Busted Flush

Tom landed. He felt his legs buckle under him. He had to put a hand down to keep from planting his face in the little patch of sand.

He shook his head. “Whoa. Takes it out of you.”

“Over there!” Drake shouted, pointing off and up toward the crater rim. Glad to know he’s picked a side, Tom thought.

He wheeled quickly around and sent a fire blast toward the golden figure that stood against the bruised and roiling sky. It didn’t much surprise him when it vanished. Hope he didn’t notice that last shot was a bit feeble, he thought. I haven’t really recovered from letting it all hang out when I trashed the Nigerian Army.

He was already spinning in place, cocking his right arm. His straight right caught the teleport square on the bridge of his aristocratic golden nose as he materialized behind Tom, sent him staggering back three steps. Smoke curled from beneath his slippers as he blundered into the hot glass.

He doubled over, emitting a thin keening wail. He put hand to face, looked at it. Looking up at Tom in shocked outrage he said, “You broke it! Bloody hell.”

“That’s just the beginning of a world of hurt,” Tom said. He was righteously pissed. Stutter-stepping forward he side-kicked him. Not hard enough to break anything, or much. Just enough to launch him.

As the golden man reached the apex of his flight Tom raised a hand. But his sun-hot beam flashed through air and up into the dense clouds. They boiled away from its fury.

“Shit,” he said. He stood tensed, casting from side to side, awaiting the next attack.

After a minute he decided the glowing Limey had had enough. Too bad.

“Next time, motherfucker,” Tom said. “Next time.”

Elation hit him, like a jolt of all the drugs he so rigorously denied himself. We won! he thought. We won it all. We’ve joined the nuclear club, baby. Nobody can fuck with us now.

“Okay, buddy. Let’s get you out of here.” He went to Drake, pulled him up by the arm. The boy felt like a pillowcase full of wet cement. Dead weight. But Tom could clean and jerk a Vijayanta. Important thing was, the boy didn’t seem inclined to fight him.

The teenager slumped against him. Putting an arm around his fat bare back wasn’t Tom’s favorite thing to do. Compared to what else he’d done today, it wasn’t so bad. “Ever wanted to see Earth from outer space, kid?”

“Naked?”

“Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing.”

They landed in the middle of a parking lot outside the palace. A pair of guards in crisp sky blue uniforms came trotting up.

They looked wild-eyed. Tom recognized them, so they must know him. His sudden appearance out of thin air couldn’t have rattled them that badly.

Drake sniffled. “Why are there sirens going off?”

Tom opened his mouth to explain an alert had been called after the armored column got nuked. Except why were they still going off?

Terrible certainty struck him like a blast wave. He thrust the plump, naked boy at the two guards. “Here. Take him to the president pronto. Don’t let anything stop you!”

He turned and ran for his rooms.

The wailing of Congolese caretakers confirmed his sickest fears when he was halfway down the corridor.

He blew in through the open door. Sun Hei-lian sat amid a gaggle of hysterical local women, stiffly upright and apparently emotionless. The shiny tear-track down either exquisite cheek gave that the lie.

The women stopped their lamentations to stare at Tom in horror. Presumably a good part of their distress arose from their fears of what he’d do to them.

“A golden guy—”

Hei-lian nodded. “He took her,” she said. “I ran up here as soon as the fight started. I realized, a teleport—no one was safe. Anywhere.”

He nodded briskly. “Smart. What happened?”

“When I got here he was just chasing off the caretakers. He grabbed Sprout and held a sword to her throat. He said that the Committee would be in touch, with instructions where and when to bring the boy if you want your daughter back.”

“The Committee,” Tom said. “Those cocksuckers.”

He noticed something on a table: a black handgun, a compact 9mm CZ-100. His eyes followed several frightened gazes and one as unnaturally calm as his own to a wall, where a divot had been knocked from faintly pinkish stucco. He frowned.

“You shot at him? When he was holding my daughter?”

She lifted her chin. “You know what I am, Tom. I’m counterterror-trained. Sprout was in no danger. I would have hit him”—she reached up to touch between her eyes—“here.”

“You missed.”

“I did not miss. He teleported.”

“Yeah.” He sighed and rubbed his hands together. “Bastard does that.”

“What will you do?”

“Give ’em the kid.”

She blinked and jerked back as if slapped. “What will Nshombo say?”

“Better be yes.” Tom said. “I’ll take them the kid. I’ll get my little girl back.