“To Canada then!” Sokolov said. “Canada is better for me too; I have work visa there. Byiznyess connections.”
“We’ll have to cross the border illegally.”
“You know place?”
“I don’t know a place, exactly. But I know a family that can get us across.”
“Smugglers?”
“It’s not so much that they are smugglers,” Olivia said, “as that they deny the validity of borders altogether.”
BLOWN AND GOING DARK.
Seamus had to hand it to the girl. He was getting to the point where he could not get his day started without a dramatic early-morning text message or phone call from Olivia. If he continued working with this person, he was going to have to get into the habit of going to bed early and perhaps even sober.
They had arrived in Manila at midnight and crashed in a chain hotel just up the street from the U.S. embassy, which was where Seamus intended to be the next morning, just as soon as the visa section opened its doors. So this cryptic message served as a convenient wake-up call.
He had laid his credit card down and secured a suite, employing fake credentials that had been issued to him for use when he needed to travel without throwing his real name around. He had given the bed, which was in its own separate room, to Yuxia. Seamus was sleeping on the floor near the suite’s entrance with a pistol under his pillow. Marlon and Csongor had flipped a coin for the sofa, and Marlon had won, so Csongor had staked out a patch of floor in the corner.
Seamus had no idea what level of precautions was appropriate here. Apparently these three had left half of the surviving population of China seriously pissed off at them, as well as making mortal enemies with a rogue, defrocked Russian organized crime figure. In their spare time they had stolen money from millions of T’Rain players, created huge problems for a large multinational corporation that owned the game, and, finally—warming to the task—mounted a frontal assault on al-Qaeda. Had their coordinates been generally known, no amount of security would have been adequate. Seamus’s sidearm was a nice gun and everything, but it would not be much use should China invade the Philippines, or should one of Abdallah Jones’s minions decide to Stuka a fuel-laden 767 into the roof of the Best Western. He had decided to proceed on the assumption that no one knew where the hell they were, and to hustle them into the embassy first thing in the morning. Perhaps something could be sorted out there.
He’d had a talk with Csongor before going to bed: a little private man-to-man in the hallway, while Marlon and Yuxia had been taking turns using the bathroom. The subject of the talk had been guns. Seamus’s instincts had told him to confiscate Csongor’s pistol, since more bad than good things could come of his having it. But the Hungarian had been carrying it around now for a couple of weeks and had already used it in anger on two occasions, and so it seemed like not the best idea, from an interpersonal relations standpoint, to demand that it be handed over. And, just as a matter of principle, Seamus could not relieve a man of a gun he had used to shoot Abdallah Jones in the head. Seamus had spent enough time with Csongor by this point to get a sense of who he was, and he felt confident that Csongor would behave sanely and discreetly. His only concern was that some bump in the night would wake them all up and that Csongor, disoriented, would freak out, draw the weapon, and do something fucked up.
So that was what they had talked about. The corridor had been empty, so Seamus had stood well back, keeping his hands in plain sight, and had asked Csongor to take the gun out and demonstrate that he knew how to check the action for live rounds, how to make it safe, how to load and unload it. Csongor had done all those things without fuss or hesitation. Seamus had complimented him on his skill, being careful not to make it gushy or patronizing, since Csongor was not some coddled American kid who needed positive feedback all the time.
“I’m going to keep a light on. Dimly. So we can see each other if we wake up in the middle of the night. No mistakes. No shooting at vague forms. Got it?”
“Of course.”
“Glad we settled that,” Seamus had said.
Then: “What are your plans?” Since the bathroom had still been unavailable.
Csongor had looked extremely tired.
“You know Don Quixote?” Csongor had finally asked, after thinking about it for so long that Seamus had nearly fallen asleep on his feet.
“Not personally, but—”
“Of course, but you know the idea.”
“Yeah. Tilting at windmills. Dulcinea.” Seamus hadn’t read the book, but he’d seen the musical and he remembered the song.
“I have a windmill. A Dulcinea.”
“No shit, really?”
“No shit.”
“Who is she, big guy? Not Yuxia.”
Csongor had shook his head. “Not Yuxia.”
“That’s good, because I kind of like Yuxia.”
“I noticed.”
“Who is she?” This had partly been about making friendly conversation with Csongor but also partly a matter of professional interest; before he spent much more time wandering around in strange places with this armed Hungarian man-tank, it seemed important for Seamus to understand what made him tick—what motivated him, for example, to run about China engaging major international terrorists in gunplay.
“Zula Forthrast.”
“Wow.” Seamus considered it. “You picked a tough one. Let me see. She lives in a country that’s hard for you to get to. She’s the niece of a superrich guy. She’s being held hostage, in a part of the world we can only guess at, by an incredibly dangerous terrorist who totally hates you for shooting him in the head.”
Csongor had spread out his hands, palms up, as if surrendering. “Like I said. Windmill.”
Seamus had stepped around beside him and given him a companionable thwack on the shoulder. “I like windmill tilters,” he had said.
“Do you have any ideas at all?” Csongor had asked.
“As to where Jones took her?”