“How’s that?” I asked.

“Oo-rah,” he said. “John Rain, my angel of mercy.”

I laughed.

“Who’s driving this thing, anyway?” he said.

“It’s me, Dox,” Kanezaki called from up front. “Tom.”

“Good to have you here, man,” Dox said, his voice a little stronger now, rallying from the morphine. “I’d shake your hand and thank you properly, but I’m a little laid up at the moment. And who’s this?”

Boaz pulled off the hat, wig, and shades. “Boaz,” he said.

Dox held up his hand and Boaz shook it.

“I didn’t know John had other friends,” Dox said, the words slurring slightly. “I thought I was his only one.”

Boaz smiled. “I guess that’s why he wanted to get you off that boat so much.”

“My skin’s starting to hurt,” Dox said. “What did you guys use, some kind of millimeter wave device?”

“Am I the only one who’s never heard of these things?” I said, and heard Kanezaki laugh.

“Sorry,” Boaz said. “Calibrating the waves isn’t an exact science. You probably have first-degree burns, maybe second.”

Dox laughed, grimacing as he did so. “Jesus Christ, you think I give a rat’s ass about a sunburn? Uncle Fester back there was fixing to decapitate Nessie.”

Kanezaki glanced back. “Nessie?”

“Please don’t ask him,” I said.

“If you’d shown up ten seconds later, I’d be singing in a girl’s choir somewhere, I’ll tell you that,” he said, laughing and grimacing harder. “Goddamn, I’m telling you, that was a near, near thing.”

Then his voice cracked. “I…ah, fuck, this is embarrassing,” he said. “I really thought I was dead, though, I…ah, fuck.”

He lay there, gritting his teeth and shaking, and the tears rolled silently down his face. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Go ahead,” I said. “Get it out.”

“Why did it have to be in front of you?” he said, half laughing, half crying. “You never puke, you never cry, and you’re going to make fun of me for this for the rest of my life.”

“I’m going to tell all your lady friends, too,” I said, and he laughed again through the tears.

It lasted another minute, then played itself out. “Thanks for bailing me out,” he said, looking around. “All of you. You too, Boaz, whoever you are. I will not, ever, forget it.”

“I’m glad we could help,” Boaz said. “And I’m sorry about the sunburn.”

Dox tilted his head back toward Kanezaki. “Where are we, anyway?”

“Singapore,” Kanezaki said. “On the way to a private jet at Changi. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” Dox said. “Good. ’Cause I’ve got a joke to tell.”

“You don’t really have to,” I said, familiar with Dox’s notions of comedy.

“Tell me,” Boaz said, with the boyish grin.

“I swore I’d tell John the kabunga joke if I came out of this alive, and I mean to keep my word, even high on morphine.”

“You really don’t have to…” I tried again, but he was already rolling.

“There are these three missionaries,” he said, “and they get captured by a nasty tribe of aborigines deep in the jungle.” He looked at Boaz. “You don’t know this one, do you?”

Boaz shook his head. “Keep going.”

“Well, the aborigines tie them up and set them down before the chief, who as it happens speaks a little English. The chief says to them, ‘We are a hostile tribe, and we despise you and your missionary ways. So you have only two choices. Death or…kabunga.’ Then he gestures to the first missionary and says, ‘Choose!’

“Well, the man doesn’t know what this kabunga business is, but he knows what death is, all right, and he knows he doesn’t want that. So he looks at the chief and says, ‘I choose…kabunga.’

“The chief raises his arms and cries out, ‘Kabunga!’ And a dozen warriors rush out. They throw this boy down, pull off his clothes, and sodomize him but good.”

“There’s a theme in your jokes, are you aware of that?” I said.

Boaz said, “Shhh. I like it. Keep going.”

“So now the chief looks at the second missionary, and he says, ‘My friend, what do you choose? Will it be death, or…kabunga?’

“Well, this boy knows what kabunga is now, and he doesn’t want any of it. But choosing death, well, that’d be suicide, and suicide is against his religious principles. So he swallows hard and says to the chief, ‘I…I choose…kabunga.’

“The chief raises his arms and cries out, ‘Kabunga!’ And once again, a dozen warriors rush out, and they have their way with this boy, and it goes on for an awful hour. Finally, it’s over. The chief looks at the third missionary and says, ‘What will it be, my friend? Death, or…kabunga?’

“Now this boy’s seen just about all the kabunga he can stand. And even though it’s against his religious principles, and even though he knows death is the end, he just can’t face kabunga. So he screws up all his courage, sticks out his chin, looks the chief straight in the eye, and says, ‘I choose death!’

“The chief raises his arms and cries out, ‘Death! But first, kabunga!’”

Boaz threw back his head and roared, and his hilarity was infectious. Within seconds, the inside of the van reverberated with laughter. As Dox had said, it had been a near, near thing. Laughter was one of the reactions. There would be others.

“Wait, wait,” Boaz said, wiping his eyes. “I’ve got one, too. These three missionaries…”

And it went on from there. I had a feeling we would be seeing Boaz again when all of this was done.

I didn’t mind the thought at all.

35

AT CHANGI, Kanezaki showed his credentials to a uniformed guard. The man spoke into a radio and waved us through the gate.

“That worked well,” I said.

Kanezaki called someone from his mobile. “We’re on our way,” he said. “Two minutes.” Then he glanced back at me and smiled. “Low friends in high places.”

We drove through another gate to the part of the airport I assumed was reserved for private planes. There were two dozen small jets parked on the tarmac. Kanezaki drove up to one of them. The hatch opened, and a young, crew-cut man came down the stairs. His back was ramrod straight, his civilian trousers were creased, and if he wasn’t a Marine, the Marines didn’t exist.

Kanezaki pressed a button and the van’s side door slid open. He got out and met the Marine around the side.

“Two to transport,” Kanezaki said. “Plus me.”

“Sir,” the Marine said, “I’m not authorized for other passengers.”

“Come over here,” Kanezaki said, and walked the man out of earshot. I watched them talking. Kanezaki gestured and spoke; the Marine nodded and listened.

After a minute, they came back. The Marine extended a hand to Dox. “Sir, can I help you aboard?”

“Yes you can, son, and I’m glad to see they sent the Marines. Just give me five minutes with these reprobates first, all right?”

“Yes, sir,” the man said, and stood off a respectful distance.

“Well, this is the VIP treatment,” Dox said. “What did I do to qualify?”

“The jet is part of a small CIA fleet,” Kanezaki said, “used to render very bad people to very secret places. You might have read a bit about it in the newspapers. And that’s all I’m going to say.”

“We know about the program,” Boaz said.

Kanezaki smiled. “I know you do. You’re part of it.”

“What did you tell the pilot?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Mostly I reminded him of the shame he would bear for the rest of his life if he flew off leaving a wounded Marine behind.”

“That would be me,” Dox said. “Hope you didn’t mention John here was Army.”

Kanezaki laughed. “I didn’t. It must have slipped my mind.”

I watched Kanezaki, strangely moved. He reminded me so much of Tatsu. The way he was willing to work outside the system to fix the system. The way he connived to make other people complicit in his nefarious means and noble ends.

“Am I right in assuming,” Boaz said, “that despite Jim Hilger’s surprising failure to be on the boat as we all expected, we all still want him to take…early retirement?”