attendant asked if she was sure.
“Pregnant,” whispered Lia under her breath. She wanted the words to tell the woman — it was the perfect excuse, wasn’t it?
The translator, however, either didn’t understand or couldn’t hear.
“Pregnant,” Lia tried again, slightly louder and coughing.
The attendant came to the door and knocked.
“I’m pregnant,” Lia said in English. And the translator finally caught on, supplying a line about how Lia was expecting.
The woman began clucking sympathetically, offering a stream of advice. Lia moaned in agreement. She was ready with a cover story about her English: her identity was supposed to be Chinese, but she usually spoke English because most of the people she worked with did. But the woman didn’t ask.
The woman also didn’t move away from the door. While the metal stalls went all the way to the floor, there was enough of a crack at the opening for the woman to see through.
Lia couldn’t think of anything to say to get her to go away. With her brain seeming to move only in slow motion, she wiped her face, hoping the woman would eventually run out of steam.
“A cloth for my face,” said Lia finally, this time in Chinese. The translator relayed the Arabic words back and she repeated them. Lia waited until the woman went back to the washbasin, then rose and went to the stall. She opened the door just a bit.
“You can tell her you’re sorry,” said the translator, offering words. But Lia didn’t need any; the woman nodded and handed her a wet towel, calling her daughter and telling her about her own trials. Lia listened for a bit, offering a weak smile and finally handing back the towel. She retreated back into the stall, closing the door. The woman went back to her post by the door.
Her stomach still queasy, Lia pushed herself to the floor. She clawed at the bolt cover; it broke from the floor with a loud snap. Lia coughed several times and then reached down to retrieve the old bug. It was two inches long but only three-eighths of an inch thick, a slightly misshapen pen top. She pulled out the replacement and slid it in, then reached for the transponder device to activate it.
It was gone.
Lia locked her mouth against the bile rising in her chest. She was going to do this.
As she slid her head down to get a breather, she saw the device sitting near her knee. She snatched it up, thankful that she hadn’t crushed it by accident. She twisted it, then put her hand over the bug.
It beeped softly.
“Very good,” said Chafetz. “We’re getting data. Go.”
Lia stood up, the old bug in her hand. She felt calmer now, not in control but calmer: she’d had a crisis but gotten over it.
This wasn’t her, the nausea, the fear. Maybe she was pregnant.
The idea literally shook her. The old bug slipped from her hand into the toilet. She was supposed to bring it out with her — it was worth several hundred thousand dollars and would be good as new once the battery was replaced — but there was no way, just no way…
She flushed the toilet. The water rolled up the sides of the bowl so quickly she thought to herself that it was going to go over the lip of the toilet.
But it didn’t. As it receded, she saw that the bug didn’t go down. It spun around in the water, mocking her.
Lia closed her eyes and flushed again. This time the water barely stirred in the bowl; the tank hadn’t had enough time to refill.
She forced a slow breath from her lungs, pushing the air out from the bottom of her diaphragm, exhaling as carefully as she could, forcing herself to calm down or at least be patient, be more patient.
The third time, the water seemed to explode downward, and the bug went with it.
Lia fixed her skirt and took a breath. It was all downhill from here. Lia pulled open the door and stepped out, only to find one of the guards pointing his gun six inches from her face.
35
Dean trotted up the steps, glancing at his watch as if he were impatient — not exactly a difficult act, under the circumstances. He strode to the door of the charity office, feigning surprise when he found it locked.
“Ms. Yen?” he said, using Lia’s cover name. “Ms. Yen?”
He turned around in the hall.
“Where is she really?” he said under his breath to the runner.
“Down the stairs on the left, past the guards,” said Chafetz. “Charlie, Marie’s having a fit. You shouldn’t be in there. Really, Charlie. Lia’s on her way out.”
Dean carried two small Glocks as hideaway weapons. He reached for the one under his shirt, pulling it out and palming it against his stomach. He called again for Lia, using English and then a phrase supplied by a translator in the Art Room who he guessed was Norwegian, since according to his cover story that was his nationality.
Dean went down the steps and turned, sliding his hand and the small gun into his pocket. There was only one guard there, and though he looked at Dean suspiciously he did not challenge him. Dean went to the man and asked in English — he broke it up, trying to duplicate what he imagined a Norwegian would make it sound like — if the man had seen a young Chinese woman. The guard did not understand his English but began speaking French; as the Art Room scrambled to get the proper translator into the circuit Dean figured out that the man was saying she was downstairs. He played the grateful companion, pointing at his watch and complaining in English and very poor French about how late the girl was. He thought this might be a universal male complaint, but it failed to elicit any sympathy from the Moroccan. Dean thanked him and then started down the steps. As he did, the guard yelled at him.
“He’s telling you to stop,” said the translator, finally on the line.
“He’s yelling at you to watch out, to stop!”
Behind him, Dean heard the soldier fumbling with his gun.
Lia felt as if her face had been shorn from her body, as if she were just the small bit of flesh and bone around her eyes and nose and mouth — no skull, no body, no stomach. She neither thought nor felt anything for a moment, and then an idea occurred to her:
The lessons of her Chinese teacher when she was five came back to her. The sound, more primitive than the writing of the words:
“Excuse me. This is a ladies’ room,” she said in Chinese, and then she turned to English. “Why are you here?”
The translator started to tell her how to ask who he was in Arabic.
“Why are you here?” she said in English.
The man lowered his gun a few inches until it pointed toward her breast.
Lia’s left hand moved without her directing it to, jerking up to slam the top of the bugle-shaped rifle away. The rest of her body flew forward and the man landed against the floor, the gun clattering away and a strange sound shrieking from his lips.
To Lia, it seemed as if she were still standing back by the stall, watching it all unfold, watching her fist slam hard three times against the bridge of the man’s nose, shattering it with the first blow, watching her knee as it punctured his rib. She watched as her body jumped back, saw herself scan the bathroom — the old woman had fled.
Lia scooped up the assault rifle and started for the door.
