Page 46 of What is Lost

“It’s in the movie.” The Tajik equivalent of Ronald could have climbed out of a Stephen King-fueled nightmare. “I liked the originalIt, but the clown in the remake is totally awesome. But that’s kind of not my point, see what I’m saying? Parviz has a phone. So how come he’s only been using those old maps of his?” The maps were vintage, creased and stained with use, with marginal notes inked in what was probably Tajik next to place names spelled in Cyrillic.

“I don’t understand.”

“Davila, he’s got a cell. Why isn’t he using sat-nav to figure alternative routes?”

“Maybe nothing’s changed. You heard Ustinov. Only the roads around the capital are any good.”

“Okay, I’ll grant you that. But are you really saying that in more than thirty years,nothinghas changed?Nonew roads or villages?”

“Tajikistan’s economy isn’t exactly booming.”

“Booming enough for a McDonald’s lookalike. Booming enough for there to be new buildings on the road to Khorog. Davila, I don’t care how well the guy says he knows the mountains. He can’t possibly haveeveryalternative in his head. I’ll betthere are new routes that don’t show up on his maps.”

Davila studied him a moment then said, “Where is this coming from? Because what you’re really saying is that this might be a setup. What gives?”

He knew exactly why he was pressing this point. A small part of his conscience niggled:You should tell him.

Shut up, you.He straight-aimed that Jiminy Cricket piece of his brain out of the way.Mind your own business.

“Let’s just say that I wonder if Parviz is going slow on purpose or taking roads that are more likely to be impassable than others. That he’s put us behind schedule on purpose.”

“And that this is a setup? Like he saysWe’ll be next to the clown. These are the guys?”

“Possible. Maybe that poster is the Tajik equivalent of the Waterloo Clock.”

“Thewhat?”

“From an old movie,” John said. “Brief Encounter.This woman and this guy bump into each other under this big old clock which hangs at Waterloo Station in London. She’s married; he’s not. They’re doomed.”

“Thisis what you’re trying to tell me?” Davila started for the table. “That we’re doomed?”

“Well...”

As they waited,Davila and Parviz texted. When John asked, Parviz said he was talking to his son:He watch home when I go drive. Many childrens.The driver held up six fingers.Many mouths.

Plausible. Of course, since neither he nor Davila could read Tajiki, this was something he had to take on faith. On the other hand, that was one thing he’d noticed in Kabul: people might’ve been dirt-poor, but many had cells. Kabul’s cell towers were visible from the airport.

As for Davila, he was probably messaging Hannah. Or maybe giving Patterson a status report:A-OK. Food sucks. John not cracked up yet but, boy, talk about paranoid.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself.Stabbing his phone to life, he pulled up the book he was reading. A decent Child novel, and he remembered correctly that it was all about the Army guy teaming up with a female FBI agent after they’re both kidnapped and taken into a mountain stronghold. While his cell still had bars in Dushanbe, he’d decided to download the two titles Ustinov had referenced. Why? Because Ustinovhadmentioned them, and John didn’t think the guy did throwaway lines.

He got only a couple sentences further on but couldn’t make heads or tails of the paragraph. His mind kept jumping to the weapons. What hadhappened with the Glock. The mystery of why and how Roni’s remains ended up in the Wakhan, of all places. Although...

Ustinov said there were lithium mines in the mountains.

Which meant there were people. Villagers, more than likely. Parviz said people were hard up for work.

But mines are dangerous.Living in Wisconsin, he’d been to the Upper Peninsula’s Rust Belt. Lots of old mines up there and in Minnesota: iron and copper, mainly. What he also remembered was that many of these old mines had medical stations set up underground. Which made sense.If someone’s hurt, time matters, all the way around. You don’t want to lose time, because time is money. But you don’t want to lose a worker either for the same?—

Oh.The light bulb of a new idea went off in his brain.Oh, my God.

“You okay?”

“What?” His thoughts derailed. He looked up from his phone to find both Davila and Parviz staring back. “Yeah. Fine. Why?”

“You don’t look so fine,” Davila said. “At the risk of sounding cliché, you look like you just saw a ghost.”

“He hungry. Food come soon.” Pocketing his phone, Parviz pushed to a stand. “I go pee.”

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