Conscript loss was acceptable, which wasn’t something you could say for their top-flight military electronics. Even adding in a completion bonus didn’t take the annual cost of a PaxForce trooper to more than half that paid to LockMart for the helmet alone.
All four soldiers had PaxForce IDs welded into their collars. The kind of crypt chip guaranteed to vibrate frantically if caught in the cross-hairs of a PaxForce snubPup, not to mention tell the snubPup where to get off… UN regulations demanded soldiers also wore rank and number identification, but this was missing in every case. Axl wasn’t surprised.
What did surprise him, though, was the fact he could see all this. And what surprised him even more was that he could see it clearly on a darkened night when Cocheforet was closed down, wooden shutters pulled tighter than a sphincter over windows and front doors kept closed.
Maybe this was the trade-off from Rinpoche for that irritating timecode. Because whatever scam the silver monkey had pulled in there among his neurons it was neat.
‘Actually,’ said Axl, ‘for an outdated Colt with an attitude problem it’s fucking impressive.’
Beside him, Tukten jumped. But mostly because he’d finally realised what Axl already knew. They were riding straight towards a group of soldiers, maybe twenty paces ahead. If Axl hadn’t grabbed the boy’s wrist, Tukten would have pulled round and ridden away; which was about as sensible as staple-gunning a luminous target on his back. At least it was when PaxForce were running a little unofficial R&R.
‘Wait,’ Axl snapped and kicked his heels until the mare he was riding stumbled into an unwilling trot. ‘Unless you want to get killed.’
The torch beam hit Axl’s face just ahead of the voice which ordered him to halt. Axl did. But he waited until his horse was almost upon the guard before yanking its bridle.
‘Shithead.’ The guard snapped up the lux level on his laserlight, shining it straight into Axl’s eyes. Without even thinking about it, Axl shut down some of the rod and cone cells, filtering out most of the brightness.
‘Who are you?’ The voice was rough, casually arrogant but not as hard as the man would like it to be. A corporal, nothing more.
‘Blackjack d’Essiarto,’ said Axl politely. ‘And I’d like to stable my mare ... if that’s not a problem?’
Next to the corporal a wiry kid sniggered and lowed his snubPup. Peruvian by the look of it. Which made sense at this altitude.
‘And this?’ The corporal demanded.
‘My servant,’ Axl grinned as Tukten stiffened in the saddle.
‘You live here?’
‘Do I live here… ?’ Sat on his horse, high above the corporal, Axl yawned heavily and stretched his arms out to his side, then yawned again… ‘Do I look like I live in a shit hole?’ Memories of his flat back in Day Effé crashed in on Axl but he shunted them out of his head. ‘Well,’ asked Axl, ‘do I?’
Someone else laughed and as the corporal whipped round, Axl kicked his mare forward and squeezed between the suddenly straight-faced soldiers. ‘I’m dossing at the Inn,’ he told the corporal over his shoulder, ‘if you need me.’
Axl trotted the hundred paces to the stable door and dismounted without once looking back. He had the revolver tucked into the back of his belt, hidden beneath the thick felt of his stinking coat. Using the weapon would be a last resort and Axl didn’t intend for that to happen. Mainly because he’d have to be seriously stupid to use a black-power .45 against flaked-up troops waving PaxForce-issue snubPups. It didn’t matter how many modifications to the gun Rinpoche had made, without kevlar body armour and a helmet Axl didn’t even have tickets to the same fucking ballpark.
Throwing open the stable door, Axl stopped. Instead of the familiar reek of dung and horse piss it stank of hydrocarbons and over-hot metal.
Five Chinese-built Honda X3 dirtbikes were parked up in one corner, the kind with studded tires and built-in gyro. Not fast, but they could hack ice that would tax a sherpa and slick down any slope that was less than vertical. That was exactly what he’d have brought if he’d had to choose. Except normal people on Samsara didn’t get to ride Honda dirts, or Seraphim 4x4s or Mitsubishi half-tracks come to that. Only PaxForce got full use of technology on Samsara, courtesy of some UN mandate. And even then, the Dalai Lama wasn’t too keen, though he was much too pragmatic to say so openly…
That was what Axl had heard anyway.
‘Feed her and rub her down.’ Axl told Tukten, tossing his reins to the boy. ‘Then get home and stay there, okay? If they want your jacket give it to them, the same goes for your sister or your arse. Don’t get into fights, don’t get riled and don’t waste time trying to be a hero. This lot slot kids like you for a hobby. Understand?’
The stable door had swung shut before the shocked boy even had time to answer. The corporal didn’t challenge Axl on his way up the street, in fact the man did his best to pretend he hadn’t seen Axl at all.
DanceSerious WarPosse announced a hand-printed screamer posted to Leon’s door. Suck On This, Samsara tour. Despite himself, Axl smiled. Some things didn’t change.
A wave of sour chang, sensimillia and stale sweat hit Axl as he stepped though the inn’s door into the crowded bar. The place was rammed to the rafters. Over at a table in the far corner, Ketzia was trying to stop a tray crammed to overflowing with bowls of chang from being pulled out of her hands.
Three teenage conscripts sat at the table, DanceSerious patches epoxied to their shirtsleeves. And the only boy not struggling to slide his hands up Ketzia’s skirt was alternating between sucking hits on a jade chillum and fumbling at Ketzia’s blouse. One full breast was almost loose, its dark nipple exposed, but for all the expression on Ketzia’s face the grinning stoner kid might have been transparent.
The woman’s eyes were blank, her wide mouth neither smiling nor frowning. Unlike the other girl serving, Ketzia didn’t even bother to swat away their groping hands. She’d been here before Axl knew, just from the deadness of her expression which reflected the utter powerlessness of an object with no reason to question the emptiness of those who did only what they were told.
If she expected any help from Axl she didn’t let it show, but then with his two new eyes and reworked face she probably didn’t recognise him anyway.
Just inside the door—and right in his way—six or seven spliffed-up Peruvian kids sat in a circle on the dirty floor. Off duty and killing time with bowls of Cocheforet’s thin beer. Spread out in the middle of them were foil packs of Mexican take-out. Someone had gone to the bother of yanking the heating tabs on the sides before ripping off the lids, but most of the packs were still full.
Axl wasn’t surprised. Reconstituted protein was no one’s first choice and the smell of vat-grown chilli still turned his gut.
‘Shite, isn’t it?’ Axl said, stepping carefully over them. One of the mind-blasted teenagers nodded long before she even thought to wonder who the newcomer was. Avoiding her boots, Axl stepped neatly round a boy on his knees trying to puke, dodged two conscripts kissing and finally reached the bar.
‘Evening, Leon. Did Ketzia find what she was looking for?’
It was worth the walk.
Leon’s face went slack with shock and then he was scrambling beneath the counter, hands feeling for some weapon. A hidden length of metal pipe, Axl decided, that would be about his level.
Axl shook his head slowly, locking his eyes onto those of the barman. Equally slowly, Leon dropped his hands from the bar and stood back, mouth opening and shutting silently…
‘Hey,’ said the heavy woman Leon had been serving. ‘You seen a fucking ghost or something?’
‘Yeah,’ said Axl, yanking a stool from beneath a drunken conscript, ‘or something.’ Leon glared angrily at Axl, glanced at the heavy woman and left, muttering under his breath.
‘Do I know you?’ defMoma asked. The sergeant was stripped to her combat trousers, stained T-shirt and steel-capped boots that buckled to the knee. Her biceps were thick as hams, her
heavy breasts topped by nipples bullet-like enough to threaten the cloth of her T-shirt. It was an impressive sight.
Axl spread his hands slightly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Do you?’ The long list of UN conflict zones he reeled off began with Azerbaijan and ended with Zaire, via Bessarabia and Montevideo. Actually, he’d only been to about three of them but defMoma didn’t know that. Didn’t know he’d fought mainly for the other side, either.
‘Chang,’ Axl ordered, while defMoma was still thinking over his list. The beer tasted no better than it had the last time Axl tried it, but at least Leon didn’t try to charge him.
‘And another.’
The revolver pressed hard in the small of his back. Other than that, Axl had the hunting knife stuck in his boot. Not much if putsch came to kill ... Of course he could always try to grab a better weapon, if he could just work out what defMoma was packing and where.
Back in San Salvador, when the IMF were running one of their interminable credit checks, the NCOs got issued with semiAI HiPowers, poor relations to the gun Axl used before logic went walkabout. No one knew what weapons senior officers in San Salvador carried because no one saw any.
Axl suddenly realised defMoma wasn’t listening to him anymore. She was displaying an unhealthy interest in a woman who’d just walked in, only to stop dead in the doorway, appalled by the stink of vomit and the blast of some kid’s Sony boombox.
Poor-boy’s soundtracks. Like his sergeant used to say, if it’s not fitted it’s not real. ‘Like to stay and chat,’ Axl shouted, slipping off the stool, ‘but you know how it is. Shit to do…’
Idiots to rescue.
The barefoot woman began to edge between the kids blocking the door, gazing too obviously round the crowded bar. Either she’d been to the stable but hadn’t found any more beads, and had come for help from Leon and Ketzia, or else Escondido had been occupied by PaxForce officers and she wanted Mai out of the house but needed help finding somewhere for the kid to stay.
Or both.
Axl could write the script in his head.
A ragged yellow jacket hid her upper body, while what looked like a horse blanket was tied tight around her waist, making a crude skirt. Her hair was scraped back under a blue scarf too old even to remember if it had ever had better days.
All she needed was a bottle of industrial alcohol to look like a pantomime beggar. On Samsara, of course, among the thousands of ‘fugees scrabbling to feed themselves from thin soil, she looked almost normal. Just another woman who’d lost her home, her job or her kids and been issued with two blankets and a refugee PIN number in reply.
She wasn’t.
That ash-grey blanket round her waist was cut from a shahtoosh, woven from wool combed from the stomach of an antelope. It took five animals to make each wrap. Pashmina and shahtoosh were two of the few luxury items Samsara produced for export. Cutting it up and dumping it into the mud must have really hurt Kate, which was fine with Axl. The last time he’d seen the bitch she’d just finished slapping Mai stupid.
Now the roles were reversed.
What gave Kate away was her feet. They were filthy enough, her soles and heels crusted with mud where she’d walked into Cocheforet from El Escondido. But the dirt that should have been ingrained under each toenail was missing and her ankles lacked the grey patina of those forced to live without shoes.
She was altogether too clean, as some conscript was bound to find out the moment he stuck a hand under her skirt to uncover legs that weren’t as filthy as they should be.
‘You.’ Axl pointed at Kate. ‘Over here.’ She could run or she could do what she was told. One of those wasn’t going to get her killed, if Kate got lucky.
‘Well done,’ said Axl coldly, watching her trying to work out where she recognised him from.
He slapped her. And then Kate knew.
Half a dozen of the conscripts cheered, cheers turning to crude encouragement as Axl twisted his right hand tight into the shocked woman’s hair and kissed her hard.
‘Hit any more children lately?’ Axl asked, coming up for air.
If she could have done, she’d have slapped him but Axl caught her wrist, fingers tightening until Kate bit her lip.
‘Fond of that, aren’t you?’ Axl’s smile wasn’t kind. ‘Well, try it on me and I’ll break your fucking wrist. . . And then I’ll give you to this lot.’ Axl yanked her over to the bar, booted another conscript off his stool and sat down next to defMoma, pulling Kate down onto his knee…
‘Staying long?’ Axl asked defMoma, whose blue eyes left off trying to focus on a frozen Kate and had a shot at refocusing on Axl instead. The only bit of defMoma’s iced-out brain still working almost asked what business it was of his, but defMoma was tired and Axl behaved like he belonged. On top of that, there were standing PaxForce regulations about answering reasonable questions, not that anyone paid much attention to shit like that.
'As long as it takes,’ she replied heavily. Which was undoubtedly true and told Axl zilch, which was what it was meant to do.
‘To do what?’ Axl demanded. ‘Or are you planning to stick to the usual?’ He jerked his head towards where one of the younger conscripts was hinting, with the aid of a zytel blade, that Leon might like to supply Cocheforet’s piss-poor chang for free.
‘You’re an observer,’ said defMoma flatly. And the conscript at the next stool along went hurriedly back to his beer, then snuck another look.
Axl said nothing.
If he was an official UN-appointed observer, now was the point to whip out his little holographic card and flash it in the huge woman’s face. Observers had diplomatic status, carte blanché, carte noblique… Whatever it took wherever they were. Didn’t matter which way the IMF or PaxForce cut it, observers weren’t messed with.
Observers were the control group that kept the PaxForce honest, that was the theory. They’d been introduced fifteen years back, around the time the UN gave in to IMF pressure and outsourced its rapid-response troops. Five corps tendered and DecSec won, helped by a recent devaluation of the rouble.
Killing an observer was bad news. Every conscript on the ground lost a year’s pay and had an extra year added to their contract. Axl smiled at the thickset, cropped-haired woman and did nothing more. All of the conscripts were watching him now. Most out of the corner of their eyes but a few full-on.
‘Mission statement?’ Axl kept his voice polite, wondering what he’d do if defMoma called his bluff.
She didn’t. Without a word she handed him a tiny silver disc and then, when he sighed heavily, unzipped her Sony walkWear and handed that over as well.
The instructions were simple. The unit was to search Samsara for Father Sylvester, the Vatican treasurer and return him to Earth to face a financial-crimes tribunal. The order was approved by the World Bank, signed by the current Secretary Fiscal and ratified by the International Court of Human Rights at the Hague.
So far so normal.
Where the whole concept started to unravel was when Axl checked the instigator properties on a hunch and got not the Prosecutor Fiscal or the Secretary General of the UN or even Cardinal Santo Duque, which would have been bizarre but just about possible, but Maximillia.
Max didn’t do politics. That kind of stuff the kid left to the Cardinal. She definitely didn’t do heavyweight legal finessing either. Not that Max didn’t have a right to appeal to the Hague. It was her economy that had been wrecked by the underage Army of God. WorldBank had to be leaning on her. And Axl could understand why.
Grapes had been left to rot on the vine, whole fields of cannabis and maize had withered and died uncollected. Even the mountain coca crops had been left ungathered. Worse than that, industrial complexes were burned if executives refused to embrace poverty with what the Army thought was sufficient enthusiasm. From San Antone and Baja California to the lush sensimillia estates of Cuba, caldes, patrons and hacendados who decided to hang onto their bank accounts lost their lives.
* * * *
>
Mexico was in ruins. Financial crimes didn’t come more obvious. Watched around the world by millions Pope Joan had taken a low-orbit Boeing shuttle to Day Effé to stop the children.
And died, on camera. Standing alone in front of an army of children. Caught by CySat stringers, Ishies, aerospats, by every wannabe news jock on the American continent. What the newsfeeds showed was the sudden stumble of a middle-aged woman, her fallen body ripped apart by beautiful, wide-eyed street children. It had been as unsettling as watching puppies kill.
Her clothes got stripped from her, strands of grey hair tugged from her scalp. The papal ring had been taken from her finger and the finger taken from her hand by a smiling ten-year-old girl wielding a five dollar Bowie ground sharp against brick.
All her fingers had gone after that, then her hands, then her feet. Last to be taken was her sightless head, brow blood-covered but unfurrowed, lips reposed, eyes shut as if she was sleeping.
The police got that back, of course. As well as most of her fingers.
What the mainstream News didn’t show, and what Axl didn’t know until the Cardinal told him, was that Joan was dead before she hit the ground. She didn’t stumble, she died. Shot as she stood doing what she always did, telling the truth as she saw it. The time had come for the children of the Army to go home. And if the children didn’t have a home to go to, she would find them one.
A sliver of super-cooled ice was all it took, poisoned at the tip with curare and fired from a hopped-up airgun. The impact no more painful than the bite from a horsefly.
The Pope knew what had happened, though.
So did those closest in the crowd. The children who ripped her apart on camera weren’t killing her, they were collecting relics. And the Cardinal believed that Joan would have approved. Just as she approved the spirit, if not the result, of most things done by the Army of God.
‘She was shot,’ Axl said firmly. ‘I saw it on vid.’
‘Vids lie.’ defMoma might have been arguing with a child.
Axl flushed.
‘You think that sequence wasn’t stripped back? From what I heard CySat’s AI went half crazy behind the scenes trying to peel the episode apart. It couldn’t be done. Every fucking checksum, every fucking kilopixel block of it validated; nothing was cropped out, nothing added, nothing taken away.
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