But Doctor Mahfouz had shaken his head. “Not crazy. More like… rationally insane. When people fight for ideals, no price is too high, and no fight can be surrendered. They aren’t fighting for money, or power, or control. Not really. They’re fighting to destroy their enemies. So even if they destroy everything around them, it’s worth it, because they know that they’ll have destroyed the traitors.”

“But they all call each other traitors,” Mouse had said.

“Indeed. It’s a long tradition here. I’m sure whoever first started questioning their political opponents’ patriotism thought they were being quite clever.”

Now, Mahlia and Tool crouched in the jungle on the outskirts of town. It looked much as she remembered it. Troops on R & R. Nailshed girls. Guns and booze and drugs and laughter and screaming. Guns firing randomly, like Spring Festival fireworks going off, but all the time. The place seethed with ring fights and red rippers and white dust and bloodshot eyes watching from the shadows. Mahfouz had never wanted her to go into it, and she’d been glad to stay out.

Beyond, on the river, she could make out a few sails. Smugglers, probably, with their little skiffs. No rich ones, though. The last time she’d been here, there had also been the buzz of biodiesel zodiacs, running upriver on behalf of Glenn Stern and his UPF soldiers.

She watched the soldiers and the nailshed girls. Suddenly gasped as she caught a better glimpse of a soldier. He had a green cross tattooed on his bare chest, and now that she looked, she caught sight of a glinting amulet of aluminum strung around his neck. They were all like that. All of them with their crosses and their amulets.

“Army of God,” she whispered. She started worming backward, trying to escape. “It’s Army of God.”

Tool gripped her arm, stopping her flight. “This is a change?” he asked.

“Used to be United Patriot Front.”

“War is fluid.” Tool studied the town. “There are still soldiers on the river, and crates being unloaded on the dock. Black market goods still move on the waterway. The players have changed, but the business of smuggling remains the same.”

“Yeah, except if we have to cross back into UPF territory downriver, we’re dead.” She looked out again at Moss Landing. Rough-cut buildings scabbed inside older fallen-down and overgrown concrete and brick. The troops were singing some patriotic song about how their general would never die until the last God-haters were swept away.

“That is not why you try to flee now,” Tool observed.

Mahlia’s heart was pounding. She swallowed. “They’re the ones that caught me. Last time. The ones that took my hand.”

Tool nodded slowly. “Still, you must go down. See if the route remains open.”