"We didn't, not at first. But even a community like Dvali's is porous. People arrive, people leave. He was hidden from us when it was critical for him to hide, before the child was born."

* * * * *

It meant another half hour in the air. After yet more simmering silence Turk said, "I'm sorry about that phone thing back in the city. What were you doing, trying to get a message to your mom back in the States, something like that?"

"Something like that." She was pleased that he had apologized and she didn't want to make it worse by admitting she'd called Brian Gately even in an attempt to get Tomas Ginn out of custody. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Go ahead."

"How come you had to steal your own plane?"

"I owed some money to the guy who owns the airstrip. The business hasn't been going too well."

"You could have told me that."

"Didn't seem like a good way to impress a rich American divorcee."

"Hardly rich, Turk."

"Looked that way from where I stood."

"So how were you planning to get out of hock?"

"Didn't have what you could call an actual plan. Worst case, I figured I'd sell the plane and bank whatever I didn't owe and find a berth on one of those research ships that sail out past the Second Arch."

"There's nothing past the Second Arch but rocks and bad air."

"Thought I'd like to see for myself. That, or—"

"Or what?"

"Or if something worked out between you and me, I thought I'd stay in the Port and get a job. There's always pipeline work."

She was briefly startled. Also pleased.

"Not that it matters now," he added. "Once we're done here—and whether you find out anything about your father or not—you're going to have to head back to the States. You'll be okay there. You come from a respectable family and you're well-connected enough that they won't arrest and interrogate you."

"What about you?"

"I can disappear on my own terms."

"You could, you know, come back with me. Come back to the States."

"Wouldn't be safe, Lise. The trouble we're in right now isn't the first trouble I've had. There are good reasons why I can't go back."

Tell me, she thought. Don't make me ask. Do you know he's a criminal? That's why he fled the States

. So tell me. She said, "Legal problems?"

"You don't want to know."

"Yeah, I do."

He was flying low across the desert, the moonlit foothills hanging off his right wing. He said, "I burned down a building. My father's warehouse."

"You told me your father was in the oil business."

"He was, at one time. But he didn't like being overseas. When we left Turkey he went into my uncle's import business. They brought in nickel-and-dime shit from Middle Eastern factories, rugs and souvenirs and things like that."

"Why'd you burn down the warehouse?"