“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.
The jet touched down and came to a brisk stop. Seamus sensed a little wave of depression sweeping through the Four. Chartering this jet, climbing onto it illegally at the air base outside of Manila, and blasting into the sky—for these jets really hauled ass, once they got going—had been the most exhilarating thing ever. Even Seamus, who went into combat against terrorists for a living, had been thrilled. Actually landing in the sodden gray landscape of Joint Base Lewis-McChord was a corresponding letdown.
Long experience flying around the world on airplanes had conditioned him to relax, for it would be another half hour before they actually made it off the plane. But of course, this was not true in the case of a bizjet. He smelled damp, piney air coming in through the open door and realized that nothing was preventing him from climbing off.
“Thanks for the ride, Marlon,” he said, standing up and bashing his head on the ceiling again.
“Thanks for getting me out of there,” Marlon returned, grinning, and climbing up into a prudent stoop.
Seamus held up his index finger. “Don’t thank me until we get through the next fifteen minutes.”
“LET ME GET this straight,” Freddie’s boss had said, over the hyperencrypted voice conferencing link from Langley. Never a great thing to hear from the lips of someone considerably above you in chain of command.
“We’re not asking for any money,” Seamus had broken in, before Freddie could say anything.
“Noted,” the boss had said. “Always a plus.”
“Not asking you to print passports or diddle any paperwork.”
“The whole point,” Freddie had put in, perhaps a bit nervously, “is to leave no paper trail at all.”
“Two Chinese and a Hungarian, just basically parachuted into CONUS with no paperwork whatsoever.”
“The Hungarian is legit, he has a visa.”
“Two Chinese then.”
“Yeah.”
“Given that Chinese illegals are being shipped into the Port of Seattle by the containerload, it seems like it would hardly make a dent.”
“That’s the spirit!” Seamus had said. “And these are not your baseline economic migrants. They’re going to be running major corporations inside of a fortnight.”