High Stakes: A Wild Cards Novel

  Klaus, with Secretary-General Jayewardene and Barbara flanking him, stared into the early morning fog. Barbara thought he was already imagining himself in Talas, already deciding what needed to be done there—he certainly was no longer fully present here. One of the ground crew came up to them. “We’re ready, sir. You need to be on board before they can start the engines.”

  Klaus nodded. Barbara clutched at his arm, turning him. “Be careful,” she told him. “Let me know if you need anything, and I’ll get it to you. But…” She sighed. “Please be careful.”

  He smiled at her, the lines of his face crinkling with the gesture. “I will,” he told her. “We’ll stay in close touch; you get things moving here, and we’ll take care of Talas.”

  Barbara clutched his arm tighter. Behind Klaus, she saw Jayewardene step politely back a few steps and engage the ground crew leader. “Klaus, I don’t like this. I agree that I should stay here, that this is where I’m needed more, but I don’t like it.”

  His hand stroked her cheek, and she leaned her head over to trap his fingers against her shoulder. “I don’t like it either. But I’ll be back soon.”

  She wished she could be certain of that, but her stomach was roiling in protest. She lifted up on toes and brought her lips to his. The kiss began as gentle and quick, but she found herself pressing more tightly against him, and the kiss became more urgent and desperate. Her eyes were tearing and when she blinked, twin streaks of wet rolled down her face. “Mein Liebling,” he whispered, pulling back from her. “Don’t worry.”

  Barbara brought her heels down to the tarmac. She wiped at the betraying moisture on her face, sniffing. “I’m not. I’m sorry…”

  Klaus shook his head. “Don’t apologize.” He bent his head down and kissed her forehead this time. “This will be over soon. I promise you. You … you are better at what’s required here than I am. Me … I’m better at what will need to be done there. It’s why we are a good pair, nein? A good team.”

  She laughed, once. “Then go do it,” she told him. She took his hand, pressing it with hers, then let it drop. Klaus nodded. Taking a long breath, he glanced at Jayewardene. “Secretary-General,” he said. “We’ll handle this.”

  “I have every confidence in that,” Jayewardene answered. And with that, Klaus strode toward the stairs leading up into the plane. He moved quickly up them, two at a time. At the top, he waved back at them once, then entered the plane. The ground crew pushed away the stairs; someone inside the plane shut the door, and the turbojet engines began their slow whine as they warmed up. A wash of hot air blasted Barbara and Jayewardene as the jet slowly turned and began to taxi toward the runways.

  “He will be safe,” Barbara heard Jayewardene say against the roar of the engines. “We will do what we have to do here to ensure that.”

  “Yes, we will,” Barbara told him. “We will.”

  “Hey, Sheeba,” Michelle said as the Angel slid into the seat next to her. The plane was almost ready to depart. “That was some impressive canoodling you and Ray were up to back at HQ.”

  The Midnight Angel rolled her eyes. Michelle gave her a teasing smile, but would never admit that she was a little jealous—hell, a lot jealous—of their relationship.

  Though Michelle and Billy Ray would always have a thread of tension in their interactions, she did admire how much he loved the Angel—and how willing he was to display it.

  “I’m not sure about this group,” Michelle said, glancing around the plane. Bugsy, Earth Witch, Lohengrin, Tinker, and the Lama she’d done missions with before and she knew what their strengths and weaknesses were. But the new kids—Doktor Omweer, Aero, and Recycler—were unknown elements. She liked Aero. But just as Ana had said, Omweer was a boring jerk. He had barely deigned to say hello to her. Recycler seemed like a decent guy.

  “Where’s Klaus?” Sheeba asked.

  “He’s in the back talking to Babel on the satellite com-link. I’m not sure what else they have to talk about at this point.”

  There was a knowing smile on Sheeba’s face. It took Michelle a moment before she realized what that expression meant. “Oh,” she said. “Klaus whispering sweet nothings while on a mission? Sure doesn’t seem like him.” The Angel shrugged.

  “How’s your little girl?” Sheeba asked politely. Michelle felt a stab in her chest. She still wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing.

  “Not good,” Michelle replied. Then she explained what had happened to Adesina.

  The Angel frowned. “I can’t believe you’d leave her,” she said.

  “Trust me, it wasn’t my first choice,” Michelle replied with a sigh. “But Joey is with her. And Wally agreed to help out, too. I think she’s in good hands.”

  The Angel’s eyes grew round, and she looked at Michelle with disbelief. “You left her with that … that savage.”

  “Hey!” Michelle snapped back. “Hoodoo Mama is not a savage. She just swears a lot.” She could feel a small bubble forming in her hand. “There are only a couple of people I trust with my daughter, and she’s one of them. She’d do anything to protect her.”

  “I’m sorry,” the Angel said, though she still sounded dubious. “I don’t know her, and most of what I know, I know from other people. I was unfair and un-Christian.”

  The bubble floated up to the ceiling and popped. “It’s okay,” Michelle replied, relieved that things hadn’t escalated into a fight about parenting. She liked Sheeba and hated the idea that she might think of Michelle as a bad mother.

  Just then, the pilot came out of the cockpit. “Hello, folks, I’m Captain Brown and I’ll be getting you to Talas today. Our flight time should be roughly three and a half hours. Time to strap in.”

  Once they were aloft, Michelle got up to see how the other team members were doing. Aero, Earth Witch, and Bugsy were clustered around the galley.

  “A little early in the trip to be drinking,” Michelle said. Bugsy opened a beer, then handed it to her. She took a swig. It was hoppy, cold, and just what she needed.

  “I dunno,” Bugsy said with a shrug. “Pretty much all of these missions could be better with booze. And lots of it.”

  “You got that right,” Ana said. She gave Michelle a conspiratorial grin, then drank half her bottle in one long pull.

  “You might want to slow down on that,” Aero interjected. “We’re flying supersonic, and that means the alcohol is going to hit you hard and fast.” Then he gave Michelle a wink.

  “God, I hope so,” Michelle replied, and Ana nodded to show her support. They’d been together on enough assignments that Michelle knew one beer would be it for both of them. Neither of them would risk the mission.

  Recycler and Tinker made their way to the bar. Omweer stayed in his seat and gave them a withering look over his glasses. Then he went back to reading his journal. What a peach, Michelle thought.

  “Give me one of those,” Tinker said. He was dressed in his usual beach-bum attire. Puka shells, raggedy blue jeans, and a button-up denim shirt opened enough to show off his tan and his sun-bleached chest hair. “Not bad,” he said, taking a chug. “Got anything to eat?”

  Ana turned and pulled out the galley’s metal drawer. “Looks like sandwiches.” She took the drawer all the way out and put it across two of the seats. “Help yourselves, folks.”

  Everyone grabbed a sandwich and went back to their seats to eat. Michelle grabbed two sandwiches, one for her and one for Sheeba.

  “Here you go,” she said as she sat down. “I hope you don’t mind roast beef.”

  The Angel smiled. “Not at all. Thanks for thinking of me.”

  “We’ve gotta think of everyone now,” Michelle said. “The only way we get the mission done is by having everyone’s back. And remembering why we’re here. But this isn’t anything new for you.”

  “And this is why you left your little girl?” the Angel asked.

  Michelle toyed with the wrapping on her sandwich. “She’s the only reason I’m going.” The thought
made her feel as if she were being punched in the heart, and she got up to go grab a tissue. On her way back from the bathroom, she saw Recycler sitting by himself.

  “Hey there, Tiago,” she said with a smile. “How’re you doing?”

  He gave her a wan smile. She liked his face despite the mash-up of colors. A far as jokers went, she’d seen far worse.

  “I read in your dossier that you were recruited off Heróis Brazil,” she said. “Have you ever been in real combat before?”

  A bitter smile appeared on his face. “I lived in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. My card turned and I figured out what my ace power was when I got caught in the middle of a shoot-out between the curinga and Colombian gangs. I turned myself into a fortress of trash, and stopped them from killing a whole crowd of people,” he said proudly. “I only went on the show because I was going to go to jail for kicking their asses.”

  “Good,” she said. “Then I can rely on you not to lose your head in a fight.”

  He took a bite of his sandwich. There were two more on the tray in front of him. She saw the edge of one peeking out from his backpack. He was skinny as a rail. Either his metabolism was amazing, or he wasn’t used to having food available.

  “I just want people to know that curingas aren’t freaks,” he said, leaning forward. There was a blaze of pride in his mismatched eyes. “That we can be heróis, too. That we can have ace powers. You don’t know what it’s like to be a curinga.”

  Michelle sank back into the seat across from his. “No,” she replied softly. “But my daughter is a joker and I don’t think she’s a freak.”

  He looked a little chagrined. “My apologies,” he said. “I forgot about your daughter. A pretty ace like you—you must have everything—why would you adopt a joker?”

  “Because she needed me,” Michelle said. Those damn tears began welling up again. “And I needed her.”

  “I can take orders,” he said abruptly. “I can be part of the team.”

  She ducked her head for a moment to get the tears under control. Then she looked up at him. “I think you’re going to be fine,” she said. “I think we’re lucky to have you.”

  She got up and walked back to her seat. Sheeba was reading the brief they’d all gotten about Talas. It was a thin folder.

  The Angel looked up at her with luminous eyes. Sheeba was beautiful, but Michelle had never been sexually tempted by her. It wasn’t just because Sheeba wasn’t interested in women, but Joey tended to be on her mind when those feelings arose.

  “Not much to go on,” Michelle said, pointing at the folder. “This is just about the least information we’ve had going into an assignment.”

  The Angel nodded. “I don’t like it at all—too many ways for everything to go wrong. And half of the members of this team have never worked together before.”

  “True enough,” Michelle replied. She glanced over at Doktor Omweer and sighed. There was no way around it. She had to talk to him. “I’ll be right back.”

  Marcel looked up as she approached his seat. He was sitting alone and seemed perfectly happy with that. A frown slid across his face as she sat down opposite him.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Michelle said. The only reason she was sorry was because she didn’t want to talk to him. Sometimes she did feel embarrassed that she didn’t have any substantive education—despite child labor laws that were supposed to ensure that. Omweer just intensified that feeling. “Look, Dr. Orie, I know you think I’m an idiot and you have contempt for what I do for a living, but I’ve seen far more combat than you have and as far as this mission is concerned, you’re low man on the totem pole.”

  She knew this was a certain amount of dick waving, but she needed him to respect her enough that he would follow her orders should anything happen to Klaus.

  He gave her a patronizing smile. “My dear girl, of course I understand the hierarchy. Most sincerely, I would rather be anywhere than on this mission. I have real work to do, and it is only my sense of duty to my country that keeps me here.”

  He stopped talking. Michelle assumed their conversation was finished. Thank God.

  “You can’t help your wretched upbringing,” he continued. “We can’t all succeed in academia.”

  Michelle felt herself blushing. Then her embarrassment was replaced with anger. She gave him an icy smile. “Marcel, I don’t give a shit what you think of my ‘wretched upbringing.’ We can’t all be smug, overeducated assholes. Do your lightning thing, don’t get dead, and don’t get anyone else dead. It’s pretty straightforward.”

  He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but she narrowed her eyes and gave him her best killing look. His mouth snapped shut, and he picked up his journal and began reading again.

  Michelle went back to her seat with Sheeba. “I really hate that guy,” she said in a low voice.

  The Angel laughed. “Get in line,” she chortled. “At least you didn’t get him started on mathematics and statistics. Talk about a bore.”

  “Oh, there’s no chance he’ll go on about anything like that with me. I’m a simple girl with a simple mind, far too stupid to be engaged in such a conversation.” When Michelle thought about it, she was actually quite pleased he thought she was an idiot.

  The plane was climbing to its final altitude. When it went supersonic, it felt like someone was gently pushing her in the back. The clouds thinned out and then vanished altogether. They were at the edge of the atmosphere now. The sky was littered with stars, and the moon was a bright, silver disc.

  She stared out the window, looking into the vastness before her. It made her feel small. And much to her surprise, that didn’t bother her at all.

  Franny stood in the bathroom on the Gulf Stream V. Unlike the coffin-like space on a commercial plane this washroom actually had a narrow shower along with the sink and toilet. He lifted the real cloth towel out of the sink, and wrung it out. The whine and rumble of the jet engines was a soporific. He had managed to grab a little sleep before Baba Yaga’s moans had pulled him awake, and the nurse, using a lot of gestures and repeated single words, had given him this task.

  There had also been an unwelcome discovery when he awoke. The pistol he’d been carrying since Talas and the burner phone he’d purchased in Shymkent were both gone. He was beginning to get a bad feeling that the roles had reversed and that Baba Yaga was no longer his prisoner. Rather he was hers.

  He made his way back to Baba Yaga. The seat was reclined as far as it would go. The male nurse was checking the pulse in her remaining wrist. Franny laid the wet, cool cloth on Baba Yaga’s forehead. She gasped, tried to sit up, and cried out in pain.

  He eased her back down. “Hey, it’s okay.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Somewhere over the pole. I think.”

  “Good. Good,” she sighed. She stared at him. It was like being studied by an ancient dinosaur. “What is your name, boy?”

  “Francis Black.”

  “Francis.” She drew it out as if rolling it across her tongue, tasting the name.

  “Only my mother calls me Francis and only when she’s mad.”

  “So what do they call you?”

  “Frank, but the people I work with call me Franny.”

  “A girl’s name.”

  “Yeah, cops. They like to think they’re funny. They’re not.”

  He lifted the nearly dry towel from her forehead, went back to the bathroom, and soaked it with cold water again. The nurse was switching out an IV bag. When he returned he asked, “So, what’s your name?”

  “You know my name.”

  “I’ve heard the legend of Baba Yaga. It’s a handle like Curveball or The Turtle.”

  “And you don’t think it fits?” she asked, and the wrinkled lips quirked, the briefest flicker of a smile.

  “A creepy, scary old woman who eats children and decorates with skulls…” Franny pretended to consider. “Nah, don’t see the similarities at all.”

  She responded to
his ironic tone with another wintery smile. “Watch yourself, boy.”

  “I thought I had graduated to Frank now.”

  That seemed to amuse her and she gave a chuckle that quickly became a paroxysm of coughs that shook the thin body. She moaned and tried to guard the broken shoulder and the stump of her arm. Franny knew she was a monster who had kidnapped jokers, forced people to fight to the death for pleasure and profit, but she was also a suffering old woman. He held her close, trying to steady the bones in her shoulder while the nurse held the stump of her arm to keep it still.

  Eventually the spasm passed, and he laid her back down. She was panting in pain, and sweat slicked her face. He wiped it away with the towel and went to get her a cup of water. The withered lips closed on the edge of the cup as he held her against his shoulder, and guided the cup to her lips. After a few sips she nodded and he put her down again.

  “My name is Mariamna. Mariamna Solovyova.”

  THURSDAY

  MOLLIE STAYED AT THE hospital all night. She stayed, numb, until somebody (the cop? a doctor? she barely remembered the conversation) convinced her that Dad, Brent, Mick, Troy, and Jim had been stabilized after their first rounds of emergency surgery. Or, at least, that they weren’t in immediate danger of dying from their wounds the second she opened a portal in space leading back to the farm. Which was about all the reassurance on offer; Jim and Troy wouldn’t come out of emergency surgery for hours. The doctors were still in triage mode; saving the remains of the brothers’ faces had never been an option.

  There were physical injuries and there were mental wounds. Dad and the boys would have a crippling case of both. Mollie wore one around her neck and another in the images that snaked through the dark spaces of her mind every time she closed her eyes.