Wild Cards 15 - Black Trump

by George R. R. Martin

  "It wasn't the Chancellor they kidnapped," Jay said. Suddenly he saw it as plain as the mustache on Belew's face. "It wasn't Cap'n Trips either. It was Mark Meadows the lab rat they needed. The Sharks must be desperate for guys in white coats who know which end of the Bunsen burner to light. Faneuil and Clara were their big germ warfare gurus and both of them are out of the picture. So who do they have left? Rudo? He's a shrink. Michelle Poynter's a nurse. You need two Nobel Prizes and a note from Dr. Tachyon's mother before you're allowed to mess around with the Black Trump, and they have to brew up a shitload of it."

  J. Bob was staring. "Black Trump?" he said, lifting an eyebrow quizzically. "Do tell."

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  All that long day's drive, they said nothing to her. The van was enclosed and, mercifully, air-conditioned, Zoe could see glimpses of paved roads, trucks, donkeys through the driver's window, but later there were only twisting, rutted tracks where she feared Sayyid's great weight, swaying in his chair, would tip them over. They traveled west, and west, and they kept going and turning after the sun had set.

  She found a numb place in her mind, where she finally stopped listing the dead, Bjorn, the skinhead, the warehouse manager, the man who looked so surprised, sitting there with the mark of Croyd's razor across his throat - Did Croyd forget people while he slept? The Escorts would get him to Anne, to his corner in the one-room flat.

  There is a balm in Gilead, there is a bomb in -

  She had made needles of sand and they had polished away a man's flesh, his life. A dead man lay beside a dog in an alley.

  There is a balm in Gilead.

  They had passed her a water jug, each of them drinking in turn before they gave it to her. She drank, trying not to taste the traces of their three different chemistries around the lip of the jug. The water was stale.

  They stopped, once. The men stretched, and yawned and scratched, and then went to piss into a scrawny acacia before they got back in the van. Sayyid stood up for this, and walked a few steps. He wasn't paralyzed, then. Zoe went to the back of the van and pulled up her skirts to empty her bladder on the sand. No one stopped her, or seemed to notice.

  Now, in the starlight, the van descended a series of hairpin turns, and stopped. Sayyid opened the side door, gripped the handles of his wheelchair, and levered himself down. He walked, slowly, toward a tent, followed by Zahid and the driver.

  Zoe hauled her pack out of the van and followed them.

  The tent loomed high against the stars, its size suggesting that it had been designed to accomodate the giant's height. Zahid stopped at the entrance and turned to Zoe. "Cover your face!" he whispered.

  Zoe pulled her scarf over her nose. The voices inside were speaking English. Curiously accented English, and one voice was a whisper, a melodic whisper.

  The whisperer was the Nur, and his light was green, green as an emerald. His skin glowed like a lamp. Sayyid made a laborious bow to him. A blond boy, pale as an angel, a young and beautiful boy, barely a man, folded his arms across his chest and watched the giant make his obeisance.

  "Were you successful my friend?" the Nur asked. His voice was a resonant whisper, a compelling presence of muted sound.

  "I have found a chemist," Sayyid said. "Unfortunately, she is a woman." The giant eased himself into a waiting wheelchair.

  "A chemist?" the boy asked. "What sort of chemist? What is your training?"

  The Nur looked at Zoe. "You may speak," he said.

  Speak? If he asked, she would sing, she would talk until morning, tell all the stories that Sheherazade had ever told, and make up more. He was a fountain of wisdom, he was irresistible, this tired man with the scar across his throat, this battered pillar of Allah's will.

  This is the enemy, Zoe told herself, an ace whose power is the charisma of his voice, his beautiful whispering voice. What must it have been like before his sister cut his throat?

  "I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry," Zoe said. "From CCNY."

  The boy laughed "Impossible!" he said to the Nur. "This is the team with which I am to work? A paramedic trained in Grenada who did not pass his examinations? This woman, who perhaps is trained to wash bottles, but knows nothing of biochemistry, of virology?"

  "You will have the skills of Dr. Samir Zahid," the Nur said. Of course, Zoe thought, the great and wonderful skills of Samir Zahid. Why is this boy worried?

  "Dr. Samir Zahid, an Afghan trained in Moscow, and we know how strong Russia's science was in her declining years. Yes."

  She sensed the increased tension in Zahid but he said nothing.

  "And your own skills," the Nur murmured. "Do not discredit them."

  So calm, so soothing. This tent was so beautiful, lighted in celadon, emerald, glowing with his power. Zoe wanted the Nur to keep talking, to say anything at all.

  "I am a psychiatrist. For long years I treated only diseases of the mind."

  Pan Rudo? This boy was Pan Rudo, this innocent angel?

  "You have this essence, this 'Black Trump,' and you have the expertise to multiply it. You will do so." The Nur picked up an inhaler, sprayed mist into his throat, and hawked discreetly into a large handkerchief.

  "Go," he croaked.

  "You have no questions for the woman, Najib?" Sayyid asked.

  The Nur made a small motion with his hand. "She may leave with Dr. Rudo."

  No questions. Why should there be? The Nur al-Allah would kill her, kill them all, Rudo, the angry Zahid, the failed paramedic from Grenada, once the Trump was readied for use.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Ray wasn't much of a churchgoing man, but even he had to admit that it was a damned impressive sight.

  Westminster Abbey was packed. You could have probably squeezed in another mourner or two, but only if everyone took a deep breath and held it. It was not a good situation from a security viewpoint.

  Westminster was laid out in the shape of a cross. The main entrance opened into what Flint had called the nave, a wide aisle that went from the base of the cross to where the arms met. The arms were called transepts. During normal services they would be mostly empty, but this was not a normal service. At the heart of the cross, the interaction of transepts and nave, was the sanctuary and high altar. The upper arm of the cross, the apse, was a maze of chapels with numerous tombs of dead kings and queens.

  The nave was packed with mourners, from the entrance where the Unknown Soldier was interred in the floor, all the way back to the transepts. Five rows of portable wooden pews ran across each transept. Behind the pews was standing room only, as crowded as Ebbets Field during a pennant race.

  The apse was as dark as a medieval abbey usually is, and deserted, except for lurking security men. Ray had the feeling that the trouble would come from there.

  He circulated as best he could around the edges of the crowd. Heads of state and other foreign dignitaries sat in the front rows along with the Queen and whatever high-society Brit could wangle an invitation. Ray didn't recognize too many of the politicians, but Vice President Zappa was sitting in the front row near the Queen. Wild carders sat in the pews behind the politicians - among them Nephi Callendar - though Flint was in the command post coordinating security. If anyone noticed the odd figure in the tight, white fighting suit they gave no sign. Ray was starting to wish he'd worn his black suit instead of the white. The abbey was a lot dustier than he'd realized.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Gregg looked up at the ornate vaulted roof of the medieval abbey and an image came to him. "All we need is Quasi."

  "Wrong church, wrong country," a voice with a heavy East London accent answered Gregg. The joker's name was Alfred. Most folks call me Bowler, doncha know, he'd told them. The reason seemed obvious enough: a fleshy growth on the man's head, neatly blackened with matte paint, was a nearly perfect replica of an English gentleman's bowler hat. Dressed in coat, tie, and gloves, he could pass for gentry - until etiquette demanded that the hat be taken off or tipped, anyway. Alfred was the local c
ontact for the Twisted Fists. "Besides, Westminster Abbey's a much nicer place than Notre Dame. I always sympathized with old Quasimoto, though."

  "That's not who - " Gregg started to correct the man, but decided it wasn't worth it. He glanced at Hannah, but he had no shoulders with which to shrug. Instead Gregg lifted himself up on his rear legs to get a better view around them.

  Far below them, the main expanse of the abbey was a sea of mourners. The space where Churchill's casket would eventually sit was a landscape of bright pointillistic dots of flowers at the juncture of the north and south transepts of the building. A fog of incense was thick in Gregg's nose and the organ pipes arrayed around them thundered with Mozart's Requiem, shaking dust down from the ceiling.

  Gregg, Hannah, and Bowler were on a narrow catwalk behind the ranks of pipes, snuggled high above the floor and the galleries. "Getting a few of us in won't be problem," Bowler had promised them. "Keys, one of our people, works on the organ - he knows ways security won't check." Gregg was dubious, but Bowler had been right. Keys - a joker whose only visible sign of jokerhood had been his fingers, which had the too-white luster and stiffness of piano keys - had brought Hannah (blond, again) and Bowler in as his assistants; Gregg had been smuggled in inside a pipe case. Once inside the building, they'd made the long, dirty, and narrow climb to their eyrie; Keys had left later that morning, alone.

  Outside, in the massive crowds filling Victoria Street, Brian, Cara, Two-Face, and some of the London Fists were scattered, watching for Rudo, Johnson, Horvath, or other known Sharks. As the invited mourners filed inside, Hannah and Bowler scanned their faces with binoculars, also searching.

  What they were going to do in case they saw Johnson wasn't entirely clear, even to Gregg. They'd made hazy plans, but no one knew whether Johnson would be there himself or if some unknown local Shark might be used, or how the Trump virus might be released. For that matter, they weren't certain anything would happen, but the sour weight in Gregg's gut told him that he was right, that the Sharks would be unable to pass up this opportunity to infect wild carders from all over the globe.

  It's what you'd do, after all, if you were one of them. It would be so tasty. Ahh, the glorious agony ...

  If Brian and the others found Johnson before he got into the building, that was their best chance. If Johnson was spotted among the mourners within the Abbey, Bowler had lugged in a high-caliber rifle with a scope, but that would be the last resort. They'd tried to contact Popinjay, thinking to pop Johnson out of the crowd to somewhere safe, but no one seemed to know exactly where Ackroyd was. Two Fist sympathizers were down in the congregation itself, one of them - a deuce called Slumber - was hopefully capable of removing Johnson or some other Shark without drawing too much attention to the group.

  They'd done what they could do. Gregg had the fear it wasn't going to be enough. Gregg lifted himself so he could peer over the organ pipes again, wishing they could have found a quieter hiding place. He peered down at the congregation. Toward the western entrance, he could see what looked to be a giant statue dressed in a uniform: Captain Flint, heading the security team. Even with Gregg's lousy vision, Flint stood out. Gregg swept his gaze over the congregation, to the flag-draped coffin, to the transepts leading off the main hall ... "Damn!" he said.

  "What, Gregg?" Hannah asked.

  "Look over by the right of the sanctuary, near the columns. Tell me what you see."

  "What? The guy dressed - " Hannah stopped.

  " - all in white," Gregg finished for her in a swirl of breathy organ crescendo. "Yeah. Billy Ray. Even as nearsighted as I am, I can tell. Trust Carnifex to wear his dress whites, even at a funeral."

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  "It's beginning," Flint's eerie whisper sounded even more ghostly coming from the tiny receiver plugged into Ray's ear.

  Ray was stationed at the mouth of the south transept, among those lesser lights standing in Poet's Corner. Ray had a good vantage point leaning against the base of Shakespeare's statue. It was a pretty nice statue. At least Ray had heard of the guy, which was more than he could say for most of the other poetic geniuses whose monuments were all around him. It was a good place to keep an eye on the entrance to the apse, the darkness from which Ray was sure the trouble would come.

  He looked around and caught Harvest's eye. She was sitting among the dignitaries, in an aisle seat on the third pew in the north transept. She looked great in black. Ray flashed on an image of her panting under him, her strong legs scissored across his back. He grinned at her and gave a thumbs-up. He saw her smile under her black veil.

  "The coffin is coming down the nave," Flint reported, and Ray forgot about Harvest.

  He began to breathe harder, smiling, as he felt his pulse speed.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  "Damn. Is he still after us?" Hannah's knuckles, gripping the pipe supports, had gone white, and Greg could smell the sudden fear in her.

  "If he is, then we're in real trouble here." Gregg dropped down again. He felt exposed and trapped. "Keep an eye on Ray," Gregg said to Hannah. The coffin was making its slow way down the central aisle. "They're going to try it," Gregg said. "I know they are. Ray's handlers must think something's going to happen here, too, or he wouldn't be here. We just have to figure out how ..." Gregg went back to where Hannah stood. The ceremony was underway, the Archbishop of Canterbury in his robes and mitre droning in front of Churchill's casket, his amplified voice reverberating through the airy expanse. Gregg watched, trying to see something they might have missed before, the best way to bring in the Trump. Sending in infected people would work - let them cough slow death into the crowd. That would also kill those who brought the virus in, not that the Sharks would care, and worse, it couldn't guarantee wide-scale infection, any more than having someone in church with the flu meant that you'd catch it, too. No, Rudo and Johnson would want something more comprehensive than that. More certain.

  What? What would I do?

  Gregg scanned the abbey with squinting eyes, across the blurred faces of the assembly, up the gilded, fluted walls, across the domed ceiling. At the high altar, the ceremony continued. A priest emerged from gilded doors of the sanctuary, bearing a large crystal decanter and several golden chalices - wine for the communion.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  The pallbearers deposited the casket draped with the Union Jack in the open area before the high altar, and stepped aside, melting into the shadows. An honor guard from every branch of the British military, they were more than just show. From the five-foot-tail gurkha dressed in khaki to the six-foot-four redcoat with bearskin hat, they were all Flint's trusted agents, but among them, Ray knew, there was probably a Shark or two. The question was, which one did he have to keep an eye on?

  Ray didn't dwell on it, but marked their positions, ready to treat them as friend or foe as their actions demanded. He looked over the crowd, paying little attention to the priests and their ceremony. He was wired, on edge, ready for thunder and lightning to explode in the gloom of the dark cathedral.

  But nothing happened.

  The Mass droned on. The atmosphere was close and hot. The clouds of billowing incense didn't help any. Ray's sensitive nose was soon twitching. It seemed as if the Mass was going to last forever. Ray glanced away from the mouth of the apse. Before the high altar a couple of priests were puttering around with the communion wine.

  That meant that things were winding down. Ray frowned. Maybe he was wrong. He'd felt sure that the Sharks would take advantage of the situation and pull off an outrageous stunt to galvanize their shattered movement. His feeling was rarely wrong. His instincts served him nearly as well as the battle computer that was his mind. He never -

  "Sweet fucking Jesus," he whispered in sudden astonishment. It couldn't be!

  "What is it, Ray?" Flint, ensconced in the choir loft, had picked up Ray's whisper through the transmitter Ray wore.

  To the astonishment of the onlookers, Ray hauled himself up the face of Shakespeare's statue
, put an arm around the playwright's neck, and hung there precariously for a moment.

  "It's him," Ray said through clenched teeth. "The priest screwing around with the communion wine. It's General MacArthur fucking Johnson!"

  "What?" Flint exclaimed.

  Ray moved, his heart surging with genuine terror.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  The priest, Gregg noticed was a black man. Clara said the virus would be soluble in water. Water ...

  Suddenly, Gregg noticed Ray moving. Moving toward the priest. "Hannah!

  "What, Gregg?"

  "That priest. The one with the wine."

  Hannah snatched up the binoculars, rolled the focus wheel. "My God," she said. "It's him. Johnson." Gregg could feel the shock hit her, a wave of nauseous yellow, and following it, the surging orange-red of fear as the realization hit her. "The wine ..."

  "I can take him out," Bowler said. "Here, move ..."

  Bowler started forward, adjusting the scope on his rifle. But Gregg saw the flash of white at the same time. Billy Ray had seen Johnson, too, and he was moving. Gregg wasn't sure how Ray had gotten there, but somehow he'd climbed up on a statue of Shakespeare, and now he leapt like Tarzan. Already there were shouts of protest, and Johnson looked up.

  "Come on," Gregg said. "We have to get down there. All we need is for Ray to knock over the decanter in the middle of a fight ..."

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Ray knew that the Black Trump was in the crystal decanter of wine that Johnson was patiently waiting to add to the large chalice. Ray knew he had to get to it before Johnson knew what was happening and just dumped it. Spilling it wouldn't be nearly as effective as having everyone drink the shit, but it would probably get the job done.