After America (46 page)

I’ll be watching you.

I’ll bet you will, Fred
, she thought.
I’ll just bet you will.

The Blackhawk leaned over and dropped away below the roofline. Within a minute it had disappeared completely, flying back toward the enormous column of black smoke rising high into the sky above the southern end of the island. It was nearly a mile across at the base and shot through with great tongues of fire and the flashes of exploding bombs, looking for all the world as though a volcano had erupted in Lower Manhattan.

“Well, I must say, I would not have imagined that helping people could turn out to be so fulfilling,” Jules said. “And to think my father warned me off it for life.”

The Rhino lit up a cigar and took a few puffs with evident satisfaction.

“Damn, that feels good. You know, I had but a few goals in life, Miss Jules. To own my own boat and run charters out of Acapulco, which I’ve done. To drive an RV around the country having adventures with my dog, Sidney, and our mentor, a ninja master, which, I’ll admit, I’m still working toward. And to work for the covert ops section of the
CIA
and save an ungrateful world on a regular basis, which I can now cross off my list.”

Julianne stood up and walked over to the edge of the skyscraper.

“Almost,” she corrected him. “The
CIA
is now the
NIA
. And you don’t actually work for them. Those crooked fucking spec-ops guys just requisitioned a helicopter by claiming you did. The actual agency is probably hunting you down as we speak. And you’re not saving the world; you’re chasing a fucking quid.”

“Close enough!” he said. “Now let’s get inside and have a look at that map.”

“In a minute,” she shot back.

Julianne simply wanted to savor the moment. They had passed through, or over, the worst of the fighting thanks to the intervention of the rangers, although mostly thanks to the quick-thinking avarice of that sneaky Pole. The flight had been a short hop but a useful one, carrying them over the heads of any number of villainous types who might have otherwise interfered with their passage. It would have been nice to have been dropped right at the doorstep of Rubin’s apartment, but the Pole had explained he was already pushing things by getting them the lift on false pretenses. He had done as she had asked and gotten them that much closer. She had no doubt that if he survived the next few days, he would come looking for her, assuming she, too, survived and managed to retrieve the Rubin documents. And he was right. Once she had those papers, there would be no problem renegotiating the package with the businessman. Cutting in the rangers as silent partners was simply a cost of doing business in a market as chaotic and challenging as New York. She would see to it that they got their due reward.

But for now, she simply wanted to take a moment before leaping back into the fray.

The air on top of the skyscraper tasted remarkably clean. She had expected to smell the petrochemical reek of burning buildings and military ordnance, but a northerly wind had pushed the ash clouds and general stink of war down toward the bay and the Statue of Liberty, which was just visible beyond the western edge of the towering smoke column. From here, Jules felt as though she stood atop the whole world. The impossibly fast jet planes shrieking down from the heavens, the dark insectile shapes of the helicopters, they were all so far removed and so tiny as to be nearly abstract. Not real things of steel and fire, flown by men, but almost mythical enchantments, tiny airborne fascinators, toys. Gray warships as small as bathtub toys lobbed shells into the ruins, attempting to root out the hard cases. She shook her head.

“Sound, sound the clarion,” she said to herself as deadly orange petals of fire blossomed from the top floors of the Flatiron Building. “Fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim …”

“What’s that, Miss Julianne?” the Rhino asked as he drew up beside her, removing his helmet and rubbing his scalp.

“One crowded hour of glorious life,” she said softly, “is worth an age without a name.”

“Huh,” grunted the Rhino. “Well, shit, yeah. Can we go now?”

“You really don’t have the soul of a poet, do you, Rhino?”

“No, ma’am,” he answered. “Just the horn of an irascible, endangered pachyderm. And two spares on this excellent fucking helmet.”

New York

Yusuf Mohammed had taken his first woman a few years after joining the Lord’s Resistance Army. Before then he had been only a child and incapable of being with a woman in the way some of the older fighters so often were. But one day, not long after the Wave had swept over North America and brought chaos and murder to the rest of the world, Yusuf had taken his first living prize after Captain Kono’s men had ambushed a small convoy carrying medical aid workers back from the wastelands of Egypt. He did not remember the experience fondly. The woman, a young French nurse, was not broken in spirit and fought him bitterly. Indeed, he still carried a few faint scars from her fingernails on his left cheek.

This young infidel woman, however, was much more pleasing. She submitted willingly to his advances, and although he suspected her enthusiasm was feigned, he did not much care. After the horrors of Ellis Island and his trip down the river and then through eastern Manhattan, it was a comfort to have a woman give herself to him, even though they both knew she had no choice.

Afterward, he felt sorry for her and even, to his surprise, a little ashamed of himself. He’d had good reason of late to recall his capture by Captain Kono and his unhappiness at being pressed into service by the
LRA
, and as the girl lay next to him in the hotel suite that formed part of the emir’s personal harem, Yusuf could not help but wonder what ill fortune had delivered her to him.

She was a young American woman, almost perfectly fitting every preconception he had of young American women: blond and fair-skinned and sweet-smelling. But though Yusuf was unfamiliar with American women, he had the better part of a lifetime’s experience of fear, and this woman, for all her pretense of arousal and excitement, was very obviously afraid.

Yusuf had enjoyed having his way with her, but as he lay in bed watching the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders as she pretended to sleep, he realized he had no great wish to be around her much longer. He was unsure what to do. It was a great honor and privilege the emir had given him, and he was profoundly grateful not just for the rest, the food, and the attentions of the slave girl but also for the forgiveness it signaled. Now, though, he found himself eager to return to battle and prove himself. There would be no flinching from the enemy next time. If he was fated to die, it was Allah’s will that he should die and he would give up his life willingly.

It was unworthy and probably sinful, but he envied many of the fedayeen who had brought their families with them. When they were not fighting, they probably enjoyed this sort of ease and pleasure back at the settlements. Yusuf couldn’t help but dream about a future in which he lived in a nice house tended by his boys. Maybe his wife would even be a young blond like the one in bed with him. After all, though they were fighting the Americans now, it was only because they resisted the message of peace brought by the Prophet. One day, when this was done, Yusuf hoped all the peoples of the world would live together peacefully. A girl like this, he thought, gazing at the sinuous curve of her spine, might even love him for bringing that message, which, Allah willing, would be almost as good as dying in battle.

They were fighting for more than just revenge, he knew. They were fighting for a new home, a place untouched by the atomic evil of the Jews. They were fighting for the future.

He shook it off. If he was to have a family of his own, then Allah would provide.

The question on his mind now was how to get back to the front. Was he to simply walk out and request transport to the front? Did they intend him to join a new
saif
? Yusuf had no idea.

He rolled out of bed and padded across to a window. The deep, rumbling growl of war reached him even up here, miles from the front. The room overlooked the great park in the center of the city, which appeared to have exploded in a riot of plant growth that spilled out into the surrounding streets. Many of the larger, older trees had died some time ago, probably from the great chemical storms that had drifted over the city when the rest of the continent burned. Their stark skeletal forms stood out like witches’ claws against the gray clouds that hovered low over the city, obscuring the upper floors of some of the higher towers. Thousands of saplings had sprung up in the deep grass between them, and a dense understory of vines and bushes had crawled over the wall around the park and appeared to be advancing on the hotel in which he was staying.

The emir, in his benevolence and wisdom, had not merely armed and trained his followers for war. On the long voyage here, besides lessons in the art of city fighting and lectures on the tactics and weapons of the Americans and the bandit gangs of the city, there had been some time set aside for more civilized learning. A teacher, a refugee from the Balkan wars, had told Yusuf how the faithful had first come here many hundreds of years ago, how they had settled near this park and set up gardens, markets, and even a mosque. Why had Allah chosen to let his message wither in this place? Yusuf wondered. Why had so much bloodshed been allowed to come of it?

He could see the ragged edges of human habitation on the western side of the park, on the undeclared border with the areas controlled by the Slavs. They would be swept into the firestorm for certain soon enough. A savage people, all but barbaric from what he had been taught of them. They seemed to revel in cruelty.

The Americans, in contrast, killed with the flip of a switch. If they gave a thought to murder, it was before or after the act, not during. And they flipped that switch as far away from their victims as possible, as if they thought themselves little gods. Too good for the ugliness they brought into the world.

He should be out there now, he thought, with his comrades or even with the janissaries, whom he had to admit were just as deeply invested in this fight as the faithful. Their aims were not righteous by any means, but they served God nonetheless.

He should be there.

A knock at the door drew his attention away from the park. He was surprised and not a little embarrassed to find Ahmet Ozal standing at the entrance to the hotel suite. Yusuf was naked and felt his face grow warm with shame. Ozal just laughed.

“You are recovered from your adventures, then?” said the fedayeen commander before grinning mischievously. “These American women, they do not have the modesty of good Muslim women. But they have their uses, yes.”

Yusuf also grinned, unsure of himself. He moved toward the bed to put his pants on.

“Yes, get dressed,” Ozal said. “We have much to discuss, and then we must both get back to the fight. There will be time for this later.” He waved a hand at the the American girl.

Yusuf could see her eyelids fluttering as she desperately tried to maintain the facade of being asleep. He dressed as quickly as he could. His clothes, a black battle dress uniform, were new and unfamiliar, but his old keffiyeh had been laundered and returned to him. It was torn and a few bloodstains still showed, but he was glad to have it back. His boots took a few moments to lace up, and he worried that Ozal would lose patience with him, but whenever he looked up, he found the giant Turk smiling indulgently.

“Tuck your pants into your boots so you don’t trip on them,” Ozal said.

Yusuf, flushed with embarrassment, did as he was told. Then he tucked in his T-shirt for good measure, pulled on the black battle dress jacket, and hurried over to the door without a backward glance at the slave girl. He wondered if she would have to clean the room.

He found two more men outside wearing the same type of uniform, fedayeen bodyguards for Ahmet Ozal. The corridor was dark, with no natural light to illuminate it at this point. A few ceiling lamps threw small pools of yellow light down on the green-bordered carpet, presumably powered by a generator somewhere in the building. Patterned wallpaper and the shadows of square columns that jutted into the hallway every few feet lent the area a gloomy, almost spooky atmosphere. Yusuf could very easily imagine himself being pursued down this corridor by the ghosts of those who had lost their lives and souls here. A service cart stood abandoned outside one room, still stocked with hundreds of little plastic bottles of shampoo and shower gel. He recognized them from the bathroom in his own suite. A maid’s uniform lay next to the cart, rigid and unclean with whatever dried-up soup remained of its owner. Yusuf grimaced with distaste. So excited had he been when he was first escorted up here, he had not even noticed the relic, and he wondered now why it had been left to clutter up the emir’s personal harem.

He wanted to ask Ozal how the struggle was going, but his jaw seemed to have been wired shut and his tongue was thick with shyness. The great Turkish warrior, for his part, seemed perfectly happy to amble along smoking a thin cigar he produced from a breast pocket and humming an unfamiliar tune. They entered a fire escape at the end of the hallway and climbed down three flights of stairs. The floor at which they exited was decorated in the same fashion, with old opulent-looking rugs and long golden drapes that had not been dusted in many years. Yusuf could tell immediately that this level was different. The rooms here did not appear to be for the accommodation of guests. There were only a few of them, and they were very large.

“This way, through here,” Ozal said. “I’m afraid the facilities are very spare. The Americans are devils for tracking our movements through the city and sending their warplanes against us whenever we let our guard down.”

He waved his cigar around as they entered what looked like a large ballroom with a glass roof. There were no tables in there, just row upon row of stackable chairs facing a small raised dais. Yusuf felt his skin crawl as he realized that most of the chairs were occupied by the remains of the dead. There must have been hundreds of them in there when Allah swept up their souls and cast them down into hell.