Page 28 of What is Lost

“When it’s time for me to start panicking.” Clearly, Davila didn’t know Douglas Adams. He also didn’t look like the type of guy who covered his anxiety by making bad jokes. “Never mind.” He hooked a thumb toward an open door into the terminal. “Shall we?”

Once inside, they followed arrows. Their footsteps echoed. After walking down a long corridor, they came to a border guard wearing a uniform and what seem to be a scowl tattooed onto his face. The guard spoke no English but went through their passports with a meticulousness bordering on the obsessive: each page front to back then back to front. Twice.

“Think he wants to bust our balls?” Davila opined as the guard started on the ritual for the third time.

“He might just be bored.” The guard, John noticed, had also gone still and watched with narrowed eyes. “Or waiting for a bribe.”

He watched Davila think about that. “Might be a very good way to wind up in jail. Bribing a security guy, I mean. Hank said the border guys, youknow...but he meant theborder-border, not the airport.”

John tended to agree. Worst-case scenario, they got locked up without so much as a phone call to the U.S. Embassy, much less an interpreter. So, he yawned and stretched and said to the border guy, “Knock yourself out, man. We got all day.”

At that, the border guy’s features darkened. Maybenothing doing, bubwas the same in every language.

“They toss you in jail,” Davila said, “I’m not bailing you out.”

“Just remember to put a metal file into that apple pie,” John said.

“You’re awfully cool for a guy a step away from incarceration.”

“Hey, I’m only looking at the doughnut, man.”

Grabbing a stamp, the border guy jammed that down twice onto an empty page in both passports before tossing them back and hooking a thumb over a shoulder.

“Another universal.” John shoved his passport into an inner pocket of his jacket. “Let’s blow before he changes his mind.”

“Yeah,” Davila said. “And I have got to get Hannah to think of a different metaphor.”

The main terminal was a long,single-story building, whose interior was bathed in a myriad of colors from light streaming through a stained-glass front. The effect would’ve been stunning if the place hadn’t felt like a neglected side-chapel in a derelict cathedral.

“Welcome to busy, bustling Dushanbe.” Davila turned a circle. “Where is everyone?”

“Maybe they’ve got the day off?” John said. The place was silent and virtually empty. No employees behind the counters. Perched on a stool in front of a corner kiosk selling candy and ice cream, a woman slowly leafed through a magazine. At the sound of their footstep, she looked up, decided they weren’t customers, and went back to her magazine. A smattering of passengers with luggage were scattered up and down the length of the concourse.

“Kind of spooky,” Davila said. “Next thing you know, Count Dracula’s going to jump out from behind check-in.”

“Naw, it’s the daytime. He’s probably in luggage class with his coffin.”But this is ridiculous.Pulling out his water bottle, John swallowed a lukewarm swig as he checked the board for outgoing flights.Moscow, Dubai, Istanbul…

“Nothing scheduled to leave until later today,” Davila said. “Probably accounts for why it’s so empty.”

“Great.” His restless fingers fiddled with thefresh duct tape he’d wrapped around his bottle back at Brighter Days. Patterson had given them both a clean cell and a mini satellite phone. The mini-sat wasonly for extraction, as Patterson put it, though the unit was also equipped with an SOS broadcast beacon. The cell had one number on speed-dial, which went directly to Patterson, but that was only useful if there was a signal or Wi-Fi. John had no one to text. He wasn’t on social media and there was probably no cell coverage once they go out of Dushanbe. In the end, he’d downloaded some books and a couple of maps just to be on the safe side. Once they were into the mountains, the only way to talk to anyone was via the sat. John couldn’t help but remember that film with Wahlberg where the men can’t raise anyone and the one guy who ventures out into the open to try gets aerated. “We could call Patterson, I guess. See if he can track down our contact.”

“Let’s give it a couple minutes.” Davila turned a full circle. “I trust Hank, and he said this was arranged. Someone’ll find us.”

“Uh-huh.” Digging out the cell, he saw that he had bars. Pulling up Patterson’s number, he stared at the screen. Would Patterson have any more information to offer or a contact number in Tajikistan? He doubted it. Patterson wasn’t truly in charge.

But can he get through to whoever is?His thumbhovered over the speed dial.There’s got to be someone I can talk?—

A voice, heavily accented, from somewhere behind them: “Mr. Child? Mr. King?”

They turned. There were two men at the airport’s main entrance. One was small and wore a felt cap, wide grimy beige trousers, an equally grimy blousy top over which he’d draped a long open vest the color of gunmetal. The other, a bluff man with reddish hair, light blue eyes, and a physique that could’ve passed for Wisconsin-Lean, waved again.

“You are Mr. Child and Mr. King, yes?” The big man’s gaze shuttled back and forth between them. “Which is which?”

Davila hooked a thumb. “He’s Child.”

“Three guesses who he is.” When Davila gave him a sidelong glance, John shrugged. “Doughnut.”

“Never mind him,” Davila said as the big man’s bushy eyebrows drew together in something that resembled a furry caterpillar. “We’re the guys you’re looking for.”

---