“Hey, you two,” said Leo. “We’re on the same side.”

“If you want clarification of my good intentions, sir,” said Andalou, “perhaps you should talk with your wife.”

“Go ahead, call me sir again,” said Rakkim.

“Rikki, please,” said Leo. “Getty and Spider and Sarah…we’re working together.”

“Nobody told me.” Rakkim saw Sarah’s face the morning he left…he could see she was upset, holding something back. He just thought she was afraid to start crying. Joke’s on you, Rikki. Ha-ha. “Must have been too important to share with the help.”

“Rikki…if I may,” said Andalou. “I’ve been in contact with Sarah and Spider for some time now. Sharing information. Building up trust. Diplomacy 101.” He shook out his hair, sent perfume wafting through the air. “Sarah wanted to tell you, but I insisted on keeping our little circle small. After all, our lives depend on it.” He crossed his legs, the satin trousers rustling, and Rakkim thought of crickets and kudzu and ambushes when you least expected them. “If you want to know the truth, we thought we had more time. This business with the Chinese making overtures to the Colonel has moved everything up, and I’m not at all sure we’re ready.”

Rakkim waited, enjoying seeing Andalou discomforted. He probably had rehearsed this moment for hours, ready for all the likely responses, but without Rakkim asking Ready for what? Andalou didn’t know how to proceed.

“You’ve seen what things are like here now,” said Leo. “Mexicans taking back land, kidnapping tourists, diverting rivers. People all over the Belt are losing their jobs, or working for foreigners. Warlords and bandits everywhere, the cops have gone crazy, and the federal government needs press-gangs to fill the ranks of their army.”

“My country is dying.” Andalou clutched his glass. “My country…is dying. And so is yours.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” said Rakkim.

“Not you,” said Andalou. “Us. All of us.”

Leo brought his pudgy fists together. “Reunification.”

Rakkim laughed.

“It’s not funny,” said Leo.

“It’s not possible either,” said Rakkim.

“One of the early patriots, Ben Franklin, said we could either hang together or hang separately,” said Andalou. “It’s as true today as it was then. I’m not the only one who sees things this way. There are others…in high office, in business, good folks in the Islamic Republic as well as the Belt. People know things are wrong. Even if they’re too young to remember the way things used to be, the evidence is all around them. The bridge in San Francisco…New Fallujah, whatever you call it. The bridge is rusting, badly maintained, cables worn through. Another five or ten years, it won’t be usable. What happened to the people who built that bridge? The country that built that bridge?”

“I’m no traitor,” said Rakkim.

“Nor am I,” said Andalou.

“I want to talk with Sarah,” Rakkim said to Andalou. “Don’t tell me you can’t do it; you obviously talked to her after Leo called Spider yesterday.”

The ice in Andalou’s drink clinked against the glass. Rakkim wasn’t sure if his hand was trembling or if the dandy just liked the sound of it. “It’s dangerous,” he said.

“A cautious revolutionary? You’re not going to get anywhere like that.”

Andalou nodded. “Indeed.”

Rakkim and Leo followed Andalou into one of the other rooms of the penthouse. The bedroom suite. The love nest of a decadent playboy, the bed a round, canopied tent draped in red silk, paintings of fleshy nudes on the walls. Into the walk-in closet, his clothes a rainbow of peacock finery. Andalou pressed a light fixture and a false wall slid back, revealing a small alcove behind a rack of suits. A videophone link was built into a desk. He beckoned them into the cramped interior, the wall sliding shut behind them.

“Landline?” said Leo as Andalou keyed in a number.

Andalou nodded, moved slightly to give Rakkim more room.

“You intersecting through Mozambique?” said Leo.

“Sri Lanka,” said Andalou, checking various readouts.

“I’d have gone with Mozambique,” said Leo. “They’ve got faster switches. What’s your response delay? Fifteen seconds?”

“Nineteen,” said Andalou.

“That’s what I mean,” said Leo. “Mozambique, you’re talking about-” He stopped as Sarah’s face flickered on-screen. She looked worried.

“What’s wrong?” said Sarah.

Andalou looked at Rakkim.

“Our friend here just told me that you’ve been keeping secrets,” said Rakkim. “When were you going to tell me?”

They waited for the signal to travel the long way around the world to Seattle, a small packet of information among the flood of anonymous words and images. Waited for Sarah’s response to make the same journey. Indirect, and slower than satellite feeds, but landlines were safer. Not safe. Data mining by both the Belt and the republic filtered all communication channels, searching for useful intelligence, but Andalou must trust his connection. It was his head at risk. Safer, but not safe.

“I know you’re angry, but I was waiting for the right moment. Waiting for things to be bad enough. Conditions desperate enough.” Her image broke up for a second, reconstituted itself. “I knew how you would react. You have to trust my judgment. It’s the only way we’re going to survive as a nation.”

“What do you think Redbeard would say? Would he trust your judgment?”

“I think…I think he saw where things were going for a long time before he died. I think he did his best to make things work…to give the nation time to grow, but if he saw what was happening now, he’d say do what you need to do. That’s the most basic rule of statecraft. Do what has to be done, regardless of the consequences. If a nation torn apart can’t survive, then the nation has to be put back together.”

“Who rules this new nation once you put it back together?” said Rakkim.

Her response seemed to take forever to reach him. “A candidate acceptable to both parties. North and South. There will be a vote…that’s certain.”

“So you don’t really know,” said Rakkim. “You’re just hoping it will all work out. You’re praying, they’re praying, and God, oddly enough, will come down on the side of the one with the most guns and most willing to use them. God always does.”

Sarah shook her head. “We don’t have time to work out the details. The president came back from Geneva with very bad news. The Aztlán Empire has put in a claim for the whole Southwest and half of Texas. Greater Cuba wants to annex the rest of Florida and south Georgia. The Canadian government, using the Indigenous People’s Doctrine, is demanding the return of most of New England, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Both the Belt and the republic are being eaten away. Reunification is risky, I don’t doubt that…but it’s our only chance.”

Rakkim stared at her on the screen. Wished he were there.

“Rikki?”

“How’s Michael?”

“He misses you. So do I.”

“You’re going to have to tell the president. He’s the only one who can sell reunification to the people.”

“I know.”

“And General Kidd. The president’s going to have to work on him. Even Kingsley might not be able to do it, but you won’t have a chance without Kidd, and he’ll never listen to a woman.”

“You sound like you’re already convinced.” She waited.

“Any word about al-Faisal?”

“State Security concluded he blew himself up rather than be captured. Anthony…he’s not so sure. Neither am I. You didn’t tell me he was a strangler.”

“I’m a bad boy. I wish I was there so you could put me to bed without my supper.”

“I’d like that.”

“Kiss Michael for me. Tell him Daddy loves him.”

“You tell him.” Sarah wiped her eyes. “Come back and tell him yourself.”