him a murderous look, Soraya brushed past him, striding through the bustling lobby and out onto the street. Puerto Penasco looked as strange as a dream, as unfamiliar as if it were located in a Bhutanese valley. She looked at the people passing by as slowly as sleepwalkers. She saw their Aztec or Mixtec or Olmec features and thought of beating hearts carved from the chests of living sacrifices. She felt as if she were covered in congealed blood. She wanted to run, but felt paralyzed, rooted to the spot as if by the hands of all the sacrificial dead buried beneath the ground.
Then she felt Arkadin close beside her and shuddered as if waking from one nightmare into another. She wondered how she could stand to be near him, to talk to him after what he'd done to Moira. If he had exhibited even an iota of remorse, she might have felt differently. But all he had said was, "She's the enemy." Which meant, of course, that she herself was also the enemy, that the same thing, or worse, could happen to her.
Without a word being exchanged between them, he herded her back to his car, and soon enough they set off back to the convent.
"What do you want from me now?" she asked him in a dull voice.
"The same thing you want from me," he said. "Destruction."
* * *
The moment they entered the convent, Arkadin began to pack. "While you were going through your hand-wringing, I made reservations for us."
"For us?"
"Yes," he said without missing a beat. "You and I are going to Tineghir."
"If I go anywhere with you I'll be sick to my stomach."
He paused and turned to face her. "I think you'll be useful to me when I get to Morocco, so I don't want to kill you. But I will if you give me no other choice." He went back to his methodical packing. "Unlike you, I know when to cut my losses."
It was at that moment that Soraya caught sight of the laptop, which, for her, had taken on a mythical significance. He was right, in his own way, she thought. As right as Moira had been. It was time to get past her personal abhorrence at his actions. It was time to return to acting like a professional. Time to cut her losses.
"I've always wanted to see the High Atlas Mountains," she said.
"You see?" He tucked away the laptop. "That wasn't so difficult, was it?"
Jalal Essai, sitting in an anonymous car he had boosted early this morning, watched Willard emerge from the Monition Club. As Essai observed, he did not move as if he had been defeated by the receptionist, or had waited in vain to be seen by a member of the club. Rather, he descended the stairs as Fred Astaire might, lightly and trippingly, as if to music playing in his head. This jaunty attitude disturbed Essai. It also raised the hackles on the back of his neck, which was far worse.
Essai, whose life was in constant jeopardy ever since his home had been invaded by Severus Domna, knew from being on the other side that a passive response, such as flight, would only result in his eventual death. The organization would come after him again and again, until someway, somehow, somewhere it succeeded in terminating his life. Under these extreme circumstances, there was only one way to stay alive.
Willard turned a corner and stopped, looking to flag down a taxi. Essai pulled over to the curb and rolled down the passenger's-side window.
"Need a lift?" he said.
Willard, startled, drew back as if affronted. "No, thank you," he said, and returned to scanning the traffic for an empty cab.
"Mr. Willard, please get into the car."
When Willard looked back, he saw the man holding a wicked-looking EAA 10mm Hunter Witness pistol, aimed at his face.
"Come, come," Essai said, "let's not make a scene."
Willard opened the door and slid into the passenger's seat without a word.
"How, may I ask, are you going to drive this vehicle and at the same time keep me under control?"
In answer, Essai slammed the barrel of the Hunter Witness against the side of Willard's head just above his left ear. Willard sighed as his eyes rolled up. Essai leaned the unconscious body against the window and returned the pistol to its shoulder holster. Then he put the car in gear, waited for a gap, and slid out into traffic.
He drove south through the district. At some invisible demarcation, the