By that time they had completed a couple of circuits of the ring road that lined the island’s shore. Contrary to the first instruction given, they had not gone to the airport. Zula had been confused by this until she had understood that her companion—if that was the right word—didn’t speak a word of Chinese, and that he assumed (correctly as it turned out) that the taxi driver spoke no English; so he had just shouted the one English word that every taxi driver in the world had to know. This had been just to get him moving. Once that driver had nudged and honked his way clear of the chaos surrounding the exploded building, Mr. Jones had produced a phone, dialed a number, and spoken in Arabic. Zula had known that it was Arabic because she had heard a fair bit of that language while living in a refugee camp in the Sudan. After a brief exchange of news, which Zula could tell had been extremely surprising to the person on the other end of the line—for Mr. Jones had soon grown weary of insisting that every word was true—he had handed the phone up to the taxi driver, who had listened to some instructions, nodded vigorously, and said something that must have meant "yes" or "I will do it."