Suicide Kings

15

Thursday,

December 10

Nyunzu, Congo

People’s Paradise of Africa

Wally gave every child in the mass grave a proper burial. Especially Lucien.

It would have gone faster if he hadn’t tossed the backhoe bucket halfway across the PPA. But he wouldn’t have used it anyway. He wondered if Lucien had been alive to see the PPA men dig the trench with that backhoe, and if so, if Lucien had known he was seeing his own grave.

Wally used a shovel he found in the ruins of a supply shed. But the handle shattered under Wally’s relentless drive to make things right. After that, he used his hands. All throughout, he refused Jerusha’s repeated offers to help. This was Wally’s job.

Hours and hours of digging. Wally’s back ached, ferociously. Far worse pain came from kneeling on his injured shin, where the bullet had grazed a vulnerable spot thinned out by rust. It felt like a red-hot knitting needle had been rammed through his leg. But it was nothing compared to the pain in his chest, his heart. That was so intense he could hardly breathe.

The pain was a penance. He deserved it. His friend had been in trouble, and Wally had done nothing to help him. Nothing that made the tiniest difference, anyway.

Exhaustion claimed him the moment he finally took a rest. He woke with no diminishment in his pain. The burials were important, but they hadn’t even begun to make things truly right. Could anything?

The freed children watched everything he did with a combination of fear and curiosity on their faces. They seemed to understand that he and Jerusha were their friends. But all the same they kept their distance. Wally wondered if they would ever be capable of trusting another adult. Even Cesar and the joker girl.

The kids needed breakfast. Together, Wally and Jerusha didn’t have nearly enough food in their kit to feed so many.

Jerusha emerged from the only building that hadn’t collapsed, crumbled, or burned down. Unlike the other structures, it was relatively sturdy: thick, reinforced concrete walls; a solid, pitched roof for keeping out seasonal rains; no windows. “Hey,” she said. A thin, sad smile touched the corners of her eyes. “You’re up.”

“Yeah.”

“How are you holding up?”

Wally shrugged. Pretty bad, he thought. But better than Lucien and the others. “The kids,” he said, gesturing around the destroyed camp, “they need breakfast, but…”

“Don’t worry. Let me handle it. You’ve done more than enough, Wally.”

What would I do without you, Jerusha? “Thanks,” he said glumly. She carried a folder, he noticed, like the kind that hangs in a filing cabinet. Tears had cleaned little paths from her eyes through the smudges of dirt and smoke on her face. “What’s that?”

Jerusha sighed. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder, back toward the building. “That’s where they kept their records. I found this,” she said, shaking the folder. “Look, I hesitate to bring this up, but I thought you should know.” She took his hand. “This isn’t the only lab. The Nshombos have places like this hidden all over the PPA.”

Wally’s knees gave out. He sat heavily on a stack of bricks, the remainder of a corner support for one of the open structures. The bricks crumbled into a pile of rubble.

Jerusha showed him the folder. The lab here received its supplies of the wild card virus from a barge that traveled up and down the river. The barge, in turn, received its supplies from a central lab in Bunia, where they actually cultivated the virus. It was a huge program.

It had to be. For every hundred kids they killed, they might have created a single ace.

Changing them, Sister Julie had said. Wally had thought she meant the way they turned innocent kids into child soldiers. But that wasn’t the half of it: they were trying to create an army of child aces.

Suddenly Wally saw a chance to make things right. Except-

What will I do without you, Jerusha?

“We have to get these kids somewhere safe,” he said.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Jerusha. “Since we don’t have a boat anymore, and even if we did it wouldn’t hold all of the kids, we’ll have to start walking back east, toward Tanzania. Once we get somewhere with a working phone, we need to contact somebody on the Committee. They’ll send help. Then we can go find the other labs.”

Wally shook his head. “That’ll take too long. Kids are dying every day.” Like Lucien. “We have to split up.”

Jerusha’s mouth fell open. She gaped at him, as though he’d said something mean. She shook her head. “We can’t.”

“Them kids need a guide, somebody who can feed them, and somebody who can hide them in the jungle. I can’t do any of that stuff, Jerusha. But you can do it all. You’re exactly what they need.” Wally shrugged. “Me? All I can do is break stuff. So I’ll go to Bunia.”

“But they’ll know you’re out here. They’ll come looking for you.”

“Heck, yeah. Every soldier or Leopard Man they send after me is one more that won’t be chasing you. Even with the kids, your chances of hiding are way better than mine.”

“I don’t like this idea,” she said. “I hate it.”

“They can’t hurt me.” He looked down at his hands, flexing them into iron fists. “But I can hurt them.”

“But your leg,” she said, looking at the bandage taped over his bullet wound. The implication was clear: every day spent in the humid jungle made him less bulletproof. Made him vulnerable. But his iron skin didn’t have to last forever. Just until he made it to the Bunia lab.

Once he tore that place apart brick by brick, the rest didn’t matter.

He didn’t tell her any of that. Instead, he said, “I’ll be more careful. Now that I know about the danger, I won’t let it sneak up on me.”

He also didn’t mention that he was running out of S.O. S pads. It didn’t seem right to give Jerusha even more reasons to worry.

Michelle Pond’s Apartment

Manhattan, New York

“Are you ready?” Noel asked.

He’d popped into Michelle’s apartment in his new male form, and looking like he wanted nothing more than to leave as quickly as possible.

“Almost.” Michelle zipped her small Louis Vuitton duffel closed. It had been part of a gift basket she’d been given at an awards show a few years ago. She hated the way it looked (and hated being a walking billboard for Vuitton), and she didn’t care if it got lost or beat up.

“I need to see if Juliet is done with Joey.” She went to the bathroom and knocked on the door. “Are you done in there? Noel’s here and wants to get going.”

There were muffled curses through the door. Then she heard, “Fuck me. That ain’t half bad.”

The bathroom door opened and Juliet stepped out. She gave Michelle a withering stare, and then went into the living room. Michelle could hear her offering Noel tea.

Joey was in front of the mirror staring at herself. “Fuck me!” she exclaimed. “Will you look at this shit?”

Juliet had managed to cover the Crayola red with a dark chocolate color. And she’d cut Joey’s hair. For once Joey didn’t look as if she was going out to panhandle. Juliet had even dressed her in a crisp white blouse and neatly pressed grey slacks.

“You look great,” Michelle said. “Now stop talking. You’re ruining the illusion.”

“Fuck off, Bubbles.” Joey brushed past Michelle and went into the living room. Michelle followed her. In the middle of the room, Noel was holding a mug that read: lesbians do it with girls. A Lipton’s tea-bag tag dangled over its edge. He had an expression on his face like a cat being given a bath.

Michelle smiled. “I think we’re about ready,” she said. “I know you’re only doing this because of Niobe, but I want you to know how much I appreciate it.”

“You shouldn’t be doing this at all,” Noel said, hastily putting the mug down on the coffee table. “Nothing good is coming out of the PPA right now.”

This caught Michelle’s attention. “You seem awfully well informed about what’s going on there.”

A smug expression flickered across his face.

“What are you up to, Noel?” Michelle asked softly.

“Nothing you need to be worried about. Are you ready?”

Michelle grabbed her duffel and turned to kiss Juliet good-bye, but Ink had already left the room. There was a brief stab of hurt, and then it was gone. What she was going to do was more important than a kiss good-bye.

“Yes,” she said. “I guess we’re ready to go.”

“Good-bye, Ink,” Joey yelled.

Noel stepped between them. Michelle felt a sudden jolt of cold as her apartment vanished. Adesina, she thought. I’m coming.

People’s Palace

Kongoville, Congo

People’s Paradise of Africa

“I want you to make more use of the young volunteers,” the President-for-Life said across his teacup in his most pedantic tone.

They sat at white wrought-iron tables in lush gardens surrounded by the high walls of the People’s Palace. Nshombo wore his customary black suit. A trim, handsome man in his late fifties, with the polished and perfect and unyielding features of a statue of African blackwood, the President-for-Life was a certified genius, who spoke over half a dozen languages and dared share Tom’s dream of world liberation. But he had no more tact than he did vanity. Nor charisma either.

“I don’t need them,” said Tom. “And they’re kids. They don’t belong in a war.”

“Yet they have served us so well,” Dr. Nshombo said. The four tiny Dandie Dinmont terriers lying at his feet raised cotton-ball heads and glared at Tom with eyes like suspicious obsidian buttons. “Khartoum was a great success, Field Marshal. As was the Sudd. With more seasoning, our young volunteers may soon be the equal of any foreign aces. Even Ra.”

The mention of Ra made Tom bristle. Old Egypt’s resident protector was the only wild card in the world who might be his equal. “Are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

“Boys, boys.” Alicia Nshombo clucked and shook her head. She was packed into a flamboyantly flower-printed dress and a sunbonnet. “You know you’re best of friends. Let’s have peace between us. Pretty please?” Despite her appearance and her Harlequin-romance tastes, Alicia was scarcely less intelligent than her brother. She was also Tom’s staunch ally in the increasingly fucked-up politics at the center of the PPA.

Tom Weathers frowned at her for a handful of pounding heartbeats. Then he stood up. “I’ll get back to you on that,” he said, and stalked back into the palace. But before he even pushed through the French doors he knew he’d give in. It was for the Revolution, and the Revolution was bigger than he was. Just don’t get to thinking you’re bigger than the Revolution, Comrade Kitengi, he thought bitterly.

United Nations

Manhattan, New York

“Could she have been lying?” Lohengrin asked. COOhd she haf beehn lAHying.

Bugsy lay back on the office couch, the UN-approved fair-trade leather creaking under him. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, sure, maybe. She could have. But she’d just told me about how she was a big ol’ ho who’d boffed anything that moved and didn’t love her own kid. We weren’t really in withhold personal information mode, if you see what I mean.”

Lohengrin frowned and looked out over Manhattan. The winter light made the city look cleaner than it was. The German tapped his hands together in something between impatience and confusion. “That is very odd.”

“That’s what I thought,” Bugsy said. “But just because our first guess was off doesn’t mean we’re screwed. Okay, so Sprout isn’t Tom Weathers’s kid. The Radical and Cap’n Trips didn’t know each other because they’d slept with the same woman.”

“Captain Trips?”

“Mark Meadows. He went by Cap’n Trips back when he was trying to be the kind of guy he thought Kim would be into. Selling drugs, running a head shop, hanging out with aces. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Meadows was part of that scene during the two and a half decades that Weathers spent underground. Sixty-nine to ninety-three is a pretty long time. Lots of things could have happened.”

Lohengrin sat. His time on the Committee had aged him. Bugsy remembered when he’d come on, guest ace on American Hero. There hadn’t been the weariness around his eyes back then, or the sense of crushing responsibility. Maybe he’d lost it in Egypt. Maybe since then. Making the world a better place turned out to be a shitty job.

“Very well,” Lohengrin said.

“You doing all right, big guy?”

Lohengrin shrugged. With shoulders like that, it was a more tectonic motion than it would have been for Bugsy. “There are problems. You cannot know, Jonathan. The politics, the budget…”

“You know, it’s funny you should mention that. The next step on the whole Tom Weathers thing kind of depends on the expense account,” Bugsy said.

Lohengrin’s brows rose.

“There’s still got to be a connection between Meadows and Weathers,” Bugsy continued. “And the next most likely one is that something happened between them back when Meadows was chancellor of South Vietnam. Sprout was there. The Radical showed up in the same general part of the world not long after.”

“Yes,” Lohengrin agreed, but pulling the word out several syllables to make it clear he was waiting for the expensive part.

“Well,” Bugsy said. “It seems like we ought to talk with Meadows about it, and since he’s all blowed up…”

“You want to send Cameo,” Lohengrin said.

“Well, both of us. Me and her.”

Lohengrin smiled. “You’re sure you aren’t just trying to get a free vacation with your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Bugsy said. “She’s channeling my girlfriend. And her boyfriend, for that matter.”

“Simoon has a dead boyfriend?”

“No, Cameo does. It’s complicated.”

A hint of amusement seemed to touch Lohengrin’s eyes, but it might have just been the angle his head was at.

Bugsy yawned. “Look,” he said. “Cameo is a professional and an ace. She’s on the Committee. She’s the obvious choice. If you want me to follow up on the connection between the Radical and Sprout, it’s going to mean paying market price.”

“Fine,” Lohengrin said. “I will discuss it with the others as soon as possible.”

“You bet,” Bugsy said. “And can we get tickets on the company card? The airlines are giving me shit about the discount again, and if

…”

“Ja, ja,” Lohengrin said.

“Or you could see if Lilith’s in town, save us time and money both.”

Bugsy hadn’t meant it as a dig, but Lohengrin bristled.

“Sorry,” Bugsy said.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Lohengrin said.

“No, really. If I’d known Lil was really Noel, the British hermaphrodite in really good drag, I would totally have waved you off that night.”

“I appreciate that.”

“And, you know, she’s an ace. Or, that’s to say he is. Or… y’know, Noel’s an ace. It’s a full-on transformation. It’s not like you got a hummer and just didn’t notice her Adam’s apple.”

“Jonathan?”

“And it was Vegas. You know, weird things just happen in Vegas. I knew one guy I would swear wasn’t into midgets when he went there for his honey-moon. Three days later, he and his new wife are-”

“Jonathan.”

“Yes, boss?”

“If I approve the expenses, will you leave?”

Grand Hotel

Kongoville, Congo

People’s Paradise of Africa

“What do you Mean you don’t have a reservation for me?” Michelle asked indignantly. She had been a supermodel once, and she did indignation very well.

The young clerk behind the reception desk looked very unhappy. “Miss,” he replied. “I do not see any reservation for a Michelle Pond.”

“This is your fault,” Michelle snapped at Joey. “I ask you to do one thing. One thing! And you can’t even manage that.” She turned back to the clerk. “I don’t suppose you could find us something? Anything. We’ve come such a long way and we’re both exhausted.” She gave him her very best oh-goodness-please-help-me look.

It worked.

“I think we might be able to arrange something,” he said.

Michelle breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way to make a reservation and then pop into the hotel a few hours later without arousing suspicion. She had hoped pretending that they had lost the reservation would cover her showing up out of the blue.

“I have a suite available,” he said after typing into his terminal for a few minutes.

That’s gonna be pricey. The interest rate on the big cash advance she had taken to finance this trip was going to be hell to pay, too. But it didn’t really matter to Michelle. What mattered was getting to Adesina.

“The suite would be perfect. Thank you so much for accommodating us this way.” Michelle gave him her very best you’re-just-the-nicest-person-in-the-world smile.

He beamed back at her and slid two room cards across the desk. “You know, you look very familiar to me.”

Michelle smiled at him. “Oh, I used to model,” she said. “I’m here on business now. I’ve decided to start my own clothing line. I’ve been told that the PPA has the best garment workers in the world.”

“That is true. The hotel has a wonderful tour of Kongoville. Would you like me to book you two seats? It will give you a very good feel for our city.”

“Oh, mostly I want to see the Congo River. I hear it’s beautiful. Can I get a taxi there?”

He gave her a shiny smile. “Certainly, but the bus tour also takes you to the river. And you will see many other wonderful places along the way.”

Michelle wanted to drag him across the desk and explain to him that a little girl was suffering in a goddamn pit of corpses and she really didn’t have the time to go sightseeing.

“My brother-in-law drives the bus,” the clerk continued. “He’s a very good driver.”

She nodded politely. His persistence about the tour became clear. But, in a group of tourists, perhaps she and Joey wouldn’t stand out quite as much. And she needed to figure out where to go next. “How long does it take?”

“Only two hours.”

“Two tickets,” she said.

Nyunzu, Congo

People’s Paradise of Africa

Wally was sitting on a pile of rubble near the smoldering lab, scrubbing fiercely at his body with steel wool, as if he could scrub away the memories as easily as the blood, soot, and rust. “Here,” Jerusha told him, picking up one of the S.O. S pads and crouching down behind him. The few pads left in his pack had all been well used and were starting to fall apart and rust themselves. The piece she held was tearing loose in her fingers even as she started scouring his back, cleaning away the rust spots there that he couldn’t reach.

The rust was deep there-not just on the surface of his skin. She worried about that. She worried about the bandage tied around his leg. “Feels good,” Wally grunted. “Thanks, Jerusha.”

“I’m scared, Wally,” she said. “How’s the leg?”

He shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “Just a scratch where the skin was thin. It’ll grow back quick.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t get here in time to help Lucien. I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss you terribly, and I’m going to worry every second until I know you’re safe.”

“Me, too,” he said after a moment. “You’re gonna have your hands full with those kids. They ready? We can’t stay here; they’ll be coming back soon.”

Jerusha looked at the children. There were fifty-two of them; she counted. Twenty-nine had yet to be injected; eight had been given the virus but hadn’t yet turned their card. Fifteen were jokers who hadn’t yet been culled: the little girl whose body was studded with hundreds of fingers, complete with fingernails, like a porcupine made of severed hands; a boy whose lower half was a gigantic fish tail that needed to be kept constantly wet; a boy whose face was missing eyes, sockets, and nose, nothing but unbroken skin from his forehead to his mouth as if he were an unfinished sculpture; a girl whose skin pulsed and glowed a bright yellow…

Cesar had told her that sometimes they waited to make sure that the jokers didn’t have some power they’d missed. The children were all hungry, all abused, all frightened. They huddled in a group near a jungle trail leading away from the clearing, eating the breakfast she’d created for them, an amalgam of fruits from her seeds and some of the food in their kit. They’d stripped the mangoes from the were-leopard’s tree, all except those on the branch that held the Leopard Man’s head.

The children were watching the two of them uncertainly, as if they weren’t certain if they could trust their rescuers or if they might be led to something worse. She could hardly blame them. “Are we doing the right thing, Wally? Maybe… maybe we should stay together…”

Wally’s steam-shovel jaw clanged shut. “No,” he said. “I gotta do this, Jerusha. For Lucien.”

“Okay.” Jerusha put down the S.O. S pad and came around in front of him. She put her hands on either side of his face. Leaning in, she kissed him. The kiss was awkward, his mouth all cold iron under hers. His hands first went around her, then fell away, then came back again. “You stay alive for me, Wally,” she said. She had to stop, sniffing and wiping angrily at her eyes. She took his hand, pressing her small fingers against his. “And I’ll stay alive for you. Deal?”

“Okay,” he answered. He was staring down at her hand. “Jerusha, cripes, I…”

“Don’t say anything,” she told him. “It’ll just make this harder.” She leaned in toward him again. She kissed his forehead, then-again-his mouth. This time he responded, his arms going around her and hugging her. She held the embrace for several breaths, then pushed away from him. “It’s time,” she said.

Wally groaned to his feet. Jerusha looked at the kids. They were watching, but whatever they were thinking was hidden behind expressionless, hollow faces. She pulled the strap of the automatic weapon around her shoulder-one of the several abandoned by the child guards as they’d fled. A few of the older children had armed themselves as well. She wondered if she or any of the kids could actually use the weapons.

“It’s time to go,” she told the children in French. “We’ve got to get you out of here.” Cesar translated the French into Baluba. The children stood as Jerusha sighed. “This way,” she told them, and began walking toward the head of the trail leading east, toward Lake Tanganyika and-she hoped-Tanzania. As they passed the head of the trail, she tossed a handful of seeds onto the ground, bringing the new growth high enough to cover their tracks. Wally was watching her. She waved to him as the fronds lifted; he waved back to her as the lush greenery rose between them. When she could no longer see him, she turned eastward. The kids had gathered around her. She put her arms around the nearest of them.

“Come on,” she said. “We have a long walk ahead of us.”