Suicide Kings
Rain drizzled through the canopy of old-growth trees, pattering softly on Wally’s poncho. Off in the distance, far to the east, across a wide valley, the rain merged with the grey mist shrouding the craggy foothills of the Ruwenzori Mountains. The sickly sweet odor of mud and decaying vegetation, combined with the pall of charcoal smoke from upwind villages, threatened to put Wally off his lunch. Not that he smelled much better; he knew that when he finally removed his poncho, it would carry the musk scent of sweaty iron.
He held a jar of peanut butter in one hand, a banana in the other, both extended toward Ghost. He sat just inside the tree line at the edge of a grassy plain, getting a little shelter from the downpour. The trees also hid him from the helicopters; he’d been hearing those more and more frequently the past few days. The girl floated silently at the center of the meadow, where the rain fell hardest.
But the raindrops never fell on her; never touched her. Just as her feet never quite touched the ground.
She’d been drawing closer. He caught glimpses of her all day long now. No longer did she only come out at night, when he went to sleep. She floated after him through the forest without making a sound.
Wally said, “I bet you’ve never had peanut butter before. It’s real good, I promise. I practically grew up on this stuff.”
If Ghost understood his offer, she showed no sign of it. All she did was stare at him: motionless, unblinking, broken knife in hand. Unaffected by the drizzle that passed through her insubstantial body.
“Suit yourself,” he sighed. “But you don’t know what you’re missing.” He tossed the food in his pack, zipped it, pulled the straps over his shoulders, and limped off across the misty meadow. Ghost followed, always trailing at a discreet distance.
Even when he’d run to catch the tail end of a passing train. She kept up with the train, floating through the jungle just off the tracks. They’d covered a lot of ground that way.
Talking seemed to help. He acted like she was a normal little girl, like she wasn’t a child soldier sent to kill him. He talked about Jerusha, his home in Minnesota, Jerusha, his family, his friends, Jerusha, places he’d visited, Jerusha . . . He didn’t mention Lucien, or what had happened to him.
It was a one-sided conversation, of course. For all he knew, she couldn’t understand a word of it. But that wasn’t the point. He was friendly. Un-threatening. An adult that wouldn’t hurt her.
But the more he talked, the more she hesitated before backing away. And sometimes, if he pretended not to watch, he could see from the corners of his eyes how she’d cock her head, turning an ear toward him as he spoke.
Ghost was listening.
A guy didn’t have to be John Fortune to figure out that she was a product of the Nshombos’ secret laboratories. She was one in a hundred, one of the lucky few who drew an ace rather than a joker or the black queen. If lucky was the right word. Because the way Wally figured it, once her card turned, that’s when the worst part started. He wondered how much time had been spent brainwashing her, desensitizing her to violence, teaching her to kill, forcing her to practice. Just as they would have done to Lucien, back in Nyunzu.
Wally didn’t know a ton about kids, but he refused to believe the damage was permanent. He refused to believe that such a little girl could be forever broken, like Humpty Dumpty.
So he talked to Ghost. He figured that was as good a start as anything.
He kept to the meadow; good cover was getting hard to find in this part of the PPA, which was largely open grassland. But the mist and rain meant a helicopter would have to get pretty low to see him. Low enough that he’d hear it long before it saw him. And walking across open ground was something of a relief, after days and days thrashing through the jungle. His leg still hurt, where a bullet had grazed through the rust and where Ghost had tried to pry out a rivet; it wasn’t healing. The bandages came away stained with greyish yellow seepage when he cleaned the wound every evening.
As long as he got to Bunia while he could still do some damage. He had to find somebody to care for Ghost, too.
Kongoville, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
Noel drove the rattling old tow truck through the darkened streets while Mollie sat nervously beside him. They both wore black balaclavas to cover their faces. He was in his Lilith form, and dressed in Lilith’s trademark black—slacks, boots, silk shirt, and a light jacket to cover his shoulder rig. It was hotter than hell but he wanted to be well armed, and didn’t necessarily want his compatriots to know just how well armed. One boot had a small built-in holster for a tiny ankle gun. The other had two sheaths for knives. He had another gun in a holster clipped onto the waistband of her pants.
He took the final turn without braking. The bank was directly ahead of them. The goal was the ATM that had been retrofitted onto the white marble exterior. It had all the beauty of a wart on a beauty queen.
Noel swung the truck around and backed in close to the ATM. Mollie jumped out, and using her power thrust a chain and a hook through the marble and hooked them around the ATM.
She jumped back into the cab, and he gunned the engine. The ATM tore out of the wall with a sound like a bridge collapsing. They drove down the street with the ATM box bouncing along behind them like a hog-tied calf. It threw up sparks each time it hit the pavement.
A glance in the rearview mirror showed security guards boiling through the front doors of the bank. Noel laughed and was briefly disconcerted by Lilith’s icy, lilting tones. He was once again losing track of who he was at any given moment.
“What now?” Mollie asked through lips narrowed by tension.
“We pull out the last guard.”
“How—” Mollie broke off when Noel suddenly stopped the truck. “What?”
“Out,” Noel ordered.
As he jumped out Noel reached beneath the seat and extracted the final element of his plan—a big bag of money. Once in the street he threw it hard. It hit the pavement and burst open, sending dollar bills flying in every direction.
The guards who were pelting down the street like hounds after a fox checked at the sight of the money.
The other cars on the street jerked to a stop. People jumped out and began grabbing up money. More people emerged from the apartments over the shops. The guards joined in the melee, trying to grab money, keeping people from grabbing money. A final guard came barreling through the front doors of the bank.
Noel grabbed Mollie around the waist and teleported them both into Mathias’s hotel room in the Hilton. He then pulled out his phone and called Jaako, waiting in Cumming’s apartment. “Go,” he ordered.
He snatched up a small mountaineering rifle. It had been retrofitted with powerful magnets rather than spikes. It would carry the climbing rope to the walls, and they would use the rope to maneuver in the vault. He handed the rifle to Mollie. “Don’t drop it.”
Mathias stubbed out his ever-present cigarette and came into the circle of Noel’s arms. He drew in a sharp breath when he was pressed against Lilith’s bosom, but Noel suspected he was reacting to the feel of the gun more than the flesh.
Noel took them between.
It was disconcerting as hell, and Noel felt his stomach trying to climb past the back of his tongue as they appeared in the center of the vault, spinning in the air about seven feet above the floor. He swallowed hard.
Mollie squeaked, and dropped the rifle.
“Scheisse!” Mathias yelled.
Noel managed to get his toe under the rifle and kick it toward the ceiling. Mathias pointed at it, and it began to float. Mollie made another funny noise. Noel followed her gaze to a wall-mounted camera. The lens seemed to be vomiting flesh. Noel had a visceral memory of watching his grandmother grinding pork for sausage. “Be ready,” Noel said to Mathias.
The flesh stream began to expand and take on human features. Only Jaako’s lower legs remained in the camera lens. The Finnish ace had magnets strapped to his hands. He twisted sideways and slapped a ha
nd against the steel of the safety deposit boxes. It was like watching taffy being pulled as he flexed and squirmed and pulled his legs out of the camera. The magnets gave him some purchase for the final tugs, and then Mathias took over making Jaako weightless.
“Okay. Good,” Noel said. He fired the grappling line toward the doorway to the gold room. The first magnet hit on its side and didn’t catch. Noel reeled it in before it hit the floor. He tried again. This time the magnet held.
Everyone held hands, and Noel hauled them along the rope to the doorway. The pallets bulked like the backs of prehistoric beasts in the room. Mollie stared wide-eyed at the gold ingots. “Wow,” she breathed.
“Good-bye, North Dakota, eh?” Noel said with a smile. “Mollie, do your thing.”
She stared hard at the back wall of the inner vault. A wide doorway appeared. It was dark beyond the threshold.
“I thought you set up work lights?” Noel said to Mathias.
“I did—”
Jaako said, “Oh, crap.” There was a metallic shrieking and one of the interior walls slid from its pocket cavity. It was heading straight at them as they hung helpless in midair.
Several things happened at once. The pallets of gold lifted a few feet off the floor, and Noel hit the floor of the vault with a jar. The others rained down around him. They all went frantically scrambling out of the way of the oncoming wall of metal. At the same moment alarms began to whoop, an earsplitting sound inside the metal vault.
Then they were in the room with the gold. They formed a line. Jaako, who was the youngest and the strongest, started the first pallet floating toward the yawning opening. It was like a bizarre bucket brigade as each member of the team gave each pallet an adjustment and a shove, sending them through the fourth-dimensional opening.
They sent sixteen pallets through before Noel’s phone rang. “Get out! Get out! They’re opening the time lock on the vault!” came Cumming’s voice.
“That’s it, we’re done,” Noel yelled.
“But there are still seven pallets,” Mollie yelled from her position at the edge of the door.
“Tough. We’re done.” Noel made a swooping gesture like a woman herding geese, and they all tumbled through the doorway. It irised closed behind them.
And Noel realized he was cold. His breath steamed. They were not in the Congo any longer.
Kisangani, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
“Do you like the food?” asked Alicia Nshombo.
“It’s fine.” Actually, it was pretty disgusting. Michelle wasn’t even certain what she was eating.
A table had been placed in the center of the compound, and Alicia and Michelle were seated side by side. A big fire had been built in the middle of the open area. The guards kept adding wood to it, though it was already hot as hell.
“Oooo, entertainment,” Alicia said, clapping her hands like a child. Several of the guards came into the clearing leading a group of men, naked but for small loincloths. Their bodies had been painted with leopard spots.
Across the fire, Michelle saw other men carrying large drums. They sat down and started playing. Then leopards came into the clearing. There were at least twenty. They batted and clawed at each other, roaring and hissing.
“Isn’t this fun?” Alicia said, smiling.
“Well, it’s something,” Michelle replied. One bubble is all it would take.
“I have been doing some thinking,” Alicia said. “In New Orleans, you absorbed a nuclear explosion.”
“You know how rumors are.” Michelle poked at a mysterious piece of meat on her plate. The leopards rolled in the dirt. The men in loincloths began swaying to the beat of the drums.
“Hmmmmm, and our Tom was the cause of that, wasn’t he, Miss Pond?”
Michelle dropped her fork. “What do you want?”
Alicia pouted. “You aren’t being any fun. Did you enjoy your visit to my hospital? The one for the survivors. I am very proud of those. The animals who prey on our women deserve to be punished. It’s women who do all the real work.” She started gesturing with her knife. “Men are very stupid about sex. They use it as a weapon. They use it as punishment.”
“And what about the children?” Michelle asked. “Are they being punished, too?”
“Oh, there must be sacrifices when you’re building a nation.” Alicia put her knife down and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “May I call you Michelle? Michelle, you are a very powerful woman. Oh, yes, I know these things. Even here we see the CNN. Our Tom is very powerful too, but it may be you are his equal. He tried to kill many people in New Orleans, and yet you saved the city.” She popped a morsel of food into her mouth. “Tom Weathers is unpredictable and dangerous. He has been a great help to my brother, but now he is turning the world against us. My proposal is simple. Kill Tom Weathers, and I will not kill your pretty little friend.”
“Maybe I don’t care if she gets killed,” Michelle said. “Maybe I have reasons for being here that have nothing to do with her.”
Alicia rose from the table. “Don’t be silly, my dear. If you did not care about her you would have killed me already.”
She walked close to the fire. Nine of the leopards stopped biting each other and began mewling and purring. They wove themselves around her, and she reached up and undid her kerchief. Her hips swayed to the drums as she undid her dress and let it drop to the ground. Her breasts were pendulous and hung down to her waist. One of the leopards came close. Alicia let it nuzzle and lick her nipples until they hardened, then she pushed it away.
The men in loincloths moaned. They crawled toward Alicia. She proceeded to lick and bite them across their chests and backs until they bled. Each time a man was bitten, he started shaking and convulsing.
The drums beat in time. The leopards started mounting each other. Alicia snapped her fingers, and the men she’d just bitten rolled on their backs and ripped their loincloths away. They were tumescent. One by one, Alicia straddled them. She fucked each one until he came. When she was done, she sauntered back to where Michelle sat. Her thighs glistened.
Behind her, naked men and women crawled into the firelight. The drums beat louder, and the cats ripped and clawed anyone in reach. Bodies slid against each other, hands groping breasts and buttocks. Mouths licked and sucked.
“Do you like our entertainment?” Alicia asked. “It will go on all night. You should stay and watch. You can give me your answer about Tom Weathers in the morning.”
Steunenberg Barn
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
NOEL FELT HIS BODY morphing back to his normal form. Wherever he was it was daylight outside. He smelled animals and manure. Instinct replaced conscious thought. He threw himself sideways, hit the floor (it was dirt and straw), rolled to his feet, and drew the gun from his shoulder rig and the gun from behind his back. There was the roar of a shotgun blast but it was muffled because his ears were still ringing from the alarms.
The muzzle flash showed him Jaako being blown backward, erupting blood as the pellets took him full in the chest. Noel quickly narrowed his eyes and sought for the shadowy form behind the shotgun. There. He double-tapped. The figure folded over, gave a grunt, and fell to the ground.
Mathias went scrambling into a stall. The cow and calf inside began lowing in alarm. The wooden side boomed as the cow kicked at the intruder.
“Shit! Somebody’s got a gun!” someone else yelled.
Noel whirled and fired two shots at him. From the grunt Noel knew at least one bullet had found a target.
Off to his right Mollie screamed and cried out, “Daddy!”
Noel sprinted toward her. Someone reached out and grabbed the back of his jacket, bringing him up short.
“Got her . . . uh him!” one of the brothers caroled in triumph. His captor was behind him. It was a bad angle for a gun. Noel went limp. The sudden loss of resistance took the young man off guard, and he nearly dropped Noel. It allowed him to bend over enough to reach the sheath in his
boot. He dropped the Browning Hi Power, pulled the knife from the sheath, flipped it until the blade was pointing straight back, and drove it deep into the boy’s belly.
The boy added his screams to Mollie’s; there were curses coming from the father. . . .
Guess I didn’t kill him. Pity. Noel reached Mollie, flung his arm around her throat, and pulled her tight against him. Her screams became a gurgle as he laid pressure on her windpipe.
“Mollie? Mollie, honey?” Mr. Steunenberg called out, panicked.
“I have her and I will blow her brains out unless you throw down your guns and turn on a goddamn light.” There was the sound of things hitting the straw. Halting steps moved to the side of the barn, and suddenly fluorescent lights sprang to life.
“Mathias, secure their weapons,” Noel ordered.
The Hungarian emerged from the stall. Now Noel could see the carnage. Jaako was well and truly dead. His chest looked like raw hamburger. One brother lay on the straw with a sucking chest wound, victim of Noel’s first shots. The Steunenberg paterfamilias clutched at his thigh, blood seeping from between his fingers. Another brother lay on the straw, hands clutching at his stomach. He alternated whimpers with calls for mama. Still another brother, this one maybe fourteen or so, cowered against a giant bale of hay.
Noel ground the muzzle of his pistol into Mollie’s temple. “Now, Mollie, you’re going to open a doorway to the warehouse in Kongoville. And you, Mr. Steunenberg, you and your uninjured son are going to move these pallets through that doorway because if you don’t I’m going to kill Mollie. Then I’m going to hunt you down and kill you too, and that means your other two sons will die because you won’t be able to call for an ambulance.”
“My wife . . . my wife will be calling the police. They’ll be here real soon.”
“Oh, I doubt that. Because the last thing you would want is the police coming around, and you having to explain how you have all these pallets of gold ingots.” Another twist of the gun brought a whimper from Mollie. “Now make up your mind. I’m not a patient person, and you’re interfering with my plans.”
The man looked from his suffering sons to his daughter trapped in the curve of Noel’s arm. Noel loosened his grip on her throat. “Mollie, help your daddy make up his mind.”