George Martin - Suicide Kings

“I’m not a miracle. I’ve got a virus that changed me. It could have happened to anyone. Are people really that thick?”

“Would you like to meet them?” Mary asked.

“Oh, yeah, ’cause I’m definitely at my best,” said Michelle. “I love the idea of loads of strangers looking at me gape-mouthed while thinking I rescued them.” She shut her eyes. Why was she being such a bitch? “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, honey,” Mary said, puttering around the room throwing dead flowers out and putting the empty vases in a box. “I imagine it’s something of a shock. Losing a year. That thing with your parents. And finding yourself, well… different.”

It was impossible for Michelle not to giggle. Different. Yeah, she was different all right.

Noel Matthews’s Apartment

Manhattan, New York

“Those are zlotys. What are you doing with zlotys? You don’t have a show in Poland.”

He’d heard the phone ring, and thought Niobe was safely ensconced in a conversation, so he’d pulled out the zlotys and began preparing for his fast trip to Poland. Now, busted, Noel tried to scrabble the bills, and-more incriminating-a passport photo of his new male avatar form, under a book, but it was way, way too late.

Niobe stood in the door of the bedroom he’d turned into an office. The desk was littered with decks of cards, linked metal rings, scarves, handcuffs, and padlocks. In a cage by the window a pair of doves billed and cooed, heads bobbing in that particularly silly fashion unique to doves. The tools of his trade.

Right now the doves’ soft calls didn’t seem to be having a soothing effect on Niobe. Her thick tail was lashing, hitting the floor with heavy thumps as she stared at him with a look that was two parts angry and one part worry.

“It’s nothing,” Noel mumbled. “I didn’t want to worry you. In your condi-”

“Do not patronize me! I am not made of glass. I escaped from a federal facility and managed to elude every ace the government sent.”

“Well, I helped a little,” he protested.

“Granted, but either we’re a team or I’m out of here.”

And even just the threat made his heart stutter. He gave her the truth. “There’s a man in Warsaw who makes the best forged papers in the business.”

“And why do you need forged papers?”

“It’s a little thing I’m doing for Siraj.”

Niobe folded her arms across her chest. “Are you going to be in danger?”

“A little. But I’m always in danger. From my former associates

…”

“And Tom Weathers.”

“Him, too.”

“And once you have these papers what are you going to do with them?”

“Travel with them.”

“Where?” Noel squinted, pulled at his lower lip. Niobe stormed forward until she stood right in front of him. “I will not be treated like a goddamn mushroom!”

“Are we having our first fight?” Noel asked lightly.

“You only wish. If you think this is me angry… well, you’ve got a lot to learn. Now where are you going?”

“Kongoville.”

“The place where Tom Weathers lives. The man who vowed to kill you.”

“Well, he vowed to kill Bahir.”

“And if he kills Bahir, won’t you be dead, too?”

And suddenly Noel had to acknowledge that that loose feeling in the depths of his bowels was fear. He stood up, wrapped his arms around Niobe, and buried his face against her shoulder. The tension in her shoulders dissolved as she stroked his hair.

“The PPA is dangerous, viciously dangerous,” Noel murmured into her hair.

“Oh, my dearest, don’t do this. Let somebody else handle the PPA. The Silver Helix, SCARE, the Committee…”

Noel smiled down into her face. “Those idiots? You eluded SCARE, I ran rings around the Committee, and the Silver Helix is hamstrung with Flint and John facing trial. It has to be me.”

Her hand went to her belly, fingers spread protectively. “Don’t you dare get killed.”

“And have you really angry with me? Not a chance.” Her mouth tasted so sweet and he wished he didn’t have to leave.

She broke the embrace and asked, “Do you have time to take me to New Orleans?”

“Why on Earth do you want to go to New Orleans?”

“Bubbles has woken from her coma.” Niobe’s eyes were glowing. “She’s my friend and I want to see her.” She touched her stomach again. “And I want to tell her about the baby.”

“I thought we were keeping it secret until… we were sure.

…”

“Not from my closest friends.”

Noel sighed, and while Niobe went off to change into something cooler he phoned Bazyli to tell him he’d be delayed.

Tuesday,

December 1

Mwalimu J. K. Nyerere

International Airport

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Dar es Salaam. The name translated as “safe harbor”-at least, that’s what the guidebooks Jerusha had read claimed. Jerusha hoped they were right.

They flew into Mwalimu J. K. Nyerere International Airport. An aide from the American Embassy was there waiting for them-that was certainly the Committee’s doing-and he walked them through Customs. Jerusha didn’t attract much notice as they walked through the airport, but Wally certainly did. She saw people pointing and whispering, heard them chattering and calling to each other. A crowd followed at a judicious distance as the aide shepherded them from the airport lobby and out to the waiting limo.

The heat and humidity of the outside air hit them like a physical blow as the doors opened. “Cripes,” Wally said. “It’s hot here.”

The aide was openly grinning. “Welcome to Africa,” Jerusha told Wally. “We both need to get used to it.”

As they drove eastward back toward the city, she stared out from the darkly tinted windows. The area directly around the airport was dominated by industry: warehouses and businesses served by a double-lane divided highway. The landscape was rather barren: between the buildings there was bare, brown earth punctuated with scrub brush. It reminded Jerusha of the American Southwest and the parks her parents had worked, except that the Southwest was never this humid.

The driver turned north off the divided highway after a bit, though, and they were driving among houses. There were lots of kids: laughing, running after each other, huddled in groups around adults or parents, playing ball. The aide was rattling on as he had been since they’d left the airport, talking about how proud they were to be hosting two such famous American Hero members as the famous Rustbelt and Gardener, how they believed in good relations with the United Nations, how Ms. Baden had called the embassy herself.

Jerusha listened to him and answered with polite nods and short replies, but Wally stared out toward all those kids. She watched him watching them, as if he were looking at each face hoping to see his precious Lucien there. She wondered what he was thinking.

They drove past a winding river heading toward the sea. Here the trees were thick and dense, more like what Jerusha imagined Conrad’s “Africa” might have been. They caught a glimpse of deep blue water running out to the horizon: the Zanzibar Channel. The limousine pulled onto another large divided road and continued north. Wally’s eyes were closed and he was snoring softly; Jerusha envied him. The jet lag was pulling at her and she wished the aide would stop talking. She leaned her head against the window, staring out at the strange world drifting by.

Then she lifted her head again. “What is that?” she asked, pointing. The aide turned in his seat.

“Oh-that’s a baobab tree,” he said. “Lots of native tales about them. The baobabs are one of the symbols of Tanzania-of Africa in general, in fact. We have one of the oldest baobabs in Dar es Salaam on our compound grounds.”