This is nothing, Wilson thought. This is bullshit. If they think this is bad, wait’ll they get a load of me.

The idea made him smile. It’s like an orchestra, he told himself. The mayhem on the tube was the visual equivalent of the noise that an orchestra makes as it gets ready to play, with each of the images corresponding to an instrument being tuned. The cacophony was massive and uncoordinated, a traffic jam of noise and violence. But then – soon – the conductor would tap the podium with his baton, and the first note of every symphony would descend: silence.

Then the storm.

Wilson took a long swig of Slavutych. Duty called. He hadn’t checked his messages since he’d left the ship. He plugged his laptop into the telephone, and waited for the computer to boot up, musing all the while on the idea of himself as a kind of conductor. An artiste! If you listened hard enough, you could almost hear the applause, people shouting Maestro! Maestro!

He clicked on the Internet Explorer icon, went to my.yahoo.com and signed in. Clicked on Mail, clicked on Draft – and there it was, a single note dated two days earlier, the address line left blank:

I can’t find Hakim.

CHAPTER 15

The Antonov rumbled down the tarmac, flaps at attention, the plane shaking and shuddering, roaring toward liftoff. A wall of pine trees loomed behind the fences, growing taller and taller and then they were gone. The plane’s vibrations faded to a pulsed thrum as Tiraspol dwindled beneath the wings, a toy slum in a wintry landscape.

Sitting in the cockpit with Belov, the pilot, and the engineer, Wilson relaxed as the plane banked to the south. The Russian lighted a cigar, puffed mightily, and cocked his head toward the engine on the port wing. “Exhaust! You see?”

Wilson glanced out the window, where a stream of turbulence poured over the wing. “What about it?”

Belov made a graceful gesture with his hand, creating a sine wave in the air. “Russian genius puts engine on top, not under wing – so makes possible short takeoffs. Also, landings! Crappy fields, this is no problem. In Africa, I’m using grass airstrips, always. So… is big deal. Normal plane, no way.”

“What’s the trade-off?” Wilson asked.

Belov shrugged. “Not-so-big plane. If I have Antonov-twelve, I haul twenty tons – not ten!” He waggled a finger in the air. “But then I need good runway, mile long, plus.”

Wilson looked out the window. As the plane climbed, he could see the engine on the left side of the plane. It was sitting on the leading edge of the wing, and he could see the exhaust flowing over the ailerons.

“Okay if I go back – check out my friends?”

“Sure! Is okay!” Belov said. “But no cooking!”

Wilson stared at him. “What?”

“No cooking! What you don’t understand?”

“You’re kidding.”

Belov shook his head. “Look at floor! Sometimes Arab peoples, they think because it’s metal, no problem! I’m telling you, they don’t know shit. So you tell them: no cooking.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

Unbuckling his seat belt, Wilson got to his feet. Through the window, he could see the Black Sea stretching toward the horizon. “How long to Sharjah?” he asked.

“Five hours,” Belov told him. “Maybe six.”

The pilot turned to him. “Sometimes, we have problems in Iraqi airspace.”

“What kind of problems?” Wilson asked.

“F-16s.”

Leaving the cockpit, Wilson walked back to where Zero and Khalid were seated on folding metal chairs, bolted into the side of the fuselage. They were smoking cigarettes, and each of them had a Diadora bag in his lap. On the floor in front of them was a dull black scar where someone had tried to cook dinner.

Wilson glanced around.

“Everything okay?”

Khalid chuckled. “He’s scared shitless,” he said, nodding at Zero.

“Well…” Wilson paused. “Lemme ask you something.”

Khalid’s eyebrows shot up, as if to say, Shoot.

“You make any calls last night?”

Khalid frowned. “No,” he said. “I call no one. Him, too! No calls.”

“What about the Internet?” Wilson asked.

The plane hit an air pocket, and Zero turned white.

Khalid’s frown deepened, then softened into embarrassment. He was thinking that Wilson was upset about the hotel bill. So he blamed his friend. “Yeah,” he said, confessing on Zero’s behalf. “He goes on pussy dot com, when I’m in the shower, y’know? Five minutes, maybe ten, I’m in the shower. When I get out, I see what he does, I make him get off.”

“No problem.”

“Maybe fifteen minutes-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Wilson told him. “What I wanted to know was, you hear from Hakim? You get any e-mail from him?”

Khalid shook his head, looking relieved. “No,” he said. “We don’t get nothing from Hakim.”

They touched down in Sharjah a little after three.

Exiting the plane was like leaving a theater in midafternoon. A wall of heat fell on them, and the sky went off like a flare. Wilson fumbled for his sunglasses, squinting so tightly he might as well have been blind. Pools of oil, real or imagined, glittered on the tarmac. In the distance, a cluster of bone-white buildings shimmered in the molten air.

“Dubai,” Belov said, raising his chin toward the horizon. Behind them, a small truck began to tow the plane, heading for a hangar at the end of the runway.

“How long are we here?” Wilson asked.

“We leave tonight. You hungry?”

“I could eat,” Wilson said.

“Good. Come. I get you dinner jacket.”

“Where we going?”

“Dubai. Couple miles.”

“What for?”

“Tea,” Belov replied.

“Tea?”

“With sandwiches!” Sensing Wilson’s skepticism, the Russian gave an apologetic shrug and said, “In Moscow, I am taking you to whorehouse. Have ashes hauled, no problem. Here? In Arab country? Is tea.”

Wilson had never ridden in a Bentley before. It was nice.

As was Burj Al Arab. Built to resemble the sail of the world’s biggest dhow, it stood about a thousand feet offshore at the end of a concrete causeway that linked it to Jumeirah Beach. Belov bragged that it had the tallest atrium in the world, the highest tennis court, the most expensive rooms-

“And…! Underwater restaurant! What you think?”

“Sounds uncomfortable,” Wilson told him. “Sounds like a fuckup.”

Belov frowned, then got the joke and laughed. As they entered the atrium, a mâitre d’ caught their eye and led them to a linen-covered table near the fountain. Palm trees rustled in a fake breeze as a column of water shot into the air, a hundred feet or more, and then fell back – only to erupt again and again. Children ran shrieking among the tables, shattering the decorum. The temperature was about sixty-five degrees. Despite the jacket he was wearing, Wilson shivered.

“Hey!” Belov exclaimed, pointing across the room, where an entourage of gangsta wannabes followed a muscular black man to the elevators. “Fifty Cent! I know! You want shake hand?”

“Maybe another time,” Wilson told him.

The Russian shrugged, then beckoned a waiter to their table. “Having tea for two.” The waiter closed his eyes, inclined his head, and backed away with a practiced smile.

Belov sat back in his chair, and regarded Wilson with a wry smile. “Halfway there,” he said.

“A little less.”

“Few miles, maybe. Who’s counting?”

“I hope someone is. I’d hate to come up short.” Wilson looked around. “Max…”

“What?”

“Why are we here?”

Belov shrugged. “I said! Refueling. Is long way, Congo.”

“I mean, here. In the Magic Kingdom, or whatever you call it.”

“Burj Al Arab. Everyone knows this place. Is famous!”