George Martin - Suicide Kings

“I am not tired,” Michelle snapped. “Hello? Coma? I am plenty rested. And I’ve been having these weird dreams that I’m pretty sure aren’t dreams. No bunnies.” Michelle glowered up at them. “You can stop with the looking. I can see the two of you.”

But then they weren’t looking at each other. They were staring at her. Any other time she might have laughed at the expressions on their faces. “What the hell? I swear I didn’t fart.”

Juliet pointed at Michelle. “You’re bubbling.”

Michelle looked down at her hand. A large bubble was forming on it. It glistened, iridescent and beautiful, and it felt as if it could go on for days.

She released the bubble, and it drifted up to the ceiling. Then her hand was shaking and she thought she would lose control. A horrible nausea flowed through her again. And then the power was tearing at her. Fire in her veins. But she could bubble.

Somewhere Over the Atlantic Ocean

From New Orleans they flew to New York. From New York they’d fly to Rome. There they would transfer to a smaller plane bound for Addis Ababa, where they would board an even smaller plane bound for Dar es Salaam.

Wally shook the foil packet the flight attendant had handed him a couple of hours earlier. He leaned across the aisle (Wally needed an aisle seat; people complained about sharing an armrest with a metal guy) and said, over the rumble of the engines, “Want my peanuts?”

Jerusha shook her head, still studying the maps spread over her tray table. She’d been studying them since they left New York. She studied a lot. “No, thanks.”

It was dark in the cabin. The flight attendants had dimmed the lights, to help people sleep away the time zones. Wally had traveled a lot since joining the Committee, but he still hadn’t learned how to sleep on an airplane.

He yawned; his jaw hinges creaked. Wally stretched until the metal in his seat groaned. He made another attempt to focus on the guidebooks they’d purchased, but they were full of stuff he didn’t understand. He figured it would all make more sense once he got there.

The in-flight movie looked good; it even had a couple folks laughing. But the headphones didn’t fit him.

“Hey, Jerusha?”

“Uh-huh?”

“What do you think we’ll find over there? In Congo?”

In a stage whisper, Jerusha said, “The horror. The horror.” She grinned, as if she’d just made a joke.

Wally stared at her.

“Maybe we’ll find an ivory dealer.”

Wally shook his head, slowly.

“Joseph Conrad? Heart of Darkness?”

Wally shrugged.

“It’s a book.”

“Oh. I don’t read much.” He shrugged, but inwardly he cringed. This was the sort of admission that attracted cutting remarks the way magnets attracted iron filings. He braced himself for the inevitable sneer.

But something strange happened: she shrugged, too. “You’re not missing anything. I had to read it in high school. Royally hated it, too.”

“We had to read The Great Gatsby. That’s the longest book I’ve ever read. I had to ask Mr. Schwandt for an extra week, but I finished it.”

“Good for you.” Weird-it sounded like she meant it. No sarcasm. “Oh, I know. Do you see many movies?”

“Oh, sure. Lots.”

“Ever see Apocalypse Now? It’s based on Heart of Darkness.”

“Yeah, I saw that one. I liked it pretty good when I saw it.” Thinking about war movies reminded him of what he’d seen and done in the past couple of years. More quietly, he said, “I don’t think I’d like it so much now.”

Wally was quiet for a long time. When he looked up again, he found Jerusha still looking at him.

“Wally? How many kids do you sponsor?”

“Seven. Counting Lucien.” Again, that pang of worry. “We’re gonna find him, right?”

“You know what I think? I think we’ll get all the way over there, and find out that Lucien is a little boy.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’s a kid. Kids are forgetful. They play and make up games and forget to do the things their parents tell them. That’s what kids are supposed to do.”

“I never thought about it like that. I hope so.”

In a lighter tone, Jerusha asked, “So. How’s it coming with those guidebooks?”

“Oh, good. Real good.” She looked at the unopened books on his tray table, then cocked an eyebrow at him.

Wally’s sigh sounded like the release valve on an overheated boiler. “I don’t read much,” he confessed.

“Did you do any preparation at all for this trip before you called me?”

“Well, I have all of Lucien’s letters. And on Saturdays back home my brother and I used to watch those old Tarzan movies on TV. I’ve probably seen them all.”

“Tarzan.” Jerusha rubbed her eyes. “Great.”

“I can even do a pretty good Tarzan yell.”

Quickly she said, “Please don’t.”

“You’re not mad, are ya?”

“I’m not mad at you, Wally. I’m mad at…” She gave him a wan little smile. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all. I haven’t slept since yesterday.”

Wally didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Thanks.”

He picked up a guidebook. And when he woke up, they were in Rome.

Headquarters of Silver Helix

London, England

Noel sat on the floor of the file room, sucking on a Tootsie Roll Pop (part of the leftover Halloween candy stash, another peculiar American custom) and reading through the agency’s files on the Nshombos. He had quit the Silver Helix last year, and he and the organization had a fragile peace.

Noel’s statements to the Hague had led to the arrest of John Bruckner, aka the Highwayman, and Brigadier Kenneth Foxworthy, aka Captain Flint, for war crimes. A year ago, Flint and Bruckner had broken into his parents’ house, killed the ace “kids” Noel had sired with Niobe, and kidnapped an American boy whose uncontrolled nuclear power had governments all over the world trying to kill him or control him. Bruckner had delivered Drake to Nigeria, to stop the advance of the PPA army into that oil-rich nation. Thousands had died in the detonation, and ultimately Nigeria had fallen to the PPA anyway.

Foxworthy and Bruckner were now in custody in Holland. Bruckner was gobbling about how he was “just following orders,” but Flint had fallen on his sword for crown and country by taking all the blame. The Silver Helix knew that Noel had a huge file about the assassinations he had undertaken on behalf of the British government just waiting to be released if they made any move against him. Noel didn’t see why the “MAD” agreement couldn’t be extended to making use of the resources of the Silver Helix.

He scanned quickly through the pages, searching for something he could use to discredit the brother and sister. The brother was an abstemious man-no mistresses, no drugs, no alcohol. The sister was more sybaritic-she overindulged in food and sex. It was believed she slept with most of the men recruited into her Leopard Society. But she wasn’t the head of the state-exposing her excesses would do little.

Noel flipped up another page. The heading on the one below read assets. The Nshombos had three Swiss bank accounts-one guess who had two and who had one-but the numbers were unknown. In addition to the palace in Kongoville there was an apartment in Paris and a home on the Dalmatian coast. There was a yacht. A line caught his eye. The national treasury appears to consist of a mixture of gold bullion, platinum bars, and uncut diamonds held in the Central Bank of the Congo.

Suddenly the door opened.

Noel cursed himself for being so focused on his reading that he had missed the approaching footsteps. He glanced at his watch: 4:42 p.m. Outside, the winter sun was dropping into the fogs and fumes of Old London Town. But it wasn’t full night yet, and Noel was trapped in his real body and unable to teleport. The headshrinkers with the Silver Helix had never been able to help him overcome his psychological glitch so Noel himself could teleport like his avatars.