“And the two of you have already been more trouble than I bargained for.”
Michelle smiled at him. “It looks like you know your way around trouble.”
He gave her a toothy grin. “That I do.”
“Where are we, then?”
“Outside Ubundu. Kisangani is that way.” He pointed. “From here you must walk. If you lose your way, find the Congo and follow it downstream. It was a pleasure to meet you, Bubbles.” He took her hand and shook it. “Get your friend to a doctor. Wounds go bad fast in the jungle.”
“I’ll do my best,” she replied. By the time they heard his engine roar past overhead, she and Joey were already deep in the green, making their way through thick underbrush.
Japhet had left them a machete, and that was certainly a help. But Joey was not happy. “Fucking asshole,” she complained. “Look at this shit. Walk, he says. There’s no fucking road. And where are the elephants? I thought Africa was full of fucking elephants. Their own graveyards and everything. One dead elephant, that’s all I need, we could fucking ride to Kisangani.”
With every step they took toward Kisangani, Joey grew more and more agitated. By late afternoon, she was furious. “You don’t fucking know, Bubbles,” she muttered. “You can’t feel it. There’s dead shit all around. Kids, dead kids. So many dead kids. I can feel the little fuckers rotting in the ground.”
Michelle gave her a shake. “Okay, I got it. Dead kids. A lot of them.” And one who is still alive.
Joey looked up with a furious expression on her face. “You’re the coldest bitch I’ve ever known, Bubbles. I’m telling you about fuck only knows how many dead children, and you don’t give two brown shits. Ink would never have acted this way.”
Michelle released her. “I’m not Ink. Thanks for the insight. But those children are dead. We can’t do a damn thing about them. Adesina is still alive.”
Joey glared at her, but there was a weird glassy-eyed quality to it. Michelle put her wrist to Joey’s forehead.
“Christ,” she said. “You’re burning up.” She squatted down and pulled the bandage up to look at Joey’s leg wound. It was bright red and swollen. “We need to get this looked at. Soon. Look, when we find Adesina, we’ll find out who killed those other kids. If there are as many dead as you say, there has to be some sort of record. We’ll do something.”
Joey grabbed her arm. “You fucking promise, Michelle? Do you swear?” She swayed a little. Michelle suddenly felt horrible for bringing her along. Yeah, Joey could raise zombies, but she was as fragile as any nat herself and still a kid herself in many ways.
“I promise,” she said.
The Red House
Outside Bunia, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
The sun had left the sky, leaving only a lavender glow with a hint of blood to silhouette the trees on the ridge west of the huge and complicated old red-brick colonial mansion. Bugs called from the chopped-back trees and brush. Something big and dark-either a bat or a really humongous moth-flew past Tom’s head to vanish over the steeply pitched slate roof.
In the grey-velvet twilight stood Alicia Nshombo, stuffed not quite successfully into a dark tunic and jodhpurs. Her secret-police boss suit, Tom thought as he hovered briefly before the white-roofed portico. A slight man in a doctor’s coat fairly hopped from foot to foot at her side.
As Tom touched down on the grass Alicia trundled forward to catch him in her usual moist embrace. “Dear Tom,” she said, kissing him on the cheek, “welcome to the Red House. This is Dr. Washikala. He’s the director of our facility here.”
Washikala swallowed before saying, “It’s an honor to meet you, Field Marshal Mokele-mbembe. ” At Alicia’s gesture the little doctor turned and trotted up the steps to open the door. Tom started to follow.
From somewhere out of sight around the house to his left he heard children wailing and crying. There was a big frame annex there. He stopped with one foot up on a step.
The noise quit. An engine revved. A moment later a panel truck rumbled past. A beat later a black Land Cruiser followed. The man in the passenger seat wore unmistakable Leopard Man drag: a brimless leopard-skin hat and sunglasses at night. The others wore the cammies of PPA regulars-second line infantry, not Simbas.
Tom stood frowning after them until the guards at the brick house to the north had opened the wrought-iron gates with the spiky tops. The truck headed off toward the west, its yellow beams bouncing like an insect’s feelers before it, up the flank of a ridge scraped bare for a hundred yards beyond the wire. The Cruiser followed.
Dr. Washikala cleared his throat. “Comrade Field Marshal. If you please-”
Alicia seemed to be studying Tom intently. Without a word Tom mounted the steps and went inside.
A strong chemical smell filled the air. It must be some kind of cleaning agent. Washikala trotted past as if afraid he’d burst into flames if the sleeve of his coat so much as brushed Tom. Alicia walked by his side. “So you come at last to the heart of the matter,” she said.
“Who am I here to see?”
“Two most promising products,” Dr. Washikala said. “ Moto. The name is self-explanatory: it means fire in Lingala. You should exercise caution. He doesn’t have perfect control of his abilities yet. The second we call Martial Eagle. For our largest African eagle. She’s”-he glanced nervously at Alicia-“she’s a joker-ace, really. She has the head and wings of the eagle; the rest is a normal if undernourished eleven-year-old female.”
“And why did you accept her?” Alicia sounded as if she was on the verge of being disappointed.
“Oh, Eldest Sister,” the doctor squeaked. “We thought-surely she can serve the Revolution. She flies.” He looked imploringly at Tom with liquid-brown eyes.
“Could she carry a kid?” Tom asked.
“Oh, yes. I-I’m sure of it.”
“We can use her. If that’s true.”
“Bon,” Alicia said, beaming. “The doctor guarantees it.” She gave the doctor a meaningful look. Before she could continue a sound reached their ears. Tom recognized the snarl of distant machine-gun fire. Neither the sturdy brick walls nor the bulk of a ridge sufficed to mute the unmistakable sound.
Tom narrowed eyes at Alicia. “You must understand, Tom,” she said. “We get so many black queens and jokers.”
“And of course there are the deuces,” said Dr. Washikala. He seemed eager to establish his bona fides as a hard-ass after the near faux pas with Martial Eagle.
“What do you think?” Alicia said, sounding half worried and half, strangely, sympathetic.
“I think,” Tom said, “you got to break eggs to make omelets. Now, show me to my two new recruits.”
28
Wednesday,
December 23
Lake Tanganyika, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
The lake seemed as vast as the country they had already traversed. It lay in front of them, endless, the horizon fading into sky.
Jerusha sat on the lakeshore with her children gathered around her. They had come out of the jungle north of Kalemie. Since the attack by the two child aces, Jerusha had found herself driven to the edge of exhaustion. Her body burned. Her clothes fit too loosely.
And the hunger…
She was eternally famished, but it wasn’t a hunger that food could assuage. She had grown banana trees and mangos for the children, given them brief gardens of vegetables so they could eat, and she had taken her meals with them, but they didn’t fill her. Nothing filled her. Her body seemed a vast emptiness, scorched by whatever the
