“I just wish we could get some current satellite imagery for Mr. Winthrop,” said Leo, rolling now, anything to get his mind off what was coming. “I sketched out some architectural plans. His computer’s circa the early Pleistocene, but I was able to make some rough sketches, trying to use the topography of the surrounding area and a history of prevailing wind currents to redesign the town. Change the whole site. You know, minimize smoke and toxicity. It could be done. Just have to-”

“Why bother? It’s not like the Belt is overpopulated. The people who moved out of Addington had the right idea.”

“It’s their home, Rikki. Clyde said the people who left would come back if the air was better, if their kids could play outside. You’d feel the same way if Seattle suddenly became-”

“You’re wasting your time…” Rakkim’s voice trailed off as an empty dump truck roared past them from the opposite direction, bumping along the shoulder, barely staying on the road. He glimpsed the driver’s frantic face, saw bullet holes in the windshield. “Leo…why don’t you slide down in your seat?”

“Why?”

Rakkim pushed him down into the leg space under the dash. He slowed slightly, watching both sides of the road. Something flashed near the top of one of the trees and he braced himself for a bullet to the brain. Nothing happened. He kept driving. The flash was a signal to those who waited ahead. He slipped his knife into the heel of one boot, hid the thousand-dollar gold piece from Stevenson in the heel of the other, the boots deliberately too worn to be worth stealing. The road banked steeply, curving. The perfect spot for an ambush. He slowed, leaned on the horn, the sound echoing off the rocks and trees.

“This is it, huh?” said Leo, voice muffled from his awkward position.

“Let me do the talking. You just speak Jewish.”

“Hebrew. It’s called Hebrew.”

Rakkim shrugged. Sounded the horn again.

“What’s going on?” said Leo.

“I want Crews’s men know we’re coming. Let them know that we’re aware of them waiting for us. That’ll make them curious. They’ll want to talk before they kill us.”

“Kill us?” Leo scuttled out from under the dash, banged his head. “I thought they were going to take us prisoner.”

“They don’t take prisoners.” Rakkim slipped the silver shekel into his mouth and placed it behind his teeth on the right side, right up against the inside of his cheek. He could hold a conversation or sing a song and no one could tell it was there. The taste, though…two thousand years of sweat and greed filled his mouth. He drove on, horn blaring.

“I should…I should have never left Leanne,” said Leo. “I should have just stayed with her…married her.”

“Marry her later.” Rakkim saw a car blocking the road as he rounded the corner. One end of the car was stove in, probably from where the dump truck had plowed through. Rakkim waved to the men pointing machine guns at him. “You can tell her all about your dangerous adventures and how you saved the world. Women love that.”

Leo’s lower lip quivered. “Really?”

“No.” Rakkim stopped the car. Rolled down his window.

There was a moment when the two men in front almost opened up with their guns-he saw it in their expression, their posture-then another man, dressed in a black jumpsuit with white bones on it, said something and they half lowered their weapons. The man in the skeleton suit walked toward the car, a pistol at his side.

“Why…why is he dressed like that?” whispered Leo.

Rakkim peered at the skeleton man. It was a Halloween outfit. Looked like it anyway. Sarah had shown him pictures from the old days, pictures of people dressed as devils and witches and wild beasts. A holiday or something. Kids and adults both took part. People scared each other and then passed out candy, evidently. Halloween had been banned in the Belt since the war. So what was this guy from the ETA doing dressed like a skeleton?

“Howdy.” Skeleton man pressed the barrel of his pistol against Rakkim’s forehead. “Any reason I shouldn’t kill you?”

“I want to see Malcolm,” said Rakkim.

Skeleton man ground the barrel deeper into Rakkim’s forehead. “Does Malcolm want to see you?”

Rakkim watched the others form a semicircle around the car, a grungy group, half starved, long hair matted. Many of them were bare-chested against the chill, but well armed, torsos draped with belts of ammunition, their automatic weapons clean.

The pistol rapped Rakkim’s head. “I can’t hear you.”

“Malcolm’s expecting me,” said Rakkim. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

The pistol eased back slightly as skeleton man considered it.

“You don’t want to be wrong, pal.” Rakkim spun the eye in the pyramid, the metal flashing in the sun. “I’d hate to be you if you fuck this up.”

“Get out.”

Rakkim allowed himself to be tripped as he stepped out of the car, his hands jerked behind his back and wired tight. Leo got the same treatment and a few kicks beside. The kid didn’t cry out, just muttered something in Jewish or Hebrew or whatever it was.

The two of them were pushed and dragged to a four-by-four panel truck and tossed in the back. They landed on a pile of luggage; leather bags and suitcases, overnight duffels and a red leather makeup kit. The worst was a couple of kids’ small suitcases festooned with stickers from Florida Fiesta-Land. Nobody else in the back of the truck, though. No prisoners. Rakkim saw Leo fight back tears at the sight of the happy stickers, saw anger in him too, and was pleased. They were going to need that anger in the coming days.

“You comfy back there?” called skeleton man, turning around in the front seat.

Rakkim and Leo stayed silent and skeleton man turned back. They bounced along in the semidarkness for a long time, at least an hour, while the truck climbed steeply, then careened down a long, twisting slope. Rakkim braced his legs against the side of the truck, but Leo slid back and forth, gashed his face on the edge of a plaid suitcase.

The truck stopped, engine idling roughly before being shut off. The back door swung open and Rakkim blinked in the afternoon light, before the two of them were hauled out and dropped onto the ground.

Skeleton man glared at him. “If Malcolm isn’t interested in what you’re selling, you’re mine.”

Rakkim got to his feet, looked around. They were on the edge of a large clearing, a stream running down the ridge. Cannibalized cars, new vehicles, and motor homes were scattered across the site, most of them occupied by armed men. Dozens of jungle hammocks hung from the trees, mosquito netting glistening in the damp air. A bullet-riddled school bus lay on its side. He counted nine men wearing skeleton costumes…officers maybe, or maybe they had just looted an old store of merchandise and liked what they saw. Guns and ammunition were stacked across the site, small arms, mostly, with a few heavy machine guns. A couple of pickups with antiaircraft rail guns mounted on the back were parked near the edge of the clearing. Men filtered toward them from the woods, their faces hostile and sullen.

Leo had to roll onto his knees to stand up, wobbling.

A tall man strode toward them from the largest motor home, a very tall man, at least six foot six, maybe taller, dressed all in black. Skinny as a blade, thick-bearded, his long hair braided with pink ribbons and yellow marigolds. His eyes boiled with a twisted intelligence…the eyes of a starving maniac lost in the mountains after a plane crash and forced to eat the other survivors. And maybe he hadn’t been that hungry when he took the first bite. He looked Rakkim over.

“He…he said he had valuable information, Malcolm,” said skeleton man. “Information you’d want to hear.”

“So you brought him here. He and his soft-bellied companion.” Crews never took his eyes off Rakkim. “What if he’s carrying a bomb? What if he’s been sent by the Antichrist to assassinate me?”