Busted Flush

Double Helix

MAKE NO TREATY WITH THEM AND

SHOW THEM NO MERCY

Melinda M. Snodgrass

A SANDSTORM IS BLOWING across Mecca and the wind keens and howls around the corners of the hotel. The building across the street is a phantom shape looming in the dust and the sky is a strange yellow.

I teleported Siraj away as the first helicopters were descending on the Baghdad airport. He is just standing in the center of the room, head bent. His hands are trembling ever so slightly. Memory seizes me.

Of Siraj standing with just this attitude in our rented house in Cambridge. Without Siraj’s wealth I would have been living in rooms at my college. It was Siraj’s money that had given rise to the situation. “Your money doesn’t give you class. At base you’re just another dirty little camel trader.” The final verbal barrage from one of our housemates who we had all agreed had to go.

I know Siraj is my enemy, but I suddenly want to be nineteen again and comfort my friend. His head lifts and he rolls back his shoulders. A man preparing for the fight again. I tense, wondering what order he will give me. He’s always been civilized about the struggle. Is that about to change? Who will he send me to kill?

“We intercepted some interesting communications between SCARE and Washington.” The tone is almost conversational.

Because of the mild tone I almost miss the import of what I’ve just heard. He intercepted an encrypted message and read it. Siraj isn’t a technophobe like the Nur or a man living in the past like Abdul, the Nur’s son. He has been building a modern intelligence service and I missed it. Because I’m a holdover from that earlier era—an Arabian Nights fantasy, a useful killer and very little else.

Siraj is continuing. “The explosion in Texas for which we were blamed.” I give him a look of questioning interest. “It was an ace. A child. A little boy. You will go to America, and find him. Help him.”

“Where is he being held?” And I’m terrified that Siraj will actually know, and then how in the hell do I get out of that?

“He escaped custody and the Americans are hunting him to kill him. We will befriend him, and your power combined with his . . .” Siraj smiles, a mirthless grimace that never reaches his eyes. “The West will withdraw from the Caliphate.”

I salaam. “I must return home and change into Western dress. I will find him.”

I turn and start for the door only to hear him say—

“One of you will.”

London, we have . . .

“. . . a problem,” Flint whispers.

We are walking around the base of Nelson’s statue in Trafalgar Square. A gusty wind off the Channel is tossing the pigeons back as they try to land on the admiral’s bronze head. It holds the promise of fall, and Mecca seems very far away. I’m still in my Bahir form. The effort of changing just to change again seems monumental.

“Obviously you cannot deliver the boy.”

“So, do I find him before the Americans, kill him, and tell Siraj so sad, too bad?” I consider. “Or maybe I don’t need to be involved at all. Allow Bahir to be spotted a few times in America so the word gets back to Siraj that I’m trying, but let the Americans kill their little problem.”

“Siraj has a point. With your power and the boy . . . well, it would be a potent combination.”

“So, you want me to find him, but for us.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to go home first. Check—”

“No.”