The pair exchanged perplexed looks. “There are many boats out on the lake bed,” Kamsin replied. “I know none called Eerie.”

“Karl never mentioned it to me either,” Mina added. “Is this what Karl died for?”

“I don’t know, and it is perhaps best if you forget I asked.”

They nodded knowingly.

“Why don’t I take you to meet Yusuf?” Kamsin offered. “I am sorry, but he speaks only Uzbek. I would be more than happy to translate for you.”

“You are most kind,” Juan said, getting to his feet. He pulled two more Hershey bars from his satchel and handed them to Mina Petrovski. “For your daughters. For later.”

Wherever his investigation took him was a place she could not visit. Karl was dead. Knowing why would not bring him back. Ideology was for the others, her look said to him. I must be pragmatic.

As soon as they were outside, Arkin grabbed Cabrillo’s arm and stared into his eyes. “Will there be justice?”

Juan glanced back at the house, an already-empty shell, only its occupants hadn’t moved on. “For Mina?” he threw the question back at the academician.

“For any of us?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here?”

Juan took a second, which surprised him. “Because a friend died in my arms and I thought that I could at least give him justice. Is that enough?”

“For us? Here? I guess it has to be.”

The two remained mostly silent on the drive to find Yusuf, the only words exchanged were directions as Cabrillo steered through the empty city. The buildings seemed little more than façades and lifeless husks.

Yusuf lived down by the harbor in the rusted carapace that had once been a fishing boat. Arkin didn’t think the old man had owned this particular one, but he’d moved into the hulk nevertheless. The boat, like all the others in the harbor, sat on the ground, sand piled up to the gunwales in some places. Juan scanned a couple of the nearby craft and guessed the old fisherman had chosen this particular one because it sat a little more level than the others, many of which were canted over onto their sides.

Cabrillo stopped in the dust next to the boat. The two men stepped out.