in two hours. With you, pumping away on your little girl-bike, it will take four.

Anyway, buying the stuff was no problem—if there was anything spies were good at, it was carrying lot of cash—and so it all led to a kind of festive scene out back of the Walmart in which they removed the new mountain bikes from their big flat boxes, put them together, and heaved the corrugated cardboard into a Dumpster. Sokolov, spurning the very idea of purchasing bottled water, filled several of his new containers with water from a hose bib, and put parachute cord and bungee cords to work strapping the other gear to the bikes’ cargo racks. She would have found it fun had she not seen what she’d seen on all those televisions.

Then they were on their way, pedaling north. Heading for the proverbial hills.

THE CLOUDS PARTED just long enough to show them incontrovertible evidence that it was cold down there.

Seamus had forgotten about cold.

He was going to have to buy four jackets. One of them an XXXL. Four hats, four pairs of gloves.

When was the last time he had paid his credit card bill?

Never mind, Marlon would spring for it. How much of a dent could four jackets make in his net worth, compared to chartering this jet? Not only would Marlon buy the jackets, but he would make sure that they were stylish. Cutting-edge ski parkas, or something. Maybe all in the same style and color, so that they could look like the Fantastic Four.

Dumbfounded with fascination, Seamus began to explore that analogy as they made their final approach. The stewardess—each bizjet came with one, apparently—made a final pass through the cabin, picking up half-eaten plates of sushi and empty cocktail glasses.

Quite obviously, Csongor was the Thing. Seamus was Reed Richards, the gawky father figure, weirdly flexible, always scurrying around arranging stuff. Marlon was a Human Torch if ever there was one. Yuxia was—

Invisible Girl? If only.