Busted Flush

Dirge in a

Major Key: Part I

S. L. Farrell

“DB, WHEN ARE YOU getting back? It’s been damn near a goddamn month now. S’Live wrote a new song he wants us to get on the album. Yeah, it’s last minute but KA says he can get it done. We’re using this crappy sequenced track right now, but it ain’t making it. We need you to really lay it down. And the engineer thinks we need to retake a couple tracks while we still have the studio reserved, and there are all your dubs we’ve been waiting on for fucking forever . . . .”

Michael was lying on his bed, in the room he and Rusty shared on the aircraft carrier USS Tomlin, currently sailing with its escort cruisers in the middle of the Persian Gulf. Michael thought he could feel the slow roll of the ship in the swells, but that was almost certainly an illusion. They’d been on the ship for almost three weeks now. The initial adrenaline rush at the thought of going into action had long ago vanished, to be replaced by simple boredom.

Here, it was two in the morning and the lights were off except for sleeping lamps. Michael stared up at the shadowed gunmetal gray ceiling with its lacework of piping. He’d snagged a pizza from the mess as a late-night snack an hour ago; it felt like a brick sitting in his stomach. Rusty snored on the bunk below him—both of their beds specially widened and reinforced to accommodate them—as Michael listened to The Voice talking half a world away. In the background, he could hear Bottom and Shivers discussing music: “Y’know, I wonder how would it sound if you played a low G under that Cm chord rather than the tonic . . . ?”

Once, hearing that, he would have wanted nothing more than to be back there in the studio with them. Once, it would have been him driving the band to get the tracks down, to get the final mix in the can, to get a tour together since that’s where the money was in the music business now, to get all the reviews and interviews they could. Now, it all just felt . . . distant.

He felt disconnected from everything. From everyone.

“Soon,” he told The Voice. “I gotta do this thing.”

“For the fucking Committee.”

“Yeah.”

“So where the fuck are you?”

“I can’t tell you. All that secrecy and security shit, y’know.”

The Voice gave a huff of exasperation. “Ain’t it enough they’ve damn near killed you a couple times over? Ain’t it enough that you’ve been doing publicity crap for them and campaigning for Kennedy and getting sent to every damn third world dustup more than you’re gigging with us?” The Voice’s scorn was flint on steel, sparking anger. “DB,” The Voice continued, “KA and the rest of the suits are fucking screaming. They expected us to get this CD wrapped up a month ago. And our fans are screaming, too—all those dates we canceled in the last year because of your ‘work’ with the Committee. That’s great for you, but we gotta make a living, too.”

“I know. I know. Look, I gotta do this, then I’ll be back, man. As soon as this is over. As soon as I possibly can. Things are gonna break now. They are. I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

He heard the sigh and an under-the-breath curse. “Yeah. You promise. I have the great DB’s word and everything. There’s something we can take to the goddamn bank.” He heard the click a moment later.

The brick of undigested pizza slammed hard against his rib cage.

“Ya think soon, huh?” he heard Rusty say sleepily.

“I don’t know. It was what he wanted to hear.” That was only the truth. Michael didn’t know; Rusty didn’t know; Lohengrin or Tinker or Kate or even Babs didn’t know. No one in this damned flotilla circling the Gulf for too many tedious, hot, and numbing weeks knew. Only Jayewardene and Fortune had the answer.

Michael understood the arguments, or thought he did: industries were shutting their doors throughout the industrialized countries; rapid inflation threatened the world economy; in the U.S. and other countries, cars were being abandoned in the streets; hundred of thousands couldn’t get to their jobs and thousands more were being laid off or fired every day; the entire transportation system was under immense stress; there was talk of a burgeoning worldwide depression. UN forces were being staged all around the Caliphate as a threat, because without oil’s economic lubrication, people were going to die. He’d heard the arguments.

He wanted to believe them.

“Who the hell can tell,” Michael said into the dimness of the room. His fingertips pattered on his torso and drumbeats answered. “I mean, Jayewardene’s talks with Baghdad didn’t go anywhere, and Babs is back here on the Tomlin. Everything’s all ‘we’re not bluffing; this is fucking serious’ but nothing’s happening.” Michael shrugged even though he knew Rusty couldn’t see the gesture. “I’ve lost count of the number of fucking card games I’ve played, the bad movies I’ve seen, and those new episodes of American Hero they keep sending us are about as exciting as watching grass grow.”

“Kate’s here.”

Two words, uttered in that flat, quiet voice; they stopped Michael’s tirade. He chuckled into the semidarkness. “You’re not as dumb as people think. You know that, Rusty?”

“Cripes, get some sleep,” came the response.

Can’t stay the same, can’t stand still

Go on, try it, it might work

And if not what have we lost

Only something that was never ours

Around, around, around we go

Where we start, nobody knows

Inward, outward, up we go

Or is it down and out to close?

The words were from “Staying Still,” one of the cuts on Joker Plague’s second release. The guy singing—a shaven-headed ensign named Bob—didn’t have The Voice’s range or power, but he was doing a decent job. None of the four guys with Michael on the makeshift stage—all of them Navy personnel—were a match for S’Live or Bottom or Shivers, but it was good just to be playing, to banish some of the pent-up energy and tension with a barrage of furious, driving rhythms. While he was playing, while he was onstage, the rest of the world went away. That’s the way it always was, always had been. Onstage, there was only the moment and the energy and the applause. The drug of music was terribly addictive, and he’d long been in its thrall.

Three-quarters of the crew were gathered around the stage placed against the flight deck island: standing in the warm Arabian evening, listening and bobbing their heads, some of them dancing up front. Michael could see the aces there, too, standing in a group off to the side: Rusty, his arms folded and his head nodding in half-time to the beat; Lohengrin—in jeans, a blue USS Tomlin T-shirt and ball cap—looking more like a pudgy graduate student than a formidable ace; Barbara Baden, the Translator, back on the Tomlin since the collapse of the talks in Baghdad; Tinker, one of the new “recruits” in the Committee, whom Kate claimed could make useful tools out of anything.

And Kate. Curveball. Michael nodded to her, standing off to the side next to Lohengrin and Tinker. He moved to that side of the stage, his six arms flailing hard at his body, the drumbeats fast and loud and insistent. He opened one of his throat vents wider, letting the low thrump of the bass drum pound directly at her. He knew she’d feel the concussion, slamming against her body. She grinned at him, waving as he swayed to the beat in the improvised spotlights placed on the catwalks overhead.

The song finished to loud applause and whistles from the crowd. “Thanks for listening!” DB called into his throat mikes, waving. He tossed his signature graphite sticks into the crowd. “You’ve been a great audience! Thank you!” He high-fived the other musicians in the pickup group as the captain’s voice came over the intercom, telling everyone to clear the flight deck and return to duty stations. “You guys were great. Great. That was lots of fun . . . .”

The spotlights went out. From the stage, the Tomlin seemed to be a brilliant platform floating in blackness pricked by the running lights of the cruisers flanking her, the wakes streaming out phosphorescent and white from their bows. There were no other lights but the stars in this universe, and the horizon in all directions was the unbroken, dark line of the Gulf.

He hopped off the stage as the crowd began to disperse and sailors swarmed over the improvised stage to disassemble it. Michael walked over to Kate, who applauded as he approached. Babs and Lohengrin were already walking away, talking earnestly to Colonel Saurrat, commander of the UN troops. Rusty loomed behind Kate and Tinker. “Cripes, you guys were loud,” he said. Tinker wore the too-wide, open-mouthed smile of an awed fan getting to meet his idol.

Michael ignored Tinker, smiled at Rusty, and cocked his head toward Kate. “Well?”

“That was fun,” Kate told him. “Just what everyone needed, I think.” Her hand—her right hand, the deadly one—touched one of his arms momentarily, then dropped back to her side.

“You should hear the real thing sometime. If you liked this, you’d be blown away. I’ll get you guys tickets to our next show.” Whenever that might be . . . . The thought came unbidden, and he shook his head to banish it.

“That’d be fantastic!” Tinker said, his Australian accent broader than usual. “Sure. That’d be great. Just great. If you want, DB, I could whip you up something better than those mikes you use around your neck, though. I’d be happy to do it for you, mate. Y’know, I heard you blokes a couple times now; in New York on your first tour right after Egypt, and, let’s see, I think it was . . .”

“Hey, fella,” Rusty interrupted. “What’s say you and me get some chow, huh?” Rusty clapped Tinker on the shoulders, staggering the man, and half dragged him away. Kate chuckled.

“You have a fan,” she said.

“Fans are good. Sometimes. Hey, I’m thirsty and it’s getting chilly out here. Take a walk with me?”

Kate shrugged. “Sure.”

He walked with her toward what the crew called “Vulture’s Row,” the collection of catwalks climbing the island of the flattop. They went down a few levels, below the flight deck to the crew level. One of the crew lounge doors was open, and they went in, Michael snagging a couple bottles of water for them before they sat on a couch in the room. There was a TV set at the far end set to local broadcasts, a half dozen male sailors gathered around watching the screen, the sound tinny and distant. The channel was showing “spontaneous citizen protests” in Baghdad as Arabic lettering scrolled across below; there were bands of protesters filling the streets and firing weapons into the air. UN DEV ILS! proclaimed one of the signs, with a caricature of a scarab-browed face on it. MURDERER! said another, and on that one, a six-armed man beat his chest like a multiple-armed King Kong while smashing a minaret-adorned mosque.

“I talked to John,” Kate said. Michael grimaced around the mouth of his water bottle. “He couldn’t really say much over the phone, but he said that things can’t stay at stalemate for very much longer.”

“Fine by me. I’m tired of cooling my heels here. Let’s either go in for the oil or go home. One or the other.” Michael was watching the cartoon of himself jump up and down as the man holding the sign screamed invectives in Arabic.

“Home would be good.”

“But you don’t think that’s what’s going to happen? Or Fortune doesn’t.”

A shrug.

“Yeah, I get it,” Michael told her. “It’s all kinda weird. Hell, we’ve both seen what the oil crisis is doing, but maybe we can fix that. Maybe. I’ve talked to Kennedy and I know how important he thinks this is, and I’m with him, even if . . .” He lifted one set of shoulders. “Even if I’m not entirely sure that oil is what we should be going after right now. But I don’t mind being here.” Because you’re here, Kate. That means more than the rest. He didn’t say that. He didn’t have to. She knew his thoughts—he could see it in the way her gaze drifted away from him, as if she wanted to say something but had decided against it. “You think this is important, too, right, Kate?”

“I’m here,” she answered. “So yeah. I do.” Her voice was unconvincing.

“Yeah.” Michael leaned back and put his top right arm around the back of the couch. Kate didn’t move away; he found himself inordinately pleased by that. “Though I ain’t looking forward to another fight in the desert, I gotta admit.”

She frowned. “Maybe you should have taken John’s advice and gone to Africa, Michael. Or maybe just stayed back home this time, given where we’re going and what happened last time. They don’t like you here—you especially, out of all of us.” She nodded toward the television.

One of the sailors picked up the remote. The video of the Baghdad protests faded into a series of flickering channels. Michael was tapping on his chest softly, quick arpeggios of percussive notes, his throat openings flexing quickly to shape the sound. Kate’s hand touched one of his arms and he stopped the drumming. He put his middle left hand on top of hers so that she wouldn’t pull away. “So they don’t like me. Big deal. I’m glad that we’re together on this one, Kate.”

He saw her glance away with that, biting at her lip. “Michael—”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry.” He let go of her hand, but she left it where it was. It seemed a small victory.

“Michael,” she began again. “I want to stay friends, but I’m with John and you’re not going to change that. Please—quit pushing. It’s just pissing me off.”

“What pisses me off is that you don’t seem to notice the fucking she-bug in his head,” Michael spat out. Kate pressed her lips together, and her grip loosened on his arm and pulled away. “Sorry,” he told her as her eyes flashed angrily. “That was reflex—and a lot of pent-up crap that doesn’t have anything to do with you, or even with John. I guess . . . I guess that if you like John, then there’s gotta be something good about him. I’m just tired of all this fucking waiting around, Kate, and worried about what’s going to happen next. Sorry. Really. I won’t do it again.”

He could see that she didn’t believe him. She started to get up from the couch. He forced himself to remain seated and not rise with her to try and keep her there, when that was what he wanted to do most of all. “Kate, don’t give up on me. Not now. I’m here. I’m here and you’re here and at the very least we have to work together to get this done.”

Halfway up, she paused and sat again. “Michael,” Kate said, her voice quick, quiet, and earnest. “I need you to cooperate with everyone. Everyone: with John, with Barbara, with Lohengrin, everyone. None of us feels good about this, but I’ve made my arguments. And, well, I’m here. The lousy politics keep getting in the way of the Committee, and the publicity garbage that goes along with all this—yeah, that’s all getting to me, too. More every day. But . . . I trust John, and I believe that he’s trying to do the right things. It’s hard enough for him and the Committee to accomplish anything without us fighting among ourselves. So let’s stop.”

“Okay,” he said. “Sure. You got it.”

She looked away from him toward the television screen, picking up her water and taking a sip. The sailors had settled on a channel: this season’s American Hero was playing, one of the interminable “introductions” with Buffalo Gal’s lumpy and hairy face staring laconically at the screen, a cud bulging her left cheek as she chewed contentedly against the western mountains in the background. The sailors watching the episode cheered as the video cut quickly to Auntie Gravity, whose ace was the ability to render objects temporarily weightless. Especially with the low sound, it was difficult to focus on anything about Auntie Gravity beyond her breasts, which appeared to have been cut-and-pasted from a bad pornographic cartoon: a massive chest far too large for her frame and defying the pull of gravity, straining at the cloth of her custom-made T-shirt. One of Michael’s multiple throats closed, a finger tapped his chest, and a mocking cymbal crash rang out in the lounge. The sailors turned, gave Michael a thumbs-up, laughing.

Kate grimaced. She set down the bottle of water and pushed herself up from the couch. Michael thought she was going to say something, but she just looked at him, her head shaking slightly.

“Sorry,” Michael said. “But, hey, they thought it was funny.”

“Yeah, they did.” She sighed and touched Michael’s top shoulder.

“Hey, I gotta go. See you later, okay?”

“Sure,” Michael told her. “Later. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“Want another?” Rusty handed Michael a can of Old Milwaukee beaded with sweat. Michael took it in his middle left hand and opened it with the top left. Rusty shook his massive head as foam hissed at the opening. “That just looks weird, fella,” he said.

Michael grinned and tilted the can over his open mouth, draining half the beer in one swallow. He could feel it running cool down his wide throat on its way to join the other four he’d already had. He wiped at his mouth with the back of a hand.

The fierce Persian sun had set over an hour ago, and Michael and Rusty were sitting in the area called the Junk Yard, aft of the island, sheltered a bit from the wind by one of the Tilly cranes. They were sitting near Elevator Three, which was down. They could look over the edge to the well-lit and cavernous hangar below the flight deck, where sailors were working on one of the fighters. A female mechanic walked into sight in the floodlights, and Michael’s gaze followed her. “Man, look at the ass on her,” he said. “Even in those overalls, she looks fine.”

Rusty set down his own beer and belched loudly. “Kate,” he said. “Remember?”

“Don’t mean I can’t look.” Michael finished the rest of the can and tossed it toward the paper bag that held the twelve-pack. He wasn’t entirely sure it went in, but he shrugged. “Hey, I learned my lesson after American Hero.” He leaned his head back against the Tilly. His eyes closed, and he started awake. Rusty was still looking at him, so he figured it had only been a moment. “After that, I realized there’s no way . . . Hey, got another one of those?” Rusty reached into the bag and handed him a can, popping another one open for himself. Michael opened his and took a long swallow. “No way,” he said, the “way” coming out loudly enough that the young woman in coveralls glanced up at them, “that I can get involved with any aces or anyone famous ’cuz Kate would hear ’bout it. Some bastard like Hive would go an’ tell her, an’ then she’d just get fucking pissed all over again and go runnin’ off to goddamn Beetle Boy. So I made me a rule: don’t fuck aces, don’t fuck anyone famous, so Kate don’t think I’m just some asshole chasing after pieces of ass. ’Cuz I do love Kate. I do. Man, if I were with her . . .” He was gesturing with all six hands. He heard the can clatter against the deck, and managed to rescue it before all the beer spilled.

“That’s a good rule?” Rusty asked. One steely eyebrow climbed the oxidized metal of his forehead.

“Fuck yeah it is. It takes care of the whole problem.” Michael leaned closer to Rusty, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial bellow. “Now, if something happens after a concert, well, what happens in the dressing room or my hotel room stays there, right?” He nudged Rusty with an elbow and grimaced at the too-solid contact. “Right? As long as she’s not famous or some ace.”

“I hear you saying that, yeah.”

“Y’know, I could see settlin’ down with Kate one day. Though ’cuz of the virus, we couldn’t have kids—I already got myself taken care of, y’know.” He made a snipping motion with two fingers. “I’d love to have kids, too—did’ja know that? I would. Fucking love it. You ’member those joker kids back in Egypt—always around me, trying to play drums on my chest?” Michael laughed and pounded on his torso, sending a wild, unrhythmic cascade of drumbeats echoing from the island. Below, the mechanics glanced up again. “Hell, that was a blast. Kids would be great; maybe we could adopt some . . . .” He paused, blinking. His eyelids felt impossibly heavy. “But hey, what about you, Rusty?” Michael asked. The beer can was on its side again. He looked at the foamy puddle mournfully. “How is it with you and the women? I bet you get your share, right, big guy like you?” Michael touched his chest, and a cymbal crash rang. Rusty said nothing. “Right?” Michael asked again.

“I never—” Rusty began, then grated to a halt like a broken locomotive. He was staring out at the dark Gulf.

“Never what?” Michael asked, then the import of the words hit him and he sucked in salt air in a great gulp. “Shit, you mean . . . ?” He could see the answer on Rusty’s face. “Wow,” he said. “I really don’t know what to say, man. Never?”

Rusty shrugged. “I was seventeen when I turned my card. Before that, I dunno, I was a kinda shy fella, that’s all. And after . . . Now . . .” Another shrug. Even through the haze of alcohol, Michael realized it was the most words he’d ever heard Rusty say about himself at one time.

“Never,” Michael repeated, and belched. “We’re a hell of a pair, ain’t we?” he said. He put all three right arms around Rusty. They sat there a moment, just staring. Then Rusty reached into the bag and pulled out two more beers.

“ ’Nother?” he said.

Michael took his and popped the top. He reached over to clank his can against Rusty’s. “To us,” he said.

They drained the cans as one.

Barbara Baden had called the meeting of the Committee members aboard the ship. Michael knew what it meant; they all knew. He could see it in their faces as they entered the meeting room belowdecks of the Tomlin.

“Hey, Kate,” he said. He took the seat next to her at the table. Rusty sat on his other side. Across the table, Lohengrin nodded to him, and Tinker smiled. Barbara was at the whiteboard near the head of the table. There were notebooks in front of each of them, with the UN logo prominent on the cover. “We’re the last, I guess. Sorry, Babs.”

Baden smiled. “Not a problem, DB. I just finished talking with the secretary-general and John Fortune. So here’s the situation: unless something changes in the next day, we’ll be going in before dawn two days from now; the Tomlin is already heading to a new position just off Kuwait City.”

“Going in where?” Lohengrin grunted. Goinguh in vhere? “To the oil fields?”

Baden shook her head. “We need a better staging area for that—there will be several UN battalions involved, not to mention the ground and engineering support we’ll need when we take control of the actual oil facilities. We plan to take Kuwait International Airport first.”

Michael couldn’t contain his laugh. Six arms waved like a spastic tarantula. “You’re kidding, right? We’re going to take Kuwait International, in one of the Caliphate’s biggest cities, and the Caliph and Prince Siraj are going to just let that happen? Hell, they’ll have every inch of the ground covered with troops.”

“We’re hoping that won’t be the case,” Baden said stiffly through the smile that appeared to be chiseled on her face. “Even though negotiations have broken off, Secretary-General Jayewardene has kept the lines of communication open with Prince Siraj. He has reminded the prince and the Caliph what happened the last time they attempted to interfere with the Committee aces. We hope that they understand that ‘permitting’ a small incursion into the Caliphate would be better for them politically than resisting one and losing.”

Rusty grumbled something unintelligible, Kate said nothing. Tinker was staring at his hands. Michael looked at Lohengrin. “You buying this?” he asked.

“Well . . .” Vell . . . A shrug. “I trust that John won’t give us anything we can’t handle.”

“Must be nice to have that kind of trust in him.” Michael felt Kate’s gaze snap toward him with that.

Barbara continued to smile at him. “I’d also remind you, DB, that you’re here because you specifically requested this mission. John told me to tell you that if you’ve changed your mind, he’ll arrange to fly in another Committee ace to take your place. Should I tell him to make that call?”

Michael had no good answer for that. They were all staring at him. His fingers tapped his chest involuntarily and the sound of sticks on a hi-hat reverberated in the room. “No,” he told Barbara, not daring to look at Kate. “I haven’t.”

“Good, then,” she said. Smiling. “Then we’re in agreement. Now, if you’ll open your notebooks, we’ll look over the initial attack plan . . . .”

I know you hate me,

I know seeing me gives you pain

I don’t care, but

You better not try to stop me again

Michael tugged on the cord to pull the earbuds from his ears. The current studio mix of “Stop Me Again” and The Voice’s acid voice went to shrill, insectlike piping, to be replaced by the thrup-thrup-thrup of the CH-47 Chinooks’ rotors and the shriller whine of fighter jets and attack helicopters farther overhead. Each of the aces had been placed on a separate chopper—Michael declined to consider the obvious logic behind that. He glanced down through the smeared windows and saw the buildings of Kuwait City’s southern outskirts below them. His stomach churned; at any moment, he expected to see the bloom of antiaircraft fire, or fighter jets with the insignia of the Caliphate on their wings diving on them, or the fiery stem of an RPG arcing up toward their Chinook from the houses below to bloom in death and fire. He leaned toward Lieutenant Bedeau, with thick earphones over his blue helmet. “Anything?” he half shouted.

Lieutenant Bedeau—in command of the troops in Michael’s chopper—shook his head and gave a thumbs-up. It did nothing to reassure him.

Taking Kuwait International couldn’t be easy. At any second, it was all going to go to hell. Michael knew it. He could feel it. Any second now, he was going to hear the chatter of machine guns and the sinister thrump of mortars. Helicopters would be pinwheeling down to crash to the tarmac. There were going to be explosions and smoke choking the air, and blood. Too much blood.

They dipped and turned sharply, and Michael’s eyes widened. Below, he could see the concrete lines of the airport, coming up fast toward them. A couple of the flotilla of choppers had already landed alongside the main terminal, and he felt their own craft touch down. No chatter of guns. No explosions. The rear door of the Chinook slammed open, letting in a wash of harsh light and swirling sand. “Go! Go! Go!” Lieutenant Bedeau shouted in French-accented English, waving his arms. The cord of the headphones jiggled heavily. “Move!”

It’s gonna happen now. Now.

The troopers from his Chinook piled out from the rear ramp in a quick, nervous double line, fingers caressing the triggers of FAMAS G2 automatic weapons. There was no answering gunfire. There was no resistance at all: no Caliphate soldiers eager to defend the airport, no tanks clanking toward them, no fighter jets dropping bombs, no RPGs streaking red death. No Islamic aces. Nothing.

Yet, DB reminded himself. He was lugging two M-16 rifles himself, one in each set of his four lowest arms. A custom-made armored vest was pulled tight around his heavily muscled, tattooed body, and he wore one of the blue helmets over his shaved head. He was the last one out, hitting the ground under the wash of chopper blades and blinking at the gritty sand that still managed to get past the plastic goggles.

The landscape was dun dotted with green, pinned under a vicious, relentless sun. Back in the desert. Fucking lovely.

Around the tarmac, the rest of the Chinooks had also landed, UN troops spilling out like blue-capped coffee beans from broken bags, the aces of the Committee team—one to each chopper—following them: Lohengrin and Rusty, who like Michael might also be having flashbacks to Egypt; Barbara Baden; Tinker.

And Kate. Michael waved to her—a hundred yards away. She waved back perfunctorily. The dry air felt cloying, as if somehow, impossibly, a thunderstorm was about to break. He hoped not too many people were going to die when that happened.

“DB!” Lieutenant Bedeau was gesturing at him. “Let’s move!” He pointed toward the terminal.

Michael grunted assent and took a single step. That was as far as he got. Something whined past his ear—like one of Hive’s wasps in some great hurry—then a duller k-chunk came from the fuselage of the Chinook behind him. He half turned his head to see a ragged, circular hole torn in the metal. The sharp report of a rifle came in that same breath. “Sniper!” he yelled.

That was when an invisible semi slammed into his chest and knocked him to the ground. He went down hard, barely able to breathe from the force of the impact. The world went dim around him momentarily and he nearly blacked out. He heard the M-16s he was carrying scratch along the concrete of the runway, dropped from stunned hands; he heard other people shouting and the familiar, bowel-churning rattle of automatic weapons fire. Hands pulled on his multiple arms, dragging him away. He shook his head and pulled away from them. “I can do it,” he growled, but the effort of moving and talking hurt like a son of a bitch. He half crawled, half limped to the other side of the Chinook where the blue helmets were crouched, scanning the rooftops and windows of the terminal. He fell more than crouched. The fingers of his middle right hand probed his chest: there was a hole torn in the Kevlar-and-steel vest, right above his heart.

With the realization, the world spun around him once.

Another bullet ricocheted from the ramp, leaving a bright scratch close to Michael’s head. “There!” one of the soldiers shouted, pointing to a puff of smoke from the terminal. M-16s and FAMAS chattered and stone chips flew from the building’s facade. A Tigre Eurocopter attack helicopter, looking like a monstrous wasp, lifted fifty feet in the air. Weapons fire spat from the front guns of the Tigre, then stopped. A soldier waved from the chopper’s open window, then drew a finger over his throat. The Tigre banked and moved away.

“Drummer Boy!” Lieutenant Bedeau was crouched next to him, his thin Gaelic face concerned. “You are okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. At least I think so.” Michael used his lower hands to push himself up to a sitting position. He grimaced. “Fuck, that hurt.”

“There was only one man, and he wasn’t a very good sniper, luckily for you. A trained sniper would have gone for the head shot.” Bedeau tapped his own forehead and grinned suddenly. He slapped DB’s shoulder. “Now he’s a very dead amateur.”

“Good,” Michael told him.

“The people of the Caliphate, they don’t like you very much because of what you did to the Righteous Djinn.” Bedeau said it with a faint smile. DB was damned if he knew what was so amusing about any of it.

“Yeah,” Michael answered, rubbing his chest through the vest. “So I gather.”