“But the search led us to Jinn and by accident to you,” he said.

She glanced nervously toward the cockpit door.

“Don’t worry,” Kurt said, “they’re not likely to come back here anytime soon. And if they did, all they’d see is you and one of your guards.”

She seemed to accept that.

“When did these guys grab you?” he asked.

“In Male. As soon as I checked into the hotel,” she said.

It seemed as if a tremor of fear swept over her as she thought back to the incident, but she stiffened. “I kicked one of them in the teeth,” she said proudly. “The guy will be eating soup for weeks. But the others threw me down.”

She was feisty, but far different from the way Zarrina had portrayed her. She was less worldly, more like a twenty-five-year-old should be. Kurt wished he’d seen her before.

“I woke up in the desert,” she added. “I couldn’t escape. I don’t even know where I was. They interrogated me and got everything—passwords, phone numbers, bank accounts. They took my passport and driver’s license.”

All of which explained how the impostor knew so much and why the American Embassy confirmed for NUMA that Leilani Tanner was in Male.

“You don’t have to feel bad about that,” he said. “You’re not some hardened operative who would be expected to resist interrogation. Besides, you must have done something right, you’re still alive.”

She looked ill. “I think that Jinn looks at me like some type of horse to break,” she said. “He’s always touching me, telling me how I’ll enjoy being with him.”

“He’s never going to find out how wrong he is,” Kurt said. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“Off the plane?”

“Not exactly,” he said, then switched subjects. “Any idea where we’re going?”

“I figured you might know that better than me,” she said. “I’m a prisoner, remember?”

“And I’m a stowaway. We make a fine pair.”

Kurt moved to one of the tiny circular windows in the side of the plane. It was still dark outside, but as he looked down below he could see a smooth gray surface with a slight shimmer.

“We’re out over water,” he said. “The moon’s come up.”

He glanced toward his wrist to check his watch. Never again would he trade his watch in as collateral. A kidney maybe, the deed to his boathouse perhaps, but not his watch. At least not without grabbing another one along the way.

“You don’t happen to have the time do you?”

She shook her head.

He and Joe had made their way to the staging area around eight p.m. As near as he could tell, loading the trucks and then the aircraft had taken a total of three hours. The plane had sat on the ground for another couple of hours after that, which put takeoff sometime around one a.m.

He went to the starboard window to see if he could see anything out that side. The view was the same: nothing but water.

It was slightly possible that they were over the Mediterranean, a couple of hours’ flying time would have crossed Saudi Arabia, but with everything else that had been going on Kurt guessed they were headed south, out over the Indian Ocean, with a cargo of microbots in the tanks beneath his feet. Two and a half hours from Yemen in a jet aircraft would put them all but smack-dab in the middle of it.

He wondered where they were headed. He wondered if Jinn had a secret base hidden on a deserted island somewhere. Staring out the window again, he strained to see forward as far as he could but saw only more waves.

Leilani watched him go back and forth. “What do we do next?” she asked. “Look for parachutes? I heard them talking about some.”

Kurt had already spotted the chutes she was referring to. “They’re not for people,” he said. “They’re attached to the boats so they can fly low and dump them out the back without having to land. They call it LAPES, Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System.”

She looked confused.

“You ever see a drag race?”

She nodded.

He pointed toward the two nylon packs that sat beside each ribbed boat. “They’re drogue chutes,” he said. “They pop out the back like the ones that slow down drag racers or the space shuttle after it lands. Not exactly made for jumping.”

“Okay,” she said. “You got any other plans?”

He smiled. “You sound just like someone else I know. A good friend of mine, actually.”

“Is he on the plane?” she asked hopefully.

“No,” Kurt said. “He’s probably sitting in the first-class lounge at Doha by now. Looking over the menu from Citronelle and getting hungrier by the minute.”

She tilted her head like a child or cocker spaniel might. “It could be me,” she said. “But you don’t make a lot of sense.”

“I’ll be more clear,” he promised. “We’re not jumping out of this plane, we’re taking it over. We’re going to force our way into the cockpit, order the pilots to fly us somewhere safe and make a dinner reservation under the name Zavala at a place called Citronelle as soon as we touch down.”

“Can you fly it?”

“Not really.”

“So we make them fly it,” she said, smiling, “like we’re the hijackers.”

“Exactly.”

She looked toward the front of the plane. “I didn’t see any kind of armored door,” she said. “Just a ladder. Breaking in should be easy.”

“The trouble comes on the other side,” Kurt said. “We’re at high altitude. The plane is pressurized, and that cockpit’s draped in acres of glass. A struggle and an errant shot through one of the panes and we end up with rapid decompression.”

“Which is?”

“A controlled outward explosion,” Kurt said. “Basically, a giant sucking sound that ends with us flying out through the shattered window and free-falling toward the ocean for approximately ten minutes. Which will seem rather pleasant when compared to the sudden stop at the bottom.”

“Don’t want to do that,” she said.

“Neither do I,” he replied. “If we’re going to take over the plane without a struggle, we need to upgrade our weapon status.”

With Leilani trailing him, he walked toward the cargo pallets, hoping to find something more lethal.

As he dug into the first pallet, the high-pitched whine of the engines slowed and dropped an octave or two. The odd, slightly weightless feeling of an aircraft nosing over from cruise to descent came next. It was far more pronounced than on your average airliner.

“We’re descending,” Leilani said.

“Must be getting close,” Kurt said. “We’d better hurry.”

CHAPTER 34

THE FLOATING ISLAND OF AQUA-TERRA WAS UNDER NEW management. As Zarrina gave orders on the bridge, even Otero and Matson were feeling the heat.

Many decks below, Paul Trout walked the confines of Marchetti’s five-star brig, taking inventory of the surroundings. It came with floor-to-ceiling windows, soft recessed lighting and comfortable pillow-top mattresses. It even had a massage chair and a juice dispenser.

“A juice dispenser,” Paul said incredulously.

“Good idea,” Marchetti said, calling to him from the massage chair. “I’ll take a guava-pineapple while you’re up.”

Paul looked over at their host. He was arching his back like a cat rubbing on the furniture as the chair’s shiatsu tumblers moved up and down his spine.

“Oh, that feels good,” he mumbled. “Yeah, right there.”

On the one hand, it struck Paul as the height of absurdity; on the other hand, he couldn’t wait for Marchetti to get done so he could have a turn. Fighting the fire had knotted up his back something fierce.

He poured three cups of the guava-pineapple mixture and brought them back to the other side of the room. He placed them down between Marchetti, who was still making strange sounds of pleasure, and Gamay, who was scowling like an assistant principal ready to put everyone in detention.

Paul offered her one of the cups. She shook her head in disgust.