A teenaged joker planted himself solidly in their path. He had torches in his outstretched hands and a face whorled like a thumbprint. The skin on his bare chest and arms was normal human skin. As if to counteract that, he had cut vertical gouges in his torso from collarbone to the waist of his jungle-cammie trousers.

“So you’re the mighty aces from back in the World,” he said. “Hear me: we don’t like aces. And we aren’t part of your fucking world anymore. We got our own New World Order, here. It looks like you just don’t belong.”

“Oh, no?” the man in white said. “We’ll see about that, asshole.”

The tall man took off his cowboy hat and handed it to him. Then he grabbed his mask by the crown and pulled it off.

The joker screamed.

The crowd surged back. Someone turned and vomited. The whorl-faced joker dropped his torches and ran.

The man in black had half a face. From the onlookers’ point of view it was unfortunate he had any. What remained looked like hamburger that had been left on the counter for three-four days and then set afire with charcoal starter.

“Now that we got that out of the way,” the white-clad man said, handing back the hat, “we got an appointment with your boss. Now, do you let us get to it, or do we start kicking your ugly asses?”

He laced his fingers and cracked his knuckles. “I’d really hate that,” he said. “It’s not professional to put pleasure before business.”

“Gentlemen.” Colonel Charles Sobel rose from behind his broad, empty desk. The exacting order of the photo-crowded office made it seem an island of sanity in the chaotic sea of Fort Venceremos. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re here.”

Then he tipped his head to the side, and his noble Doug MacArthur profile took on some wrinkles. “What’s that smell?”

The man in white jerked a thumb at the one in black. “Him. He’s dead. Or didn’t you know that?”

Sobel rubbed his chin, nodded slowly. “I’ve read your dossiers, of course, Mr. Ray.”

“Call me Carnifex. Sir.”

Sobel paused, nodded again. “Very well, And you are Bobby Joe Puckett.”

The man in black nodded.

“Also known as Crypt Kicker,” Billy Ray said. “He’s a ball of laughs.”

“Please be seated,” the Colonel said.

“I’m fine,” Carnifex said.

“The dead don’t need to sit,” Crypt Kicker said.

Sobel raised a brow at him, as if surprised he could speak. “Initial reports indicated you were lost in the last assault on the Rox, Mr., ah, Kicker.”

“He was fried by a dragon, he got left below the bottom of the Hudson River when the Rox disappeared, he went boiling up to the surface in the giant air bubble that got left behind, and then he got hit by the Turtle’s tidal wave,” Carnifex said. “They found his dead ass wrapped around a light pole on Staten Island.”

“It sounds as if you had a trying day.”

“He told Baffle he didn’t need to shower before we hit the Rox,” Carnifex said, “because he knew he’d wash up on shore.”

“Mr. Baffle, yes,” the Colonel said. “I’m very grateful to your superior for providing us with your services. You are badly needed.”

“Yeah, I’m so happy I could puke that he sent me out here among all these damned monsters of yours, Colonel. And stuck me with the biggest monster of all for a partner.”

He leaned forward and put his black-gauntleted knuckles on the desk. “I still don’t get it, Colonel. You’re out here playing butt-boy for about the last pack of commies left on Earth. Just what the hell is the CIA doing, looking out for that particular endangered species?”

The smooth, tanned skin of Sobel’s face writhed briefly, as if it had live mice beneath it. Then it firmed. “Believe it or not, Mr. Battle does possess a social conscience. If you knew him as I do, you’d understand.”

He folded his hands. “I realize you are confused and resentful at the unexpected turns of events that brought you here. I hope you’re not going to have any problems working with us.”

Carnifex straightened. “I do my goddam job. I’m the very best.” He dipped his head right, raised it again. “Nobody said I had to like it.”

“What Mr. Battle says, I do,” Crypt Kicker said. “He said obey you.”

“If I get to kick some butt, I’ll do fine, Colonel,” Carnifex said.

Sobel smiled. He picked some invisible lint from his immaculate uniform sleeve. “I think I can promise you that, Mr. Ray.”

He leaned forward. “Our situation is grave here, gentlemen. The rebels have been having everything their own way. They still don’t have any military strength to speak of – some support among urban capitalists greedy for a chance to exploit their fellow men, some sympathy from primitive minorities who resent the modernizing influences of social reform. A number of soldiers of the People’s Army have deserted to them, it’s true, but they’re all cowards and weaklings, of course.

“But psychologically” – he shook his magnificent head – “they’re picking us apart. Not just the standard assassinations, sabotage, and other acts of terrorism. You would not believe the reports we’re getting: beautiful, bulletproof women who walk through shadows. Burning men who fly through the air and shoot down jet aircraft with fireballs from their hands. Sea monsters attacking river-patrol craft. The site of that press conference the traitors gave last week, the mining camp – it was abandoned after the workers and security detachment reported one of the big ore shovels came to life and began attacking them. Even the administrators and technicians claimed it was true, and they were Russians.”

He shook his head. “Someone – or some thing impersonated a high official of the Socialist Republic’s security apparatus, a dedicated, loyal officer well known to me personally, and helped a major leader of the rebels to escape government custody.” He leaned back. “Our people are strong, gentlemen; they are righteous, as we in the New Joker Brigade are righteous. But they’re starting to lose heart. They’re afraid. They feel they’re up against some supernatural enemy.”

Billy Ray looked at Crypt Kicker and cracked his knuckles. “Naw,” he said with a nasty, lopsided grin. “You’re just suffering what we call your severe ace infestation.”

The grin went wide and feral. “Fortunately, Colonel, you just called on Ace Exterminators.”

“Thanks, guys,” Mark said wearily, forcing a smile. He sat cross-legged on the floor with his elbows on his thighs, rubbing sunken eyes and wondering if he’d ever sit in a chair again.

The men of his original runaway squad stood in the doorway of the hootch or crowded together close outside

Slick, Studebaker Hawk, Mario, and Lou Inmon, Osprey from First Squad, their eyes shining. Eye Ball was missing; he had continued to insist on walking point and had gotten cut down in a chance meeting with a government patrol on the way to an ammo-dump raid.

They had brought news; great news, Mark supposed. The sugar plantation near his current village command post had a satellite dish. The news had come down it.

The Soviets had pulled an East Germany on the Socialist Republic. They had not quite told the regime that they were willing to guarantee its fall if it looked as if the rebels were running into difficulty. But they had announced that, effective immediately, all fraternal assistance to Vietnam was suspended indefinitely. The freighters in Haiphong Harbor weighed anchor and steamed into Tonkin Gulf. The administrators and skilled technicians were pulling out of the huge, environment-wrecking logging and mining and construction camps. Starshine would be proud.

Soviet personnel in military installations the length of Vietnam blandly shook their heads when their Vietnamese counterparts begged them to fly air-strikes against the waves of resistance passing like peristalsis throughout the country – even in the militant North, ancient Tonkin, the actual winner of the Vietnam War. The Soviet commander of the giant Da Nang airbase, near Fort Venceremos, ordered all Vietnamese brusquely off the premises. The Soviets were evacuating their huge civilian and military complements from the Socialist Republic and could not afford to have outsiders getting underfoot. The Soviets, he said, would be more than happy to hand the facilities over to the government of Vietnam when they left – whoever that government happened to be.