“Find her, Rikki. Please?”

Try as he might, Rakkim could not recall a single previous occasion when Redbeard had used the word please. It was almost enough of a surprise to stop him from thinking. Almost. “Why did Sarah leave now?”

“What…what do you mean?”

“Why didn’t she leave a week ago? Or next week? Why now? What was the trigger?”

“There was no trigger.”

“That’s not what you taught me. You said that whenever someone makes an abrupt decision, a hard choice that changes their life, that there’s always a trigger. Find the trigger and you learn the truth, that’s what you said.”

“This wasn’t an abrupt decision, so there was no trigger,” said Redbeard. “She fooled me. I thought she had accepted her betrothal, but she was planning to leave all along. She had been taking money out of her bank account for months, small amounts, not enough to get my attention.” He frowned. “Twenty-five years old, she should have been grateful I could still make a match for her.”

“You can’t think of any other reason why she would run away?”

Redbeard looked him in the eye. “None at all.”

“I’ll find her.” Rakkim set down the empty Coca-Cola bottle. Redbeard, he knew, was lying.

CHAPTER 6

Rakkim watched the military jets flying formation over the city as he drove from Redbeard’s villa, the old, but reliable, F-117 Stealths on their regular patrol over the capital’s restricted airspace. The faint thunder of their passage was comforting. He craned his neck for one more look, then headed home, driving east on I-90, taking the roundabout way back to the city in case he was being followed. He wasn’t worried about State Security tracking him-the silent-running Ford that Redbeard had loaned him undoubtedly had a GPS unit somewhere on its chassis, probably two transmitters, one to be easily found, the other built-in at the factory. Redbeard would know where the car was every moment, but Rakkim didn’t care. He wasn’t worried about Redbeard; he was worried about whomever Redbeard was worried about. If the villa was under surveillance, any car coming or going might be a subject of interest.

Most of the vehicles on the road at 3 A.M. were tractor-trailers hauling goods over the mountain passes to eastern Washington, and snow buggies on their way to Snoqualmie Summit. Rakkim held the Ford to just above the speed limit and checked the rearview screen. A green delivery van changed lanes when it didn’t have to.

Rakkim was still stuffed from the postmidnight breakfast Angelina had insisted he eat, blueberry pancakes and eggs and sausage. While she harangued him for being too skinny, he ate and questioned her about Sarah. The pancakes were more satisfying than her answers-it had been a long time since Sarah had confided in her, she had admitted, wiping her eyes.

Rakkim called Mardi’s number at the Blue Moon. “Howdy,” he said when she picked up, his greeting alerting her that the call might be monitored. “I’m taking some time off.”

Mardi hesitated. “Everything okay?”

“Doing a favor for a friend. I’ll see you in a few-”

“I hope it wasn’t anything I said tonight.”

“I’ll survive.” Rakkim broke the connection.

The freeway was potholed, the roadway buckled in places from the storms last fall. He took the off-ramp at Issaquah, one of the region’s high-tech centers, its office parks and underground research centers protected behind layers of biometric trip wires. The green van took the same exit, turned right at the traffic signal, and kept going. Rakkim watched it leave in his rearview screen, driving on, waiting. A mile later, he picked up a second tail, this one a silver sedan. Even on full magnification, he couldn’t see the driver. A family car with full security screen? Right.

A half hour later he was heading back to the city on one of the alternative routes, the traffic thinning out until he was driving in darkness with only his headlights for illumination. The sedan was still a mile or so behind him, its lights only occasionally apparent on the narrow, twisting road. The alternative route was cut through a forest of tall firs and cedars at the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, an old road, pretransition, well made and still smooth. A few housing tracts had been built out here ten years ago, but had failed to sell; the commute was too long and the homes were poorly designed and cheaply built. Squatters lived in the crumbling houses now, without power or sewage systems, roofs leaking, floors cracked, the yards gone to weeds and thorny blackberries. The neatly laid out culs-de-sac were barricaded with junked cars, off-limits to strangers, and ignored by the authorities. Rakkim could see bonfires burning through the trees as he raced by.

A light rain was falling now, the wipers seesawing back and forth across the windshield. The silver sedan had fallen back, careful in the treacherous terrain. There were no streetlights, no shoulders, just a sheer drop-off on one side, and deep woods on the other. The car had a programmable steering computer-all he had to do was key in his destination and sit back, take a nap if he wanted, but he didn’t want to input his destination, and the computer didn’t know the way through the badlands. Rakkim knew the road, knew where it dipped and fell, where it was underwater in the rainy season. He used the badlands to ferry people out of the country, Jews and homosexuals and runaway fundamentalists, all of them desperate for the relative safety of Canada, or the Mormon territories. He kept driving.

Rakkim had spent an hour in Sarah’s suite at the villa, Rakkim dizzy with the scent of her. Her favorite stuffed animal still rested on her bed, a wreck of a calico bunny, ears frayed, one eye missing. It had already lost most of its batting by the time he’d first seen it, right after Redbeard had brought him home. Rakkim had looked at the floppy creature that day and all he could think of were the bodies hanging from bridges after martial law was declared. He had hated that stuffed bunny then, he hated it now, but tonight he had straightened it on her pillow. Then he searched her room: her closet, her desk, her collection of classic Muslim Barbies. He saved her dresser for last, her silky things slipping through his fingers.

The car skidded, kicking up gravel, and Rakkim forced himself to slow down. He didn’t know if Redbeard had deliberately lied to him about the timing of Sarah’s departure, but he did know she hadn’t planned to leave Friday morning. Not when she left the villa. He didn’t know what it was, but there had been a trigger for her decision. Something had happened after she’d got to the university, something that had compelled her to leave. The proof was in his breast pocket: a wallet-size photograph.

The photo was Sarah’s most precious possession, kept tucked away in a secret compartment inside her music box. She had shown it to him once, made him promise not to tell, and he had kept the promise. The snapshot was of Sarah and her father. Sarah an infant, sleeping peacefully in his arms while her father looked directly at the camera. There were many official portraits of James Dougan-the first State Security chief was considered one of the nation’s greatest martyrs-but this was the only photo Rakkim had ever seen where he looked truly happy. Rakkim had never asked Sarah why she hid the photo away. Only someone who had not grown up in that house would have wondered-any secret kept from Redbeard was a victory. He patted his pocket for reassurance. If Sarah knew she was leaving that morning, she would never have left it behind.

A clear-cut section of forest gave a brief glimpse of Seattle glittering in the distance, dozens of airships drifting over Queen Ann Hill, guarding the presidential palace. The road curved, the faint lights of the trailing sedan lost to view.