Wild Cards 15 - Black Trump

by George R. R. Martin

  The officer nodded as if he were satisfied, but he barked out a couple of orders in Russian and motioned to his sailors. They began to open crates, an activity which led to protests by the Ukrainian captain. More sailors appeared, called down from the deck. They looked with disinterest at barrels of barley and bales of textiles. They poked at the four irrigation pumps and didn't seem to fiid them interesting at all. They were more interested in a crate of Japanese VCRs.

  Zoe stayed huddled in Croyd's arms, watching the search. A deal was struck. A few of the VCRs got handed up the ladder, and the sailors disappeared.

  Croyd nuzzled his nose against Zoe's neck like the fond lover he was supposed to be. He whispered in her ear. "I'll go find out what the captain thinks about all this," he whispered. "Go back to the cabin, okay?"

  "I'll be on deck," Zoe said. "Come and tell me, damn it!"

  The officer smiled in the direction of Zoe's chest as he went by. He hauled himself up the ladder, puffing at the exertion.

  Zoe waited until Croyd had time to get to the bridge. She climbed up the ladder and went to her on-deck retreat, a niche between two pallets of fertilizer sacks, hot and stuffy in the daytime but cool enough, cold, in the hazy night. She'd spent a few hours here while the freighter made its way from port to port, abominably slow, business as usual and plenty of time for tea to be sipped and packages to come and go in the hold.

  A corner of tarp made a little tent for her. The bow watch probably knew she came there, but the boy never bothered her.

  Zoe couldn't see anything that looked like a Russian ship. The sailors seemed to have disappeared into the water.

  From the north, a pair of huge helicopters buzzed out of the night. Zoe could see fat guns slung beneath their bellies. She pressed her back against the sacks and huddled under her tarp, holding her torn shirt over her shoulders. The choppers cruised over the deck, bathing it in spotlights that cast crazy shadows as they passed by. They finished their pass and went away, but not far. She could hear them. Damn. Stay here? Go back to the cabin, a metal box where she felt like a trapped rat? Oh, damn. She sat frozen, afraid to move.

  The choppers made another pass. In the darkness that followed, Croyd slipped across the deck and ducked under the tarp beside her.

  "Were not going to get shoved overboard because our captain is a Moldovan," Croyd said. "Don't ask me to explain how that is, I couldn't quite figure it. The Russians didn't find anything, and the captain of the Russian sub is probably going to report that the whole deal about the medical radioactives was a false alarm. But they might just shoot us out of the water anyway, for practice."

  "That's comforting," Zoe said. The choppers buzzed in the distance, circling for another pass.

  "Well, the Russian Navy will probably keep anybody else from bothering us, at least for a few nights.

  "Does our captain have a clue about what's going on here?" Zoe asked.

  "No," Croyd said. "I came on like I was an offended passenger. I didn't hear a word about anything wrong in Odessa. Somebody must be keeping that little scene real quiet. Figure it, Zoe. The guy we bought this thing from is a crook even to the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians want the Russians to take all the warheads out of the Ukraine, and the Russians don't have the resources to do it. And anyway, Snailfoot said the KGB were the only ones who ever had access to the arming devices. So the Ukrainian we bought this thing from had to be part of the KGB, because he promised the Black Dog he could deliver the whole package. The Ukrainians probably figure somebody did them a favor."

  Snailfoot's lecture ran in her head, his proper British accent making the words even more terrible. The Russians won't tell the West, even if they discover that a warhead has been stolen. Why? You don't dismantle a tradition of secrecy that easily. And other warheads are missing, or so we hear. The numbers don't add up, and no one has admitted it yet.

  But don't think about that. It's not part of the plan.

  "Searches are routine, the captain says. He says he gets boarded about twice a year. That's why he always carries a few portable goodies to get confiscated. Keeps the sailors happy," Croyd said.

  The choppers came in low, buzzing the deck. Their blue-white lights angled across the deck and made it seem to tilt. Croyd squeezed closer to Zoe and slipped his arm behind her back, hugging her in a painful grip. He was trembling, from speed or terror or just because he was wired that way. She hoped it wasn't speed, not yet. The choppers lifted away, leaving the two of them in the dark again.

  "I guess they didn't like the brand name on the VCRs," Zoe said.

  "I told the Captain to stock CD players next time. Are there any of those cookies left? The ones your mom sent?"

  "Rugelach," Zoe said. "You ate them all, Croyd."

  "That was a nice kiss you gave me back there when the Russian was watching," Croyd said. "Isn't fear supposed to be an aphrodisiac?"

  "So they say," Zoe said. Out in the water, a dark tower rose from the water and sank away again, the Russian sub, still nearby.

  "I don't get much chance at relationships," Croyd said. "I never know what shape I'll be in when I wake up again. I'd hate to waste this body. It's as close to standard as I seem to get these days."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, I woke up as a lizard once. A lot of women don't think lizards are sexy."

  But some women might, Zoe figured from the way he said it. She shivered, her sweatshirt not enough protection from the nights wet air. Croyd pulled her close. He was warm, not at all like a lizard. He was warm and alive, and Zoe found that the lizard part of her brain, the old primitive part of it, was screaming for dominance. Let me live, it moaned. Turn off the horrors and let me live.

  "We could check out the systems," Croyd said.

  Check out the systems? How technical! "Croyd! I'm not a test pilot!" Zoe scrambled out from under the tarp. She hurried across the dark deck, down to the enclosed cabin.

  It was stuffy. It was lonely. She wasn't sleepy; there was too much adrenaline charging through her system for sleep to be even a remote possibility. She paced the three steps of the cabin's length and back again. She couldn't stop thinking. She couldn't think.

  The choppers made another pass, close enough to vibrate the walls, and she ducked. The Russians might have given up and let the Ukrainians know that a warhead was missing, that they had traced it to the Odessa docks. They would never tell the Turks, or anyone in the West, what had happened, but they might sink every ship in the Black Sea before morning, just as a precaution. This might be the last night of her life. She deserved to die. She wanted to die, if dying would erase Anne's cancer, her father's death, the horrors in New York that had driven her to an uncertain refuge in the war zone that was Jerusalem.

  But the Black Dog intended to keep this bomb from ever being used, and the Escorts could get out of Jerusalem in payment for her help. And she lived, every cell, every breath toned by a respite from terror and ready to keep on living, to exult in life.

  She was horny. Croyd? Well, she was stuck with him for a while. Sex had become a remote possibility in her life. There hadn't been anyone since Turtle. Turtle had been so sweet. Turtle had taught her how to relax. She wished he hadn't disappeared back to the West Coast. She wished he weren't so happy with Danny. But she liked Danny. Messing up somebody else's nest wasn't a game Zoe cared to play, thank you. Zoe picked up Turtle's book and paced the cabin again.

  Croyd had cut that man's throat without even blinking. Croyd wasn't a nice person at all.

  Croyd knew she was an ace. If she animated a few things when she got excited, he wasn't likely to freak out. She couldn't hate him for killing the Mideasterner. It had to be done. She'd killed a man herself, once. And she was aroused, she could feel energies in the air around her. Why not Croyd?

  She breathed lightly on Turtle's book. Shell Games sailed through the air and landed on the bed. It lay on its back and clapped its pages like hands.

  Someone tapped at the door. Zoe frowned at the book.
It jumped to the floor beside the bunk and quit quivering.

  She opened the door for Croyd. He was grinning, and he held a sack behind his back as if it were a surprise birthday present.

  "Would you mind some company?" Croyd asked. "I think it's going to be a long night."

  "I don't know. This is hardly my idea of a romantic setting." Zoe waved her hand at the crowded cabin. It was painted in institutional green enamel, richly incised with Cyrillic graffiti. The bunk was rock-hard and covered with a scratchy brown army blanket, its surface peppered with random holes from cigarette burns.

  Croyd stepped toward the bunk and put his sack down. "I'll see what we can do about the ambience," he said. He pulled out a candle, a saucer to stand it in, a bottle of champagne beaded with condensation, and two thick, brown pottery mugs, slightly chipped.

  "Champagne?"

  "I bought it from the captain. I said it was to settle your nerves."

  "You're supposed to be a good Muslim," Zoe said.

  Croyd said something in Turkish.

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Today, I drink. Tomorrow, Allah forgives."

  The thud of the diesels speeded up and the ship began to heave, lumbering through the swells at a faster pace.

  "We're running for the Turkish coast. Full speed ahead," Croyd said. He held a match to the bottom of the candle and set it carefully in its saucer. "There."

  The choppers buzzed by again, as loud as freight trains. They left relative quiet betiind them, the ship silent except for the booming of the diesels.

  "The choppers won't come back," Croyd said.

  "Do you know that for sure?"

  "No." He set the mugs down by the candle. "I'll need some sort of towel to get the cork out of this champagne."

  Zoe turned off the overhead light, pulled her torn sweatshirt over her head, and tossed it to Croyd.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  The message was terse and grumpy. That in and of itself told Gregg that it had come from Churchill.

  Come to 9 Shannon Lane, Lamberg, nine o'clock Friday, rear entrance. A friend's house. You'll be let in. This had better be important.

  Lamberg was a small village five miles outside of Belfast. Gregg and Hannah were driven there by the Fists, in the rear of a panel van. Scarlet Will, driving the van, stopped down the street from the rear gates of the house. "We let you two out here," Brian said to Gregg and Hannah. "We'll drive around a bit, then stop down at the next corner, where we can see the gates. When you come out, head this way."

  Gregg slid down the rear of the van, Hannah following. Brian shut the door after them; the van moved away in a puff of blue exhaust. The house was surrounded by a tall fieldstone wall. The street, well away from the village center, was quiet and dark, though there were spotlights up near the wrought iron gates that broke the wall. "Let's go," Hannah said, and began walking toward the gates. Gregg followed after her.

  A man in the uniform of the local constabulary was standing behind the gate, his semiautomatic weapon held casually ready. "We're expected," Hannah told him. The guard looked at her, at Gregg, and let the gate swing open. When they were inside, he nodded to Hannah. "Hands out; spread your legs slightly, and turn around, please."

  Hannah grimaced, then did as instructed. The guard frisked her carefully, then looked at Gregg. "And you, sir."

  "Does it look like I'm hiding anything?"

  "Sir?"

  Gregg sighed and raised up on his rear feet. The man patted him down efficiently and quickly, then tilted his head to speak into the microphone on his lapel. "They're clean," he said. "I'm sending them up." He pointed through the trees to the house, and spoke to them. "Follow the path to the double doors. He'll be waiting there."

  Gregg saw the familiar silhouette framed against the light as they approached. Churchill was short, round, and wide, and the smoke from his cigar left a fragrant, blue-white trail in the evening. He was dressed as if for a dinner engagement, though the tuxedo's coat had been exchanged for a satin-trimmed smoking jacket. He was balder than Gregg remembered, only a few wisps of white hair remaining on his head. His pudgy face was a landscape of deep wrinkles, the eyes twin dark holes in the white skin. A hand came up as they approached, fingers like short sausages grasping the cigar and pulling the well-gnawed end from his mouth. He looked at Hannah, and at Gregg.

  "Our reports always said you were a womanizer," Churchill's gruff voice said. "I'm surprised you can still maintain that reputation now."

  You arrogant SOB. Once I could have ... Gregg forced the irritation down. Churchill, like so many of the political leaders of the past three decades, had been a puppet of Gregg's. Now he could still sense the sour taste of the ancient man, never one of his favorites. But he had no choice now, and no way to pull those strings. "And our reports, Winston, always said you were too old to last much longer. I'm surprised you're still breathing."

  Churchill barked a short laugh at that and stepped aside from the door. "You're Hartmann, all right," he said. "Come in." For a man twelve decades old, Cnurchill moved well. He shuffled like an old man, taking small, careful steps, but Gregg had seen men half Churchill's age do the same. Churchill led them to a small library, where he settled carefully into a plush leather chair, leaning back and wreathing his head in cigar smoke. He gestured to the other chairs in the room. His breath was loud and slow. "Sit, please. Would you like something? I can have the kitchen staff find something for you ..."

  "No, thank you," Hannah said. Gregg just shook his head. He crawled up into one of the chairs, wriggling until he could see comfortably. Churchill took a deep draw on his cigar, letting the smoke dribble out of pursed lips.

  "Tell me," he said to Gregg. "What was it I said to you back in 1984, when you came to see me during the WHO tour? I recall there was a moment in private where we talked about your aspirations for the presidency ..." Churchill didn't look at Gregg; his hoary eyes appraised the smoke curling around the reading light on the smoking stand alongside his chair.

  "You told me that I was a 'damned, bloody fool,' if I thought that being the head of a country would bring me anything but 'an ulcer, a headache, and an early death.' You also said that kind of power was 'better than Scotch whisky, and more intoxicating.'"

  Churchill chuckled, a deep, liquid sound. "Ahh, your message didn't lie then. You are Gregg Hartmann, after all. Back from the dead."

  "Yes."

  Churchill took a long, slow breath. "A pity. I didn't want to believe any of this." Churchill puffed on the cigar, exhaling a thundercloud of blue.

  "Those are terrible for your health, you know," Hannah told him.

  "At my age, young woman, you indulge in what vices you can," Churchill answered, but he set down his cigar in a bronze holder. "I know the name Hannah Davis, of course," he said to her. "I'll be frank, Miss Davis, when I first heard your tales about the Card Sharks on the news reports a year ago, I thought you were crazed. I thought Gregg crazier for supporting you." Another breath, wheezing like an asthmatic sigh. "Unfortunately, my sources tell me that far too much of what you reported was true. Pan Rudo ..." Churchill shook his head. "I've never been able to trust a Nazi, reformed or not, so I suppose I'm not surprised. Is it true, he's still alive?"

  "Yes," Hannah told him. "In a fine, young, blond Aryan body." Gregg looked at her, then realizedthat she was playing to Churchill's obvious prejudices and his tolerance of attractive young women. The intelligence reports that had passed Gregg's senatorial desk had also told him about Churchill's numerous affairs. The old man sniffed, and cleared his throat.

  "And you say that these Card Sharks have developed a virus to kill those infected by the wild card?"

  "Yes," Gregg said. He and Hannah gave Churchill a detailed account of the past year, ending with the discovery of the virus and Rudo's escape with the vials. Churchill listened intently, occasionally interjecting a question of his own. He began smoking again. Churchill seemed to draw deeper into his chair as their tale went o
n, sagging and growing darkly angry with time. "Your note mentioned that at least one of the people around here is a Card Shark," Churchill said at last. "Give me his name."

  "General Horvath," Gregg said.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  The change was a subtle thing, but palpable, like going from sunlight to shadow, a warm summer breeze to a cool autumn chill. It was as simple as passing a checkpoint on a road and crossing from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland.

  The checkpoint was manned by British soldiers who took their work seriously. Not even Flint's presence granted them a pass. The soldiers examined their papers and inspected the limo before allowing them into Belfast. It was not so much that the landscape itself had changed, but that the touch of man lay heavier on it. There was more barbed wire and armed men than Ray had ever seen in his life. The people they passed seemed pinched and sullen. Belfast was more an armed camp than a peaceful confluence of a third of a million souls. Ray felt as if they'd entered a live war zone. He became fidgety, his mind revved up a notch as if it anticipated action at any moment.

  Even Harvest seemed affected. She peered out the window, a slight frown creasing her forehead as she watched Belfast reel by. Only Flint remained aloof, as distant and unreadable as if sculpted from the rock that gave him his nickname.

  British HQ was bustling. Men in officers' uniforms were marching to and fro with grim looks on their faces. Even the ordinary guardsmen, normally phlegmatic to the point of stoniness, seemed uptight.

  "Is it always like this?" Ray asked.

  "Well," Flint rumbled, "Northern Ireland is a difficult place. Very difficult. The sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants has been going on for decades. Oh, it's not continuous of course. There are periodic bits of calm. You may have heard the recent revelations that Her Majesty's Government has been holding secret talks with both sides - the Irish Republican Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Since the press has seen fit to publicize these tete-a-tetes, Her Majesty's Government has decided to bring the talks out into the open. Churchill has recently arrived to lead the negotiations. I'm afraid that General Horvath will be more concerned about security for Sir Winston than in tracking down a couple of Americans who dropped into the country illegally."