HIS CHOICE TO come to this place was debatable, to say the least. He had been thinking about it all through the sea voyage.
He had to go somewhere and do something. His only real means of making a living was doing what he did: security consultant. The fact that he was fluent only in Russian and that he carried a Russian passport placed certain limits on where he could ply that trade. He could make his way back to Russia and retreat into the woods and spend the rest of his life chopping wood and hunting deer, but he had grown rather accustomed to living in big cities and being paid a decent amount of money and, for lack of a better word, being respected for who he was and what he did. Most of his clients had been nothing like Ivanov, and, after this, he would never work for such a person again. But the regrettable incidents of the last few weeks would need to be explained to the owners of the obshchak from which Ivanov had stolen the money, and to the families of the men who had been slain by Abdallah Jones. And Sokolov was actually confident that it all could be explained. For the owners of the obshchak were, at bottom, reasonable people. Courtesy went a long way with them. In what had happened to Wallace and Ivanov, they would perceive a kind of poetry and a kind of justice. Ivanov had, in effect, obtained just the fate he had wanted, in that he had died while trying to get the money back. The story worked perfectly well as a cautionary tale: look what happens to those who steal money with which they have been entrusted. It would all work out just fine if Sokolov could merely relate the story to the people Ivanov had betrayed.
Not that Sokolov had any certainty of being forgiven. There were no guarantees. But this way he had a decent chance. Whereas if he sneaked around and tried to avoid them, they would surely take note of his lack of courtesy and approach him in a more suspicious frame of mind.
That much he had decided during the first half of his voyage across the Pacific. The question, then, was how to go about making contact with the people in question. Simply calling them from a pay telephone on the beach would be indiscreet and would suggest a kind of desperation.
On the other hand, if he climbed on a bus and went straight to Igor’s house, it would seem reasonable enough. For this was not the act of a desperate person. Certainly not that of one with something to hide, since it was to be expected that Igor would spread the news of Sokolov’s arrival via the grapevine. No, this was a good low-key way to say to those whom Ivanov had betrayed: I survived, I got out of China, I am not on the run, I have nothing to hide, you’ll be hearing from me once I have got my feet on the ground.
So in a sense this was a make-work visit. Sokolov still had enough dollars in his pocket to pay for a motel room and a bus ticket. He really needed nothing at all from Igor.
It was a social call.
And yet Igor sensed at some level that this made no sense. Which was why he was so worried. So suspicious.
Anyway, he consented, finally, to let Sokolov in his front door. A decidedly awkward exchange of greetings followed. He and Vlad and Sokolov ended up sitting around the kitchen table, which was strewn with Russian-language newspapers, mugs half full of cold coffee, and dirty cereal bowls. The chilly silver light, so characteristic of this part of the world, washed in through a mesh-covered window and made it possible to see everything without actually illuminating it.
“I just got off a containership from China,” Sokolov said. For if Igor conveyed nothing else to the grapevine, Sokolov wanted it known that this, and no other reason, was why he had been incognito for two solid weeks. “No Internet, no phone. I’ve been totally out of touch.”
“Made any phone calls?”
“I don’t have a phone. I’m telling you, I literally jumped off the fucking ship two hours ago and came straight here.”
“So you have heard nothing in two weeks.”
“Closer to three. It’s not as if we were doing a lot of communicating when we were in Xiamen.”
“Well, you need to check in. There are a lot of people confused. Pissed off.”
Sokolov grinned. “Heard from them, did you?”
“I thought I was a dead man,” said Igor, completely unamused. Sokolov glanced at Vlad, hoping to draw him into the conversation, but Vlad, a somewhat younger man than Igor—skinny, with long unkempt hair—had scooted his chair into the corner of the kitchen and was sitting there with his hands in the pockets of a bulky leather jacket, implicitly threatening to drill Sokolov with whatever was in his pocket. Vlad had been a minor player in the takeover of Peter’s apartment, but he was as deeply implicated as anyone else. Sokolov suspected him of being a meth user.
A plane took off from Sea-Tac, flying directly over the house, and made conversation impossible for a little while.
“Well, you look alive to me,” Sokolov said finally.
Igor nodded. “There was a sort of investigation, I guess you could call it. Certain people wanted to know where Ivanov had gone, what he had done. They were very suspicious. I tried to explain to them about Wallace. About the virus.” Igor shrugged his huge shoulders, a great rolling movement like a barrel falling off a truck. “What do I know about such things? I just told them what I had overheard. The hacker in China. T’Rain. Zula. Tried to make sense of it. After a while they calmed down.”
“There you have it,” Sokolov said. “I expected as much. Once they had it all explained. You did well.” This not so much for Igor’s ears as for those he might spread the story to later.
Igor now got an expectant look on his face. Rather than wait for him to say it, Sokolov said: “I’ll take care of it from here.”
“Good.”
“I just need to make my way back to them, you know, without getting in trouble with Immigration, with the law.”
“Yes, of course.”