to leave before killing them. Hell,' Logan said, 'just look at the kind of firepower they were carrying. I don't think it was because they were afraid of wolves.'
Yura was going over the car. 'Couple of shovels in the trunk,' he reported. 'Some wire, some tape.'
'See?' Logan turned his head and spat; his mouth felt very dry. 'They weren't planning on taking anyone anywhere. Not any farther than a short walk in the woods.'
The Chinese men were getting out of the helicopter now, stopping in front of the nose and staring at the car and the bodies. Misha cursed. 'I told them to stay inside--'
'It's all right,' Logan said. 'Doesn't matter now.'
Doctor Fong appeared, walking toward them. He didn't look happy, Logan thought, but he didn't look all that surprised either.
Logan said, 'I don't suppose you have any idea what this was all about?'
Fong stopped beside the car and looked around. 'Perhaps,' he said. 'I--let me think.'
'Don't think too long,' Logan said. 'We've got to get out of here.'
'Yes.' He looked at Logan. 'Do you speak English?'
'After a fashion.'
'Aha.' Fong's mouth quirked in a brief half-smile. 'An American. Good. My English is much better than my Russian.'
He pushed his glasses up on his nose with the tip of a slender finger. They weren't slipping; Logan guessed it was a nervous habit. He made a gesture that took in the car and the bodies. 'Can we perhaps move away from…?'
'Sure.' Logan slid off the car and walked with Fong over to the side of the road. 'I just need to know,' he said, 'what kind of trouble this is about. If you guys are anything political--'
'Oh, no.' Fong stopped and turned to face him. 'No, we're not, as you put it, political at all. Merely a group of harmless scientists.'
'Some pretty heavy people trying to stop you,' Logan said. 'Someone must not think you're so harmless.'
'Yes, well…' Fong looked off into the darkness under the trees and then back at Logan. 'You saved our lives just now,' he said in a different tone. 'This is a debt we can hardly repay, but there's something I can give you in return. Some information.'
'Scientific information?'
'Yes.' If Fong noticed the sarcasm he didn't show it. He pushed his glasses up again. 'It's the warming.'
It took a moment for Logan to realize what he was talking about. The adrenalin edge had worn off; he felt tired and old.
'It's still getting warmer,' Fong said. 'I'm sure you already knew that, it's hardly a secret. But--' He paused, his forehead wrinkling. 'The curve,' he said. 'I couldn't remember the word… the curve is different from what has been thought.'
His forefinger drew an upward-sweeping curve in the air. 'The warming is about to accelerate. It's going to start getting warmer at an increasing rate, and--I'm not sure how to say this--the rate of increase will itself increase.'
'It's going to get warmer faster?'
Fong nodded. 'Oh, you won't notice any real change for some time to come. Perhaps as much as two to five years, no one really knows as yet… but then,' the fingertip began to rise more steeply, 'the change will be very rapid indeed.'
'You mean--'
'Wait, that's not all. The other part,' Fong said, 'is that it's likely to go on longer than anyone thought. The assumption has been that the process has all but run its course, that a ceiling will soon be reached. It's not clear, now, just where the ceiling is. Or even if there is one, in any practical sense.'
Logan's ears registered the words, but his fatigue-dulled brain was having trouble keeping up. 'It's going to keep getting warmer,' he said, 'it's going to do it faster and faster, and it's going to get a hell of a lot warmer than it is now. That's what you're saying?'
'Even so.'
'But that's going to mean… Christ.' Logan shook his head, starting to see it. 'Christ,' he said again helplessly, stupidly. 'Oh, Christ.'
'You might well call on him, if you believe in him,' Fong said. 'If I believed in any gods I would call on them too. Things are going to be very, very bad.'
'As if they weren't bad enough already.'
'Yes indeed. I don't know how long you've been in this part of the world, but I'm sure you've heard at least some of the news from other regions.'
'Pretty bad in China, I hear.'
'You have no idea. Believe me, it is much, much worse than anything you can have heard. The government keeps very strict control over the flow of information. Even inside China, it's not always possible to know what's happening in the next province.'
Fong put out a hand and touched the rough bark of the nearest pine. 'You live in one of the few remaining places that have been relatively unharmed by the global catastrophe. A quiet, pleasant backwater of a large country grown suddenly prosperous--but all that is about to end.'
He gave a soft short laugh with absolutely no amusement in it. 'You think the Russian Federation has a problem with desperate Chinese coming across the border now? Just wait, my friend. Already the level of desperation in my country is almost at the critical point. When people realize that things are getting even worse, they will begin to move and it will take more than border posts and patrols, and even rivers, to stop them.'
Logan started to speak, but his throat didn't seem to be working so well.
'Your American journalists and historians,' Fong added, 'used to write about the Chinese military using вhuman waveв attacks. This frontier is going to see a human tsunami.'
Logan said, 'You're talking war, aren't you?
'Of one kind or another.' Fong fingered his glasses. 'I really am not qualified to speculate in that area. All I'm telling you is that this is about to become a very bad place to live.'
'Thanks for the warning.'
'As I say, you saved our lives. In my case, you probably saved me from worse.' Fong turned and looked back at the scene in the middle of the road, where the other Chinese were still milling around the car and the bodies. 'I suspect they meant to question me. That would not have been pleasant.'
Logan said, 'So what was all this about? Since when is the mafia interested in a bunch of physicists or climatologists or whatever you are?'
'What?' Fong looked startled. He pushed his glasses up again and then he smiled. 'Oh, I see. You misunderstand. None of us is that sort of scientist. No, our field is chemistry. Pharmaceutical chemistry,' he said. 'Which is of interest to… certain parties.'
Logan nodded. It didn't take a genius to figure that one out.
'The information I just gave you,' Fong went on, 'has nothing to do with my own work. I got it from my elder brother, who was one of the team that made the breakthrough. He told me all about it, showed me the figures--it's not really difficult, anyone with a background in the physical sciences could understand it--just before they took him away.'
'Took him away? What for? Oh,' Logan said. 'This is something the Chinese government wants to keep the lid on.'
'That is a way to put it.'
'And that's why you decided to get the hell out?'
'Not really. We've been working on this for some time. We had already made contact with the, ah, relevant persons. But I admit the news acted as a powerful incentive.'
'And this business here tonight?'
Fong shrugged. 'The so-called Russian mafia is no more than a loose confederacy of factions and local organizations. I would assume someone got wind of the plan and, for whatever reason, decided to stop us. Possibly rivals of the ones who were going to employ us. But that's only a guess.'
He made a face. 'I am not happy about being involved with people like this, but I would have done anything to
