Wild Cards: Aces Abroad

by George R. R. Martin

  Sara found unbidden tears streaking down her cheeks. The quo­tations seemed to burn, etching her soul like acid. Though a part of her struggled, she wanted to shout to Nur al-Allah and beg him for forgiveness. She looked for Gregg and saw him near the minbar. Tendons corded in his neck; he seemed to be reaching out for Nur al-Allah, and there was no repentance in his face. Can’t you see? she wanted to say. Can’t you see how wrong we’ve been?

  And then, though Nur al-Allah’s voice was still deep and resonant, the energy was gone from it. Sara wiped away tears angrily as his bright, sardonic face smiled. “You see? You feel the power of Allah. You came here to know your enemy—then know that he is strong. His strength is God’s, and you could no more defeat that than you could crack the spine of the world itself.” He lifted his hand, fisted it before them. “Allah’s power is here. With it I will sweep all unbelievers from this land. Do you think I need guards to hold you?” Nur al-Allah spat. “Ptah! My voice alone is your prison; should I want you to die, I’ll simply command it of you and you’ll place the barrel in your own mouth. I’ll raze Israel to the very ground; I will take the ones marked by the Scourge of Allah and make them slaves; those with power that refuse to give themselves to Allah I will kill. That is what I offer to you. No parley, no compromise, only the fist of Allah.”

  “And that we cannot allow.” The voice was Tachyon’s, from the back of the mosque. Sara allowed herself to feel a desperate hope.

  “And that we cannot allow.” Gregg heard the words as his fin­gers strained toward Nur al-Allah’s sandals. Puppetman added his strength, but it was as if Nur al-Allah stood atop a mountain and Gregg were reaching vainly up from the foot. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Sayyid glanced down scornfully, not even deigning to kick Gregg’s hand away from his master.

  Nur al-Allah laughed at Tachyon’s words. “You’d challenge me, you who do not believe in Allah? I can feel you, Dr. Tachyon. I can feel your power prying at my mind. You believe that my mind can be broken the way you might break the mind of one of your com­panions. That’s not so. Allah protects me, and Allah will punish those who attack him.”

  Yet even as he spoke, Gregg saw the strain on Nur al-Allah’s face. His radiance seemed to dim, and the barriers holding Gregg loosened. Whatever the prophet’s boast, Tachyon’s mental attack was getting through. Gregg felt a quick hope.

  At that moment, with Nur al-Allah’s attention on Tachyon, Gregg managed to touch the shimmering flesh of the prophet’s foot. The emerald radiance burned hot; he ignored it. Puppetman shouted in triumph.

  And then quickly recoiled. Nur al-Allah was there. He was aware, and Gregg could sense Tachyon’s presence as well. Too dangerous, Puppetman cried. He knows, he knows. From behind, there was a thud and strangled cry, and Gregg looked back over his shoulder at the doctor.

  One of the guards had come up behind Tachyon, clubbing the alien on the head with the butt of his Uzi. Tachyon was on his knees, his hands covering his head, moaning. He struggled to rise, but the guard struck him down brutally. Tachyon lay unconcious on the tiled mosaic of the floor, his breathing labored.

  Nur al-Allah laughed. He looked down at Gregg, whose hand still reached futilely toward the foot of the prophet. “There, you see? I am protected: by Allah, by my people. What about you, Sen­ator Hartmann, you with Kahina’s strings? Do you still want me now? Perhaps I should show you the strings of Allah and make you dance for His pleasure. Kahina said you are a danger, and Sayyid wants you killed. So perhaps you should be the first sacrifice. How would your people react if they saw you confess your crimes and then, begging Allah’s forgiveness, kill yourself? Would that be effective, do you think?”

  Nur al-Allah pointed a finger at Gregg. “Yes,” he said. “I think it would.”

  Puppetman yammered in fear.

  “Yes, I think it would.”

  Misha listened to her brother’s words with unease. Everything he had done was a slap in her face: the flaunting of the stoned jokers, the attack on Tachyon, his haughty threats now. Najib betrayed her with every word.

  Najib had used her and lied to her, he and Sayyid. He’d let her go to Damascus thinking that she was representing them, that if she brought the Americans, there might be a chance of some agreement. But Najib hadn’t cared. He hadn’t listened to her warn­ings that he overreached himself. A slow festering rose inside her, leaching away her faith. Allah. I believe in Your voice within Najib. But now he shows his own second face. Is it Yours, as well?

  The doubt diluted the magic of Najib’s voice, and she dared to speak and interrupt him.

  “You move too fast, Najib,” she hissed. “Don’t destroy us with your pride.”

  His glowing face contorted, his speech halting in mid-sentence. “I am the Prophet,” he snapped. “Not you.”

  “Then at least listen to me, who sees our future. This is a mistake, Najib. This way leads away from Allah.”

  “Be silent!” he roared, and his fist lashed out. A red-hued dizzi­ness blinded her. In that moment, with Najib’s voice dulled by pain, something in her mind gave way, some barrier that had been holding back all the venom. This fury was cold and deadly, poisonous with every insult and abuse Najib had given her over the years, laced with frustration and denial and subjugation. Najib had turned away from her, expecting her obedience. He resumed his tirade, the power of the voice coiling out over the crowd once more.

  It could not touch her, not through what spilled from the bitter pool.

  She saw the knife in his sash and knew what she had to do. The compulsion was too great for her to resist.

  She leapt at Najib, screaming wordlessly.

  Sara saw Nur al-Allah point his glowing finger toward Gregg. Yet in following that gesture, her attention was snagged by Kahina. Sara frowned even under the spell of Nur al-Allah’s words, for Kahina was trembling—she stared at her brother and there was nothing in her eyes but acid. She shouted something to him in Arabic, and he swung around to her, still pulsing with flaring power. They exchanged words; he struck her.

  It was as if that blow had driven her into a divine madness. Kahina leapt at Nur al-Allah like some predatory cat, screaming as she clawed at him with bare hands. Dark rivulets of blood dimmed the moon of his face. She tugged at the long, curved knife in his sash, pulling it from the bejeweled scabbard. In the same motion she slashed across his throat with the keen edge. Nur al-Allah clutched at his neck, blood pouring between his fingers as a stran­gled, wet gasping came from him. He toppled backward.

  For a moment the horror held everyone in suspension, then the room erupted into shouts. Kahina was standing in shock above Nur al-Allah, the knife dangling from white fingers. Sayyid bellowed in disbelief, swinging a huge arm that sent Kahina tumbling to the floor. Sayyid took a clumsy step forward—Sara realized with a start that the giant was a cripple. Two of the guards seized Kahina, dragging her to her feet as she struggled. Other men crouched beside the stricken Nur al-Allah, trying to stanch the flow of blood.

  Sayyid had reached Kahina. He picked up the dagger she’d dropped, staring at the dark stains on it. He wailed, his eyes raised to heaven, and then drew the blade back to stab her.

  But he moaned, the blade still raised. He sagged, his knees buckling as if some great weight were pressing down on him from above, crushing him. Sayyid screamed in agony, dropping the weapon. His massive body collapsed in on itself, the skeleton no longer able to support the flesh. Everyone heard the dry, sickening crack of snapping bones. Sara glanced around and saw Hiram sweating, his right fist squeezing into a white-knuckled fist.

  Sayyid whimpered, a shapeless mass on the tiles. The guards let go of Kahina in confusion.

  Kahina ran. One of the guards brought his Uzi to bear, but he was slammed against the wall by Mordecai Jones. Jack Braun, glowing golden, picked up another of the Nur al-Allah’s guards and tossed him bodily across the room. Peregrine, her feathers molting, was unable to take to the air. Still, she slipped on her taloned gloves and sla
shed at a guard. Billy Ray, with an exultant whoop, spun and kicked the knees of the gunman alongside him.

  Kahina ducked through an archway and was gone.

  Sara found Gregg in the confusion. He was safe; a wave of relief flooded through her. She began to run toward him, and the relief turned frigid.

  There was no more fright on his face, no concern at all.

  He seemed calm. He almost seemed to smile.

  Sara gaped. She felt nothing but a yawning emptiness. “No,” she whispered to herself.

  What he would do to me, he would also do to you.

  “No,” she insisted. “That can’t be.”

  Nur al-Allah had pointed his accusing finger at Gregg, and Gregg had known that his only hope lay in the bitterness within Kahina. Nur al-Allah was beyond his control, he knew now, but Kahina was his. Gregg’s rape of her mind was brutal and ruthless. He’d stripped everything from her but that underlying hate, letting it flood and swell. It had worked beyond his expectations.

  But he’d wanted Kahina dead. He’d wanted her silenced. It must have been Hiram that had stopped Sayyid—too chivalrous to give Kahina to Islamic justice and strangely brutal with his power. Gregg berated himself for not having foreseen that; he could have controlled Hiram, long a puppet, even with the strange hues he’d seen in the man lately. Now the moment was gone, the spell bro­ken with the loss of Nur al-Allah’s voice. Gregg let himself touch Hiram’s mind and saw that faint, odd coloring there again. He had no time to muse on it.

  People were shouting. An Uzi chattered, deafening.

  In the midst of chaos Gregg felt Sara. He swung about to find her staring at him. Emotions were shifting wildly inside her. Her love was tattered, stretched thin under swelling ocher suspicion. “Sara,” he called, and her gaze slid sharply away, looking at the press of people around Nur al-Allah.

  There was fighting all around him. He thought he saw Billy, glee on his face, dive bodily at a guard.

  Let me have Sara or you’ve lost her. Puppetman sounded oddly sad. There’s nothing you can say to undo the damage. She’s all you can salvage from this. Give her to me, or she’s gone too.

  No, she can’t know. It’s not possible that she knows. Gregg protested, but he knew that he was wrong. He could see the damage in her mind. No lie could repair that.

  Grieving, he entered her mind and caressed the torn azure fab­ric of her affection. Gregg watched as—slowly, carefully—Puppet­man buried her distrust under bright and soft ribbons of false love.

  He hugged her quickly. “Come on,” he said gruffly. “We’re leaving.”

  Out in the room Billy Ray stood over an unconscious guard. His strident voice ordered his security people into position. “Move! You—get the doctor. Senator Hartmann—now! Let’s get out of here!” There was still some resistance on the floor, but Nur al-Allah’s peo­ple were in shock. Most knelt around Nur al-Allah’s prone body. The prophet was still alive: Gregg could sense his fright, his pain. Gregg wanted Nur al-Allah dead, too, but there was no opportunity for that.

  Gunfire erupted near Gregg. Braun, glowing intensely now, stepped in front of the hidden gunman; they could hear the whine of the slugs ricocheting from his body. Gregg grunted in shock even as Braun tore the weapon away from the man. A lancing fire slammed into his shoulder, the impact staggering him. “Gregg!” he heard Sara cry.

  On his knees, he groaned. He pulled his hand away from his shoulder and saw his fingers bright with blood. The room spun around him; Puppetman cowered.

  “Joanne, get ’em out! The Senator’s hit!” Billy Ray moved Sara aside and crouched beside Gregg. He carefully stripped the blood-stained jacket from the senator to examine the wound. Gregg could feel relief flood through the man. “You’ll be okay—a good, long graze, that’s all. Let me give you a hand—”

  “I can make it,” he grated through clenched teeth, struggling to his feet. Sara took his good arm, helping him up. He gulped air—there was violence all around him, and Puppetman was too dazed to even feed. He forced himself to think, to ignore the throbbing pain. “Billy, go on. Get the others.” There was little to do. The remainder of Nur al-Allah’s people were tending to their prophet; Peregrine had slipped outside; Jones and Braun were shepherding Lyons and the other dignitaries. Hiram had turned Tachyon nearly weightless and was assisting him outside as the doctor shook his head groggily. No one resisted their retreat.

  Sara let Gregg lean against her as they fled. As they tumbled into seats in the helicopter, she hugged him softly.

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” she whispered. She took his hand as the chopper’s blades tore the night air.

  It was as if Gregg grasped a doll’s wooden hand. It meant noth­ing. Nothing at all.

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF

  XAVIER DESMOND

  FEBRUARY 7/KABUL, AFGHANISTAN:

  I am in a good deal of pain today. Most of the delegates have gone on a day trip to various historic sights, but I elected to stay at the hotel once again.

  Our tour . . . what can I say? Syria has made headlines around the world. Our press contingent has doubled in size, all of them eager to get the inside story of what happened out in the desert. For once, I am not unhappy to have been excluded. Peri has told me what it was like . . . .

  Syria has touched all of us, myself included. Not all of my pain is caused by the cancer. There are times when I grow profoundly weary, looking back over my life and wondering whether I have done any good at all, or if all my life’s work has been for nothing. I have tried to speak out on behalf of my people, to appeal to rea­son and decency and the common humanity that unites us all, and I have always been convinced that quiet strength, perseverance, and nonviolence would get us further in the long run. Syria makes me wonder . . . how do you reason with a man like the Nur al-Allah, compromise with him, talk to him? How do you appeal to his humanity when he does not consider you human at all? If there is a God, I pray that he forgives me, but I find myself wishing they had killed the Nur.

  Hiram has left the tour, albeit temporarily. He promises to rejoin us in India, but by now he is back in New York City, after jetting from Damascus to Rome and then catching a Concorde back to America. He told us that an emergency had arisen at Aces High that demanded his personal attention, but I suspect the truth is that Syria shook him more than he cared to admit. The rumor has swept round the plane that Hiram lost control in the desert, that he hit General Sayyid with far more weight than was necessary to stop him. Billy Ray, of course, doesn’t think Hiram went far enough. “If it’d been me, I would have piled it on till he was just a brown and red stain on the floor,” he told me.

  Worchester himself refused to talk about it and insisted that he was taking this brief leave of us simply because he was “sick unto death of stuffed grape leaves,” but even as he made the joke, I noticed beads of sweat on his broad, bald forehead and a slight tremor in his hand. I hope a short respite restores him; the more we have traveled together, the more I have to come to respect Hiram Worchester.

  If clouds do indeed have a silver lining, however, then perhaps one good did come out of the monstrous incident in Syria: Gregg Hartmann’s stature seems to have been vastly enhanced by his near brush with death. For a decade now his political fortunes have been haunted by the specter of the Great Jokertown Riot in 1976, when he “lost his head” in public. To me his reaction was only human—he had just witnessed a woman being torn to pieces by a mob, after all. But presidential candidates are not allowed to weep or grieve or rage like the rest of us, as Muskie proved in ’72 and Hartmann confirmed in ’76.

  Syria may finally have put that tragic incident to rest. Everyone who was there agrees that Hartmann’s behavior was exemplary—he was firm, cool-headed, courageous, a pillar of strength in the face of the Nur’s barbarous threats. Every paper in America has run the AP photo that was taken as they pulled out: Hiram helping Tachyon into the helicopter in the background, while in the foreground Senator Hartmann waited, his face streaked wit
h dust, yet still grim and strong, his blood soaking through the sleeve of his white shirt.

  Gregg still claims that he is not going to be a presidential candidate in 1988, and indeed all the polls show that Gary Hart has an overwhelming lead for the Democratic nomination, but Syria and the photograph will surely do wonders for his name recognition and his standing. I find myself desperately hoping that he will reconsider. I have nothing against Gary Hart, but Gregg Hartmann is something special, and perhaps for those of us touched by the wild card, he is our last best hope.

  If Hartmann fails, all my hopes fail with him, and then what choice will we have but to turn to the Black Dog?

  I suppose I should write something about Afghanistan, but there is little to record. I don’t have the strength to see what sights Kabul has to offer. The Soviets are much in evidence here, but they are being very correct and courteous. The war is being kept at arm’s length for the duration of our short stopover. Two Afghan jokers have been produced for our approval, both of whom swear (through Soviet interpreters) that a joker’s life is idyllic here. Somehow I am not convinced. If I understand correctly, they are the only two jokers in all of Afghanistan.

  The Stacked Deck flew directly from Baghdad to Kabul. Iran was out of the question. The Ayatollah shares many of the Nur’s views on wild cards, and he rules his nation in name as well as fact, so even the UN could not secure us permission to land. At least the Ayatollah makes no distinctions between aces and jokers—we are all the demon children of the Great Satan, according to him. Obvi­ously he has not forgotten Jimmy Carter’s ill-fated attempt to free the hostages, when a half-dozen government aces were sent in on a secret mission that turned into a horrid botch. The rumor is that Carnifex was one of the aces involved, but Billy Ray emphatically denies it. “If I’d been along, we would have gotten our people out and kicked the old man’s ass for good measure,” he says. His col­league from Justice, Lady Black, just pulls her black cloak more tightly about herself and smiles enigmatically. Mistral’s father, Cyclone, has often been linked to that doomed mission as well, but it’s not something she’ll talk about.