Busted Flush

For a moment it looked like he might spout obscenities. Then he ducked his gaze and chuckled. She reached for his nearest hand and squeezed. Friends in a tight spot. She didn’t want to lose that. He wrapped three of his hands around hers. All she had to do was say the word, and he’d wrap his whole, immense body around her like that, smothering her with warmth and affection. She didn’t say the word.

Sighing, he said, “This mission is completely fucked up.”

She pressed her lips in a line. “I know.”

That evening, Kate found a TV that picked up CNN and watched John’s mission go to hell even worse than this one was. The footage of Sekhmet the Lion shrugging off gunfire and tearing the treads off tanks left her nauseous. That was John in there, she kept telling herself. The Committee hadn’t stopped a genocide. They’d ignited a war. Reports of injured Committee members were sketchy—all anyone knew was that there were injuries. Calls to John weren’t getting through.

When Ana called, Kate left the crowd gathered around the TV to get some privacy.

“How are you?” Ana asked, her voice scratching over the cell connection.

I’ve been shot. “I’m okay,” Kate said instead.

“You’re lying,” Ana said, a little too flatly for it to be a joke.

“Well, so are you.” Both women sighed, unable to explain how much they were really hurting. “Have you been watching the news at all?”

“Haven’t had time,” Ana said. “Not sure I want to. I take it things aren’t going well.”

“They could be worse. We haven’t lost anyone yet.” Then Kate wished she hadn’t said it. It was such a close thing.

“Same here. We got through Harriet, but there’s a second hurricane on the way. Category five this time.”

When it rained, it poured. And that was a really bad joke.

“Are you getting any rest at all?” Kate said.

Ana sighed. “I’m doing okay.”

“No, Ana, you’re not. I’m ten thousand miles away and I can hear that you aren’t.”

“I swear, you’re as bad as John with the overprotective thing,” Ana said, as frustrated as Kate had ever heard her. Kate didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m a big girl, Kate. You worry about your own skin, okay?”

Her own skin, with its gunshot wound and eight stitches.

“Okay,” she said weakly.

“I have to get going,” Ana said with new urgency. “Chopper’s here to take me across the lake.” It must have been midmorning in New Orleans. Ana was just getting started.

“Be careful.”

“You, too. See you later.” She clicked off.

Kate tried not to worry about what was happening on the other side of the world. Too much worry, in too many places. She returned to her room, sitting in the dark, on her cot, in sweatpants and sports bra, curling her left arm protectively to her body.

She didn’t know what to do. What the fuck were they going to do?

A brief breeze, maybe a second of whooshing air, passed through the room, like a draft through an open tent flap.

Lilith swept back her arm, flourishing her cape. Beside her stood John.

Her first thought: she didn’t want John to see her like this, hurt and defeated. Her second: Lilith told him. The bitch. But she forgot all that when John knelt by her cot and pulled her into his arms. He didn’t look a whole lot better than she felt. His face was ashen, almost sickly, his eyes bloodshot. She could smell soot and gunpowder ground into this clothing.

“Are you okay?” they asked each other at the same time.

She hugged him as tight as she could with one arm. “I’m okay, John.”

He pulled away to look at her, cupping her face in his hands, smoothing back her hair. “Kate. You were shot.”

“Grazed. Just a few stitches. Left arm, even. I can still throw.”

“Kate—” His look darkened, and Kate braced. Here it came, he was going to try to yank her from the mission.

She tried to beat him to it. “John, we’re done here. We’re cooked. We need to pull out before something ridiculous happens.”

“Lilith says this was an isolated incident. One guy. A disgruntled worker lashing out.”

She almost laughed. “You can actually say that with a straight face? After what happened to Michael and Rusty? John, we’ve seen what’s happening here. These people don’t want us here. This is an invasion. Michael will tell you the same thing—”

“You’re siding with him now?”

She huffed. “God, what is it with you two?”

“It should have been me here. I shouldn’t have let him talk me into switching.”

“John, would you listen to me? It wouldn’t matter if you’d been here. It isn’t about you or him or me or who’s doing what. It’s this place. The situation here is totally fucked up and Jayewardene’s crazy if he thinks us being here is going to help anything. The UN needs trained diplomats on the ground here, not . . . not . . . a bunch of reality show rejects!”

John looked over his shoulder. Lohengrin was standing in the doorway.

“You lack faith,” the German ace said. He’d recovered from his bout of unconsciousness with no ill effects. Hard-headed, that one. “We’re symbols. Powerful symbols. Have faith.”