Busted Flush

“Yeah. Same here,” DB told her, half yelling into the cell phone. Across the lobby of the Administration Building that had become their base, Rusty glanced over at him. “No problems. Makes me happy; I wasn’t looking forward to another dustup with the Caliphate, especially not over oil.”

“What we’re doing is about people,” Kate said. “That’s what matters. Half the world is suffering because of the embargo. That’s the reason we’re here.” Then, a laugh that made him grin. “That sounded like John, didn’t it?”

“All you need is a scarab beetle in your forehead.”

There was silence, and he worried for a moment that she’d taken offense. “Sorry,” her faint voice responded at last. A squawk of static cut off most of what she said afterward. “. . . watch yourself, especially. And see you soon back home, okay?”

“Right,” he told her. “Soon.”

“How’s Curveball and the others?” Rusty asked.

“It’s good,” Michael told him. “Everything’s good.”

The rest of the day was uneventful. Michael and Rusty toured the wellheads that their team had secured; all seemed well. The evening subsided into semi-boring routine as the workers arrived from Baghdad International: derrick workers whose job it was to get the oil flowing again. The feeds they received from the news channels were full of praise for the work of the teams. Fortune sent word through Barbara that the aces would be brought out within the week—there was more need of the Committee elsewhere with this operation going so smoothly.

The next day, Michael and Rusty, along with two blue helmets—Lieutenant Bedeau and Marlon, another French soldier—decided to sweep through the refinery area to the south of the Administration Building, where crews were scheduled to begin work. Tomorrow, Michael and the others would be heading somewhere else, landing in some other desert wellhead.

They walked along a large open area set in the middle of the cluttered refinery: weapons shouldered, their Kevlar vests unbuttoned against the day’s broiling heat—Michael, against orders and his own nagging paranoia, was entirely bare-chested in the fierce sunlight. Marlon was snapping pictures with a digital camera; Bedeau was speaking into a satellite phone, reporting in to Colonel Saurrat’s adjunct. “The refinery looks to be operable,” Michael could hear Bedeau saying in French-accented English. “There’s no—”

The voice cut off with a grunt. Michael glanced back. Bedeau had dropped the phone and was clutching his stomach with both hands, a look of surprise and shock on his face as blood poured through his fingers and bloomed on his uniform shirt. A strangled, wet cry came from his open mouth as his knees gave way and he crumpled. At the same moment, there was a familiar, chilling metallic chatter: small-arms fire. Something pinged from Rusty’s body and whined away past Michael’s left ear, leaving behind a burning line from his ear to his forehead. He could feel blood sliding hot down his cheek.

“Shit! Take cover!” Michael screamed. A four-foot-tall set of thick pipe sections was stacked a dozen feet away. Michael took two running steps and flung himself behind them. Marlon was trying to get his FAMAS up when a round took him in the biceps and spun him around; he managed to crawl behind the pipes with Michael, puffs of sand kicking up around him from bullets.

Rusty hadn’t moved. He stood in the open, pointing to the north and a tangle of steel pipes laced between two buildings a hundred feet away.

“The fellas are over there,” he said calmly. “I see six or seven of them.”

“Great,” Michael told him. “Now get the fuck down.”

A trio of bullets struck Rusty’s body and caromed away, leaving shiny scratches on his chest. He grunted. “I’m fine,” Rusty said. “Let me try—”

A stream of orange fire and black smoke raced past well above them and slammed into the side of the main refinery building fifty feet behind. The concussion of the explosion was like a fist, the sound was deafening. Michael could feel the heat of the fire as debris rained down around them. A brick slammed into the sand a hand’s breadth from Michael’s right side, burying itself several inches deep. “RPG,” Michael shouted to Rusty, wondering if any of them could hear anything over the lingering roar. He was trying to wrestle his own M-16 from his back. “That’s why you have to get down, Rusty! Marlon? You okay?”

The man was cursing loudly in French, and blood stained the sleeve of his uniform. “Fuck,” he said in English. “I think so, but the lieutenant, I think, is dead.”

Rusty had stooped to grab Bedeau’s body, then came lumbering behind the piping with the others. “How is he?” Michael asked, glancing at Bedeau’s open-eyed stare and already knowing the answer. Rusty shook his head.

Michael felt his stomach turn over. He gulped acid.