Terrible what had happened to the Tigard family. Beyond terrible. The things he had seen tonight would never be erased, but Rakkim had learned something important from the attack. The stealth helicopter was Chinese built, a Monsoon-class, Model 4. The best bird in their arsenal-fast and maneuverable, with laser-sighted Gatlings, and quiet as a nightmare. It hadn’t been the noise of the approaching chopper that had awakened Rakkim, but the minute perturbation in air pressure.
Rakkim took a breather at the bottom of the grave. Deep enough now. He walked up the narrow incline he had left himself, picked Florence Tigard’s body off the ground, and started back down. She was heavy, but he laid her down gently, held his hands out in silent benediction. Then walked back up and started shoveling in dirt.
The Chinese didn’t export the Model 4. The president of the Belt himself only had a Model 2, a gift from the Chinese premier on his last official visit. If the Colonel had a Model 4, then the Chinese wanted to do business with him in a very bad way. Which meant they were convinced there was something in that mountain, something worth currying favor with the Colonel. The Chinese connection gave Rakkim just what he was looking for. An opportunity. A way in. A cover story that would grant him access to the Colonel. There were problems, of course…but after the price the Tigards had paid, there was no way Rakkim wasn’t going to act on this new information.
Leo wandered back as the sun started steaming the wet ground, the kid carrying four crosses as Rakkim smoothed a mound of soil over Florence Tigard’s grave. Leo had rinsed himself before making the crosses, but his face and hands were still scratched and bruised from his being trampled in the pigpen. He offered Rakkim the crosses that he had made from pieces of white picket fence. “Are these going to be okay? I scratched their names-”
“They’re fine. Really nice.”
“Honest?”
“They’re fucking crosses. Just stick them in the ground. If there’s a heaven they’re already there. If not…it doesn’t matter if the crosses are nice or not.”
Leo stared at him.
“I’m sorry, Leo. I’m…I’m stretched a little thin right now.”
“Gee, that’s too bad, because me…I’m just having a great morning.” Leo pushed the cross for James into the ground at the head of his grave. He thumped the cross in with the flat of the shovel, drove it in deeper. “If it doesn’t stretch you even thinner”-another whack-“I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Gravenholtz…Mr. Tigard slashed him with a scythe, but he didn’t die. He didn’t even seem hurt very bad,” said Leo. “How could that be?”
Rakkim had wondered the same thing. He took one of the crosses from Leo; meticulously made, the crossbars wired into place, the name and date etched in.
“I saw him get cut,” said Leo. “He wasn’t wearing body armor. He bled. Mr. Tigard was strong. The scythe should have cut Gravenholtz in half, but it barely broke the skin.”
Rakkim tapped in Matthew Tigard’s cross. He could have told Leo the scythe was old and dull. Could have told him that Tigard was weak and dying when he swung the scythe. People believed what made them comfortable. What fit with their preconceptions of how the world worked. The kid would have probably believed him, but Rakkim couldn’t lie to Leo. Not today.
“Redbeard told me a story once. A rumor, really.” Rakkim tapped the cross in, the sound echoing in the still morning. “We were in his water garden, drinking Coca-Cola. The real stuff, the stuff that gets you thrown in prison for breaking the embargo, not that Jihad Cola shit.” The memory warmed him. Redbeard had contempt for substitutes of any kind. Or maybe the State Security chief just liked being bad once in a while. He straightened the cross, gave it a few more taps with the shovel. “Redbeard said that about ten years earlier he got reports that the Belt had started a secret program to counter the Fedayeen. Soldiers of Christ, their own elite warriors, that’s what they wanted. Never panned out, or at least we never encountered them. General Kidd said Christians didn’t have the discipline for the training required. Or the genetic boosters. Said it was just another tall tale from the Belt, more disinformation, but Redbeard wasn’t so sure.”
Leo worked a cross into Florence Tigard’s grave, listening. He winced, pulled a splinter out of his thumb.
“The subject remained a point of contention between Redbeard and General Kidd, an academic discussion…until a Fedayeen forward combat patrol in Missouri lost contact one night. All eight Fedayeen were found murdered the next morning. Beaten to death. Skulls crushed, ribs stoved in. They had followed standard procedures, secured the perimeter. Three contacts from the Belt had been ushered into camp the previous evening, renegades with information to trade. The renegades had been scanned for weapons, but the scanners must have missed something. For three renegades to kill eight Fedayeen, at close quarters…nothing like it had ever happened before. General Kidd ordered a full investigation. The ground at the camp was soaked with blood, almost none of it matching the Fedayeen-so they hadn’t gone quietly. No trace of drugs in the blood, no genetic anomalies, nothing to indicate how the Fedayeen had been overpowered.”
“You think that’s what Gravenholtz is?” said Leo. “One of these Soldiers of Christ?”
“I doubt it.” Rakkim bent beside Leo, helped him bang in the cross. “If there was some elite warrior program in the Belt, we would have seen it by now. A couple other Fedayeen units disappeared right after that in the same area. Redbeard was investigating clinics in Thailand and Japan that specialized in implanting striking plates in the hands of martial artists, but then the attacks stopped and there were too many other domestic problems-”
“The attacks stopped?”
“Almost overnight. So General Kidd was probably right, it was just more Belt disinformation. Or the Belt ran out of money to fund more than a few prototypes, or maybe they didn’t perform as well as anticipated. Gravenholtz is no superman. I think maybe…I think he just has some…enhancements.” He looked at Leo. “You know about that kind of thing, don’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I heard you’re not off the rack either.”
“I have an IQ that’s too high to be measured, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’ve seen smart guys before. I was told you’re something different.”
“I…I process information very efficiently.” Leo licked his lips. “Really efficiently.”
“Lucky you.” Rakkim wiped his hands on his pants. “We should get going. I have to contact Sarah.”
Leo glanced at the graves. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“I’m not calling to ask her to go steady,” said Rakkim. “The situation here’s changed. The helicopter Gravenholtz used is an advanced Chinese design. Very limited production. If the Colonel has one, it’s because the Chinese are courting him. We can use that to our advantage. I need Spider to hack into a very secure database for me.” Rakkim was backlit by the remnants of the Tigards’ farmhouse, the embers still glowing in the dawn. “If things don’t work out, Sarah has to be ready to inform the president. Fuck deniability at that point-he has to be ready to consider all options.”
“Like what?”
“That’s for him and General Kidd to decide. All I know is that with the Chinese backing him up, we can’t let the Colonel keep whatever’s hidden in that mountain. If it takes a Fedayeen strike force to neutralize the site…” Rakkim leaned the shovel against the tree. “Better a diplomatic disaster than an all-out civil war.”
“It…it doesn’t have to come to that. That’s why we’re here.”
Rakkim watched the new day, the morning light soft and golden. He looked around at the farm, noted the fields of alfalfa almost ready for harvest, the neat rows of sweet corn, the peach trees…The orchard was Bill Tigard’s gift to his wife. Conditions here weren’t optimal for growing peaches, not well enough to compete with Georgia and South Carolina freestones, but Florence loved fresh peaches warm from the sun, and Bill loved Florence. The peaches would go to worms and black canker without proper attention, and there was no one to care for them now.