“It’s supposed to blow itself out,” KimKim said. “If they see us take a boat they’ll be on us in a heartbeat. It has to be the helicopter.”

“Yep,” Silver said.

Neither man looked happy about it.

With his gun hand low and out of sight, KimKim cracked the steel door and peeked out.

Minako noticed that only KimKim had a gun. Silver did not. Silver was a big man, but Minako did not believe in magic or in Jackie Chan. One man with big fists was nothing against the mad villagers of Benjaminia and Charlestown.

The prime numbers helped. But many more men with many more guns would help more.

“Down the hallway, take the stairway down two decks, out to the landing pad. We hole up in the flight tech’s quarters. If the pilot’s there, we convince him to help us.”

Silver nodded. “You’re the James Bond here, I’m just a grunt.”

“Minako. Stay close.” KimKim opened the door followed immediately by Silver and Minako.

One-two-three-four-five . . .

They clattered down and that’s when Minako saw her mother standing there, standing right there on the steps and she stopped and cried out and KimKim walked right through Minako’s mother and so did Silver.

Like she wasn’t there, no, impossible. And yet, she was.

Minako had counted the thirteenth step. And there was her mother.

She took another step, number fourteen, and her mother was gone. Like she had never been there. And of course, how could she have been?

Fifteen-sixteen-seventeen-and nothing, no mother, just the two scared but determined men glancing over their shoulders to make sure she was keeping up.

The first flight of steps counted nineteen, a prime. If the second flight was the same, that would be good.

One-two-three . . .

She counted to thirteen and—her mother, as real as anything she had ever seen, as real as real could be except that KimKim and Silver again stepped straight through her.

Minako froze.

The two men reached the bottom, noticed she wasn’t with them and Silver said, “What’s the matter, honey?”

“I . . .”

“Are you okay?” KimKim asked her in Japanese.

“I see my mother. I see her. Right there!” She pointed a finger at what was empty space to both men. “The thirteenth step. The same as the last time. The thirteenth step.”

Shaky, she took the fourteenth step and her mother disappeared. “There’s something …They did something to me. To my brain.”

KimKim took the steps two at a time to reach her. “That may be, Minako; that’s what they do. They do things inside your brain. You must ignore it. You must follow me and Sergeant Silver, and pay attention to nothing else.”

Minako sobbed. “I’m not good at that. I’m not …not good at ignoring things.”

“Yes, but you are a brave girl, and you will do it,” the spy said. He had taken her hands in his, an awkward embrace that pressed the chilly metal of his gun against her wrist.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opened. A crewman looked up, took it all in and looked shocked and confused. He saw Minako. He saw the pistol in KimKim’s hand. He saw Silver.

He hesitated.

“Keep your mouth shut and walk away,” Silver said. “Don’t volunteer for trouble.”

The crewman nodded once and pushed past them up the stairs.

“Will he tell on us?” Minako asked.

“Fifty-fifty,” Silver said. “Come on.”

They made it down the stairs and stepped out onto the helipad. The rain was coming down, but it was vertical, no longer horizontal. The swell was still heavy and the ship wallowed fore and aft, up and down.

“Not so much of a cross sea,” Silver commented. “And the wind is dying. Maybe an hour.”

KimKim led the way to the pilot/mechanic room, which was directly off the helipad and tucked beneath an exterior stairway. He stepped in without knocking.

The pilot was there, bent over a workbench, twisting something metal with two sets of pliers. He was a man in his thirties, with longish black hair falling back from a receding hairline.

“What do you want?” he demanded, and narrowed his eyes suspiciously when he saw Minako. Silver closed the door behind them and threw the lock.

“What the hell is going on?” the pilot demanded.

“What’s going on is that I have a gun,” KimKim said, helpfully showing the pistol. “So that means I talk and you listen.”

“I’m not scared.”

“Then that’s stupid, you should be scared.”

The pilot forced a laugh and set the pliers aside. “I am happy,” he said. “Deeply, sustainably happy. Fear has no place in happiness.”

“He’s one of them,” Silver said contemptuously.

“Yes,” KimKim said with a sigh.

Silver took one quick step and snapped a hard left into the pilot’s face. His second blow was an uppercut that turned the pilot’s legs to jelly. Silver bound the man’s hands and ankles with wire.

“So it’s up to you to fly us out of here,” KimKim said to Silver. “Do you think—”

The door opened. A man was framed in the doorway. An officer. KimKim leapt but the man was too quick. The door slammed back in KimKim’s face.

KimKim threw open the door, but it was too late. There was no one in sight.

“We have about ten seconds to figure something out,” Silver said.