38

Traffic moved at a crawl along Highway 1 through Bodega Bay, choked by the thousands of pedestrians and hundreds of cars parked illegally along the roadside. A forty-foot Bounder RV edged along in the stream, another bewildered and frightened tourist trying to get through this wild mess. But then it pulled over into a space conveniently vacated by two cars, just as it arrived. The passing crowd swirled around the big rig like water around a stone, but not without offering up plenty of jeering, hostile glances, and occasional raised fingers to this symbol of leisure and wealth.

Shielded behind the smoked windows, Freeboot watched them stonily, with the mixture of pity and contempt that rare men like him-men of great vision and ability-had always held for society’s losers, whose asses had first to be kicked into realizing the power they held, and then into using it. In fact, the RV was just the opposite of what it seemed-a command post for an army that didn’t yet know it existed. And the first battle in the war was coming together out there on the streets right now.

The RV’s parking spot, secured early that morning by the maquis, was a vantage point on high ground, with a clear view of the marina below. Within a couple of minutes, Freeboot saw a California Highway Patrol motorcycle cop approaching, navigating slowly but steadily through the throng. Tension and disdain were obvious in the faces he passed, but no one was ready to take on The Man.

Yet.

Freeboot moved to the RV’s passenger door and opened it. Anyone who saw him would have taken him for a middle-aged tourist. He looked completely different than he had three months ago. He had spent a lot of that time in Panama. That was a great place-mescal, cocaine, pretty women, and plastic surgeons who didn’t ask questions. His cheeks and nose had been thickened, a chin implant added, and his ears angled forward to give him a bearlike look. His hair and beard were short, white, and well trimmed. He wore a padded shirt and a fanny pack across his belly to accentuate a paunch. But underneath it, his ferally strong body was the same.

The cop pulled up to the door, straddling his big BMW motorcycle. His brawny forearms and biceps stretched the short sleeves of his tan shirt. A Smith & Wesson.40-caliber automatic rode high on his right hip. He wore knee-high black boots, tight black gloves, and aviator sunglasses.

Behind the glasses, Freeboot knew, Hammerhead’s eyes were bloodshot and crazed with meth.

The passing crowd drifted away from this exchange-a cop probably checking on the safety of the RV’s well-off passengers, maybe offering them an escort out of here.

“It’s going to start real soon,” Freeboot said quietly. “Get it done, and ride out like a son of a bitch. You’ll be gone before they know what happened.”

Hammerhead’s lips were set in a tight line-the tough look of a cop in a tense situation. But they moved in a sudden tremor, and a little froth of saliva spilled out of one corner of his mouth.

“You talked to her again?” he said.

Freeboot assented, a slow, assured raising of his head.

“Just a little while ago,” he said. “Marguerite’s had some wrong ideas, but that’s all over. She’ll be waiting when you get back.”

Hammerhead’s corded forearms flexed as he put the bike in gear and accelerated away.

Taxman stepped from the RV’s rear section, carrying a long nylon duffel bag, the kind that athletes used for equipment. Inside it was a Remington model 700.308-caliber rifle with a Leupold scope. He lowered the passenger-side window a few inches and raised the gun to his shoulder, keeping all of it but the scope inside the bag, slipping the tip of the muzzle out through a slit and bracing it in the window opening. The crosshairs found Hammerhead’s white helmet and followed it.

“You going to be able to pick him out?” Freeboot said.

“As long as everybody’s where they’re supposed to be.” Taxman stashed the bag in a cabinet.

“If they’re not,” Freeboot said, “get creative.”

He kicked off his shoes and stripped off the padded shirt, replacing it with a Kevlar vest.

Inside the RV’s bathroom, Shrinkwrap was putting the finishing touches on her young lover’s disguise, kneeling before him and dabbing Mehron stage makeup on his face while he sat on the closed toilet lid.

“Perfect,” she said, holding up a compact mirror in front of him.

Glenn Monks stared into it, looking like he had stage fright. His lips parted, showing his blistered teeth and gums.

“Don’t be scared, baby,” she said softly. “I’m very proud of you. I know how much it’s hurt you, everybody thinking you’re just a computer geek. Today, you make full maquis. Remember, as soon as it starts, clean up with these”-she tapped the packet of moist towelettes in his shirt pocket-“and get your ass back here.”

He nodded, swallowing dryly.

“What’s the first thing you’re going to say when you get up there?” she asked in a teasing voice.

“People, y’all listen to me.” His voice was shaky, and it cracked.

“Don’t panic, try it again,” she coaxed. “You’re cool, baby, you’re the coolest rapper I’ve ever heard. Just be you.”

“People, y’all listen to me,” he cried out, with strained force. “We here today to talk about gettin’ back what The Man been takin’ away from us.”

“Perfect,” she said again, rubbing his thighs through his pants, comically baggy jeans worn with the waistband just above his pubis and the cuffs dragging on the ground.

Her hands moved to the zipper. “Now lean back and close your eyes,” she whispered. “I’m going to give my brave soldier a good-luck present.”

A few minutes later, she walked with him to the RV’s cab and watched him slip out into the crowd. It hurt. He had touched that deep, sweet spot in her. But Freeboot was right-the meth had been getting to him, making him petulant, unreliable, tiresome to be around, and a risk if he got caught. It was a hard truth of all successful politics that sometimes, individuals had to be sacrificed for the greater good.

There were plenty of other lovely boys out there, younger ones, with bright white smiles.

39

Striding back to the marina, Monks was jolted by the fear that it had caught on fire. What looked like a wave of flame was sweeping through the crowd.

Then he realized that he was seeing several hundred garish T-shirts, colored nuclear sunset orange, worn by the oncoming partyers.

A closer look stunned him even more. The T-shirts’ central logo was a cartoonishly ugly vulture with an evil grin, pinning the neck of a squealing lamb with one taloned foot, while ripping out its guts with the other. Above that, in large bold letters, was printed: THE BIRDS IS BACK, BABY!

And below it, bloodred and shaped like jagged lightning flashes driving into the scorched earth, were the characters REV # 9.

“Are you seeing these T-shirts?” he said into his hidden microphone.

“There’s cars with trunkfuls of them-they’re handing them out free,” Pietowski growled. “The caps, too.”

Monks hadn’t yet noticed those, but now he saw that most of the T-shirt wearers were also sporting dark blue or black stocking caps, pulled down low over foreheads and ears, hiphop style.

“Now they all fucking look alike,” Pietowski said. “We’re going to disperse them. Watch yourself, this could get rough.”

Monks was starting to hear the faint, faraway sound of sirens over the clamor of the many-thousand-limbed beast that prowled around him. The crowd heard it, too, and the noise level dropped as people turned to look toward Highway 1. Seaward, the throbbing pulse of helicopters thickened as they moved closer. Another swift, purposeful Coast Guard cutter was approaching from the direction of San Francisco. The local police and sheriffs, helmeted and wearing riot gear, were getting out of their cars, trying to start moving the crowd off the marina and back toward the highway. Knots of confrontation were forming, the partyers reacting with anger and taunts.