"No, I said that was an option. It wasn't like an exclusive offer or anything. Besides, we got work to do, remember?"
"But you said I could have her."
"Okay. So I lied. Who gives a puppy fuck?" Casaday reached out and grabbed a pinch of Layton's cheek. "Listen up, lunchmeat. There's a billion fucking people in China, and all of 'em work cheaper than you do. And this is where all that Mickey Mouse chop-sockey bullshit of yours got its start anyway, am I right? Yeah. So catch the latest news flash: you can fucking be replaced. Do you read me?"
The kickboxer nodded sullenly, still hanging onto Sprout like a child ordered to relinquish a favorite toy. Mark struggled wildly, but the men holding him might have been statues from that frothing psychopath Emperor Shih Wangdi's funerary army.
"Okay, then" Casaday said, striding toward the door. "Let's get cracking. We got places to see and people to do."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"What has happened to your hand?" Rudo asked.
He hadn't noticed the bandage yesterday. A jeep with a white rag tied to its antenna had come into camp and Zoe's heart had soared when she saw Needles, but she had not dared approach him. There had been some sort of uproar in the Nur's tent, and a joker that looked like a yellow bug had gone in and come out again - alive. There had been shouts, and Zoe tried to make sure Needles and the buggy joker saw her, but the jeep had driven away, leaving only rumors, no rescue.
The rumors said that the Black Dog planned to nuke the camp, but the Nur's followers hadn't moved it. Why hadn't Needles picked her up? Why?
Rudo seemed to have forgotten that he'd asked her a question. He kept his attention on the morning camp and its bustling activity. The Nur's tent was empty, for a helicopter had picked up the Nur and Sayyid at dawn, gone on some mission or another - someone had said that they were headed for Jerusalem, to lead a war against the Black Dog.
Really? A green man and a crippled giant, alone against the Fists? Whatever. The Nur was gone, and his followers seemed convinced that they were safe, that Allah would protect them against a nuclear attack - but guards watched the empty horizon, and the sky.
Zoe let a breeze slip through the loose arms of her black cotton robe and watched women trot to a water truck and fill their jars.
Rudo frowned at the truck. The limitations posed by hauled water would make work in the lab difficult. They had set up camp near a low range of purple cliffs. There was enough moisture here to feed some scrubby vegetation, but there was no well.
"Your hand!" Rudo sounded exasperated.
"Nothing. A little sprain," Zoe said. She cradled her bandaged left wrist in her right hand.
"While we made love. I am sorry. Let me check it for you." Rudo reached for her wrist. Zoe twisted away from him before she could stop herself. She smiled, trying to hide her revulsion.
"Really. It's nothing."
"At least let me see if we can prepare a proper splint for you."
Zoe let him lift her hand. Where would be a good place for it to hurt? She picked an area on the pinky side of her wrist and winced when he probed there, his fingers gentle.
"Ah. Do you feel anything in your fingers when I push here?"
Should she? She shook her head. "No."
"Good. The ulnar nerve is not compromised. See? All these years since anatomy class and yet some things are imprinted! A splint, a splint. Come with me."
She followed him to a tent that hadn't been at the last camp, more brown than black, and smaller than the others. It stood by itself under the scant shade of a cliff, well away from the other tents, out of sight of the main camp.
It was a sort of infirmary. As her eyes adjusted to the sudden shade, Zoe saw cabinets of stainless steel on large wheels, their doors opened on arrays of autoclaved instruments in sealed white packages. There were four cots, their corners made up with military precision, each one -
Occupied by the lumpy bodies of jokers who lay on their backs with their hands behind their heads. Jokers, yes, with oddly shaped bodies, mismatched faces. One poor devil was covered with a pelt of fur that looked like mink and was drenched with sweat and streaks of salt, a deformity that must be near-fatal in this arid country. The furred man moved and Zoe saw a gleam of metal at his wrists.
The jokers were handcuffed to the cots. They were silent. Dead? No, a woman's third eye blinked, a white-furred boy took a deep, quiet breath. Two of the jokers had IVs connected to veins in their arms. The fluid was bright yellow.
Rudo rummaged through the instruments. "Always what I look for is in the last cabinet," Rudo said. "Here!" He found a foam and aluminum splint wrapped in blue plastic. "This will maintain a slight dorsiflexion, a proper anatomic position. And you will be able to work in it. That's good, yes?"
He unwrapped the splint and she let him fit it to her wrist. She stared at the jokers, not even trying to hide the horror she felt. Rudo looked up at her.
"Our patients are not in the best of health," Rudo said. "Paolo is correcting malnutrition, infections, dehydration. Jokers are not treated well in the desert."
"What's ... What's in the IV's that makes them yellow?"
"Vitamins," Rudo said. He put his hand behind her elbow and guided her out into the bright sunlight. When they were out of earshot of the tent, he said, "These four brought us here, you might say. The opportunity presented by their capture seemed to override the inconvenience of having to haul in water for our work. You see, for our tests to be effective, we need to have a healthy, premorbid substrate. You do understand."
"My work," Zoe said. "I must return to my work." The sand near her feet came suddenly into sharp focus, every grain highlighted with utter clarity. It was innocent, pure stone. It had never lived. She envied it.
The sleeve of her robe had slipped down over her splint. She rolled it up.
"Work. Yes," Rudo said.
Zoe ran from him, seeing the desolate cliffs, the empty landscape, aware that thirst and death waited behind every dune. It was time to get out of here, damn it. How?
The Land Rover and the flatbed truck that had been at the last camp had been driven away before dawn. The water truck was the only thing with wheels left in the camp. There were no telephones, no communication setups of any kind. Zoe had looked hard for them. This camp was as isolated as anything in the twentieth century could be.
The camp was far enough from water that it had to be trucked in, and that meant it was a long way from humans, probably a long way from roads. She couldn't walk out and live.
She felt Rudo's eyes on her back. Slowing, she walked into the laboratory tent. She scrubbed her hands, her face. She rinsed her mouth and spat.
Where was the Black Dog's goddamned rescue? Where?
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Sprout lay staring at Ditmar with wide blue eyes as he stripped off jacket, tie, and shirt with surprising alacrity.
Ah, liebchen," he said, unfastening his trousers and sliding them down his saggy butt. "You are so very lovely. Normally I like the loveplay first - " He nodded toward a scuffed black valise by the wall. "But you have got me so excited, liebchen, I don't think I can wait. No, not at all."
"You sick son of a bitch," Mark said. The words rang hollow in his ears. Not that they weren't meant, but that they were so utterly futile. But with each bony wrist handcuffed to a leg of the sturdy metal chair he sat in, he couldn't do much more than talk.
Ditmar turned him a wet smile. "Perhaps I am, Doctor," he admitted, "because I find myself even more excited at the prospect of violating such a beautiful innocent while her own father watches."
Mark squealed wordless outrage and tried to hurl himself at the torturer. His legs got tangled up with the legs of the chair, and he fell heavily on his side on the floor, nearly wrenching his arms from their sockets.
He had, it seemed, achieved the theoretical maximum for failure. His drugs were under a desk in the lab, he had created a virus which might wipe out all of humanity, and now he was about to watch his daughter be raped a
nd tortured to death. After all that, anything Ditmar did to him would be child's play.
He had created the Overtrump, of course, and seemed to have succeeded in arranging to have the Card Sharks themselves release it. But that was a victory so hollow as mainly to accentuate defeat: he didn't know a whole lot about the rates at which epidemics spread, and couldn't have said whether the fact that there were three cylinders of Black Trump to one of Overtrump suggested that the lethal virus would spread three times as fast. But he was morally certain that before the day was over he would have murdered millions more people than he had saved.
Ditmar had his trousers pooled around his ankles and one foot lifted off the floor as he fumbled with his shoe. He had a certain grace despite his bulk. At least he managed to stay balanced.
"Later," he said to Mark, wrenching one shoe off and tossing it aside, "later I will play. And then, who knows? I may find myself once again in the mood for love."
Mark glared at him from the floor. He pulled off the other shoe. "You could try to run, you know," he said to Sprout. "You're an athletic girl, despite your mental condition; you look fit and strong and so lithe. You might even get past me."
He dropped the shoe and stepped out of his trousers. "Of course, you'd be caught. And then I would have to hurt you. But that's the fun."
"Leave her alone," Mark begged, "please. I'll give you anything."
Ditmar stopped with hands on hips, looking comical and sinister in gray-green undershirt, boxer shorts, and black socks held up by garters. "Ach, so? And what have you, a bound prisoner, to give me? Nothing except your daughter's lovely body. And I am about to have that anyway."
He chuckled at his own wit. "No, Herr Doktor, the best thing you can give me now is your undivided attention." He turned bade to Sprout. She lay there in an artless sprawl, jeans-clad legs wide, T-shirt hiked up to bare her flat belly. He clucked and shook his head "Ah, but you do not comprehend what lies in store, do you, child?"
He advanced toward the bed. His thighs were bluish-white in the fluorescent light, with a translucent sheen like dough. Sprout backed away till her head hit the wall, then wriggled into a sitting position as Ditmar knelt on the bed astride her legs.
Mark was baying like a dog, yelling at the German to leave her alone. Ditmar gave him a smirk over his shoulder, then clasped the front of Sprout's T-shirt with pale sausage fingers and wrenched. The thin fabric tore away from the collar. Beneath it she wore a simple white bra.
The torturer watched her warily, in case she tried for his eyes. But she just stared at him and tried to squirm away, little mewing sounds came from her mouth. He liked that; the front of his boxer shorts was tented out visibly.
Ditmar held up his right hand, pressed a button on a flat oblong object he'd been holding concealed. A blade snapped into place.
"Get away from her!" Mark screamed hoarsely. Sprout froze, started to raise her right hand.
"No, liebchen," the German breathed. "Do not be afraid. I will not hurt you. Yet."
He put the tip of the knife against her sternum and brought it sharply up. The reinforced elastic holding the cups of the bra together gave way. The bra fell away. Her breasts tumbled free, large and pink-nippled.
"Ach," Ditmar breathed reverently. "Wie schon, wie schon."
He ran the knife-tip down her flat belly. Her flesh shrank from the steel caress. When he reached the hem of her white cotton panties he dug in the point, not quite hard enough to pierce the skin. She uttered a squeak of pain and terror.
"Still, liebchen," Ditmar said huskily. "Remain very still."
He cut through the elastic-reinforced hem at the waist. Methodical as a surgeon he cut the panties down the side, then sliced through the elastic around her thigh. She held almost comically still, like a child playing a game of freeze tag.
He ripped the panties open, stared down a moment at her as if transfixed, then cut open the other side. Mark was too hoarse to make any more noise. He could only lie on his side blowing like a marathon runner and wishing he could make himself not watch.
The German pressed his stiletto under Sprout's short ribs and buried his face between her breasts. She screamed. He pressed the knife in harder and began to move his face side to side, slavering sticky-slimy saliva all over her breasts with a tongue like a swatch of wet motel carpet.
Sprout put her head back and closed her eyes. Her fingers clutched at Ditmar's fat back. Mark's eyes bugged out as his daughter ground her pelvis into the German and moaned "Fuck me! Ooh, fuck me hard!"
Ditmar reared back like a startled horse. Then he whinnied "Himmel! Herr Gott sei Dank!" and buried his face at the base of her neck, dry-humping madly away.
Sprout wrapped her right arm around him, pinning him to her as she writhed beneath him. Her left hand was free. Mark watched in disbelief that turned to horror as the forefinger extended, straightened - and grew, morphing like a computer-generated movie effect into a six-inch needle of bone.
So this is it, Mark thought, clear thought-stream among the rushing turbulence of voices in his skull. This is madness.
Sprout grabbed the thinning hair at the back of Ditmar's skull, tugged. He raised his head. "Ja, liebchen?" he said. His mustache was matted with spit.
She drove the bone needle into his right ear.
As he convulsed she eeled from under him and jumped off the bed. "Jesus, that's gross," she said. She looked down at droplets of blood on her breasts, while she shook gore and brain-bits from her finger, which had resumed its normal dimensions. "I'm glad he kept his damn drawers on."
Mark had drawn his head into his shirt collar as far as it would go, like a gaunt, ungainly turtle seeking shelter. His first thought was that Sprout had somehow turned up her own ace, and been transformed into some kind of bizarre shapeshifting killer slut. Now he didn't know what to think. "What the hell are you?" he choked as soon as he could form words.
"Oh, nobody, really," "Sprout" said. She turned and walked to a mirror hung over the dresser. "When you last saw me, I was O.K. Casaday. You can call me Creighton."
Mark stared at the creature. In spite of lifelong efforts to avoid doing anything that might in modern cant be called inappropriate, he had seen his daughter naked. She had a young child's dislike for the restraints imposed by clothing, and while patient explanation had gotten her to be more modest around strangers, sometimes when they were alone together she would forget herself and come popping out of her room wearing only one sock, or her T-shirt, or her pink fuzzy bunny slippers.
This was not Mark's daughter, as if any doubt remained. Her body was built even leaner, and her skin had a glossier, harder look to it than Sprout's. The breasts were high, conical, and suspiciously firm. She looked, he realized, like Barbie with a bush.
"Sprout doesn't look like an exotic dancer with augments," Mark said accusingly. "You got an unenlightened view of women, man."
"Oh, yeah?" "Sprout" was frowning into the mirror. "If you're so pure, how come you know what a stripper with a boob job looks like, hmmm?"
"She glanced back at the dead German. Mark gasped; the outlines of Sprout's face had become grotesquely puffy, as though she had the mumps.
"Where's my daughter?"
"Back in California by now." Creighton walked over to kneel by the body and peer at its face.
"What are you talking about? California? How?"
Creighton stood. He had already begun to resemble the corpse more than Mark's daughter. The swollen head looked horrific atop the lithe, naked female body. He returned to the mirror. "We had it all set up to rescue you guys, back in Burma, so when we crashed the wire in the Cherokee all I had to do was hand her over to our friendly elves. Of course, she might've been sold into slavery in Bangkok, but I doubt it. That ex-NVA topkick we hired to straw boss the local talent seemed the sort who'd be too damned proud to do anything other than what he said he'd do. And anyway, I already promised him a boatload of money if he helped us get you or your daughter back safe."
&nb
sp; A bomb burst behind Mark's eyes. The shrapnel was flower petals, like something from the Summer of Love. Sprout. Is safe.
"Thank God," Mark breathed. Then, "So that was you all the time?" He started feeling queasy all over again.
Ditmar's eyes rose to the mirror and caught his on the bounce. "Yean. And don't start making faces. Think about how I felt, with you all the time trying to slobber on me. Not to mention him." A feminine hand waved at the body.
"So that's why Sprout was so cold to me!" Mark said with a smile.
"Well, yeah."
"Why did you go back?"
"If you were there, you were working on the fucking Black Trump. I wanted to stay as close as possible and hope I got a break." He shrugged. "I didn't, till now."
He turned back to the body for a final inspection. To Mark he was already indistinguishable from the dead man ... from the neck up.
He looked at Mark with Ditmar's frog eyes. "I heard some guards laughing about what you did to Sascha. I guess I should feel grateful, since you did it to save me, even if you didn't know it was me. Still ..."
Mark's face split into a huge, manic grin. "But I saved Sascha too! I made, like, an Overtrump, right under that evil little weasel Jarnavon's pointy nose. I injected him with a counter to the Black Trump, not the Trump."
"From what they said Sascha's pretty sick," Creighton said doubtfully.
"Yeah. It's like the original vaccination, man, what Jenner did way back before Pasteur was even born. I gave him a dose of the same flu I hooked the Trump to. Only he won't die of this strain. And when he gets over it, he'll have antibodies to keep him from getting the real thing."
Creighton blinked, grinned. "Good one, Doctor. Maybe we haven't lost all the wild cards."
Mark bit his lip. He didn't have the heart to tell the strange ace that the stakes had gotten a little higher. "They're gonna hijack a blimp at the airport and release the Trump over Hong Kong," Mark said. "We better hurry."