I saw the conflict in Viyaja’s face, but it was short lived. He smiled and said, “You will get your fair trial, but it will be after the ship departs.”
Then, addressing the Gurkha he said, “Escort Mr. Atherton and his friends to Lohifushi. Stay with him… as his guest.” His smile widened and he continued. “And be sure to inform the MDF patrols that Mr. Atherton is not to step foot on Male until after the last shuttle for the Mars ship leaves. Do you understand?”
The Gurkha nodded. Viyaja turned to leave but stopped, looked back at the Gurkha and said, “Feed your Khukuri.”
The Gurkha raised his sword, the morning sun reflected off of it and blinded me. I tensed in for the blow. But I wasn’t on the sword’s menu. The Gurkha held out his other hand and sliced the palm wide open. Blood oozed from the wound onto the sand, forming small red craters.
The MDF patrol boat followed us back. I couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t like we could go anywhere, not with the goddammed Gurkha onboard. Mohamed, Kamish, and I didn’t say a word on the way back. The Gurkha just stared at us. I avoided looking at him by staring out at the ocean, and soon my thoughts drifted to Shannon.
I wondered if she were alive or dead. The pain of not knowing brought back memories of the days after the storm when I had wondered the same thing about Kelly and the girls. Part of me hoped that she had died, because the thought of what those bastards would do to her if they took her was almost too much to bear.
Just before twelve o’clock, we reached Lohifushi. As we entered the harbor, I turned in my seat and faced the Gurkha. His eyes were glued to me.
“So… what do I call you?”
Nothing. Just the stare.
“Come on. Viyaja said that you are my guest. What kind of host would I be if I didn’t know the name of my guests?”
“Captain Pun Narbahadur, Maldivian Defense Force,” he said.
“Alright if I call you Pun?"
No response. Just the stare.
“Pun it is,” I said. “So look, my place is a bit crowded. I’m sharing my hut with a kid. His name is William. So the first of the guest rules that we should talk about is that you don’t look at, talk to, or in any way upset him. His father died a few weeks back and a few days ago his mother passed away. So leave him out of this. Got it?”
Silence. But this time I saw an almost imperceptible nod. It could have been from the rocking of the boat, but I decided to take it as an agreement to the rule.
“Good. The second rule is that you have to figure out where you will stay. There are plenty of open huts. I’ll have Helen help you find one if you’d like.”
And we’re back to staring. Great.
We pulled up along the pier and for once, William wasn’t there to meet me. I felt relief. I didn’t want to explain what was going on, not out here.
As I stepped off the boat, I felt a few raindrops on my arm. I looked up; the partly cloudy skies that had covered us during most of the trip back had turned into black rainclouds.
By the time I reached my hut, the rain was coming down in sheets. Dripping wet, I pushed open the door and turned to face Pun.
“Sorry. As you can see, the inn is full. Give me a few minutes and I’ll send Helen a message so we can find you some place to dry off.
Water cascaded down his granite face. He looked at me and didn’t say a word.
I shrugged and closed the door.
Dropping my bag to the floor, I shook the water from my hair and clothes. If only I could shake off the feeling of doom about tonight’s raid this easily.
“Hey, quit it!” William said. “You’re getting water all over my screen.”
I looked over to find William in his familiar position, cross-legged on the bed and huddled over his data mat.
“So what? They’re waterproof.”
“It makes the screen look all weird.” He wiped his data mat against his t-shirt, examined it, and repeated the process until it seemed to meet his approval. “Who’s that?” he asked.
“He’s going to be with us for a few days.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story. But in a nutshell, somebody thinks that I blew up a helojumper.”
William looked up, eyes wide. “Did you?”
“Come on,” I said. “You know me well enough to know I wouldn’t do something like that. I don’t know what happened to that helojumper.”
He seemed to relax a little.
“But until I can clear it up, our friend out there will hanging around.”
“That’s creepy.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
I peeled off my wet clothes and dropped them onto the floor. Then I rummaged through the small dresser for something dry to wear. When I finished changing, I sent Helen a message asking her about which hut she would recommend for our guest. She sent back two recommendations that were nearby.
I opened the door and faced the back of a very wet Gurkha. He turned and looked at me.
“There are two huts nearby. One is just three huts down. I can take you there now if you want.”
“I will remain here,” he said.
“I can tell this rain isn’t going to let up for a while. Are you sure? I promise I won’t go anywhere without letting you know first.”
He just stared at me and then did an about face. I shrugged and closed the door. Looking at William, I said, “He must like the view from the front deck.”
William shrugged without looking up from his data mat.
I walked over and leaned over his shoulder to see what he was working on.
“Is that what it looks like?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think it looks like?”
“Like a decryption algorithm. More specifically, like the decryption algorithm that I told you about yesterday before I left. How the hell did you figure out how to code one?” I snatched the data mat from his hands.
“It’s not as hard as you made it sound.” He grabbed the data mat back. “It reminded me of an app that I saw my dad use once. I found it on his data mat. Then I started playing around with it and well…”
Shit, I forgot about that tool. When we were still in the early stages of designing the network, Rick had built a quick-n-dirty utility to decrypt test messages so we could see if they showed up on the distant end properly.
“But that tool only works if you have both sets of encryption keys,” I said.
He looked up at me as if I was an idiot, and to be honest, I was beginning to feel like one.
“What I meant was,” I said, “how did you figure out how to write a quantum decryption algorithm?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “See?” He pointed to a section in the code. “I stubbed out a place for it. You said you knew quantum programming. Besides, I had to leave something for you to do.” He smiled.
“Very funny.” I said, “And don’t be putting words into my mouth. I didn’t say that I knew quantum programming. I said that I took a class once. If you keep up with the wise cracks I’ll let you figure that part out too.”
We ended up working on the code together while the storm raged outside. Struggling to remember quantum coding actually helped keep my mind off Shannon and the raid tonight. Twice, I got up to check on our guest. He hadn’t moved an inch.
By dinnertime, we had completed the first version of the decryption algorithm. Now the only problem was testing it. But to test it, we first had to establish a connection with the Chinese computer through the satellite. There was no way we’d be able to connect now, not with these storm clouds. We decided to take a break and headed over to the dining hut. Pun followed. I couldn’t wait to introduce him to Helen.