Page 9 of What is Found

“My…” Davila dipped a hand into the cargo pocket on his right leg and then checked both pockets on the left. Checked his back pockets. “Son of a?—”

“No.” One look at Davila, and a spike of alarm skewered his gut.Oh crap, oh crap.He started slapping his pockets, pulling them inside out. He saw, at once, that the cargo flaps on both trouser legs were open. “Oh, my God, the big guy was right when he said the kid was a pickpocket. He wasright.”

And he’d been played. However correct he might be aboutwhatthe child was, that didn’t change the fact that he’d been played.

“Must’ve happened when we were distracted, when the big guy came up and started throwing his weight around. Probably part of the con.” Davila’s jaw hardened. “He gets in our faces, and the kid picks our?—”

“Oh,no!” Parviz wailed. “Me no got phone neither!” Stricken, their driver clapped his hands over his head. “This bad, this verybad!”

“Tell me about it.” He stopped trying to find whatwasn’t there.Have to think what to do now.“The only thing the kid didn’t get were my passports and the visas.” He’d zipped everything, including his American passport, into an inner pocket of his parka.

“Same here,” Davila said.

“I sorry!” Parviz was still wailing: “I should have known. I so slow pee, I get talk, I sorry…”

“It’s not your fault,” John said. The driver was giving him a headache. “I was the one who started talking to the kid.”

“Yeah, played us for a couple of dumb tourists,” Davila said. “The question is, what do we do now?”

“Fresh out of ideas, man. Turn back?”

“After coming all this way? We’re so close to the border, we could practically spit across it.”

“Except it’s the wrong border crossing.” But he saw Davila’s point. “What if we double back, go to the embassy in Dushanbe? We’ve still got our…” John almost saidreal.He’d never been anyone butMr. Childto Parviz; Davila wasMr. King.He still had this sneaking suspicion that, when Ustinov had mentioned those two novels,Die TryingandDesperation, respectively,the Russian had been trying to tell them something, but heck if he knew what.

“We’ve still got our passports,” he amended. “We could probably get a couple phone calls out. Worst case scenario, we buy a cell.” Then he almost slapped his forehead, Homer Simpson-style. “Davila, we’re in atown. Everybody and his brother has cell phones. There’s got to be some place to buy one.”

“Well…” Davila made a face. “A fresh cell won’t help.”

“What are you talking about? Why not?”

“Special software,” Davila said. “Plus, a VPN that we can’t download. I can’t even chance calling Helen.”

Which meant they were right back where they started. “So, what do we do? Just go on and hope our contact’s still at Ishkashim and not at this other border crossing?”

He watched Davila think about that. “Yeah,” Davila said, finally. “What other choice is there? There was no chatter in my messages, no alerts. My sat didn’t so much as burp, unless...”

“What?”

“Unless the border closed, like, a couple hours ago,” Davila said. “Parviz, did the guy you met saywhenthis happened?”

“No, no.” Parviz shook his head. “Only say Ishkashim no good.”

“And you think this is true? Good information?”

“It no bad,” Parviz said. “It right.”

“You don’t know that,” John said.

“Could be a rumor,” Davila added. “Without more proof, I think we must assume that nothing has changed. So, we go to Ishkashim. Worst case scenario, we’re turned away.”

“Well, whatever we’re going to do, we better decide fast,” John said, checking his watch. “We’re losing…”

“What?” Davila said when he didn’t finish.

“This.” John held up his wrist. “The kid didn’t take the watch. He didn’t take yours either. Yeah, they’re just your basic G-Shocks, so not a Rolex or anything, but they keep time, and they’re solar.”

“They’re also not on bracelets,” Davila pointed out. “Not easy to get off. Either the kid figured the watch wasn’t worth the trouble, or Parviz got back too soon…we’ll never know.”

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