Turn of the cards

Chapter Thirty-seven

“Or at least liberate the ‘liberated’ South,” Belew added.

Mark’s hands made random motions in the air before him. He had no real idea what to say to that; his hands were just on autopilot. “You’re crazy, man,” he managed to say at last.

“You’re not the first to make that observation. Crazy I may be, but you have to admit, I’m pretty darned functional.”

“Why would I want to overthrow the government?”

“Because if you don’t, they’ll kill you. You and the jokers who deserted the New Joker Brigade to join you. And all the villagers who’ve befriended you. It’s not a game any more, Doctor. Last week the People’s Army did a whole village of Montagnards with flamethrowers down in Kon Tum, for resisting forced relocation. It’s just like the bad old days.”

Mark looked at his hands a final time and dropped them on his thighs, where they lay like dead birds.

“You’ve done a wonderful job of burning your bridges, son. You can’t go back to the World. You can’t go anywhere that has extradition with the U.S., or anyplace the conspiracy’s agents can easily reach out and touch you. You can’t stay here, because sooner or later the army will find you, or your wacky pals from Fort Venceremos. You can’t go back and you can’t stand still.”

“What can I do?” The words peeled off his suddenly parched lips like flakes of paint.

“Sun Tzu said something else: ’In death ground, fight.’ You’re caught in the kill-zone, Mark. You have to fight, and fight to win.”

Mark shook his head again – and again it wasn’t really denial. It was more that he refused to process that statement just yet. “I still don’t see what you want in all this.”

Belew raised his left hand. “One,” he said, tapping the sprouting forefinger, “I’m what you call a dedicated anticommunist. I’ve spent my life fighting the commies. Now I find myself just about out of business, with a very few exceptions. Vietnam happens to be one of them.

“Two” – he touched the middle finger – “we have the chance to knock one of the conspiracy’s pet projects into a cocked hat. You’ve made a good start already. I want to build on it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The New joker brigade,” Belew said. “A wholly-owned subsidiary of the anti-wild cards gang.”

Mark stood up. “No. Bullshit, man. I met Colonel Sobel. He’s the reason I joined the joker Brigade. He’d never be part of something like that. He’s devoted to wild cards, man. Totally devoted.”

“‘They say he’s a decent man,’” Belew quoted, “‘so maybe his advisers are confused.’”

“Is that Sun Tzu again, man?”

“Raising Arizona, actually. Think about it, Doctor. Why on Earth would the Socialist Republic of Vietnam offer sanctuary to aces and jokers?”

“They’re concerned, man. They’re trying to fight injustice.”

Belew smiled a slow smile. “How do the Vietnamese feel about wild cards?”

Mark bit his lip. “Most of them hate us. They think we’re, like, devils.”

“Some wild cards resemble devils closely, Doctor. Did you know the parade ground in Fort Venceremos is now ringed by posts, and that on each of those posts is a human skull? Did you know that some New Brigade squads have taken to ritually eating their kills on patrol?”

Mark looked away. He wanted to call bullshit on the compact man, but he’d heard stories from the many deserters who had walked in since his flight. That was why they were splitting to an uncertain fate in a distinctly unfriendly land: they were sickened and scared by what the New Joker Brigade was turning into.

Belew left that flank alone for a moment. “Do you think the Vietnamese who happen to be in the government like wild cards one whit better than their cousins in the villes?”

“They’re socialists. It’s their beliefs -”

Belew snorted. “Right. Their beliefs. We all know how well wild cards fare in these revolutionary socialist paradises. It’s been known for years, if not widely discussed, that Stalin was about to set in motion a plan to exterminate all wild cards in the Soviet Union when he died. And glasnost’ has turned up plenty of evidence that jokers were being plowed under wholesale before the old monster packed it in as well as after. To bring it closer to home, does the Socialist Republic admit to having any wild cards of its own?”

“No” It was scarcely audible.

“You’ve seen the spore-distribution maps. They’re right up your professional alley. Statistically, is it likely – is it possible – that nobody in Vietnam’s expressed the virus?”

“No. There must be… hundreds at least.”

“Thousands. Are they dead, Doctor? Or are they in camps? Those aren’t very caring alternatives, Dr. Meadows.”

Mark could only shake his head.

“I knew Sobel, back in the old days,” Belew said, more softly now. “He was a good man. He was also something of a fool. I don’t think either has changed.”

“Then -”

“He’s a tool. The contact men for the conspiracy – the hands behind the screen that pulled the strings to make the Brigade happen – are O. K. Casaday, CIA station chief for Thailand. By a remarkable coincidence, I think he’s one of the men who blew us up in Iran. The other is a Vietnamese colonel in the PPSF named Vo.” Belew smiled. “I believe you’ve made the latter gentleman’s acquaintance.”

Mark nodded. “His… men had me worked over.”

“And who else was in attendance?” Belew asked, in a tone that said he knew.

“All right. Sobel was there too. But don’t you see? It was self-defense for him. For Vo, too, I guess. Here I was, new in-country and claiming to be an ace -”

“Oh. So you practically forced them to beat you up.” Mark shut up. “You have a quick hand with excuses for people who do you dirt. Undoubtedly I’ll take advantage of that trait at some future date.”

Mark sucked in a long breath. “What makes you think there’s going to be a future date, as far as you and me are concerned?”

“What choice do you have?”

Mark fluttered his hands. “Okay, man. What choices have I? Go ahead and tell me, dammit. You got me; I’m fresh out of ideas.”

He felt the easing of confessional. It had twisted him for days. The men of Second Squad – and most of First, who bolted when Second radioed that they were going over the hill – the dozens of desperate men who had found their way to the little deserter band over the weeks. Even the villagers who a month ago had been their enemies. They all seemed to be looking at him for answers.

And he didn’t have any.

“Very well,” Belew said. “You can fight. You can give up. If you fight, you’ll probably die. I won’t try to dance around that. But if you give up -?”

His voice rose into questioning silence. Mark nodded ponderously and supplied the answer: “The way things are in the Republic now, they’d probably just wipe us out to be done with us. Or – or hand us back over to the Brigade.”

“And how would they treat you?”

Mark shuddered. Inside him a voice cried, no! It’s wrong! Eric would never let something so terrible happen.

“So we have to fight?” Mark shook his head. His pale-blue eyes blurred with tears. “But how, man? I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

“You’ve got a warrior within you. Literally, as it happens, and more than one, on the evidence.”

Mark looked at him, wondering again. “No legerdemain to my knowing that; I can watch television news with the best of them. That street-corner transformation to Jumpin’ Jack Flash raised quite a fuss.”

And got Sprout stuck in Hell, Mark thought with a pang of guilt. Not to mention setting his feet on the long, strange path that had – for the moment – culminated in a mountain-village hootch in the Giai Truong Son.

Belew held up his fully grown forefinger. “First, trust yourself. Since you went underground, you’ve pulled off a number of escapades that would do credit to a trained and seasoned operative – and just staying alive is a major accomplishment, my friend, when you have such heavy hounds on your trail. You busted your kid out of Reeves D amp;DC. You led the DEA on a ten-thousand-mile chase. You survived combat missions with a bunch of untrained kids and a handful of superannuated noncoms. You shot your way clear of Chuck Sobel’s personal heart of darkness, and you’ve weathered the best efforts of the NJB and the whole Socialist Republic to put you down for good.

“In between there somewhere you dropped stone out of sight for a solid spell – coincidentally, about the same time one Blaise Andrieux, Dr. Tachyon’s jumped body, and the body Tachyon had been jumped into all vanished as well. Dr. Tachyon’s pet spaceship disappeared around about then, too, and there were some unusual sightings in the skies of the southwestern deserts shortly thereafter. I’d say you’ve had some most unusual adventures, Doctor. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“What’s your next point?” Mark said after a moment. He didn’t look up.

“I won’t say, ‘Trust me’; that would be an insult to your intelligence. But use me, Doctor. I’m in the business, and I’m very good at what I do.”

“Yeah, your side did so well last time.”

Belew laughed. “I did my part. Nixon puppied and pulled us out. I wasn’t consulted. The point is, I know the land, I know the people, I know the tricks.”

“So what’s in it for us wild cards?” Mark challenged.

“You mean, aside from the chance to keep breathing?”

“I mean beyond just us, man, just me and my people. You say this, this conspiracy and the Socialist Republic have set us up for a fall. Fine. So what’s to keep us here? I mean, if survival is all that’s at stake, we can, like, make our way to Thailand or somewhere, blow off to the four corners of the Earth.”

“Aren’t you tired of running?”

“I’m tired of fighting too. Give me a reason, man. Something beyond just saving my ass.”

Belew drew in a deep breath, let it blow out beneath his splendid mustache. “Very well. Why did you agree to join Sobel’s fight in the first place?” Though Moonchild’s memories of Eric turned the word to ash in his mouth, Mark said, “The dream. A – a sanctuary for wild cards. Somewhere we’d just be free to be, man.” He shook his head bitterly. “I guess that doesn’t sound like any major military goal or anything, man.”

“It sounds like an eminently straightforward goal, Doctor,” Belew said, “and well worth fighting for. Why not keep fighting for it? Only – really fight for it, not for a sham. Not for the bullet in the back of your head, which is what’s waiting for you when Vo and the conspiracy are done with you?”

The image bloomed in Mark’s head like one of Eric’s dream-visions: a place where wild cards need not live in fear of the nats. It was one of Eric’s dreams, it was the dream. But – for real, as Belew said.

Belew leaned forward, gray eyes intent. “It’s yours to make happen. You hold it right” – he held forth his good hand, palms upward, fingers open; then he clenched the fingers into a fist – “here.”

Mark was tempted. He couldn’t deny the appeal of Belew’s words. You weren’t able to deny the appeal in Sobel’s words, either, a cynical inner voice said. But this really was different; this was Mark taking command of his own destiny, his own path to the Dream, not following another man’s.

But his experiences of the last couple of years, on Earth and Takis, had not run off his back like water from a duck’s back. He understood that there was Dream, and there was Reality. And the Reality was he and his merry men were in deep, and he didn’t know this man from the pope.

Mark’s lips came off his teeth in a skeptical grimace. “I don’t know, man -”

“I’ve already helped you, Dr. Meadows. Rather significantly, if I do say so myself”

Mark raised a brow at him.

“Consider the ease with which the villagers you encountered accepted you.”

“We were working a new area, place we hadn’t patrolled before. The locals used to snipe us ’cause we were government, but they didn’t have much against us personally. Yet.”

“Does that really explain how ready they were to take in jokers? Physical deformation is a serious matter in Asia. It doesn’t just turn people off, it indicates supernatural evil. But here” – he waved his good hand around the hootch – “they seem to’ve given you the keys to the city. How does that happen, I wonder?”

“I suppose you think you know.”

Belew grinned beneath his splendid mustache. “Of course. The only bets I ever make are sucker bets, my friend. Who was in charge of your band of merry pranksters when you reached that first village?”

“I – no, Moonchild was.” When he’d returned to consciousness – fortuitously, right after the sun set – the first thing he had done was slam a silver-and-black vial. He feared the burns J. J. had sustained from the rain would become infected if they weren’t healed, and that had meant calling Moonchild.

It had been a tough call. She was practically coming off the wall at the thought of what their defection would do to her relationship with Eric – even though they had not parted on the happiest of terms. She had been trying to talk the others into going back to plead their case before Sobel when they hit the ville.

“Didn’t they seem unusually receptive?” Belew asked.

“She’s Oriental too. That probably opened them up to her.”

“But she’s Korean, if I’m not mistaken. People hereabouts don’t have fond memories of the Koreans. The ROK army fought here during the War, and they didn’t make many distinctions between friendly Vietnamese and unfriendly ones. They were a bit more abrupt than we dared to be.”

“Okay, man,” Mark said, “you tell me.”

“Hai Ba Trung.”

“Excuse me?”

“The legend of the Trung sisters. One was married to a Vietnamese lord who was executed by the Han Chinese, back in A.D. 39. The two of them led a revolt against greatly superior occupation forces. The Han finally defeated them two years later, and they drowned themselves in a lake in what’s now Hanoi. Female war leaders are a respected tradition around here, despite the fact that the Viets can be every bit as chauvinistic as the rest of Asia.”

“They were reacting to Moonchild as a war leader?”

“A resistance leader, more to the point.”

“Wasn’t that, like, taking a lot on faith?”

Belew’s grin cut way back into cheeks. “They did have help.”

“Help?”

“I split from Saigon a good six weeks before you parted company with the NJB. You don’t think I spent all that time sitting on my hands?”

“You’re shitting me now, man. You couldn’t have known.”

“Oh?” Belew tipped his head to the side. “Does the name ‘Dark Lady’ ring any bells?”

Mark swallowed.

“All right. You win. You’re so damned slippers I’ll never be able to prove you’re giving me a line.”

Belew’s grin widened improbably. “See? We’re getting to know each other already.”

“What do you want?”

Belew leaned forward across his lotus-crossed legs. “You say you want a revolution? You joined the New Joker Brigade to change the world for the better. Okay, Doctor.” He held his right hand out, palm up. “Here’s your chance. Grab it. You have nothing to lose, and you know it.”

“Grab it how?”

“Take it to the max. Vietnam’s primed to explode. Light the fuse.”

“I can’t decide for the others, man.”

“Then don’t. You lead; they’ll follow.”

“Why don’t you lead this revolution, if you’re so hot for it?”

Belew shook his head. “Not my style. I’m a shadow-boxer. A gray-eminence type. I don’t want a throne.”

“But you’re looking to be the power behind one? I won’t be your puppet, man.”

“I won’t do anything to you that you don’t let me.”

“You’re a sneaky son of a gun.”

“And you’re a charismatic naпf, who is also an incredibly powerful ace.” Belew’s face split again in a grin. ’And admit it: together we make one hell of a team, don’t we?”