Kavika watched for a few minutes as they patched her wounds and put salve on her bruises. So much had happened in the last few hours; too much. His thoughts went to Kaja. He couldn’t help but wonder what was happening, to him and the surviving Pali Boys. There was nothing else to be done. He had to find a way to rescue them.
Grisha walked into the room, tall and lean, his skin the color of dried fish. “Come with me.”
Kavika raised his eyebrows. “What is it?”
“I must introduce you to Dragonov.”
Kavika thought he’d met everyone aboard the submarine, and didn’t remember anyone called Dragonov.
“Please. You follow. Ivanov has planned this to be.”
Kavika thought about all the war movies the old Russian liked to watch, and wondered exactly how long he’d planned for the events of the last twenty-four hours. Finally, he gave in and followed.
They climbed to the top of the conning tower. Petr and Sasha, two deckhands he’d met before, stood staring across the floating city. Petr wore a headset, and Sasha was holding binoculars to his face. Between them was an immense rifle with an angular stock.
“I introduce you,” Grisha said proudly, pointing at it. “Dragonov.”
“What is it?” Kavika asked.
“It’s like the finger of God,” Sasha said, without removing his glasses. “It’s a sniper rifle from back when we ruled the world.”
“We used to rule the world?” Petr asked.
“Yes. At least all the important parts. We gave the throwaways to the Americans.”
“That was nice of us to give them so much,
nyet?
” Petr raised his hand. He seemed to be listening for some moments. When he was done, he turned to Kavika. “That was Ivanov. Your friends are still alive. Some. Of the fifteen that went to the ship, six are still alive.”
Kavika gulped. “Is that including me, or does that make seven?”
“I’m afraid that’s including you.”
Kavika let the news sink in. The Hawaiian contingent aboard the Floating City was one of the smallest of them all.
Every
loss was significant. As far as they knew they were the last Hawaiians on the planet.
“What’s going on? Where are they?” he asked softly.
“Here,” Sasha said, offering the glasses. “Take a look.”
Kavika accepted the glasses. It took several tries before he was able to get the full benefit of binocular view. He let Sasha adjust the angle and direction of his view until he focused on the image of his fellow Pali Boys. What he saw made him whistle softly.
They were hanging from chains affixed to a crane on one of the skyscraper ships, a hundred feet above the flat deck of the barge. He focused and brought them in to sharp clarity. In fact, the chains from the crane held up a long metal crossbeam, from which the Pali Boys hung by metal manacles. Kavika named each one of them until he came to Kaja. The leader had been beaten. His lips were like mangled tuna sushi, and both eyes were swollen shut. If it wasn’t for the blood that bubbled at the corner of his mouth, Kavika would have thought he was dead.
“What’s Ivanov doing now?” he asked.
“Nothing. He’s not in a position to do anything other than relay information.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s wired. I can hear whatever is going on around him.”
“You mean you can hear everything? You can hear Jacques?”
“Yes. That’s exactly—wait.” Sasha adjusted a knob on the radio attachment on his chest. He acknowledged, then listened for a moment. “Good. Wait for the signal,” he said. Then he switched the knob back to where it was. “That was Mr. Kelly. He is ready with Ivanov’s part of the original plan.”
“The whalers?” Kavika asked, a slow smile beginning to displace his frown.
“Yes. Out of the six, he found four still working, and eleven harpoons. He doesn’t think that two of them are close enough to be effective, but there is one that is virtually under the zeppelin.”
Kavika swung the binoculars to the Zeppelin, then looked directly below it. He recognized several
Tiburones
moving aboard the ship, their movements slow, never once looking up at the Zeppelin. They knew what they were doing.
He lowered the glasses and handed them back to Sasha. For the first time in a long time, he felt like there was some hope after all. “When’s everything set to go?”
“We’re waiting for Ivanov to get the commandos into a clear area. Grisha here is an expert at the Dragonov.”
“I shoot seals in the arctic.” The narrow man rubbed his stomach. “They taste best.”
“Do I have time to get my boys ready?” Kavika asked.
Sasha and Petr exchanged glances. “We can’t be sure. It all depends.”
Kavika grabbed the rail at the top of the conning tower. “Then I need to hurry.” He pulled himself up.
“Wait!” Petr shouted. “What are you going to do?”
“Save my Pali Boys. Try not to shoot them when this all starts.”
“Here,” Petr said, handing him a length of red pipe. “It’s a flare. Remove that end, place it on the other, and hammer it against something so that the top is pointed towards the sky. I’ll try and hold everything off for as long as I can. You fire this when you’re in place and ready.”
Kavika took the flare and stashed it in the sheath where his knife should have been. “Give my love to Lopez-Larou,” he said.
Then he was over and gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY
O
NE AFTER THE
other they dove into the oil at the bottom of the barge. It had been on the ship as long as the oldest of them. This was Hawaiian oil, and by Pele and Lono, it would protect them against the commandos of The Rediscovered Dawn.
The Pali Boys were sixty-seven strong. Every full-time and part-time Pali Boy had come. Kavika had stood on top of a cargo container and told them what had happened. He talked about the death of Lukini and the others, as well as Liko’s jump and how he was now recuperating in the submarine. At the mention of the deaths, everyone murmured. But at the mention of Liko’s dash for freedom, they all cheered. Then Kavika told them about the six left and how they were hanging high above the barge. Many of them had seen this already. Finally, Kavika told them of what the Corpers and the Real People had been doing to them. He told them about the lies and about what the blood rapes were really for and how they could harvest a special plasma of O-Neg blood from those who had been monkey-backed. He told them of the vats of what he believed to be blood he’d seen aboard the Freedom Ship. Then he told them that he knew of a way to save Kaja and the other Pali Boys, and in order to do that, everyone would have to come and join them.
And they came.
Now, as each of them covered himself in oil and marched back up the steps to the deck of the tanker, Kavika couldn’t help but stare at the spot where he and his mother had been told to live after the death of his father. He’d come so far, so fast. Part of him felt dishonest, as though he hadn’t changed at all, whatever Kaja had said. But another part, a more honest part, felt different in the way that only comes from surviving.
He was the last. He dove into the oil, then he exited. He pulled on his sharkskin foot and hand pads, then joined the rest of the Pali Boys on the deck. The very last thing was securing the flare from where he’d put it before the oil. It rested in the sheath, ready to be used.
M
R.
N
AKIHAMA GOT
another glass of water from the dispenser. He was more thirsty than he’d been in a long time, as if he’d gone to sleep after two or three bottles of Sake and had just awoken. He stepped into the hall, then leaped back into his doorway.
Mr. Tagahashi skipped down the hall after his secretary.
“How much fun!” Nakihama said.
He stared at the two until they were out of sight. Only then did he notice the colors on the walls. He was pretty sure they used to be white, but now they were striped like a rainbow. The hues were incredible. He especially adored the sea-foam greens and the crème colors. They reminded him of the Fiat 500 he’d had before the Cull. In fact, if they ever returned to Tokyo, it was waiting for him in the parking lot.
Then the air rippled. It was a small ripple, but it was a ripple nonetheless. The ripple disturbed him. He knew that Mr. Tagahashi didn’t want any ripples aboard ship. Ripples were not regulation.
Nakihama straightened his tie, as he always did when he thought of his boss, the corporate head and spiritual father of them all. He turned the opposite way and skipped—two steps left, two steps right, two steps left.
“Oh, yes.” Skipping was definitely authorized. It felt so good to skip. It felt just right.
L
OPEZ-
L
AROU ROLLED ONTO
her side and puked on the floor.
Oleg came to her and wiped her brow with a cold cloth.
“How are you feeling?”
“What? Where am I?” she asked.
“Aboard the submarine. You got beat up.”
Beat up
. Those two words didn’t do it justice. Flashes of the commandos kicking her in the head, chest and gut flashed through her brain until she puked again, the memory too much for her.
“Where’s Kavika?”
“The runt Pali Boy?” Oleg shrugged. “Don’t know. He went up the hatch to the conning tower and talked to Kirill. Probably going to come back so I can fix him like I fix you.”
She rolled back onto her back and watched the ceiling swim for awhile.
Oleg cleaned up her mess, then had her lean forward so he could give her water with electrolytes. After he made sure that she and the wounded Pali Boy were okay, she got out of bed.
Or rather, she fell out of bed. Her feet weren’t working so well. It took awhile for her to convince them to work together, but finally she managed a standing position. With the help of every available surface she began the trek to the conning tower. With any luck, she should make it there by Christmas of next year.
I
T ALL CAME
down to this, and Sanchez Kelly didn’t know how he had become the spearhead for this plan. He hadn’t even planned on participating, and now he was the man who would strike the first blow.
How the hell had that happened?
Drug dealers do better in the dark. Standing out front was for soldiers, or liveried policemen. Of course, they were fresh out of soldiers and their number of liveried policemen were at an all time low.
Don’t volunteer, his dad had said to him. Volunteering will get you killed, he’d said. Then he’d gone off and joined the IRA and had died in Belfast. Talk about making a point.
Of course, Kelly hadn’t really volunteered, this time. He was just asked to do something and he acquiesced. Without even a by-your-fucking-leave, he let them talk him into being the vanguard of a misguided suicide mission.
Kelly did what he always did when he felt a little overwhelmed. He rolled a joint. He took his time. Knowing that the zeppelin was directly above him, he forced himself not to look... which was much harder than it seemed. Like telling someone not to think of a white elephant and now all they think about is a white elephant. Or like saying, don’t look at me, and you have to look at that person, even if it was going to get you in trouble. But he’d figured out a way to beat it. He’d poured a glass of water onto the deck near the harpoon gun. The lights of the zeppelin reflected mirror perfect in the puddle, giving him a cheat.
Now rolled, he brought the joint to his lips and lit it. Three short puffs to stoke it, then a deep draft.
Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Ahhhh.
He turned to look at the city. He had a chance to be the Head Drug Mama Jama. In fact, if he wanted to, he could probably walk away from the harpoon gun, slink back into his cargo container, safe in
Los Tiburones
territory, and resume business as usual with whoever survived the onslaught. Part of him wanted to do just that.
The light flashed three times, then went dark, then three more times. Everyone was in place.
He walked to the bow of the boat and took off his cowboy hat. He wiped his forehead, then waved the hat three times.
“Yep. That should do it,” he said to no one in particular.
Then he turned and walked back to the harpoon. It was covered by a tarp. Leb from the Sky Winkers had ensured him that it was ready to fire. All he had to do was point and shoot.
He heard gunshots in the distance.
It had started.
He took another drag and removed the cover from the harpoon gun.
More gunshots, and now popping noises.
With his left hand, he caressed the gun. According to Leb, this boat had once been a Japanese whaler. The Winker wanker had told a story about small boats like this one chasing whales across the sea and shooting them so that a chosen few could eat some of the meat. Kelly had seen vids of whales. They were like the amiable fat guy who bothered no one. Why someone would want to eat them was beyond him.
The shots were coming fast and furious now. Louder deeper sounds told him that the commandos and Real People were returning fire.
He took another drag on his joint, then placed it behind his ear like a pencil.
That there were people who had hunted the whales into oblivion was a crime worse than any narco-terroristic-murder he’d ever committed. The kind of people he killed were the kind who deserved it. They were bad people who had bad things coming to them. Like those fuckers in the zeppelin.
He swung the harpoon so that it was pointing almost straight up, checked the mechanism, took aim, then pulled the trigger. The harpoon shot true, dragging a cable as it rose, and pierced the body of the zeppelin. An alarm sounded immediately and lights snapped on.
He took the joint out from behind his ear and put it in the corner of his mouth. Puffing softly, he grabbed the cable spool with both hands—it was heavier than he thought; he hoped his stomach wouldn’t rupture—lugged it none-too-prettily to the side of the boat, and then dropped it into the sea.
A light from above speared him.
Don’t think of a white elephant!
Don’t look at me!