They agreed that Csongor should remain on the bridge holding the gun while Marlon and Yuxia familiarized themselves with their new boat.
The cook followed them out and down onto the main deck, then told Yuxia, “There is a gun up on the bridge, hidden under the control panel.”
So they went back up to the bridge and had the pilot stand well back while Marlon got down on hands and knees and groped around and found the gun: an ancient revolver, rusty around the edges, but loaded and ready to use. This he threw into the ocean. Then, just to be sure, they had both the pilot and the cook strip all the way down to their drawers and sifted through their clothes and found a phone and two knives. Marlon pulled the battery from the pilot’s phone, then did likewise to his phone and to Yuxia’s.
FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS FROM Khalid, the pilot Pavel climbed into the backseat of the stolen taxi, where Jones had been waiting behind tinted glass the entire time. Zula joined them. Khalid got into the passenger seat. A similar arrangement was made in a second taxi behind them, which they had simply hailed from the queue in the hotel drive; Sergei ended up in that one along with the other bomb vest wearer.
Once they had pulled out onto the highway, and the second taxi was squarely in their rearview mirror—for apparently its driver had been instructed simply to follow—Jones said to Pavel, “In normal circumstances I would plan what is about to happen very carefully. Maybe we would build a mockup of a jet out in the middle of Yemen and train on it. But because of the way things are today, we are just going to wing it and trust to Allah. Call it fatalism if you like; I believe that is the traditional spin put on it by Westerners.”
Pavel did a pretty good impression of not having understood a single word.
“So,” Jones continued, “tell me about what it is like at the private jet terminal in Xiamen. I have never enjoyed the luxury. Will someone be there to stamp my passport?”
Still nothing from Pavel.
“I am quite serious,” Jones said. “I need to know whether we have to pass through an immigration barrier. To show documents. Because”—and here he smiled in a way that Zula would have found charming had she known nothing else about him—“you see, I’m afraid that my British passport has been quite misplaced. As has her American one.” He nodded Zula’s way.
“If you want to know normal,” Pavel said, “then, normally, I would file a flight plan to the destination city. Also passenger manifest. If the destination is in same country, then obviously there is no need to deal with immigration. If destination is in other country, then you should get passport stamped on way out.”
“But the sort of bloke who flies about on a private jet is too busy to stand in line to get his passport stamped, isn’t he?” Jones said.
“Frequently, yes. Depends on country. Depends also on type of airport.”
“Say more.”
“Some places, there is no FBO—”
“Come again?”
“Fixed base operator. Special terminal for private jets.”
“Ah, thank you for the clarification.”
“If is no FBO, you stand in line with everyone else at emigration.”
“And if there is an FBO?”
“Then many times it is handled on plane. You go direct to FBO. Get on plane. Wait for official. Official comes on plane. Counts passengers. Checks against manifest. Stamps passports. Goes away. Plane takes off.”
“Is this one of those places that has an FBO?”
“Of course, our plane is parked at FBO since three days.”
“How did you get into the country in the first place? Did all of you have visas?”
“No,” Pavel said.
Zula provided a brief explanation of how they had done it.
Jones considered it. “What if you filed a flight plan for some city in China and then flew to Islamabad instead?”
“Some places it would be noticed. Other places—” Another shrug.
“All right then. What’s out there in the general direction of Islamabad?”
“Dushanbe?”
“I’m talking about airports in China—so that there’d be no need for an international flight plan.”
“I see.”
“Do correct me if I’m wrong. But I think you just got done telling me that, if you file a flight plan for another city in China, the immigration officials need not come on board to stamp passports.”
“Generally correct.”
“So where would that be?”
“Urumqi?” Pavel guessed.
“How about Kashgar?”
“Yes, of course, Kashgar.”
“Never been there,” Jones admitted, “but I’ve been close to it, on the Tajikistan side.”
Pavel waited.
Jones smiled. “I daresay that if we file a flight plan to Kashgar, and then overshoot it, and dogleg down to Islamabad, no one will notice. Or if they do, it’ll be too late for them to take any action.”
“It is only few hundred kilometers from western border of China,” Pavel allowed.
“Then I suggest that you get out your laptop, or whatever it is that you use, and make it happen,” Jones said.
“Departure when?”
Jones looked at Pavel as if he were a blithering idiot. “Departure now. We are driving directly to the airport from here.”
“Is not possible.”
“What do you mean is not possible?”
“Rules in China are that flight plan must be filed six hours in advance.”
“Hmm.”
“Used to be three to six days, is much easier now.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes as Jones considered it. Then, just as Zula was beginning to wonder if he had nodded off, he spoke up again: “You were sitting in your hotel waiting for Ivanov.”
“Yes,” Pavel said.
“If Ivanov had come to the hotel, as planned, today, and picked you up, you’d have gone to the FBO and boarded the jet and then what?”
“We would have flown to Calgary.”
“What’s in Calgary?”
“Fuel.”
“So you’re saying Calgary would be a mere refueling stop.”
“Yes.”
“What would the final destination be?”
“Toronto. Where we started.”
“Why not fly directly to Toronto, then?”
“Great circles.”