Then I sped away, a different type of anger below the surface, simmering.

Cold sea spray in my face, I should"ve felt satisfaction, but there was no satisfaction. There was no false feeling of victory. What had happened to me, it had happened, and would not unhappen. All I thought about ever since was the Punjabi that they had raped before my eyes. I was there and had done nothing. I had been an a.s.sa.s.sin. Not a savior. I was a killer. I didn"t wear a cape. I had watched, allowed her to be violated, humiliated, publicly destroyed. This was for the girl they had taken and abused. This was for the beautiful girl who had been found two weeks later with her wrists slit.

Pyrrhic victory, not broadcast, maybe even pointless, but for her. The last spine I had collected, I threw into the beautiful sea. War Machine"s head, I fed it to the Trinidadian waters as well. Then I looked back at the three trunks, all heavy with money from many nations.

The speedboat. The money. This wasn"t stealing. This was reparations.

For my G.o.dd.a.m.n pain and suffering. For making Petrichor break down and cry the way I should have broken down and cried. A bullet to my head, knife to the heart, that would have been fair. I would have lost and had no ill feelings as I sat with a number in hand, waiting my turn to talk to Jesus"s daddy.

Live by the bullet, die the same way.

War Machine"s confession under duress hadn"t changed denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. I was not stupid. The best lies held some truth.

A man would say anything when death was standing in his face.

I filtered through that conversation, selected what to keep, what to discard, as though I were at a cafeteria of lies; I had no idea how much he had said was true. Some of it was. I just had no idea which parts. War Machine told me that I had been marked for death from the start.

The ill feelings I had hadn"t been satiated.

This savage internecine warfare wasn"t done.

I wasn"t back in Trinidad alone. I had traveled here on the cruise ship alone, and I had been alone most of the evening. I wasn"t foolish enough to try to compromise War Machine"s home unaided.

A Bajan hacker had compromised the home security system and taken it offline.

A Bahamian sniper had been in the hills as I came down through the bush and trees.

The men up top on the hill, they all were dead with arrows in their chests.

The ones down below had been introduced to lead from a gun wearing a suppressor.

She had helped.

Old Man Reaper"s Bahamian daughter had helped.

Petrichor had arrived before me. She had driven north to the safe house I had once used.

It had been empty. She had stepped to the wall, the one with the magic light switch, clicked it over and over. The wall had opened. The blueprints had been taken away, but no one on the LKs" team had discovered the cache of weapons. Many guns had been left behind and the canisters of poison were still there, untouched. We had used those guns to break into Pa.s.sy Bay. Then Petrichor had left.

She had put on a kitchen worker"s uniform and left.

Other things had to be taken care of back on the main island.

Things she insisted be taken care of so I would be able to rest.

Things I couldn"t authorize, but I wouldn"t stop her from doing.

SEVENTY-ONE.

Petrichor entered with the help, most of the women of dark complexion, her accent that of a Trini. Old Man Reaper"s Bahamian daughter was at Sunset at Pier 1. Williams Bay. Chaguaramas.

A man"s cognitive process was impaired by the sight of a woman in a bikini.

It was destroyed when a naked woman appeared. It was devastated when she wore high heels. The armed guard in the kitchen saw her wa.s.sy walk. She began to wine. She began to wukkup, then she began to twerk, showed him the amazing things she could do with her Bahamian boonggy. She made her b.u.t.t cheeks move one at a time, then in concert. She went into a six thirty, smiled at him from that angle.

She spoke to him using a perfect Trini dialect.

He lowered his gun as his expectations and nature rose. Beautiful brown skin on a perfect frame danced toward him, b.r.e.a.s.t.s jiggling. Unarmed, naked, vulnerable, saying that she was so d.a.m.n h.o.r.n.y.

A palm strike to the bridge of his nose was as effective as a brick to his face, the heel of the hand as hard as a doork.n.o.b. Her sperm donor had trained her well. Before the guard could recover, the heel of a stiletto was lodged inside of his eye. Her sperm donor had trained her to make everything a weapon.

She could storm the room now.

She could use her weapons and storm the room.

Tonight called for a quiet storm.

Petrichor kicked away her second stiletto, took the downed guard"s rifle and backed the waiter against a wall, threatened to blow his head off. The teenager was terrified. Not a threat. Then she told the teenager she was going to let him live. She reached to her lower back, pulled away a plastic Dasani bottle that had been taped there. She handed him a sixteen-ounce bottle of clear liquid. She told the server to put four drops in every winegla.s.s; comply and serve, or die where he stood.

SEVENTY-TWO.

Well-dressed men and women filed into a facility that could accommodate eight thousand, a place with the option of indoor and outdoor seating. Tonight the LKs had taken over Pier 1 for their meeting, a facility equipped with breakaway workshop rooms, lighting, and modern audiovisual equipment, everything necessary for what was the equivalent of their State of the Union speech.

Diamond Dust had married War Machine here. It had been a difficult choice, but she had chosen him over Appaloosa. She needed a man made for the public eye. She walked in and was greeted as if she were more important than the president and prime minister of Trinidad, as if at twenty-four years of age, she was the leader of every island in the West Indies, as if she were the real power.

One day soon she would be. One day soon she would rise to prime minister.

As they filed in, the adults, the leaders, were taken in one direction.

The energetic children kissed their parents good-bye and were taken to their own section, outside where they could have fun, be loud, run and play supervised in the cool areas by the sea.

They would have an ice-cream party. They always had ice-cream parties.

Diamond Dust removed her shades and gazed out over her people.

She had always considered them her people.

Hers.

Some were poured Cristal Brut 1990, the "Methuselah." About $17,000 a bottle. Those were for the members of lower standing. The new wives. Others were served Dom Perignon White Gold Jeroboam-$40,000 a bottle. While some chose Pernod-Ricard Perrier-Jout-$50,000. Diamond Dust drank her favorite Shipwreck 1907 Heidsieck. The cost of hers was $275,000 a bottle. All prices were in US dollars, the currency that set the standard for the world. So her bottle cost $1,765,500 in Trinidadian currency.

She did not share her bottle with anyone other than her husband.

She missed him being at her side. She missed him being inside of her.

Tonight there were no politicians. No public causes. The members of their organization were served the most expensive meal ever sold in Trinidad, prepared by six chefs, and everything was flown in from France, Germany, and Italy. Even as they mourned the dead, the living had to feast.

They gave toasts to their fallen comrades, to their dead husbands, to their murdered leaders, to the fathers of their children, to brothers, to cousins, to lovers, to the men they would avenge, spoke of the guntas like they should all be canonized. She had a power her husband envied.

Diamond Dust had always sounded like the true leader of the guntas, had studied and admired and envied both Argentine president Cristina Elisabet Fernndez de Kirchner and Mara Eva Duarte de Pern-strong women, women born of nothing who had risen to the top and ruled their countries, and she vowed that one day she would do the same, that the LKs would do the same, that this was not the end, only a new beginning, and soon books and movies would be made about them.

She proclaimed, "I live for you. I live for my people. I live for a better Trinidad. This is my dream. You will have to kill me to stop me. We are moving our people from the slums, from violence. We are rising; we will rule this nation properly, as it should be ruled. You would have to kill all of us to stop us."

There was thunderous applause that echoed across Port of Spain.

In the middle of her speech, dryness attacked her throat. She sipped. Noticed everyone was sipping. She coughed. She apologized. Then there was scattered coughing. She felt light-headed. Her drink fell from her hand. She opened and closed her fingers. Numbness. She saw her hands but felt nothing. Everyone coughed, many tones, many octaves, many depths. She heard the echo. Looked out at her people. They all blinked, all looked light-headed, and many dropped or spilled their drinks.

Panic registered in their eyes.

There was a concert of concern and waves of fear as sweat rushed in.

She watched the room. Saw fear. Fear crepitated, ran across every fiber of their being. They rose to their feet. One by one they rose, the women wobbling on beautiful high heels. The first woman collapsed. A woman at the front table fell, lay on the carpet, eyes wide open, not breathing.

Diamond Dust saw another woman lose her footing, wobble on her heels, and fall.

One by one men fell. Men crumbled and fell. It was a death fall.

Diamond Dust didn"t panic. She only nodded her head.

One by one, some in groups, she watched them drop, ease into their final sleep.

She sat down, thought of her children.

The children. It was almost time for them to have their dessert.

The children loved ice cream. She had been deprived of ice cream as a child.

High heels click-clacking across tile, the only sound that could be heard in the room, Petrichor went to the stage and sat next to Diamond Dust. Now Petrichor was dressed to fit in. Her wig was one of long, black, kinky hair; her gloves black, her ber-s.e.xy dress red, her jewelry gold.

Petrichor sat, crossed her legs, put her palms on her knees.

She whispered, "Checkmate."

Then with two gloved fingers, she reached over and closed the dead woman"s eyes.

Petrichor walked away.

Her phone pinged. A s.e.xual message from her husband. She replied: ICE CREAM b.l.o.w. .j.o.b WHEN I GET HOME BABY. LOVE YOU. As she pa.s.sed through the kitchen, the young waiter she had told she wouldn"t harm, she faced him. She pulled chopsticks from her hair.

Beautiful chopsticks she had taken from the wall at the safe house up north.

She loosened the end of the red chopstick, rubbed the end and its dampness over his neck, and as the irreversible damage set in, she continued her stroll. No witnesses. He coughed. She kept going, never looked back as the man"s nervous system struggled to function.

She paused when she saw the cart. The ice cream. The dessert for the children.

Petrichor looked at the bottle. Half empty. No. Half full.

Plenty was left; plenty of drops were left.

Petrichor went to the cart of ice cream that was for the children waiting in the structure out near the sea. Ice cream for the offspring of those who had raped her sister, of those who had killed her unborn niece or nephew. She pushed the cart, eager to feed the children of the LKs.

SEVENTY-THREE.

Humming as she walked, Petrichor went and stood out near the dock. The sun would soon go down. A speedboat cut across the waters, as many had done since she had been waiting, this one named The Corsair, like the Barbary or Ottoman corsairs, pirates who worked out of North Africa, pirates who raided towns on the European coast and captured Christian slaves for the European market.

A man was driving the speedboat. A portly man, with blond hair and a Tony Stark goatee, dark sungla.s.ses. The driver wore Dockers and a pink Polo. The moment the boat pulled up, Petrichor boarded. Petrichor carried Diamond Dust"s body as if it weighed nothing.

Petrichor asked, "Who are you supposed to be?"

"Well, I ain"t Heisenberg from Breaking Bad."

"If I didn"t know who you were, I would swear you were a fat man."

"Strapped down my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Fat suit gives me a gut."

"Lose the guy voice, Reaper. That"s freaking me out. You look old."

"Makeup. Put some gray in the hair. Gave myself crow"s feet for kicks."

"You look like a fifty-year-old tourist from England or Canada."

Reaper helped her lay Diamond Dust on the floor.

"So, that"s her."

Petrichor took a bottle from her bag, sat it down, nodded. "That"s her."

"The b.i.t.c.h is beautiful."

"Was."