It required no great leap of imagination for Csongor to understand why Yuxia had tears running down her face. They had taken insane risks and devoted all their energy during the last few hours to the goal of escaping from China. Replaying the story in his memory, Csongor was unable to see any moment when they might have chosen differently. He and Marlon could not have abandoned Yuxia to whatever fate the jihadists might have had in mind for her. Once they had unexpectedly gotten control of this fishing boat, they’d had to do something with it, and getting out of the People’s Republic of China had seemed like a good idea. In Csongor’s mind, this happened to be synonymous with getting closer to home. Marlon didn’t seem to be especially broken up by this hasty and unplanned departure from his native land; for him it must be an adventure of the sort that any young man would want to go on. Anyway, he needed to put some distance between himself and the apartment where he had created REAMDE, and this was an excellent way to accomplish that. But Yuxia had originally been drawn into this by nothing more than her desire to befriend some clueless Westerners she had observed wandering lost in the street. She had family back in Yongding, family who must be worried about her, and she must be asking herself now whether she would ever see them again.