Busted Flush

They followed the team to the main building. Their attention was out, looking for trouble. The helicopter’s motor was still running, just in case. A trio of UN soldiers stood near it, also keeping watch.

“Curveball!” one of the techs called from the door. He was middle-aged, British, and had a weathered look to him. “It’s locked. Care to do the honors?”

She kept looking at the barracks, waiting for someone to lob a grenade from there. “Yeah. Sure.” She pulled a pebble from the pouch over her shoulder.

“I could cut the lock off,” Lohengrin said.

“Yeah, but people like it when things go boom.” She smiled. The techs chuckled. “Stand back, guys.”

She almost didn’t look at the door before making her pitch, but she lowered her arm at the same time Lohengrin said, “Wait a moment.”

They both approached, their attention drawn by a thin line of discoloration at the top of the frame. Like a bad paint job, or a place where someone had tried to patch a crack. It looked almost like caulking.

“Bill?” she said to the British tech. “What’s this look like to you?”

He joined them at the door and studied where she pointed. It only took a second for his expression to turn slack, his eyes growing wide.

“Bloody hell,” he murmured. “I think it’s plastique.”

“Set to detonate when the door opens? A booby trap?”

“Probably.”

They all backed away.

“What do we do?” Lohengrin said.

“We call it in,” Curveball said. “Go back to HQ. This isn’t worth blowing ourselves up over.”

The technicians trotted back toward the helicopter without argument. She and Lohengrin brought up the rear as they’d initially led the way—watchfully, looking over their shoulders.

They heard the machine-gun fire before they saw the gunman.

Instinctively, Kate dropped as squibs of sand burst around her. Then a weight fell on her. Lohengrin, in full armor, including bucket helmet with decorative wings, playing human shield. She couldn’t move to reach her pouch.

“Get up!” she hissed, elbowing him. He did, just enough for her to slip out, take shelter, and take stock.

The firing continued. Bullets pinged off Lohengrin’s ghost steel.

There was only one of them. A basic-model automatic rifle. It was coming from the corner of the control building. She was actually getting experienced enough with this to discern that much from a noisy burst of gunfire.

Golf ball in hand this time, she cocked back and threw over Lohengrin’s shoulder. Didn’t have to aim, because she steered the projectile, sent it rocketing around the corner. She hoped that would silence the weapon.

It impacted with all the power of her surprise at the turn of events. People shooting at her brought this out. This anger. It translated well, and that side of the prefab building went up in a crack of thunder, a burst of dust and debris.

But he’d already run. Lohengrin pointed, and she caught a glimpse of someone peering out around the corner of the other side of the building.

Still just one of them. No army bearing down.

A second explosion blew out the front of the building. Fire ringed the door—the booby trap. Her detonation rattled the door and set the bomb off. Shit.

Billowing flames swallowed the building. She ducked, Lohengrin hunched over her, and debris pummeled them. Pieces of siding, of corrugated roofing, furniture even. Sheltered by Lohengrin’s body, she felt the impacts against him.

She didn’t see what struck his head, hard enough to whip it back, too fast, too hard. He slumped, boneless—and his armor vanished. She found herself holding a two-hundred-plus-pound unconscious German in her lap. The ghost steel couldn’t protect against everything—like getting knocked out inside the helmet.

In a panic, Kate felt for a pulse, looked for injuries. She didn’t see blood, no obvious marks. She shook his shoulders. “Lohengrin? Lohengrin! Klaus!”

They were in the open, totally exposed, and that guy was still out there with a gun. But the rain of fire didn’t come. She threw another stone.

And at that moment the gunman emerged and revealed what he was doing. He’d set down his gun and was pulling the pin from a grenade. But he wasn’t facing toward them. He’d turned to the tangle of pipelines, the wells, the pumps that held back the pressure of oil and natural gas.

He threw. The grenade sailed up.

She turned her missile toward the grenade. Didn’t know if this would work. Was she good enough, fast enough, clever enough? Had to believe she was. Good enough to get this far, couldn’t hesitate now.

She wondered what would happen the time she wasn’t good enough. It would only take once.

Her missile, glowing red-hot, sailed in a straight line toward the grenade, which was falling toward the pipes.

Squinting, she could barely see her target. But she could see it in her mind, follow the arc. She reached toward her missile, her arm taut and trembling, guiding it faster, still faster. She let out a cry of rage.