A Vision of Fire

Ben made a noncommittal sound and paused the video. He sat back, thinking. “There’s a clipped similarity to Japanese in it,” he mused.

“I thought that too.”

“Right there,” he said, and rewound the segment again. “You hear that?”

Maanik was saying, “Thyodularasi.”

“Yes…?” Caitlin said.

“That’s a distinctly Asiatic ‘r,’ ” Ben told her.

“It’s prevalent throughout,” Caitlin said. “That’s what makes the whole thing sound like Japanese, right?”

“That’s part of it, along with the alveolar stops on the ‘d’s and ‘t’s. But at the beginning of that word, that’s a very hard ‘th.’ Those sounds don’t coexist in any language.”

“Not anywhere?”

“Well, we don’t have every tribal language on the planet down, but as a rule that ‘r’ and that ‘th’ don’t evolve in the same tongue.”

The video flicked off and the screen reverted to just Ben, who was rubbing his eyes.

“Pretty amazing, right?” she said.

“What the hell is going on with that girl?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out, if the Pawars will let me.”

“Hold on, Caitlin. All you have to worry about is getting them through this period of the negotiations.”

“What?” She felt as though she’d been head-butted.

“That’s why I brought you in,” he reminded her. “There are teams of people who can help once the ambassador doesn’t have to worry about the media.”

“I understand that, but I’m not — I mean, I don’t just want to be some stopgap.”

“Cai, I didn’t mean that — I meant that this isn’t in my control. I suspect they’ll take her back to India as soon as we’re clear of all the political barbed wire.”

“And what about Maanik? Ben, something is happening to that girl. I’m not just going to spackle her.”

“I wasn’t implying that,” he said defensively. “Look, we’re both tired and I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’ll back your play, whatever it is. I just know how you get when you’re invested in a case, so keep a distance, okay?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

He smiled. “A small distance. For your own mental well-being.”

“A small distance,” she agreed, and forced herself to smile back.

“And now I’m going to put myself to bed,” he said. “We’ll see what my subconscious has to say about all this.”

“Is that all you’ve got?” she teased.

“I’m not a university go-getter anymore,” he said. “Those days ain’t comin’ back.”

Caitlin hid her disappointment. She’d shared the video with him so they could discuss that last part of the hypnosis, the wall moment. But the man needed rest before going back to the peace table.

“Good night,” she said.

“Good night, Cai,” he said, and raised a hand with effort as he signed off.

She raised a hand at the dark screen.

After answering a few e-mails and reading a few headlines in the professional newsletters, she went to say good night to Jacob. He was buzzing with energy and Caitlin had to sign “good night” to him so many times, curving her right hand over her left hand to say, “Night, night, night!” that she felt like a robot — so she walked stiff-legged, arms outstretched like the Frankenstein monster, toward the door. Many giggles later, Jacob finally drifted into silence.

Amazingly, Caitlin too managed to fall asleep at a decent time. But just a few hours later, she woke in a panic, feeling like she was clawing upward through blankets. The sign for “night” was stuck on a loop in her head like a song refrain, along with an old memory of Jacob trying to coach her signing.

“Mommy, it’s in your elbows, fix your elbows!”

Damn it, Caitlin thought as three o’clock became four o’clock. Why were elbows stuck in her brain? It had to be Maanik.

She got out of bed and turned on her tablet, booted the video of Maanik. She watched it from the moment the girl began speaking gibberish. Caitlin’s spine straightened and her brain woke up. There was a definite change to how the girl’s elbows were moving. After several viewings she was certain that they were inscribing specific arcs at specific times. Maanik was repeating some of the gestures, which suggested they had meaning — and might indicate that the gibberish had meaning too.

Caitlin took a deep breath, trying not to get overly excited. But she felt that she had just made a major breakthrough in this case. And if that were true, it might be possible to guide Maanik out of the morass sooner than she’d thought.

CHAPTER 10

Montevideo, Uruguay

Heading from Port Stanley toward its first refueling stop in Montevideo, Uruguay, the Learjet Bombardier cut gracefully through the dawn sky like a white arrow.