“Yeah,” Joel2 said, “didn’t you just say—”
“We leave in two,” Moti said, releasing his staff back to whatever they were doing. He eyeballed us. “Gentlemen. Have you ever considered the possibility that your wife played a bigger role in this than you would like to think?” This was phrased as a statement, not a question. “Do you wonder what else she’s been keeping from you? My wife thinks I’m a travel agent. What sort of business is your wife really in? Do you know? Because I am not willing to risk the lives of my people to find out.”
No, I thought fiercely. I can’t be distracted by that kind of doubt. Joel2’s already sinking in that emotional quicksand; there’s nothing to gain by speculating about any bad shit Sylvia might have done right now. Right now we need to get her back.
“You need us,” I said.
“Why is that?” Moti asked, checking off boxes on his clipboard.
“Because we’re unexpected,” I blurted, making it up as I went along. “I don’t have working comms, so Taraval can’t detect me. And,” I said, pointing my thumb at Joel2, “Taraval thinks that he’s still in Costa Rica, maybe even dead. He’ll never see us coming. And if he does, we’re the ultimate distraction. In his mind, we’re the entire reason he’s in this mess. We’re the reason his career and his science is at risk. We’re an affront to his ego.”
Both Moti and Joel2 seemed impressed at my ad-libbed rationale.
“Okay,” Moti relented. “But you’re both under my direction, right next to me the whole time. You don’t sneeze without my permission. Understood?” He looked at both of us, his gaze serious.
We nodded in unison.
He jerked his head toward the van. Joel2 and I climbed in after him, taking the first available seats. The rear doors closed and the van pulled out, heading west through Central Park.
Moti went over to Ifrit and whispered something in her ear. She motioned to a compartment by the aft door. The ride started getting bumpy as we went off-road briefly to pass a slower-moving vehicle. Moti put his hand against the roof of the van to balance himself as he opened the compartment. He pulled out a couple of matching black T-shirts, pants, and tac vests.
“Put these on,” he said, throwing one set to me and the other to Joel2.
“You mean just drop trou and get naked in front of everyone?” I asked. “I am currently without underwear.”
This amused Zaki. Through deep-throated laughter he quipped, “Then please, don’t spend too much time being naked!”
“Why do we have to change?” Joel2 asked Moti.
The spy stretched a hand toward Joel2’s face. He flinched and tried to dodge, but Moti caught the back of his head and ripped off the bandages covering both his temple and his right eye. “Because if he thinks one of you is dead, it’s better if you are both the same you,” he said, throwing the bloody dressings to the floor.
Joel2 and I obliged. I wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but considering I’d spent the earlier part of the day running around with my ass hanging out of a hospital gown, the notion of a bunch of Levantine spies gawking at my junk didn’t move the embarrassment needle much. I was actually pleased to part with my dirty makeshift fake-doctor outfit in favor of some clean clothes. Also, the vest made me feel a bit like a badass.
“We’re here,” Zaki said just as Joel2 and I finished changing. “But it looks like we have some company.”
The rear door of the van opened, revealing the silhouette of a certain waifish woman who’d recently made both my and Joel2’s acquaintance. She looked almost ethereal against dusk’s last blood-orange embers and the high-intensity lights that illuminated Chelsea Piers’ twenty-four-hour operations at night.
“Pema,” Moti breathlessly said her name.
“Pema!” Ifrit said excitedly.
Pema stepped toward our vehicle. She wore an oversized shawl-collared granite-colored sweater that dramatically swayed as a gust of misty wind off the Hudson enveloped her body.
“Hello, Joel and Joel. It’s good to see you both in one place. May I ask which is which?”
Before either of us could answer, Moti asked her point-blank, “What are you doing here, Pema?”
“You asked for a deal. I got you one.” She winked at Ifrit.
The Levantine woman blushed.
“Eventually, Pema,” an uncharacteristically irritated Moti said, “conscientious objector, double agent, or loyalist, you will need to choose a side.”
“There are no sides, Moti. Nothing is black-and-white. Corina doesn’t need me to tell her what your designs for Taraval are. International Transport is well versed in the methods of the Levant. They know you want leverage; you know they want control. Don’t pretend like you’re not playing the same game on the same board.” She put her hand into a black satchel she carried on her back. Seeing her movement, several of the Levantine soldiers pointed handheld weapons. Moti remained steadfast, merely raising a curious eyebrow.
“What is it?” he asked as she held up a brushed metal orb roughly the size of a softball.
“A prototype.”
He took it from her, rolling it around carefully in his hand. “So it’s true?”
She nodded. “A Honeycomb grenade. Technically, it doesn’t exist. The perfect weapon for hostage extractions.”
“Or kidnapping people,” Moti said pointedly. “And Corina sent you to tell us this? Doesn’t she know that we already have a backdoor into Honeycomb? Any Levant they try to grenade there we will simply extract and delete.”
“She only knows what I tell her,” Pema said.
Moti tsk-tsked. “You don’t give her enough credit, Pema.”
“The way it’s supposed to work,” she said, ignoring his affront, “is to teleport everyone within its ecophagy cage and send them to the glacier for safekeeping. Then the wielding party releases who they want, when they want.”
“And what’s an ecophagy cage?” interjected Joel2.
“Nanotech one oh one stuff, apparently,” I told him. “It’s a cage that keeps self-replicating nanos in check. Without it, the nanos that clear people in TC foyers would keep on going, killing everyone in their way.”
“And how big is this cage?” asked Joel2.
Pema pressed her fingertips together. “It’s meant to be adjustable in production models, but the radius for this one is around four meters.”
“But?” asked Moti expectantly.
“But—there’s no Punch Escrow,” she admitted. “Anything goes wrong, there’s no safety net. No guarantees that the teleportee doesn’t get lost en route to the glacier.”