The Prince of Bagram Prison (15 page)

Kurtz laughed. “Five hundred euros,” he countered, applying the tenfold inflation rule of thumb he always employed when bargaining with Arabs.

“Five thousand,” Abdullah replied.

“Seven-fifty.”

Abdullah looked pained. “One thousand,” he agreed at last. “And you'll pay me first. That's not negotiable.”

Kurtz opened his sample bag and counted out ten hundred-euro notes. Janson wouldn't be happy, but then he never was. There was a price to be paid for everything; Janson should have learned that by now.

Abdullah took the money, checking to make sure it was all there, before secreting it behind the counter. “The boy ran off this morning,” he said then, folding his arms across his massive chest in a gesture of pure defensiveness. “He came to me looking for someone to take him across the strait, but of course I know nothing about those things.”

“Of course,” Kurtz said, understanding that he'd been cheated, and that there was nothing to be done about it. “He's trying to get to Morocco, then?” he asked, as if he could still salvage something from their exchange.

But Abdullah only shrugged. “If that's what you say, brother.” Then he smiled at Kurtz, showing a mouthful of rotten teeth.

I
T WAS KURTZ ALL OVER
, Kat fumed as she stood on the sidewalk outside the shop. She had learned long ago not to let men like Abdullah bother her, had even figured out how to use their prejudice to her advantage, but she refused to tolerate that kind of treatment from Kurtz. Besides, experience told her that the other man would be the one to benefit from the divide-and-conquer routine; that Kurtz, having shown his willingness to be complicit, would almost certainly get nowhere with Abdullah now.

Kat glanced down the sidewalk. With the exception of a few stragglers, the passengers from her train had passed by already on their way to the docks, and most of the boys had deserted their posts for more lucrative ventures. Kat knew from her interviews with Jamal at Bagram that a good part of Ab-dullah's income came from the pickpocketing the boys did in the tourist bars and the crowded ferry terminal, and this was no doubt where they had gone. But the boy in the Harvard T-shirt was still working the street.

A textbook candidate for intimidation, Kat thought, watching him dart into a doorway at the sight of two Spanish cops on the other side of the street. It was almost unfair how easy it had been the first time she approached him, and Kat felt a pang of guilt as she started toward him once again.

She moved to the doorway, blocking him in. “There has been a new boy here, yes? An older boy, looking for Abdullah?”

She gave him a moment to answer and, when he didn't, glanced over her shoulder at the pair of
guardia civil
officers. “I've been to the camps,” she said, raising her voice just slightly. “Believe me, you are better off out here.”

The boy swallowed, hard enough for Kat to hear it.

Kat pushed all pity from her mind, as she'd been taught to do, and pressed on. “Where is he?”

Nothing.

“
Aquí!
” she yelled, and this time the boy's hand flew to hers.

“Please,” he begged. “Please. I saw him. He was here.”

Kat looked back over her shoulder and watched the cops slow, then move on again. “When?” she asked.

“He came last night. He stayed in Abdullah's room.”

“He's still here?”

The boy shook his head. “I saw him at the docks this afternoon.”

“The ferry docks?” Kat asked, thinking, The trucks. He was heading back as he'd come.

The boy nodded. His hand was still on hers, his grip desperate.

Kat eased her arm away, reached into the pocket of her jacket, and pulled out her billfold. “Here,” she said, fishing out twenty euros for the boy.

He snatched the money from her, but the look on his face was accusatory, as if he knew how little the money meant to her, and that it was merely a salve for her own conscience.

J
AMAL HUNKERED DOWN
behind a stack of Gauloises boxes and watched the milky aureole of the Spanish customs inspector's flashlight play across the ceiling and walls. There was a part of him that wanted more than anything to be found, and he had to fight the urge to cry out.

The beam paused for a moment and Jamal caught a glimpse of shaky Arabic on the far wall, the writing of someone who had come before him. The beginning of a prayer for those near death, the letters fading toward a crooked scrawl, the request verging on heretical, for no good Muslim was supposed to ask for the end: “O Allah, keep me alive so long as it is in my best interest and give me death when it is in my best interest.”

Then the light was gone, and the inspector with it. Jamal felt the container's massive door slam shut and heard the sound of the long steel bolt sliding into place.

He drew his knees to his chest and closed his eyes against the darkness, trying not to think about the prayer or the fate of the boy who had written it there, trying not to judge the odds of his own survival. He had been lucky on his first crossing, had emerged from his carbon dioxide–induced haze with nothing worse than an unrelenting headache and brutal nausea. But he couldn't help worrying that he'd spent all of his good fortune and that this time things would be very different.

When the truck started up Jamal smelled the diesel fumes almost instantly, the saccharine odor mingling with the tobacco in the boxes. Two, three hours if he was lucky, he told himself. And if he wasn't, it could be days before the door opened again. He switched on the small flashlight he'd brought and surveyed his provisions: a thin blanket and a gallon jug of water, a box of biscuits and a plastic bucket for a toilet. He had prepared himself as best he could.

The truck lurched forward and the floor swayed beneath him. Yes, he thought, forcing himself to turn the flashlight off and tamping down the welling panic in his throat, what happened from here was beyond his control.

“I see you got your French chocolates,” Susan had remarked, glancing at the shopping bag in Harry's hand.

It was nearly a month since they'd met at the Caravelle, and Harry hadn't recognized her at first. In the daytime ex-pat squalor of the Duc Hotel's bar, Susan had seemed like another person altogether, younger and more vulnerable than the woman he remembered. She was wearing a white sundress made of eyelet cotton. Her hair was drawn back in a school-girl's ponytail.

She extended her hand. “Susan Maxwell. We met at that awful dinner.”

“Yes, of course. Harry Comfort.” Harry returned the gesture. Her grip was surprisingly strong, a man's handshake. Harry looked self-consciously at the shopping bag. “It's not what you think. I mean, it's a thank-you is all, for my housekeeper.”

Susan looked amused. “How are you liking Nha Trang? Getting plenty of stargazing done with that Celestron of yours?”

The Vietnamese bartender came over before Harry could answer, and Harry ordered a vodka martini. The man paused and, when Harry didn't say anything, gestured to Susan. “And for the mademoiselle?” His tone was polite yet condescending, his contempt for Harry's coarseness barely restrained.

Harry could hear his father, some drunken counsel on manhood:
Always order for the lady, son.
“She'll have the same,” he blurted, glancing at the empty martini glass in front of Susan.

The bartender looked at her for confirmation.

“A Gibson, please,” she told the man.

“Sorry,” Harry apologized.

But Susan waved her hand dismissively. “To tell you the truth, I'd rather order for myself. Sometimes I feel like a goddamn child with all that chivalry.”

She was drunk, Harry realized. And, what's more, she looked as if she might have been crying. The Duc was the Agency's transient facility in Saigon, and there were any number of reasons that she might be there, but Harry had the distinct impression that she was waiting for someone. Morrow, he thought.

She fumbled a cigarette from her pack on the bar and Harry rushed to light it.

“So Nha Trang,” she said. “You never answered my question.”

Harry smiled, trying to lighten the mood. “I've been sworn to secrecy,” he said, “so don't repeat this, but it's a nonstop party up there. Shuffleboard at the Czech consulate on Friday. Bridge with the Poles on Saturday. Lately the Soviets have been hosting a potluck Sunday. They don't call it the Schenectady of the East for nothing.”

Susan tipped her head back and laughed. Just a bit too enthusiastically, Harry knew, but he felt triumphant nonetheless. “You should come up sometime,” he continued. “We don't normally let the Saigon riffraff in, but I could vouch for you.” The invitation was made without any serious expectation, but he could see something click in Susan's face, the recognition of an opportunity.

“You'll show me the stars?” she asked.

“If you'd like.”

The bartender came with their drinks, and Susan took a long, grateful sip. Yes, Harry thought, she had definitely been crying. There was a faint smear on each cheek where her makeup had run. And how long, he wondered, had she been waiting? Two drinks? Three? More? She seemed like a woman who could hold her liquor, so it must have been quite a while.

“You don't find it disconcerting?” she asked. “I mean the universe and infinity and all that.”

Harry shrugged. “Not really. Do you?”

“Honestly?” She turned on her stool so that her leg was just touching Harry's. “The idea of all that space has always scared me. It's something I try not to think about.”

Harry could feel the warmth of her skin through his pant leg. He knew he should move, but he couldn't bring himself to. “Actually,” he said, “it's kind of comforting to me, knowing my place. None of us are ever as important as we think we are.”

She set her glass down and looked intently at him, as if pondering something. “Do you have a room?” she asked at last.

Harry nodded.

Susan moved her leg closer to his, then put her hand on his knee. “Can I see it?”

Harry was confused. “See what?” he murmured stupidly.

“Your room, Harry. I want to see your room.”

H
IS CHOICE
, Harry thought, as he turned into the parking lot of the Kona Pack and Mail. He had seen the consequences clearly that afternoon at the Duc, had understood from the beginning what his role in Susan and Morrow's affair would be, just what she wanted from him, and yet he had not been able to stop himself.

Their sex had been hurried and disappointing, begun and ended in a matter of fumbling seconds. An act to be endured, Harry had thought, watching Susan's grim face beneath him, her small breasts jerking up and back as he moved into her with the sloppy eagerness of a schoolboy.

Afterward, watching her sleep, he had felt ashamed. In the untempered afternoon light, the shoddiness of their surroundings was in full view. The room's scuffed walls and mildewed curtains. The ancient stains on the frayed sheets, relics of prior trysts.

Harry had left a note on the bedside table, something about a meeting at the Saigon station, which he'd meant as a merciful out for both of them. Then he'd taken a trishaw to a bar in Pham Ngu Lao and spent the rest of the evening wondering how they would avoid each other in the future. When he finally went back to his room early that morning, he was relieved to find Susan gone.

H
ARRY TURNED OFF THE ENGINE
and glanced in his rearview mirror, watching the same white Escort he'd noticed on the drive down pull into a parking space across the street. There were two men in the car. Too burly to be Agency and certainly not discreet enough. Though it occurred to Harry that being noticed was probably what they wanted, that they had been sent more as a warning than anything. Morrow's way of letting Harry know that it would be in everyone's best interest for him to share whatever he knew about Jamal.

He's in real trouble,
Harry could hear Morrow say. He wondered if it wasn't Dick who was in over his head here. The boy was disposable, after all, and would not have merited even the Escort's rental price, much less the monkeys in the front seat.

Harry climbed out of the car and waved pleasantly to the two men. No harm, he thought, in letting them know they were doing their job. Then he crossed the breezeway and slipped into the Pack and Mail, where, he knew, Irene's papers would be waiting for him.

L
IKE A KID AT CHRISTMAS
, Kat had thought, watching Jamal hesitate, unable to make up his mind where to begin. On the table between them was a scavenged bounty of junk food. Beef jerky, a can of Pringles potato chips, various candy bars, blueberry Pop-Tarts, and a can of Mountain Dew. It wasn't exactly what the Red Cross would have considered a balanced meal, and Kat couldn't help wondering if she hadn't crossed some kind of ethical line.

Jamal opened the red Pringles tube and shook out a handful of potato chips. “So perfect!” he exclaimed, marveling at the uniformity of the chips. His command of English was a skill he was determined to show off, despite Kat's persistent efforts to communicate with him in Arabic.

Kat gave him a moment to absorb the miracle of modern food preparation. “Were you able to get some sleep?” she asked.