Busted Flush

“So you are the famous Radical,” said the slim Goth chick beside Fortune. She had chin-length hair, brass red, streaked electric chartreuse. Her English had a French accent. “I’m totally excited to meet you.”

“This is Simone Duplaix,” Fortune said. “Also known as Snowblind. She’s from Quebec. That’s in Canada.”

Ignoring the gibe, Tom grinned as he shook her hand. “Pleasure’s mine. But these days I just go by Tom.”

Her grip lingered on his. “I had your poster on my closet door in college,” she said. “To me you are a hero.”

“Long live the Revolution,” he said. He let her hand go and turned to the next visiting fireman. Sure, Snowblind was ready to get it on. But not really that cute. He was doing better. And if he was going to get some on the side, that ace chick who’d gone with them on the Oil Rivers raid was pretty foxy. Before her arms blew off and all.

Briskly, Nshombo introduced Buford Calhoun, a big blond redneck who wore a dark business suit and tie, but looked as if he ought to be wearing greasy coveralls with his name on the chest. “Pleased to meet a famous ace such as yourself, Mr. Weathers,” he said. Southerners always sounded dumb to Tom. He right away suspected that dumb ran a little bit deeper with ol’ Buford.

“And this is Mr. Tom Diedrich,” Nshombo said. “He also goes by Brave Hawk.”

Nshombo spoke English not with a French but with a touch of stuck-up-sounding English accent. Tom usually talked French with him anyway to keep his hand in. He’d learned the language during an earlier go-round in Africa. He picked it up pretty easily. He did most things pretty easily. Except keep a gig.

Until now. Nshombo might be a stiff. But the man had vision. And he wasn’t afraid to leave Tom free to do his thing. To let him be . . . Radical.

Even before he heard the ace name, Weathers had this other Tom pegged as Native American. He stood six or seven inches less than Weathers’s six-two, copper-skinned, hair black as a crow’s ass. He wore cowboy duds: pointy boots, faded denim jeans, blue denim shirt. A coral-bead necklace with a smooth-polished stone hawk fetish encircled his neck.

To Tom’s amused delight he actually tried the hand-crushing game. Diedrich had pretty strong hands. For a nat.

Tom Weathers’s grip could powder brick. Literally.

He was above that kind of macho posturing. He squeezed back just hard enough to make the Indian’s eyes water and bandy knees buckle. Then he let him go.

Gotta admit the little fucker’s pretty hard-core, he thought. He’d let me squash his hand before he cried uncle.

Diedrich gave him a flat look and a tiny nod. “Hear you fight for the rights of indigenous peoples,” he said huskily. “Don’t see a lot of white-eyes actually step up and do that. Mostly they’re just talk.”

Looking as if Brave Hawk’s implied slam had put his aristocratic nose a bit off true, John Fortune said, “And this is the Lama, from Nepal.”

He’d saved the weirdest for last. The Lama was a skinny little brown guy in a yellow robe who sat in the lotus position.

Two feet off the hardwood floor.

He didn’t offer a hand. Tom didn’t push it. “The Llama?” he said. “Isn’t he some South American guy, spits, like, sticky tear-gas slime, kicks real hard?”

“That is properly pronounced yama,” the floating man snapped. “I must mention he is merely a poser with a cape and a pencil-thin mustache. Whereas I am being a seeker after spiritual truth.”

“Whoa! Hang on, Mr. Holy Floating Dude,” Tom said, holding up his hands. “Don’t get your dharmic diapers in a wad.”

The Lama looked pissy. Before he could say anything Tom heard a pop and felt air puff against his face. A woman appeared in the briefing room.

Tom blinked. An amazing woman. Gleaming black hair flowed down over her shoulders to blend in with a black cloak worn over a white jumpsuit. Her eyes were silver in her exquisite heart-shaped face. Zippers slashed this way and that across the jumpsuit. Tom noticed they offered ready access to ripe breasts and pussy. His heartbeat picked up.

“Fashionably late again, Lilith?” Fortune asked acidly.

“Right on time, I’d say, Johnny dear,” she said. Her voice was a kind of purr that tickled right up Tom’s nut sac. Complete with one of those velvety Brit accents. “I’ve just missed the boring parts, it seems.”

John Fortune clenched his hands. His lips moved. So did the lump in his forehead. Tom stared at it with horrified fascination. Christ, is that a fucking bug? He almost imagined he could see little legs twitching under the coffee-with-cream skin. He’d first thought it was just some physical thing that came along with Fortune’s ace, a minor joker manifestation . . . .

“She brought us here yesterday,” John Fortune said with what seemed unnatural control. “She’s been away on business of her own. As is often the case.”