Kengo shook his head. “No, no place called Kisan. Do you mean Kisangani?”
Something about the name rang inside Michelle. She knew she’d never heard it before, but it sounded right.
“Yes, that’s it,” she replied. “Kisangani. I need to find the Kisangani Children’s Hospital.” When Kengo said “Kisangani,” a memory of her dream about Adesina became sharper. The details were suddenly more in focus.
“You do not want to go there,” Kengo said, holding his hands up in front of him. “That’s a very bad place.”
“There’s something important I have to do there.”
He stared at her for a moment. “You are both madwomen. Possessed.”
Michelle opened her hand and let a bubble form. “The demons fled this world on September 15, 1946,” she said as she let the bubble loose into the murky river. Water spewed up from the small explosion that followed.
“Do you think any demon would dare come here now?” She got up. “Now stop screwing around and get me to Kisangani.”
People’s Palace
Kongoville, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
“Hei-lian?” He said softly from the doorway.
She sat in the living room of the apartment on the People’s Palace’s third floor watching satellite television. She jumped at his voice. Her green silk robe fell open, letting her bare left breast peek out. “Tom?” she said tentatively. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“Mark. I talked to you before. Please say you remember?”
“Yes,” she said warily. “I’m still not sure if it’s a trick. You claim to be Tom’s alter ego. Mark Meadows.”
“He’s my alter ego. Never mind. The answer is, I don’t know what I’m doing up.”
She frowned. She didn’t bother closing the robe. Her beauty cut him like the blade of Lohengrin’s glowing sword. Whose kiss he remembered, sadly, as well as hers.
Feeling as if he were wrapped in cotton batting, he teetered to the arm of the sofa and sat near her. She lowered herself to perch on the edge of the cushion like a finch ready to fly away at the first hint of danger.
“I know it’s night, and the moon’s up. I can feel myself healing, even if I’m not feeling the pain I should be. That’s weird. When he’s gone through this before it hurt like hell. Anyway, why is he even here? He won’t spend the night the same place twice running, and he’s here in the palace? After trashing the whole peace conference?”
“When Tom got here he was raving, in obvious agony,” she said. “I could hardly believe he was even alive. The medics gave him sedatives and put him on a morphine drip. When his injuries began to heal visibly, I suggested they bring you- him -here.” She shrugged. “Hard to get better in hospital. It’s better in a familiar bed.”
“Yeah.” Mark nodded slowly. “So that’s it. He doesn’t take pain well. Ironic, huh? He’s tried so hard to stay off any kind of drugs for fear I’d take back over.”
“Have you?”
Did she sound eager, or was he wishful-thinking again? “No way. Sorry.”
“What do you want?”
He drew a deep breath to nerve himself. “This is harder than I thought. First, to get it over with: I love you, Sun Hei-lian. I’ve fallen for you hard.”
Her expression didn’t flicker. “Very well.”
“Yeah. I know. Pretty bizarre, right? And what I feel doesn’t put you under any obligation. Which is good, because you need to get away.”
“What do you mean?”
“Away. From here. From Tom. Sooner or later he’ll turn on you. The way he turned on Dolores. She was his lover, too. She worshipped him. And he killed her.”
“That was Butcher Dagon.”
“It was Tom. Dolores was going to tell the world that Dagon was working for Alicia, staging phony atrocities to justify the PPA invasion of Nigeria.”
Hei-lian did not seem too surprised. She studied him. “You say you care about me? About me, not just what I can do for you, with my pussy or my skills or my contacts?”
“Yeah.”
“But nobody’s cared about just me. Not since-since my father disowned me for joining the intelligence service to get him out of prison.”
“You deserve it, Hei-lian. But the truth is, it’s not only about you. Tom’s losing it.”
Her breath caught. “I’ve begun to suspect that, too.”
“You’re scared of him. I’ve seen it in your eyes. Even if Tom can’t.”
“He’s good at not seeing things he doesn’t want to.” She slumped forward, resting arms on thighs. “I’ve tried to warn Beijing. They won’t listen. They can’t see beyond the oil and the coltan and all the other resources they need to try to keep their economic boom alive.”
“He’ll turn on them, too.”
“But I’ve seen another side of him. That’s what’s so strange. He can be so gentle, even kind. To Sprout. Sometimes to me. That’s you, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “You could kill him, couldn’t you?”
She blinked and drew her head back on her slender neck. “What?”
“You’re a highly trained agent. You could kill him while he slept. You could to it tonight. All I have to do is go back in, lie down, and let go.” Mark shook his head. “I don’t have much longer anyway. He’s starting to come out of it. I can feel him stirring…”
She got up and walked a few paces from him with the green silk tail over her robe brushing the pale backs of her thighs. The television nattered mindlessly on low volume. “You’d let me kill you?”
“I’m asking you to kill me.” He sucked in breath through his teeth. “I know you’ve got a gun. I don’t want to live with what he’s done. What he’s doing. And I really don’t want to ride along for what he’s going to do. The murder, the destruction. And this child ace thing-the utter rape of innocence, man.” He shook his head. “Death’s got to be better than watching it all happen, knowing I was the one who set it all in motion. It’s not like it’s much of a life to lose, anyway. You’ve got a gun and you’re good with it. End it now.”
Sun walked toward him. “I’ve thought of killing him. But I haven’t. I loved him. I thought. I’ve been trying to figure out if there was some way to get him help.” She stopped just short of him. Her body almost touched his. He could feel her warmth and smell her personal scent. It always reminded him of green tea. “And now I know there’s something worth preserving inside him. For Sprout’s sake, if nothing else. I won’t kill him or you. Until I know there’s no other choice.”
He started to say something. She stretched up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “You’re a good man, Mark. I haven’t known many of those. Go back to bed. And relax: if I can’t find some way to help you, then I will find a way to kill you. And that’s a promise.”
25
Sunday,
December 20
Kongoville, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
“Tom, no!”
Hopping furiously, he tried to pull on a pair of jeans. Outside, it was still night in K-ville.
That bastard Meadows, Tom thought. He actually stole my body for a joyride. His memory was a blank for what the hippie puke had done. But he knew it had happened.
“You’re not strong enough,” she said. “You’re still healing. I saw you when you came in. You looked… you looked as if you couldn’t possibly survive.”
