Busted Flush

Double Helix

HIS ENEMIES SHALL LICK THE DUST

Melinda M. Snodgrass

Dear Sir,

And now for As the UN Turns.

I SET ASIDE THE laptop feeling the residual heat on my thighs and take a sip of scotch and a drag on my cigarette. Once in a great while I worry that I’m taking too light a tone with my superior officer, but Flint seems to like it. I think I actually manage to amuse the joker/ace.

My manager has me in a suite at the Marriott so I’m comfortably ensconced in the sitting room with my feet up on a hassock, and Sonique playing on the radio. In two hours I’m going to be onstage performing my magic act. I need to get this report typed and into a diplomatic pouch within the hour so I can spend an hour working my hands, and checking over my equipment at the theater. Through the hotel windows I watch the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge. The sky burns in shades of red, orange, melon, and lavender, and the waters of the bay seem to be dancing quicksilver.

I return to the task.

Jonathan Hive’s blog post regarding the explosion in Pyote, Texas, roused the ire of the Powers That Be in Washington, and SCARE sent agents to arrest him for violating national security—Bugsy must be viewed as a fearsome threat to national security because Billy Ray himself showed up. But as tough as Ray might be he can’t capture a cloud of buzzing insects. After bestowing several dozen stings to Ray, Bugsy . . . er, bugged out. It was a wonderful sight watching a swarm of green wasps heading down 33rd St. to the consternation of the dinnertime crowd.

Net result—Hive is holed up inside the UN. The Department of Justice is blustering, Jayewardene is being saintly and noncommittal, and I’m sure I’ll be tasked with getting Hive out of the country at some point. It does raise interesting legal questions regarding the status of an American citizen seeking sanctuary with an international body located on American soil. I’m sure in four or five years the Supreme Court will give us a definitive ruling.

I know this won’t make Whitehall happy, but these really are third-rate aces who have accompanied Fortune to Africa, and Fortune has been very clear that none of the Committee members are to take part in the fighting. We should be able to brush through this without any overt interference in Nigerian affairs, and I really can’t refuse without damaging my status within the Committee.

Oh, and one more thing. I want a raise.

Sir.

The Tears of Nepthys

THE FIRST TEAR: ISIS

Kevin Andrew Murphy

SUNLIGHT GLINTED ACROSS THE waves, postcard perfect for a Nantucket summer. Ellen’s mother had loved mornings like this, watercolor mornings she’d called them, time to take the paints and easel and a flap of Bristol board and a daughter by the hand, and drag them off to Brandt Point by the lighthouse, sketching the sailboats like the one Ellen lived on now.

An easterly wind was already wisping away fingers of fog as Ellen let go of the ladder. She settled herself into the dinghy, then paused, one hand on the mooring line. She raised her free hand to the cameo at her throat, her mother’s brooch, resting a fingertip on the velvet band.

She decided against it. Today was her day, Ellen alone. She let go of the line, unknotted the rope, and slipped the oars into the water. She rowed in silence, passing the sailboats of the purists, and on past the cabin cruisers tied to mooring posts. The latter waited like wallflowers at a dance, all but three bearing FOR SALE signs faded to gray and Nantucket red.

Ellen sculled the water until the smooth lee gave way to the rough rippling of open harbor. A gust sprang up and the salt wind stung her eyes, threatening to start tears. Even the most beautiful morning was nothing if you had no one to share it with. The gulls cried mournfully, gabbled and shrieked, some skimming near her, hoping she were a fisherman with lost bait or a tourist with spare bread, but all Ellen had was a rueful smile. Nothing to a gull.

She found a space at the end of the pier, pausing to check her outfit before she stepped into view: a pair of ivory clam-diggers, nicely cut but unremarkable; a blue-and-white-striped nautical pullover, equally classic and unmemorable; and finally Top-Siders, standard footwear among the yachting set. As for herself, a willowy blonde on the inner cusp of forty might still turn a head or two, but one virtue of classic features was their anonymity, a face glimpsed in a gallery of old masters and fin de siècle poster art, and forgoing makeup was its own disguise. Sun and salt had bleached her wavy hair a shade lighter than the honey blond most would remember, and scrunching it back into a ponytail was not what most would expect of her, either.