Suicide Kings

4

Sunday,

November 29

Paraguacu River

Bahia State, Brazil

Big crocs swam the muddy river around him. As the dolphin slid through the water with near effortless undulations of his sleek and powerful body, driven by his tail flukes, he sensed them with sonic sprays emitted from his jaw, processing the echoes with the liquid mass that gave the distinctive bulge to his forehead.

He felt no fear. For he was the baddest motherfucker in the Paraguacu River. A dolphin had a rostrum-a beak-capable of killing great white sharks. What were overgrown aquatic river lizards to him?

The warm fresh water had a land taste, an oleaginous feel. He reveled in it anyway. Almost reluctantly, he steered toward the island.

As he began to break water he saw the hut waiting among mangroves, the woman on its porch, as blurs in sundry shades. Greater detail emerged as he approached, but what were mere eyes, especially in the desiccating air, against the sensory richness of sound in water?

On his last arcing lunge he left the river’s embrace completely. The sandy silt of the bottom caressed his belly when he splashed down. It took an effort of will to will the change. When he emerged from the water, dripping water from his leanly muscled, naked bipedal form, he was Tom Weathers again.

“Hoo,” he said, shaking water from his golden hair. “And to think that just a moment ago I was thinking of this air as dry. There’s a perspective change.” To his human nostrils the air smelled so ripely of tannin-rich water and wet-leaved mangrove forest it almost made his head swim.

The woman laughed. His human eyes made her out clearly. Forty-something or not, a naked Sun Hei-lian was well worth seeing. “I can never get over that particular power of yours,” she called as he trudged up the gravel-paved trail from the water’s edge to the rough plank steps with the slanting late-afternoon spring sun stinging his skin from upriver. “How’d you ever get the ability to do something like that?”

The question made his nut-sac tense up as if to crawl back in his belly. “There’s no limit to what the power of world revolution can do,” he said. “You should know that, Shang Xiao.”

It meant “Colonel.” The world at large knew Hei-lian as an intrepid trouble telejournalist for Chinese Central Television’s English-language news service. The intelligence community knew her as a top agent of China’s well-feared Ministry of State Security: the Guojia Anquan Bu, or Guoanbu for short. Beijing had set her to seduce the PPA’s superpotent and mercurial Western ace.

She’d succeeded so well she was now the People’s Republic’s chief advisor to its ally Nshombo, the hard-core male chauvinism of her communist gerontocrat bosses notwithstanding. And in the process she’d fallen in love with her chief subject.

“If you say so,” she said.

As he clomped up the steps beneath the thatch overhang of the roof she handed him an open bottle of almost self-luminous green fluid. It chilled his palm, meaning it came straight from the cooler they’d brought with them from Salvador, capital of Brazil’s Bahia state, about thirty miles downstream where the river emptied into the Atlantic. The little shack had no electricity or running water or any modern conveniences.

Which didn’t seem to impair its popularity as a weekend retreat for urban baianos; getting it hadn’t been easy. Especially since Tom couldn’t exactly flash his ace powers to impress the booking agent. This was supposed to be a hideout, after all: he never spent the night in the same place twice running. That running-dog teleport Bahir was still on his case, too, and he had to sleep sometime.

More and more he was growing reluctant to let himself sleep at all, for reasons having nothing to do with the golden-eyed Arab ace.

Tom twisted off the cap and took a hit. The coolness suffusing outward from his throat was welcome relief after walking a mere thirty feet. Although it was “cool” only by comparison to the mind-blowing tropic heat.

Holding a half-full beer, Hei-lian leaned against the side of the doorway, an oblong cut through warped wood to the darkness of the interior. Her long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her skin, normally ivory tinged pink, glowed gold in the angled light.

She wasn’t his usual type. He’d be the first to admit that. It wasn’t that he went for the big-boobed blond cheerleader types, especially not with augments out to here: fake tits symbolized capitalism’s obsession with conspicuous consumption. But he usually did like his women fuller-figured.

Not to mention younger. Sun Hei-lian wore her years lightly, although he knew they’d been spent in hard service. She kept herself in remarkable shape, gymnast shape, martial-artist shape. She’d been taught taijiquan and internal martial arts by her Daoist-priest father, and more violent applications by her employers.

She claimed he made her feel years younger. She’d laughed more in the last year, she said, their year together, than in her entire life previously. As serious as she still normally was, he believed that.

She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, not despite her years but because of them. And she was smart, fierce smart, a trait he respected. More than a skilled, and now passionate, lover, Hei-lian was something the Radical had never known in his brief years of freedom: a confidante.

“You seem thoughtful, lover,” Sun said.

He turned and leaned on the rail. Sun-heated wood stung his arms. “I miss Sprout,” he said softly. “I miss being able to have her with me.”

“You could’ve brought her along.”

“Would you be running around like that?”

“Of course not,” Sun said in mock outrage. “Not in front of a child.” She came up to put her chin on his shoulder and tousle his hair. He felt the heat and yielding firmness of her body on his back and buttocks, skin on skin, the slight rasp of her bush. Unlike a lot of chicks these days she didn’t shave her pussy. Her pubic hair was on the sparse and wispy side anyway.

As sunset approached, vast flocks of scarlet ibises, pink-pale from their season in the north and long flight back to southern summer, fell on sandbanks and overgrown islands and the dense mangal on either bank like cotton-candy rain, to feed on mangrove crabs among the tough, gnarly roots knuckling down into black water. Their cries bubbled into a sky being overtaken by bands of orange and yellow.

With a sloshing of syrupy water a crocodile, what the locals called a jacare, emerged from the water by the little dock. No boat was tied there now: no need for one. The jacare was a big fucker, maybe twelve feet long. It dragged itself up by the gravel path and stared insolently at the humans from gelatinous armor-lidded eyes, as if laying claim on them for supper.

Tom pointed. A pencil of fire stabbed from his finger and crisped a tuft of grass a couple of inches in front of the croc’s sharp snout. Moisture in plant and mud flashed to steam, scorching the animal’s nose and shooting grains of dirt against it. Opening its yellow-pink mouth to roar surprise, displaying impressive teeth, the beast wigwagged its fat tail hastily backward into the water and was gone.

“Arrogant prick,” Tom said. He raised the finger and blew away imaginary gunsmoke.

Hei-lian laughed. “That’s more like it. I was wondering why you brought us here to this rustic tropic paradise for the night. Other than the usual security considerations, of course. I didn’t think you went in much for that whole hippie back-to-nature thing.”

Supernova anger burst inside him. He spun. Hei-lian leapt back like a startled cat. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he shouted in her face. “What the fuck?”

There was more surprise than fear in those wide black eyes. But there still was fear. Colonel Sun, consecrated to service of Guoanbu and country since prepubescence, survivor of decades of full-contact play in some of the world’s most blood-soaked open sores, did not scare easily.

But Tom was the most powerful ace on Earth, except maybe for Ra. He swatted fifty-ton main battle tanks like bugs. She knew far too well what he could do with her. “Nothing,” she said. She managed to keep her voice almost steady. “I was just making a joke. Trying. Failing.”

The stricken look on her face stabbed through him like that Kalashnikov slug through the back. He let out a big breath. The anger had already vanished, as quickly as it had lit. It left behind a kind of clammy, shaky emptiness.

“I’m sorry, man,” he mumbled. “Didn’t mean to rattle you like that.” You got to maintain, man, he told himself. You can find another woman. But there’s way more at stake here than that. More than he dared let anyone suspect. Not Hei-lian. Not even Sprout. More than he cared to let himself think about. Everything.

Shaking his head, he turned back to the rail and the river and the gathering birds and evening. “I’m just a little uptight these days.”

She was back, pressed against him, stroking him soothingly. Mingling sweat made a slick membrane between them. He respected the nerve it took her to approach him.

“The Sudan?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, leaning heavily on the rail. “Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time.” Tom picked up the soda, now past tepid to near hot, chugged half of it. He wished he dared let himself have even one beer to take the edge off. But he didn’t. Hadn’t in the almost decade and a half since he’d… come into his own. Nor had he gotten stoned. He couldn’t allow himself to alter his brain chemistry. “Nshombo’s always been hung up on Muslims, especially Arabs. He remembers it was always the Arabs who encouraged the slave trade, thinks they mean to bring all that back.” He shrugged. “Shit. They even might. In South Sudan we found some local Muslims-they call themselves Arabs, even though they don’t look any different from their neighbors-keeping animist tribesmen as slaves. We gave the slave owners to their own slaves. Perfect propaganda by deed. This Caliph’s just a puppet, and Siraj is a Western wannabe. I’m cool with putting him up against the wall. But in ten years. Maybe five. When we’ve shown the world the revolution works, made this place the People’s Paradise in reality as it is in name. It’s too early. Way too fucking early.” Tom turned away to lean on the rail. “And Alicia’s pet aces

… they’re too big a risk. Look at what happened with the last one.”

“Dolores.” She laid a hand cool on his shoulder. “Butcher Dagon killed her.”

Tom turned away. “Alicia’s first success story, and look how that turned out.” The sun poured in crosswise beneath the thatch awning as it sank toward the mangal and the big river’s origin in the Chapada Diamantina in the middle of Bahia state. The light had softened, lost some of its sting. But the air stayed still and hot, the humidity thick enough to swim in. The bugs, ever-present, had gone from busy to frenetic.

Tom blew out his lips in a sigh and turned to Sun with a lopsided grin. “What say we go inside and get, you know, horizontal?”

Jackson Square

New Orleans, Louisiana

And then she’s back in the pit.

Adesina is crouched down. Her hair has come undone from its braids and is a tangled cloud around her face. She looks feral.

Michelle glances around. Corpses. Check. Leopards. Check. Adesina. Check. No bunnies. Check.

She closes her eyes hard and wills herself back to New Orleans.

Juliet and Joey were staring at her. “What was that you were saying?” Juliet asked.

“I wasn’t saying anything,” Michelle replied.

“Hell you weren’t,” Joey said. “That was some fucked-up shit, Bubbles. You were talkin’ in tongues.”

Michelle wanted to shake her head, but she only managed to move it a little. “No. That was Adesina.”

Ink and Hoodoo Mama glanced at each other.

“Hey!” Michelle exclaimed. “I saw that!”

Juliet stroked Michelle’s forehead. “Sweetie, you’ve been in a coma for a year. You’re probably tired.”

“I am not tired,” Michelle snapped. “Hello? Coma? I am plenty rested. And I’ve been having these weird dreams that I’m pretty sure aren’t dreams. No bunnies.” Michelle glowered up at them. “You can stop with the looking. I can see the two of you.”

But then they weren’t looking at each other. They were staring at her. Any other time she might have laughed at the expressions on their faces. “What the hell? I swear I didn’t fart.”

Juliet pointed at Michelle. “You’re bubbling.”

Michelle looked down at her hand. A large bubble was forming on it. It glistened, iridescent and beautiful, and it felt as if it could go on for days.

She released the bubble, and it drifted up to the ceiling. Then her hand was shaking and she thought she would lose control. A horrible nausea flowed through her again. And then the power was tearing at her. Fire in her veins. But she could bubble.

Somewhere Over the Atlantic Ocean

From New Orleans they flew to New York. From New York they’d fly to Rome. There they would transfer to a smaller plane bound for Addis Ababa, where they would board an even smaller plane bound for Dar es Salaam.

Wally shook the foil packet the flight attendant had handed him a couple of hours earlier. He leaned across the aisle (Wally needed an aisle seat; people complained about sharing an armrest with a metal guy) and said, over the rumble of the engines, “Want my peanuts?”

Jerusha shook her head, still studying the maps spread over her tray table. She’d been studying them since they left New York. She studied a lot. “No, thanks.”

It was dark in the cabin. The flight attendants had dimmed the lights, to help people sleep away the time zones. Wally had traveled a lot since joining the Committee, but he still hadn’t learned how to sleep on an airplane.

He yawned; his jaw hinges creaked. Wally stretched until the metal in his seat groaned. He made another attempt to focus on the guidebooks they’d purchased, but they were full of stuff he didn’t understand. He figured it would all make more sense once he got there.

The in-flight movie looked good; it even had a couple folks laughing. But the headphones didn’t fit him.

“Hey, Jerusha?”

“Uh-huh?”

“What do you think we’ll find over there? In Congo?”

In a stage whisper, Jerusha said, “The horror. The horror.” She grinned, as if she’d just made a joke.

Wally stared at her.

“Maybe we’ll find an ivory dealer.”

Wally shook his head, slowly.

“Joseph Conrad? Heart of Darkness?”

Wally shrugged.

“It’s a book.”

“Oh. I don’t read much.” He shrugged, but inwardly he cringed. This was the sort of admission that attracted cutting remarks the way magnets attracted iron filings. He braced himself for the inevitable sneer.

But something strange happened: she shrugged, too. “You’re not missing anything. I had to read it in high school. Royally hated it, too.”

“We had to read The Great Gatsby. That’s the longest book I’ve ever read. I had to ask Mr. Schwandt for an extra week, but I finished it.”

“Good for you.” Weird-it sounded like she meant it. No sarcasm. “Oh, I know. Do you see many movies?”

“Oh, sure. Lots.”

“Ever see Apocalypse Now? It’s based on Heart of Darkness.”

“Yeah, I saw that one. I liked it pretty good when I saw it.” Thinking about war movies reminded him of what he’d seen and done in the past couple of years. More quietly, he said, “I don’t think I’d like it so much now.”

Wally was quiet for a long time. When he looked up again, he found Jerusha still looking at him.

“Wally? How many kids do you sponsor?”

“Seven. Counting Lucien.” Again, that pang of worry. “We’re gonna find him, right?”

“You know what I think? I think we’ll get all the way over there, and find out that Lucien is a little boy.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’s a kid. Kids are forgetful. They play and make up games and forget to do the things their parents tell them. That’s what kids are supposed to do.”

“I never thought about it like that. I hope so.”

In a lighter tone, Jerusha asked, “So. How’s it coming with those guidebooks?”

“Oh, good. Real good.” She looked at the unopened books on his tray table, then cocked an eyebrow at him.

Wally’s sigh sounded like the release valve on an overheated boiler. “I don’t read much,” he confessed.

“Did you do any preparation at all for this trip before you called me?”

“Well, I have all of Lucien’s letters. And on Saturdays back home my brother and I used to watch those old Tarzan movies on TV. I’ve probably seen them all.”

“Tarzan.” Jerusha rubbed her eyes. “Great.”

“I can even do a pretty good Tarzan yell.”

Quickly she said, “Please don’t.”

“You’re not mad, are ya?”

“I’m not mad at you, Wally. I’m mad at…” She gave him a wan little smile. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all. I haven’t slept since yesterday.”

Wally didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Thanks.”

He picked up a guidebook. And when he woke up, they were in Rome.

Headquarters of Silver Helix

London, England

Noel sat on the floor of the file room, sucking on a Tootsie Roll Pop (part of the leftover Halloween candy stash, another peculiar American custom) and reading through the agency’s files on the Nshombos. He had quit the Silver Helix last year, and he and the organization had a fragile peace.

Noel’s statements to the Hague had led to the arrest of John Bruckner, aka the Highwayman, and Brigadier Kenneth Foxworthy, aka Captain Flint, for war crimes. A year ago, Flint and Bruckner had broken into his parents’ house, killed the ace “kids” Noel had sired with Niobe, and kidnapped an American boy whose uncontrolled nuclear power had governments all over the world trying to kill him or control him. Bruckner had delivered Drake to Nigeria, to stop the advance of the PPA army into that oil-rich nation. Thousands had died in the detonation, and ultimately Nigeria had fallen to the PPA anyway.

Foxworthy and Bruckner were now in custody in Holland. Bruckner was gobbling about how he was “just following orders,” but Flint had fallen on his sword for crown and country by taking all the blame. The Silver Helix knew that Noel had a huge file about the assassinations he had undertaken on behalf of the British government just waiting to be released if they made any move against him. Noel didn’t see why the “MAD” agreement couldn’t be extended to making use of the resources of the Silver Helix.

He scanned quickly through the pages, searching for something he could use to discredit the brother and sister. The brother was an abstemious man-no mistresses, no drugs, no alcohol. The sister was more sybaritic-she overindulged in food and sex. It was believed she slept with most of the men recruited into her Leopard Society. But she wasn’t the head of the state-exposing her excesses would do little.

Noel flipped up another page. The heading on the one below read assets. The Nshombos had three Swiss bank accounts-one guess who had two and who had one-but the numbers were unknown. In addition to the palace in Kongoville there was an apartment in Paris and a home on the Dalmatian coast. There was a yacht. A line caught his eye. The national treasury appears to consist of a mixture of gold bullion, platinum bars, and uncut diamonds held in the Central Bank of the Congo.

Suddenly the door opened.

Noel cursed himself for being so focused on his reading that he had missed the approaching footsteps. He glanced at his watch: 4:42 p.m. Outside, the winter sun was dropping into the fogs and fumes of Old London Town. But it wasn’t full night yet, and Noel was trapped in his real body and unable to teleport. The headshrinkers with the Silver Helix had never been able to help him overcome his psychological glitch so Noel himself could teleport like his avatars.

He reached under his jacket for his pistol. He really didn’t want to shoot one of his former comrades, so he just rested his hand on the butt.

“Noel, what the hell are you doing here, man?”

It was Devlin Pear, aka Ha’Penny. Since Noel was seated on the floor they were actually nose to nose. Dev was a midget. He could get smaller, a lot smaller.

Noel held up the file. “Just a bit of intel.”

“You can’t do this. Lady Margaret’s on the desk tonight. She’d have your balls if she knew you were here.”

And that was most certainly true. Lady Margaret, aka Titania, had nursed a desperate crush on the former head of the Silver Helix for years. Now Captain Flint was awaiting his war crimes trial, and Noel had put him there. “Well then, don’t tell her.”

“I’ve got to. You can’t just pop in here-”

Noel laid a hand on the file. “Look, I’m doing God’s work. Or at least England’s, which is almost the same thing.” He gave Dev a smile, but the little ace continued to look worried. “I’m looking for a way to remove the Nshombos that won’t have Western fingerprints on it. That can only help British interests in the area, right?”

“Why would you do that? You left the service.”

“I don’t give a tinker’s damn about the Silver Helix, but I’m still an Englishman. I just wanted some information.”

“That’s really all you want?”

“I swear.”

“All right, but don’t do this again.” The little ace hesitated. “Call me instead.”

They shook hands, Noel put away the files, stood, and checked his watch. It was still three minutes until full night.

“Wish you hadn’t left us,” Devlin said.

“I had to. I didn’t like what I’d become.”

Ha’Penny considered Noel’s role in the Silver Helix-assassin-and nodded slowly. “I can see that.”

It was time. Noel made the transition to Lilith. “The PPA’s the danger, Dev,” she said. “I just want to help.” And she teleported away.