“Okay, okay. You got a different deal with them. No problem.” Den politics. Jake let it pass, and primed the pump instead. “But the Stormies have stuck to small groups scattered about town. Irreconcilable differences about dogma and ritual, we always heard. Is that changing?”

The older Smith scratched his peppery beard. “It’s about the worst you could imagine. Instead of staying splintered and relatively powerless, the Stormies seem to have found a leader to cluster around.”

“C’mon!”

“No, really. Some woman. One of their preachers.”

“Since when do they have preachers? They’re anarchists. They worship chaos.”

“They got ’em now. One, at least. Young, beautiful, charismatic. Or so Empire had it. They’ve got someone embedded.”

Embedded? Empire planned ahead. Again I asked myself how come everyone was better informed than us at Unca Joe?

“It’s her mission to unite the factions,” Irv explained. “To spread storm worship throughout the Island and beyond. ‘A new faith for a new world.’ ”

Jake groaned. “Just what we need.”

“Well, she thinks we do.”

One of the lads muscled up to snatch the two chairs drawn up to the map table. Jake waved him off with a quick jerk of his thumb.

Irv gently flattened his palm on the map. “In the Armory, they can build their bonfires on the drill floor without burning the joint down. And they’ve got room to grow. Empire says there’s a couple hundred of ’em there now, maybe more.”

Jake asked, “How is this preacher girl planning to spread the faith?”

“As yet unknown.”

“Scratch the Armory.” Rubio gestured cross-wise. “Moving on . . .”

Since he was between candidates, I tugged on his elbow. “Got a minute?”

“Not really.”

“Please?”

With a sigh, he turned aside. “What’s up?”

No way he’d give me the time to try out my new theory on him. Best to cut to the chase. “Think you’re heading out anytime soon, like, to look at possible den sites?” Up close, his breath sounded wheezy.

“Rather wait for a longer list. So far, we’re snagged at zero. Why?”

I fidgeted. How to make this sound reasonable? “The Book Dude’s gone, and left his boat behind.”

“So?”

“That doesn’t seem strange?”

“What are you, his keeper? He’s running an errand or something.”

“A boat came by and picked him up in the middle of the night. Sentries saw it.”

“Okay, a private errand.”

“But he promised Rousseau he’d stick around for the den caucus.”

“So, he’ll be back. What’s the big deal?”

“Something might’ve happened.”

Rubio scrubbed his cheek. “Like what?”

“Like, at the Souk. Remember what he said about those guys coming around?”

“Look, Glim. He’s a grownup. He’ll deal with it.”

“But what if . . .”

“I’m in the middle of something here. I can’t . . .”

“Rube, I want to go up there.”

“You do? Why you?”