Neal Stephenson - Reamde

“Rubbing their face in it.”

“Apparently there were a lot of bodies.”

“Four, to be exact.”

“ In your flat, yes. But there’s the matter of the apartment building—or had you forgotten?”

“I remember it well.”

“What in God’s name happened there?”

“Long story. Not the place for it.”

“We agree,” the man said.

“Sorry if I’m focusing too much on narrowly practical matters,” she said, “but how do I get aboard a plane without seeming to ‘waltz on board’?”

“Use a fake name. Change your appearance. And travel with me.”

“You think that will fool them?”

“Actually, I do,” he said, “but even if it doesn’t, the purpose is—”

“To show a decent respect for their feelings.”

“Yes.” The man—somehow they had skipped over any sort of formal introduction—drew closer to her and transferred his bag to her shoulder. “Clothes,” he said. “Money. British passport. Not in your name, of course. A veritable cornucopia of feminine hygiene. A few odds and ends.”

“A book or two?” she asked. “Or is that too much to hope for?”

He chortled. “You’re already worried about what you’re going to do on the flight to London?”

“Never mind. I’m sure I’ll be drinking myself senseless.”

He turned his attention to the knife tour for a few moments, admiring a trip-hammer that was using hydraulic power to beat the hell out of a piece of hot steel being moved around in it by a tong-brandishing worker, stripped from the waist up.

But then he turned back.

“There are, of course, many questions.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll answer them all in due course.”

“So I supposed.”

“But there is one in particular that I have been directed to ask you, just in case something goes awry.”

“In case I get sucked out of the airplane.”

“Rogue wave. Meteor strike.”

“All right. What is the one question?”

“Who killed all those men in your apartment?”

She made no answer.

“Was it you?”

She snorted.

“Because we didn’t think you were that sort of spy.”

“I’m not,” she said. “It wasn’t me.”

“Well, who was it then?”

“You squandered your one question,” she said, “on something that would take me a day and a half to answer properly.”

“Do we need to worry about him—I’m going to make a wild supposition that a Y chromosome is involved and use the masculine pronoun—do we need to worry about him killing a great many more Chinese ­people on Chinese soil at any time in the near future?”

“Those probably weren’t even Chinese ­people,” she said, “but the answer is no. And by the way, he’s not British.”

“Good. Ah yes. One more thing.”

“I thought you said there’d only be one more question.”

“It’s difficult to stop once I’ve got started.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“Where is Abdallah Jones?”

“He could be anywhere in the world,” she said. “He was at an airport last night.”

“Bloody shame.”

“Isn’t it.”

“ An airport? Odd phrasing.”

Olivia shrugged.

“How do you know he was at an airport?”

This, then, was the moment. But she didn’t know who this guy was. How much power he wielded, what he might, or might not, be able to do for her. Her sense was that he was just acting here as a conduit between her and someone else, someone back in London. “Mr. Y,” she said.

“He of the chromosome?”

“Yes.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Mr. Y talked to Jones on the phone.”

“That must have been an interesting conversation.”

“Mr. Y’s half of it certainly was. In any case, he knew, somehow, that Jones was at an airport. I would guess he heard jet engines in the background, or instructions on how to fasten a lap belt.”

“But Mr. Y knows nothing further.”

“Funny you should ask,” Olivia said. “Mr. Y says he has more information now. Information that could be used to figure out where Jones went.”

“And where is Mr. Y? Stuck in China?”

“Probably looking at you from behind a shrub. Don’t look around, though.”

“I shan’t. Can’t say how pleased I am that he understands the need to keep his head down.”

“He has all sorts of talents.”

This elicited a searching look from the man. Olivia, remembering this morning’s activities in the bunker, felt her face getting warm and hoped that he would mistake it for the red heat of the case-hardening furnace glowing on her face. Hurrying on, she continued: “If you would like to make an arrangement with him to get him out of the country safely—which is what I recommend and advocate—then I can make a rendezvous with him and let him know where matters stand.”

“Obviously, I don’t have a ready-made passport for a gentleman of his description,” the man said, “since I don’t even know what his description is. Even if I did, for him to go to the airport today and get on a plane—”

“I understand. I get it.”

“Speaking of passports—”

Olivia was nonplussed for a few moments, then took his meaning. She reached into her pocket and took out her Chinese passport. Her million-pound Meng Anlan passport. The man took it from her and, with a flip of the wrist, tossed it through the open maw of the forge. It exploded into flame before it had even touched the coals, and was fully consumed in a few moments.

“Farewell, Meng Anlan,” he said. “Hello, whoever’s name is on the passport in that bag. I’ve forgotten it already.”

“Obviously, I’m pleased that you can get whoever I now am out of the country,” Olivia said. “But I am disinclined to leave until I know what is to come of Mr. Y. I know you can’t get a passport for him. But isn’t there some way—”

The man was nodding. “We do, in fact, have a backup plan.”

“Really?”

“Yes. We’re good at such things. It is much more old-school. Very Cold War. Your friend might like it.”

“Pocket submarine?”

“Even more old-school than that. There’s a containership,” he said. “You can actually see it from the north shore of the island. Riding at anchor. Panamanian registered. Filipino crewed. Taiwanese owned. It has been taking on cargo at Xunjianggang. In a few hours, it is departing for the Port of Long Beach. We’d hoped we could get something Sydney bound—which would be quicker—but it’s more important to get you and your fantastically homicidal entourage out of here today, before the Chinese can get any more furious than they already are. So Long Beach it is. The great circle route takes two weeks or so.”

“How do we make this work?”

“He will need to get out to the ship just after dark. This is something that you shall have to arrange yourself, preferably without leaving the waterfront district littered with corpses. As the ship is pulling out of the Xunjianggang, just starting to build up speed, it should be possible to pull up alongside it and come aboard. As long as you stay out of sight, it should be fine.”

“Stay out of sight? Are you serious?”

“From the mainland. Come up on its starboard side.”

“And they’ll be ready for this?”

“They had better be,” he said, “considering what we have paid them.”

THEY SPENT THE remaining hours of darkness learning the physics of the boat, which was by no means easier given that they had all been awake for going on twenty-four hours now.

Mohammed’s body had to be gotten rid of. This meant throwing it overboard, which seemed like a terrible and disgraceful thing, even notwithstanding the Osama bin Laden precedent. They avoided the matter for a little while, but it was simply out of the question that they could share the bridge with a dead man. So, after some dithering and stalling, Csongor went rummaging for something that was dense and heavy enough to pull the body down to the floor of the sea, but not too heavy for them to move, and that they didn’t need for any other purpose. He ended up settling on a black steel box filled with 7.62 millimeter cartridges, of which there were several strewn around the cargo hold. He laid this across Mohammed’s ankles and held them up in the air while Yuxia lashed it all together with surplus pallet wrap, and then he dragged Mohammed out of the bridge and jackknifed him over the railing. The corpse was poised there for a moment. Csongor felt it would be proper to say something. But he realized that there was nothing he knew how to say that Mohammed and his ­people would not find grievously sacrilegious. So he tumbled the body the rest of the way over. The shrink-wrapped lashings seemed to hold, and the corpse vanished.