Reamde

These parts of the city—the ferry terminals, the skyscrapers and skyscrapers-to-be, the older generation of high-rise buildings, the basketball courts, the shopping street, the outcroppings of stone—were the special bits. All told, they accounted for perhaps 25 percent of the city’s surface area. The remainder was all the same: an undifferentiated expanse of close-packed buildings, four or five stories high, often with blue roofs (why blue?) built on a warren of streets so narrow that, in general, he could not see the pavement, but had to infer, from the pattern of crevices between buildings, that streets must exist. In the rare places where such streets aligned with his sight lines, enabling him to see all the way to the bottom, they appeared to be paved not with asphalt but with human beings in motion, and vehicles marooned in the sea of people.

He felt certain that the Troll lived in a neighborhood very much like one of these. He needed to know what it would be like to move and fight in such a place. His initial thought was “more like Grozny than Jalalabad,” but he would have to do much better than that. He did not even know, for example, whether Xiamen had any sort of underground mass transit system that could be put to use.

A faint humming sound alerted him to the approach of wheeled luggage. He turned to see Ivanov approaching from the direction of the elevator lobby, towing a black rollaway bag. One of the squaddies jumped up and offered to help him with it, but Ivanov brushed him off with a flicking gesture and came straight for the conference room. Sokolov opened the door. Ivanov entered without breaking stride, heaved the bag up, and slammed it down on the conference table. “You may open it.”

Sokolov unzipped the top flap and peeled it back. The entire bag was filled with magenta currency.

“Our obshchak,” Ivanov joked. At least Sokolov hoped he was joking.

All the notes were the same denomination: 100 RMB. They were printed in an uneasy mixture of purplish reds, and each bore a portrait of the young Mao Zedong. None of the bills was loose; they had been stacked into bundles of various sizes. Sokolov picked up a small one.

“Ridiculous country,” Ivanov said. “One hundred is the largest denomination that exists. You know how much it is worth? Fourteen dollars. They print nothing larger because if they did, it would be counterfeited instantly. So changing money is a huge problem. I am already tired.”

The small bundle consisted of nine 100-RMB notes with a tenth wrapped around it.

“So that is the local equivalent of a C-note,” Ivanov said.

Sokolov replaced it, reached deeper into the bag, and pulled out a stack of bills having the approximate proportions of a brick. He looked questioningly at Ivanov.

Ivanov shrugged. “Ten thousand dollars or something.” Then he shook his finger at Sokolov. “But remember: money goes a long way in China!”

“How do they carry it around?” Sokolov asked wonderingly.

“Purses,” said Ivanov.

Sokolov replaced the brick.

“What are your orders?” he asked.

“Get the hackers in here and make a plan for finding the Troll.”

“They have been talking about it,” Sokolov said. “They want to go out on the streets. Pound the pavement.” He gave the expression in English.

“Will they make trouble? Try to run off?”

“Peter might.”

“Always keep one here as insurance.”

“That one can’t be Csongor,” Sokolov, “since they don’t really know him.”

“Then either Peter or Zula always stays here. Unless—?”

“Zula will not create trouble if she knows Peter is hostage,” Sokolov began. “However, if the situation is reversed—”

“I knew it!” Ivanov slammed the table, and his face turned red. To him, Sokolov’s vague suspicion that Peter might be the kind of guy who would betray Zula was ontologically the same as a You-Tube video of him actually doing it. He seemed ready to kill Peter on the spot. Sokolov, for his part, was gratified that Ivanov trusted his intuitions in this way, but he could not help wondering if he’d judged Peter unfairly.

“This is just my guess,” Sokolov said.

“No, you are right! Peter stays here then. Zula goes out with Csongor. And you send two of your men with them at all times.”

“Sir, I request permission to go out with them alone,” Sokolov said.

“Why?”

“Because I have seen nothing of the city other than what I can see from this window.”

“Fine. Good idea. Go out and learn more of the place. You’ll see more than you want to see, I can tell you that.”

Sokolov turned toward the window. The hackers, as Ivanov called them, were standing outside, awaiting orders. He indicated with a movement of his head that they should enter.

Csongor, Zula, and Peter filed into the room and stood across the conference table from Ivanov, pretending they had not noticed the sack full of currency. Ivanov switched to English. “Much time has gone by sleepink, flyink, sleepink. Easy to forget nature of mission. Do you recall mission?”

“Figure out who the Troll is,” Peter said.