George Martin - Busted flush

I pass one of those white metal boxes that pass for a newsstand in the U.S. The local Pecos paper is still yammering about grain elevators.

I regret not wearing a hat, and my usual black attire amplifies the heat. The sky is painfully bright, and the sun doesn't so much shine as glare. My skin prickles. I'm acutely aware of radiation right now. I pause and survey the dining choices-a Pizza Hut, a Dairy Queen, a Subway. I spot a Mexican restaurant. What I don't see is a bar. Equally unfortunate is that the most cars are in the parking lot of the Pizza Hut. Well, they might have a beer and wine license. And then I spot the fire truck parked near the back. Yes, this might be the right place.

Inside, the harsh smell of undercooked tomato sauce is an assault on the sinuses. Conversation fills the room with a droning sound, as if a hive of bees were moving in. People don't even fall silent when I enter. They really are upset.

The waitress is cute and small and round and Hispanic. She has an expression that is both alarmed and delighted. People on the edges of a catastrophe always have that particular look.

"I'll take a small meat pizza and your salad bar. And what kinds of wines do you have?"

"Red and white."

I mentally sigh. Of course. "I'll take red." I give her my best stage smile. She smiles back. "I say, dear, I'm a producer with-" I time it so her exclamation of excitement makes it unnecessary to say with whom.

"Movie?"

"Well…" I look about conspiratorially. "I don't want to say too much. So often these things come to nothing, but I think you all have quite a story here, and if that's true, well… things might happen," I hastily add, "And of course anyone with information would be compensated and probably be in the film."

She scuttles away. Satisfied, I drift over to the salad bar. In a surprisingly short time a number of people have joined me around the giant bowl of iceberg lettuce. I can smell the MSG as I drop it onto my plate.

"You're a movie guy?" says one man whose cheap suit suggests insurance salesman or local banker. I move my head in a particularly noncommittal way. "But you're not a journalist?" He has that dried leather skin so common in Americans who live in the West, and the wrinkles deepen with suspicion.

"I can assure you I am not a journalist."

"You're English," says a large woman in spandex pants. The worried frowns ease. That seems to make me somehow more trustworthy.

"Well, I can tell you right now it wasn't no grain elevator. We don't grow wheat in these parts," says an elderly geezer whose bald scalp is not so much tan as covered with age spots.

"There's an elevator in Pyote," another local objects.

"Yeah, but it's a little teeny thing, just for the local feedlot," says the geezer.

"There was no warning. The sky just lit up," says another man with skin like jerky, and a big sweat-stained cowboy hat pushed far back on his head. "I was shifting cattle to new grazing, and the dark caught up with us. I was just going to wait out the night-then boom. Damnedest noise you ever heard."

"Has anyone from Pyote spoken about it?" I ask.

"We haven't seen anybody from Pyote. Wick, yes, but not Pyote." The cheap suit drops his voice. "I think they're all dead."

"Not all," says a burly man whose head seems attached to his shoulders without benefit of a neck. I watch the muscles in his upper arms flex and move. I think I've found one person who belongs with the fire truck. "I saw a medevac helicopter going in. Somebody survived."

"Whoever it was, I don't think they were hurt," says the fat woman whose plate is so full that lettuce is starting to cascade off the sides. "I heard they're under guard. Locked up." The door of the Pizza Hut opens and my old nemesis from the car wash enters. "I bet it's the guy who caused the explosion. My niece is married to a policeman over in Wick." I wish she would keep her voice down because the cop has stopped walking and is staring at us-hard. I'm a stranger in town, which is a red flag to a cop.

"Nobody could have lived through that. I was real close by and I'm damn lucky to be alive."

"They could if they was an alien," argues the old man.

"Or a joker."

I can't really tell who said that, and I find it interesting that the mind would go to joker rather than ace. It's far more likely one of the meta-powered would survive, but there is still an enduring discomfort and disgust with jokers.

"It's probably them damn rag heads," says the man in the cheap suit. "Going after our oil. Making sure we have to pay through the nose. We should nuke them."

It's a typically jingoistic American reaction, and I reflect that if Siraj could hear that he might reconsider his stand. The door closes and I realize the cop has left. I try to tell myself that he decided he wanted a burger rather than a pie-

– but it was a vain hope. They are waiting in my hotel room. One is your typical FBI agent, white, big, broad, with an ill-fitting brown suit and a crew cut. The other is a SCARE agent and an ace. The Midnight Angel is clad in black leather. Every curve of her lush body is revealed by the skintight jumpsuit.

"Please come with us, sir," says the Fucking Big Idiot.

It's a very quick helicopter ride to scenic Wick, Texas. SCARE has set up headquarters in city hall, and the fact that SCARE rather than the FBI is in charge tells me that the Americans suspect some kind of wild card involvement. The mayor's office has that small-town-politician-trying-too-hard-to-seem-important feel. The walls are lined with pictures of the potbellied little mayor posing with various national politicians and movie stars, with commendations from the Elks and the Moose and various other odd American organizations including, in fact, the Odd Fellows.

A woman sits behind the desk, and if the mayor were still here she would dwarf him. Joann Jefferson, aka Lady Black, is the Special Agent in Charge. As she stands she pulls her reflective cloak more tightly about her statuesque body. A tendril of silver hair has slipped from beneath the hood of her black bodysuit, and it seems to shine on her ebony cheekbone. She sketches a greeting with a black gloved hand, and then waves me into the chair across the desk from her. I don't offer my hand. I know the suit and cloak are supposed to protect me from her energy-sucking power, but I'd rather not test the limits of the technology.

"Noel, what the fuck are you doing here?"

I lean back in the chair and pull out my cigarette case. "Ah, I see we're dispensing with the pleasantries." I take my time lighting up, and judge when she's just about to lose it, then I say, "Someone set off a nuclear device. Normally I'd argue that in this godforsaken part of the world no one would notice and it would make little difference to the general ambience, but I gather some people died."

She rubs a hand across her face. Despite great cheekbones her features look like they're sagging. I sympathize. I'd really wanted to catch a nap back at the Swiss Clock. "I know we can't hide this from other governments, but we don't want a panic. If people knew a nuke went off…" Her voice trails away as if she's just too weary to keep talking.

"Look, let us help. You might recall that we are allies. That special relationship and all that rot that our prime minister and your president mutter lovingly to one another."

She's considering. I decide to help her along. "Sorry about the directorship. We frankly couldn't believe the news when we heard who replaced Nephi." Her brows draw together in a sharp frown, but I can sense it's not meant for me, and she's a good little soldier and doesn't take the opportunity to complain. "Well, just know that Flint is on your side, as am I," I add.

For a brief moment the hard-charging law enforcement agent is replaced by a woman who looks pathetically grateful and vulnerable. It's gone in the flick of an eyelash, and Jefferson says in a terse, clipped tone, "It's got to be the Arabs. I guess they're not content with destroying our economy, now they have to smuggle in a suitcase nuke and bomb us, too."