Black Trump by George R. R. Martin

  Unfortunately, his skin didn't have the consistency of brick. The man whose back Mark rode raised his MP5 one-handed, fired a short burst. The noise was loud in the confines of the hall, but nowhere near as loud as a raw nine-millimeter going off; the weapon had a built-in suppressor.

  Mason reeled and fell. His body convulsed as he died, but he didn't have his finger on the trigger.

  This was getting serious. Mark thought about his hand-to-hand combat repertoire, which he'd just about exhausted, and look where he was. He thought about the vials of potion - all safely tucked away in the nightstand by his bed, and a few more covert locations, all equally remote - that would turn him into somebody much more useful in situations like this, such as JJ Flash, Esquire. He thought about Sprout, asleep and helpless in her room.

  Screw pride; I'm useless. He opened his mouth to holler for help. From the corner of his eye he saw the man he'd nut-kicked leap at him. Before Mark could force sound from his mouth the man slapped a wad of gauze soaked in something cold over it.

  Mark's head filled with astringent fumes. Instantly it swelled like a balloon and began to float away from his shoulders. Great, the biochemist in him thought. Chloroform. That's -

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Jay awoke in darkness, his face a mask of hurt. A bolt of pain went through him when he moved, hitting him right between the eyes. His mouth tasted of blood. Gingerly, he felt his nose. When he touched it, it moved. Jay let out a muffled gasp.

  "You broke your nose," a vaguely familiar voice said from the darkness. "Someone broke my nose once. It was a long time ago. I remember it hurt."

  Jay moaned. It was black in here. He couldn't see a thing. Memories of his disastrous raid on Governor's Island came back to him. He must have landed on his face when the gas hit him. "Where am I?" he said aloud, although he figured he knew. "Doesn't this fucking prison have a hospital? Damn it, I need medical care, I want to see the warden."

  A match flared in the darkness. Quasiman peered at Jay with concern, his broad homely features twisted in concentration. "I don't know the warden," he said uncertainly. "Who is he? I can go tell him you want to see him if you like."

  Jay struggled to sit up. "No," he said, "no, forget the warden." He groped at Quasiman's face. The hunchback felt real enough. He wasn't dreaming. Was he? "What is this place?"

  Quasiman looked around the gloom. "This is the house of the wax people. I like to come here when it's dark and quiet. Sometimes I look at the wax people and I remember things."

  "The Famous Bowery Wild Card Dime Museum," Jay said. Dutton's museum. He knew the place. It gave him the creeps. Some unfortunate things had happened to him over the years in the Famous Bowery Wild Card Dime Museum. On the other hand, it beat the hell out of the prison on Governor's Island ...

  Quasiman was watching. The match had burned down to his fingers. He studied it, his face blank, as his flesh began to burn. Then he blew it out, and the dark swallowed them.

  "How did I get here?" Jay said. "Did you carry me out?"

  "I saw you," Quasiman told him, his voice strange and low in the darkness.

  "You ... saw me?" Jay said, baffled. "Where? In the prison?"

  "I saw you at the end," Quasiman said. "You were up in a big balloon fighting a man with half a face."

  "I think you're confusing me with Jetboy," Jay said. This was fucking useless. He needed to reach Finn if he was going to make sense of this, the sooner the better. At least he'd gotten one of them out. How long bad he been asleep, anyway? "I've got to get to a phone," Jay said, struggling to his feet. His broken nose sent a bolt of pain through him when he rose. He ignored it, stumbling through the dark and groping for a wall. He walked into a wax figure. It fell with a crash. "Where are the lights?" Jay bitched loudly. "I can't see a goddamn thing."

  Light flooded the room. The sudden glare made Jay throw up his hand in front of his eyes. He hit his nose and moaned. He found himself in the middle of the Aces High diorama, face to face with a wax Astronomer. The figure he'd knocked over was Modular Man, Jay saw. The android had lost his head in the fall.

  Quasiman was outside the glass, standing by the light switch. "Is that better?" the hunchback asked.

  Jay started to nod. His nose reminded him that nodding was a bad idea. "Yes, thank you," be called out instead. He could see his reflection in the glass wall of the diorama. Under the dried, caked blood, his nose was starting to resemble Rondo Hatten's. His eyes weren't black yet, but they would be soon, both of them. He'd look like a raccoon. This is just fucking great, he thought.

  He found a hidden door in the back and exited the diorama. A narrow access corridor led him out to where Quasiman was waiting patiently. Or maybe it wasn't patience.... Jay looked closely and saw that the hunchback was in some kind of fugue, his eyes glazed and cloudy, his hand frozen on the light panel. He sighed and left Quas where he was as he searched for a phone.

  The Dime Museum was closed and deserted. There was a bank of pay phones outside the men's room. Jay dropped a quarter, started to punch in a number, and then froze. He'd been about to call Hastet, but maybe that wasn't such a good idea. The feds had to be looking for him by now. If a platoon of Coast Guardsmen showing up in the middle of White Sands Missile Range hadn't been enough of a clue for them, they had Topper. His home phone could be tapped. Ditto for Starfields and the office lines at Ackroyd and Creighton.

  Well, okay, he thought. They'd prepared for that possibility. He punched in the number for Jerry Strauss on Staten Island, and for once felt thankful for his junior partner's stupid secret identity. With luck, the feds didn't know that Creighton was really Strauss.

  "Hello?"

  "Jerry, it's me."

  "Where are you?" Jerry said, astonished. "I thought they had you for sure. How'd you get off the island?"

  "A trained detective is always resourceful, even when he's unconscious."

  "Is Topper with you?"

  "She didn't get out," Jay said. "Don't worry, Topper can take care of herself. Do you have Finn?"

  "He's down in my wine cellar," Jerry said, and Jay breathed a sigh of relief. "Peter's with him. We were having a strategy session when the phone rang. Jay, you better get here as soon as you can. This Black Trump thing -

  "Did Finn tell you what the fuck it is?" Jay interrupted.

  "A virus," said Jerry, his voice gone grave. "A virus designed to kill every ace, joker, and wildcard carrier in the world."

  For a moment, words failed Jay Ackroyd. A wisecrack curdled and died unborn on his tongue. What do you say to something like that? Finally he managed weakly, "This thing exists?"

  "Finn says so," Jerry replied.

  Jay could tell there was a second shoe waiting to be dropped, so he reached out and shook the shoe tree. "And the Card Sharks have this virus, is that it?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  There was a sudden throbbing behind Jay's eyes. It was hard enough to get a taxi to go to Staten Island at the best of times, he thought, never mind trying to get one in Jokertown at night with your nose mashed in and your face covered with dried blood. "I'm on my way," he said wearily, and hung up the phone.

  ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

  Hangar 14 - thankfully - lay out in the low rent district of Tomlin facing the East River, well away from the distant busy terminals of TWA, American, and Pan Am. The steel frame of the building may well have been of World War II vintage, decades of use half-hidden under the cosmetics of paint. Unlike many of the hangars lined up in the area, 14 had no corporate logos or names painted above the main doors. A small sign was mounted alongside the side door, but neither of them could read the letters from their hiding place - for that matter, Gregg could barely make out the sign itself.

  Gregg and Hannah watched the hangar from the cover of tall weeds along the river. The big hangar doors had been opened to the stained and cracked concrete apron leading out to Tomlin's maze of runways; inside, the rising sun touched the red-and-white sleek fiberglass lines of a five-seat Learjet
. A black man in blue overalls was inspecting the undercarriage of the craft. Twice while they watched the man straightened and looked out across the field, shading his eyes against the rising sun. "Bushorn?" Hannah asked Gregg.

  "Yes. I hope he's still expecting us."

  "I know one way to find out."

  Fright shivered down Gregg's body. He was afraid to stand up, afraid to move at all. "Hannah - "

  She ignored him, rising from a crouch and vainly brushing at the stains on her clothing. She ran fingers through her cropped newly-dark hair and began walking toward the hangar while Gregg watched as Hannah's figure blurred with distance. Bushorn noticed her about halfway there. He straightened, silently watching her approach. Gregg wished he could see the expression on the man's face. They talked for a moment, then Bushorn disappeared into the interior shadows of the hangar. Gregg heard the whine of jets warming up. A few minutes later, Bushorn came out again with a large cardboard box. Leaving Hannah by the hangar and the idling aircraft, he walked out across the concrete and into the high grass, whistling tunelessly as he approached Gregg. Gregg huddled down in a crouch, poised to run at need.

  "I see you," the man said softly. "Don't be running away, my man. That body's damn near neon."

  "Gary, it's good to see you."

  "You want me to say 'me, too' or would you prefer the truth?" A quick grin pulled at the edges of his mouth and vanished as he set the box down, its open end facing Gregg. "Get in," Bushorn said. "Can't have anyone spotting you."

  Gregg crawled into the box. The carton smelled of styro-foam - a few peanuts clung stubbornly to the sides - old tape, and delicious metal. The smell reminded him how long it had been since he'd eaten. A nice stainless steel tire rim, with a side of pot metal ... Bushorn tipped up the box and lifted, grunting. "Damn, you sure didn't lose weight when the virus shrunk you down."

  "It's my diet," Gregg said. "It's on the heavy side."

  "I believe that." Bushorn grunted again, adjusting his grip, then began walking back toward the hangar. He didn't look down at Gregg, he didn't smile. He smelled of soap, grease, and jet fuel, all overlaid with sweat - now that the man was close, Gregg could see beads of perspiration clinging to the man's skin like dew, even though the morning was cool. He remembered that Bushorn always sweated profusely, even on the coldest days - the wild card had reset his core temperature. "You sure you two weren't followed?"

  "Not unless they used a submarine."

  Bushorn snorted at that. His footsteps jarred Gregg rhythmically; perspiration rained from his forehead and into the box. Gregg would have sworn that he could feel the heat of the man's skin through the barrier of cardboard. They were nearly at the hangar; Gregg could see the roof of the building, then the sky was replaced by high girders and a corrugated steel roof. Bushorn set the box down, pulling a handkerchief from his back pocket and mopping his face with it. "Europe still on the itinerary?" he asked, half-shouting over the rumble of the jets.

  "We're not in a position to be real picky," Hannah told him. "But that's our thought."

  "Mmmm." Bushorn shrugged. Sweat darkened the spine of his uniform shirt; when he wiped his hands on the overall pants, he left behind streaks. "Well, let's - "

  Bushorn stopped. He looked out toward the tarmac and covered his eyes against the sun's glare. Gregg looked that way and could see nothing but a vague blur of grass and concrete. "Why don't you two get into the plane. Now."

  "What's going on?" Gregg asked.

  "There's a car heading this way."

  "Police?" Hannah asked.

  "Uh-uh. A black panel van." Bushorn shook his head; droplets of sweat scattered like silver rain. "They're accelerating. Damn, what've you got me into, Hartmann? Shit ..."

  Hannah put her hand on his arm. She looked at Gregg, then back at Bushorn. "Look, Mr. Bushorn - Gary - you don't have to do anything. Not now. We understand. You didn't ask for this trouble."

  He looked at her with his solemn face. "You understand, huh? Yeah, well, I know you, too, even with the new hair. I know what you've done. Just stay ready to head for the damn plane."

  As Gregg and Hannah watched, Bushorn jogged over to a large metal barrel just outside and began pumping liquid through the nozzle of a hose attached to it. The smell of petroleum wrinkled Gregg's round Rudolph nose as the stream spread over the concrete in front of the hangar. He stood waiting, holding the still-trickling hose, as the van approached.

  The side doors of the van crashed open as it squealed to a churning stop in front of them. An athletic man in a white suit leapt out, followed by a lithe blond woman Gregg recognized as April Harvest, who had led the raid on the Dime Museum, and a quartet of gray suits in sunglasses. A lopsided grin hung on Carnifex's face as he stepped forward. He stood at the edge of the growing puddle on the concrete; if he noticed any smell, he gave no indication. "Surprise! Seems we're just in time," he said. He glanced at Bushorn and obviously dismissed the man. His gaze lingered appreciatively on Hannah for a second, then the grin widened as he looked at Gregg. "Hey, I like that look, Gregg," he said. The grin vanished. "You never even fucking came to the hospital after I saved your lousy life at the Atlanta convention. You never even called and said thanks."

  "Ray, you talk too much. Just do it," Harvest said, and Ray gave her a lopsided scowl before motioning toward the van.

  "Hartmann, nothing would make me happier than having you resist arrest," he said, "but let's just make it easy and get into the van. You too, Ms. Davis." He glanced again at Bushorn. "And you, mister. Surprised there's still nats willing to stick their necks out for jokers."

  "I'm not a nat," Bushorn said.

  Carnifex narrowed his eyes. A look of pleasure and anticipation crossed his torn face. "Oh? You're no ace I've ever heard of," he said.

  "I'm not an ace either," Bushorn said slowly, his voice barely audible over the screech of the jets in the hangar. "I'm just a deuce." His eyes on Carnifex and the silent men behind him, Bushorn crouched down. His fingertip touched the pool, dimpling the liquid. A faint smoke whirled in the breeze around the finger.

  And then flame, louder than the jets, roared across the small lake, leaping and curling ten feet in the air with a concussive blast. Gregg heard Carnifex swear and Harvest yelp, heard the other men shouting. Then they were lost behind the screen of flame and heat. Gunshots punctuated the din; bullets whined and pinged on the back wall of the hangar. Bushorn was running past them toward the plane, cradling his right arm to his body. "Inside! Now!"

  Hannah ran; Gregg scuttled with them, all six legs pumping. Bushorn picked Gregg up, heaving him over the wing and into the small cabin. Hannah, breathless, followed, and then Bushorn swung in, taking the pilot's seat. "Buckle in. This could get rough," he said over his shoulder.

  "You're hurt," Hannah said, grabbing at Bushorn's hand. Gregg saw that the skin of Bushorn's right hand was a seared, white ruin to the wrist. Even Gregg's unskilled eyes could tell that Bushorn's hand would be a scarred, stiff horror, if he managed to save it at all. He hated the concern he saw in Hannah's eyes.

  "It happens," Bushorn answered. Sweat was running down his arms, over his brow. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. "I heal quick. Anyway, we ain't got time to worry about it now. Hang on." Bushorn pulled back on the throttles left-handed; the jets screamed like twin banshees and the craft shuddered. Bushorn released the brakes, feathered the pedals, and the plane began rolling, picking up speed. Through the windows, Gregg could see the flames rushing toward them, filling the windows with orange fire and black, greasy smoke. Then they were through.

  All of the suits were down; Harvest was on her knees, firing at them with a handgun. Gregg caught a glimpse of Carnifex, shouting wordlessly and rolling as the plane's wing nearly decapitated him, and then doing an impossible leap up onto the plane's wing. The ace began running along the wing toward the cabin. "Damn!" Bushorn grunted, and turned sharply left.

  Carnifex made a desperate leap and grab as the motion took his balance. His finge
rs caught the plane's antenna; muscles corded in the ace's arms as he pulled himself upright. They could see Ray's face pressed against the cockpit window, grimacing with effort and flushed with anger. "He's a persistent little fuck," Bushorn said and gunned the engines, at the same time turning sharply right. The antenna snapped off, still gripped in Ray's fingers, and the white-uniformed man went tumbling over the back of the wing and disappeared. Bushorn played the brakes and turned the aircraft left again - the tip of the wing screeching as it left a long graze on the side of the van, and then they were rolling freely down the concrete, picking up speed. Bushorn pulled a headset from its holder and pulled it down over his head.

  "Tower, this is Alpha Delta Rio One Niner Six Four Oh. I need runway Five NW cleared immediately." A thin voice answered back through the headset; Gregg could hear none of the words. "Look, I know all about regulations and my damn license, and I don't fucking much care, Tower. They've got a gun on me" - Bushorn grinned at Hannah and Gregg - "and I'm taking off on Five NW in about thirty seconds, if you don't clear it, there's going to be one hell of a mess, and you'll be responsible. Is that clear enough for you?" The voice sputtered in the earphones again. "Good."

  Bushorn sighed. He looked back at his two passengers. "I sure as hell hope this is worth it," he said.

  "It is," Hannah said.

  "That's all I need to know, then."

  Bushorn steered them down the complex of concrete, turning at last at the end of a runway where a queue of 727s waited, the heat of their jets shimmering the air. There, Bushorn took a long breath before pulling back all the way on the throttles. The aircraft leaped forward pressing Gregg and Hannah back against their seats as the jets roared their power. As they began to race down the runway, the black van pulled in front of them a few hundred yards ahead, blocking the runway. "Bushorn!" Hannah shouted, but the man paid no attention to her. They continued to race toward the van. Carnifex, in soot-stained white, opened the driver's door and ran, diving into the grass alongside the runway.