"Excuse me," he said, then, "but that dust you've been rolling in has way too much titanium in it. You've probably already exceeded your MDR on that stuff. Why don't you let me get the medic over here to help get you to the helicopter?" He takes the canteen, drinks, caps it, puts it back on his belt.

"Titanium?"

"Soviet eco-disaster. Not as big as drying up the Aral Sea, but you've been hiking down the middle of a forty-mile strip of catastrophic industrial pollution, about two miles wide. I think you want to have a very in-depth shower."

"Where are we?"

"About eight hundred miles north of Moscow."

"What day?"

"Friday night. You went under Wednesday, and you were out until whenever you woke up today. I think they probably sedated you."

She tries to get to her feet, but suddenly he's there, hands on her shoulders. "Don't. Stay put." The weird one-eyed binoculars are dangling a few inches from her face. He straightens up, turning into the glare. He waves to the helicopter. "If they hadn't had these night-vision glasses," he says, over his shoulder, "we might not have found you."

"WHAT do you know about the Russian prison system?" he asks her. They're both wearing big greasy beige plastic headsets with microphones and green curly cords. The ear cups have enough soundproofing to muffle the roar of the engine, but he sounds like he's down a fairly deep well.

"That it's not fun?"

"HIV and tuberculosis are endemic. It gets worse from there. Where we're going is basically a privatized prison."

"Privatized?"

"A bold New Russian entrepreneurial experiment. Their version of CCA, Cornell Corrections, Wackenhut. Regular prison system is a nightmare, real and present danger to the public health. If they wanted to set up an operation to breed new strains of drug-resistant TB, they probably couldn't do a better job than their prisons are already doing. Some people think AIDS, in this country, in a few more years, will look like the Rlack Death, and the prisons aren't helping that either. So when one of Volkov's corporations decides to set up a test operation, where healthy, motivated prisoners can lead healthy, motivated lives, plus receive training and career direction, who's going to stand in the way?"

"That's where the footage is rendered?"

"And what motivates these model prisoners? Self-interest. They're healthy to begin with, otherwise they wouldn't have been chosen for this. If they stay in the regular system, they aren't going to be. That's one. Two is that when they get here, they see it isn't a bad deal at all. It's coed, and the food is a lot better than what a lot of people in this country make do with. Three is that they get paid for their labor. Not a fortune, but they can bank it, or send it home to their families. There's thirty channels on satellite and a video library, and they can order books and CDs. No Net access, though. No web browsing. No phones. That's an instant ticket back to TB Land. And there's only one choice, though, in occupational training."

"They render the footage?"

"All of it." He offers her the canteen. "How are your feet?"

She waves it away. "Okay unless I move them."

"We're almost there," he says, pointing forward, through the plastic nose. "Final motivating factor that keeps the campers here. Volkov. Prob-ably the name's never mentioned, but if you were an inmate, and Russian, which of course they all are, I think you'd get the drift."

The helmeted pilot, whose face she hasn't seen, says something in crackly Russian, and is answered by another voice, out of the night.

She sees a ring of lights come on, ahead of them.

"I don't understand how this could all have been put together, just to facilitate Nora's art. Well, how isn't a problem, I guess, but why?"

"Massive organizational redundancy, in the service of absolute authority. We're talking post-Soviet, right? And enormous personal wealth. Nora's uncle isn't Bill Gates yet, but it wouldn't be entirely ridiculous to mention them in the same sentence. He was on top of a lot of changes, here, very early, and largely managed to keep his name out of the media. Which must have been a downright spooky accomplishment. Always has brilliant government connections, regardless of who's in power. He's ridden out a lot, that way."

"You've met him?"

"I was in the same room with him. Bigend was doing most of the talking. Translators. He doesn't speak English. You speak French?"

"Not really."

"Me neither. Never regretted it more than when he and Bigend were having a conversation."

"Why?"

He turns and looks at her. "It was like watching spiders mate."

"They got along?"

"A lot of information being exchanged, but it probably didn't have that much to do with what they were actually saying, either through the translator or in French."

The helicopter's four wheels touch down unexpectedly on concrete. It's like being dropped ten inches while seated on a golf cart. It hurts her feet.

"They're going to check you over, patch you up, then Volkov wants to see you."

"Why?"

"I don't know. When you went missing, he flew us all up here in a lot faster helicopter than this."

"'Us'who?"

But he's already removed his headset. Unlatching his harness/ he can't hear her.

41. A TOAST TO MR. POLLARD

- /

With her bandaged feet in oversized black felt house slippers, Cayce tries not to shuffle as she and Parkaboy traverse the corridor of yellow lockers. On their way, he says, to dinner.

The past hour or so (she still hasn't found her watch) have been spent being examined by a doctor, showering thoroughly, and having her feet bandaged. Now she's back in Skirt Thing and the black cardigan, Parkaboy having suggested that dressing for dinner would be a good idea.

Skirt Thing, along with the rest of her clothing, and her makeup kit, had been waiting for her, washed and folded, on one of the beds in the infirmary where she'd regained consciousness.

The slippers, provided by the same woman who'd brought her soup, make her feel ridiculous, but the blisters and bandages rule out her French shoes, and the doctor had used a pair of shears on the Parco boots, to get them off without hurting her any more than he'd had to.

"What was that you said Dorotea gave me?"

"Rohypnol."

"The doctor here said it was something else. At least I think he did. 'Psychiatric medicine'?"

"They told us they'd taken you to a private clinic, from the hotel. Then they told us you were being moved to 'a secure location,' which must've meant here. I guessed Rohypnol from the sound of it; something she thought would make you easy to push around."

"Where is she? Do you know? Do they?"

"That doesn't seem to be considered a proper topic of conversation. They go sort of fish-eyed if you bring it up. Any idea what she was after?"

"She wanted to know how I'd gotten Stella's e-mail address."

"I'm curious about that myself." He's showered, shaved, and changed into new black jeans and a clean but travel-creased white shirt. "But what she slipped you, that's anybody's guess. The bar staff thought you were hallucinating."

"I was."

"Up here," he says, indicating a flight of stairs. "You okay?"

She climbs a few steps, then stops. "I'm wearing Minnie Mouse shoes, I'm so tired I'm not sure I know what it's like not to be, jet lag seems like a luxury of those who don't travel much, and I feel like I've been beaten with rubber hoses. Not to mention a general lack of skin on my feet."

They climb three flights of concrete stairs, Cayce increasingly relying on the railing, and enter what must be the interior of the ugly concrete tiara she'd seen as she was running away.