Backspacing through the Google data field, he erased the earlier entry, and inserted what he really wanted to know about: “russian brides.” In an instant, he had a million hits. Clicking on a website called ukrainebrides.org, he trawled through the pictures and the pitch: Marina… Olga… The Russian woman is a feminine gal… Lydmila… It is in her expectation to be a lady. Tatyana… The Russian woman has no interest in women’s lib. She works for husband first! Career is second!

This thing with the brides was Bo’s idea. Their last year together in Allenwood, the two of them had sometimes lain awake, talking quietly about what it was going to be like After. For Bo, After would take care of itself, inshallah. Not so for Wilson, who wasn’t a Muslim. For Wilson, After was going to take a lot of work. And unlike Bobojon, he expected to survive it.

Wilson’s cellmate saw himself as a dead man, so his interest in Paradise was predictable. Listening to Bo talk about it, Wilson got the impression that “Paradise” was a lot like a spa, except that the spa was up in the clouds, where wine was served by transparent virgins who were desperate to go at it for the first time.

Still, it was Bo who told him about the Russian brides. But now, Wilson saw, it wasn’t just Russians. You could pick from different countries: Colombia, the Philippines, Thailand. You could have any kind of girl you wanted. Just click on the little box that read Add to Cart, and the woman’s e-mail address was yours. After that, it was up to you to woo her, meet her, marry her.

The page that Wilson was looking at contained a dozen photographs of attractive, if heavily made-up, women with long hair and coy smiles. There was a brief résumé next to each, listing their particulars.

Lydmila, for instance, tipped the scales at 57 kilos and 168 centimeters. She was twenty-four years old. Blond hair, blue eyes. A “technologist” by profession. “Warmhearted.” Enjoyed the occasional drink. Smoking? No. Hobbies? Yes! Sewing, knitting, and decorating cakes. “Is seeking respectable Western gentleman with kind heart.”

Well, Wilson thought, that lets me out.

Sitting back in his chair, Wilson remembered that he had an appointment with a social worker on Thursday, a person charged with “assisting” him in his adjustment to life on the outside. There would be job and housing leads, earnest advice, etc. For the smallest part of a moment, he toyed with the idea of going through with the meeting. If nothing else, it would be interesting to see if the Pentagon was paying attention. Did they know he’d been released? Would they restrict his employment? His travel? Maybe.

But only if they knew he was out. Only if they were paying attention.

In the end, it didn’t really matter. There was a war on, and not just the war in Iraq. As Wilson saw it, the real war had not started until that very morning. It began the second he walked out of Allenwood a free man.

But there was another way to look at it, too. In a sense, the war was as old as the Ghost Dance – older, even.

So there wasn’t any point in meeting with the government to talk about Jack Wilson’s future. He didn’t have one.

And neither did it.

He couldn’t sleep.

The thing was, he didn’t know what they’d ask him to do. All he knew was that a lot of people were going to get wet. Otherwise, what was the point? Still…

The night slowly drained toward dawn. At some point, he fell into a light, fitful sleep, the kind that leaves you tired. When he woke up, it seemed to Wilson that he’d just dozed off – and that it was now morning. But a glance at the clock told him it was noon.

He took a quick shower, called room service, and dressed quickly, putting on the clothes he’d bought the night before. Breakfast arrived on a trolley, looking like an African village on wheels, its chafing dishes gleaming like so many silvered huts. Bacon and eggs, toast and hash browns. Orange juice and coffee.

wait in room dont go out

He nibbled on a slice of raisin toast. It was all he could stomach. Except for the coffee. He drank a pot of it, slowly pacing from one end of the room to the other, saucer in one hand, cup in the other. Seeing the remote, he picked it up and, without thinking, touched the On button, then just as quickly snapped it off as a wave of applause hit him in the face.

Regis and Kelly. (Twelve to one.) He might as well have been looking at his watch.

In China, people could smell the time of day. There were coils of incense made with spices and herbs, and as the incense burned, the fragrance changed. Sandalwood, frankincense, lavender, patchouli. A procession of scents marked the hours.

The same thing was true in prison, except that instead of incense, there was television. A cascade of laugh tracks, sound tracks, and quiz shows created a background hum of ambient noise. After a while, you didn’t need a watch to tell the time. You could hear it.

Except in Supermax.

Supermax was different. He’d spent four years in the Feds’ Administrative Maximum Prison in Colorado, locked down twenty-three hours a day the first two years. And it was like doing Supertime. He lay on a concrete bunk in a concrete cage, watching a twelve-inch black-and-white monitor. The monitor was embedded in the wall, and permanently tuned to “spiritual programming” and lectures on anger management. High up on the wall, a four-by-forty-eight slit of a window offered a view of the sky. Fluorescent lights burned day and night.

Most days, the guards took you in shackles to a bigger cell that had a chin-up bar. This was the exercise room, and it was yours alone for an hour a day. The strange thing was, he looked forward to going there because, every so often, he’d cross paths with another prisoner. That crazy-looking English guy, the one with the bombs in his shoes, was one. And the Unabomber – Ted Kaczynski – he was another.

Seeing Kaczynski gave him hope that when they moved him from Level 1 to Level 2, there’d be someone to talk to. But it took him two years to make that trip and, in the end, Wilson never saw him again. Too bad. Because the two of them – they thought alike in a lot of ways.

wait in room don’t go out

With a growl, Wilson dropped into a chair beside a bank of windows overlooking the atrium. Eight stories below, the lobby was steeped in the false twilight that bad weather brings.

He waited. Watched. Dozed, thinking, What if it’s a setup? What then? What if – A soft knock rattled the door.

It took him by surprise because he hadn’t seen Bo enter the hotel, hadn’t seen him cross the lobby floor. Lifting himself from the chair, Wilson went to the door and pulled it open, only to be surprised a second time. No Bo. No friends of Bo. Just a young Latino guy standing beside a luggage trolley. On the trolley: a pair of suitcases, cocooned in shrink-wrap.

“I guess you’ve been waiting for these,” the bellman said.

Wilson blinked, did his best to conceal his surprise. Said, “Yeah. Yeah, I have!”

“Okay if I put them in the corner?”

“Yeah, sure. Wherever.”

The kid lifted the bags by their straps and, one at a time, stacked them on the luggage caddy next to the armoire with the TV and minibar. Wilson fumbled in his pockets for change, found a ten-dollar bill, and handed it to him.

“Hey, thanks!” the kid said. “You need something, you ask for Roberto, okay?”

When the door closed, Wilson sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the suitcases. They were carry-ons – black Travelpros with retractable handles and in-line wheels. Nice suitcases. And not particularly light. You could tell by the way the kid carried them, shoulders hunched and elbows tight against his sides. They probably weighed twenty pounds each.