Endgame: The Calling (34 page)

Kala laughs and throws her head to the side. Christopher sees the gun in her hand. Did she shoot them? No. He would have heard.

He becomes suddenly aware of the faint
thump thump
of distant helicopter blades. Rescue is on the way.

“An amazing love story, told at the end of the world,” Kala exclaims, her eyes gleaming. “How pathetic. And your name! ‘Bearer of Christ.’ What a joke.” The sound of the rescue chopper grows louder. Kala gazes across the horizon but can’t see it yet. “Listen carefully, Christopher. You are my companion. My name is Jane Mathews.” As she says the words, her accent changes, becoming completely American and slightly southern, like maybe she’s from Oklahoma or western Arkansas. “There will be some problems, because my name will not be on the passenger manifest. But the men on the helicopter will not know that. You are to vouch for me. We met three days ago in Xi’an. We fell for each other. Since we met, we have spent every minute together.
Every
minute. Like so many other people around the world, we have become obsessed with the meteors. We are going to Al Ain to see the crater there. I have a birthmark shaped like a shark’s fin on my left buttock. Do you have any birthmarks?”

“I have a mole behind my knee.”

“Which one?”

“Left.”

“If you’re lying, I’ll kill you.”

“I’m not.”

“Excellent. We will end up in Dubai, as planned. And once we are free from the authorities, we will continue our trip to Turkey.”

A searchlight flashes over the water in the west.

“Can you repeat that to me?”

He does. She corrects him about which buttock the birthmark is on.

“What about the plane crash?” he asks.

“What about it? It happened. We are the sole survivors. We were both thrown to the back of the plane. We were not unconscious; everyone else was. We escaped. It sank.”

“And the gun?”

Kala throws it in the water. “I don’t need a gun to kill you, Christopher.” He considers tackling her overboard, but he’s seen how quick she is. “Don’t try me. My hands are faster than your brain,” Kala says, as if reading his mind. “Remember, Jane Mathews. We’re together. We’re in love. Al Ain. Shark’s fin birthmark.”

“Yeah, I got—”

But before he can finish, faster than any cornerback on a sneak blitz, she’s on him. Two quick shots to the jaw, and he’s out.

Bus from Kayseri to Urfa, E90 Highway, Turkey

Chiyoko is headed southeast in a tourist bus from Kayseri to Urfa. She did not have any desire to go to Iraq, and she presumed that Sarah and Jago would be there for only a short while.

It has been a little longer than she expected.

The computerized blip imbedded in the scar in Jago Tlaloc’s neck has barely moved for 48 hours. Still, he
has
moved. He
is
alive. Or, if he’s dead, his body has been carried around.

She decides that if they’re not on the move within 48 hours, she will steal a car and go to the Ibrahim Khalil border crossing and wait. And if they are not on the move within another 12 hours, she’ll go into Iraq and find them.

Chiyoko looks out the window. The hills of central Turkey pass by in a tan procession. It is a beautiful country. At once barren and full. The people have been kind, as much as she has had to deal with them. The desserts in Kayseri were exquisite.

She closes her eyes and thinks of An. He sent her an encrypted email that led her to a website. It had a black background and white type and all it said was:
There is no judgment.
And below this:
ZIP ICE
. And below this a link:
.

She clicked it, a file downloaded, and she put the file on five jump drives. One of these she keeps with her at all times.

After she got the file, the site self-destructed.

He is part of her now.

For better or worse, part of her.

Rahatl
k Konuk Evi, Urfa, Turkey

Baitsakhan drags a strike-anywhere match across the top of the wall and lights a hand-rolled cigarette. Jalair stares through a pair of high-powered binoculars on a tripod pointed at a small hotel on the eastern edge of Urfa. They are on a rooftop. It has a garden. Honeysuckle, rosemary, a dwarf jacaranda, endless twisting vines of green grapes and morning glories encase the terrace. Baitsakhan pulls a violet morning glory from its stem and turns it in his fingers, making it thin and lifeless. He spits some loose tobacco on the white-painted rooftop. He drops the flower. Puts his foot over it. Crushes it.

“See anything?”

Jalair shakes his head. “No.”

They’ve been in Turkey for 2.45 days, shadowing the chipped Nabataean.

“Where the hell is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bat and Bold should be with us,” Baitsakhan growls. “We should have chased the Harrapan instead. Track the bitch down.”

Jalair shakes his head again. “We are not in this for revenge, Baitsakhan. In the end she will get what is coming to her. They all will.”

Baitsakhan doesn’t like it, but he knows that his older brother is right. Jalair squints into the eyepiece and takes hold of the long barrels of the binoculars. “Wait. I think . . . yes. It’s him.”

Baitsakhan stands. “Move.” He pulls on the cigarette and leans forward. He holds the puff of smoke in his lungs.

He is looking through the binoculars at another rooftop 95 m away. Maccabee Adlai is alone and has his back to them. He looks over a shoulder, practically right at Baitsakhan, but it’s not a searching look. The Nabataean is simply admiring the sunset. He doesn’t know what’s out there waiting for him.

Baitsakhan and Jalair know that Maccabee has been in Urfa for three days. He flew in on an aliased New Zealand passport. He’s been in this small hotel since his arrival. He booked every room and paid the proprietor to mind his business. He’s gone to the old market twice and visited 18 mosques and one library. He’s stopped at 19 different internet cafés. He bought an Audi sedan from a private dealer and could’ve bought a second car with what he spent on clothing. He is alone and doesn’t seem to be actively communicating with anyone.

Baitsakhan is not alone.

His people, members of his line, have always hunted in small packs.

He pulls away from the binoculars. He hands Jalair the cigarette, picks up a modern compound bow from the ground, and strings an arrow. He raises it, pulls the string, and sights through a scope. Maccabee’s back is there. He moves incrementally. Maccabee’s neck. Moves again. His head.

“Suhkbataar wouldn’t be pleased, but I prefer this kind of bow to our traditional ones,” Baitsakhan says. Jalair is silent. Baitsakhan lowers the bow and eases up on the string. “Tonight we go in. Tonight we take his clue and kill him and move on.”

Jalair nods, takes a drag off the cigarette. “Good. I want to kill something. Any death is better than none.”

A flock of pigeons explodes over them from an adjacent building. As the sun sets, the call to prayer rings out over the ancient city.

“Yes, brother. Any death is good.”

InterContinental Hotel Dubai–Festival City, Room 260

Kala watches the boy sleep. They’ve made it through the aftermath of the crash, the questions and the reporters and the paperwork. Kala has not appeared on TV or the web or in print, and Christopher has only appeared for a brief second, a jacket draped over his shoulders, as they were hustled from a dark SUV into a building. They’ve interviewed with the airline and the investigators and counselors. Like any innocent person, Kala didn’t try to explain the absence of the name Jane Mathews from the manifest, but how else could she have gotten on the raft in the middle of the ocean? The American accent and the alibi provided by Christopher were enough evidence that she was not the wanted person that Agent Singh had been ordered to arrest. The lack of her name was a snafu, nothing more. Kala Mozami, all assumed, perished along with the other 274 passengers and crew.

Blessings.

Kala and Christopher are in a glass tower, the Dubai InterContinental. Qatar Airways is paying for their suite. To keep up appearances, they share the room. Christopher is in the bed, a soft sheet pulled to his chin, staring at the ceiling. He’s recounted the crash a dozen times, and his story hasn’t wavered. He’s been convincing and he knows it. Every time he’s left them out. The mother and the daughter. The dead.