Mississippi Roll

Ray nodded. ‘He fits the description.’

Angel, looking thoughtful, relaxed, shifted against Ray’s chest, laying her head on his shoulder.

‘The Witness,’ she repeated.

He held her a long time as her breathing relaxed and her eyes slowly closed and at last she fell asleep. Moving slowly and carefully, he reached out for the remote and turned off the television. Now, finally, he could sleep, too.

The rest of the team arrived the next morning when Ray, the Angel, and Moon were eating breakfast in the motel’s coffee shop. The Angel was listlessly picking at her pancakes. Ray himself had almost as little appetite lately as his wife, but he managed to finish his omelet between feeding Moon cut-up bits of her breakfast steak. She was still a collie. She preferred a canid form for public appearances, and Ray was long used to dealing with recalcitrant waitresses and busybody onlookers. He handled their questions, usually, with patient explanations, but today he wasn’t in the mood and resorted to his best glare, sometimes reinforced by a flash of his official badge. It worked.

Two tall, thin, pale, well-dressed men approached their table, accompanied by another agent wearing fatigues, a camo T-shirt, and combat boots.

Ray nodded as they stopped before the table. ‘Harry, Max.’ He paused. ‘Colonel,’ he added dryly.

The ‘Colonel’ was directed at the newcomer in fatigues. He was young, as were the other two, but much more nondescript, with fair hair, a fair complexion, and light blond hair. His eyebrows were almost invisible against his pale complexion. He was a former army corporal from Fairbanks, Alaska, named Alan Spencer. He’d competed on the second season of American Hero, jumping several ranks by calling himself ‘Colonel Centigrade.’ After failing to win the game show he’d transferred out of the army into SCARE.

‘I hab a cold,’ he announced in a nasal, sniffling voice.

Ray exchanged glances with the Angel, but decided not to comment on the irony of Centigrade’s statement. Colonel Centigrade was a bit of a fuckup and his freezing powers weren’t the most reliable. He wasn’t exactly vital to the plan that Ray was evolving in his mind, whereas Harrison and Maximillian Klingensmith were. They were identical twins, down to the black eye patch each wore over his left eye and the sweep of inky black feathers that covered their scalps in lieu of hair. Their nicknames, derived from their joker aspect and from parents who had academic backgrounds in, respectively, ornithology and Nordic studies, were Huginn and Munnin.

‘You boys have breakfast yet?’ Ray asked.

‘No, sir,’ they all said in unison.

‘Take a seat,’ he said, moving closer to the Angel. He liked the Klingensmith twins. They were respectful, resourceful, and quite useful. They piled into the booth, Spencer’s ass half hanging over the bench’s edge. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do …’

The zombie intervention between the JADL demonstrators and the anti – wild card protesters had the unfortunate effect of intensifying the conflict. The ensuing publicity brought out not only more protesters on both sides – many more on the anti – wild card side – but literally hundreds of curious bystanders who were determined to view the next scene in the drama unreeling before their eager eyes. The number of police officers manning the barrier keeping the opposing groups apart had also increased dramatically, but Ray could easily read the concern on their faces. Something had to be done to defuse the situation before real violence erupted.

Ray was hopeful that his talk with Hoodoo Mama had dissuaded her from further use of her undead hordes – at least for now – but the swelling numbers of participants on both sides of the controversy had him worried.

The pro-refugee faction had maybe doubled in size, but the numbers of those protesting against the Kazakh newcomers had swelled almost exponentially, both in numbers and in passion.

It was hard to say what looked angrier, the crowd waving their signs and screaming imprecations at the moored freighter, or the morning sky, which was black with thunderheads that threatened a cloudburst at any moment. It was not a happy morning, and Ray saw that the only thing that could possibly make it worse was about to occur.

Evangelique Jones arrived on the scene. She looked glad to see Ray, which immediately made him suspicious. ‘Well, Director Ray,’ she said with a smile that was smug and gloating at the same time, ‘word has come down from Washington. Their final decision, so to say.’

Ray flashed back to what he’d learned the night before.

‘They’ve decided on asylum? That was fast.’

Evangelique nodded. ‘Twenty-nine of them will be afforded political refugee status. The rest will be accorded sanctuary on an island off the coast of Northern Ireland—’

‘Rathlin,’ Ray interrupted.

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘How did you know?’

Ray shrugged. He didn’t want to give away his source of inside information. He should have kept his mouth shut, but it was too late. ‘Where else could it be? I mean – it’s been used as a joker sanctuary in the past.’

‘Yessss,’ the ICE agent said. Before she could add anything, a huge clap of thunder sounded and lightning streaked across the sky and it opened up to a steady fall of rain.

Ray looked up as the droplets pattered upon his face, soaking him almost instantly. ‘Maybe this’ll disperse the crowd,’ he said hopefully.

But the sudden downpour did nothing to break up the mob that was now surging back and forth in a wavelike manner. It served instead to seem to rile them up, make them even more convinced of their anger.

‘Hey,’ Ray suddenly said, ‘I know those guys!’

Jones frowned. ‘Who?’

‘Him,’ Ray said, and then corrected himself, ‘I mean them.’

He pointed to a large figure at the head of the JADL contingent. He – they – were a large joker bifurcated from the waist up with two torsos, two sets of shoulders and arms, and, of course, two heads. Each held a sign in a brawny arm. One read Welcome refugees!, the other, Foreigners go home! They seemed to be arguing with each other. Their argument quickly evolved into a shoving match that a couple of cops moved in quickly to break up, then stopped, stumped.

‘I used them as an informant back in the day – Rick and Mick.’ Ray sighed. ‘They could never get along.’

The onlookers and both batches of protesters were enjoying the show, shouting encouragement at them and egging them on. They started swatting at each other with their signs. The pair overtipped and crashed into one of the segments of waist-high fencing that separated the two groups. Their weight crushed it to the ground, bringing down a section of fence maybe ten feet long.

For a moment there was silence, then an angry surge forward by the larger anti – wild card faction, who saw a clear path to the JADL demonstrators.

‘Crap,’ Ray muttered. He realized that he was saying that a lot lately. He looked almost desperately at his team. They were too few to do much against the hundreds surging forward to take out their frustrations on the smaller number of joker counterprotesters. If only Washington had supplied him with some heavy hitters they could at least—

‘Centigrade!’ Ray suddenly barked. He couldn’t make himself add the man’s self-appointed rank.

Spencer stepped forward, a little uncertainly. ‘Sir?’ he asked in a more hesitant than military manner.

‘Do your stuff.’

‘Sir?’

Ray gestured at the scene before them. ‘Make it snow. Make it snow like it was fucking Christmas.’

It finally dawned on the colonel. ‘Yes, sir!’ He stepped away from the others.

‘What in the world?’ Jones asked as Spencer’s face froze in a mask of fierce concentration. A minute passed, then she angrily turned to Ray. ‘If you don’t tell me what that man—’

Ray pointed his right hand at her to shush her and pointed to the sky with his left.

You could just barely see it against the dark thunderheads and the streams of rain as the first snowflakes formed. A cool breeze swept down over them as in an area maybe a hundred yards across and directly above the heads of the demonstrators, sleet started to fall among the raindrops.

When the first bits of ice hit the protesters an uncertain note rumbled through the crowd. Some looked up unbelievingly at the sky. Some pointed, some cried out loud. As the rain fell it was turning to snow about fifty or sixty feet above their heads. Snow. In New Orleans. In the summer. It was … unnatural …

Within moments the surging crowd had stopped. Everyone, the bystanders, the demonstrators on both sides, the cops standing gallantly between them, looked up at the sky, mixed wonder and fear on their faces.

Ray and the others, still getting soaked by the warm rain, could nonetheless feel the chilling breeze blowing from the pocket of extraordinary weather that was now pelting down on the demonstrators as a mix of big, fluffy snowflakes and freezing sleet.

Ray looked from the sky to Colonel Centigrade. His teeth were clenched now, his face was white. Cords stood out on his neck and he was shaking. He looked about ready to collapse.

‘Hold on!’ Ray barked. ‘Concentrate! Another minute—’

The demonstrators had withstood the muggy heat, the harsh sun, even zombies, all of which were to be expected in New Orleans. But a snowstorm? No. That was freakishly grotesque. Voodoo of the worst sort. And goddamned cold.

The mass of demonstrators broke and ran, streaming away through various cross streets, along with the crowd that had gathered to watch the show, leaving only the puzzled and shivering police still manning the barricades.

‘All right, Centigrade,’ Ray snapped, ‘at ease!’

Spencer swayed on his feet and would have collapsed if Maximillian Klingensmith hadn’t grabbed him. Or maybe it was Harrison. Ray wasn’t sure.

‘He did that?’ Jones asked unbelievingly.

Ray nodded, smiling at Spencer, who was grinning weakly as he leaned on his fellow agent.

‘Yes, he did,’ Ray said proudly.

She barely, Ray noted, suppressed a shiver as a flicker of – what? – disgust, perhaps, flashed across her face. ‘All right.’ Jones looked up at the sky. It was still raining. ‘I suppose he can’t stop that?’

Ray shook his head. ‘Not part of his powers.’

‘No. Of course not.’ Jones ran her hand through her hair, which had collapsed in soggy ringlets around her face, pushing it back. ‘Well, rain or shine, it’s my duty to serve these papers.’

Ray hazarded a guess. ‘Max?’

The agent keeping Colonel Centigrade from collapsing with weariness nodded.

‘Take the colonel back to the motel.’ He’d earned that with his heroic efforts, Ray thought. ‘Get him whatever he needs – food, drink, dry clothes.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Max said, and Spencer managed a tiny sneeze.

‘And for God’s sake,’ Ray added, ‘get him something for that cold.’ He looked at Jones. ‘The rest of us will accompany Agent Jones to the Schröder.’

‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Jones said.

‘I’m in charge of your security,’ Ray replied, ‘and I think it is. After all, you’re going to be delivering news to a large number of people who might take it very badly.’

Jones frowned. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

‘Perhaps I am,’ Ray said.

The conditions aboard the Schröder hadn’t changed. It would be hard, Ray reflected, for it to get much worse, and there was no way it was going to get any better.

Jones had ordered the ship’s entire complement to gather on deck, probably, Ray thought, because she’d learned somehow that the news had already reached the refugees, who were regarding her with what could only be silent anger on their faces. Or maybe, he thought, she was just being cautious and figured that she’d be safer there than down in the hold. And also because it just smelled so bad down there.

Backed by Ray, Moon, the Angel, and the Klingensmith brother known as Huginn, she stood on a small raised platform on the bow in front of a set of hatches that led down into the hold, waiting impatiently as all crew and passengers gathered around on the main deck. Fortunately the rain had ceased just before they’d boarded the ship and the blazing sun was doing its best to dry up all the excess moisture that had leaked down from the sky. Ray could feel steam rising from his suit.

It took more than a few minutes for them all to assemble. Olena stood before Jones, who looked down impassively from the height of the raised platform from which she could survey the deck. Dr Pretorius stood with Olena, as did the young woman ace, Tulpar, and the Handsmith, a broad, chunky man with his hands wrapped in strips of burlap. His son, Nurassyl, was next to him, looking like a ghost draped in a sheet, his exposed flesh glistening with the moisture that he exuded, supported by a platform of tiny wriggling tentacles in lieu of feet. Ray recognized some others from the initial meeting, though the JADL representatives were both missing, as was the young priest.

Ray heard the Angel suddenly hiss angrily and he turned and saw Marcus Morgan, the Infamous Black Tongue, coiled behind and partly concealed by a freight derrick midway down the deck. From the waist up he was naked, exposing the body of a fit, young African-American man. He was naked from the waist down, too, but the rest of him was that of an outsized coral snake, glistening in alternating bands of black, yellow, and scarlet scales. He made the largest anaconda look like a garter snake.

The Angel clenched her teeth, took a step forward. Ray laid a warning hand on her shoulder and she angrily shrugged it off. She and IBT, as he called himself, had fought a personal duel at the conclusion of the Talas episode that had left her badly wounded. It had taken her months to recover from her injuries and that had coincided with her long slide into post-traumatic stress.

Ray was unsure what effect seeing him again would have on her. Basically, it seemed to be making her angry, which was something at least. He didn’t know if it was good or bad, but at least his presence was eliciting some sort of reaction.

Jones cleared her throat and began to speak.

‘I am Evangelique Jones, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I have passed on to Washington your lawyer’s’ – and here she fixed Dr Pretorius with a hard stare that he calmly returned – ‘brief, which has been considered at the highest levels of government. The request for asylum has been granted—’

At this seemingly miraculous reversal of their fortunes an eruption of cheers exploded from the refugees, which built higher and higher as those who understood English translated for those who didn’t. Jones fell silent and looked on with a small smile on her face until the cheering and hugging and cries of joy slowly died down.

Ray could hardly believe the evident glee she was taking in delivering her message in this provocative manner. Even the Angel seemed to forget about IBT and stared at her incredulously.

‘—to the following individuals,’ Jones continued in a loud, satisfied voice. ‘Olena Davydenko. The individual known as the Handsmith. His son, Nurassyl. Inkar Omarov, also known as the Tulpar—’

She continued to read off the names, slowly, sonorously, enjoying the looks on the faces below her as the hope began to drain out of them as they realized that all of those who’d been granted asylum were the few nats among them, the even fewer aces, and those rare jokers with useful abilities or money. After reading off the twenty-ninth name Jones folded the document and looked up impassively.

‘The rest of you,’ she intoned, ‘will remain aboard the Schröder until such time she can be refueled, whence she shall leave the territorial water of the United States and set course to Rathlin Island off the coast of Northern Ireland, where you shall be granted permanent refuge.’

‘This is outrageous!’ Pretorius shouted. ‘I shall appeal!’

Jones looked at him calmly. ‘As I told you, this has been considered at the highest levels of the American government. There is no appeal.’

‘I will not leave my people,’ the Handsmith shouted.

His cry was echoed by others whom Jones had named, anger in every voice.

‘Moon,’ Ray said quietly. ‘Get ready to change.’

The collie standing by the Angel’s side nodded.

The crowd of refugees made an almost instinctive surge forward. Jones, nonplussed, blinked at the anger and hatred she saw on the hundreds of faces before them.

‘Now,’ Ray said, and instead of a friendly collie, a dire wolf stood on the platform with them, six hundred pounds of sin with fangs like a saber-toothed tiger.

The crowd stopped as one, though IBT slithered forward, shouldering aside refugees as he pushed his way to the front. Inkar Omarov transformed as quickly and smoothly as Moon had, becoming the Tulpar of Kazakh legend, the golden-coated, eagle-winged horse with razor-sharp hooves.

‘Stop!’ Dr Pretorius limped forward, pushing himself to stand between Jones and the SCARE agents and the seething crowd of refugees. ‘Nothing will be solved by violence! There is another way. There must be another way.’

The aging lawyer dominated the scene by the sheer force of his personality, stemming the tide of rage before it overwhelmed the situation.

‘You expect us to turn away and slink off into the darkness,’ Olena said heatedly, ‘when we have no fuel, no food? How can we even hope to recross the Atlantic—’

‘As I told you,’ Jones said with surprising calmness, ‘the United States will be more than pleased to fill your fuel tanks. It’s a cheap enough price to pay to be rid of you.’

‘But the food,’ Olena added, ‘we’re almost out—’

Jones shrugged. ‘Can’t help you there,’ she said. ‘There’s been no official requisition for supplies—’

Ray had suddenly had enough. ‘Screw that,’ he said. He reached into his back pants pocket, took out his wallet. ‘Harry,’ he said to the agent by his side, ‘take this.’ He handed him a credit card. ‘Go clean out a 7-Eleven or something. Get a boatload of food—’

‘Director Ray,’ Jones said in a hard voice.

‘We’re talking about children, here,’ Ray said stiffly. ‘Children, women, old people – hell, no one deserves to starve.’

‘Wait,’ Pretorius said. He took his own wallet out of a pocket in his jacket and extracted a card. ‘I appreciate the generous offer, Agent Ray.’ He held out a card. ‘But take mine. It probably has a higher limit.’

It was black.

Ray and Pretorius locked gazes, and Ray nodded. ‘Do it,’ he said to the young agent. He quirked an eyebrow, and Huginn nodded. He stepped away from the others and took the card Pretorius offered. He turned, headed for the police launch that was awaiting them.

‘Well,’ Jones said. ‘Is anyone accompanying us to shore?’

There was a ripple in the crowd, as if a wind were blowing, but not one of the named refugees stepped forward.

Jones swept them with her gaze. ‘Fools,’ she said. She followed Huginn to the launch.

‘Let’s go.’ Ray took the Angel’s arm, and she started at the touch, like a nervous horse. She looked at him with something of the old fire in her eyes, then nodded.

‘Moon,’ Ray said, ‘you’d better power down. I don’t think there’s enough room in the launch for you in this form.’

The agent was a collie before Ray could blink. She smiled and wagged her tail.

Ray turned to Pretorius. ‘Harry will be back with the food as soon as he can.’

‘Thank you,’ Pretorius said simply.

Ray shrugged. ‘Like I said. None of these people deserve to starve.’ Then he added in a low voice that only the lawyer could hear, ‘One of the boys is going to stick around for a while. Kind of keep an eye on things.’

‘I understand,’ Pretorius said. ‘He’ll be safe.’

‘Maybe,’ Ray said, ‘there is a way where we can work this out.’

Evangelique Jones was as good as her word. By that afternoon a tanker had moseyed up to the Schröder and was pumping enough fuel into her tanks to get them back across the Atlantic.

Ray and the rest of the SCARE team waited on the riverbank. Some protestors from both sides had reassembled, but the earlier storm had taken the starch out of their attitude. Rick and Mick were not to be seen. Probably, Ray thought, off arguing about what to have for dinner.

Ray realized that it would all eventually build up until it started to chafe and something set it off again. More violence was inevitable as long as the Schröder was moored in sight of everyone. He hoped that she wouldn’t be there much longer. He was sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, but there wasn’t much he could do for them, other than ensure their safety when they were still under his watch. And that he was going to do.

They waited patiently until Harry Klingensmith returned with a rental truck full of food and supplies.

They helped the crew of the police launch, moored as usual at the small dock near their vantage point, load the supplies. It took several trips for the launch to ferry it all across to the Schröder. Obviously, there wasn’t enough to provide provisions for the refugees for a voyage across the ocean, but for now it would furnish them with a decent meal after days of rationing.

It took a couple of hours to get all the groceries unloaded. When the task was finished Ray thanked the launch’s crew for their help and then he and the others headed back to the motel. No one noticed that Max Klingensmith had remained on the Schröder.

They all crowded into the room shared by Ray and the Angel. Colonel Centigrade was lying on the bed, still exhausted and fighting his bad head cold. Moon, still in her collie form, curled up next to him on the bed, but watched alertly as Harrison Klingensmith took the room’s only comfortable chair, settled into it. The Angel looked on with some interest while Ray paced restlessly back and forth across the small room.

‘What can you see?’ he asked the pale, scarecrow-thin SCARE agent.

Huginn screwed both eyes shut tightly, frowning with concentration. When he opened them he stared at the plain, dull green drapes drawn across the hotel room window.

‘I see,’ he intoned in a soft, faraway voice, ‘people eating.’

Ray made an impatient sound.

‘Munnin,’ he added, ‘is panning the room. It looks mostly calm. Most seem resigned, some are angry.’

He went on, narrating the scene as if it were a movie, relaying what his twin brother could see with his own left eye. His right eye saw just the blank cloth of the drapery he was staring at. This mixed vision shared by two minds could be disorienting as hell, which was why he concentrated his own sight on a neutral view. His brother also saw what he saw from his left eye. Their ace had no distance limit and could never be turned off. Unfortunately – or, for them, perhaps fortunately – vision was the only sense they shared, and it had taken long and hard practice to get used to the disorientation this collective sight caused. It was, of course, an ideal means of instantaneously transferring information.

‘Hold on – something’s happening. Max is leaving the hold where most of the refugees are encamped.’

‘Why?’ Ray stopped pacing.

‘Hard to say. He’s being stealthy, though. Sneaking. He’s good at that. Sticking to shadows, ducking. He’s on deck. It’s dark now, nighttime. He’s watching a small launch approach. Men are coming aboard.’

‘How many?’

‘I count eight. Max is going to the bridge. Olena’s there with the captain and some of his officers and the man you described as the JADL liaison, who’s talking to them. He looks worried, like he’s trying to tell them something they’re not believing. Max is concealed outside the bridge, but he can hear them. Hold on. He’s writing something – we carry pads to communicate complicated messages. I can read it as he writes. Robicheaux says that you can’t trust the man called Witness. He’s gotten in touch with his contacts in Cuba – someone from the Gambione family. No one in Havana knows anything about the Schröder getting asylum there. But they know this guy Witness – he’s heavily into human trafficking.’

‘I knew it,’ the Angel said between clenched teeth. ‘I knew they couldn’t trust the bastard.’

‘Wait – the men are coming to the bridge. Max is retreating into deeper cover. The one leading them is big, blond, muscles like a weightlifter. Handsome, except for a smashed nose. The men with him are armed. They’re dragging the old guy from the bridge, Olena is trying to stop them but they’re pushing her down. She’s screaming. They’re – they’re throwing the old guy off the side of the ship. That guy, that snake guy is coming fast, to the bridge. They’re shooting at him—’