He took Mark by the shoulders. “C’mon, man. Let’s book over to the chaikhana, toss back a few cups and catch up on old times.”

“So, what’ve I been doing?” Freewheelin’ Frank tossed back his cup of tea and held it out for one of the mujahidin to pour it full from the pot in the middle of the table. The chaikhana – teahouse – was a disappointment, glass and steel and Formica like every other transport caf in the known world, or at least the world known to Mark. They were crowded into a couple of booths by a window looking out over the yardful of semi-trailer rigs. “Well, shit, femme figure out the Reader’s Digest condensed version.”

Back in the old Bay days Freewheelin’ Frank had been Mark’s supplier of hallucinogens and prime smokables. About a year or so after Sunflower turned up at Mark’s door, he’d dropped from view and been seen no more.

“Well, what happened to me was about what you’d expect: somebody blew me up to the pigs, and I had to roll. Went out to Oahu for a couple years until that got too hot. Then, what? Spent a lot of time in Latin America. Hunted investment insects for a while in the Amazon.”

“Investment insects?”

“Yeah. For a while all these West Germans were buying up your collectible bugs as inflation hedges. Nothin’ all that rare, mind you, at least not down in the rain forest. But spectacular. Great big green beetles, walking sticks, that kind of thing. Weird old world we live in, ain’t it?

“That didn’t last. Local authorities wanted to cut themselves in on a piece of the action, namely all of it. Then I just knocked around a bit – ran guns to the rebels in Guatemala, ran pre-Columbian stuff out, mostly to the Japanese. Smuggled emeralds from Colombia – that was all I touched down there, I swear to God; coke lords were getting too crazy to deal with by that point. Fuckin’ Bush’ll do us all a favor if he cleans out those Medellнn pukes, let some Japs or Taiwanese take over who aren’t gonna be eat up with dumbass machismo shit.

“After a while I got bored with that and decided to head east, young man. I’m doing pretty well, here, too. Asia’s full of entrepreneurial possibilities in the import-export line.”

He rubbed the bristles on his face. They were almost white down at the point of his chin.

“So you finally decided to hit the hippie trail, old man? The road to Kathmandu. That where you’re headed?”

Mark shrugged. “I don’t know, man. Seriously”

“I heard you got run out of the old US of A.”

Mark didn’t see much point in dissimulation. “That’s right, man.”

Frank leaned forward. “Is it true, what they said on the satellite? You’re really an ace – you scarf some shit and turn into all these super dudes?”

Mark licked his lips, looked around at the brave freedom fighters. They were watching him keenly and smelling about the same. Mi Sher smiled again.

“It’s true.”

Frank leaned back and ran his hand down his jaw with a scraping sound. “Then I got a proposition for you. You seem to be heading east. How’d you like to keep going that way, maybe pick up a little loose change?”

“Doing what?”

“Riding shotgun.”

Mark shook his head. “You lost me, man. What do you mean?”

“We – my bros here ’n’ me – we’re making a run into Afghanistan. It’s maybe a thousand mile between here and Kabul.” He pronounced it “Cobble.” “Now, the Revolutionary Guard, they usually leave us alone, because we’re brave Islamic Holy Strugglers and all, and anyway these Pushtuns can kick the shit outta their low-country cousins any old time they want. But you never can tell. This country is fallin’ apart, just between you and me and the wall, and every third village got some badass holed up in it with a lot of ex-militia boys with guns, figure they’re gonna play The Wind and the Lion now that Ruhollah ain’t here to hold the center anymore.

“Once we get to the border, we got the DRA, that’s the Afghan Army, looking sharp to nail our asses to a board. And they got nasty Mi-35 Export Hind helicopters flying around, and they still got more than one or two Spetsnaz – that’s Russian Green Beret – caravan hunter teams wandering around the countryside looking for dushmans, that’s bad boys like us. So having along a little friend who can fly and shoot some serious fire from his hands has the potential to come in mighty handy.”

“What’re you carrying?”

“Well, the boys themselves. They been on furlough, kind of. Plus we got some anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles. Russian stuff – buy it offa the Morskoye Pekhota, Naval infantry boys attached to the Black Sea fleet. They’ll do anything for hash oil and Traci Lords videotapes.”

“But I thought the Russians had left Afghanistan,” Mark protested.

“Most of ’em have.”

“Then what’re the freedom fighters fighting against?”

“My man Dr. Najib. The dictator. Soviet puppet with most of his strings snipped.”

“I’ve heard of him. But the TV news always said he was a moderate. Really interested in, like, trying to reform the country.”

“He’s got him some funny notions about reform. He broke into the big time as a professional torturer for KhAD, the Afghan secret police. He’s really into medical experimentation too, if you know what I mean. Can you say, Dr. Mengele? Sure. I knew you could.”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t want to get mixed up in a war or anything.”

“Peace, Love, Dope forever, huh? Well, shit, man, I gotta say I respect you for it. These days it’s War, Hate, and Just Say No. Teach it to the kids in school.”

Actually it was that Mark had just been in a war, and it was pretty bad, and he didn’t want to get mixed up with another. He didn’t say anything about that. He didn’t want Frank to think he was completely crazy.

“Still, man, think about it – where you gonna go? You surehell can’t stay here. You want to get where the DEA can’t lay a glove on you, right? Try Afghanistan. Or if that’s a little too intense, I can pull a few strings and you can just keep trucking into India.”

India. Now, there was an idea. There was a place he could really use his talents; use them to help other people. He could help them manufacture cheap antibiotics to fight disease, safe, biodegradable insecticides to save their crops. Some of those maharajahs were incredibly rich, rich as any oil sheik. Maybe he could get one to spring for a research facility, really get some work done.

Maybe he could find a guru, too. India was a very spiritual place. The Maharishi came from there, and Meher Baba. Maybe it was time to cultivate that side of his nature.

“How about it, man?” Frank asked. “You stay clear of the one or two kingdoms the U.S. has in its back pocket and they’ll never touch you. What do you say?”

“I’ll do it.”

Frank jumped up and threw his hat in the air. “All right!

Come on, boys, saddle up – we got us an ace in the hole.”

The Revolutionary Ministry of whatever it was had let them have a car to drive around in. It was an ’87 Toyota Camry in a shade of blue nobody could ever remember seeing before. It ran well.

J. Bob Belew walked slowly across the truck park. The setting sun stretched his shadow clear to the perimeter fence. He slid in behind the wheel and slammed the door.

“Straw boss says a man matching Meadows’ description was here, all right. But he left three, four hours ago with another American he met here. They say they headed north, as if they were planning to cross the Elburz, for what that’s worth. Which is probably nothing.”

He started the engine. “Does that mean we’ve lost him?” Helen asked from the passenger seat.

“For the moment.”

Helen Carlysle set her mouth and gazed out the window at the distant blue Elburz. In the back where they thought he couldn’t see, Lynn Saxon shot his partner Gary a thumb’s up.

In front, where no one did see, J. Bob Belew smiled. All to himself