up to the cockpit. “Ghanima, let me take over. Help the doctor. And get the ladder up.”
“Right.” The pilot moved aside and gestured at the switchboard. “You’re going to have to tell me what all this does sometime.”
Taziri took the controls and glanced up at the mirror where she saw the doctor and Ghanima bent over Kenan. Ghanima held Kenan steady and Evander pulled on the soldier’s arm. Kenan gasped and groaned as his shoulder shifted and popped back where it belonged, and then he fell quiet as the doctor fabricated a sling out of bandages.
With restless feet on the pedals and anxious fingers drumming on the throttles, Taziri waited for the marshal to sit up. Through the windows, she saw the harbor waters glittering blue and white around the gray and brown shapes of boats. “Are you all right back there?”
Kenan grunted and nodded.
“Well, we’re going to need a plan, and fast. The major is still down there somewhere, and those two heavies may be looking for him right now. What do we do?”
Kenan-in-the-mirror shook his sweaty head. “I don’t know.”
“Kenan, we have no time.” Taziri looked back over her shoulder. “The major is in danger every minute that we’re up here and he’s outnumbered down there. You said you just left him, so where is he? Where did he go?”
Ghanima slipped into the cockpit and sat down beside her. “We left him near the ferry. He said he was going to check the ships.”
“The ferry.” Taziri unbalanced the throttles and the Halcyon spun a long and lazy half-circle. The view of the harbor below rotated to reveal the lighthouse, the pier, and the empty slip beside it. “Where is it?”
“There!” Ghanima pointed across the water to the far side of the harbor, where the white bulk of the ferry was slowly churning its way into the mouth of the Bou Regreg River heading toward the Zemmour Canal.
“Well, that’s just perfect,” Taziri said. “So either he’s still wandering the docks, or he’s sailing inland, or he’s somewhere else entirely.”
“I think we should go back to Tingis and tell the marshals. Let them figure it out.” Ghanima raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “We’re just pilots. They should have a whole team of marshals and police officers tracking down the ambassador and the major. We should get out of this mess.”
“There’s nothing I’d like more,” Taziri muttered. Menna. Yuba. Isoke. My arm. So many reasons. “Which is why this is so hard to do.” She turned the propellers up and eased the throttles forward, driving the ship down.
“What are you doing?” Ghanima rose from her seat, eyes darting from window to window. “We can’t land there!”
“Of course we can. We shouldn’t. We really, really shouldn’t. But we can.” Taziri watched the shapes below resolve from toys into ships and the ants evolve into women and men. Directly below them, a slender brown finger sharpened into the broad wooden pier where dozens of people, many brandishing fishing poles, were pointing upward or jogging back toward the street. In the center of the pier a ring of bizarre figures became a carousel of tiny wooden sailboats and airships rotating around a central engine, all dressed in waving flags and painted in garish blues, yellows, and reds.
The propellers flipped back down and the Halcyon roared, cavitating violently as the engines chewed through their own downwash, and then the tires thumped down on the pier, which creaked and groaned beneath them.
Taziri winced at the noise. “Now we just need to hold still for a bit without breaking the pier and falling into the water. How about it? Think you’re up for a little parking management?”
Ghanima nodded and quickly took the pilot’s seat as Taziri slipped back into the cabin and spun the hatch wheel to unlock it. “Kenan, I think I might need that gun of yours again. May I?”
The marshal paused, his eyes fixed on the hatch, his hand resting on his holster. With a sigh, he came to life again and pulled out the revolver. “Keep it out of sight, if you can.”
“That’s the plan.” Taziri shoved the gun into her jacket’s inner pocket and ducked out the hatch onto the pier. There was no one nearby, only a few fish in a bucket beside an abandoned net and pole. She jogged up the pier toward the shore, toward the small crowd of gawkers gathered at the edge of the street near the harbor master’s office. As Taziri neared them she scanned their faces, young and old, light and dark, hair and hats and…there they were. Two men shouldering their way through the crowd. The two heavies from the lighthouse, the same pair from the airfield a few hours earlier.
For a brief moment, their eyes met. Then the two men pushed out of the crowd and strode down the pier.
Taziri stopped just beside the carousel, her hand going to the metallic lump inside her jacket. Her mind raced for options as her gaze came to rest on the little wooden airship on the carousel beside her and she frowned. The toy’s design was all wrong, distorted to create a space for a child to sit in the middle of the balloon.
The heavies reached the far side of the empty amusement ride, their weapons held low. They were muttering to each other.
Taziri closed her hand around the gun in her pocket. “Are you working for Ambassador Chaou?”
The men snorted and exchanged another look. “A little slow, aren’t you?” The taller one shouted over the low huffing of the carousel engine.
“So it is her.” Taziri called back, “Where is Major Zidane?”
“Is that what you came back for?” The shorter one with the gun shook his head. “God, Medur must really hate you by now. Coming back for a Redcoat. How stupid are you? You got away, and then you came straight back here for him?” He grinned. “Girl, you are just begging for a bullet.”
“Where is he?” Taziri thumbed the revolver’s hammer.
The two men sauntered around the carousel. The tall one with the knife called out, “I think he’s a few miles back that way.” He pointed at the canal. “Don’t worry. Chaou will keep him company. In fact, she sent us to keep you company, too.”
That little old woman is holding the major? That’s ridiculous, unless… “Is Zidane still alive?”
“Chaou’s got him.” The tall one shrugged. “That little bitch is pretty tough, what with that thing in her arm. I bet she’s zapped the marshal a dozen times by now.”
“Zapped? You mean electrocuted?” Taziri’s mind raced as the fragments of conversation slowly fell into place together.
Wait, what did Hamuy say about Chaou? The doctor did something to her, and it’s in her arm. And it’s something that can electrocute a man as large as the major? A powerful electrical device housed inside a human body. The voltage needed to injure a person would require far more energy than could be stored in any conventional battery. She felt her stomach plummeting into oblivion and her numb fingers suddenly felt cold. She could only come up with one explanation.
“Yeah, she did it to me once.” The tall one winced. “Or twice.”
“Stop right there.” Taziri drew the revolver and leveled it at the two men. “Just get out of here. Walk away now or I start shooting.”
The knife man said, “Take it easy, flygirl. I think we both know you’re not going to shoot anyone. In fact, I’ll bet that’s the first time you’ve ever held a gun, isn’t it?”
“Actually, it’s the second.” Taziri swung the weapon to the center of the carousel and started firing. Bullets pinged and thumped against the engine, and one of them burst the oil pan into a small fireball, and another shot ruptured the boiler. The metal barrel tore apart and a roaring gust of steam rushed out directly into the rising curtain of flaming oil. The burning wave swept across the carousel, igniting the rotating dais and all of the tiny wooden ships on its rim.
The men’s eyes went wide as the crimson flare painted their faces in red and yellow. They dove over the railing to plummet into the harbor below as the flaming thunderhead rolled across the pier and set fire to the rail. Taziri threw up an arm to shield her face from the heat as she stumbled back down the pier. She paused to watch the little wooden airships crackle and snap, bathed in flames and spitting cinders. Then she put the gun away and jogged back to the Halcyon.
She leapt into the cabin, ignoring Kenan’s demands for his gun and the doctor’s mad sputtering in Hellan. Taziri crossed the cabin and put her boot on Hamuy’s crusty black hand. “You said before that they did something to Chaou. They put something electrical in her, didn’t they? When did they put it in her? When? ”
Hamuy grimaced and looked up through heavy lids. His face shone with sweat and his eyes twitched. “Four or
