But she had also heard of bus station thieves who snatched baggage from the hands of unwary travelers, and she could just as well lose the bracelet that way.
Marivic folded her hand around the bracelet. She thought about her father. She imagined him shopping for it and thinking of her and carrying it halfway around the world to place it on her wrist. Just touching it now made her feel confident and secure, as if it carried some of her father’s strength and love.
She draped the bracelet over her left wrist, and fastened the clasp.
Some of the passengers were standing in the aisle now, impatient. Marivic looked to the front and saw that the bus was pulling into the terminal. It rolled to a stop. The front door huffed open.
Marivic waited until most of the passengers had left. Then she grasped the handle of the bag and stepped out into the aisle. She walked up to the front of the bus and into the thick, pungent air of Manila.
Two
A rap on his bedroom door woke Ilya Andropov. He had given orders to be awakened as soon as the deed was done. Within a few seconds he was conscious and aware, ready to operate.
“Done?” he asked.
“Done,” said the voice on the other side of the door.
“Coffee,” Andropov said.
He came out several minutes later, a red silk robe over black silk pajama bottoms. Andropov was an elegant man, nails manicured, his stylishly cut hair maintained with a weekly trim. But his lips pursed in a perpetual sneer, and his eyes and his manner were completely without warmth. He had the appearance of a man both prim and vicious.
He walked down the hall to his office, in a walled residential compound in the Malate district of Manila. Waiting on his desk was a glass French press filled with dark coffee. He poured out a cup and picked up the telephone. He punched in a call to a number in the United States. But the routing was indirect. It ran through an Internet connection, into a landline relay from Chechnya to Moscow, again across an Internet trunk to London, from where it followed the usual pathway into the domestic circuits in the U.S.
Though the call quality was often poor, with a lag of several seconds, this arrangement ensured that the call could not be tracked to its source.
A woman’s voice came through from the other end, a curt “Yes.” Formalities were not required. She was speaking on a cell phone reserved for this purpose.
“We have what you are seeking,” Andropov said. His English was crisp.
Her reply came back several seconds later: “I’ll make the transfer.”
“The price is now fifteen.”
“What? We had an arrangement!”
“That was for an item of ordinary quality. This one is exceptional. It’s literally a one-in-a-million specimen. You can’t do better.”
Because of the transmission lag, speaking on the connection was like using a two-way radio. When Andropov stopped talking, he found that the woman at the other end had already launched into a diatribe. He caught the last few words:
“—filthy thieving motherfucker, I’m not paying it! Do you know what I can do with fifteen million dollars?!”
“If you don’t complete this sale, I suppose you can do anything you want with the money. At least for as long as you are able.”
This stopped her. Andropov knew that it would. He often had this discussion with prospective clients, and it always ended the same: with Andropov getting what he wanted.
“How do I know it’s true, about the quality?” she asked. “All I have is your word.”
“We both depend on mutual trust and discretion,” Andropov said. This was an exaggeration: Andropov and his group were much less vulnerable than his clients. But it sounded good, and it always seemed to soothe those who needed reassurance.
Andropov heard a long silence, longer than the circuit lag.
“I can’t get it right away,” she said finally. “It’ll take a couple of days. I’m not that liquid. Fifteen million, I wasn’t ready for that.”
“I’ll be watching for it,” Andropov said.
He ended the call, sat back, and lifted the cup of coffee to his lips. Still hot. Fifteen million in less time than coffee needs to cool. Given the choice between life and cash, even those who truly love cash will always choose life. Just a chance of life was good enough. The choice had to become real, that was all. Then things became clear.
What a business, he thought.
Three
Lorna Valencia was already awake, fixing breakfast for Ronnie before he left