the pile of manuscripts, putting her elbow down hard on one that was trying to crawl away. “What are we doing? Wasn’t there anyone else who could do this?”
She didn’t answer. After a while I turned away, put my head down on my arms, and waited for her to say my name and tell me we could leave. I had to keep my eyes open, because every time I closed them I saw the thick fluid spilling from the airport man’s head, covering the tiles. Hiding their beauty in his contagion.
She still didn’t say anything when I began to sob, but I hadn’t expected her to.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WE LEFT AROUND dawn—Johnny had transferred what she needed onto her computer, packed my bag with more notes and a carefully hand-copied map, and generated a new laptop map. When I had gone out into the hallway to find a bathroom—no way could I bring myself to just find a handy corner, not here in a mosque or a library—the airport man had disintegrated to a muddy black outline on the tiles, only scraps of his Adidas jacket remaining, bubbling slightly, moving as if it were filled with maggots. I had been preparing to have a conversation about body disposal, and was relieved that I wouldn’t have to.
We headed through a tiny side door into a walled garden or park. I gasped the relatively damp, cool air gratefully and looked up at the palm trees swaying in the pale, pink light of dawn. A few stars glittered on the horizon, hot and blue. Everything smelled of cinnamon, flint, and leaves. I hadn’t realized how stifling and musty the library had been. “Did you find what you wanted to find?”
“The alignment isn’t in our solar system,” she said. “It isn’t even in our universe. I knew that, but I also didn’t know where it was. Now I do. And we are screwed. Absolutely screwed.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“We have till about dawn on July fifth,” she said. “Today’s the third.”
“But... did you find out how to shut the gate?”
She shook her head; the light wasn’t even touching the dark circles under her eyes. I probably looked even worse. At least I didn’t have her beauty to lose; start lower, not as far to fall. “But I know who’s got the set of records I need. Duplicates, but they’ll have to do, we don’t have time to track down the originals.”
“Where are they?”
“Ireland. But they’ve got good copies at the University of Carthage library.” She snarled with frustration, and dug a foot into the thick grass. “We can’t waste any more time on buses; we’re chasing daylight now. We’ll have to take our chances at the airport here.”
“But the cops...?”
“Depends largely on Omar,” she said. “If he shut up that big cop with the moustache and told the others he transferred us, it’ll be a little while before they realize we’re not there. It’s easy enough to lose track of people in custody.”
“Jesus, let’s hope. What about trains?”
“No trains. You gotta zig where They think you’ll zag. Plus, trains mean tracks. Too easy to find and you can’t bail if you need to.”
To my immense, almost tearful gratitude, we found a cafe to have breakfast in first—or whatever meal we were supposed to be eating after skipping so many. The tables were small and round and perfect as backgammon pieces, real marble or a white stone that looked a lot like it, the plastic chairs a little incongruous next to them. She ordered in French and paged through her notes while we waited, my forearms resting on the smooth edge of the cold stone.
“What did you order?”
“Dunno. I said ‘the usual.’ Too bad, because I really wanted real couscous here—not the box kind you get back home. But that’s not really breakfast food. I just want something hot from the big pot in the back.”
“How do you know there’s a big pot in the back?”
“There’s always a big pot in the back.”
Eventually a tray of sticky-looking glasses and a tall silver teapot appeared, as well as one plate of what looked like samosas and another of flat bread with hummus, and two big bowls of bean and tomato soup sparkling with olive oil. The server poured our tea with an extravagant flourish, not spilling a single drop.
“Eat,” she said. “For the next ten, fifteen minutes, all we worry about is our blood sugar. Do you have to pee?”