The rain came down in sheets now, soaking through his robes. Thunder fumbled through the canyons of downtown. Jenkins looked around, walked calmly across the street, head high, then dashed through the alley. The rain was good for him, limiting visibility, making the city even darker. He ran on, drawing on the reserves of his energy, using his fear to fuel him, block after block, the boat ramp closer with every step.

Jenkins had been as good a Muslim as any when he first came to New Fallujah. Though the brutality of this brand of Islam had startled him at first, he had quickly risen in the leadership. Adaptability was the highest virtue of the shadow warriors, and he took pride in his ability to shed his personal morality for the greater good of the Fedayeen. "The grand atrocity," he had called it, but his years of cooperating with that atrocity had ground his soul down to a fine gray dust, and with it his belief in Allah. After all the heads he had added to the Bridge of Skulls, the slightest breeze would have been enough to blow away his soul, and there was always a storm brewing in this dead city.

He splashed through the puddles, blinking back the rain. His black robe was a leaden weight around him, and he was soaked to the skin, freezing, but he pressed on, legs pumping. Faster. Faster. It amazed him that his belief in the Fedayeen had outlasted his belief in Allah, but now…even that was fading. What had Rakkim said? I don't give a fuck about my country. I'm here because of General Kidd. Thunder crashed, momentarily deafening him. The young man would learn.

He huddled in the alley across from the street leading down to the boat ramp. He listened but there was no way to hear anything over the thunder and rain. No cars on the street. No lights in the windows. Bits of brightly colored paper swirled in the water streaming down the gutters-a birthday party somewhere, gaudy wrappings and bows…a sin among many sins, so many sins he could no longer keep track of them. He watched until the shiny bits of paper disappeared, then walked quickly across the street, into the shelter of the low buildings.

At the end of the alley, he saw the boats bobbing wildly against the dock. Suicide to try to navigate across the bay in this weather, madness to think he could reach the other side…Jenkins threw off his heavy black robe and started running. He could hardly wait to try.

He burst out of the alley, slid down the grassy slope toward the docks. As his feet touched the slats of the wooden dock, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

"What's your hurry, Mullah Jenkins?" cooed ibn-Azziz, the cleric bareheaded in the downpour, surrounded by bodyguards.

"There you are," said Jenkins, bowing. "I hoped to find you here."

"Hope is a honeyed word, is it not?" Ibn-Azziz turned to his retainers. "Our good mullah finds sweetness in our meeting."

The bodyguards fanned out around Jenkins.

Ibn-Azziz tapped his fingertips together. "What else do you hope, Mullah Jenkins?"

Jenkins took a step back, saw that his path was blocked by more of ibn-Azziz's men. Lightning cracked directly overhead. Jenkins jumped as did the bodyguards, but ibn-Azziz didn't flinch.

"You are shy, I understand." Ibn-Azziz waved his bodyguards back. "Is that better?"

Jenkins moved closer to the Grand Mullah, barely feeling the rain anymore.

"Good," said ibn-Azziz, a black-robed skeleton in the raging storm. "So obedient, Mullah Jenkins, I hardly recognize you."

Jenkins spread his arms wide, felt his Fedayeen knife against the inside of his forearm. "All your patience has finally paid off. You have tamed my defiant spirit."

"All blessings be to Allah, not my unworthy self." Ibn-Azziz cocked his head, water dripping off his nose. "Do you have something for me, Mullah Jenkins?" he mocked. "You look like a man with a surprise clutched to his heart."

Jenkins blinked the rain from his eyes, almost close enough now. The boats banged against the dock, louder and louder, the wind rising.

Ibn-Azziz cupped his ear. "I can't hear you." He beckoned. "Come closer, and share your wisdom."

Jenkins flicked the knife into his hand as he thrust forward, but ibn-Azziz was fast, so very fast, the blade slicing through the whirling black robe, but leaving ibn-Azziz untouched.

Ibn-Azziz danced out of reach as his bodyguards closed in on Jenkins.

Jenkins cut down one of the bodyguards, then another, trying to break through, but there were too many of them. He kept moving, looking for an opening, a way out. He carved another bodyguard with a flick of his wrist, wishing again that he had gone back to Seattle with Rakkim. He would have liked to see the Egyptian girls dance in the Zone one more time. He fought on. Behind him, he could hear ibn-Azziz praying, screeching away as thunder rolled across the city.

A hot stone rested inside Lieutenant Miguel Ortiz's belly. Getting hotter too as he led his men into the outskirts of Corpus Christi, their shadows enormous in the dawn light. They moved like devils through the underbrush, brown crickets fluttering before them as they crept silently toward the white church, crawling now, close enough that Ortiz could hear them singing, greeting the morning with hosannas.

This was not the first time Ortiz and his eight-man team had infiltrated the Belt. That's what Unit X commandos did. Just last month they had taken out a nest of pirates near Galveston, men who used speedboats to intercept Aztlan pleasure yachts cruising peacefully in the Gulf. Looters and rapists and murderers of innocent Mexicans. Texans with grudges were more dangerous than a swarm of fire ants. It had been a pleasure to creep up on the pirate hideout at dawn, the team's inflatables far down the beach. Sergeant Romo had taken out their single sentry, but it had been Ortiz himself who kicked open the door to the nest, firing his machine gun in short, accurate bursts. They had not left a single pirate alive. The team had sung folk songs on the way back to the mother ship. Today, though…he didn't imagine there would be singing.

As if hearing his thoughts, the congregation inside the church seemed to raise their voices, the very walls vibrating with the sound of their singing. Up from the grave, He arose… Ortiz knew the hymn. His grandmother sang it on Easter. It was more beautiful in Spanish. There were still plenty of people back home who went to church, prayed the rosary, but most young people worshiped the old religion, the ancient gods of Aztlan. So many gods…it was hard for Ortiz to keep track of them all.

Sergeant Romo looked at him and Ortiz gave a hand signal, watched as Romo took three men and circled around the church.

Ortiz was doing a terrible thing. The people inside the church were not pirates, or Lone Star rampagers who attacked peaceful Mexican fishing villages. They were innocent. Which would do them no good at all. He rested his cheek in the sand, still cool from the evening, and wondered if he really was going to do this thing.

A family raced up the steps to the church, a father, mother and two children in their Sunday best, hurrying, and Ortiz wished their car had broken down, wished a water main had burst and flooded the streets, wished for anything that would have delayed them five minutes. The door to the church opened, the hymn booming louder for a moment-He arose a victor from the dark domain-before it closed after the family.

Ortiz was aware of the rest of his men waiting for him to give the order. He nodded his head and the three men scuttled forward, placed their satchel charges and incendiaries around the walls, then quickly backed out. Sergeant Romo came around from the other side, placed a charge in front of the door, set the motion trigger.

The men had been quiet during the insertion, quietly checking and rechecking their gear. No boasts or jokes or talk of what they would do when they got home. They attended to business and avoided looking at him. He didn't blame them.