Stephen Leigh - Card Sharks

"What's — that mean?"

"Latin for 'Executioner.'"

He smiled and gave me the circled thumb-and-forefinger OK sign. And vanished.

Ackroyd pointed his gun at Lady Black. "Ready, Ms. Jefferson?"

"Just a moment." She stepped up, briefly held his face in both gloved hands. Then she did the same to me. I hugged her. I had to keep my head well back — she was taller than I. But I hugged her hard, and she hugged me back.

She stepped backward and was gone.

— I jumped, caught Ackroyd by the wrist, shoved his hand and pointing finger skyward.

"Try that again," I said, "and I'll break both your trigger fingers. Got that?"

A moment, and he nodded. I let him go, but kept a wary eye upon him.

"I didn't send them to Desert One," he said.

I froze in the act of stooping to gather the Kalashnikov magazines I'd made Lady Black and Billy carry, and relieved them of before Ackroyd popped them out. "We've been given the royal shaft," he said. "I don't trust anybody right now, least of all the military. I sure as hell wasn't sending them back to Desert One."

A moment. I nodded. "Smart move. Where'd they go?"

"The scoreboard in Yankee Stadium." He shrugged. "It's kind of a catch-all target for me."

I laughed. "You must be seriously suspicious, if you'd trust them to Steinbrenner instead of our own people. I wonder if the Yankees are playing at home tonight?"

I held out Joann's Kalashnikov. "Take this."

"No way. I don't have a clue how to use it." An ugly smile twisted his lips. "The recoil would probably throw my aim off so I'd shoot you."

"We don't want that, now, do we?" I drew my Tokagypt, reversed it, offered that.

"No." He held his extended forefinger up. "This is all the gun I need."

"If we get in the middle of it you and I might not be able to take everybody out, me shooting and you popping," I explained, choking down my impatience. "You have to know that by now, after what happened in the alley. We need to make them put their heads down. Pointing your finger at them just won't cut it."

"All right." He snatched the pistol away.

I let him lead off down the stairs, not my favorite tactical move, but I still didn't trust him behind me with the fickle finger of fate.

Halfway down the block a pickup truck with cracked and faded blue paint was parked. I smiled, tapped Ackroyd's shoulder, headed us toward it. "Pray it has fuel," I said.

"What, did you happen to bring a key?" I shook my head. "I suppose you re going to hotwire it, then?"

"Better. Got a penknife?"

He stuck the Tokagypt down the front of his pants and dug into a pocket. I winced. I wanted to remind him where the expression going off half-cocked came from, but this was no time to start teaching him to handle firearms with respect.

He looked past me then, and his eyes got wide. He grabbed the Tokagypt out of his waistband and aimed it at a doorway behind me. He had somehow gotten the safety off; the pistol barked as it came online.

I fell against the door of the truck, momentarily half-blinded and deafened. I smelled burning hair — mine — singed by the muzzle flash.

Panic sent a spasm into Ackroyd's finger. He pumped the trigger, spraying bullets wildly all over the front of the building until the last round went and the slide locked back.

I grabbed the gun out of his hands. "Jesus Christ , you idiot, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

He pointed. "Someone in that door. Pointing a gun at you. I — oh, dear God , no!"

He raced past me to the door, knelt down. When I came up with him, AKM at the ready, he was sobbing convulsively and stroking the cheek of the person he'd shot.

A boy of about eight, lying sprawled in the doorway. Curly dark hair, black eyes wide open to stars they'd never see again. One of those toy wooden Kalashnikovs lay on the steps beside him.

I took Ackroyd by the shoulder and pulled him away. He sat down on the curb by the truck, dropped his face to his hands, and bawled like a baby.

I laid my left forefinger on the curb and chopped the tip off with Ackroyd's knife. Blood spurted. I held the stump up.

"Our keys," I said.

Ackroyd stared horror-struck between his fingers. "Oh, God, you're sick, you're really sick."

I pressed the stump over the lock, felt my soul flow, become one with mechanism . I opened the lock unto us, then pulled my finger away. It came free with a soft sucking sound.

I slid my AKM in, climbed in after it. I shut my door, leaned across to open the passenger door. "Get in," I said, and put command into my voice.

Dully Ackroyd rose and walked around the truck. As he slid in and shut the door I pressed my severed finger against the ignition. The truck coughed once and started.

"Quarter tank," I said — I felt it, the way you have a rough idea how hungry you are. "Slovenly drivers here. Don't keep topped off."

"It was the gun," Ackroyd said in a voice of lead. "If I didn't have the gun, he wouldn't be dead."

"Yes he would. He looked like he was holding down on us. I would have dropped him myself. I told you, I'm taking you out of here. I exerted my will, and the engine coughed once and started.

We picked up an honor guard a quarter mile from the airport. A Nissan pickup, filled with authentic heroic Palestinian freedom fighters. Somebody must have passed the word; it was oh-dark thirty, and there were no streetlights, so they could not have gotten a good enough look at us to see our faces were paler than the Tehrani norm. But they passed us going the other way, whipped a U, and came on, blasting over the top of the cab with their trusty Klashin .

I put the pedal to the metal. The rear window blew in and sprinkled us with sugared glass. Ackroyd ducked.

"Can't you make the driver disappear?" I asked.

He gave me a hate stare. Then he raised his head, cautiously, poked his finger up over the bottom of the now-empty window.

I was splitting my attention between screeching down the narrow street at eighty miles an hour and the wing mirror. I saw the Nissan lurch to the side and hit a parked Paykan. Fidayin went rolling out like apples from a vendor's cart.

"Bullseye!" I cheered. "Well done."

He grinned and bobbed his head. Then he realized those bodies sprawled all over the street there were not dummies or stunt men. Some of them would be getting up again slowly, if ever. He turned his face forward and buried it in his hands.

"More company," I said, a few seconds later, looking in the rearview.

"You want me to murder them too?"

I shook my head. "Too many. If one gets too close, I may call on you. But save it."

"I don't believe I'm here," he said. "Why did they do this to us? Why would they set us up like this?"

"So we could take a fall on behalf of the wild card. We fail. Maybe the hostages back there die. Who's to blame? Aces, of course. President Jimmy, too, I guess — he's too soft on us wild cards to suit some tastes."

"And you went along with it," Ackroyd said.

I felt my cheeks begin to burn. "Yeah," I said, "yeah, that's right. I like the thought of dying. I like the thought of people under my command getting tortured and killed. I like being in charge of the biggest balls-up since the Mayaguez raid — "

No, I told myself, you don't have the luxury to snap now. You're good at handing out tough talk; it's time to shut up and soldier, soldier.

And count your losses later. I made my jaw clamp. It was much tougher than making the truck go where I wanted.

"I'm sorry," Ackroyd said. "That was cheap."

"Yeah. So please shut up for a while."

There was some more wild driving, bullets cracking past our ears — they don't whistle, they go faster than sound for the most part, make little sonic booms — and then Ackroyd said, "There's a chain link fence up ahead."