As she watched, the larger boy’s form seemed to shift and change, and a strange beast dropped to all fours on the bank where he’d stood: huge and hunched, a hyena larger than any lion, misshapen, monstrous, with gigantic black jaws. It opened them and roared challenge across the river.
Leopard Men. Child aces. Jerusha’s stomach churned.
The man in the leopard fez held up his hand in front of the were-monster. He started across the bridge, smiling. “You!” he called to Jerusha in heavily accented English. “It will do you no good to run.”
Jerusha closed her eyes. Her plants…
She imagined those roots on the western bank withering, dying, turning brittle and releasing their hold on the earth. As the Leopard Man shifted form, as the snarling, feral creature faced her on the bridge, Jerusha dropped, hugging the vines. There was a loud snap as the support for the improvised bridge gave way, and Jerusha was suddenly in the water, still clinging to the vines as the current took her downstream.
She heard a feline yowl of distress behind her. As she desperately clawed her way forward, she felt the children pulling at the vines also. As soon as her feet could touch the mud at the bottom of the river, she had the supporting tendrils wrapped around the trees on the other side release as well. “Let it go!” she shouted to the children as she clambered up the muddy slope. They tossed the remnant of the bridge into the river. “Run!” She gestured at the children. “Into the trees!”
She could hear the shouts from the opposite bank, and the click of weapons being readied. She didn’t dare look behind. She threw herself into the underbrush as automatic weapons cut loose, the bullets tearing chunks from the trunks and leaves all around her. She crawled forward. The firing stopped abruptly.
Gasping for breath, she chanced a look behind her. On the far side of the river, three of the soldiers were dragging a wet and furious Leopard Man from the water. The monstrous hyena thing was only a boy again, and the emaciated child simply stared across to where they’d vanished. They’d cross the river in pursuit, Jerusha was certain, but they’d have to find another way across. She’d bought herself time, but nothing else. If they could find help… Make that telephone call
…
A hand touched hers: Cesar. “Follow me, Bibbi Jerusha. They’re all waiting for you.”
Kongoville, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
Siraj’s money was deposited in the bank. Monsieur Pelletier was very popular. Mathias had been introduced as the location scout for Monsieur Pelletier, and was set up in a Hilton in downtown Kongoville. Noel had checked the room for bugs and found a boatload. The Leopard Men and the Chinese and Indians were definitely listening. Good.
A portion of Prince Siraj’s money went to buy a house on the outskirts of the city. Noel settled Mollie there, well supplied with food, Cokes, and a stack of romantic comedy DVDs. Jaako was with Cumming in Chicago. Noel didn’t want to think about how they would amuse themselves.
Noel had gone into the center of the city to monitor the traffic and security around the bank during the night. Tomorrow he would show Mollie the yacht. He hoped he wouldn’t have to actually get her into the hold of the boat. All she had to do was open a doorway.
On the way he’d checked in on Mathias and found him eating a room-service meal and reading Proust. Whatever floats your boat, Noel thought, and he realized that what floated his boat was just what he was doing. Pitting himself against implacable foes, and finding the victory.
He loved the game. It had been hard to leave it. But he loved Niobe more. And their son to come.
On the Lualaba River, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
Wally took to calling the little girl Ghost. She haunted him.
Every waking moment of the day, she stalked him. Patiently. Relentlessly. And, like rubbing a lamp to summon a genie, merely closing his eyes for a few minutes brought her out of hiding. Always with that big knife.
It didn’t matter how far he traveled, nor how fast. Pushing the throttle of his stolen boat as far as it could go made no difference. Ghost kept up with him.
Sometimes, if he turned his head just right, and strained to see the riverbank through the corners of his eyes, he’d catch a brief glimpse of something pale drifting through the trees. Pacing the boat. Waiting for him to nod off again.
He’d tried sleeping in the boat, in the middle of the river. It made no difference. She floated across water as easily as she floated through the thickest jungle. In the end he gave up on that, because the boat didn’t have an anchor, so sleeping there presented additional risks beyond getting stabbed in his sleep.
And that was the problem. If he wasn’t traveling through the jungle-during rainy season, patches of skin crumbling away, new rust spots appearing daily, and with a dwindling supply of S.O. S pads-Ghost’s knife wouldn’t have been much of a problem against his iron skin. But he was. And sooner or later Ghost would figure it out; she was too persistent not to.
This far he’d been lucky. She kept aiming for the neck. Trying to slit his throat. How long before she found the holes in his shoulder, his arm, his legs?
Wally did the only thing he could: he didn’t sleep. Jerusha would have told him it was pointless. That nobody could go without sleep forever. And she would have been right. It was impossible not to sleep.
The cottony fog of exhaustion filling his head made the simplest tasks-reading a map, steering the boat, pitching a tent-almost insurmountable challenges. It felt like he was doing everything underwater, or that there was a layer of glass between him and the world. Two sleepless nights had turned him into a zombie. How far to Bunia?
But he pushed on. Because the longer he stayed at it, the farther he drew Ghost away from Jerusha and the kids. Ghost was a problem for Wally, but Jerusha wouldn’t have a chance against her.
He traveled the river from sunrise to sunset, from the first light of morning until the last glow of sunset faded in the west. And during the long, dark nights, he huddled by his campfire, fighting an exhaustion more powerful than any crocodile.
22
Thursday,
December 17
Paris, France
Simoon smiled, leaning against Bugsy’s arm. The soft Parisian fog was bitterly cold, but it looked gorgeous. The Eiffel Tower loomed in the distance, the thick air making it seem ghostly. The steam rising from his cup of coffee vanished into the air, but the smell of roasted beans and the lingering taste of butter pastry and powdered sugar were immediate and oddly comforting. They walked slowly as dawn gradually turned up the dimmer on the whole world. The low clouds effectively hid east.
“It’s beautiful,” Simoon said. “I mean, oh, my God, I’m in Paris! I always wanted to come here, but I never… I mean…”
You thought there would be time, Bugsy thought. You didn’t figure on getting slaughtered before you could hit college. Who does? “It’s nice,” he said out loud.
She looked up at him, concern in her expression. The earring dangled. In the Paris morning, the one earring looked like the walk of shame. Someone seeing them together would think they’d been up all night talking and drinking and fucking and singing soft songs to each other. All the things you were supposed to do in Paris.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Sure. I just get a little nervous when it’s too cold to really bug out.”
“Why’s it too cold?”
“This?” he said, nodding to the fog, the frost, the pavement gone slick and dark. “When I’m swarming, I’ve got a lot of surface area. I’d go hypothermic in about a minute. There was this one Christmas when I was eighteen, I thought it would be funny to sneak into the neighbor’s house?”