The Blasphemer by John Ling Page B

compartments, digging furiously.
    The taxi driver froze in mid-rant. ‘What is it, my friend? What is it?’
    Devlin gasped and wheezed, his face pale, his lips shivering. ‘My passport. My passport! I must have left it back at the airport!’  
    The taxi driver bunched up his shoulders, tilted his head from side to side, but was otherwise unperturbed. ‘No problem. We can go back.’
    ‘Will you? I’ll pay extra!’
    ‘There’s no need for extra.’ The taxi driver pointed at his meter, tapping on the red digital display. ‘We’ll go by this.’
    ‘Okay. Okay. Just, please, hurry.’
    The taxi driver steered sharply, peeling away from the motorway and speeding up an on-ramp. It was the
    Queenstown Road
    exit, Devlin saw. Cutting through two roundabouts, the taxi driver descended an off-ramp, and presto, they were back on the motorway once more, this time heading in the opposite direction.
    The U-turn was exactly what Devlin needed. A simple but effective counter-surveillance trick designed to flush out his pursuers. Anyone tailing the taxi would immediately be thrown into disarray and would have no choice but to break out of their usual pattern in order to keep up.
    Devlin felt the warm kick of adrenalin in his gut. He checked the cars behind him. Were any of them moving haphazardly? Accelerating? Decelerating? Braking? Veering?
    No.
    Nothing.
    Devlin shrugged. Time for Plan B. Reaching into his pouch, he yanked his passport out. Voila. He waved it and laughed. ‘Oh. Oh! There it is! I’ve found it! It was in here the whole time! How silly of me!’
    The taxi driver bounced up his shoulders, tilted his head from side to side and grinned. ‘Good, good. Now we don’t have to go all the way back.’
    ‘I am so very sorry. The jetlag must be getting to me...’
    ‘No problem.’ The taxi driver pointed at his meter, tapping on the display. ‘We’ll go by this.’
    ‘Yeah. Sure.’
    Once more, the taxi driver peeled away from the motorway and doubled back. And once more, Devlin checked behind him.
    Nothing.
    Still nothing.
    He exhaled, his heart slowing, the adrenalin waning. The theatrics had served its purpose. He was clean. At least for now.
     

CHAPTER 22
     
    By the time the taxi dropped Devlin off at the Pukeko Lodge, it was well past noon. The motel suited him. Not too cheap. Not too expensive. Just right for a businessman from Eastern Europe who wanted to stay somewhere decent, but was suffering the pinch of the exchange rate.
    Devlin lingered on the sidewalk for a moment, watching the children as they played in the park close by. Whizzing down the slides. Soaring on the swings. Clambering on the carousel. Their shrieks and laughter made his heart swell with longing. Oh, to be young and innocent again.
    Truth be told, he could barely picture himself as a child. That felt like so many lifetimes ago. Before the enlistment. Before the wars. Before the killing.
    An old Russian proverb crystallised in his mind and teased him: With lies, you may go forward in the world, but you may never go back.
    Breathing deeply, blinking hard, Devlin turned away. He looked at the sign hanging at the motel’s entrance, sculpted in the likeness of a native bird. He recognised it as the same bird he had seen on his way here, scurrying and foraging alongside the motorways and roads.
    Pukeko.
    Cute.
    Pulling his wheeled suitcase behind him, he approached the motel’s reception building. As he did, he examined the cars in the parking lot, checking to see if any of them had tinted glass. Covert operators tended to prefer tinted glass—the darker, the better. It made mobile surveillance easier.
    But Devlin saw nothing of the sort. No, the Pukeko Lodge wasn’t the address he had been instructed to go to. Anyone who thought so would be seriously mistaken. The real address was, in fact, five blocks away. Far enough to throw off any tails, but close enough so that he could zero in on it quickly.
    Still, he wasn’t about to get