“I don’t know. I want to see what you think.”
He tapped the tablet screen, indicating the oil platform.
“You see this?” he said, swiveling it on the table so she could read it, and then, unsurprisingly, leapt in before she couldget through more than a paragraph.
“TransPipe Global, GmBH. Oil company. This article’s about one of their drilling platforms off the coast of Uruguay. Yesterday,it was nationalized as part of the declaration of martial law.”
“Okay,” Miko said. “And?”
“TransPipe is one of our clients. Like . . . ours. You know.”
Miko nodded. She did. An Oracle client.
“We made like two hundred million off them, back at the beginning. Will sold them a prediction that caused them to expandtheir exploratory drilling on these platforms—they bet huge on it. TransPipe isn’t enormous, as oil companies go. This wasa big play for them. All their eggs in one basket, and now they are completely fucked. Those eggs are broken. Or, more accurately,now they belong to Uruguay.”
Hamza now spun the notepad toward her and tapped his pencil on the first circled element, which Miko could now read as containingthe word ACTOR.
“It would never have happened absent two things: Will putting up the prediction about Pittaluga on the Site and the Oracleselling a different prediction to TransPipe. We did them both.”
Miko read through the notepad, seeing the path. She looked back up at Hamza.
“Don’t you think it’s just a coincidence?” she said. “No one knew about your deal with TransPipe—you told me all those clientspaid most of their money to you to keep the predictions secret. No one could have known that the prediction about the actorwould end up with martial law in Uruguay. Coincidence.”
Hamza repeated his routine of looking everywhere in the room but at her, then finally took back the notepad and flipped itto the next densely covered page, tapping his pencil against the yellow paper.
“I don’t know, Meeks,” he said. “Even if TransPipe doesn’t completely collapse, this has thrown a ton of instability intothe markets. No one knows what Uruguay will do with that oil, if anything. Gas prices are starting to spike. It’s gettingall wibbly-wobbly out there. Globally.”
“So?” Miko said. “This is like the thousandth time you’ve told me a story about the market falling, or rising, or hedging,or calling. Why is this different?”
“Because it kind of feels to me like maybe someone planned it.”
“You mean Will did this?” Miko asked. “Why would he—?”
Hamza laughed—bleak, worrisome.
“Will couldn’t have done this. Not in a million years. He doesn’t know anything about the way global financial markets work,and planning something like this . . . you’d need a thorough understanding of all the pieces. Not just oil, but old politicalstuff in Uruguay, the way their society works . . . Will’s smart, but he’s . . . he’s a musician, you know?”
“Okay, then. Like I said, it’s a coincidence,” Miko said. “No one could know all that.”
“They could . . .” Hamza said, absently doodling on the notepad, his gaze distant, “. . . with hindsight.”
“I thought the predictions don’t mean anything, Hamza. There’s no big plan . . . no purpose behind it all.”
Hamza’s eyes snapped back to meet hers. He looked . . . afraid.
“Miko . . . what if I’m wrong?”
Miko considered. Part of her wanted to run as far as she could from anything connected to the Oracle or Will Dando—but anotherpart, apparently larger, wasn’t sure that would do any damn good.
“You need to tell this to Will,” she said. “Talk to him in person. You both need it.”
“How?” Hamza said, spreading his arms in frustration. “I don’t know where the fuck he is!”
Miko reached down to her purse. She pulled out the envelope and tossed it down on the table, where it landed between themwith a muffled slap.
“Now you do,” she said.
“What?” Hamza said, confused, looking at the envelope.
“Uruguay,” Miko said. “Will’s in Uruguay.”
Hamza let out a long sigh.
“Yeah,” he said. “Of course he is.”
Chapter 20
A sign hung on the door to room 918: por favor, no molestar, with the English equivalent printed below it.
“Uh-huh,” Hamza said.
Hamza rapped his knuckles against the door, hard enough to hurt a little, making a sharp noise in the otherwise empty hallway.
“Can you come back later?” came Will’s voice through the door, muffled.
“No, Will, I can’t,” Hamza said, loud. “Open the goddamn door.”
A long pause, and then the sound of latches releasing, deadbolts chocking back, and a low creak as the door opened, revealingWill Dando’s very surprised face.
He looked like he’d just woken up—hair sticking up in greasy clumps, an overall vibe of groggy unwashedness.
“Hamza?” he said. “How the hell did you find me?”
“I didn’t,” Hamza answered.
He turned and pointed back down the hallway.
“She did.”
Will moved forward, looking in the direction Hamza indicated, to see a slim, lovely woman whose belly showed the faintestcurve, nothing that anyone but her husband would ever notice.
“Hi, Will,” Miko said.
Will’s head turned, slowly, to look at Hamza. His face was almost blank.
“Does . . . does she . . .”
“Yeah,” Hamza said. “Everything.”
Will looked down, his fists slowly clenching, his forearms trembling with the strain.
“I can’t believe you fucking told her,” he said, then turned and stepped back into his room, leaving the door open.
Hamza opened his mouth to shout out a reply, then felt a hand on his arm. He looked and saw that it was Miko, her face palebut composed.
“We don’t know,” she said. “We don’t know what he’s been dealing with. It’s all right. Let’s just talk to him.”
Hamza nodded and entered the hotel room where Will had been living. He stopped, shocked. It was a sty. Unmade bed, half-eatentrays of room service, empty beer cans and bottles, towels and papers scattered across every surface.
Behind him, he heard Miko follow him in and close the door. Will was waiting, staring at him, his face dark.
“Jesus, Will,” Hamza said. “This is a hotel. They’ll clean up for you. This is . . . this is just filthy.”
Will glanced around the room. He shrugged.
“They won’t clean while I’m in here, and I don’t want to leave. I paid for a month in advance so they won’t bother me.”
Hamza thought about this.
“You’ve just . . . been in the room?”
“Mostly. Bad things happen sometimes when I go
