The Oracle Year(62)

Will frowned.

“This isn’t like that. We aren’t trying to stop a prediction. We’re trying to handle a ripple.”

“You think that makes a difference?”

Will shrugged.

“Better idea?”

“Okay,” Hamza said. “Go ahead. But I’ll stay back here. I’ve got your back if you need it, but I sure as hell hope you don’t.”

“Thanks, pal,” Will said, as he looked over the bar. “You know, this would have been easier if we’d brought Miko along. She could probably get these guys to tell her their Social Security numbers.”

Hamza raised an eyebrow.

“Or the British equivalent,” Will added.

“Maybe so,” Hamza said. “But I have a policy of not sending my wife off to flirt with drunken sailors. Actually, what makes you think they’ll talk to you at all? Last time I checked, you’re a dude.”

“I have a plan, sort of,” Will said. “A good opening line, anyway.”

Hamza watched as Will stepped toward a table with an empty seat whose occupants were talking quietly—relative to the rest of the room, anyway—enjoying their drinks without getting too crazy about it.

“Hey, fellas,” Will said. The table fell silent. “Buy you gents a round?”

The sailors stared at Will. One finally spoke.

“Being honest, mate, you aren’t exactly our type. Well, most of us, anyway,” he continued, clapping one of his colleagues on his shoulder. “Maybe Freddy here’d give you a second look.”

Freddy took a long, slow sip from his beer and looked Will up and down.

“Nah,” he said. “I prefer redheads.”

A chorus of good fellowship erupted from the table. From his corner, Hamza watched with some relief as Will sat down and summoned a waitress.

Hamza glanced around, looking for a men’s room. Spying a sign at the back of the bar, he made his way through the crowd and waited in line for a urinal that, when he arrived at it, looked exactly as he expected it would after being well used by a succession of sailors.

Hamza finished and ran his hands under the tap. The only nod to hand-drying was a cloth ring towel running through a metal box that supposedly sanitized it. He wouldn’t trust something like that under the best of circumstances, and sure as hell not in MacAvoy’s when the Aberdeen was in town.

Wiping his hands on his pants, Hamza had a hand on the door back to the bar when he heard shouting—angry voices rising above the rest of the cacophony. He slowly pushed the door open, fairly certain he knew what he was about to see.

Pushing through the packed ranks outside the men’s room, Hamza came upon a little circle of cleared space around the table Will had chosen. Everyone at that table, including Will, was on his feet. One of the sailors had the front of Will’s shirt gathered in one hand and an empty bottle gripped by the neck in the other.

“What the fuck you playin’ at?” the sailor shouted, his face red, spittle visibly striking Will’s face.

“Nothing, man, listen,” Will began.

“I ain’t your fuckin’ man, you fuckin’ Yank. What in the good goddamn makes you think it’s any of your bloody business asking about my ship’s mission?”

“I was just curious,” Will said.

“Just curious, he says,” the sailor said. “You know what that did to the fuckin’ cat, don’t you?”

Phenomenal, Hamza thought.

He shoved through the front ranks and stepped up to the sailor holding Will.

“Hey now,” Hamza said. “No need for that. Let’s all just settle down. Let me buy a few more rounds. Hell, let me get one for the bar.”

Sporadic cheers went up at that, but the sailor holding Will wasn’t having it. He rotated his head slowly, staring at Hamza with bulging eyes.

“So here’s this poof’s little Paki friend, then,” he said, addressing the other sailors at his table.

Hamza felt his entire body go cold.

“What did you just call me?”

“I called you a Paki. Why don’t you sod off and get me a kebab, boy? I’ve got some business here with your friend.”

Hamza took a step back.

“Listen, you racist son of a bitch. You let my friend go, right now, or I’ll rip your goddamn balls off, and then I’ll put you through that wall right there.”

“Ooooh,” the sailor said. “I’m supposed to believe some little ten-stone nothing’s going to keep me from doing whatever I bloody well feel like doing?”

Hamza clenched his jaw.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. I’m going to do it anyway. You’ve got three seconds. One.”

The sailor grinned at Hamza, revealing teeth that were fairly white and straight, defying expectations.

“Two,” Hamza said.

The sailor smashed his bottle on the table, leaving a jagged, ugly-looking stub clenched in his fist.

“Three,” the sailor finished, his grin widening.





Chapter 24




Someone else get on, Leigh Shore thought. Please.

Four floors intervened between the cubicle farm housing the writers, art teams, and assorted other low-level employees and the floor containing the executive offices. Four chances for the elevator to pause, the doors to open, someone to get on, and the doors to close again. Five or six seconds each time. Even one stop would be something. But no. The elevator rose smoothly, bringing her closer to unemployment with each passing moment.