“So you see, then,” the man continued. “People come from far away to ask my advice and give me the wealth of their villages.It has made me and my tribe rich. You are the first white man to come see me. Ask me your question, give me your gifts, andI will reward you with what you seek.”
“Fuck you,” Teulere spat. “You are a fraud. I will give you nothing.”
The faux Oracle shook his head sadly.
“That is unfortunate, my friend. I have plans, you see. In this dead land, people are desperate for a future. Any future.Why should I not be the one to give it to them?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Better than your kind, who only take.”
The man lifted his head and rattled off a loud string of Hausa, too fast for Teulere to follow. Still, he didn’t need to hearit clearly to understand. He cursed and reached for his pistol, spinning around.
The first shot caught him high in the chest. He had just enough time to see two of the child soldiers at the entrance to thehut, holding their rifles high, before the second entered through his cheek and exited through the back of his skull.
Part II
Winter
Chapter 10
Thirty miles west of Duluth, Minnesota, a navy-blue-and-white Sikorsky H-92 helicopter holding the designation Marine Twotouched down on the front lawn of a large Victorian home, throwing up huge clouds of billowing, pristine snow, sparkling inthe cold sunshine.
The house stood alone on an estate of a hundred acres of rolling midwestern hillsides and woods, and a large section of thelawn had been cleared of the three feet of snow on the ground in anticipation of the aircraft’s arrival. Two hundred yardsto one side from Marine Two sat a sleek black executive copter fitted with wide skids to allow it to land on the snow, tinyin comparison to the huge Sikorsky, like a shiny, dark-skinned beetle.
Several other helicopters were dotted along the lawn and the long, curving drive leading from the house to the nearest road,over a mile away. These were matte black, with discreetly mounted weapons pods, and had disgorged contingents of Secret Serviceagents and U.S. Marines in winter gear, who now stood at strategic points on all sides of the house, looking both inward andoutward.
A lone figure sat on a glider on the home’s wide front porch, sipping from a thermos and swinging slowly forward, back, forward.He was bundled against the cold—puffy coat, earflapped hat, thick scarf.
Inside Marine Two, Anthony Leuchten peered out the window at the figure sitting on his porch. He was smaller than expected,the name “Coach” having conjured up images of burly midwesterners with red cheeks and girthy waistlines. But this man seemedshort, almost delicate.
“That’s him, huh?” he said. “The Coach.”
“Yeah,” Jim Franklin answered. “More or less.”
Leuchten frowned. The details for this meet had only been finalized earlier that day—a matter of hours, really—set to occurat his family home in rural Minnesota, completely snowed in, accessible only by air. And somehow, the man had arrived first,and was already sitting on his porch drinking coffee when the advance security teams arrived.
Leuchten found that extremely irritating.
He turned back to the FBI director, sitting across from him in a beautiful, pale leather seat with the presidential seal incisedinto its headrest.
“You aren’t wasting my time here, are you?” Leuchten said. “Because this would be a really bad time to have my time wasted.”
Franklin gave him a very dark look, black as pitch.
Leuchten knew the FBI director hated him. He was used to it. A lot of people hated Anthony Leuchten.
People hated him because he won. Mustering energy to care that people were frustrated when he beat them seemed like a tremendouswaste of time—which was something he did care about, very much. There was a vision to be realized, after all, and only somuch time in this life to get there.
He locked eyes with Franklin, keeping his face blank, and then he winked. A flicker of confusion rippled across the otherman’s face, which Leuchten enjoyed immensely.
He leaned forward and rapped on the helicopter door. A marine standing just outside opened it, letting the warm cabin airout and the freezing Minnesota winter in. Leuchten made his way out of the aircraft and along the shoveled-out path to hisown front porch, where the Coach sat waiting, still swinging, watching him.
As he drew closer, the Coach’s face—smiling—came close enough for him to make out. And then Leuchten stopped cold, becausethe Coach was not a small, delicate man after all. The Coach was a woman.
Leuchten forced himself to take another step, watching as the woman on the porch got to her feet. He thought back to the conversationshe’d had with Franklin about the Coach, and not once could he remember the FBI director mentioning that his mysterious fix-itman was in fact a mysterious fix-it woman. Franklin hadn’t corrected Leuchten, either, not in all the times he’d referredto the she as a he.
Leuchten resolved to ask the man why he had done such a rude, suspicious thing—right before he fired his insubordinate, ineffectiveass.
All this ran through Leuchten’s head as he approached the porch, his polished loafers slipping on the snowy path. As he nearedthe steps, the briefest shadow of displeasure crossed the Coach’s face, but it was wiped away instantly, replaced by an evenlarger grin.
“Mr. Leuchten, sir,” she exclaimed, stepping forward with hand outstretched as Leuchten reached the porch, “it is an honorand a privilege to meet you.”
Leuchten reached out his ungloved hand to meet the Coach’s mittened one.
“Goodness, look at me,” the Coach said, quickly tugging the mitten off her hand. “No manners at all. I’m just excited, sir,that’s all.”
She grasped his hand and shook it warmly, a firm, dry grip.
Leuchten considered the Coach, deciding that she reminded him of Bea Arthur. High-cheekboned face surmounted and defined bya thin, aquiline nose like half an isosceles triangle. Sharp, clear blue eyes behind rimless spectacles, with that smile poweringthe whole thing. Overall, it gave the impression that under her puffy winter coat, she was
