by David Gullen
Guinevere dimmed the lights and drew the curtains. ‘Ahmed, I’m so sorry. You look terrible. Let me send for my physician.’
Hirsch peered up at her. ‘Thank you, but I have taken my medication and begin to feel better.’
Encouraged by his new informality Guinevere sat beside him. ‘Is this something you suffer regularly? I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’
Hirsch moved away. ‘It is not an issue. The issue is Canada.’
Guinevere rapped the table with her fingernail. ‘The issue is planetary albedo. Canada’s trees are spreading north too quickly, there is not enough snow on the ground, not enough sunlight being reflected. Someone has to manage the boreal forest before it’s too late.’
‘Bullshit.’ Hirsch looked down with revulsion at the sweating cheese platter and pushed it away. ‘Our DNA computers run a little slow, but analysis is thorough. This morning I was advised of the latest results.’
He knows, Guinevere thought. They’ve worked it out and they’re terrified. That’s why he’s ill, sick with defeat and futility. Triumph surged in her chest, ‘If you think you know what we want, you’ll also know the American government will not shirk. There’s nothing you can do.’
Hirsch studied the glass in his hand as if it were something remarkable. He drained it and pushed himself to his feet. ‘You want to provoke us. You think to make us do something foolish. Very well. Consider us provoked.’
Guinevere’s voice trembled as she discussed the events with Lobotnov. ‘We’ve worked so hard for this but now I feel really nervous.’ She laughed and pressed her hand against her chest. ‘To be honest, I’m terrified.’
Lobotnov regarded her with calculation, his small, well-manicured hands together on the table. ‘Pre-show nerves, Ginny. I’m pretty stressed out too.’ He edged his chair towards her and attempted a smile of macho élan. ‘I remember you once told me you had a woman’s heart. There are ways for two people to relax together.’
I let him squeeze my tit and now he’s got this thing for me, Snarlow thought. He’s right about most things, maybe this is what I need.
Lobotnov loosened his tie and sat back with one arm over the back of his chair. His slight frame and domed, hairless head made him look like a cross between an over-sexed child and the Mekon.
A perverse eroticism stirred in Guinevere. She’d fantasised about Gordano and how she would make the handsome, pliable Vice President her bitch, but never the apparently sexless intellectual Lobotnov. On an impulse she kissed him on the mouth. ‘Do it, Cheswold. Relax me.’
Lobotnov hung his navy blazer on the back of the chair and pressed a button on the desk.
‘Yes, sir?’ an anonymous electronic male voice answered.
‘We’re in executive conference. No interruptions.’
‘Yes, sir.’
This wasn’t anything to do with sex, Guinevere decided as she kicked off her shoes. It was a power transaction.
She dimmed the lights, unzipped her trousers and stepped out of them. She sat beside Lobotnov and they kissed again, more deeply. She was relieved to discover his breath was sweet, his aroma aseptically clean.
‘I don’t want penetration,’ she said as she unzipped him. She considered his small hand and trim nails, ‘You can fist me if you want.’
‘My pleasure.’ Lobotnov clenched his small buttocks as he worked his groin against Guinevere’s hand. He pulled aside her panties and stroked her sex with surprising finesse.
Snarlow reached into his trousers and pulled him out. His organ was startlingly long, almost improbably thick. He was cut, she’d expected that, the dome fat and soft. She found herself unexpectedly excited.
‘Cheswold, you’re hung like a donkey,’ Snarlow breathed, enjoying the feel of him growing hard in her hand.
‘Didn’t expect that from a short guy, eh?’ Lobotnov gasped. ‘I’d enjoy it if you went down on me, madam President.’
She was dripping wet, his hand knuckle deep inside her. She bent down and took the velvety tip of his twitching cock into her mouth, touched her teeth gently onto the shaft. As she did, Lobotnov partially removed his hand and thrust in. She pushed back, and felt him stretch her deliciously wide. Then his whole hand was inside her.
‘Jesus,’ she moaned. Her hand was on him now, slippery with her own saliva, sliding up and down.
‘Slow down,’ Lobotnov said. ‘This is fantastic, make it last.’
They frigged each other in silence.
‘What do you think the EU will do?’ Snarlow gasped.
‘Nothing. They got nothing,’ Lobotnov groaned. ‘It’s all bluff.’
‘They’ve got to declare war, or surrender.’
‘And they have no army, no nukes – it’s perfect. God, yes, right there.’
Snarlow pushed her other hand down his trousers, cupped his balls and squeezed.
‘Argh. Christ, that hurts.’
Snarlow laughed, low and cold and throaty. Lobotnov’s fingertips still tapped and stroked deep inside her, his hand filled her up. She stroked him faster. ‘Let me squeeze your nuts again.’
‘No. Yes, not now, back off a bit.’
‘I don’t see what they could do to us that they haven’t already. If they move overtly, or covertly but with significance, we’ve got them. We’ll be in the clear and we’ll be justified.’
‘You’re right,’ Lobotnov groaned. ‘Oh, keep that up and I’m done.’
Moments later she felt him spasm again and again.
Lobotnov slumped back with a satisfied groan. ‘Sweet Lord, I needed that.’
After a moment Snarlow pulled Lobotnov’s hand out of her vagina and spread her legs. ‘Do me now.’
Lobotnov dropped to his knees and buried his face enthusiastically in her groin. She was on fire, Lobotnov knew what he was doing. It didn’t take long and it was fantastic.
Lobotnov crawled into her arms, pulled open her blouse and stuffed one of her nipples into his mouth. In the afterglow she stroked his domed head as he contentedly snuffled at her breast.
‘Cheswold, are we bad people?’ Snarlow said.
Lobotnov daintily wiped his mouth with a tissue. ‘Subjectively, yes, absolutely. However, the substantively objective view has to be no, we are not. Morality is relative, there are no empirical rights and wrongs in human history.’
‘Tell me we’re doing the right thing.’
‘Churchill said “History will look upon me kindly because I shall write it.” In that light yes, of course we are.’
- 41 -
Brutal Murders
Three key members of the notorious Halifax street gang, two male and one female, were found dead today in the south-side projects. The street-pharma wholesaler known locally as ‘The Dude’ was also slain.
Crime scene investigations are ongoing, but early indications suggest this was more than simple gangland turf war. Whoever did this was making a point.
“I just hope it’s not the C.O.P.S.” Patrolman Gary Jackson told this reporter. “They’re taking over the corners everywhere.”
Opinion on motives for the savage killings vary from takeover to punishment. One thing is clear, Bernard Halifax himself is not a suspect, Patrolman Jackson freed him from his bonds at the scene. It seems Halifax was forced to watch the torture and execution of his fellow gang members.
Reports of a prior argument and gunshots are being taken seriously.
– Slobodan Jones, KUWjones.org
Wilson caught up with Halifax as he was coming out of the morgue. The big man didn’t look like he wanted to talk to anyone, let alone be in the right frame of mind for rational speech.
Halifax drifted rather than walked, his descent of the steps to the sidewalk a half-controlled fall. The ground dropped away beneath his feet in the same way the world had dropped out from under his life.
Later on, Halifax would be looking for action, murderous drunk and in a place far beyond pain. He would put himself in harm’s way, kill a couple of punks when they tried to roll
him, then get lit up by the local law. Or simply take a cap in the skull from an ambitious soldier from his own corners.
Right now he was numb. If Wilson was buying, Halifax just might listen.
Wilson followed him to a street bar called ‘Vetz’, a sparse establishment of bolt-down tables and bar stools, plastic glasses, drains in the tiled floor and hose-down walls. Two old men sat near the door playing dominos, three fat hookers lolled at the back beside a doorway. He sent a beer over to Halifax via the barman, a heavily tattooed white guy with hard eyes, buzzcut hair and a prosthetic right leg.
Halifax listened to the barman then turned to Wilson, three seats away.
Wilson met his eye. ‘Thought you could use it.’
Halifax looked Wilson up and down, seeing something in the paunchy middle-aged white man that stopped him flinging the drink into his face. ‘Fuck you know?’ Halifax muttered, and knocked back the beer.
‘I know Mitchell Gould,’ Wilson said.
Halifax came off his seat like an express train.
Wilson shot Halifax with his neural mop before he had his second foot on the ground. Halifax face-planted, jerked onto his side, kicked once and lay still.
A high-pitched whine came from behind the bar. Wilson looked into the spinning barrels of a room-sweeper mini-gun. The other occupants of the bar watched with frozen attention: a hand hovered over a domino, an unlit cigarette hung from a hooker’s mouth.
Wilson put down the neural mop with deliberate slowness and raised his hands. ‘It’s okay, we’re friends,’ he said. ‘Or we will be soon.’
‘You law?’ the barman said.
‘Nope.’ Wilson grimaced. ‘Kinda.’ He displayed his BountyMan card, invalid in this state.
‘Well, Mr Nope-kinda-lawman, that is Bernard Halifax. This is a bar, not a morgue, so you can take it outside. If you don’t make a mess we might send flowers.’
Wilson looked down at the twitching man. ‘I know who he is and his crew are dead. Mitchell Gould killed them all.’
‘No shit. What he ever do to the Mitch?’
‘No idea.’ Wilson looked around the bar. ‘This your place?’
‘Yes, it is.’ The barman turned off the gun and the barrels stuttered to a halt. The old men returned to their dominos, one of the hookers went upstairs.
‘Working your way up, huh?’
‘I know these streets.’
‘You know a cab?’
The barman put the gun under the bar and opened his phone. ‘My cousin.’
Wilson settled himself back onto the stool. ‘Give me a few packs of nuts.’
It was clearly not the first time this sort of thing had happened. The cab, a beat-up black Toyota SUV, pulled up in the back alley almost immediately. The driver, a near clone of the barman, had an artificial left arm and a compound crystal eye, the seam between orb and skin crusted with inflammation. Wilson hefted Halifax into the back and the cabbie drove them to Wilson’s room.
The cabbie looked at Halifax, out cold on the bed, from the safety of the doorway.
‘Don’t worry,’ Wilson said. ‘This is for his own good.’
The cabbie rubbed the edge of his compound eye. ‘I was wondering how you were going to cope when he wakes up.’
‘You and your cousin serve together?’ Wilson said.
‘Yup.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Nowhere.’ The cabbie held up his prosthetic arm. ‘Blue on blue.’
‘Rough deal.’
‘Shit happens. In the army, shit happens to you.’
‘Once was a cop. Still on the right side.’ He thought about it. ‘At least, I think I am.’
‘You can only hope. Luck to you, old man.’
‘Take it easy.’
Wilson locked the door and checked Halifax. The big man was beginning to stir as neurons finally scraped together enough ions to close synapses. Wilson filled a glass with water, emptied the wastebasket onto the floor and put it beside the bed. Then he pulled up a chair, sat down, and waited.
You can tell when someone wakes up. They stir, the breathing changes, muscle tension alters. Beneath closed lids their eyeballs move differently.
Halifax was smart. For the space of a single breath he was still, then his body went slack, his breathing shallow and uneven. Only the muscles of his face betrayed him.
‘I know you’re awake,’ Wilson said. ‘You’ve got a giant headache. Don’t move too fast or you’ll puke.’
Halifax’s eyelids twitched, his shoulders tensed.
Wilson moved his chair back.
Halifax rolled off the bed and flung himself towards Wilson. His leg muscles cramped, he cried out in agony and fell. Wilson pushed the bin into his hands. Halifax clutched it, dry-retched, then heaved up a gut load of acrid vomit.
Halifax glared sloppily at Wilson over the rim of the waste basket. He hawked and spat, then tried to stand. He made it to a crouch, clutched his calves and toppled onto the floor hissing with pain.
‘There’s water on the side.’ Wilson tossed a packet of peanuts onto the floor. ‘Eat these, it will help the cramps.’
‘Fuck you, arsehole.’
‘Arsehole. That’s pretty stylish. I never took you for an Anglophile.’
‘Fuck–’
‘Yeah, OK, fuck me. I get it.’ Wilson opened another packet of nuts and scattered them over the bed. ‘Lick my salty nuts, Mr Halifax, and listen to what I have to say.’
Halifax sighed and closed his eyes.
‘I’m hunting Mitchell Gould. My wife died because of him. She was a cop, we were both cops, partners. She, ah, I–’ Wilson fought the catch in his voice.
Slack mouthed, Halifax crawled onto the bed and flopped on his side.
Wilson got a hold of himself. ‘Two days ago I was cold-called by some executive agency deep in black ops, totally deniable, something so dark I… Look, I don’t know anything,okay? I don’t know who I work for, or why they pulled me in. Yesterday, Gould killed my partner. I have a way to track him but that’s all I got. I need help, Halifax, I need a partner. I can’t do this on my own.’
Halifax’s unblinking eyes fixed on Wilson with a lizard’s gaze. He jerked his chin to show he was listening.
Christ, Wilson thought, overwhelmed by déjà-vu. I’m recruiting, reeling in someone nobody’s going to miss, the same as Masters did to me. For a moment he was back in his tract house, leaning against the kitchen unit as she made her offer.
When he next spoke the words sounded like they came from someone else.
‘I don’t care what you did, Halifax, what laws you broke, or why. If you want a chance at Gould, this is it. You want in, you’re in. I’ll tell you everything I know, though I promise you, it isn’t much. You need to decide now because Gould’s on the move and we’re not.’
The puke stank. Wilson took the bin into the bathroom. When he came out he pushed open the front door. ‘Or I can leave you here and before you know it, you’ll be a hopeless old screw-up up like me.’
Slowly, gingerly, Halifax eased himself into a sitting position. He sipped the water, he ate one of the peanuts. ‘How many partners you lost?’
‘Two.’
‘I hate cops.’
- 42 -
Hmm…
‘Of course it won’t come to war. How could it when we don’t possess conventional strategic forces of any significance?’
EU officials have been slavishly echoing Ahmed Hirsch at every opportunity. They are also fond of saying things like ‘war is obsolete’ and ‘we are not naïve’. Either or both of these statements could be considered misleading, actually naïve, or simply daft. And don’t ignore the wilfully Machiavellian hints about their ability to pursue international policy ‘by other means’. Whatever the Emerald Union is up to, it is impervious to analysis and they seem quietly confident.
Compare that with General Andriewiscz:
‘Those punks don’t know what they’re talking about. We’ve got some surprises lin
ed up. The time for walking quietly is over and we’ve still got a big stick.’
It’s so unofficial the White House won’t even acknowledge he said it, let alone say if it’s a policy statement. On the other hand neither do they deny it, and we all remember the gentleman doffing his sombrero over Mexico City.
Now THAT feels like a story waiting to be told.
– Slobodan Jones, KUWjones.org
Novik arrived at the Canadian border late afternoon. The eight-lane highway was eerily quiet, the normally busy crossing point deserted with all the barriers raised. An armoured car sat broadside across the empty road on the American side, a heavy calibre machine gun mounted and manned on the open turret.
A dozen soldiers in green fatigues, field jackets and armoured vests leaned against the concrete barrier of the narrow median strip. As Novik coasted to a halt one of them beckoned him forwards.
Novik looked at Josie. They needed to get across.
She crossed her fingers. ‘We’ll be fine.’
In the back, Marytha looked more than a little scared. Beside her Benny rested, his eyes shut. The bandaging on his chest was concealed by a clean white tee and a new denim jacket.
Novik put the car into drive, drove over and lowered the window.
‘Hi there,’ the soldier said. ‘How ya doing?’
‘Is everything okay up there?’ Novik said.
The soldier chewed his gum, looked back the rest of his platoon and grinned. ‘Sure looks okay to me.’
‘So we can pass through?’
‘Well, I don’t know about that.’ The soldier looked into the car and grinned again.
‘Howdy, ma’am. Sir, ma’am.’
Everyone returned brief, polite smiles.
‘Can you tell us what’s going on?’ Josie said.
‘Nothing, ma’am. Nothing is going on and everything is fine. We just don’t recommend crossing to Canada right now.’