Marked Cards

  Shad looked at Croyd's automatic shotgun. "Sing out if you want to shoot that thing," he said. "And I'll hit the deck."

  Shad stepped closer to the farmhouse, and suddenly lights switched on.

  "Showtime," he said.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Try to remember who put us in the slams. That thought helped a lot.

  Shad felt oddly disconnected from the whole business as he walked through the back door and killed two people in the kitchen with his silenced Czech sub-machinegun - one of the guards and an Asian kid presumably a jumper. He realized he'd fallen back in prison mode again, not feeling anything. He kept a cloud of darkness in front of him and around him and no one could see where the danger was coming from. He advanced into the house and shot another guard, a man who fired a few blind rounds into the walls before he fell. And then there was a huge booming crash that set his nerves shuddering, and a stunning blast of odor that felt like the shock wave from the first blast. Shad flung himself on the floor. There was another crash, then another, then the sound of a body falling. Waves of a hideous stench flew through the air like echoes of each shot

  Shad whipped around, saw Croyd standing with his shotgun smoking. A man was sprawled in the doorway from the kitchen, a big man in a black fighting uniform with a one-eyed black hood over his head. The man began to move again.

  "No!" Shad shouted just as Croyd fired for a fourth time. The man shuddered and lay still.

  "Shit!" Croyd said. "He just kept coming!"

  Shad jumped to his feet. "That's Crypt Kicker," he said "He's a friend of Battle. If we'd taken him, he might have told us where Battle is." He must have been living in the small house outside, where his smell wouldn't offend people.

  "Too late now." Disgust at the odor twitched across Croyd's face. "Too late for some weeks, smells like."

  There was a hissing sound from the body. The acid that ran in Crypt Kicker's veins was melting a patch on the linoleum.

  This had taken too long already.

  "Let's get moving," Shad said "You guard the stairs. I'll go up and out."

  He threw open a window and went up the outside of the building. The top floor was dark. Once he found who he was looking for, it was over in seconds.

  No one else was in the house, though there were two bedrooms - one filled with the foul odor of French tobacco - that there were no bodies to match with.

  Croyd opened file cabinets in search of documents while Shad went out onto the grounds. He found an empty space in the garage where a car had been parked, Crypt Kicker's cozily furnished little outbuilding, complete with Hank Williams poster and a well-thumbed Bible, and nothing else.

  "Lots of documents," Croyd said as he returned.

  "We missed two of our targets," Shad said. "Peggy Durand and that girl in the leather jacket."

  "Stick around and wait for them to come back?" Croyd offered.

  "No. Leave enough of the documents to show something incriminating, then go get Hughes. We can find Durand again just by following Baron von Whatsisname."

  Shad guarded the gate when Croyd went back for Hughes. The night was so quiet that he could hear Hughes offering Croyd a date with Rita Hayworth as Croyd marched him back across the field.

  I'm not feeling anything, he told himself. But still a part of him cringed as he heard the shot, and Hughes' voice ceased.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Herzenhagen's heart hammered in answer to the banging on the door of his suite. He gasped for breath, reached for the drawer with the pistol in it, took the weapon in his hand.

  He looked at the clock. Not quite four in the morning.

  He chambered a round in his Hi-Power, put on his dressing gown and stepped to the door. He looked through the peephole, saw Peggy standing anxiously in his fish-eye view. He put the pistol in his pocket and opened the door. Peggy stormed in.

  "We've just come from Latchkey," Peggy said. "Something's happening. The place is swarming with cops and press."

  "Have you heard about Flynn and Hughes?"

  "No. What?"

  Herzenhagen took a firmer grip on his pistol.

  "Let's talk," he said.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  News filtered through from people Herzenhagen knew, and he tried to put it all together in his mind. The jumpers - dead. How does someone with a gun kill a jumper at short range without being jumped? Let alone jumpers that had four of the General's best men guarding them? It didn't make sense.

  Gerard could have died with them, if Peggy hadn't decided to take pity on her and drive her to DC for an evening's pub-crawl.

  Gerard, whom Peggy had stashed at a Baltimore hotel before coming here.

  Only one jumper left. He was going to have to use her very carefully.

  A terrible thought entered his mind. What if the jumpers weren't in their bodies when they'd died? What if they were elsewhere now and ... working for someone else?

  Dawn leaked past drawn blinds. The coffee and pastries he'd ordered from room service had been consumed.

  "Let me think here," he said. "All the jokers from Governor's Island escaped, and all of our people dead. Hartmann dead just when he was becoming useful. Flynn dead just when the Quarantine Bill is stuck in committee. Hughes missing, and being blamed for Flynn's death. The jumpers dead."

  "Someone's got it in for us," Peggy said.

  "But look at the style," Herzenhagen said. "No witnesses. No suspects except for those intended to be suspects. No apparent connection between the crimes. No apparent motive ..."

  "They're good," Peggy said.

  "It's us," Herzenhagen said. "It's our style. That's how we operate."

  Peggy stared at him. "What are you saying?"

  "This may not be a battle. This may be a coup."

  Peggy considered this. "Who?" she said.

  "Brandon. The General. Casaday. Who knows? But we've both had narrow escapes today."

  "And all the ID connected with this body," Peggy said, "was left at Latchkey. Which makes this body a suspect."

  Time for the backup plan, Herzenhagen thought. He couldn't know who was doing this, but things had grown too dangerous, and he still had his deus ex jumper. Time for a new lease on life.

  "I've got to get the Quarantine Bill out of committee," he said.

  Peggy seemed dubious. "How? Flynn's dead."

  "We've got one jumper left. And one President. Sounds like a fair trade to me."

  Disbelief entered Peggy's eyes. "Who have we got that ballsy? And who could pull off an impersonation of Barnett?"

  Herzenhagen smiled. "Ever want to make it in the White House?"

  Peggy looked shocked. Then she smiled.

  "Wno knows?" she said. "They say power is an aphrodisiac."

  "Just long enough to sign the Quarantine Bill. And then Barnett and Zappa can have an accident, one with enough freaks and jumpers to turn the public against wild cards for all time."

  And then there was a crashing at the door, and Herzenhagen and Peggy turned to stare down the bores of police shotguns.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Just long enough to sign the Quarantine Bill. The words sent cold fingers up Shad's spine.

  "Ever want to make it in the White House?" Croyd mocked. "These old Sharks sure talk about fucking a lot."

  Shad laughed, but a train of thought had been set in motion. Herzenhagen and Faneuil and Durand, Hughes with his redhead ... older men, most of them, with younger women. Shad wondered if there was some pervasive potency metaphor at work here in Sharkland, if the whole organization was based on a bunch of fading, hollow old men trying to recapture the power and splendor of youth, reviving a time where they were in charge, unchallenged by the wild card.

  They watched as DC cops drove Herzenhagen and Durand away. Media lights burned bright on the two stolid faces.

  "Do you think we stopped it?" Shad said.

  "Stopped what? The Sharks?" Croyd laughed.

  "No. Jumping the President."

  Croy
d laughed again. "Who cares? If Leo Barnett ends up in some French bitch's head, that's copacetic with me. What's that cracker ever done for me except stick me on Governor's Island and wave bye-bye?" He laughed again.

  Shad shook his head. "I don't want that Nazi cocksucker in the President's head, not for one second."

  "Easy enough to put a stop to it, then." Croyd's brilliant eyes glittered.

  "Yeah. We'll see."

  We'll see how long those two stay in jail, he thought.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Early next morning, Crypt Kicker's body strolled out of the little Maryland medical examiner's office where it had been stashed pending an autopsy. People who saw him go were understandably disinclined to stop him leaving. Shad wished he'd known the man regenerated so quickly; he'd have taken the body and been waiting when the Kicker woke up.

  Herzenhagen was released next morning, after questioning. No charges were filed, at least so far. Peggy Durand, whose body seemed to have been named Dolores Chacon, didn't quite have Herzenhagen's clout, and remained a guest in the DC women's facility.

  It only cost Shad a few minor bribes to see her privately - Shad loved legal institutions in the East, where everyone was corrupt. Though he was dressed as a lawyer, in a blue blazer and tie, still the smell of a jail, the antiseptic mingled with foul body odor, sent a cold charge up his spine. And when the steel door of the interrogation room slammed behind him. Shad had to clench his hands in his pockets to keep them from trembling.

  Make this short, he thought.

  Peggy Durand seemed a lot less nervous than he was. She managed to make a shapeless prison jumpsuit seem elegant, and she'd gotten makeup from somewhere. A wisp of smoke rolled up from a cigarette in her hand.

  And then her eyes leaped as she saw Howard Hughes.

  "Hi, there," Hughes said.

  Durand stared. Hughes gave her the thumbs-up pilot's sign and stayed by the steel door with a grin plastered to his face.

  "What's going on?" Durand demanded.

  "Housecleaning, Peggy," Shad said firmly. "A tad overdue, actually. Would you like some cigarettes?" He offered a pack of Marlboros.

  "I smoke Dunhills." She flashed the cigarette in her hand.

  "Keep them. You can use them for money in here."

  Durand looked thoughtful for a moment, then took the pack of cigarettes and put them in her jumpsuit pocket.

  Shad pushed Mr. Diamond's spectacles back up his nose, opened the briefcase, took out a tape player. "I assume you're a pragmatic woman, Miss Durand."

  Durand's pupils dilated at the name. "You've got me confused with someone else," she said "My name is Chacon."

  "Goddam Gravemold." Hughes muttered to himself. "Motherfucker!"

  Durand's eyes flicked to Hughes, then back to Shad. "Who are you exactly?"

  "I'm an employee of an agency that is known to you."

  She seemed amused. "An American agency?"

  Shad feigned annoyance. "Of course. It is an organization that has been tasked with the ... Card Sharks matter."

  "The what?"

  "The Sharks," Shad began, "have been useful to friendly interests over the years. Because of their usefulness, they were granted a certain degree of ... unofficial latitude in regard to their, ah, viral obsession. A recent reevaluation of their status indicates that they have now become a liability, and even worse, an embarrassment. It has therefore been decided to bring the Sharks operation to an appropriate termination. As you are no doubt aware, certain Shark assets deemed too intransigent to be of further use have already been annulled. Whereas those who might continue to be of further use may be retained in another capacity."

  Durand sat expressionlessly in her metal chair - lips clenched, eyes contracted to pinpricks. Thinking furiously. She jerked her head toward Howard Hughes.

  "And Howard? Isn't he supposed to be dead?"

  "Mr. Hughes has long-established links to the intelligence community," Shad said. "Those links will continue to be of service to this country."

  "Fuck yes," Hughes mumbled. "But who'd have thought the smelly bastard would have screwed me on the docks?"

  Durand drew on her cigarette, leaned forward "And what precisely do you want from me?"

  "You are, I believe, a practical woman. Your history demonstrates your resourcefulness and adaptability. I suggest that you acquire an attorney of your own - not the one the Sharks have found you - and turn yourself in to the federal witness protection program. You would know best which of the available prosecutors' offices would be immune from Shark penetration."

  Durand peered at him. "Witness protection? You anticipate prosecutions? Public prosecutions?"

  Shad smiled thinly. "That would be for the prosecutors to decide, wouldn't it? But the decision has been made that something has to go on the public record. Too many incidents have been without explanation for too long."

  "Why don't you simply arrest me?"

  Shad permitted his smile to broaden. "My agency does not have powers of arrest within the borders of the United States."

  "Ah. Of course. You can't arrest, you can only ..."

  "Terminate."

  Durand stubbed out her cigarette, bit her lip nervously. "I'm not in every loop. I'm just - " She flashed a seductive smile. "I'm just a friend of some very powerful men. I only know what they tell me. They use me."

  Shad looked contemptuous at the merest bit of heat from Durand's frame.

  "You can rehearse your excuses later. It's not my job to believe one thing or another - that's for the prosecutor to decide."

  "Goddam cracker president!" Hughes said.

  Durand licked her lips. Maybe she was used to Howard Hughes being flaky. "I'll think about it," she said, "very seriously." And then she gave a sad little toss of her head. "Poor Etienne," she said. "Poor Philip."

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  In honor of the occasion, Herzenhagen wore a mourning band and the little red ribbon of the Legion of Honor, the decoration de Gaulle had awarded him back in '44. He could have worn all his medals, here at the veterans' cemetery, but most of them were too showy.

  He didn't want to be vulgar, not here at his own inauguration.

  Senator Flynn was being buried in a little dell surrounded by green hills and long rows of modest white tombstones, veterans anonymous in their ranks as during their service years. Around one side of the grave site were round green hills; currently crowned by Secret Service in black uniforms: the other side sloped down to a lovely autumn view of the Potomac Valley, with Washington and its white marble monuments glowing in the westering sun. An inspiring vista, truly. And absolutely perfect, because anyone on the sloping hills had a perfect view of Leo Barnett.

  Barnett, an old preacher who couldn't resist a grave side service and a chance to give a homily to the cameras.

  Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Barnett's words echoing Herzenhagen's thought.

  For two days he'd been staying in a safe house with Gerard and a half-dozen of Johnson's strong-arm goons. The press had been camped outside, but that wasn't what made the stay a nightmare. Gerard had jumped him repeatedly over the last few days, jumping him until the normal spastic reaction faded, until he could function in a strange body from the first instant.

  So President Barnett might trip on a tombstone and fall down. Big deal. He'd get right up again, and go right to work on getting the Quarantine Bill passed.

  And then all he needed to do was confirm a finding from the National Security Council, then sign an executive order, and every wild card in the country would be on his way to a nice new tent city on a federal reservation in some picturesque state like, say, Utah.

  And President Barnett would be trapped in Herzenhagen's body, which would be hustled away to his limo by Herzenhagen's security, then loaded with stonefish toxin, the stuff the CIA stored by the gallon for any interfering defector, agent, or reporter, which would result in cardiac arrest and which wouldn't show up in an autopsy.

  And all the
media lice that had been following him around, and the surly cops who'd ordered him not to leave town - well, they'd be left with another body and no answers. And then strings could be pulled to get Peggy out of jail.

  Out of reflex he glanced up at the Secret Service. Herzenhagen's own security, unarmed and inconspicuous, hovered at a discreet distance, until the moment of the jump when they'd arrange for the President's heart attack.

  Gerard - she'd been driven here in a separate car to avoid the press - drifted toward him. Herzenhagen didn't entirely like the way she moved - she moved jerkily, twitching, and there was a smirk on her face.

  Oh well. He'd worked with less promising material in his time.

  And in any case the whole thing was about to pay off. His life's work, reassembling into a perfect picture. The bits of history shattered by the wild card, nurturing it and caring for it and finally seeing it on its way like a good child - all about to be completed. As the President called for a moment of silence, Herzenhagen bowed his head and found himself thinking of the others, Einstein, Hughes, Hearst, Battle, and Flynn himself, the ones who had dedicated themselves to this triumph and who would not share in its consummation.

  The President finished. Herzenhagen raised his head, found himself staring into the taunting eyes of Gerard. Annoyance flickered through him. He held her eyes, assumed his benevolent face, and nodded toward Barnett.

  Gerard did nothing. Just smiled.

  Barnett was moving down the line. He took the flag from the soldiers, handed it to the widow. Herzenhagen gave a more emphatic jerk of his head.

  No response. Gerard stood on tiptoe, peered at the President. Herzenhagen moved closer, checked his six o'clock again, saw only a stout middle-aged woman in a K-Mart dress, a worried-looking black man with a beard and a blue blazer, a couple of small children separated from their parents. No one he had to concern himself with. The President was moving down the reception line, would soon disappear into the crowd. Herzenhagen leaned toward the jumper.

  "Vite!" he urged. "Allez-y!"

  Gerard gave him a scornful look. "Speak English." A disrespectful mumble.

  Anxiety clutched at Herzenhagen's heart. "Jump him! Now!"

  The President reached the end of the line. Gerard cupped her ear. "Whassat?"