Busted Flush

“She only comes out at night,” Simone said. “Like a vampire.” Tom wasn’t sure if she was being—what was the word?—snarky, or if she spoke with a certain admiration. Outside he knew the sun had just dropped below the horizon with equatorial abruptness. In here it was never day or night, warm or cold. It just was, like Limbo.

“And you must be the famous Radical,” Lilith said, ignoring the editorial commentary. She smiled at Tom. He forgot all about John Fortune.

It took a strong man to withstand the sheer sensuality of the look and not get knocked flat on his ass. They didn’t come stronger than Tom. Rest easy, sweetheart, he thought at her. I’m Alpha Male of the whole fucking continent of Africa.

Except the little dapper guy at his side. But Nshombo never showed any interest in sex. What got him off was power.

Tom Weathers had charisma in buckets. He knew that. He used it—for the Revolution, of course. But if he’d had any of what the petit bourgeois wimps called “people skills” these days, he wouldn’t have had to tuck Sprout under his arm and run away from the collapse of a score of revolutionary movements in a dozen years, brought about by the sudden onset of pissed-off government troops or mutiny by capitalist running-dog lackey traitors in his own band. Or both. Still, he couldn’t help noticing that if either Hei-lian or little Goth-punk Simone had drawn a death glare ace, the newcomer would be a smoking heap.

“Now that we are all present,” the president said through silence thick as the sex in the air, which hung heavier than the humidity of the Kongoville night outside, “has your delegation had sufficient time to peruse the evidence we provided you, documenting Nigerian crimes against the native peoples of the Niger River Delta, whose land they plunder of oil?”

That was the problem with the man. He really talked like that.

“Not really, Your Excellency,” Fortune said. “You loaded us down pretty well.”

“My eyes are turning around in my skull from all this stuff,” Brave Hawk said.

Buford gave him his lights-on/nobody’s-home smile. “I don’t bother my head with none of that,” he said. “I just go where they point me and do what they tell me, and leave the thinking to them as’re good at it.”

Nshombo nodded his big head precisely. He was very good at it. “We wished to leave no doubt in your minds as to the justness of the cause we share with the oppressed people of the Delta. Now, please give your attention to our guests from Chinese Central Television. As you may know, Ms. Sun and Mr. Hong accompanied yesterday’s attack which interrupted the Nigerian atrocity.”

He nodded to Hei-lian and one of her pet geeks, who had hung back playing furniture during the introductions. Hei-lian smiled that gorgeous smile of hers. It lost a little bit of its luster with Lilith in the room. But not all.

Tom slid his tongue over his underlip. He was starting to get ideas.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Hei-lian said. “Gentlemen, Ms. Duplaix, Ms.—Lilith. If you’ll just look at the monitor here—”

“I am so not watching that horrible arm-chopping video again!” the Goth girl exclaimed.

“I quite understand your feelings,” Hei-lian said. “Fortunately, we need not. My crew has blown up and enhanced certain frames from footage taken moments before the counterattack began.”

Hong diddled dials. To Snowblind’s visible relief—and what’s somebody called Snowblind doing here just south of the equator? Tom wondered—what appeared on one of the big flat-screen monitors was huddled Ijaw huts, distance-grainy. Among them stood a figure. It looked up and to its right, then backed into a doorway out of sight.

“Wait,” Fortune said. “Run that back.”

Hong did. The man stepped back out into sunlight. He was short, plump, white, and bearded, and wore the same style bush hat, khaki shorts, and short-sleeved shirt as the red-haired guy Tom had torched. He carried a long old-style Brit assault rifle.

“Freeze it,” Hei-lian said.

“Son of a—” Fortune cut himself off just before he said something a well-behaved little fascist type didn’t say in front of presidential guys. “That’s Butcher Dagon!”

“He is familiar to you, Mr. Fortune?” Nshombo asked.

“Le bête!” Snowblind hissed.

Fortune controlled himself with visible effort. “Yes, Mr. President,” he said. “Yes, he is. The Committee knows him way too well. His real name’s Percival Chauncey. I’m not sure if he’s number one on the list, but he’s definitely one of the most-wanted ace criminals in the world today.”

“So my intelligence analysts tell me,” Nshombo said. “He currently styles himself a captain, although his actual military record is spotty. The Nigerians, it would seem, have added a rogue ace to the SAS advisors who lead their death squads.”

“If that Limey prick’s involved,” Diedrich said, “something bad’s definitely going down.”