Another f.u.c.king bad idea.

"Gimli was seeing enemies in every shadow-that was the only way to stay alive and free. It was bad enough that Hartmann had the federal and state authorities digging up the old JJS network and ha.s.sling everyone. With the jokernat underground skirmishes, it seemed like every f.u.c.king cop in New York was in Jokertown and Gimli was too recognizable to feel comfortable on the streets, no matter what precautions he took. He wasn't going to pretend that Hartmann wouldn't prefer Gimli was shot "resisting arrest, than jailed-he wasn't that d.a.m.ned stupid.

Better to be cautious. Better to be furtive. Better to make a mistake and leave someone else dead than to be noticed. "Look, Croyd, I'm just a little paranoid at the moment. I'm real uneasy about people I don't know seeing me..."

Croyd took a step closer. Crooked teeth snagged his lower lip-the albino's gums were a startling bright red. Gimli was reminded of a B-movie zombie. "You got any speed, Gimli? Your connections were always good."

"I've been away. Things change."

"No speed? s.h.i.t."

Gimli shook his head. That, at least, sounded like Croyd. The man frowned, shuffling from foot to foot.

"So it goes," he said. "I've got other sources, though they're drying up or dying on me. Listen, the talk on the streets is that the JJS is reforming. Let me give you some free advice. After Berlin, you should give up on Hartmann; he's a good guy, anyway, no matter what you think. Take out that s...o...b.. Barnett instead. I might have considered it myself, if I'd woken up with the right power. Everyone in Jokertown'd thank you for it."

"I'll think about it."

The albino laughed again, the same dry cackle. "You don't believe it's me, do you?"

Gimli shrugged. His hand moved significantly back toward the windbreaker; he saw the man watching the movement carefully. "You're still alive, aren't you? That's something."

The albino who might or might not be Croyd sidled closer until Gimli could smell his breath. "Yeah," he said. "And maybe next time around I'll just pound you a lot closer to the pavement than you already are. Croyd remembers things, Miller."

Croyd coughed, sniffed, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. With a bloodshot, overdone leer, he moved off. Gimli watched him, wondering if he was making a mistake. If he wasn't Croyd ...

He let him go. Gimli waited in the alley until he'd turned the corner back onto the street and then headed off again, taking a few extra turns just to see if he was being followed.

In time he came to the back door of a dilapidated warehouse near the East River.

Gimli could see Video on the roof. He waved to her and nodded to Shroud, who materialized from the shadows of the entrance. Gimli grimaced. He could hear the argument inside the frame building-twined voices snarling like a rumbling thunderstorm heard just over the horizon. "f.u.c.k, not again," he muttered.

Shroud adjusted the strap of his machine pistol and shrugged. "We need some entertainment," he said. "It's almost as good as Berlin."

Gimli shoved open the door. m.u.f.fled words coalesced into intelligibility.

File was shouting at Misha, who stood with arms folded and a righteous expression on her face as Peanut tried to hold back the rasp-skinned joker. File waved a fist at Misha, shoving at Peanut. ". . . your self-centered, blind fanaticism! You and the Nur are just Barnetts in Arabian drag. You have the identical hatred in your pompous souls. Let me show you hatred, b.i.t.c.h! Let me show you what it feels like."

As the rusty hinges of the door screeched, Peanut glanced over, his arms still wrapped around File. Peanut was sc.r.a.ped from the effort of holding the joker, his forearms scored with long, b.l.o.o.d.y scratches. A nat's skin would have been scoured entirely off, but Peanut's chitinous flesh was more durable. "Gimli," he said pleadingly.

File spun in Peanut's grip, tearing a pained screech from Peanut. He pointed at Misha as he glanced at the dwarf. "Get rid of her!" he shouted. " I won't put up with this c.r.a.p much longer." Twisting, he tore himself away from Peanut, who let him go this time.

"Just what the f.u.c.k's going on?" Gimli slammed the door shut behind him and glared. "I could hear you people halfway down the alley."

"I won't tolerate any more insults." File stalked toward Misha threateningly, and Gimli planted himself between the two.

"She said Father Squid's going to h.e.l.l when he dies," Peanut added, dabbing at his cuts with a handkerchief. " I told File she just don't understand, but-"

"I told the truth." Misha sounded bewildered, as if she failed to believe their lack of comprehension. Her head shook, her hands were spread wide as if to absolve herself of guilt. "G.o.d showed His displeasure with the priest when He made him a joker. Yes, this Father Squid might be sent to h.e.l.l, but Allah is infinitely merciful."

"See?" Peanut smiled at File tentatively. "It's okay, huh?"

"Yeah, and I'm a joker and Gimli and you are jokers and we're all being punished too. Right? Well, that's bulls.h.i.t and I'm not gonna listen to it. Screw you, c.u.n.t." File flipped a finger in Misha's direction and spun on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. The slamming of the door reverberated for several seconds after his exit.

Gimli looked over his shoulder at Misha. To him she was quite remarkably good-looking out of the frigging black funeral dress, but she never seemed at ease in Western clothing. Her mysticism and bluntness unsettled his people.

File, Shroud, Marigold, and Video absolutely loathed her, while Peanut--oddly enough-seemed utterly infatuated even though she gave the half-witted joker nothing but scorn.

Gimli had already decided he hated her. He regretted the impulse that had led him to meet with her after the Berlin fiasco; he wished he'd never steered her toward Polyakov. If it weren't for the evidence she claimed to have against Hartmann and the fact that they were still waiting for the Russian's information, the justice Department would have received an anonymous tip. He'd like to see what f.u.c.king Hartmann would have them do with her.

She was a d.a.m.n ace. Aces only cared about themselves. Aces were worse than nats.

"You got remarkable tact, you know that?" he said.

"He asked. I only told him what Allah told me. How can truth be wrong?"

"You want to live very much longer in Jokertown, you'd better learn when to keep your f.u.c.king mouth shut. And that is the truth."

"I'm not afraid to be a martyr for Allah," she answered haughtily, her accent blurring the hard consonants. " I would welcome it. I'm tired of this waiting; I would rather attack the beast Hartmann openly."

"Hartmann's done a lot for the jokers. . ." Peanut began, but Gimli cut him off.

"It'll be soon enough. I talked to Jube tonight, and the word is Hartmann's going to speak at the rally in Roosevelt Park on Monday. Everyone thinks he'll make his announcement then. Polyakov said he'd contact us as soon as Hartmann made things official. We'll move then."

"We must contact Sara Morgenstern. The visions-"

"-don't mean anything," Gimli interrupted. "We'll make plans when Polyakov's finally here."

"I will go to this park, then. I want to see Hartmann again. I want to hear him." Her face was dark and savage, almost comically fierce.

"You'll stay away, G.o.ddammit," Gimli said loudly. "With all the s.h.i.t going down in this city, the place'll be crawling with security."

She stared at him, and her gaze was more intense then he had thought it could be. He blinked. "You are not my father or my brother," she told him as if speaking to a slow child. "You are not my husband, you are not the Nur. You can't order me as you do the others."

Gimli could feel a blind, useless rage coming. He forced it down. Not much longer. Only a few more days. He stared back at her, each reading the other's dislike.

"Hartmann might make a good president..." Peanut's voice was almost a whisper as he glanced from one to the other. They ignored him. The scratches on his arms oozed blood.

"I hate this place," Misha said. " I look forward to leaving." She shuddered, breaking eye contact with Gimli. "Yeah, there's a lot of f.u.c.king people about here who feel the same way." Misha's eyes narrowed at that; Gimli smiled innocently.

"A few more days. Be patient," Gimli continued. And after that, all bets are off. I'll let File and the rest do whatever they d.a.m.n well please with you.

"Until then, keep your G.o.dd.a.m.n opinions to yourself," he added.

Monday, 2:30 P.M.

Misha, who had once been known as Kahina, remembered the sermons. Her brother, Nur al-Allah, had been at his most eloquent describing the torment of the afterlife. His compelling, resonant voice hammered the faithful from the minbar while noontime heat swirled in the mosque of Badiyat Ashsham, and it had seemed that the pits of h.e.l.l gaped open before them.

Nur al-Allah's h.e.l.l had been full of capering, loathsome jokers, those sinners Allah had cursed with the affliction of the wild card virus. They were an earthly image of the eternal torment that awaited all sinners: the vile underworld was slathered with twisted bodies that were a mockery of the human form; slick with puss oozing from scabrous faces; full of the stench of hatred and revulsion and sin.

The Nur had not known, but Misha did: h.e.l.l was New York. h.e.l.l was Jokertown.

h.e.l.l was Roosevelt Park on a June afternoon. And the Great Satan himself capered there, before all his adoring followers: Hartmann, the devil with strings lacing his fingertips, the phantom who haunted her waking dreams. The one who had with Misha's own hands destroyed her brother's voice.

She'd seen the papers, the headlines praising Hartmann and extolling his coolness in crisis, his compa.s.sion, his work to end the sufferings of jokers.

She knew that the thousands in the park were there to see him, and she knew what they hoped he would say. She knew that most considered Hartmann to be the one voice of sanity against the pious, hate-filled ravings of Leo Barnett and the others like him.

Yet Allah's dreams had shown her the real Hartmann, and Allah had placed in her very hands the gift that would bring him down. For just a moment the reality of the gathering in the park shimmered and threatened to give way to the nightmare again, and Misha nearly cried out.

"You okay? You shivered."

Peanut touched her on the arm, and Misha felt herself draw away involuntarily from contact with his hornlike, inflexible fingers. She saw hurt in his eyes, nearly lost in the scaly sh.e.l.l of his face.

"You're not supposed to be here," she told him. "Gimli said--"

"It's all right, Misha," he whispered. The joker could barely move his lips; the voice was a poor ventriloquist's rasp. " I hate the way I look too. A lot of us do-like Stigmata, y'know. I understand."

Misha turned from the guilty pain that the sympathy in his ruined voice gave her. Her hands ached to pull the veils over her face and hide herself from Peanut. But the chador and veils were locked away in the trunk in her room. Her hair was unbound and loose around her shoulders.

"When you are in New York, you can't wear black, not on a summer day. They'll already suspect that you're there. If you must go out, at least take care that you blend in if you intend to stay free. Be glad you can at least go walking in daylight; Gimli won't dare show his face at all." Polyakov had told her that before she'd left Europe. It seemed small consolation.

Here in Roosevelt Park, despite what Gimli had said the night before, there was no chance she would be conspicuous. The place was packed and chaotic. Jokertown had spilled its vibrant, strange life onto the gra.s.s. It was '76 again, the masks of Jokertown placed gleefully aside. They walked unashamed of Allah's curse, flaunting the visible signs of their sins, mixing unchecked with the one they called nats. They stood shoulder to misshapen shoulder around the stage set at the north end of the park closest to Jokertown, cheering the speakers who preached solidarity and friendship. Misha listened, she watched, and she shivered again, as if the afternoon heat was a chimera, a dream-phantom like the rest.

"You really hate jokers, don't you?" Peanut whispered as they moved closer to the stage. The gra.s.s was torn and muddy under their feet, littered with newspapers and political tracts. It was another thing she detested about this h.e.l.l; it was always crowded, always filthy. "Shroud, he told me what your brother preached. The Nur don't sound awful different from Barnett."

"We ... the Qur'an teaches that G.o.d directly affects the world. He rewards the good and punishes the wicked. I don't find that horrible. Do you believe in G.o.d?"

"Sure. But G.o.d don't punish people by giving them no d.a.m.n virus."

Kahina nodded, her dark eyes solemn. "Then yours is either an incredibly cruel G.o.d, who would inflict a life of pain and suffering on so many innocents; or a poor, weak one who cannot stop such a thing from happening. Either way, how can you worship such a deity?"

The sharp reb.u.t.tal confused Peanut-in the days since she'd been here, Misha had found the joker to be friendly but extraordinarily simple. He tried to shrug, his whole upper body lifting, and tears welled in his eyes. "It ain't our fault-" he began.

His pain touched Misha, stopping her even as she started to interrupt. Again she wished for the veil to hide her empathy. Haven't you listened to what Tachyon and the others have hinted at between the lines? she wanted to rage at him.

Don't you see what they don't dare say, that the virus amplifies your own foibles and weaknesses, that it only takes what it finds inside the infected person? "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I'm very sorry, Peanut." She reached out and brushed her shoulder with her hand; she hoped he didn't notice how the fingers trembled, how fleeting the touch was. "Forget what I said. My brother was cruel and harsh; sometimes I'm too much like him."

Peanut sniffed. A smile dawned on his sharp-edged face. "S'okay, Misha," he said, and the instant forgiveness in his voice hurt more than the rest. He glanced at the stage, and the valleys deepened in his craggy skin. "Look, there's Hartmann. I don't know why you and Gimli got such a beef against him.

He's the only one who helps..."

Peanut's observation trailed off at that moment the packed ma.s.ses around them shoved fists toward the sky and cheered. And Satan strode onto the stage.

Misha recognized some of those around him: Dr. Tachyon, dressed in outrageous colors; Hiram Worchester, rotund and bloated; the one called Carnifex, staring at the crowd so that she wanted to hide herself. A woman stood beside the senator, but it wasn't Sara, who had also been in her dreams so often, with whom she'd talked in Damascus-Ellen, his wife, then.

Hartmann shook his head, grinning helplessly at the adulation that swept through the crowd. He raised his hands, and the cheering redoubled, a roaring crowd-voice echoing from the skysc.r.a.pers to the west. A chant began somewhere near the stage, rippling back until the entire park resonated. "Hartmann!

Hartmann!" they shouted to the stage. "Hartmann! Hartmann!"

He smiled then, his head still shaking as if in disbelief, and then he stepped to the battery of microphones. His voice was deep and plain and full of caring for those before him. That voice reminded Misha of her brother's; when he spoke, the very sound was truth. "You people are wonderful," he said.

They howled then, a hurricane of sound that nearly deafened Misha. The jokers pressed around the stage, Misha and Peanut thrust forward helplessly in the tidal flow. The cheering and chanting went on for a long minute before Hartmann raised his hands again and a restless, antic.i.p.atory hush came over the crowd.

"I'm not going to stand up here and feed you the lines you've come to expect of politicians like me," he said at last. "I've been a long time away and what I've seen of the world has, frankly, made me feel very frightened. I'm especially frightened when I return and find that same bigotry, that same intolerance, that same inhumanity here. It's time to quit playing politics and taking a safe, polite course. These aren't safe, polite times; these are dangerous times."

He paused, taking a breath that shuddered in the sound system. Almost exactly eleven years ago, I stood in the gra.s.s of Roosevelt Park and made a "political mistake.' I've thought about that day many times in the past years, and I swear to G.o.d that I've yet to understand why I should feel sorry for it. What I saw before me on that day was senseless, raw violence. I saw hatred and prejudice boiling over, and I lost my temper. I. Got. Mad:"

Hartmann shouted the last words, and the jokers shouted back to him in affirmation. He waited until they had settled into silence again, and this time his voice was dark and sad. "There are other masks than those which Jokertown has made famous. There is a mask which hides a greater ugliness than anything the wild card might produce. Behind that mask is an infection that's all too human, and I have heard its voice in the tenements of Rio, in the kraals of South Africa, in the deserts of Syria, in Asia and Europe and America. Its voice is rich and confident and soothing, and it tells those who hate that they are right to hate. It preaches that anyone who is different is also less. Maybe they're black, maybe they're Jewish or Hindu, or maybe they're just jokers."

With the emphasis on the last word the crowd-beast howled again, a wall of anguish that made Misha shiver. His words echoed the visions uncomfortably. She could almost feel his fingernails clawing at her face. Misha looked to her right and saw that Peanut was craning forward with the rest, his mouth open in a cry of agreement.

"I can't let that happen," Hartmann continued, and now his voice was louder, faster, rising with the emotions of the audience. " I can't simply watch, not when I see that there's more I can do. I've seen too much. I've listened to that insidious hatred, and I can no longer abide its voice. I find myself becoming angry all over again. I want to rip the mask off and expose the true ugliness behind, the ugliness of hatred. The state of this nation and the world frightens me, and there's only one way that I can do something to ease that feeling." He paused again, and this time waited until the entire park seemed to be holding its collective breath. Misha shuddered. Allah's dream. He speaks Allah's dream.

"Effective today, I have resigned my seat in the Senate and my position as chairman of SCARE. I've done that to give full attention to a new task, one that will need your help as well. I am now announcing my intention to be the Democratic candidate for president in 1988."

His last words were lost, buried under the t.i.tanic clamor of screaming applause.

Misha could no longer see Hartmann, lost in the rippling sea of arms and banners. She had not thought that anything could be so loud. The acclamation deafened her, made her clap hands to ears. The chant of Hartmann! Hartmann!

began once more, joker fists pumping in time with the beat.

Hartmann! Hartmann!

h.e.l.l was noisy and chaotic, and her own hatred was lost in the joyous celebration. Beside her, Peanut chanted with the rest, and she looked at him with revulsion and despair.

He is so strong, Allah, stronger than the Nur. Show me that this is the right path. Tell me that my faith is to be rewarded.

But there was no answering dream. There was only the beast-voice of the jokers and Satan basking in their praise. At least now it would begin. Tonight. Tonight they would meet and decide how to best destroy the devil.

Monday, 7:32 P.M.

Polyakov was the last one to arrive at the warehouse.

That p.i.s.sed Gimli off. It was bad enough that he wasn't sure he could trust any of the old New York JJS organization. It was enough that he'd been dealing with Misha for nearly two weeks now, putting up with her contempt for jokers. It was enough that Hartmann's Justice Department aces were prowling all over Jokertown after him; that Barnett's rabblerousing had made any joker fair game for the nat gangs; that the continuing battles between the underworld organizations had made the streets a gamble for all.

On top of everything else, he could feel a cold coming on. Gimli sneezed and blew his nose into a large red handkerchief.

It was s.h.i.t time in Jokertown.

Polyakov's arrival only made Gimli's temper more vile. The Russian stamped into the place without a knock, throwing the door back loudly. "The joker on the roof is standing against streetlight," he proclaimed loudly. "Any fool can see her.

What if I'd been police? You would all be under arrest or dead. Amateurs!"

Dilettante!

Gimli wiped his bulbous, tender nostrils and glanced at the handkerchief. "The joker on the roofs Video. She threw an image of you in the room to let us know you were on the way-she needs the light to project. Peanut and File would have taken you out at the door if I hadn't recognized you." Gimli stuffed the damp handkerchief back in his pocket and pounded on the wall twice with his fist.

"Video," he shouted to the ceiling. "Give our guest a replay, huh?"