What are you going to say after Mali nukes Pretoria? You should be ashamed."
Barnaard spoke to the Viennese. Wonderingly. "You encouraged us to attack Mali: You said we would have your support-secretly. You said-Vienna said-that we were Af- rica's great power, and we should restore order.... But you
..." His voice trembled. "You knew they had the Bomb!
You wanted to see if they would use it on us!"
"I resent that accusation in the gravest possible way! None of you are global diplomats, you are acting outside your experience-"
"How good do we have to be before we can judge you?"
Laura said.
Easton aimed his gun. Mbaqane struck his wrist and the gun fell with a clatter. The two men stared at one another, amazed. Mbaqane found his voice: high-pitched, livid. "Cap- tain! Arrest these miscreants at once!"
"Director Mbaqane," the captain rumbled. "You are a civilian. I take my orders from Pretoria."
"You cannot arrest us!" Frolova said. "You have no jurisdiction!
The captain spoke again. "But I accept your suggestion with thanks. For an Azanian soldier, the course of honor is clear. " He pulled his .45 sidearm and leveled it at Mr.
Neguib's head. "Throw down your weapon."
Neguib pulled his tangle-gun carefully. "You are creating a serious international complication. "
"Our diplomats will apologize if you force me to open fire.'
Neguib dropped the gun.
"Leave this clinic. Keep your hands in plain sight. My soldiers will take you into custody."
He herded them slowly toward the door.
Barnaard could not resist a taunt. "Did you forget our country also has uranium?"
Frolova spun in her tracks. She flung her arm out, pointing at Laura. "You see? You see now? It's starting all over again!"
11
She lost the journalists at the Galveston airport. She was getting pretty good at it by now. They weren't as eager as they'd been at first and they knew they could pick her up again soon.
"Welcome to Fun City," the van told her. "Alfred A.
Magruder, Mayor. Please announce your destination clearly into the microphone. Anunce Usted-"
"Rizome Lodge."
She turned on the radio, caught the last half of a new pop song. "Rubble Bounces in Bamako." Harsh, jittery, banging music. Strange how quickly that had come back into style.
Weirdness, edginess, war nerves.
The city hadn't changed much. They didn't let it change much. Same grand old buildings, same palm trees, same crowds of Houstonians, thinned out by a December cold front.
The Church of Ishtar was advertising openly now. They were almost respectable, flourishing anyway, in a time of war and whores. Carlotta had been right about that. She thought about Carlotta, lost somewhere in her holy demimonde, smil- ing her sunny, drugged smile and batting her eyes at some client. Maybe their paths would cross again, somewhere some- how sometime, but Laura doubted it. The world was full of
Carlottas, full of women whose lives were not their own. She didn't even know Carlotta's real name.
Storm surf was up, backwash from a tropical depression, broken up on, the Texas coast in a ragged, cloudy array.
Determined surfers were out in their transparent wetsuits.
More than half the surfers had black skin.
She spotted the flagpole first. The Texas flag, the Rizome emblem. The sight of it hit her very hard. Memory, wonder, sorrow. Bitterness.
The journos were waiting just outside the Rizome property line. They had cunningly managed to stick a bus in her way.
Laura's van stopped short. The hat and sunglasses wouldn't help her now. She climbed out.
They surrounded her. Keeping ten feet away, like the privacy laws demanded. A very small blessing. "Mrs. Web- ster, Mrs. Webster!" Then one voice amid the chorus. "Ms. Day!"
Laura stopped short. "What."
Red-haired guy, freckles. Cocky expression. "Any word on your impending divorce action, Ms. Day?"
She looked them over. Eyes, cameras. "I know people who could eat the lot of you for breakfast."
"Thanks, thanks, that's great, Ms. Day ..."
She crossed the beach. Up the old familiar stairs to the walkway. The stair rails had aged nicely, with the silken look of driftwood, and the striped awning was new. It looked like a good place, the Lodge, with its cheerful arches and sand- castle tower with the deep, round windows and the flags.
Innocent fun, sunbathing and lemonade, a wonderful place for a kid.
She stepped into the bar, let the door shut itself behind her.
Dim inside-the bar was full of strangers. Earth-cooled air, the smell of wine coolers and tortilla chips. Tables and wicker chairs. A man looked up at her-one of David's wrecking crew, she thought, not Rizome, but they'd always liked hang- ing out here-she had forgotten his name. He hesitated, recognizing her but not sure.
She ghosted past him. One of Mrs. Delrosario's girls passed her with a pitcher of beer. The girl stopped, turned on her heel. "Laura. It's you?"
"Hello, Inez."
They couldn't hug-Inez was carrying the beer. Laura kissed her cheek. "You're all grown up, Inez.... You can serve that stuff now?"
"I'm eighteen, I can serve it, I can't drink it."
"Well it won't be long now, will it?"
"I guess not...." She was wearing an engagement ring.
"My abuela will be glad to see you-I'm glad too."
Laura nodded toward the crowd from behind her sun- glasses. "Don't tell them I'm here-everyone makes such a big deal of it."
"Okay, Laura." Inez was embarrassed. People got that way when you were a global celebrity. Tongue-tied and worshipful-this, from little Inez, who used to see her chang- ing diapers and knocking around in her bathing suit. "I'll see you later huh?"
"Sure." Laura ducked behind the bar, went through the kitchen. No sign of Mrs. Delrosario, but the smell of her cooking was there, a rush of memory. She walked past copper-bottomed pans and griddles, into the dining room.
Rizome guests talking politics-you could tell it by the strained looks on their faces, the aggression.
It wasn't just the fear. The world had changed. They had eaten up the Islands and it had settled in their belly like a drug. That Island strangeness was everywhere now, diluted, muted, and tingly... .
She couldn't face them, not yet. She went up the tower stair,--the door wouldn't open for her. She almost walked into it headlong. Codes must have changed-no, she was wearing a new watchphone, not programmed for the Lodge.
She touched it. "David?"
"Laura," he said. "You at the airport?"
"No. I'm right here at the top of the stairs."
Silence. Through the door, across the few feet that still separated them, she could feel him, bracing himself. "Come on in...."
"It's the door, I can't get it open."
"Oh! Yeah, okay, I can get it." It shunted. She put her sunglasses away.
She came up through the floor and threw the hat onto a table, into a round column of sunlight from a tower window.
All the furniture was different. David rose from his favorite console-but no, it wasn't his, not anymore.
A Worldrun game was on. Africa was a mess. He came to greet her-a tall, gaunt black man, with short hair and read- ing glasses. They gripped each other's hands for a moment.
Then hugged hard, saying nothing. He'd lost weight-she could feel the bones in him;
She pulled back. "You look good."
"So do you." Lies. He took off the glasses and put them in his shirt pocket. "I don't really need these."
She wondered when she was going to cry. She could feel the need for it coming on. She sat down on a couch. He sat on a chair across the new coffee table.
"The place looks good, David. Really good."
"Webster and Webster, we build to last."