it’s clear we’ll have to do a complete overhaul on the machine before we dare fly it out to you.”
The dry monsoon, which had ceased to be dry, spattered rain against her hotel window. Dagmar let the space of three seconds go by in order to demonstrate to Zan her displeasure.
“How long will the overhaul take?” she asked.
“Depends on whether new parts are required. And of course, what parts.”
Dagmar let more time pass.
“Why don’t you hire one of the helicopters that took the Indians or the Japanese out?”
“They were military aircraft, darling. They don’t rent them.”
“Zelazni Associates has an air division,” she said. “I saw it on your Web page. Can’t you fly me out in one of your own aircraft?”
“We don’t have helicopters, darling. We fly helicopters, we maintain helicopters, but we don’t own them. What we have are fixed-wing transport aircraft to help move our people and their equipment.”
“Can’t you put a helicopter on one of your transport planes and fly it out here?”
Now it was Zan’s turn to be silent.
“Our planes aren’t big enough,” he said.
“Maybe you could find a bigger one.”
“I’ll look at what’s possible,” Zan said after another pause. Meaning, Dagmar supposed, what Charlie was willing to pay for.
“I should let you know,” she said, “that another group is trying to help me leave Indonesia. They’ve actually made some progress.”
“Another group?” Zan’s query was cautious.
“I’ll email you the Web page.”
Maybe, she thought, he’d enjoy the fanfic after all.
FROM: Hanseatic
This game is amazing. How did Great Big Idea get the Indonesian
government to cooperate with all this?
FROM: LadyDayFan
TINAG.
FROM: Hanseatic
Yah, right. My guess is the setup is something like this: we get 200
points for getting Dagmar out of Jakarta to someplace safer, 500
points if we get her out of Indonesia entirely, and 1,000 points for
Total World Domination.
FROM: LadyDayFan
You’re joking, right?
FROM: Hippolyte
Hanseatic, this really isn’t a game.
FROM: Hanseatic
Maybe yes, maybe no. But what difference does it make?
“Are these people serious? ” Tomer Zan asked.
“Some of them.”
“Who are they, exactly?”
“The ones I know, I don’t know well,” Dagmar said. “The rest are just handles they use online.”
“Are they Indonesia specialists?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How well do you trust them?”
More than I trust you, Dagmar thought.
“I don’t think they would deliberately mislead me,” she said.
“I’m going to fly to Singapore myself, to take charge of this,” Zan said. “If you don’t hear from me for the next day or two, that’s why.”
Competition, Dagmar thought, seemed to have heightened Zan’s sense of urgency.
That night, Star TV reported that the American ambassador and his family had been evacuated from Jakarta by some kind of U.S. Special Forces unit. The report made the ambassador seem brilliant and courageous, a combination of Rambo and Jack Kennedy.
In the face of this bold, blazing adventure, the fact that the ambassador had abandoned his post, all his subordinates, and every U.S. citizen in Jakarta seemed hardly worth mentioning.
FROM: Joe Clever
I had to walk him through it, but we’ve succeeded in setting Widjihartani
up with his own PayPal account. He can transfer money
from there into his bank account in unlimited amounts, but the
bottleneck is the bank, which will only allow him to withdraw a certain
mount.
I’m checking into whether the bank will allow him to borrow money
against the money already in his account. That way he can get a lot
of cash at once.
Dagmar had just finished her nightly swim when she heard the roar of vehicles. She threw her towel around her shoulders and walked to the edge of the terrace, then looked down through the screen of trees to the street below.
A convoy of half a dozen cars had just driven up
The dry monsoon, which had ceased to be dry, spattered rain against her hotel window. Dagmar let the space of three seconds go by in order to demonstrate to Zan her displeasure.
“How long will the overhaul take?” she asked.
“Depends on whether new parts are required. And of course, what parts.”
Dagmar let more time pass.
“Why don’t you hire one of the helicopters that took the Indians or the Japanese out?”
“They were military aircraft, darling. They don’t rent them.”
“Zelazni Associates has an air division,” she said. “I saw it on your Web page. Can’t you fly me out in one of your own aircraft?”
“We don’t have helicopters, darling. We fly helicopters, we maintain helicopters, but we don’t own them. What we have are fixed-wing transport aircraft to help move our people and their equipment.”
“Can’t you put a helicopter on one of your transport planes and fly it out here?”
Now it was Zan’s turn to be silent.
“Our planes aren’t big enough,” he said.
“Maybe you could find a bigger one.”
“I’ll look at what’s possible,” Zan said after another pause. Meaning, Dagmar supposed, what Charlie was willing to pay for.
“I should let you know,” she said, “that another group is trying to help me leave Indonesia. They’ve actually made some progress.”
“Another group?” Zan’s query was cautious.
“I’ll email you the Web page.”
Maybe, she thought, he’d enjoy the fanfic after all.
FROM: Hanseatic
This game is amazing. How did Great Big Idea get the Indonesian
government to cooperate with all this?
FROM: LadyDayFan
TINAG.
FROM: Hanseatic
Yah, right. My guess is the setup is something like this: we get 200
points for getting Dagmar out of Jakarta to someplace safer, 500
points if we get her out of Indonesia entirely, and 1,000 points for
Total World Domination.
FROM: LadyDayFan
You’re joking, right?
FROM: Hippolyte
Hanseatic, this really isn’t a game.
FROM: Hanseatic
Maybe yes, maybe no. But what difference does it make?
“Are these people serious? ” Tomer Zan asked.
“Some of them.”
“Who are they, exactly?”
“The ones I know, I don’t know well,” Dagmar said. “The rest are just handles they use online.”
“Are they Indonesia specialists?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How well do you trust them?”
More than I trust you, Dagmar thought.
“I don’t think they would deliberately mislead me,” she said.
“I’m going to fly to Singapore myself, to take charge of this,” Zan said. “If you don’t hear from me for the next day or two, that’s why.”
Competition, Dagmar thought, seemed to have heightened Zan’s sense of urgency.
That night, Star TV reported that the American ambassador and his family had been evacuated from Jakarta by some kind of U.S. Special Forces unit. The report made the ambassador seem brilliant and courageous, a combination of Rambo and Jack Kennedy.
In the face of this bold, blazing adventure, the fact that the ambassador had abandoned his post, all his subordinates, and every U.S. citizen in Jakarta seemed hardly worth mentioning.
FROM: Joe Clever
I had to walk him through it, but we’ve succeeded in setting Widjihartani
up with his own PayPal account. He can transfer money
from there into his bank account in unlimited amounts, but the
bottleneck is the bank, which will only allow him to withdraw a certain
mount.
I’m checking into whether the bank will allow him to borrow money
against the money already in his account. That way he can get a lot
of cash at once.
Dagmar had just finished her nightly swim when she heard the roar of vehicles. She threw her towel around her shoulders and walked to the edge of the terrace, then looked down through the screen of trees to the street below.
A convoy of half a dozen cars had just driven up
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