way of ensuring that the ranks or priests are joined only by those whom the priests approve.'
'Everything is political,' Hood observed.
'That's true, but we don't know whether Burton ever became a houngan,' Liz went on.
'How could he not?' Hood asked.
'Burton is claiming to be the embodiment of the powerful snake deity Dhamballa,' Liz said. 'We don't know if the usual rules of ascension to the priesthood apply.'
MISSION OF HONOR
203
Hood stared at her. 'Are you saying that Thomas Burton thinks he's a snake god?' he said flatly.
'That's right,' Liz replied.
Hood shook his head. 'Liz, I just don't know about this. Do you think that Burton could be playing the part of Dhamballa? Faking it? He was a poor mine worker. Perhaps he's being paid to serve the political needs of Albert Beaudin and his partners.'
'He didn't take money from people in the market,' Liz said. 'Why would he take it from Beaudin?'
'Mothers in nursing homes can become expensive,' Hood said.
'I did the math,' J2 said. 'His salary was enough to cover that.'
'Beaudin and his people may be using Burton,' Liz agreed. 'But I don't think he's acting.'
'Why?' Hood asked.
'Two things,' Liz told him. 'First, Thomas Burton's epiphany would not have taken place in a vacuum. Even if he had no religious training, he would have gone to someone who did. Someone who could explain what he was thinking, feeling. The experience was obviously so powerful that any houngan or mambo Burton might have visited was convinced that he had been blessed. At least, no one questioned him or stood in his way.'
'Do we know that for sure?' Hood asked.
'We're surmising it,' Liz said. 'Only a few weeks passed between Burton quitting his job at the mines and Dhamballa holding his first small rally. If there had been any serious resistance from Vodun priests, it would have taken months or even years to sort out. And it probably would have resulted in the use of black magic against him.'
'Black magic,' Hood said. 'Are you talking zombies now?'
'Mae?' Liz said.
The young woman nodded. 'We are. Only the word is really nzumbie, which means 'ghost.' '
Once again, Hood had to fight a sense of condescension. The fact that this was not his world or set of beliefs should
204
OP-CENTER
not make it invalid. He had a flashback to when he was mayor of Los Angeles. He was hosting a movie industry dinner and was seated between two powerful studio heads. They were earnestly debating which of their studios was on top of the next big trend: talking animal movies or films about the postapocalyptic era. Hood had brought the executives together to discuss internship programs for underprivileged city youths. He could not get worked up over the subject of Babe vs. Waterworld. But to the producers, with hundreds of millions of dollars at risk, it mattered.
To the Vodunists, this mattered.
'The zombies we're talking about are not the stiff, vacanteyed killers we've seen in the movies,' Mae went on. 'From everything I've read, they are conversant, very active beings. No blood drinking, no flesh eating, no mindless mayhem.'
'But are they still, like, slaves to masters?' J2 asked.
'No one is sure whether they're slaves or just willing subjects,' Mae replied. 'Either way, they are extremely devoted to the houngan or mambo who created them.'
'These zombies may also be victims of sleeping potions and mind control drugs,' Liz said. 'Over the last fifteen or twenty years, there has been a fair amount of scientific debate about the subject in the psychiatric and medical journals. The consensus is that they do not die but are artificially placed in a deep narcosis and then revived.'
'Mind control drugs,' Hood said. He was glad that there was finally something he could hook into. 'Could the Brush Vipers be victims of chemical brainwashing?'
'It's possible but unlikely,' Liz replied. 'Working as a soldier in the field requires the ability to act independently in a crisis. That brings me back to exactly what black magic is. To a Vodunist, it is not necessarily the supernatural. It is simply bloodshed.'
'Which is why we don't think this Dhamballa man believes in it,' J2 pointed out. 'If the Brush Vipers had used violence to set him up, it would definitely have shown up as a blip on some of the South African intelligence reports from the region. I checked those. All the fights and arguments our people noted
MISSION OF HONOR
205
were about boundaries and trade and that sort of thing. Nothing about religion.'
'Maybe the Brush Vipers kept people in line for him,' Hood suggested.
