“Who?”
“He hasn’t earned it.”
“Who?” Alan asked again, but Xin Zhu wasn’t interested in explaining anything. He turned and opened the door and walked slowly out without another word. As he was shutting the door, though, Alan noticed that the corridor beyond it was completely empty. Xin Zhu had been bluffing after all.
By the time they came for him, he’d spent hours going through everything again. He saw his mistakes, saw how his emotions had gotten the best of him, but perhaps it was his military training that convinced him that regrets are to be buried. That which cannot be changed should not be changed. More philosophy in a prison cell. He did not think about what would come next, for that, too, could not be changed. Xin Zhu had made his decision, and everything else was beside the point.
One thing remained with him: his belief that when he was finally declared dead, either with or without the evidence of a corpse, Penelope would suffer the most, and he wished he could send word to her. He wished he had at least asked Xin Zhu for that.
Three men in plainclothes came for him. Two were armed with pistols, while the third only led the way through what he now saw was a bare apartment building. Outside, a nighttime field, the broken teeth of new buildings rising not so far away. The building he’d been in, he now saw, was an unfinished ten-story. Off to the left, over the city, he saw a distant display of fireworks opening the Olympic Games.
They drove him around the city, where the traffic was sparse. Not caring anymore, Alan asked the men if someone was videotaping the Games for them. He asked in English, French, German, and Arabic but received no reply.
Another field, a dirt road rough with holes, and a white twin-engine plane on a hidden runway. His three guides left him at the bottom of the stairs and drove off, and only as he was climbing toward the hatch did he truly understand that he wasn’t going to die. A large, heavily muscled black man was waiting for him.
The man never introduced himself, but he was friendly. He offered Alan a drink and served the water Alan asked for with a modest smile. He had an African accent that Alan couldn’t place, but when he asked the man said, “I’m from the dark continent. That’s all you need to know.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
The man smiled in a way that made him want to laugh. “Strap yourself in.”
While they were airborne, he washed as best he could in the small bathroom, then accepted a charcoal suit and pink tie that fit him perfectly.
He never saw the pilots, and when they landed in Hong Kong, the cockpit door remained shut. The man led him down to the tarmac, and they crossed to another twin-engine, a gray Lockheed Martin with French markings. The procedure there was the same-this time, a plate of salmon and mixed vegetables was offered-and he never saw these pilots either.
By then, morning had risen, and he could chart their movement westward over water and mountains. When they descended again it was to a runway half-obscured by red sand in what he thought from his vague navigation might be Pakistan. When he asked where they were, his host smiled and said, “You know? I’m not entirely sure myself. But I think we’d better get on the next one before it leaves without us.”
The next plane was larger, an Airbus A320, with more than a hundred seats, but, as before, they were its only passengers. This time, Alan slept for a few hours before his guide woke him with a gentle shake of the shoulder. “We’re here.”
When he looked out the window, he realized they had already landed on a strip of old runway lined with overgrown grass and boulders. Around them were mountains. Instead of another plane, a red, windowless van awaited them, and it had Italian plates. Two grimy-looking men sat in the front with the engine idling, and he and the African got into the rear through a sliding door on the side. There were two benches, one against either side, and a wall between them and the drivers. When the man closed the door, they were in blackness. The blackness began to move.
“It’ll be a long trip,” he heard the man say. “Just try to bear it in style, okay?”
“Yet you still don’t want to tell me where we’re going?”
“He prefers security over comfort.”
“He?” Alan said, thinking of the he to whom Xin Zhu wanted to give no more favors.
“Just a few hours,” said the man; then a small light illuminated the dirty interior as he turned on his telephone. The man made a call, saying in French, “We’re on our way.” Pause. “Yes. Everything.” Pause. “Okay.” He hung up and, back in darkness, said, “He wants you to know everything’s fine. I’m supposed to make sure you know that. Don’t be scared.”
“Why does he care what I feel?” Alan asked after a moment.
“I don’t know if he does, but he seems to think that you’re very good at escaping if you want to.” Pause. “Is that so?”
“Probably the only thing I’m good at.”
As promised, the drive did take a long time-more than four hours-and he felt the van shake over every bump and pot hole along the way. Sometimes they sped down highways, while other times they slowed for traffic, perhaps in cities, and by the time they finally stopped his legs were asleep. The man said, “Are we ready?”
Alan punched at his tingling thighs. “Sure.”
The man pulled open the side of the van and stepped out. Alan squinted painfully, raising his hand to stop the flood of sunlight. All was white for a moment, then it faded to reveal a bank called BHI on a slice of stone sidewalk. “Come, please,” said the man, reaching out a hand.
Alan didn’t want to touch anyone, so he stepped down on his own and smelled water in the air. To the right and left an old European street ran wobbly along the edge of a harbor, and only when the man took him to a carved door beside the bank, the van now fleeing to expose buildings on the other side of the water, did he recognize that he was in Geneva.
His guide rang a bell and waited until it buzzed before pushing in and leading Alan up a narrow flight of stairs. A landing with two doors, then another flight of stairs. They took five sets of stairs to the top level, and on the way up another figure trotted down. As he neared in the semidarkness Alan had to squint to make out the face. When he did, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. The man said, “Hello, Alan.”
“Hoang,” Alan said, catching his breath. “What are you doing here?”
Tran Hoang placed a hand on his shoulder, reminding him of his sentimental question in Ferndale. Is that what you have with your wife? Then he was gone, and the pain in Alan’s chest spread like a cardiac arrest before fading. Hoang, he suspected, was the reason Zhu had been prepared for him.
At the top, there was only one door. The African knocked on it, and a familiar voice said, “Come in.”
Even though he could place the voice, he was still unprepared for the sight of Milo Weaver standing, just beyond a cramped foyer, in a living room full of sunlight. Around him, on the floor, were boxes full of files, and more files spread in a mess across a coffee table, a sofa, and two chairs as well as resting on top of a small television. A radio in the corner of the room was quietly playing French pop music. Milo didn’t seem aware of the incongruity of the scene as he walked quickly over, saying, “Thanks, Dalmatian,” and grabbed at Alan’s hand, shaking it. “It is good to see you in one piece.”
The black man-Dalmatian-said, “The street’s covered,” as he withdrew to the door.
“Good,” Milo said over Alan’s shoulder. “We’ll have this cleaned up by midnight.”
Dalmatian left the apartment.
“Come on,” Milo said, pulling Alan into the room. “Sorry about the mess.” He cleared one of the chairs, then guided him to it. Alan felt like an automaton, having over the last twenty-four hours only made moves dictated by others. Milo said, “Drink?”
Alan nodded.
Milo got up and went to a cabinet-also covered with files-and opened it to reveal a row of glasses and a lush variety of alcohols. After a month in the forests of Guizhou, Alan felt guilty sitting in the same room as them. Milo took out a limited edition Macallan, blew out the insides of two tumblers, and soon they were each holding a finger of amber liquid, neat. “To…” Milo began, then shrugged. “To.” He tapped Alan’s glass and sipped at his own.
Alan drank his in one swallow. Against the far wall, wide windows framed the not-so-distant mountains.
“Okay,” Milo said, grabbing the bottle and refilling Alan’s glass. He set the bottle on the floor and shifted enough folders on the sofa to make room to sit. He settled down and said, “Don’t ask, Alan. Don’t ask anything. I’ll
