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“I figured you ht know that better than me,” she said “I’m a prisoner, remember?”

“And I’m a stoay We make a fine pair”

Kurt moved to one of the tiny circular s in the side of the plane It was still dark outside, but as he looked down below he could see a sht shimmer

“We’re out over water,” he said “The moon’s come up”

He glanced toward his wrist to check his watch Never again would he trade his watch in as collateral A kidney maybe, the deed to his boathouse perhaps, but not his watch At least not without grabbing another one along the way

“You don’t happen to have the time do you?”

She shook her head

He and Joe had ht p the trucks and then the aircraft had taken a total of three hours The plane had sat on the ground for another couple of hours after that, which put takeoff sometime around one am

He went to the starboardto see if he could see anything out that side The vieas the sa but water

It was slightly possible that they were over the Mediterranean, a couple of hours’ flying ti else that had been going on Kurt guessed they were headed south, out over the Indian Ocean, with a cargo of microbots in the tanks beneath his feet Two and a half hours from Yemen in a jet aircraft would put them all but smack-dab in the middle of it

He wondered where they were headed He wondered if Jinn had a secret base hidden on a deserted island soain, he strained to see forward as far as he could but saw only more waves

Leilani watched hio back and forth “What do we do next?” she asked “Look for parachutes? I heard the about some”

Kurt had already spotted the chutes she was referring to “They’re not for people,” he said “They’re attached to the boats so they can fly low and du to land They call it LAPES, Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System”

She looked confused

“You ever see a drag race?”