"I found him in the first room at the top of the stairs. Just one man with a rifle leaned up against the window, probably looking for people like me coming from the river. You will probably find guards like him on each of the streets leading up from the water."
Ozal and Jukic both nodded in approval. The other two were silent and unmoved, but their faces no longer wore any trace of skepticism.
"I stood behind him for some time, listening for any others, but he was alone. There was a desk in the room with many papers impaled on a thin metal spike. It was the only weapon available without searching any further. The rifleman was leaning back in his chair with his head tipped toward the ceiling. I picked up the spike and removed the papers as quietly as I could. Then I killed him with it. Stabbed him in the neck. It seemed to take a long time for him to die and there was a lot of blood, but I kept my hand over his mouth and he was off balance in the chair, so he could not fight back."
He looked across at Ozal to see how he was doing. The Turk nodded in encouragement.
"After that I was much more careful," he said. "I left that building and swam across into another, a few doors up. It was an older building, an office. Many of the infidel had been in there when they were taken. But it seemed nobody else had been there since then. I stayed there until nightfall. About an hour after darkness some men came to look for their friend. They raised an alarm, but they didn't leave anyone behind to take his place when they left. I followed them maybe ten minutes later.
"The next two days I moved very carefully, staying off the streets where I could be seen."
The black man with dreadlocks and scars leaned back in his chair. "And you can tell us where the Slavs have their main stores and depots?"
Yusuf nodded and turned toward his commander.
"Sheikh Ozal's men gave us much instruction in drawing maps of the city before we left Morocco."
Ozal dipped his head in acknowledgment and agreement.
"We had many maps of the island to practice with," Yusuf said. "They made us draw some parts of the city again and again. We practiced drawing many blocks around areas where we expected to fight. We practiced drawing maps for members of other saif as if we were directing them during a battle. We do not have the Americans' technology, their spy planes without pilots, the helicopters and satellites. But we could make do because of the training we received from Ahmet Ozal."
He bowed formally toward his commander. The giant Turk smiled indulgently.
"You learned well, boy. I could only wish that all of my pupils learned their lessons as well as you." He produced a series of papers from a pocket in his shirt, unfolding them and handing them out to each of the bandit leaders in turn.
"Yusuf Mohammed was very careful not to be seen as he made his way back to us," Ozal said. "As he moved through the Slavs' territory and came to understand what he was seeing, he made maps just as he had been taught. These are copies of those maps my men developed from his field sketches. They reveal the location of at least four warehouses, three of them Russian, one of them Serbian. They are clearinghouses for their salvage operations here in Manhattan and so are always well stocked with the finest loot. They are yours for the taking… after we have driven the Americans from the city. When that is done, you have the promise of my emir that we will help you take this treasure but will claim none of it ourselves."
The bandit leaders exchanged a quiet look. The African spoke for them all.
"This will mean war with the Slavs as well."
Ozal showed him a pair of open palms.
"Yes, it will," he said. "But once we have driven off the Americans together, the Slavs will be easy pickings for us. They may not even put up a fight. We shall see. But whatever shall happen, you have the promise of the emir that for your help in defeating the Americans that part of the city and all its plunder shall be ceded to you in equal measure. What say you? Do you still have the stomach for this fight?"
Yusuf Mohammed sat very still. He had known as he stole up from the river toward the camp of his emir that any information he could gather would go to his credit when it came time to plead for a second chance. Now, sitting here in this room surrounded by the ghosts of hundreds of Americans, in a city haunted by millions of others, he was struck by just how forgiving Allah could be.
He had thought himself borne along on a current carrying him to ignominy and doom, yet it was all part of God's design. He had been meant to survive the American assault. He had been meant to wash up in the part of the city controlled by the Slavs who had refused to join in the holy campaign against the Americans. And he had been meant by God to walk a path that delivered him here into this room to cement an alliance with these men who were obviously vital to the emir's plans.
All he needed to make this day perfect was a gun in his hand and directions back to the front line.
35
Kansas City, Missouri President James Kipper felt a surge of pride at the sight of Kansas City Power and Light's restored Number Five generator pumping sanitized white smoke into a clear blue sky. Standing in the parking lot of the Hawthorne plant, on the banks of the Missouri River northeast of the city's still-deserted urban core, he could indulge himself in the guilty pleasure of forgetting for a moment about Mad Jack Blackstone and the horrors of New York, along with the frustrations of politics and the trouble he was in with his wife. For just a few moments, standing next to his oldest friend, Barney Tench, listening to the hum of the transmission lines and the excited burbling of his entourage, he could wallow in a giddy glee rarely experienced since the Wave.
Creation.
The simple joy of creation had been the engine of his life for as long as he could remember. His earliest memories were of building things. Not just wooden blocks and LEGO towers but giant, messy backyard earthworks and dams and pretend farms and shoebox factories and tree houses and secret dens. As a child he had always gone that one step further, driven by what he now recognized as an innate desire to reach out and shape the world. My poor mother, he thought fondly. Oh, how her garden beds had suffered.
"So, boss," Tench said, gesturing at the massive Hawthorne Unit Five smokestack. "What do you think?"
"Impressive," Kipper replied. "You know how much I love a big honkin' power plant, Barn. What's our status?"
Barney gestured at the drab tan structure of the main plant building with a jelly doughnut swiped earlier from the catering table. "With Unit Five fully manned and operational," he said, "we'll have close to four hundred megawatts of juice. Plenty for now."
"Cool. More than enough," Kipper agreed. "What about the gas turbine facility on the east side?"
Barney looked over his notes. "Ah… from what I understand, I think that's meant for the summer months when everyone is, er… was running their AC. It is in pretty good shape and could provide backup power on demand. We're still sorting it out, but the coal generator was easier since she's so much like the ones we got back in Seattle."
"Relatively new, isn't it?" Kipper asked.
"Yeah. Umm, perhaps I shouldn't mention this, boss, but this plant has a history of bad luck: a fire back in the nineties that knocked out the transmission lines and an explosion which destroyed the original Unit Number Five," Barney said.
Kipper nodded. "That explains why everything is new, then. What about Units One through Four? Will you be bringing those back online?"