The truck reached the edge of the blast zone. The black ash just stopped in a perfectly straight line. On one side was death and on the other there was yellow summer grass, seemingly undisturbed. Police cars were parked on both sides as the road reappeared. Soldiers hurried and moved wooden barricades out of the way as the driver shouted there were survivors to take to the hospital.
The gear box ground as the truck rolled forward. A police car got in front of them and turned on its siren. Reporters tried to take their picture as they went by but the Grimnoir kept their heads down. The group was silent, and Faye thought about raising her hand, but she hesitated. General Pershing had shown her exactly where to go to find Southunder.
"The only thing standing between the Chairman and the deadliest device ever conceived is a single Grimnoir, who probably doesn't even know that his old companions have all been slaughtered. We must get to him before it is too late." Mr. Rawls pleaded, "You are not betraying the General, you are fulfilling his final mission."
Sullivan started to laugh. It was a low chuckle at first, but then it turned into a full belly laugh. He was at the rear of the truck, and the shocks creaked under his weight as he turned. "You all are too rich." He had to wipe his eyes with his sleeve. "Damn near as self-righteous as the Chairman."
"Pershing told you?" Mr. Rawls said incredulously.
"Because he knew better than to trust anyone else. Yeah, I know how to find Bob Southunder."
"You must tell us then."
"Pershing gave me a job. I intend to do it. I'll find Southunder and the last piece. That's my duty. Not yours."
"You can't hope to do this on your own. You're just mad with grief, son," Mr. Rawls said.
"Maybe. But that don't change nothing."
"If the Chairman finds out where it is, he'll send his Iron Guard against you," Mr. Harkeness said coldly.
"I'm counting on it. And when they come, I'll be there, waiting," Sullivan stated. Faye could tell he meant it. If there was anything she knew about Mr. Sullivan, he was a man who kept his promises or who'd die trying.
Mr. Rawls was upset. "This isn't a game. Tell me where Southunder is. That's an order, Grimnoir."
Sullivan paused, took Pershing's ring from his pinky and tossed it into the truck bed. It rolled to a stop next to Mr. Browning. "I never took no oath."
Mr. Rawls' thick white eyebrows scrunched together as he glared at Mr. Sullivan. Faye could almost feel the Power crackle through the air around them. If Sullivan wouldn't talk, then he'd just pick the truth out himself. She'd felt how strong Mr. Rawls was. He'd been able to talk to her mind through hundreds of feet of solid rock.
But Sullivan was stronger than any old ocean cliff. Unbreakable. He closed his eyes as Mr. Rawls; tried to force his way into his head, a look of terrible concentration creasing the big man's square face. "Get out of my brain," Sullivan said. She turned to Mr. Rawls, sweat was rolling down his face and veins were popping out in his forehead. The whole truck creaked as Sullivan stood up. He calmly drew his.45, took a magazine from his pocket, stuck it into the grip, and racked the slide. Raising the gun, he aimed it at Mr. Rawls. "I said, get out of my brain or I spread yours all over the road."
The Reader gasped as he let go. "What are you?"
"Angry." Sullivan put his gun back into the military flap holster on his belt. He turned to Heinrich. "See to Delilah. She'd want to be buried in a place with a pretty view. Have somebody say some words. I think she'd like that."
"I will," Heinrich promised.
He addressed them all. "I can't come with you to save Jane. Tell Dan I'm real sorry when he wakes up. Maybe we'll meet again and maybe we won't. Faye, thank you kindly for getting us out. Delilah told me she took a real liking to you." Sullivan nodded at her, and Faye felt herself blush. "Good luck."
"What're you gonna do?" Lance asked.
"My duty." Sullivan nodded once and stepped off the back of the speeding truck.
Chapter 19
It was during my wandering time that I first met an American. The black ships of Commodore Perry had recently arrived in Nippon. These foreign barbarians did not ask the shogun for permission to open trade; they demanded it from the decks of their warships while ringed in cannons under a cloud of coal smoke that blotted out the sky. There was an assumption of this absolute right. The strongest does not ask, cajole, or beg. It is the duty of the strongest to command and the weakest to obey. I had long made my way by selling my sword, and whatever lord I served inevitably became the strongest, so I was well acquainted with this concept at the individual level. Yet, it was the Americans that opened my eyes to the greater possibilities. As the strong lord must rule over the weak peasant, so must the strong nation rule the entire world. I owe them a great deal as I have tried to apply this lesson ever since.
– Baron Okubo Tokugawa,
Chairman of the Imperial Council, My Story, 1922 280 miles west of San Francisco Madi sat cross-legged on the floor of his cabin, attempting to meditate. He could feel the ship rocking. It had taken him forever to figure out how to sit like the other Iron Guards. He wasn't exactly a limber man, but he'd decided a long time ago that anything they could do, he'd do better, and now he could sit as still as a statue for hours. At the Academy, old master Shiroyuki would come by and crack him on the spine with a bokken anytime he started to slouch. The old bastard had been big on posture.
Thinking of the old master made him smile. That was his problem with meditation, thoughts just kept coming, and now he was remembering Shiroyuki and his big ridiculous samurai mustache. He'd hated Madi. Not only for being the first white man accepted into the brutal Iron Guard training, but also because he had come to Japan as a prisoner of war.
He'd been part of AEF Siberia, the Polar Bears they'd been called in the news. It had been a shitty mission to a cold unforgiving place, mostly to protect American business interests while the Bolsheviks were getting their asses handed to them by the Japs. He'd gotten separated from his unit when his chicken-shit commanding officer panicked and ran. It was an empty feeling, waiting at your post for relief that never came. It had taken three weeks on foot through the coldest damn forest in the world, but the Imperium troops had finally captured him, though he'd killed a whole mess of them in the process.
They'd dragged him behind their horses for miles but he'd refused to die. Then they tossed him into a deep dark hole and quit feeding him, but he'd lived off of rats that he'd crushed with his Power. One day a new commander showed up and had marveled at the one-eyed Heavy chained in the hole. Apparently the weeks he'd spent evading and murdering them had earned him a reputation as some sort of great-white freak show. He was the biggest man any of the Japs had ever seen and he was the only American in the camp, so the new commander had logically decided it would be fun to watch him fight a bunch of the captured Russians for his amusement.
That part had been fun. He'd never had any qualms about killing. It was really the only thing he was good at. The regular Russians were easy to beat. He could snap most of them in half. The Siberians were different. Those boys were tough, and he picked up a bunch of scars giving the Japs their show. Afterward, they'd put him back in the hole, only this time the commander had sent down food, honest-to-god real food. It was mostly rice, but after eating raw rats, rice was good.
That had gone on for another month, until Madi had damn near depopulated the entire camp of other prisoners. When they'd run out of Russians, they'd tossed in some Chinese, five at a time, and when they ran out of those, they'd thrown him in the arena with an angry bear. The bear had been easy. A ten-second surge of Power had turned it into mush.