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‘Yes, he did,’ Ray said proudly.
She barely, Ray noted, suppressed a shiver as a flicker of – what? – disgust, perhaps, flashed across her face. ‘All right.’ Jones looked up at the sky. It was still raining. ‘I suppose he can’t stop that?’
Ray shook his head. ‘Not part of his powers.’
‘No. Of course not.’ Jones ran her hand through her hair, which had collapsed in soggy ringlets around her face, pushing it back. ‘Well, rain or shine, it’s my duty to serve these papers.’
Ray hazarded a guess. ‘Max?’
The agent keeping Colonel Centigrade from collapsing with weariness nodded.
‘Take the colonel back to the motel.’ He’d earned that with his heroic efforts, Ray thought. ‘Get him whatever he needs – food, drink, dry clothes.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Max said, and Spencer managed a tiny sneeze.
‘And for God’s sake,’ Ray added, ‘get him something for that cold.’ He looked at Jones. ‘The rest of us will accompany Agent Jones to the Schröder.’
‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Jones said.
‘I’m in charge of your security,’ Ray replied, ‘and I think it is. After all, you’re going to be delivering news to a large number of people who might take it very badly.’
Jones frowned. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
‘Perhaps I am,’ Ray said.
The conditions aboard the Schröder hadn’t changed. It would be hard, Ray reflected, for it to get much worse, and there was no way it was going to get any better.
Jones had ordered the ship’s entire complement to gather on deck, probably, Ray thought, because she’d learned somehow that the news had already reached the refugees, who were regarding her with what could only be silent anger on their faces. Or maybe, he thought, she was just being cautious and figured that she’d be safer there than down in the hold. And also because it just smelled so bad down there.
Backed by Ray, Moon, the Angel, and the Klingensmith brother known as Huginn, she stood on a small raised platform on the bow in front of a set of hatches that led down into the hold, waiting impatiently as all crew and passengers gathered around on the main deck. Fortunately the rain had ceased just before they’d boarded the ship and the blazing sun was doing its best to dry up all the excess moisture that had leaked down from the sky. Ray could feel steam rising from his suit.
It took more than a few minutes for them all to assemble. Olena stood before Jones, who looked down impassively from the height of the raised platform from which she could survey the deck. Dr Pretorius stood with Olena, as did the young woman ace, Tulpar, and the Handsmith, a broad, chunky man with his hands wrapped in strips of burlap. His son, Nurassyl, was next to him, looking like a ghost draped in a sheet, his exposed flesh glistening with the moisture that he exuded, supported by a platform of tiny wriggling tentacles in lieu of feet. Ray recognized some others from the initial meeting, though the JADL representatives were both missing, as was the young priest.
Ray heard the Angel suddenly hiss angrily and he turned and saw Marcus Morgan, the Infamous Black Tongue, coiled behind and partly concealed by a freight derrick midway down the deck. From the waist up he was naked, exposing the body of a fit, young African-American man. He was naked from the waist down, too, but the rest of him was that of an outsized coral snake, glistening in alternating bands of black, yellow, and scarlet scales. He made the largest anaconda look like a garter snake.
The Angel clenched her teeth, took a step forward. Ray laid a warning hand on her shoulder and she angrily shrugged it off. She and IBT, as he called himself, had fought a personal duel at the conclusion of the Talas episode that had left her badly wounded. It had taken her months to recover from her injuries and that had coincided with her long slide into post-traumatic stress.
Ray was unsure what effect seeing him again would have on her. Basically, it seemed to be making her angry, which was something at least. He didn’t know if it was good or bad, but at least his presence was eliciting some sort of reaction.
Jones cleared her throat and began to speak.
‘I am Evangelique Jones, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I have passed on to Washington your lawyer’s’ – and here she fixed Dr Pretorius with a hard stare that he calmly returned – ‘brief, which has been considered at the highest levels of government. The request for asylum has been granted—’
At this seemingly miraculous reversal of their fortunes an eruption of cheers exploded from the refugees, which built higher and higher as those who understood English translated for those who didn’t. Jones fell silent and looked on with a small smile on her face until the cheering and hugging and cries of joy slowly died down.
Ray could hardly believe the evident glee she was taking in delivering her message in this provocative manner. Even the Angel seemed to forget about IBT and stared at her incredulously.
‘—to the following individuals,’ Jones continued in a loud, satisfied voice. ‘Olena Davydenko. The individual known as the Handsmith. His son, Nurassyl. Inkar Omarov, also known as the Tulpar—’
She continued to read off the names, slowly, sonorously, enjoying the looks on the faces below her as the hope began to drain out of them as they realized that all of those who’d been granted asylum were the few nats among them, the even fewer aces, and those rare jokers with useful abilities or money. After reading off the twenty-ninth name Jones folded the document and looked up impassively.
‘The rest of you,’ she intoned, ‘will remain aboard the Schröder until such time she can be refueled, whence she shall leave the territorial water of the United States and set course to Rathlin Island off the coast of Northern Ireland, where you shall be granted permanent refuge.’
‘This is outrageous!’ Pretorius shouted. ‘I shall appeal!’
Jones looked at him calmly. ‘As I told you, this has been considered at the highest levels of the American government. There is no appeal.’
‘I will not leave my people,’ the Handsmith shouted.
His cry was echoed by others whom Jones had named, anger in every voice.
‘Moon,’ Ray said quietly. ‘Get ready to change.’
The collie standing by the Angel’s side nodded.
The crowd of refugees made an almost instinctive surge forward. Jones, nonplussed, blinked at the anger and hatred she saw on the hundreds of faces before them.
‘Now,’ Ray said, and instead of a friendly collie, a dire wolf stood on the platform with them, six hundred pounds of sin with fangs like a saber-toothed tiger.
The crowd stopped as one, though IBT slithered forward, shouldering aside refugees as he pushed his way to the front. Inkar Omarov transformed as quickly and smoothly as Moon had, becoming the Tulpar of Kazakh legend, the golden-coated, eagle-winged horse with razor-sharp hooves.
‘Stop!’ Dr Pretorius limped forward, pushing himself to stand between Jones and the SCARE agents and the seething crowd of refugees. ‘Nothing will be solved by violence! There is another way. There must be another way.’
The aging lawyer dominated the scene by the sheer force of his personality, stemming the tide of rage before it overwhelmed the situation.
‘You expect us to turn away and slink off into the darkness,’ Olena said heatedly, ‘when we have no fuel, no food? How can we even hope to recross the Atlantic—’
‘As I told you,’ Jones said with surprising calmness, ‘the United States will be more than pleased to fill your fuel tanks. It’s a cheap enough price to pay to be rid of you.’
‘But the food,’ Olena added, ‘we’re almost out—’
Jones shrugged. ‘Can’t help you there,’ she said. ‘There’s been no official requisition for supplies—’
Ray had suddenly had enough. ‘Screw that,’ he said. He reached into his back pants pocket, took out his wallet. ‘Harry,’ he said to the agent by his side, ‘take this.’ He handed him a credit card. ‘Go clean out a 7-Eleven or something. Get a boatload of food—’
‘Director Ray,’ Jones said in a hard voice.
‘We’re talking about children, here,’ Ray said stiffly. ‘Children, women, old people – hell, no one deserves to starve.’
‘Wait,’ Pretorius said. He took his own wallet out of a pocket in his jacket and extracted a card. ‘I appreciate the generous offer, Agent Ray.’ He held out a card. ‘But take mine. It probably has a higher limit.’
It was black.
Ray and Pretorius locked gazes, and Ray nodded. ‘Do it,’ he said to the young agent. He quirked an eyebrow, and Huginn nodded. He stepped away from the others and took the card Pretorius offered. He turned, headed for the police launch that was awaiting them.
‘Well,’ Jones said. ‘Is anyone accompanying us to shore?’
There was a ripple in the crowd, as if a wind were blowing, but not one of the named refugees stepped forward.
Jones swept them with her gaze. ‘Fools,’ she said. She followed Huginn to the launch.
‘Let’s go.’ Ray took the Angel’s arm, and she started at the touch, like a nervous horse. She looked at him with something of the old fire in her eyes, then nodded.
‘Moon,’ Ray said, ‘you’d better power down. I don’t think there’s enough room in the launch for you in this form.’
The agent was a collie before Ray could blink. She smiled and wagged her tail.
Ray turned to Pretorius. ‘Harry will be back with the food as soon as he can.’
‘Thank you,’ Pretorius said simply.
Ray shrugged. ‘Like I said. None of these people deserve to starve.’ Then he added in a low voice that only the lawyer could hear, ‘One of the boys is going to stick around for a while. Kind of keep an eye on things.’
‘I understand,’ Pretorius said. ‘He’ll be safe.’
‘Maybe,’ Ray said, ‘there is a way where we can work this out.’
Evangelique Jones was as good as her word. By that afternoon a tanker had moseyed up to the Schröder and was pumping enough fuel into her tanks to get them back across the Atlantic.
Ray and the rest of the SCARE team waited on the riverbank. Some protestors from both sides had reassembled, but the earlier storm had taken the starch out of their attitude. Rick and Mick were not to be seen. Probably, Ray thought, off arguing about what to have for dinner.
Ray realized that it would all eventually build up until it started to chafe and something set it off again. More violence was inevitable as long as the Schröder was moored in sight of everyone. He hoped that she wouldn’t be there much longer. He was sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, but there wasn’t much he could do for them, other than ensure their safety when they were still under his watch. And that he was going to do.
They waited patiently until Harry Klingensmith returned with a rental truck full of food and supplies.
They helped the crew of the police launch, moored as usual at the small dock near their vantage point, load the supplies. It took several trips for the launch to ferry it all across to the Schröder. Obviously, there wasn’t enough to provide provisions for the refugees for a voyage across the ocean, but for now it would furnish them with a decent meal after days of rationing.
It took a couple of hours to get all the groceries unloaded. When the task was finished Ray thanked the launch’s crew for their help and then he and the others headed back to the motel. No one noticed that Max Klingensmith had remained on the Schröder.
They all crowded into the room shared by Ray and the Angel. Colonel Centigrade was lying on the bed, still exhausted and fighting his bad head cold. Moon, still in her collie form, curled up next to him on the bed, but watched alertly as Harrison Klingensmith took the room’s only comfortable chair, settled into it. The Angel looked on with some interest while Ray paced restlessly back and forth across the small room.
‘What can you see?’ he asked the pale, scarecrow-thin SCARE agent.
Huginn screwed both eyes shut tightly, frowning with concentration. When he opened them he stared at the plain, dull green drapes drawn across the hotel room window.
‘I see,’ he intoned in a soft, faraway voice, ‘people eating.’
Ray made an impatient sound.
‘Munnin,’ he added, ‘is panning the room. It looks mostly calm. Most seem resigned, some are angry.’
He went on, narrating the scene as if it were a movie, relaying what his twin brother could see with his own left eye. His right eye saw just the blank cloth of the drapery he was staring at. This mixed vision shared by two minds could be disorienting as hell, which was why he concentrated his own sight on a neutral view. His brother also saw what he saw from his left eye. Their ace had no distance limit and could never be turned off. Unfortunately – or, for them, perhaps fortunately – vision was the only sense they shared, and it had taken long and hard practice to get used to the disorientation this collective sight caused. It was, of course, an ideal means of instantaneously transferring information.
‘Hold on – something’s happening. Max is leaving the hold where most of the refugees are encamped.’
‘Why?’ Ray stopped pacing.
‘Hard to say. He’s being stealthy, though. Sneaking. He’s good at that. Sticking to shadows, ducking. He’s on deck. It’s dark now, nighttime. He’s watching a small launch approach. Men are coming aboard.’
‘How many?’
‘I count eight. Max is going to the bridge. Olena’s there with the captain and some of his officers and the man you described as the JADL liaison, who’s talking to them. He looks worried, like he’s trying to tell them something they’re not believing. Max is concealed outside the bridge, but he can hear them. Hold on. He’s writing something – we carry pads to communicate complicated messages. I can read it as he writes. Robicheaux says that you can’t trust the man called Witness. He’s gotten in touch with his contacts in Cuba – someone from the Gambione family. No one in Havana knows anything about the Schröder getting asylum there. But they know this guy Witness – he’s heavily into human trafficking.’
‘I knew it,’ the Angel said between clenched teeth. ‘I knew they couldn’t trust the bastard.’
‘Wait – the men are coming to the bridge. Max is retreating into deeper cover. The one leading them is big, blond, muscles like a weightlifter. Handsome, except for a smashed nose. The men with him are armed. They’re dragging the old guy from the bridge, Olena is trying to stop them but they’re pushing her down. She’s screaming. They’re – they’re throwing the old guy off the side of the ship. That guy, that snake guy is coming fast, to the bridge. They’re shooting at him—’
‘Damn!’ Ray said. ‘We’ve got to get there, fast! We should have staked out someplace closer, dammit!’
‘The Schröder’s engines are starting. There’s commotion on the Coast Guard cutter. Lights are going on all over her!’
‘Angel—’ Ray said.
‘I can’t help you,’ she said numbly. ‘You know I can’t.’ She couldn’t look him in the eyes.
Ray stood before her, took her arms, and lifted her from her chair. Supporting her weight, he held her upright before him.
‘You have to,’ he said. ‘But not me. You have to help those people on that goddamned boat. There’s no telling what will happen to them.’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘I know you are,’ Ray said earnestly. ‘And I know you’re hurt. I understand if you can’t do this anymore. But if you have anything left, now’s the time to dig down deep and find it. Just get me there – that’s all you have to do. I promise.’
Ray could feel her body stiffen, her legs take her weight, and she stood upright, on her own.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘but we’d better step outside.’
Ray smiled. ‘Good point,’ he said. He turned to the others. ‘Follow as quickly as you can.’
He tossed the keys to the Escalade to Huginn and hand in hand he and the Angel ran out the motel room door, down the hallway, and to a side exit off the first floor.
The night was hot and muggy, as usual for New Orleans. They stood together in the parking lot, bathed in the light of the incandescent bulbs illuminating the rows of cars.
The Angel put her arms around him. ‘I could drink a case of you,’ she murmured, and pulled him close.
He put his arms around her and they kissed. Ray felt as if he could feel the hurt and need in her and kissed her as if to draw it all out of her and into himself. After a moment he felt heat all around him and he knew it for the touch of the unburning flames that covered her wings, and suddenly they were airborne. Ray could feel the rush of the breeze from her beating wings upon his face and he laughed aloud as the Angel’s strength bore him effortlessly through the sky.
The city of New Orleans was spread below them, its streets outlined by lamplights and rows of car headlights moving like tracers over the ground. After the Angel gained sufficient altitude she turned toward the river and the bend bordering the French Quarter. It took only a minute or two, traveling as the angel flies, until they could see the lighted deck of the Schröder moving on the river, being pursued by half a dozen launches as well as the Coast Guard cutter Triton, which was quickly gaining on her.
‘She’s under way,’ Ray said.
The Angel’s expression was serene as a Madonna’s. Ray felt a stab of happiness to see her so. All the cares and worry and anxiety were washed away from her face as she bore them both through the sky.
Ray frowned as he looked down at the ship. ‘She’s moving pretty fast,’ he said. ‘The cutter is trying to block her way – they’re going to collide!’
The ships hit with the anguished scream of shrieking metal as the Angel spiraled down to the Schröder’s main deck. The much larger freighter smashed the cutter aside as if she were a plastic toy. The Coast Guard vessel buckled where the freighter’s prow struck her amidships. The Schröder continued to plow serenely upstream as the Triton broke into two pieces. The launches trailing the runaway freighter stopped to pick up sailors who’d abandoned the wrecked and rapidly sinking Triton.
The Angel touched down on the stern of the freighter, unnoticed in the darkness.
