Ace In The Hole

9:00 A.M.

Tach noticed with a flare of almost guilty pleasure that even among the greats of the nation he was still newsworthy.

The discrete hints that he and Jack had dropped yesterday had borne fruit. Reporters milled and jostled, ran microphone tests, camera checks. Jack had done a nice job of stagemanaging the entire affair, selecting a table flush against the low divider separating the atrium coffee shop from the walkway. A tech snapped on a floor light, bleaching the big blond ace. Jack squinted, and shaded his eyes.

"Bad night?" inquired Tach, sliding into a seat opposite Jack. He kept his voice very low to avoid the foam phalluses that were already thrusting in their direction.

"Late night. We had that challenge to Rule 9(c) governing the apportioning of delegates formerly committed-"

"Jack, spare me the tedious details. Did we win or not?"

"Yes, thanks to me, which set us up to win the California challenge." Jack took a sip of coffee, and lit a cigarette. "Do you have any idea how we're going to play this scene?"

"No."

"Great," came the sour reply.

The edges of Tachyon's mouth quirked. "I suppose I could just come around the table, and give you a great big kiss."

"I'd kill you."

Tach shaded his eyes with a hand, and scanned the crowd, noting the presence of Brokaw and Donaldson. Peregrine, who always knew how to time an entrance, came flying down from the tenth floor. The beating of her great wings fluttered menus and ruined blow-dried hairdos. Cameras swiveled up to document her landing.

Tachyon reached out to her with his telepathy. Good morning, sweet one, ready to shill for us?

All ready, Tachy, dearest.

"Mr. Braun, Doctor, aren't you rather unusual breakfast companions?" sang out Peri.

"In what way?" asked Tach blandly.

Sam Donaldson picked up the ball, rapping out his question in his sharp staccato manner. "Your antipathy for one another is well-documented. In a 1972 interview with Time magazine, Doctor, you said that Jack Braun was the greatest betrayer in American history."

Jack stiffened, and ground out his Camel. Tachyon felt a momentary regret at what he was going to be put through. "Mr. Donaldson, you might note that that interview is sixteen years old. People change. They learn to forgive."

"So you've forgiven Mr. Braun for 1950?"

"Yes. "

"And you, Mr. Braun?" sung out Buckley of The New York Times.

"I have nothing to forgive. What I have are regrets. What happened in the 1950s was a travesty. I see it happening again, and I'm here to sound the warning. Dr. Tachyon and I share more than just a past. We were drawn together because of our admiration for Gregg Hartmann."

"Then the senator arranged for your reconciliation?"

"Only by example," said Tach. "He was one of the driving forces behind last year's World Health Organization tour to investigate the treatment of wild cards worldwide. The senator spoke movingly of reconciliation and the healing of old wounds." Tach glanced at Jack. "I think perhaps both of us took that lesson to heart."

"We also have another bond," said Jack. "I'm a wild card. One of the first. Tachyon's spent forty-two years working among the victims of that virus."

It was a pleasant overstatement, but Tach didn't correct him. It would have brought up the fact that for thirteen years, from 1950 until 1963, Tachyon had been a useless alcoholic derelict, roaming the streets and gutters of Europe and Jokertown. And the reason for his disintegration and deportation had been those fateful hearings before HUAC, and Jack's betrayal.

"… and we don't like what's been happening in this country. The hate is back, and we fear it."

Tachyon fought free of the memories.

"Then you accuse the Reverend Barnett of fanning the flames of hatred and intolerance?" asked a serious-faced young man from CBS.

"I believe Leo Barnett is acting from principle-as he sees it. But so was the Nur al-Allah in Syria, and in that sad country I saw innocent jokers stoned to death in the streets. Is that anguish something that we wish to see translated to our country?" Tach shook his head. "I think not. Gregg Hartmann-"

Is a secret ace, and a killer, came a thin, tight voice from the crowd.

People drew back, repelled by the madness in Sara's narrow face. Tachyon came half out of his chair.

"Shit!" muttered Jack.

"What are you going to do, Dr. Tachyon? He's one of yours. One of the devil's stepchildren, and only you can stop him." Tears blurred Sara's words.

"Do something. Mind-control her. Something," whispered Jack.

And make a bad situation worse? he shot back in a bitter telepathic message to the ace.

The crowd of reporters had turned on the woman like a pack scenting blood. She blanched and shrank back.

"Miss Morgenstern! On what… Do you… evidence… does the Post…"

The clamoring voices rose in intensity. To Tachyon's overstretched nerves the sound seemed to take on a physical manifestation, a wave about to break over that fragile form.

Sara whirled and vanished into the crowd of interested onlookers. Tachyon stared at the eager hungry faces of the press, and bowed his head. They had to be fed.

Mothers of my mother, forgive me, he prayed, and threw Sara to the wolves.

"That unfortunate girl does not deal well with stress," he called in a clear, penetrating voice. "Yesterday's revelations concerning her and Senator Hartmann-"

"Then there was an affair?" snapped Donaldson.

"No. The child was in love with the senator, and could not accept his continued refusal. I think she is torn between love for him, and a desire for revenge. Remember, hell hath no fury…" His voice trailed away.

"Yeah," put in Jack. "I tried to interest the young lady in my charms during the tour, but she was obsessed with the senator. Sad," concluded Tachyon. But not as sad as what I've just done to her.

"Who the hell are you?" Sara demanded shrilly. The man who had hold of her arm ignored her. Or maybe the tumult of questions and rage breaking over them like a tsunami drowned out her words.

Something in his manner said he was ignoring her.

The discrete security goons had come out of it first, of course, advancing in their dark three-pieces, muttering into throat mikes as they converged on her. She was standing there erect and alone, challenging in her tea-green skirt and long-sleeved white blouse, chin elevated above a ruff considerably more modest than Tachyon's. She let the noise roll off her. She had spilled the truth out on the carpet like a turd shining and stinking in the hot TV lights, where it could not be overlooked or covered up. Now she would accept the consequences.

A hand caught her wrist. She turned, ready to aim a kick for a gaberdine crotch. Instead of a husky young jock, it was a small, gray, balding man with a round belly hanging in a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. The watchdogs weren't even close.

Now the gray man was towing her out a side door with the modest but irresistible authority of an East River tug. The security toughs got caught up in the back eddies of delegates and reporters shouting questions at each other. Her last view of the function room was Jack Braun staring after her with his face rumpled up into a look of Sonny Tufts's bemusement, Tachyon beside him gazing about with neurasthenic dismay, like an underfed Regency buck whose man's man just farted in the wardrobe.

Her rescuer-or whatever the hell he was-dragged her down a corridor past incurious idlers, into a side service passageway. He used the momentum he'd imported to spin her around, back to a wall. A pack of reporters charged by, down the corridor, baying on the wrong trail.

"Is not the way to go about it," he said. He had the kind of gruff avuncular face only TV character actors have. His accent was… Russian?

Sara lost it. This was simply too strange. She yanked her hand away, panicked more by the fact of contact than any ramification.

He pressed in on her. "No! You must listen. You are in very great danger-"

You're telling me, buster. She squirmed past him and raced away, throwing a high heel in the process, toppling into the wall, scraping along, supporting herself with her hands while she kicked frantically to free herself of the other.

"Little fool!" the man yelled after her. "The truth you have can kill!"

The shoe finally came away, cartwheeling into the far wall. She ran.