Busted Flush

Mortality’s

Strong Hand

John Jos. Miller

RAY REACHED OUT TO grab the kid, saying, “You’re under arrest,” and Bugsy dissolved like smoke in his hands, green, razor-laced smoke that stung him a hundred times. He grimaced at the pain and the shrill whine of the telephone ringing by his bed stand.

Telephone. Shit. He’d been dreaming again, this time about that asshole Hive. How can you arrest a swarm of wasps? Ray opened his eyes and reached out in the darkness and grabbed the phone. “Yeah.”

“Mr. Ray.” He hated being called mister, but as Attorney General Rodham had explained to him numerous times, his status required it. He’d been director of SCARE—the Special Committee for Ace Resources and Endeavors—for a bewildering half year now. He still wasn’t sure it had been a good idea to take the job, but he hadn’t been able to resist President Kennedy’s request.

“Yeah.”

“Trouble.” Finally free of the cobwebs of nightmare, he recognized Dolan’s voice. Dolan was agent in charge of the night shift. Ray knew it had to be pretty serious to wake him—he squinted at the clock by his bedside—at 3:00 A.M.

“What.”

“There’s been an incident at BICC.”

Ray hated bureaucrateese, something which didn’t endear him to the agency lifers. “Incident?”

He could hear Dolan swallow. “Yes, sir. A riot. Actually, a riot and breakout. We’re still assembling data—”

“Christ. I’ll be right there. Call in everyone. This is going to be a bitch and a half.” Ray hung up the phone and sat up in bed. Why did shit like this always happen at 3:00 A.M.? He’d had just three hours of sleep, but it was the first time in two days he’d managed any at all. He was having trouble sleeping and when he did, he dreamed, and the dreams were worse than the sleeplessness. An arm snaked out from the other side of the bed and went around his flat, corded stomach.

“What is it, sugar—hey!”

He flicked on the overhead light and glanced at the girl. She was lean, blond, and naked with one well-tanned arm thrown up over her eyes, blocking the light. Jenny, from the secretarial pool. He’d been sleeping with blondes lately. Especially lean ones, with long legs and small breasts. The one time he’d taken a busty brunette to his bed had been a disaster. He rubbed his face with his hands. Can’t dwell on this shit, he thought. Don’t have time for it now.

“Sorry, Jen. Emergency. Got to get down to the office.”

She sat up in bed, short blond hair tousled, looking like a sleepy pixie. Ray didn’t notice.

“Oh.”

“Going to take a quick shower. Call you soon.”

“Oh.”

Ray went into the bathroom, jumped under the shower for perhaps twenty seconds, and gingerly patted himself dry. His hide was still peppered with angry red marks. They were slow to heal. Maybe he was allergic to that goddamn slacker Hive. He momentarily pictured his hands wrapped around Hive’s throat, but that was minor solace to his physical and mental pain. He had more worries now. There seemed an endless supply of them in this job. He dressed quickly in the walk-in closet off the bathroom. Jenny was gone by the time he returned. He took a moment to make the bed, then went out into the Washington night. In a way, he was thankful for the phone call. It saved him from that unpleasant morning awkwardness of shuffling off his latest one-night stand. He didn’t need that crap. Lately there was a lot of crap that he didn’t need. And some that wasn’t, he thought, that maybe he did.

The CIA had Langley, the FBI Quantico. SCARE had a suite of rooms in a Justice Department building on a floor that was partly outsourced to Fish and Game. Damned lousy budget, Ray thought.

Lights were already shining in the office windows as he alighted from the taxi. The place was hopping. He signed in at the security desk in the lobby and rode up to the seventh floor, turned right down the corridor (Fish and Game was to the left), and came to a reception area where half a dozen clerks and agents were hustling around pretending they knew what they were doing. Ray suspected they were just trying to get noticed.

At least Juliet Summers, his secretary, was on the ball. She had a pot of coffee ready as Ray strode through reception to Summers’s tiny private domain, and his office beyond. Summers, adopted out of Korea as an infant, had parlayed a job as a production assistant on American Hero into a SCARE position. A holdover from Callendar’s regime, she was efficient, hardworking, and quite reliable. Cute, in a waifish way, only five feet tall and petite all over, with short bobbed hair and dark, intent eyes. She wore expensive business suits and always looked immaculate, even at four in the morning. If she’d been a man Ray would have asked her the name of her tailor. The tattoos flashing over her skin sometimes repelled, sometimes intrigued him. He often wondered what she looked like naked, but that was not an uncommon thought for Ray to have about an attractive woman. He was pretty sure she was hot for him, but he wasn’t about to mess around with that. Good secretaries were harder to find than one-night stands. She followed him into his office and closed the door on the chaos behind. Inside, it was quiet and neat, just like Ray liked.

“Talk to me, Ink,” he said. She handed him a steaming mug of coffee as he perched on the edge of his desk. Its spotless surface was marred only by a basket with a neatly stacked pile of memoranda that Ray was supposed to have read.

“We’re still trying to sort out exactly what happened. The reports from BICC have been confusing. We know there was a riot. Casualties. We know some of the detainees escaped.”

“Shit. Names?”

“Sharky. The Racist. Genetrix—”

“She was a trusty,” Ray said, outraged.

“Now she’s an escapee.” Ink paused. Ray sensed more bad news coming. “Drake Thomas.”

“Son of a bitch.” As SCARE director he’d been privy to the memo on the kid they’d dubbed Little Fat Boy, and he had read it. Drake’s escape was about the worst news imaginable. Chumps like Sharky and the Racist were small change in the wild card world. Sure, they were murderous thugs, but murderous thugs were a penny a dozen. Kids who caused nuclear explosions were rather more unique. In fact, there was already a signed termination order in case the kid ever did slip his leash. Ray didn’t like the thought of taking down kids, but Drake had already accounted for Pyote, Texas. What if he’d let loose in El Paso or, say, a city that someone would actually miss? They had to find him, fast.

Ray rubbed his face, thinking. “Do they know up the chain yet?”

“AG Rodham’s waiting for your report.”

“Son of a bitch,” Ray said again. Knowing his boss, she’d blame him for the fuckup even though he’d been thousands of miles away and it was probably all that asshole Justice’s fault. Rodham was a treacherous bitch, and ambitious as hell. To her, AG was just a springboard to a higher position. She hadn’t been in favor of Ray’s appointment as SCARE director, and Ray knew why. She was jealous of his press, which, of course, was ironic. He’d never in his life sought out the media. It just found him. He couldn’t help it if he was colorful. Rodham, on the other hand, lived for publicity. Lusted for it. Probably why she’d never married. She couldn’t stand to share the spotlight with anyone, and she’d be very happy to get rid of Ray and replace him with another bland asshole like Callendar.

Yeah, he thought, and what’s your excuse? For a second he didn’t know what he was thinking about, and then it hit him. She’d never been far from his mind since she’d left, but thoughts of the Angel intruding on business time were unproductive. Even dangerous. It didn’t help that he had no real answer for that son of a bitch in his head asking these stupid questions. She’s gone, asshole, he told him. Deal with it. I’ve got Rodham to deal with. She’d use this sorry mess as another excuse to chew on his ass. She was already on him to fly to Hollywood to recruit promising contestants from the second season of American Hero. Promising. Yeah. He’d seen their dossiers. Buffalo Gal. Eight feet tall, horny, hairy, and humped. Fucking great. Or maybe Professor Polka and his frigging accordion. One bullet in the bellows and the dancing would stop, wouldn’t it? Christ. Well, he wasn’t inclined to put up with errands like that. Important shit had to be done, and he needed to do it. Trips to Hollywood, endless meetings talking budgets, hiring quotas, mission statements for the twenty-first century, blah, blah, blah. Only one solution to this problem.

Road trip.

Ray looked at Ink, his gaze narrowed. “Whistle me up a Lear. I’m headed for BICC. When Hillary calls tell her I’ll report on conditions as I observe them personally.”

Ink cleared her throat. “Are you sure that’s wise, sir?”

The “sir” irritated him. He didn’t like hearing it, especially since most of the time it was insincere blather covering up the speaker’s real feelings. He wished he had someone he trusted to discuss problems with. Someone who would tell him the truth. Someone to make up for what he realized was sometimes his own hardheadedness and, let’s face it, recklessness. He saw where this train of thought was heading and consciously derailed it. He almost sighed, but stopped. It was all over when you started sighing to yourself.

“Hell, no,” Ray said. “But that’s what I’m doing. Who’s on the EDR?”

That was another thing about this fucking job. He’d been talking in acronyms ever since taking it. Ray watched a Chinese-style dragon fly through a bank of puffy clouds and glide across Ink’s left cheek as she leafed through the memoranda in the in-tray, eventually finding the Emergency Duty Roster. “It’s a light night,” she reported. “Just Crypto and Stuntman.”

Ray nodded. Crypto was a longtime SCARE man. He was good at figuring out codes and shit, but not much in a fight. Stuntman was another hire out of that American Hero crap. In fact, he’d won the damn thing, but apparently his hoped-for movie career had never developed, so he’d gone into government service. Ray had never worked with him, but had read his file. He was supposed to be pretty much indestructible. That was something, at least.

“All right,” he said. “Crypto can stay home and work his crossword puzzles. Tell Stuntman to meet me at the airport.” Ray’s face was looking fairly normal, though his smile was still crooked. It was almost endearing. “What can I bring you back from New Mexico?” he asked. “How about a piñata?”

Ray had known Jamal Norwood, aka Stuntman, for only an hour, and hated him already. He was a young, good-looking African-American with fairly light skin and more Euro than Afro features. Ray approved of his clothing sense, though his suit was a little too flashy and expensive for so young an agent. It was his attitude Ray couldn’t stand.

“I’m Billy Ray,” he’d said, strapping down next to him as the Lear was prepped for takeoff.

“Yeah,” Norwood replied, unimpressed. “Heard all about you. They call me Stuntman, but I’ve given up that shit. No future in it. Doubling for Denzel and Will Smith and low-life ghetto rap stars making the real money while my ass—”

“I thought you were a millionaire. Didn’t you get that much for winning that crappy show?”

“Un-uh, Carny. After taxes and agent’s fees there was barely five hundred thousand left.”

“Carny?” Ray asked.

“What?” Norwood looked at him. “That’s what they call you.”

“My code name is Carnifex.”

Norwood shrugged. “Not what I heard. Everyone calls you Carnivore.”

Ray looked at him blankly, finally understanding a little of what Nephi Callendar had gone through all those years. Norwood fiddled with his iPod, and fell asleep a minute after takeoff. And he snored. Loudly.

Ray stared stonily ahead as the Lear flashed west, wanting to sleep but unable. It seemed like forever, but took only a couple of hours. Norwood woke up after they’d touched down at the private landing strip outside the Biological Isolation and Containment Center, located in the middle of nowhere in the southeast corner of New Mexico, within stone-throwing distance of the Texas border, if you could throw stones pretty far. A jeep was waiting for them with a security tech wearing BICC insignia and the Haliburton company patch. Justice doesn’t even have the guts to show up himself, an unhappy Ray thought, getting unhappier.

Stuntman wasn’t happy, either, as he surveyed the mostly flat, mostly empty desert. He was already perspiring in the morning heat. “Any place to get breakfast around here?”

“Just the BICC cafeteria, sir,” the tech said.

“Swell,” Norwood grumbled. “Nothing like government-contract food.”

Ray was hungry, too, but he wasn’t going to bellyache about it even if Stuntman was right. They climbed into the jeep and the driver sped off down an obviously recent asphalt road that led from the airstrip to the containment center. BICC consisted of a very large, very ugly, very angular concrete building set in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a gaggle of outbuildings that looked like a motor pool, storage facilities, and barracks. These buildings were enclosed by a razor-wire fence with a central guard station manned by more Haliburton cannon fodder. As they were waved through Ray looked down the fence line to where the chain link and razor wire had been smashed outward as if by an invisible avalanche.

Norwood noticed it as well, and looked at Ray with raised eyebrows. “You’re not dealing with fake bank robbers now,” Ray said pointedly.

“Bring ’em on,” Stuntman said. His grin was almost convincing.

The Haliburton stooge accompanied them into the main building. At least it was cool inside, compared to the killing desert heat. They took an elevator down a half-dozen levels, Stuntman staring at the bloodstains that still discolored the elevator’s walls and floor. For once the newcomer kept silent, and Ray didn’t feel the need to prod him.

The guide escorted them down a hallway with industrial-quality carpet that probably cost the taxpayer a C-note a square yard. He knocked once on the door at the end of the corridor, saluted sloppily, and slouched off.

“You know,” Ray said to Stuntman, “he probably makes six or seven times more a year than you do.”

“Yeah,” Norwood said, “but that uniform he has to wear just sucks.”

Good one, Ray thought, and then a voice called, “Enter.”

The corridor leading to the director’s office had been furnished in mid-twentieth century industrial, but inside was a different story. Ray pursed his lips. The decor here was a lot more luxurious than in his own office. He made a mental note to ream out whoever had let the decorator run amuck.

“Ah.” Pendergast, the BICC director, was sitting in an expensive ergonomic chair that matched his teakwood desk. On the other side of the desk Justice occupied an equally comfortable-looking chair flanked by two straight-backed wooden ones. “Mr. Ray. Good of you to come—”

“Yeah, good of me to do my job,” Ray said without inflection. He looked at the young, slim, handsome Hispanic agent sitting in the comfortable chair. The last young, slim, handsome, Hispanic agent he’d had to deal with had turned out to be a fucking traitor and Ray had gutted him with a glass shard. Ray hated to generalize, but he also hated to be reminded of bad experiences. If it hadn’t been for the Angel, he would’ve cashed in a couple of times during that particular dance. She . . .

He gritted his teeth. “Hello, Justice. Hell of a mess you’ve got here.”

“Yes, sir,” the SCARE agent said sulkily. His handsome features were marred by a lumpy purple and yellow bruise on the right side of his jaw. Probably why he was so pissy. “It—”

He stopped, realizing that Ray was frowning at him, and rose quickly to his feet, flushing. He stepped aside clumsily and Ray took his seat. Ray nodded at Stuntman, who took the chair to his left, while Justice sank down into the chair on his right.

“Right,” Ray said. “Agent Norwood”—he nodded at Stuntman—“Dr. Pendergast, BICC director. Agent Echeverria, head of BICC security. Now that we’re all comfy and we all know each other, suppose you tell me what the hell happened here.”

Pendergast and Justice looked at each other, and Justice started to explain the sequence of events as they’d been reconstructed. It took a few minutes to tell the whole story.

“So,” Ray said when he’d finished, “let me get this straight. You’re head of security with a hundred agents under you. Granted, most are contractors, but still—you couldn’t stop a little fat kid and an ace whose power is getting pregnant from engineering a breakout out of a multibillion-dollar facility with a high-tech security system? Is that about right?”

Stuntman broke the silence with a snicker.

Justice reddened again. “Their breakout was well planned—and they had help.”

Ray looked thoughtful. “Oh, that’s right. Genetrix had her three kids. How old were they? Three days? Four?”

Stuntman’s snicker threatened to turn into a guffaw.

“Let me see her cell,” Ray said.

“Why—,” Pendergast began.

“Because I want to,” he said, interrupting.

Pendergast sighed, then stood. “All right. This way.”

“She had more help than her current brood, sir,” Justice said as they walked down the depressingly appointed corridor to an even more depressingly appointed room block that still showed signs of the recent ferocious struggle. “There were twenty-seven escapees, including nine from the high-security wing. We recaptured most before they got half a mile away—”

“Casualties?” Ray asked.

“Four dead. Two security techs. One orderly. One patient.”

“Who’s still on the loose?” Ray looked at Pendergast.

“Well,” the director said, “as you said, Drake and Genetrix. And also Sharky, Deadhead, the Racist, Covert, the Whisperer, and the Atomic Mummy.”

Ray nodded, looking grimmer at each name mentioned.

“Here we are.”

They stopped before one room in a row of rooms. Ray looked inside. Cheery. The only personal touch was the dozens of portraits of kids set on wall shelves. Some looked normal. Some looked like nightmares. Most were somewhere in between. Frowning, Ray stepped inside the tiny room and picked up a framed autographed photo. Actually, it was two photos, side by side in a frame. In one the subject was model slim and beautiful. In the other she’d ballooned to elephant size. Ray got out his cell and hit the speed dial.

“Ink,” he said. “Oh, fine. Just great. Listen, get ahold of that fat chick from American Hero. The one that’s on the Committee. Tell her that her number-one fan has just escaped from a federal detention center and is traveling with an extremely dangerous killer ace. If Bubbles hears from her, we need to know about it, at once. Right. See you.” He turned off his phone, and looked thoughtful. “Whatever happened to Genetrix’s last generation of kids?”

Pendergast hesitated a moment. “Deceased,” he finally said. “Old age—”

“Old age, hell,” Justice broke in. “Two escaped with her. I told you the one we captured wouldn’t stand up to the grilling you put her through—”

“We had to find Drake quickly—,” Pendergast interrupted.

“And did you?” Ray asked.

“No,” Pendergast said quietly.

“Interesting,” Ray said. “Not only are you incompetent fuckwits. You’re also sadistic incompetent fuckwits.” He turned to Justice. “I want your report on these interrogations ASAP.”

“Yes, sir,” Justice said stonily.

Life flared on Pendergast’s face with a furious blush. “No one talks to me like that!”

“I’m not no one,” Ray said conversationally. “I’m Billy Ray. I was spilling my blood in service before you tortured your first rat in Psych 101. I’ve encountered plenty of assholes like you over the years, Doc. Let me clue you in. Chumps like you are tolerated as long as you deliver the goods. When you fuck up, the politicians higher up the food chain will throw you to the wolves to cover their asses and find another white coat to run the rats through their mazes. Count on it. I don’t know what kind of snake pit you’re running here, but this breakout was engineered by desperate people. How’d Genetrix get so desperate, Doc?”

Pendergast’s face had taken on the hue of someone who’d bitten into bad sushi. He was about to reply, but was interrupted when his cell phone tootled. He grabbed it, held it up to his ear. “Yes,” he said, and as he listened his face became even queasier. He hung up.

“What?” Ray asked.

“Four dead state troopers have been found on Interstate 70 outside Alamogordo. They were pretty badly mangled. One seemed partially eaten.”

“Sharky,” Justice said quietly as Norwood grimaced in disgust.

Ray nodded. “Sounds like a clue to me. Where, exactly?”

“I’ve got the map reference,” Pendergast said, noting some figures down on a notepad, which he handed to Ray. Ray accepted the pad with one hand while hitting his cell phone’s speed dial with the other. He knew that they needed to run this down fast and he knew who to contact for help. Lady Black was in charge of the team securing the blast site down in Texas, and she had a bunch of aces with her.

“Ray,” he said.

“Yes, Mr. Ray.”

“Since when have I been ‘Mr. Ray’ to you, Joann?” he asked.

“Since you got to be the Man, Mr. Ray.”

“Let’s have this pissing contest later,” Ray said. “I’m at BICC right now, but we’re headed for Alamogordo. We’re going to need Moon. Can you spare her, and someone to bring her?”

“Are you asking or ordering? Sir?”

Restraining himself, Ray answered, “Asking.”

There was a short silence. “I suppose.”

“Fine,” he said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Sir.”

Ray broke contact, suppressing a sigh. More shit to clean up. He never thought that he’d piss off an old comrade like Lady Black. They’d both been in SCARE a long time, and she’d wanted the directorate herself. Truth was, Ray knew she’d be a better director than him, but he wasn’t in human resources. It wasn’t his job to make everyone happy. Suddenly, he looked at Pendergast and smiled.

“Pack your knapsack and slip into your Birkenstocks, Doc. We’re going to Alamogordo.” He turned to Justice. “Get in touch with local and state law enforcement. Give them descriptions of all escapees, but tell them they’re not to approach if they’re spotted. We don’t need any more half-eaten state troopers. Just relay any info about sightings to us.” Ray looked back at Pendergast as the director made a sputtering kind of noise. “Something wrong, Doc?”

“Why do I have to accompany you?” Pendergast asked indignantly. “I’m not a field agent.”

“No,” Ray said with faux patience, “but you are the foremost authority on the escapees.”

“Yes,” Pendergast admitted reluctantly.

“I’m going to need that expertise, Doc.” He stood quickly and stretched. Action was right down the road. He could smell it. “You got fifteen minutes to get ready.”

Pendergast stared at him.

“You’ve just wasted five seconds.”

Pendergast turned, muttering.

“I sure hope there’s someplace in Alamogordo where we can get breakfast,” Stuntman said.

Alamogordo, a town of thirty-five thousand about fifty miles from the Texas border, was noted for two things. The first, its proximity to White Sands Missile Range, had led to its Museum of Space History. The second, its proximity to Holloman Air Force Base, had led to a string of water bed motels on its main drag, as well as the town’s ubiquitous wild card theme.

“I don’t get it,” Stuntman said through a mouthful of honey-fruit-and-nut pancakes. It was afternoon and they’d stopped at the first roadside diner they’d seen outside Alamogordo, the Interplanetary House of Pancakes. It had a billboard flying saucer on its roof being smothered by a deluge of maple syrup from a large upended bottle. Inside, it was unrelentingly cheerful with a shiny chrome ambience and a decor that a modern, cutting-edge bistro would kill for. And it smelled like pancakes and waffles. Unsurprisingly, the three of them had ordered breakfast. “What’s with all this space stuff in the middle of cowboy country?”

Ray shrugged. “You can’t blame the locals. Much. They’re stuck here in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico, hemmed in by desert on one side and missile range on the other. They can’t all work for the government. They have to make a buck somehow, so they latched on to Tachyon’s landing here back in nineteen forty-five.”

“Nineteen forty-six,” Pendergast said around a mouthful of omelet.

“Right.” Ray stared him into silence. “Forty-six. Even if they have to dress up as Tachyon imitators and perform quickie marriages, there’s worse ways to make a living.”

“I guess,” Stuntman said. “So that explains the tacky gift shops, the T-shirt emporiums, the Famous Alamogordo Joker Dime Museum, Dr. Tacky’s No-Tell Motel and Wedding Chapel, not to mention the tours to two competing Tachyon landing sites—”

“Which,” Pendergast pointed out pedantically, “are both nothing more than obvious tourist traps, since Tachyon landed on the base . . .” He ran down to silence as Ray and Norwood both stared at him. “Excuse me,” he added, after a moment, “I have to go to the boys’ room.”

He got up and slid out of the booth. Stuntman polished off his sausages and held up his coffee mug as the waitress went by with the pot.

“Here you go, hon,” she said, filling up his cup. Ray waved her off. His kidneys were already floating, and he didn’t know how much longer they’d have to wait until Moon showed up with her handler, as Ray had texted them to meet at the diner. The waitress turned, paused, stared. “Oh, hon—you can’t bring your dog in here.”

“She’s not a dog,” the Midnight Angel said. “She’s a government agent.”

Ray looked over the back of the booth and their eyes met and something passed between them. Ray didn’t know what it was, but he guessed that it wasn’t good. For a moment he swore quietly to himself. Lady Black knew that he and the Angel were on the outs. She could have sent someone else to shepherd Moon. But part of him was glad that she hadn’t.

The Midnight Angel was taller than Ray’s near six feet, and roundly, richly curved. She wore a black leather jumpsuit that was tight as the skin on the now-forgotten sausages on Ray’s plate. Her long, dark, thick hair was bound in a braid that fell nearly to her waist and, as usual, a number of escaped strands gave her a tousled look, as if she’d just gotten out of bed.

The waitress looked uncertain. “Couldn’t you at least put it on a leash?”

Moon, who currently looked like a German shepherd, growled at her as the Angel said, “We’re both with the government, ma’am.”

“Well, I guess that’s all right, then,” the waitress said.

Stuntman turned in the booth to look over his shoulder, and dropped his fork. “Holy mother,” he said in a voice that almost didn’t carry to the approaching SCARE agents. “Is that the Midnight Angel I been hearing about?”

Ray nodded.

“And you broke up with her? Are you crazy, Carny?”

Ray nodded twice more. Stuntman wasn’t exactly right—he hadn’t broken up with her—but Ray wasn’t going to open that can of worms again. Not now. He stood, slid out of the booth. “Agent Norwood,” he said, on his best behavior, “agents Angel and Moon.”

Moon wagged her tail as Stuntman murmured hello, essentially ignoring the caniform.

“Care to join us?” Ray smiled winningly. “I know you have a hearty appetite.”

The Angel smiled back. Stuntman snorted coffee. Ray felt his pulse accelerate as if Butcher Dagon had just turned into his fighting form right in front of him.

“Thanks, Billy.” Her voice had a Southern accent that felt like honey on Ray’s ears. She looked around. “Your booth’s too small for all of us. Moon, why don’t you join Billy. I’ll sit here,” she said, indicating the two-seater across the aisle.

“I like the way she moves,” Stuntman said in a low voice as she slipped into the booth.

You don’t know the half of it, Ray thought. He looked at Moon, who jumped up on the bench next to him. The waitress, still dubious, nevertheless took their orders. The Angel got the He-man Breakfast with a side of biscuits and gravy, and she ordered a steak, rare, for Moon.

They sat in silence for a long moment that Ray felt was unusually tense. It surprised him to feel this way. He wasn’t usually sensitive to nuance, but everything, it seemed, had changed since the Angel had come into his life. He groped for something to say.

“So, how’s things at Pyote?”

“Still devastated,” the Angel said.

Ray nodded. He was becoming familiar with the feeling. He glanced at Norwood, who had a wincing, almost sympathetic expression. Stuntman started to say something, saw the look on Ray’s face, and thought better about it. Moon wagged her tail tentatively, while the Angel sipped delicately at the large glass of iced tea that the waitress had already brought.

Fortunately Ray’s cell phone buzzed. He reached for it in obvious relief. “Yeah.”

“Director Ray.”

He knew that voice. “AG Rodham.”

“What are you doing in New Mexico, Director Ray?”

Sitting on my ass in a diner outside Alamogordo watching my eggs and sausage go cold and Stuntman drool over my girl, he thought. He got as far as “sitting on my—” before he thought better of it. “Uh, that is, sitting in conference with my agents while mapping out a strategy to contain the danger posed by the escapees who are in imminent threat of recapture. Ma’am.”

There was a longish silence, then the voice said, “Imminent?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They had better be.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gritted his teeth.

“Since you’re two-thirds of the way there, I’d like you to take that trip to Hollywood we’ve discussed and interview some of the new American Hero contestants.”

Ray gritted his teeth harder. “Yeah. I’ve heard great things about the Kozmic Kowboy and the Jackalope.”

His phone went dead. He felt Angel’s eyes on him, and looked at her.

“Good news?” she asked.

Ray was saved the embarrassment of answering as the food arrived. The waitress put several platters before the Angel, and then slid a barely singed steak in front of Moon. Her tail thumped more certainly.

“Oh, Billy?” the Angel asked.

“Yeah?”

“Can you cut Moon’s steak up for her? She can’t manage a knife and fork with her paws.”

“Sure.” Ray savagely slashed at the steak for the smiling dog. He felt . . . he felt . . . he didn’t know how he felt. Except that he wanted to hit something. Really hard. That reminded him. Where the hell was Pendergast?

“Where the hell,” he asked Stuntman, “is Pendergast?”

The agent shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe his zipper got stuck.” He sighed, looking put upon. “Want me to go check on him?”

Ray glanced over at the Angel, who was unconcernedly tucking into her food. She could eat, he thought, like no one else he knew. She needed the food to fuel the metabolism of her fierce and hungry body. He used to love to watch her eat, especially in bed after a long bout of lovemaking. There was something satisfying in watching her quell her appetites. Something vital and vibrant, like watching a cheetah run.

But now, seeing her, it made him feel, what? Lonely? Christ. “No,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

Muttering, he got to his feet. He thought he saw the Angel glance at him as he went down the aisle between booths, but he wasn’t sure. What am I, he thought, back in middle school? No, because I wasn’t this bad, even then.

He went out the diner’s front door and circled back through the parking lot, which was the only way to reach the restrooms at the rear of the building.

So I didn’t want to get married, he thought, still able to work up anger at the nature of the Angel’s grievance. Was that so bad? Why ruin a good thing? Hell, it was a great thing. He stopped at the door to the “Spaceman’s Room.” There was a thumping sound inside. “Pendergast,” he called out, “you still in there?” Why take a chance at messing it up? Who cares what a priest or judge says? “Pendergast? You all right?”

Muttering to himself, Ray pushed open the restroom door. Even he was stunned by the sight of blood everywhere, splattered on the floor, geysered onto the ceiling, still running down the metal divider that had once separated the stall from the rest of the room and was now torn from its wall brackets and crumpled as if it had been struck by a giant fist.

Pendergast himself was crammed into the urinal, sitting in it as if it were an uncomfortably small throne. At least what was left of him was. He was covered with blood and missing chunks of his neck, chest, abdomen, and his entire right arm. Sharky, standing in a pool of blood that had drained from Pendergast’s body, was gnawing on it. Pendergast’s eyes were glazed and only mildly annoyed. In a flash of horrified insight Ray realized that the BICC director never knew what had hit him.

“Yum, yum,” Sharky crooned as he ripped meat off Pendergast’s flabby arm and wolfed it down. “Nice and fat, yum, nice and fat. Sweet meat.”

They stared at each other for a long, long moment. Sharky’s predator eyes gleamed with sudden glee. “Yum,” he said, “more meat,” and he dropped Pendergast’s arm and leapt at Ray.

Ray slammed the door in the creature’s face, but Sharky came right through it, smashing it and tearing it off its hinges. Ray automatically ducked the flying fragments, but he couldn’t avoid Sharky’s grasp. He’s missing his right hand, Ray had time to think. It looked like it had been removed by a dull knife or determined teeth. And then Sharky engulfed him.

He hit Ray like a sumo wrestler and bore him down. Ray twisted. He almost pulled free from Sharky’s one-handed grasp, then the cannibal fastened on with his immense jaws. Ray screamed with pain. Sharky gnawed where Ray’s neck met his shoulder. He might have had him for good if he hadn’t torn off a chunk of flesh and bolted it down, quickly making a face and saying, “Ugh, stringy!”

Ray screamed again, in anger this time. “You fucking son of a bitch freak!”

He felt muscles rip and blood spatter. He hoped Sharky hadn’t hit the jugular, or he was a dead man. He swung a fist, but only skinned his knuckles on Sharky’s tough, pebbly hide. Without wasting a moment he jammed his knee up between Sharky’s legs, and Sharky’s eyes crossed at the sudden impact and he blew a fetid stream of breath on Ray’s face, splattering him with a mist of his own blood and spatters of his own flesh.

Sharky rolled off, grabbing his crotch and panting too hard to moan. Ray staggered to his feet, clamping his right hand to his neck. It was instantaneously drenched with blood. “Good thing he has gonads,” Ray muttered, moving in on the groaning Sharky.

Ray heard the sound of feet on gravel, approaching fast. Very fast. He turned to see a blur descend upon him, then something bit deep into the back of his right leg at the knee. Tendons severed, and he fell. The blur braked to a stop in a flurry of dust and pebbles. Looking at him and smiling was a lean, tallish man wearing a dirty, sweat-soaked BICC jumpsuit. The torn-off sleeves exposed lithely muscled, crudely tattooed arms. He had cold, hard eyes, and close-cropped hair, and was carrying an open clasp knife with a bloody eight-inch blade.

“Racist,” Ray muttered to himself. He tried to get up, but his leg wouldn’t work.

“Best stay down, boy,” the Racist said, “I cut you good. Hamstrung you like a deer.”

Sharky lurched to his feet. “Gonna eat your head, little man. Gonna snap it off your neck and suck the meat off your skull.”

He opened his maw. It looked big enough to do the job. Ray lurched upright, his weight on his left leg, ready to do something, anything, so he wouldn’t die on his back in the parking lot of the Interplanetary House of Pancakes outside of goddamn Alamogordo, New Mexico.

From between the parked cars Moon flew by, growling. She hurled herself at Sharky, taking him low in the legs, cutting them out from under him. He went down in the dust again, Moon snapping at his hand and head like a wild beast. He windmilled his arms furiously and one caught Moon like a club across her ribs, hurling her to lie panting at Ray’s feet. She was up instantaneously in a guard position before him.

“Well, what we got here?” the Racist drawled as Sharky shook his head and mumblingly dragged himself to his feet again. “A cunt and a nigger. You government boys sure are getting pussified, hiding behind women and mud-men.”

Ray was afraid to turn his neck to look. He could still feel the blood pumping from it, and more running down his leg.

“Oh, Billy,” a familiar voice said. “Get down before you bleed out.”

He was feeling a little woozy. He sat down on the gravel parking lot, barely able to focus on her. At least, he thought, she looks concerned.

“Hey,” he protested, “stop ripping up my suit.”

“Quiet.” The fabric tore like paper towels in the Angel’s strong fingers. She pressed a wad of cloth into the hole in Ray’s neck and shoulder.

“That was Italian,” Ray mumbled.

“Now it’s rags,” she said. “Moon. Hold this in place.”

Moon shimmered and shrunk in size. Now a fox, she pressed her warm little body against Ray’s neck, holding the rough bandage against his wound. It soaked through instantly. The Angel stood up. Ray didn’t like the look on her face. Actually, he realized, he did.

“Norwood,” she said in a hard, steady voice, “you take the Racist. Watch him. He’s fast. I got the cannibal.”

The Racist smiled. “You get the pussy meat, Sharky. I get the dark meat. Let’s take ’em.” He started to run. Away from them.

“What the hell?” Stuntman said.

Ray wanted to warn him, but he was having difficulty speaking. He was dazed. A little confused. A little cold. The only warm thing was the fox curled up against his neck, licking his face and yipping softly at him. He should be on his feet, but he couldn’t seem to rise.

Sharky lumbered toward the Angel. She just stood there. He wanted to warn her, too. He wanted to call her name. To tell her that he loved her. He wanted to beg her to come back to him. But his tongue and mouth couldn’t work.

Sharky reached her, slobbering, “Nice meat, soft, rich, nice meat,” and Ray wanted to say, “Get your frigging sword,” but he could only think it. She stood her ground, and pivoted away from the joker’s embrace, her hands low and clenched together, and she bought them up and around and slammed them in the middle of Sharky’s stomach and lifted him up off his feet and tossed him a good dozen yards away onto the surface of the parking lot.

“That hurt,” Sharky said like an outraged child, and the Angel said, “Save my soul from evil, Lord, and heal this warrior’s heart,” and her flaming sword appeared in her ready hands.

Ray managed to croak, “Look out,” and the Racist descended on Stuntman like a tornado, full speed, total impact. They bounced apart. The Racist skittered backward, but somehow maintained his balance. Norwood slammed into a parked car, crushing in the door panel and setting off the alarm. He bounced back and fell face-first on the gravel, then scrabbled to his knees. The Racist looked at the knife in his hand. The blade had snapped off. There was no blood on the metal stump protruding from the hilt.

“Goddamn. You made out of rubber, boy?” he asked Norwood.

The Midnight Angel stalked toward Sharky, who had gotten up and was shaking his head, smiling, his rows of teeth gleaming in the sunshine. Flaming wings sprouted from the back of her shoulders. That’s new, Ray thought groggily.

“Eat your titties like candy,” Sharky said, and the Angel cut him. His left arm came off. Blood showered like a fountain. Ray, watching, grinned.

“Ow,” Sharky said, and she cut him again. This time, his head came off. Sharky took a lumbering step toward her, and then he fell, blood pumping with each beat of his slowing heart.

“Shit,” the Racist said, as the Angel turned to him.

A car screeched toward them from the back of the lot, the driver shouting, “Get in, get in.”

He braked, showering the Racist with pebbles and dust, and the ace flung the passenger side door open. He started to climb in, turned, and looked at Norwood, who was coming at him with a hard look on his face. “We got business to finish, boy,” he said, and slammed the door just as Norwood reached for him, and the car fishtailed out of the lot.

The Angel moved her hands apart and her sword and wings disappeared. She went to Ray and knelt down by him. “Hang on. We’ll get you to the hospital—”

Ray reached out and grabbed the front of her jumpsuit and pulled her face close to his.

“Tell the doctor,” he said, making a supreme effort, “to stitch the tendons. Staple the goddamn things together if he has to—”

“Billy—”

“Tell him!”

“All right. Yes.”

He lay back a little, grinning woozily. “Anybody get the license plate of that car?”

Moon, still pressing against his neck, made a little yip of affirmation.

“Good job,” Ray said, and closed his eyes.

His cell phone rang.

He opened his eyes. “Somebody get that,” he said, and closed them again.

Ray felt a strong hand clutching him with the relentless strength of a giant, and he knew that no matter how hard he fought, he would never break free. If I’m going down, he thought, I might as well go down with my eyes open. With a supreme effort of will he pried his eyelids apart and blinked, though the light was dim and the air was cool. He realized that the Angel was bending over him in her dusty leathers. He was lying in bed in a small, antiseptic room, with tubes in his left arm and various electronic monitors stuck up on shelves all around him. He realized that he was in a hospital. He should have. He’d been in plenty during the course of his career.

“Hi,” he said, surprised at the croaking sound that was his voice.

“Hi yourself.”

Ray blinked. “What the hell happened?” The words came out in a husky whisper. He felt kind of hollow. Drained.

The Angel shrugged. “After you passed out I got you into the rental and drove to the hospital at Holloman as quickly as I could.”

Ray was glad that he’d been unconscious during that drive. “And Moon and Stuntman?”

“On the trail of the Racist and his accomplice who was driving the hot-wired car. Another one of the escapees named Deadhead.”

Ray nodded, satisfied. “Good. And did you give my message to the doctors?” He lifted his head and looked down his body. His neck hurt like a son of a bitch and his numb left leg felt like dead weight and was swathed in bandages, like a mummy leg. On the plus side, the wasp stings had stopped itching.

The Angel pursed her full, so attractive lips. “Yes, but—”

“But, nothing.” Ray tried to sit up, but the Angel put a hand out on his chest.

“Billy, you have to rest and heal. You almost bled out. The doctors here aren’t too familiar with ace metabolism. They had your medical records e-mailed—well, not all of them.” She shook her head. “They fill seven complete CDs. They say your healing factor is slowing down. Your body can still repair itself, but not like it used to. You were very lucky this time.”

For one moment his temper surged and he felt like shoving her aside and leaping up out of the bed. But he paused. Though they’d never actually tested it, in the best of times her strength was equal to his own. Maybe, as much as he hated to admit it, even greater. And this was not the best of times. He was weak. He felt tired.

Ray stared into space. “You’re not telling me something I haven’t realized. It’s all catching up to me. I don’t know how much I have left.”

“Oh, Billy,” Angel said, “you’ve got plenty—you’re like a force of nature. Unstoppable. Fearless—”

“No. I can feel it in my bones.” Ray took a deep breath. This was hard. “And you were the only fear I couldn’t beat.”

Her eyes went wide. “Me?”

“I was afraid of needing you,” he said. “I’d never known anything like you. You became part of me so fast. But these past few months I’ve faced an even greater fear. A fear of never being with you again. Never sleeping, never waking, never eating, drinking, screwing, laughing, sharing the everyday stuff with you. Jesus Christ, Angel, someone’s got to tell me what to do about Hillary Rodham. Someone’s got to help me get through the crazy shit I call my life. God knows, you don’t deserve to be stuck with the job, but only you can do it. I can’t make myself whole anymore. Only you can.”

“ ‘You’re in my blood like holy wine,’ ” she said, leaning over and kissing him. The touch of her lips on his was like coming home again. He could feel his heart beat, the blood pound through his veins.

“This marriage thing—”

The Angel shook her head. “I know—”

“No,” Ray interrupted. “Listen to me. Is my wallet around here somewhere or did someone steal it?”

“They put your personal effects in the bed stand,” she said, leaning over and opening it. She took the wallet out and handed it to Ray. He looked through it, quickly counting the money and credit cards, then found a folded slip of paper, creased and dust-stained after the parking lot fight. He held it out to her.

“What’s this?” she asked, taking it from him and unfolding it. Her eyes grew wide as she scanned it. “A marriage license!”

“I took it out a couple of months ago. I’ve been carrying it around. I just couldn’t find a way—”

The Angel practically fell on him. Her hand went behind his head and she pulled his face to hers, and Ray nearly shouted with the sudden pain in his neck. They kissed again, this time with the fierceness he remembered so well. After a long moment, they broke apart, and Ray said, “I take it that’s a yes.”

“Yes,” said the Angel.

“Good,” Ray said, smiling freely for the first time in a long time. Son of a bitch, he thought. This might all work out. He scooted over in the bed, careful of the tubes coming out of the bags pumping antibiotics into his arm. “Come on, babe, join me.”

“Billy!” She looked around. It was a private room, but with an open door and a big window on the corridor and nurses’ station beyond. “Not here!”

“Nah, not for that,” he said. “I just want to feel you next to me again.”

Carefully, she climbed up. He put his unencumbered arm around her, feeling foolishly triumphant. He soon fell asleep. Some time later, his cell phone rang. He awoke instantly, feeling refreshed and alert, untroubled by dreams. The Angel, still at his side, reached out and took it off the bedside stand and handed it to him.

“Yeah,” he said.

“It’s Jamal,” a voice said. “We’ve found them.”

Ray looked out of the tacky gift shop across the street from the seedy motel called the Love Lodge, where Moon had tracked the Racist and his companion after they’d abandoned the stolen car in a lot six blocks away. Fortunately, Ray thought, even ace criminals needed to sleep. They thought they’d muddied their trail enough, but they hadn’t counted on Moon’s hypersensitive sense of smell. They hadn’t counted on a lot of things, including Ray’s fanatical sense of outrage. And now they were going to pay.

Stuntman sidled up to him in the darkened shop and whispered in his excitement, though there was no way they could hear him in the motel across the street even if it wasn’t 3:00 A.M. and they weren’t asleep.

“All set,” he said, putting a certain amount of grim satisfaction into his whisper.

“The Marines in place?” Ray asked.

Norwood nodded. Ray had requisitioned a platoon of Marines, as well as half a ton of material, from the base and placed them around the back of the motel. No one was going to slip away from this party.

Ray nodded. “All right then. Let’s go.”

He looked almost normal in his fighting suit, except for the bandage covering most of his neck, and his right leg, abnormally thickened and stiffened by the brace and wrappings that made it possible for him to move slowly and gingerly. The tendons behind his knee, severed little more than twelve hours earlier by the Racist’s blade, hadn’t totally healed yet. But the doctors had listened to his orders and sewn them together. They were holding precariously. Getting old, he reflected, was a pain in the ass. He set his crutch aside. The Angel took his left arm, and they shuffled forward together. Stuntman stepped in front of him.

“I’m going to get a shot at that loser, right?” he asked.

Ray looked at him. “I won’t be up to any fancy dancing for a couple of days. You’d better take a good shot at him. Moon and Angel will back you up.”

“Yes, sir,” Stuntman said happily, almost as if he meant it. He went out through the back of the shop to join Moon in the adjacent alley.

“You sure you want to do this, Billy?” the Angel asked.

“Hell, I’m not dead, yet,” he said. “I want to see the look on that shit-head’s face when we bust him. And I really want to see the look on his face when he tries to run.”

The Angel shook her head. “All right.”

As they went through the darkened shop Ray stopped before they reached the door, grabbing an object that was dangling from the ceiling. “Hey,” Ray said. “Just what I need.”

The Angel looked at him, frowning. “What in the world is it?”

“It’s a piñata shaped like Tachyon’s spaceship,” Ray said, putting it on the counter. “I promised my secretary I’d bring her one. Remind me to pick it up later.”

The Angel started to say something, thought better of it, and shook her head. They went out into the dark street together, carefully, shuffling silently, Ray’s disability only part of the reason for their slow and careful movements. They sidled through the motel’s parking lot and came up to the right door.

Ray turned and waved back toward the alley mouth and two black shapes stepped out into the street. The man-sized one was Stuntman. The beast-shaped one was Moon in her most terrifying form, the dire wolf. Her hunched back was almost as high as Norwood’s head. Her fangs gleamed in the moonlight.

Ray turned to the Angel. “Take down the door for me, would you?”

“Certainly,” she said with a smile, and smote it off its hinges with a single blow. Ray followed it into the room if not as gracefully as usual then with at least the usual fervor. He flicked on the overhead light as he came in shouting, the Angel following him in with her blazing sword clasped in her hands.

“Wakey, wakey, scumbags. Time to go home to the big house.”

The Racist and Deadhead were even more unlovely sleeping than during waking hours. The Racist lay on one of the twin beds in the threadbare motel room in his dirty underwear briefs, his lean body covered by crude prison tattoos, his greasy hair exhibiting an extreme case of bed head. He woke first, a snarl on his lips and the look of a trapped weasel on his face. Deadhead slept on, snoring, drooling, and naked. His skin was fish-belly white, his body managed to look flabby and scrawny at the same time, as skin hung off his bones in sagging rolls. He didn’t wake until the Angel prodded him with her sword tip, and then slowly, with a snort, a yawn, and a slow lifting of sleep-gummed eyelids. He looked at the Angel blankly, rubbed his crusted eyes, then suddenly came to his senses and screamed, “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!”

Ray grinned at the Racist, whose eyes were darting around the room, seeking some manner of escape. “I hope you’ll be as reasonable as your partner,” Ray told him.

“Fuck you, pig,” the Racist said. He rolled out of bed, his legs entangled in the dingy sheet for an instant. Ray could have fallen on him then, but he held himself back. As much as he wanted to pummel the Racist into unconsciousness, he’d promised him to Norwood. He watched the Racist spring to his feet.

Maybe, Ray thought to himself, I am getting old. Or maybe, just a bit more mature.

He watched the Racist turn, hurtle across the room, and fling himself through the window next to the door.

“That had to hurt,” Ray said conversationally as the almost-naked Racist shattered the glass and landed face-first on the sidewalk beyond. He leapt to his feet and immediately fell right down again. Stuntman had already crossed the street and was approaching with a shuffling gate, a growling Moon at his heels, as the Racist struggled to his feet and they again shot out from under him as he tried to run, and he again fell on his ass.

Ray laughed out loud as the Angel and a frightened, yet perplexed Deadhead joined him at the window. It had been hard, Ray reflected, to commandeer nearly every single ball bearing in the base’s machine shop, but the look on the Racist’s face had been worth all the arguing with requisition clerks and filling out all their goddamn forms. Come to think of it, he’d like to see the look on Rodham’s face when she saw the line on the expense account for the half a ton of ball bearings that the Marines had surreptitiously spread around the motel’s parking lot while the Racist and Deadhead were sleeping in their cozy little beds.

Stuntman reached him as he was scrabbling to stand again. “Let me help you up,” he said, grabbing the Racist’s long, greasy hair and lifting.

The Racist howled like a dog and struck Norwood.

“Hit me again,” Stuntman said, and slammed him hard in the face. His blow pushed the Racist back to the ground, and Norwood fell on him, hammering away.

Ray peered out the window, watching, and after a moment said, “I think that’s enough.”

Norwood let the Racist have one more for good measure in his already bloody mouth and stood over him. “What have you got to say about ‘mud-men’ now?” he asked.

The Racist lay there and bled.

Ray looked at the Angel. “I guess we can call in the Marines and let them take possession of the prisoners.”

The Angel nodded, got out her cell.

“Can I put my clothes on?” Deadhead asked.

“Please do,” the Angel said, and made the call.

The escapees were taken into custody with a minimum of pratfalls and no real problems. The Racist was still unconscious when they put the cuffs on him and Deadhead offered no resistance.

“Watch your step,” Norwood said, grinning, as a pair of Marines helped the Racist up into the back of the detention van. Looking like he was auditioning for the role of the drunken wife-beater on Cops, the Racist just scowled.

Ray put Moon and Stuntman in charge of the prisoners, and they went back to Holloman with the prisoners and Marine guards. After the excitement died down, Ray found himself alone with the Angel. He checked his watch. It was a little short of 4:00 A.M.

“Let’s go grab some coffee and a bite to eat.”

“Don’t you want to call Washington?” the Angel asked.

Ray considered, then shook his head. “No. Let’s let sleeping dogs lie. There’s no sense in stirring them up when we don’t have to.”

“What do you want to do?”

Ray pursed his lips. “I’m sure we can find some way to pass the time until the stores open.”

“Stores?”

“So we can go ring shopping. There’s a wedding chapel where we can get married by a Tachyon impersonator—or,” he said, switching gears at the expression on her face, “we can wait until after we run down Little Fat Boy and have a church ceremony anywhere you want. Except Washington.”

“Why not Washington?” the Angel asked.

Ray shook his head. “I’m staying away from there as long as I can. Can you imagine all the frigging paperwork I’m going to have to fill out once Rodham knows I’m back?”