Century #4: Dragon of Seas (11 page)

“It will take half an hour.”

“I can wait.”

Heremit ends the conversation. He leans against the desk and dials another number.

“Cybel?”

“My dear fellow! My dear, dear fellow! To what do I owe the honor? I’m on the twelfth floor of your delightful beauty spa! I didn’t know you appreciated such things! I’m having my nails polished with—”

“Any news about the girls?”

“Always in a good mood, aren’t you, Heremit? Why don’t you come here and enjoy a nice drainage massage? Or a chocolate treatment? Your ladies here tell me it’s simply divine.”

“Cybel. Any news about the girls?”

Cybel puffs. She cups her hand over her mouth and whispers into the receiver, “I simply didn’t want to answer you with them around.”

“Do it.”

“You trust people too much, Heremit! If you keep this up, sooner or later someone—”

“Cybel. The girls.”

“It sounds like you’re giving me an ultimatum. Well, then, I’ll answer you: no. No news. We haven’t managed to get them.”

“Why not?”

“Neither one is at home. The French girl and her mother haven’t come back. As for the Italian, early this morning she got into her father’s minibus … but she didn’t catch a flight. I repeat: she didn’t catch a flight.”

“Then why did she go to the airport?”

“To help her father pick up some guests?”

“Why aren’t they home yet?”

“Because not everyone is like you, Heremit, dear! People go out, my sweet! They go out! Being out of the house doesn’t necessarily mean setting off for Shanghai.”

Heremit checks the calendar. September 19. Two days until the year’s last equinox.

“They should have left by now.”

“But they haven’t, my dear, they haven’t! How can I get it through to you? I have my men. And neither Elettra Melodia nor Mistral Blanchard is on a plane, a train, a ship or a race car headed for Shanghai.”

Heremit hangs up. Only two days left.

And he still has no idea what to do.

“ ‘Claire and Lauren St-Tropez …,’ ” the immigration officer at the Shanghai airport reads aloud as he checks the two passports. He glances at Mistral and her mother, studying the photographs. He thumbs through the pages with incredible slowness and checks their visa. Finally, he stamps it and quickly signs it.

“Welcome to China.” He smiles and hands them their passports.

The two hold back a sigh of relief and hurry off, turning down a corridor with neon lights. Shanghai Pudong International Airport is a triumph of glass and crystal. It has a massive wave-shaped roof that looks like it’s resting on thin air and overlooks countless landing strips. It takes the mother and daughter a good ten minutes just to reach the baggage claim area. They still have on the clothes they wore when they visited the apartment on Boulevard
de Magenta because they thought it best not to go home. Their only luggage consists of a suitcase they bought at the Galeries Lafayette and filled with new clothes, all paid for in cash so as not to leave a credit card trail.

When they reach the conveyor belts, Mistral and Cecile Blanchard realize they aren’t alone.

“Elettra!” the girl shouts, spotting her friend among the people waiting for their luggage.

The two say hello and hug. Despite the trip, Elettra seems to be in good shape: raven-black hair down to her shoulders, a white cotton crew-neck sweater, cream-colored slacks tucked into a pair of tough-looking black ankle boots with lots of laces. Mistral and Elettra spoke just before boarding, agreeing to meet at the airport and go to the hotel together.

The French girl smiles. “Actually, it’s Claire, not Mistral,” she says, peering around.

Elettra smiles sheepishly. “And I’m Marcella.”

They giggle.

“The others?”

“I haven’t heard from Harvey since yesterday,” Elettra replies. “As for Sheng and Ermete, they should already be at the Grand Hyatt.”

“It looks like a wonderful hotel, at the top of a skyscraper.”

“What are we waiting for?”

“To figure out which way to go?”

Having claimed their luggage, the three ladies walk into the massive arrivals hall: a long white two-level space with illuminated totems showing commercials on their giant screens.

“We need to follow the signs for the Maglev,” Elettra says, trying
to orient herself amid the river of people, “which happens to be the world’s fastest train.”

According to their guidebook, the Maglev travels at 431 kilometers an hour, using the world’s first and as of yet only magnetic levitation railway. Seven minutes to travel the thirty kilometers between the airport and the city.

“That way,” Mistral says, pointing at a sign.

They wheel their suitcases onto an escalator, walk across the mezzanine and turn down a long corridor, which is strangely deserted. And the few people walking down it are all foreigners.

“The Chinese don’t seem to like this train very much,” Elettra murmurs, struck by the contrast with the crowded, bustling hall.

They reach the Maglev station, a cascade of red Chinese lanterns overhead. Cecile gets in line to buy their one-way tickets. Next, an escalator leading downstairs and a moving walkway. Finally, they reach an aluminum and glass barrier along with around forty other people. The train is there in moments: a white snake with a tapered nose that silently stops beside the magnetic track.

They get in.

The train car has two different-color seats: yellow and white. The yellow ones are the famous VIP “soft seats.” Cecile, Mistral and Elettra sit down on the other ones. Then the world’s fastest train sets off.

“I wonder what it’s like to travel on magnetic tracks?”

The answer comes soon enough: it’s wobbly.

Feeling queasy, Mistral looks at the black and green display that indicates the train’s speed. Outside the window, the landscape whizzes by faster and faster. Streets, trees, buildings.

“Two hundred kilometers an hour,” Elettra says as the Maglev rocks like a boat.

“Three hundred kilometers an hour,” Elettra says again.

In comparison, the cars moving down the highway look perfectly still.

“Four hundred and thirty-one!” Elettra exclaims.

Then the train begins to slow down and, seven minutes after its departure, it stops at the Longyang station. The three grab their luggage and step out of the train.

“What now?” Mistral asks, looking around.

They see two taxi signs, but it isn’t clear which way they need to go. The train heads back to the airport, leaving behind a few clusters of people, suitcases in tow, who all appear to be wondering the same thing as Mistral.

“Let’s follow them,” Elettra suggests, pointing at two travelers who look more confident than the others.

Five minutes later, they wind up in a desolate asphalted parking lot without any signs.

“Over there!” Cecile suddenly shouts, seeing a taxi entering the parking lot.

They rush toward it like desert nomads who’ve found an oasis.

“To the Grand Hyatt, please!”

The taxi driver smiles and merges into a flood of cars that ends up stuck in a traffic jam after a few hundred yards. Shanghai is ahead of them, but it still looks far, far away.

Mistral, Cecile and Elettra look around glumly.

“What point is there in taking the world’s fastest train if you have to add another hour by taxi to get where you’re going?” says Elettra.

I
T
’
S ALL VERY DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND, BUT
M
RS
. M
ILLER IS
trying her best.

She’s sitting in a leather armchair in a foul-smelling bar with the man who came into her house through the skylight, saving her life in the process.

His name is Quilleran, he has Native American blood in his veins and he claims to be Harvey’s friend. One thing is for sure: he’s their mailman.

“Believe me, ma’am, there was no other way for me to get in,” the man repeats for the umpteenth time. “Egon Nose was already at the gate and he would’ve seen me.”

This is the part of his story that Harvey’s mother finds incomprehensible. “Would you mind explaining why this—this Egon Nose would have something against me?”

“Not against you, ma’am. Against your son.”

“Is it because of the passports?”

Quilleran shakes his head. “It’s a long story. If he hasn’t told you, I can’t be the one to explain.”

“Then what can you do, apart from making me run away from my own home over the rooftop?”

“I’ve already apologized.”

“And I’ve already accepted your apology; otherwise I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”

“You need to stay in a safe place until things have calmed down. And go to the police station right away.”

“To tell them what?”

“That someone’s threatening you.”

“I’m calling my husband,” Mrs. Miller says.

Quilleran hands her his cell phone.

Mr. Miller is on the ship’s deck together with Paul Magareva from the Polynesian Oceanographic Institute. The two have been talking nonstop for hours. Professor Miller’s report is grim.

“ ‘Last year,’ ” he reads, “ ‘saw a record number of typhoons in the Pacific. Fifteen hurricanes of the highest category in the Atlantic as opposed to an average of ten; a hundred and eighty-two tornados in August, fifty-six more than the record year of 1979, and two hundred thirty-five in September, a hundred and thirty-nine more than in 1967; unprecedented forest fires in Alaska; a devastating earthquake in Iran and the tsunami in the Indian Ocean; extreme droughts in North Africa with swarms of locusts, at an estimated loss of eight point five billion dollars, of which insurance covers only nine hundred and twenty-five million. All together, we’re talking a hundred and forty-five billion dollars in damages. Plus, the last ten years have been the hottest ones since 1861.’ ” George Miller tosses the report on the table. “Is that a big enough catastrophe for you?”

Paul Magareva looks at the Port of Shanghai. “Well? Are you convinced there’s a planet on a collision course with us?”

“Honestly, no. But I’m convinced we’re on a collision course with ourselves.”

“What’s happening now has happened before,” his Polynesian colleague insists. “It’s like when a computer has too many useless programs on it. There’s only one thing to do: delete everything. Call it a great flood, call it the extinction of the dinosaurs, but that’s the way it is.”

“You read too much science fiction, Paul.”

“And you don’t read enough of it!”

Professor Miller’s cell phone rings. “Who could this be?” he wonders, not recognizing the number.

The professor answers. It’s his wife. She sounds alarmed. He listens. Nods. “I’ll call the embassy right away,” he says.

Through the car’s dark windows, Harvey sees only shadows. Shadows of massive streets, buildings, grates, construction sites. The outlines of cranes. Rows and rows of trees that suddenly appear and disappear just as suddenly.

There’s also a shadow behind the wheel, but Harvey can’t see him from his seat beside the Chinese man with the bull’s-eye tattooed on the back of his head. So far, the trip from the airport to wherever-it-is has lasted thirty-two minutes. One thousand nine hundred and twenty seconds, which Harvey has counted one by one so he won’t lose his concentration. Discipline and self-control. Olympia taught him that.

Obviously, beneath his cool composure, he’s angry.
Very
angry. He didn’t expect to have to deal with Egon Nose again.

He wishes he told the others what he planned to do. But he didn’t. And now it’s definitely too late to warn anyone.

My dad knows
, he thinks as the city’s shadows slip by outside the tinted windows.
My dad knows something big is going on. He’ll know what to do
.

The Chinese man sitting beside him as silent as the grave is clutching Harvey’s backpack, which has his father’s books in it.

The car slows, turns gently and plunges down. An underground parking lot, Harvey guesses.

From his silent traveling companion’s movements, he can tell they’ve arrived. The car door opens. Harvey is accompanied into an elevator a few steps away. He only has time to take a quick glance around: an asphalt ramp, fifty parking spaces, shiny, black vans.

Daylight. It’s already morning.

Then he’s swallowed up by the elevator.