They landed in a dusty airstrip that was more a patch of dirt than an international hub, and Sean stretched himself out while McBride filled the plane with stinking fuel. The ground rippled with midday heat, and even the sweat patches growing around Sean’s armpits felt warm against his skin. He wished he’d brought his sunglasses — no duty free to buy them from here. There wasn’t even a toilet to piss in.
‘Probably a hundred degrees today,’ McBride said. ‘And as clear as you like.’
He wasn’t wrong: the sky was spotless. A good omen for the journey ahead, after which he would meet Ruth Shaw and all his questions would be answered. Or she would be dead. He didn’t want to think about that.
Plane ready, they took off and skipped along the Atlantic at a good pace, but with nothing to look at but rolling blue ocean, the trip was long and tiring. Before, Sean had enjoyed the solitude afforded to him by the noise, but he resented it now, forcing himself not to look down at the dashboard clock every few minutes. Or seconds. His joints were beginning to set with ache and his muscles with cramp, and he wished the hours away with desperate prayers. Six hours in, his body begged him for sleep, but it wouldn’t come. He felt sick, not from the motion of flying, but from the torturous position he was pinned in. Somehow, McBride seemed to soak it all up in his stride, and so Sean tried to follow his lead and keep a brave face. Day faded to evening, and then to night, and they continued to buzz along in the pitch black, with not a single light on save for the ones illuminating the instruments. Sean was impressed by McBride’s piloting abilities, and that was the last thing he remembered before falling, at last, into a fitful state between waking and sleep.
When he awoke, it was still dark, except for a flash of the deepest purple behind them. The sleep wasn’t the best — a long way from it — but he didn’t feel as bad as he had done. He could just make out McBride from the instrument lights: he looked tired, but focussed. McBride saw he was awake, tapped his watch and held up two fingers: two hours left. It was a blessing. Sean worked out how many blocks of ten-minute segments that was, his tired mind finding it much harder than it should have done, and he chalked them off in his head one by one. By the time the coastline appeared, it twinkled like a string of jewels through the darkness of the early morning.
McBride put the plane down in a place he later told Sean was Walterboro. He refuelled, ready for the last hop to Tonopah, which was about two hundred miles from Carson City where Sean would find the Indian Hills Home for the Aged.
‘I’m gonna catch a few winks before we go,’ McBride said.
Sean thought he wasn’t tired, but once they’d pitched a tent and climbed in, he fell right to sleep. It seemed like just a blink from his eyes falling shut to him being prodded awake again by McBride’s boot.
‘Time to get going,’ McBride told him.
The smell of fried meat drew Sean from the tent, while the heat chased him out of it, and, bleary eyed, he accepted a plate with two of the fattest sausages he’d ever seen.
‘Get those in you,’ Thomas said. ‘That’ll give you the energy to see the day through.’
Back in the air, the plane jostled the sausages about in Sean’s stomach, but he managed to hold them down. He imagined it was the sheer size and weight of the things that was stopping them making a bid for freedom, and he wished Indian Hills closer every second of the flight. It was the shortest stint of the three, but after a few hours of freedom he really had to force himself to climb back on board, where the old aches and cramps came flooding back. Although the flight was over land, the view was as uninspiring as the Atlantic. Sand in every direction, dotted with the occasional lake or town, bored Sean senseless, but every one drew him another mile or so closer to Ruth.
Thomas landed the plane at early dusk. The agreement was for Sean to call McBride when he was done, and he would meet him back here in Tonopah. McBride didn’t like to hang around, and was buzzing along the strip before Sean had even reached the main road.
There was a town a few miles’ walk away, where Sean caught a bus that took him along route ninety-five into Fallon. From there, he would catch another bus into Carson City along route fifty. Sean had never much liked the bus — they always made him travel sick — but he was so exhausted that he slept right through, waking just in time to make the change. The second bus wound through dusty desert marked by the occasional small town, and by midnight, Carson City appeared on the horizon as a nest of star-like pinpricks shimmering in the haze. He checked into a motel, where the cotton sheets and air conditioning were like a sedative, knocking him out cold. When morning came, he slept through it, and woke as afternoon was knocking on the door.
‘Damn it!’ he cursed aloud as he saw the time.
After a quick, cold shower, he found a phone in the hotel lobby. He scanned the business cards thumbtacked to the noticeboard next to it and called one of the taxicab firms.
‘I need a taxi from the Best Value Inn to the Indian Hills Home for the Aged, please.’
‘Right away, sir.’
The taxi pulled up outside not long after. The driver was pleasant enough, and Sean spent the half-hour journey listening to him talk about how his daughter was going to play cello with the state orchestra. He feigned happiness for the driver, whose name he had already forgotten, while trying to ignore the building tremor in his stomach as they approached Indian Hills. Before he knew it, the taxi stopped. Cash and pleasantries exchanged, Sean got out. It had taken him several days, and he had travelled halfway around the world, but he had made it. He was at the Indian Hills Home for the Aged, which was, fingers crossed, the residence of Ruth Shaw.
Section 4 — Vessel
Chapter 22
‘Who are you?’ Sally said, her throat so tight it strangled her voice.
The naked man unfurled, his stringy muscles tensing under his pale skin. Sally drifted over to him, cautious at first, then stopped, realisation hitting her so hard she clapped a hand over her mouth.
‘You’re — you’re Mikhail Romanenko…’ she said through her fingers. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible.
Mikhail looked at her, his eyes wide against his gaunt face. ‘Where am I?’ he whispered.
Sally helped him into the service module, where she found him some clothes and gave him some food. He ate fast, as though he hadn’t eaten in days, and she had to slow him down for fear he would choke. She waited until he finished before she asked him any more questions, her curiosity and concern for him overwhelming any lingering traces of trepidation. He seemed harmless enough, at least for now. The tremor in his hands worried her at first, but it seemed to pass after he’d eaten. Colour also returned to his cheeks and he no longer seemed quite so fragile.
‘How did you get here?’ she asked him, watching his every move with fascination.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking around.
‘Do you remember anything before being here?’
‘No.’ He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to dig up an old memory. ‘No, wait, I do. I remember a feeling of — I don’t really know how to describe it. Warmth, I suppose. Safety. Like I was being protected. Then I was here.’