Viral

hovels without electricity or running water or flush toilets. He heard radios, children shouting. Saw a group of women lined up in the midst of all the people. Two boys had come here on bicycles, and they were rationing out water into people’s cupped hands from two-gallon plastic jugs.

He continued in the direction of the city. Before long the shanties were replaced by crude mud-brick buildings and then white-washed storefronts, and he began to feel less conspicuous. He stopped and checked the address book on Ramesh’s cell phone. Saw several sets of initials, and names he didn’t recognize. One that was marked “P.”

Mallory pressed it. After two rings, someone responded.

“Hello.”

He listened.

“Hello.”

An American accent, it seemed. Mallory began to walk. He heard someone breathing on the other end. Tried to make out the background noise. He stopped again.

“Priest?” he said.

The other man said, “You’re making a mistake. You know that.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I will.”

The other man hung up. Mallory felt a kick of adrenaline. He kept walking through the busy streets, past a row of bicycle taxis, vegetables lined up on blankets, sidewalk BBQs, knowing that Priest would be able to identify his location by the cell phone. He came to a small corner cafe, which smelled of porridge and grilled fish, and he stood at the counter, waiting beside a line of other men. He studied the menu on the wall behind the counter, then turned and walked away, as if changing his mind, and re-entered the pedestrian traffic, leaving the cell phone on the counter.

JON MALLORY FELT the cold concrete against his face and arms, and a throbbing in his head. A horrible, pounding pain. He opened his eyes again, had no idea where he was. His pupils tried to widen again, but there wasn’t enough light for him to make out anything. He heard something, though: a faint echo, of wind. Or breathing. Everything felt dreamlike, disconnected from reality, except for the odor and the pain in his arms and his ribs. As he tried to sit up, he became dizzy. Closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened. Imagined he was at home in Washington. Knew that if he stood and walked left, feeling his way along the wall, he could find the front door.

But he wasn’t in Washington. And he wasn’t in the chalet where he had slept the first night, either. This was concrete, cold and dirty, the air damp and rank.

Sitting in the darkness, Jon conjured a jumbled recollection: an explosion, a sudden bright flash. Gunshots. Someone pulling back his arm, shoving his face into carpet. Smells of gunpowder, leather. Screams. A scream. No, that was what had wakened him. A scream. He heard it in his memory and knew it: a strained, agonizing sound, echoing off these stone walls. Had it been him, or part of the dream? He didn’t know. His head felt thick, as if he’d been drugged. His brain wasn’t working right.

And then later, much later, it seemed, he heard the footsteps. Solid heels on stone, coming closer in the darkness. Toward him. He tried to sit up again and felt the pain as he breathed, as if his ribs had been broken. The sound stopped, and when it started again, it seemed to be moving in a different direction. Away from him. Step, step. Step, step. Becoming fainter. Fading to nothing. To darkness.

FORTY-SEVEN

CHARLES MALLORY TOOK A cab across town to Stamford Park, a neighborhood of two- and three-story apartment houses, many with shops and food stalls on the ground floors. He asked the driver to let him out a half block from where Joseph Chaplin was staying.

He paid the driver with John Ramesh’s money and began to walk, scanning the windows and roofs for anything unusual. Young mothers and children were in the yards, a few older people sitting on porches. Nothing suspicious. Mallory knew Chaplin’s location was but was not supposed to go to him. Not unless there was an emergency. That was the directive Chaplin had given. Sometimes, he was not as adaptable as Mallory would have liked. But this time he would have to be.

Chaplin’s apartment today was a second-floor unit, in the rear of a concrete block building. Charlie knocked twice on the sturdy wooden door, waited, and knocked three times. Listened. “It’s me,” he said. Mallory saw the peephole darken. The door opened a crack and Chaplin looked out, a Glock in his left hand.

“Where have you been?”

“Unforeseen problem,” Charlie said. “Can I come in?”

Chaplin opened the door, closed it behind him, and latched the chain.

“What happened?”

“Ramesh. The good news is we don’t have to worry about any him anymore.”

“Why?”

“It was self-defense,” Mallory said, walking into the kitchen. “But they’re going to be after me now. I’m sure it was caught on cameras. Out near the pit. We may need to change plans again. To go after Priest earlier.” Chaplin frowned. “I know why Ramesh looked familiar, by the way. I’m pretty sure he used to work for Black Eagle Services, the American military contractor. He was one of the ones who got Landon Pine in trouble.”

“Really,” he said neutrally.

“I think so. He had a different name then. I can’t remember what it was. But I recognized him. I don’t think Priest is African, either, by the way. I just talked with him on the phone. He has a Southern U.S. accent. This is starting to make strange sense to me. Anyway, I need to see Nadra and Wells. We’ve got to change strategies. Where are they right now?”

Chaplin looked at the floor.

“I can’t,” he said.

“I know. But this qualifies as an emergency. Right?”

Chaplin hesitated. Mallory watched him deliberate, his chest rising and falling. Finally, he told him.

Mallory turned to leave.

“Oh, and here. This was hand-delivered,” Chaplin held out a well-worn, nine-by-twelve envelope. “Okoro gave it to me, to give to you.”

Mallory unclasped the envelope and glanced inside. More papers from Peter Quinn, in Asheville, North Carolina, as he had promised. Delayed a day. Hand-delivered from Switzerland, most likely. Not something he needed to worry about right now. He debated leaving it, decided not to.

“I’ll be in touch soon,” Charlie said. And then he left. There was something new driving him now. An energy he had to ride until Isaak Priest was found and killed. Part of it was the recognition that he was out in the open— and part of it was the ticking clock that he could almost hear.

He walked fourteen blocks to the apartment where Nadra was staying. Knocked.

Nothing. He looked up and down the street. Old concrete and brick apartment buildings, some boarded shut. He walked another seven blocks, toward downtown, to the address where Jason Wells was staying. No answer there, either.

Then he walked halfway back to Nadra’s address. Went into a small, open-front bar and found a table in a corner, facing the entrance. He ordered a black tea, needing a few minutes to think.

His eyes adjusted to the dark of the cafe. The tea relaxed him. A giant fan stirred the air, which was warm and dusty and spicy. After a while, he opened the envelope from Quinn and glanced quickly through the papers. They seemed extraneous now to the operation that was in front of him. He needed to stay focused on what was coming, on the next step. On Isaak Priest. But he also needed to calculate what had changed, what the repercussions would be for taking out Ramesh. He sipped the tea slowly. Watched the bicycles, rickshaws, and pedestrians in the sun. He opened the envelope again and took a closer look at the documents and notes Quinn had sent. A memo from his father to Colonel Dale McCormack. A page of Quinn’s handwritten journal,