Germ

Cheers and hoots sprang from the men around the room.

"Well . . ." Tate said, patting the air to calm Emilio and urge him to put away his weapon. "Someday."

"Someday? No someday!" Emilio said. He smiled at Julia. "We get them now, no?"

Stephen was nodding. Julia didn't know how to respond. Was Emilio offering this group's help? Could they really go in, guns blazing, and get Allen?

Emilio said, "Bad people out there. Who is gone? Who they take?"

"My brother."

"Oh, eme'ena." He stood and yelled at the others, an obvious rallying cry.

The other men raised their weapons over their heads. Some had to dash across the room to grab a pistol or rifle. They chanted the same phrase over and over. To Julia it sounded like the non-words of an Ennio Morricone soundtrack, or maybe "We can fight! We can fight!"

Emilio slammed his revolver down on the wood table. He raised Julia's horn of terere. "We go tomorrow," he said, showing her every tooth in his mouth. "No more! No more Nana-ykua!" Tonight we rejoice and drink." He hoisted the horn. The brown liquid splashed out, soaking his face. He laughed and the other men joined in.

Julia grinned at Stephen. She asked, "You ready?"

"No more Nana-ykua!" he said, punching his fist in the air.

eighty-six

Julia's eyes snapped open. She gasped for air, but nothing came. A palm was clasped tightly over her mouth. Her hand immediately slid under the jacket she was using as a pillow; then she remembered she did not have a pistol.

Tate's face loomed out of the darkness. He held a finger to his lips and removed his hand. He turned from her and pressed his hand over Stephen's mouth. He woke much more gracefully than she had: only his eyelids moved, sliding open like those of a restless corpse in a movie. She checked her watch. 3:40.

Tate jerked his head toward the door of the little room they occupied and started picking his way over the sleeping bodies of the men around them. Julia and Stephen followed him with their backpacks. They stepped out of the smaller room into the cavernous central room, which was nearly as dark; fat bars of moonlight fell through the high windows and streaked the floor. Tate pressed himself against the wall and looked up at those windows

The sentries, Julia thought, but could not see them.

He drifted quietly and quickly to another door and slipped through. They followed him into another room where a flickering flame made the walls appear to fall away and leap forward. Hanging on hooks, coats, jackets, and sweaters danced in the stuttering light like nervous ghosts.

"Listen," Tate whispered, so close to their faces she could smell the bitter terere drink on his breath. The candlelight illuminated the high spots of his face and filled the rest with inky shadows. The effect was beyond eerie and intensified his very presence. "I'll take you to the air base, if you still want to go. Right now, just us."

"But the men," Julia said. "They said—"

"They're not going to go. I tried to tell you last night. They're not ready, and they know it. Something will come up. The weather. A family member will get sick."

"But they were so . . . excited."

"They get like that from time to time. It's what's in their hearts. They really do want to go and bring Nana-ykua down. They pray that maybe all the kidnapped people are still there, alive. But they know better. They want revenge, and they want to end the disappearances and the fear."

His scowl appeared severe in the light.

"You got them going this time," he said, "you and those weird triplets after you. In the end, they'll remember they have families that depend on them, and they'll remember how fortified that air base is. They'll remember that they are farmers and ranchers, not soldiers. They'll go back to patrolling the streets, defending their people one threat at a time. In six months or a year, they'll get worked up again. Maybe then or the time after that, they'll go through with it, God help them. But not today."

They were quiet. Then Stephen asked, "Why are you helping us?"

"Because you don't stand a chance on your own." He moved to the wall of jackets and selected two, tossing them to Julia and Stephen. He was already wearing his own leather jacket, dark and crinkled like skin sloughed from his face. He gripped the door handle, then turned back as though he'd forgotten something crucial. "You'll probably die anyway," he said, his hushed voice velvety in the still air, "but this

way I'll be able to live with myself." He opened the door and stepped into the chilly night.