Suicide Kings

12

Monday,

December 7

On the Lukuga River, Congo

People’s Paradise of Africa

Nyunzu. Nyunzu. Nyunzu.

Wally rapped his fingers on the gunwale, wishing their boat had a larger engine, the river a stronger current. He’d already pushed the throttle as far as it could go. Crack. Another hairline fracture appeared in the sun-rotted wood under his hand. He stopped tapping. But he couldn’t contain the anxiety; his leg bounced up and down, almost of its own accord. Soon the boat bobbed in time with the rhythm of his impatience.

“Hey, Wally.” Jerusha turned. “You’re gonna give me seasickness. River sickness.” Her smile didn’t touch her eyes. She was worried, too.

“Sorry.” Wally directed his attention to the river, turning the wheel slightly to keep them in the center of a mild bend. Jerusha went back to watching for surprises: patrol boats, submerged logs, hippos, crocodiles…

Lucien was in Nyunzu. He had to be. That’s where the PPA was taking all the children. That’s what the kid they’d caught (whom Jerusha had caught) had said, more or less.

To change them. To turn them into soldiers. Little kids, like Lucien, given guns and taught to kill.

In the end, Jerusha had disarmed the kid she’d caught while Wally fished the other two up from the riverbank. Then they loaded up the patrol boat with a couple days’ worth of food and let them go. What else could they do? They were just kids.

Motoring around the bend, they passed a crocodile sunning itself on a sandbar. Wally tensed. But the giant reptile didn’t react to their presence. It just lay there with its mouth open and its eyes closed. Jerusha said that was how they sweated-they panted, like dogs. And that a logy croc was often a well-fed croc.

Half an hour later, they passed another croc. And another. “Huh.” Jerusha dug out her guidebook. She flipped through it. Wally watched how the breeze from the pages lifted stray hairs from her sweat-glistened forehead. A stirring sight, but somehow comforting, too.

“Yeah, that’s what I remembered.” She tapped the page with her finger. “African crocodiles don’t tend to congregate. Except,” she added, with another tap to the page, “during mating season, or if there’s food to be found. They’ll travel miles if there’s a good carcass to eat.”

Wally watched the crocodiles warily. He kept glancing at the sandbar until it passed out of sight around another bend. So did Jerusha.

“Lots of crocs,” said Wally.

“Lots of well-fed crocs,” said Jerusha.

“Tarzan wrestled with a crocodile once. Tarzan and His Mate. Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan.”

“That was a movie.”

“Yeah, but it was pretty neat. He even-”

“Wally, look out!” Jerusha dropped the book and jumped to her feet, pointing at something in the river.

Wally spun the wheel; the engine died. Please, not a hippopotamus. Finch had warned them about the hippos: “Roit nasty buggers. They’ll flip your boat and bite your head off just for spite. Even yours, mate,” he’d said, jabbing his horn in Wally’s direction.

Behind him, Jerusha braced for impact. Wally clenched his eyes shut and hunched his shoulders.

Bump. Something brushed gently against the boat.

Wally opened one eye, then the other. They were still afloat. He released the breath he’d been holding. He looked at Jerusha.

She shrugged. “I saw something floating low in the water. I couldn’t tell what it was. I thought it might have been a log, or an animal.”

Wally could see it now, too, just a couple of feet off the side of the boat. They must have nudged it when he turned the boat broadside. Weird. It was a piece of pale driftwood, draped in tatters of cloth.

No, not cloth. Clothes. A sun-bleached pair of cargo pants.

On a body.

United Nations

Manhattan, New York

The elevator doors snicked open. Lohengrin stepped out. Out of his shimmering white armor he looked like a regular guy. Big and blond and good-looking, but chunkier than she remembered. Too much time behind a desk.

“Bubbles. It has been too long.” His accent was still heavy. He pulled her into a hug, then kissed her on the cheek. “Who is this?”

Michelle introduced Joey and Juliet. Lohengrin nodded as he shook Joey’s hand. “I remember this one. You raise the dead. Hoodoo Mama, ja ?”

“Yeah. And I remember how y’all didn’t like my background. Prissy motherfuckers.”

Klaus reddened. “Ah, you are so young, you do not understand. The world watches us, all the time. The Committee must be above reproach.”

“I’m not that much younger than you, asshat,” Joey snapped. “Reproach my ass. Don’t you shine me on.”

“Joey, please.” Michelle wanted to throttle the brat. The last thing she needed was Hoodoo Mama screwing things up with the Committee. “I’m sorry, Klaus.” Michelle slipped her arm into his and drew him away.

Lohengrin shrugged. “Things are more complicated than before, Bubbles. Jayewardene does what he can, but we must be so careful. He is waiting for you upstairs. Come.”

The hallway leading to Secretary-General Jayewardene’s office was lined with photographs of Committee members. Michelle smiled as she passed Jonathan Hive, Rustbelt, and Gardener, but instead of the shots she remembered of Curveball, Drummer Boy, John Fortune, and Holy Roller, there were photos of people she didn’t know. It made her uncomfortable. She’d spent a lot of time walking these halls. A year, she thought. Still, it wasn’t right that so many of her friends were gone.

Lohengrin opened the door to Jayewardene’s office and then followed the girls inside.

“Michelle, my dear, it’s good to see you looking so well.” G. C. Jayewardene rose from his chair, came around the desk, and crossed the room to embrace her. One of the perks of his position was having the largest office in the UN building. A wall of windows faced the East River. There was enough room for a sitting area with a couple of couches and an area for Jayewardene’s desk and several sleek, modern leather chairs. It was larger than most apartments on the Lower East Side.

Jayewardene was a small man, but it never seemed to bother him that Michelle towered over him. That was one of the many reasons that she’d grown so fond of him. He also had an old-fashioned, courtly side to him that she liked.

“I see you’ve brought Miss Summers and Miss Hebert,” he said. Both girls looked surprised. And, Michelle noted, he even pronounced Joey’s name right. “How are you feeling, my dear?” Jayewardene asked as he walked back to his chair.

Michelle smiled at him. “I’m certain you already know, Mr. Jayewardene. Given what happened, I’m surprisingly well.”

“You know that we want you to come back to duty as soon as possible.”

The door to Jayewardene’s office opened. A plump, dark-haired woman came into the room carrying a folder. She was pretty enough, but something in the way she carried herself made Michelle suspect she didn’t feel pretty all of the time. “Oh, Mr. Jayewardene,” she said. “I didn’t realize you had guests…”

Jayewardene rose from his chair. “These are old friends of mine, Barbara. Have you met? This is Miss Pond, Miss Summers, and Miss Hebert. Miss Barbara Baden.”

“We’ve met.”

Michelle remembered that Barbara had only recently joined the Committee. Just before New Orleans. Her ace name was the Translator, but some called her Babel. “It’s nice to see you again, Barbara,” Michelle said.

Lohengrin stepped forward. “Babs is our vice chairman now, Michelle. You must know that John left us after New Orleans… after he lost his powers.” From the way his voice softened when he said her name, Michelle had the sneaking suspicion that there was more than translating going on between Klaus and Babel.

“Are you coming back to the Committee?” Barbara asked. “We could certainly use an ace of your power.”

Michelle stuck her hands in her pockets. “I don’t know. I’ve only been awake for a week.” She turned back toward Jayewardene. “I was just about to tell the secretary-general about these dreams I’ve been having.”

“Dreams?” Babel looked incredulous.

Michelle felt another shot of annoyance. This… translator was starting to piss her off.

“Yes, dreams. They brought me out of my coma. They weren’t really dreams. They were things that had really happened to this little girl. She needs me to help her.”

“Telepathy?” mused Jayewardene. “It would not surprise me that such a thing had happened. Tell us of this child.”

Michelle stepped back so she could see their faces. “She’s in a pit of dead bodies. And she’s a little girl-maybe six or seven. It’s horrible.”

Babel’s expression was one of complete disbelief.

Michelle ignored her. “I owe this little girl. I need to find her.”

Jayewardene got up and walked to one of the tall windows overlooking the harbor. “Do you have any idea where this pit is?”

“Not exactly,” Michelle said, “but I think I have it narrowed down.” She just wanted him to give her the damn Committee. “There were soldiers wearing uniforms and these leopard-skin fezzes. I recognized the uniforms from our training. They were Congolese. I confess, the fezzes confuse me, but it may have been part of Adesina’s trauma. She’s obsessed with leopards in her dreams.”

“Yes,” he said softly. “Leopards.”

“In her dreams, she’s being captured by these soldiers and taken away from her home. It’s almost like she’s calling me-pulling me to her.”

Jayewardene turned back from the window. “Dreams can be a powerful thing, Michelle. If you are certain that you must find her, then I suppose you must go to the Congo.”

Barbara blinked in surprise.

“Sir,” she said. “The Amazing Bubbles is one of the best-known and best-loved aces in the world right now. After New Orleans, she’s almost a legend. If she sets foot in the People’s Paradise, the Radical will… Klaus, talk to her.”

Lohengrin looked very unhappy. “Babs, if this child is in danger

… what is the Committee for, if not for things like that?”

Babel threw her hands up in dismay. “She can’t just go waltzing around in the PPA. Not with Rustbelt and Gardener already in Africa, doing God knows what. This could provoke Weathers to a fresh round of atrocities.”

Michelle flinched when Babs said Weathers’s name. It had been a long time since anyone had scared her, but Weathers had done his best to nuke New Orleans.

All she could think about was the fire running through her veins. “Mr. Jayewardene,” she said. “I know it sounds stupid, but Adesina is stuck there in a pit filled with corpses. I’m going to her. With the Committee’s help or without it.”

“I cannot give you the Committee.” Jayewardene sounded sad. “You must do what you must do, but Barbara is correct. The Nshombos keep a careful watch on who crosses their borders. These men in the leopard-skin hats that you have seen in your dream are Alicia Nshombo’s secret police, the Leopard Society. They would arrest you as soon as you entered the country.”

They could try, Michelle thought. She glanced at Joey and Juliet. Neither of them looked very happy. Joey was fidgeting in her chair as if she had sand in her underwear.

“Fuck it,” Joey blurted out. “Are you cocksuckers deaf, or what? Didn’t you hear what she said? The little fucker in her dreams is just a kid!”

Dr. Nshombo’s Yacht

Kongoville, Congo

People’s Paradise of Africa

The reception was on the Nshombo yacht. Supposedly it was “the people’s yacht,” but the burly Leopard Men in their leopard-skin fezzes guarded the gangway, making damn sure none of the people actually came aboard. The word in the streets was that Alicia’s crack troops could actually turn into leopards, but how much of that was clever manipulation and how much was truth Noel had no way to know.

As the fiberglass gangway bowed slightly beneath his foot, Noel realized he had better prepare for the masquerade. He was entering the lion… leopard’s… den, and he needed to concentrate. Monsieur Pelletier presented his invitation to a grim-faced guard, and was waved aboard.

The hip beat of a jazz quartet, the chink of ice in glasses, and the roar of conversation led him to the party. He touched his dark glasses to reassure himself that Etienne’s golden eyes were obscured. He also checked his watch to verify exactly how long until sundown. He had one hour, seventeen minutes, and forty-two seconds.

Dr. Nshombo stood by the rail discussing Marxist theory with a pair of engineers from Kenya. The two men were looking longingly toward the bar and the attractive young women who wove through the crowds offering canapes and champagne off silver trays. Noel extended his hand. “Ah, Monsieur President, so kind to include me. The yacht, so ravissant, and the river, like a mighty heart through your great nation,” he said in French. Actually he thought the Congo smelled like an open sewer as vegetation, human waste, and probably bodies provided by the ever-helpful secret police rotted in the dark waters.

The engineers made a quick and tactical retreat. Noel joined Dr. Nshombo at the rail. The spare little man with his expressionless ebony face snapped his fingers, and one of the servers hurried over. Noel accepted a flute of champagne. Nshombo waved her off-he neither smoked nor drank. Personally Noel had always preferred the whoring, boozing, gambling variety of dictator over the abstemious, self-righteous variety. The hedonists were easier to bring down.

“Monsieur Pelletier, have you located a site for your factory?” Dr. Nshombo asked.

“Not yet, sir, but I’ve seen several promising locations.”

“You will find my people are good workers. They will build excellent cars.”

“And be able to afford them with the wages they’ll earn,” Noel said.

He realized his error the instant the words left his lips as Nshombo’s face closed into a tight, hard mask. “Are you suggesting my people do not earn a decent wage without the actions of a white man?”

“No-”

Nshombo ran over the start of Noel’s apology. “Before I founded the People’s Paradise of Africa, that would have been the case. Corrupt leaders working with Western flacks sucked away the fruits of their labor, but I changed that. Through me flows the wealth of a continent, and it all goes into the hands of my people.”

“Yes, yes, quite. And that was what I meant to imply, but was, alas, in-artful. It is due to your prescience that you are allowing me to found this Peugeot factory. Your people will benefit from your wisdom and hard work.”

“Dear, Mr. Pelletier, please ignore my brother.” Alicia Nshombo flowed around him like the storm bands of a hurricane. First there was the overpowering scent of her gardenia perfume, then the salty, musky scent of a heavy woman exerting herself in the stifling Congo heat. Next the folds of her brightly colored, floral print robe/muumuu/tent tangled at his legs and torso, and finally her heavy, plump arms wrapped around Noel’s shoulders. “He’s still thinking it’s the old days when we were not treated with respect, when the Western countries viewed us as just another set of black oppressors. You are one of the first white businessmen to see the potential in the PPA.”

Noel gave Alicia a small bow, and bestowed a Gallic kiss on the back of her hand. “I’m sure I’m only the first of many. Your hospitality and willingness to assist in my little venture has been overwhelming.”

Noel straightened and found himself almost mesmerized by the flat stares of the three security officers who surrounded her. He considered the motorized patrols that raced through the streets near the river, the snipers positioned on the roofs of surrounding buildings, and decided that the PPA armed forces offered a great opportunity for employment and promotion.

Alicia gave him a hug that left him breathless. “You French, always so gracious. Now, please, come and meet a few more of our illustrious citizens.”

Noel followed, feeling like a wood chip caught in the wake of a carrier. As they moved across the polished oak deck Alicia continued. “In a few weeks these decks will be draped with beautiful girls. I arranged with Jalouse for them to hold the swimsuit shoot in Kongoville aboard our yacht. You should time your return trip to coincide with that.” She gave him a wink, then tucked his arm through hers and pressed it against her side. “Though why you men prefer these skinny rails… African men are wiser. They like a woman of substance.” She leered at him.

Noel suppressed a shudder and gave her a Gallic pinch on the tips of her fingers. Alicia giggled, her breasts jiggled, and she patted Noel on the crotch. He tried to will a reaction, but even he wasn’t that good an actor.

She led him up a short flight of stairs and onto a small upper deck. “So nice to watch the sunset from up here,” she crooned.

“Alas, madam, I need to return to the hotel to take part in a conference call with some American backers. The Americans have no taste, but a vast amount of money.”

Alicia giggled again, an incongruous sound from so large a woman.

“Alicia, you bawdy broad, there you are.” The words were delivered with a boyish lilt. Noel felt his genitals trying to retreat deeper into his belly.

He turned to find Tom Weathers bounding up the stairs. He had the face of an aging model. Handsome, but his expression was too young for the wrinkles, as if he hadn’t realized that time marches on, and even the golden youth must grow up.

A few steps behind him walked a middle-aged but still beautiful Chinese woman. When Noel had last seen Sun Hei-lian her face had been shiny with Lilith’s juices, as Sun had eaten pussy while Tom Weathers boned her from behind. The things I did for crown and king. Noel knew from her dossier in the files of the Silver Helix that she was a Chinese agent, very smart and very deadly. Today she seemed oddly subdued, her head bent, eyes on the polished wood deck. Occasionally she glanced up at Tom’s back, and her expression was an odd combination of fear, frustration, and grief.

So, Noel thought, maybe this isn’t just an agent running a useful asset. She might actually care for Weathers. If he cared for her she might offer a decent substitute for Sprout. Or she’s an agent who knows her asset has gone rogue, and she’s trying to decide how to liquidate him. Either way she might prove useful.

Noel’s attention was so tightly focused on Sun Hei-lian that he didn’t notice the arc of Alicia’s arms as she threw them wide to accept Weathers’s embrace. One of her heavy bracelets caught Noel’s sunglasses and swept them from his face. Noel spun away, covered his eyes, and bent to snatch them up.

“Oh, Monsieur Pelletier, I’m so sorry,” Alicia cooed.

“Hey, man, let me help you.”

Noel seized the glasses just before Weathers did, and slammed them back over his eyes. Had he seen? Did he see? Oh, Niobe, I’m sorry. “Cataracts,” he muttered, his voice breathless with fear. “I’m trying to avoid surgery.”

Suspicion melted away into concern, though Noel read it as calculated as his own performances. “Oh, man, I’m sorry. That sucks. Aren’t you a little young?”

“A genetic propensity. It blinded my father,” Noel lied glibly.

“Wow, sucks,” Weathers repeated.

“Monsieur Pelletier, I would like to introduce our dear Tom, and his lovely lady Sun Hei-lian.”

“So pleased to meet you.” They shook hands, and Tom played boy games with an overly strong handshake. Noel kept his deliberately weak, quickly pulled his hand away, and gave it a surreptitious shake

… though not too surreptitious. Weathers noticed, grinned, and dismissed him as a weakling, and therefore not worthy of attention. Noel turned his attention to Sun, and gave her one of Monsieur Pelletier’s flourishing greetings. She didn’t respond to it half as well as Alicia.

Noel decided that engaging in small talk with Tom Weathers and a Chinese agent known for her brains and deadly abilities didn’t make a lot of sense. “My champagne is empty,” he said. “I’ll leave you all to talk.”

And he hurried away down the stairs, only to stop halfway down. He kept walking in place as he tried to overhear.

A shadow fell across the hatch. Someone was coming.

It was too late to move farther down the stairs. Noel set aside his glass, and bent quickly to tie his shoe. He always wore wing tips for just this reason. Retying a shoe was always an excuse for loitering.

Sun appeared at the top of the steps and stared down at him. Noel straightened, recovered his glass, smiled, nodded at her, and continued his descent.

Manhattan, New York

They were all quiet on the way back to the apartment.

They came out from the subway at Fourteenth Street, the closest stop to Michelle’s apartment. The first snow of winter was falling in thick, wet, white flakes. Most of the people exiting the subway turned up their collars against the cold, hunching down in their coats.

“Snow,” Joey said in an awed voice Michelle had never heard before. She held out her hand and stared at the flakes hitting her palm. “Cool. I’ve never seen snow before.” Her face was full of wonder.

Michelle just wanted to get inside and figure out what to do next. But Juliet took her hand and that made her stop walking.

And so Michelle and Joey and Juliet stood on the sidewalk and let the snow fall on them until they were damp and cold.