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I don’t say anything while Agent Jones drives. I play a game on my phone and look out the window from time to time, checking on our progress. At some point I realize we’re not taking the right roads to get to Yulikova’s office, but I still don’t speak. What I do is start planning.
A couple more minutes and I am going to tell him I need a rest stop. Then I’m going to lose him. If I can scope out an old enough car nearby, I can hot-wire it, but it would be better if I could con a ride. I go over various stories in my head and settle on looking for a middle-aged couple—a husband who’s big enough not to be intimidated by my height or my skin, and a wife to argue on my behalf, ideally a couple who might have kids about my age. I’m planning on giving them a story about a drunk friend who wouldn’t give me his keys and stranded me without a way home.
I’ll have to work fast.
As I am thinking it through, we pull into the parking lot of a hospital, three huge brick towers linked at the base, with an ambulance blinking its red lights in front of the emergency room entrance. I let out my breath. Escaping from a hospital is a piece of cake.
“We’re meeting Yulikova here?” I ask incredulously. Then I think better of it. “Is she all right?”
“As all right as she ever is,” he says.
I don’t know what that means, but I don’t want to admit it. Instead of responding, I try the handle, and when I can get it open, I jump out of the car. We walk together to one of the side doors. The hallway is antiseptic, typical. No one questions us.
Jones seems to know where we’re going. We pass a nurse’s station, and Jones nods to an elderly woman behind the desk. Then we walk down another long corridor. I glance inside an open doorway to see a man with a big grizzly beard and balloons around his wrists, so that he can’t bring his own hands to his face. He turns to me with a haunted look.
We stop at the next door—this one closed—and Agent Jones knocks once before heading inside.
It’s a regular hospital room but clearly both larger and better-furnished than some others we passed. There is a multicolored afghan thrown over the foot of the hospital bed and several jade plants along the window. There are also two comfortable- but generic-looking chairs sitting across from the bed.
Yulikova is in a batik-print robe and slippers. She’s got a plastic cup and is watering the plants when we come in. She’s not wearing makeup, and her hair looks not so much wild as uncombed, but she doesn’t otherwise look unwell.
“Hello, Cassel. Agent Jones.”
“Hi,” I say, lingering in the doorway like I might with a sick relative that I haven’t seen in a long while. “What’s going on?”
She looks at her surroundings and laughs. “Oh, this. Yes, it must seem a little bit dramatic.”
“Yeah—and Agent Jones hustled me over here like a house was on fire and I was the only bucket of water in town.” I sound only half as annoyed as I am, which is plenty. “I didn’t even get to shower. I’m hungover and probably stink like I’ve been using booze as aftershave—except that I also didn’t get to shave. What’s the deal?”
Jones glowers.
She laughs a little and shakes her head at him. “I’m sorry to hear that, Cassel. There’s a bathroom through there that you are welcome to use, if you’d like. The hospital has little packets of toiletries.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I might.”
“And Agent Jones can go down to the commissary and get us something to eat. The hospital doesn’t have much, but it’s not as terrible as hospital food used to be. They have decent burgers and snacks.” She walks over to the other side of her bed and opens one of the drawers in the side table, taking out a brown leather pocketbook. “Ed, why don’t you get a bunch of different sandwiches and cups of coffee. The egg salad isn’t bad. And a couple of bags of chips, some fruit, and something for dessert. Get some extra packets of mustard for Cassel. I know he likes them. We’ll sit down and have a nice lunch.”
“Very civilized,” I say.
Agent Jones ignores her looking for her wallet and goes to the door. “Fine. I’ll be right back.” He looks from me to her. “Don’t believe everything that little weasel tells you. I know him from before.”
When he walks out, she gives me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry if he was difficult. I needed to get an agent on this, and I wanted someone who’d worked with you before. The last thing we need is lots of people knowing you’re a transformation worker. Even here, I can’t count on total discretion.”
“You worried about a leak?”
“We want to be sure that when and if people find out about you, they receive that information directly from us. You know there’s a rumor that there’s a transformation worker in China? Many people in our government feel that that information was carefully planted.”
“If they have one at all, you mean?”
She nods, a smile pulling at one corner of her mouth. “Exactly. Now go freshen up.”
In the bathroom I manage to slick my hair back with water and take a safety razor to my stubble. Then I gargle with mouthwash. When I emerge, I do so in a cloud of mint.
Yulikova’s gotten a third chair from somewhere and is arranging them near the window. “Much better,” she says.
It’s something that a mother would say. Not my mother, but a mother.
“You need help with anything?” I ask her. It doesn’t seem like she should be moving furniture.
