George Martin - Suicide Kings

Alicia made a soothing gesture with her plump but perfectly manicured hands. “Not to worry. The president put in place state-of-the-art security measures.”

“May I have a hint as to what they are?” Noel asked.

“I’ll tell you a few, but I must keep some secrets,” Alicia said with a suggestive smile.

Noel returned the smile. “Thank you, I am reassured.”

The driver parked illegally in front of the bank, and they climbed out. Noel glanced back at the not-so-subtle unmarked security car that rolled slowly past them. The three men inside were so large it looked like a college prank or a clown car at the circus. Monsieur Pelletier would not notice a tail, no matter how obvious, so Noel said nothing.

The bank manager held open the etched-and-frosted glass-and-brass front doors and bowed them into the marble interior. Art Nouveau nymphs held up brass lamps, carved pediments showed a Classical Greek influence, a pair of gigantic chandeliers illuminated every corner of the lobby. Their heels rapped sharply against the marble and echoed in every corner. What with all the brass, glass, and stone, Noel expected it to be cool inside, but the moist, breathless Congo heat still held sway. The Europeans could bring their architecture, insist on their own cuisine, wear wool, corsets, and cravats, and die, but they could not defeat the jungle. Ultimately it won. It always won.

“Monsieur Pelletier is going to be building a Peugeot factory that will employ three thousand people,” Alicia said to the manager. “You know how my beloved brother prefers to do business in cash, so that the Western powers cannot steal our wealth.”

The manager’s head bobbed up and down so energetically that all Noel could picture was the man’s head set on a dashboard instead of a hula girl or a bobble-headed dog.

“I would like to see the vault, just to reassure myself,” Noel said.

The manager looked to Alicia for guidance. She nodded, and he said, “But of course.”

Two of the men from the car strode into the bank and began pushing patrons aside. This, as well as the slung Uzis, were so obvious that Noel felt he could comment. “There seems to be a great deal of… er… security around you. I’m concerned. Are you in danger?”

“Oh, no, no, no, monsieur. There is no problem inside the country.” Alicia frowned. “The problem is counterrevolutionaries who seek to stop the march of our glorious country. One of these aces actually came into the country and killed our beloved Tom. Shot him dead as he stood inspiring the troops.”

That wasn’t actually how it had been. Bahir had unloaded a clip from a machine gun into Tom Weathers’s back as he took a piss into a latrine trench. Noel put on an appropriately horrified expression. “But I met him yesterday. How did he survive?”

“Our Lady of Pain brought him back to life before she was killed by those same wicked elements.”

Ah, mystery solved, Noel thought. I’d wondered about that. But as one of those “evil elements” I know I didn’t kill her, and I didn’t hear of any other Western power moving against her. Interesting. “You must be terrified for your brother,” Noel said.

“I do worry, but the Leopard Men are ever vigilant. They even stand guard next to the beds while we sleep. And we change our rooms every night.”

“How wise. I’m reassured.” God damn it. Paranoia makes my job so difficult. And then, as if he’d heard Niobe’s voice, Noel corrected himself. Not my job any longer.

Alicia gave him a secretive little smile. “And we have other… resources. The PPA will soon be one of the great powers in the world.”

Noel slipped an arm around Alicia’s waist. It was a long reach. “Oh, you intrigue me. Might I know what constitutes these resources? I might find myself wanting to make a larger investment.”

Alicia bestowed a flirting tap on the cheek. “Now, now, you mustn’t be too nosy. Perhaps when we know each other… better.”

The manager led them down to the vault. The massive steel doors were rolled back, but steel bars still separated Noel from the actual vault. The two walls that weren’t covered with safety deposit boxes were discolored, and there were a few evidences of actual mold where the moisture from the surrounding soil had leached through the concrete. Noel made note of steel tracks beveled into the floor, cameras that had a depressingly wide angle of coverage, and tiny nozzles mounted up near the ceiling. There was a doorway into another room, and Noel could just see steel pallets stacked to a height of about four feet and covered with tarps. It could only be one thing: the treasury of the PPA.

And only twenty feet and a vast array of security devices lay between him and it. Noel looked over at the bank manager. “You have people watching those cameras?”

“But of course.”

“Would you like to see the control room, dear Etienne?” Alicia cooed.

“Yes, please.”

As they headed back up the stairs the manager asked, “And when might we expect monsieur’s deposit to arrive?”

“It will take me several weeks to raise that much cash, and arrange to have it safely transported to Kongoville.” And by that time I hope to have recruited help, returned, and robbed you blind.

Risen Savior Spiritual Center

Ashland, Oregon

The risen savior spiritual Center looked like a cheap community college. A neatly kept “campus” with winter-yellow grass where dirty snow hadn’t melted, flagstone paths, and concrete benches built to withstand Armageddon. Bugsy guessed that if the world ended in fire, there would probably still be something more comfortable to sit on. The residential buildings were in the back. They looked less like a cloister and more like dorms.

He asked a pleasant-faced woman in a conservatively cut blue dress where he could find Kimberly Joy and was directed to the back.

The meeting room looked less like college, and more like a preschool for adults. Soft couches and cheap linoleum tables. Inexpensive butter cookies and a cheap metal samovar squatting next to a stack of foam cups and a basket of herbal teas. Low bookshelves were filled with magazines featuring pictures of a white, big-eyed Jesus or his ecstatic white followers or else books with crosses on the spines. The woman by the window looked up as he walked in.

If he hadn’t spent most of the plane ride out from New York reviewing his records, he wouldn’t have recognized her. The long blond hair was gone, replaced by a shoulder-length soccer mom coif. The challenging grin was a tight, nervous smile with lines around it that made her mouth seem puckered, even when it wasn’t. The free-breasted hippie chick had vanished. A thick-bodied grandmother in her not-so-great Sunday best remained.

And still, knowing who she had been, he could see her in the shape of her eyes, the angle of her nose. Kimberly Ann Cordayne, or the ghost of her.

“You must be Mr. Tipton,” she said.

“Tipton-Clarke,” Bugsy said, “but yes, that’s me. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“I had to sit with the Lord,” Kimberly Joy said. Her inflection meant I had to think about it. Bugsy had a brief, uneasy image of Jesus Christ sitting on the cheap couch and talking the decision over with her like a cut-rate therapist.

“Well,” he said. “Thanks. I’m working with the United Nations,” he said, then regretted saying it. Her face went cold. “Not the black helicopter, new world order part. That’s a whole different division. Real jerks. I’m with the feeding the starving African babies part.”

“You don’t have to condescend,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“I’m perfectly aware of what you think of me. You think I’m an emotional cripple who’s spent her whole life bouncing from one cult to another.”