Busted Flush

I keep very still, wishing for invisibility, but Siraj looks back over his shoulder at me. I can see the slow burning anger in his eyes, and I wish that Jayewardene had taken a different tack. What the secretary-general had perceived as sweet reason Siraj had read as condescension.

“Could you teleport to it?” Siraj asks, nodding toward the plane. He is formally attired in a snowy white thobe with a gold-trimmed bisht thrown over top. A gold signet ring glitters on his little finger as he holds the cloak closed.

“No.” I keep it a short lie. You always get into trouble when you try to explain things. And a lie is necessary. All I need is to be ordered to kill the secretary-general of the United Nations.

Now the Caliph is frowning at me. “Why not?”

“I can’t calculate the speed and adjust for distance. And if I miscalculate . . .” I shrug. “I cannot fly, sir.”

“You are afraid?” It’s more of an accusation than a question. The Caliph is staring at me. His eyes are like dark coals held in a cobweb of lines that gouge the skin that’s not covered by his luxurious beard. “You will not act for the faith? For your people?”

I nod at Siraj. “The president has not commanded me to act.”

“You could just teleport somewhere else . . .” A sudden smile softens the lines in Siraj’s face. “While you’re plummeting toward the ground.”

“And that might be a problem, sir.” I offer him a quick smile.

“Why will you not take action?” the Caliph demands of Siraj.

“Because my predecessor made that mistake, and it’s one of the factors that brought down disaster upon us in Egypt.”

The old man throws his hands in the air and stalks toward the office door. Siraj watches closely until it closes behind him.

He sighs and moves to a table of elaborately inlaid wood and mother-of-pearl. A chess set is off to one side. A couple of decks of playing cards and a score pad rest on one corner. Siraj is an obsessive bridge player. We had spent many hours with Kenneth and Chris playing rubber after rubber in our house in Cambridge. I find myself wondering what became of Chris. Kenneth is a bond trader—

I pull back my wandering thoughts when Siraj says, “I think Jayewardene would like to have found a solution.”

“So, why didn’t you agree, sir?”

“Because I’ll lower prices on my timetable, not theirs.” Siraj’s expression has hardened again. He picks up a deck of cards, and begins to shuffle it absently.

It’s a risk, but I have to speak up. Partly for the oil, but partly for these people I’ve lived among. “The UN, NATO, and the Americans are massing troops in Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Upper Egypt, on aircraft carriers. Our army is shattered. We left its bones along the Nile. And they have aces. Loh . . .” I turn it into a cough and, I hope, cover the mistake. “The Crusader is with them, and the Iron Man.”

“They will not invade.” Siraj hands me the deck and I automatically take it. “The West has covertly stolen our oil for decades. They will be too squeamish to openly steal it.”

“But, sir, your speciality is bridge. This is poker. Are you sure they are only bluffing?” And I’m betrayed by my nervous hands and tired mind.

I, too, riffle the cards, but it turns into a bridge of cards flowing like bird wings between my palms. I quickly stiffen the muscles in my fingers, sending cards spurting in all directions.

I drop down and feel my thobe tug at the back of my neck as I kneel on the soft black material. I’m scrabbling for the cards, not daring a single glance at Siraj. Fear and tension form an aching knot in my belly. I can’t keep doing this. I’ve got to get a night’s sleep. Spend a day in Cambridge.

Flint, Weathers, Fortune, Siraj, Jayewardene. Oh, yes, I’ve got quite a little list.

And none of them would be missed.

Dirge in a

Major Key: Part I

S. L. Farrell

“DB, WHEN ARE YOU getting back? It’s been damn near a goddamn month now. S’Live wrote a new song he wants us to get on the album. Yeah, it’s last minute but KA says he can get it done. We’re using this crappy sequenced track right now, but it ain’t making it. We need you to really lay it down. And the engineer thinks we need to retake a couple tracks while we still have the studio reserved, and there are all your dubs we’ve been waiting on for fucking forever . . . .”

Michael was lying on his bed, in the room he and Rusty shared on the aircraft carrier USS Tomlin, currently sailing with its escort cruisers in the middle of the Persian Gulf. Michael thought he could feel the slow roll of the ship in the swells, but that was almost certainly an illusion. They’d been on the ship for almost three weeks now. The initial adrenaline rush at the thought of going into action had long ago vanished, to be replaced by simple boredom.