George Martin - Suicide Kings

About half the couple dozen kids hanging around by the tents broke out clapping. Tom gave them a sour smile and stomped off to confront the supposed authority figures who had made themselves oh-so-scarce during the dustup.

The special-unit camp, set well apart from the rest of the PPA army in the Bahr al-Ghazal and surrounded with coils of razor tape that glittered evilly in the white-hot sun, was as depressing a patch of perpetually soggy alkali clay, barbed-wire scrub, sorry-ass grass, and hyperactive mosquitoes as Tom had encountered in all his years spent knocking around the very least desirable real estate in the whole Third World. What the hell possessed me to take my day off in fucking Brazil, anyway? he asked himself furiously. Next time I’m going to goddamn Greenland.

The adult supervisors on duty stood aside in a clump: four surly overfed Congolese nurses from the National Health Service and a pair of Leopard Men commandos in their spotted cammies. All wore web belts with Tasers and Mace prominently displayed. The commandos wore holsters with 9mm SIG P226 handguns, too.

“What the fuck?” Tom said, spreading his hands palm up. “That asshole Leucrotta is throwing his weight around. You can’t be dumb enough not to know how that’s gonna fly: either he’s gonna waste somebody or somebody’s gonna waste him. Either way the People’s Paradise loses a valuable asset. You need to keep these kids in line. They’re freaked out and pissed off. They’re gonna tear each other apart without Siraj having to lift his little finger!”

“They are like animals anyway,” one of the nurses said. “Let them settle their pecking order themselves.”

“At least exercise some adult moral guidance,” he said in exasperation. “Try persuasion. Lead by example.”

“If the great leader will show us the way,” the shorter of the Leopard Men, Achille, said.

Tom walked two steps back into the sun. Then he swung back around and jabbed a finger at the handlers. “All right. I’ll do that. I’ll do that little thing. Hey, kids. Listen up.”

Back came Leucrotta from his bath, human, slouching, and squelching. Tom favored him with a hot blue glare.

“Got control of yourself now, Fido?”

The boy glared. “Uh-huh.”

“If you ever pull shit like that again with me I’ll take you up for a nice little visit to orbit. For about five minutes. Do you understand? Say yes.”

“Oui,” said Leucrotta sullenly.

Tom nodded. “Smart answer. Let’s hope that means you’re getting smart.” He turned to the others. They stared at him wide-eyed. He saw awe on some faces and dread on others, but no hint of hostility. That was a relief; some of them could threaten even him. I’m Hell’s scoutmaster, here, he thought. Fuck me. He drew a deep breath. “All right. Just what are we doing here in the middle of the nastiest swamp God never made? Can anybody tell me that?”

“We’re helping liberate the oppressed people of the South Sudan,” a boy said.

“Yeah,” Tom said, nodding. “That’s the official line, isn’t it? And hey, that’s true. That is what you’re doing. Don’t forget it. And what else?”

“We’re trying to keep from dying.” The speaker was a stick-thin girl in ridiculously baggy Simba BDUs. She was about thirteen, extremely dark-skinned and threatening to become pretty one day. Her hair was cut short to her head. Despite strict embargoes on “unnecessary” personal possessions she sported a pair of huge red plastic hoop earrings and matching glasses with big round lenses.

“You show some respect to your betters, little freak,” bellowed the stoutest of the Health Service matrons, a slab-faced woman with wire glasses named Monique.

Tom opened his mouth to invite Monique to butt the hell out. Before he could speak, inky Darkness began to dance around the skinny girl like black flames, then leaped suddenly toward the matron. Screeching, she turned and fled as her fellow matrons stampeded out of the way.

“Now, that wasn’t nice, was it, Candace?” Tom asked.

The Darkness shot her nonexistent hips and stuck out her underlip in a cute prepubescent pout. “We’re not here to be nice, non? And anyway, she oppresses us. Or are we not meant to share in the Liberation?”

Candace Sessou was a bright and sassy teenybopper girl from a middle-class neighborhood of the city of Kinkala, near the former Brazzaville part of Kongoville in the southwest of what had been the Republic of the Congo before Nshombo and Tom liberated it. He was constantly surprised she’d survived to make it out of the labs alive. She had a problem with authority.

So did Tom.

“You are,” he told the group. “The Revolution is for everybody. It’s about liberating everybody. The people of the world. The people of the South Sudan. You.”

The handlers shot him barbed looks, as if he were giving the children license to eat them all alive. None of them had the guts to say anything. They were bullies, all of them. But he couldn’t very well let the kid aces go all Lord of the Flies on them, either. Time to try getting their twisted little minds right.

“But the Revolution is all about discipline, too,” he told the children. “About putting aside your selfish little ego trips and squabbles. See, the way the Man keeps the people down is divide and conquer. So what you need to do is pull together. Do your parts for the Revolution, for all the other kids suffering oppression around the world, and most of all, for each other. Can you dig it?”

“Yeah!” They shot to their feet, throwing their little fists up in the air on skinny arms.

“That’s the spirit. That’s my brothers and sisters. The Man can’t stand against commitment like that. You kids will save the world!” He let them soak that up. Then he said, “Now listen up. We got a job to do. And this time you kids are gonna make all the adults in the world sit up and take notice.”

Thursday,

December 3

Near Lake Tanganyika

Tanzania

The Cessna Bobbed and weaved through the air, tossing them violently from side to side. Wally clenched the seat in front of him so hard that the metal frame dented. Finch grinned back at them from the pilot’s seat, his stubby rhino ears twitching. Whenever he glanced at Jerusha, his gaze seemed to drift down to her chest and linger there. At least she’d worn an athletic support bra. “Bit of a rough ride, eh?” he said. “But we’re almost there.”

The turbulence grew brutal, and Finch paid more attention to the plane than to Jerusha. They skirted purple-grey thunderheads tossing lightning down toward the savannah and occasionally passed through rain showers. Tanzania glided slowly underneath them, and finally ahead, Jerusha could see an immense stretch of blue water. Finch spoke over a crackling radio as he circled the aircraft as they neared the lake’s shore. “We’re setting down there,” he said, pointing to a tiny airfield.

Ten minutes later, in a cloud of brown dust, they were down and taxiing up to a long Quonset hut. Finch cut the motor-the silence was deafening, the roar still echoing in Jerusha’s ears. Finch opened the doors and gestured. The air outside was sweltering and humid; she could see the orange spots beginning to dot Wally’s skin again. Huge mountains loomed to the east, but Jerusha could glimpse the lake to the west, beyond the buildings of the town. “Welcome to Kasoge,” Finch said.

There was a squad of a half-dozen soldiers leaning against the hut. As Jerusha stepped from the plane, they began to saunter over toward them. When Wally followed her, they stopped. One of them snapped something, and the muzzles of their rifles suddenly came up.

“Hang on now, mates,” Finch called out, his hands lifted and open. Jerusha followed his example, but Wally only raised an eyebrow. Deliberately, he stepped in front of Jerusha. The gesture was touching, but it meant she couldn’t see. She moved around him. Finch was talking to the soldiers in what Jerusha assumed was Kiswahili.