George Martin - Busted flush

Dear Sir, And now for As the UN Turns.

I set aside the laptop feeling the residual heat on my thighs and take a sip of scotch and a drag on my cigarette. Once in a great while I worry that I'm taking too light a tone with my superior officer, but Flint seems to like it. I think I actually manage to amuse the joker/ace.

My manager has me in a suite at the Marriott so I'm comfortably ensconced in the sitting room with my feet up on a hassock, and Sonique playing on the radio. In two hours I'm going to be onstage performing my magic act. I need to get this report typed and into a diplomatic pouch within the hour so I can spend an hour working my hands, and checking over my equipment at the theater. Through the hotel windows I watch the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge. The sky burns in shades of red, orange, melon, and lavender, and the waters of the bay seem to be dancing quicksilver.

I return to the task. Jonathan Hive's blog post regarding the explosion in Pyote, Texas, roused the ire of the Powers That Be in Washington, and SCARE sent agents to arrest him for violating national security-Bugsy must be viewed as a fearsome threat to national security because Billy Ray himself showed up. But as tough as Ray might be he can't capture a cloud of buzzing insects. After bestowing several dozen stings to Ray, Bugsy… er, bugged out. It was a wonderful sight watching a swarm of green wasps heading down 33rd St. to the consternation of the dinnertime crowd.

Net result-Hive is holed up inside the UN. The Department of Justice is blustering, Jayewardene is being saintly and noncommittal, and I'm sure I'll be tasked with getting Hive out of the country at some point. It does raise interesting legal questions regarding the status of an American citizen seeking sanctuary with an international body located on American soil. I'm sure in four or five years the Supreme Court will give us a definitive ruling. I know this won't make Whitehall happy, but these really are third-rate aces who have accompanied Fortune to Africa, and Fortune has been very clear that none of the Committee members are to take part in the fighting. We should be able to brush through this without any overt interference in Nigerian affairs, and I really can't refuse without damaging my status within the Committee. Oh, and one more thing. I want a raise. Sir.

Sunlight glinted across the waves, postcard perfect for a Nantucket summer. Ellen's mother had loved mornings like this, watercolor mornings she'd called them, time to take the paints and easel and a flap of Bristol board and a daughter by the hand, and drag them off to Brandt Point by the lighthouse, sketching the sailboats like the one Ellen lived on now.

An easterly wind was already wisping away fingers of fog as Ellen let go of the ladder. She settled herself into the dinghy, then paused, one hand on the mooring line. She raised her free hand to the cameo at her throat, her mother's brooch, resting a fingertip on the velvet band.

She decided against it. Today was her day, Ellen alone. She let go of the line, unknotted the rope, and slipped the oars into the water. She rowed in silence, passing the sailboats of the purists, and on past the cabin cruisers tied to mooring posts. The latter waited like wallflowers at a dance, all but three bearing FOR SALE signs faded to gray and Nantucket red.

Ellen sculled the water until the smooth lee gave way to the rough rippling of open harbor. A gust sprang up and the salt wind stung her eyes, threatening to start tears. Even the most beautiful morning was nothing if you had no one to share it with. The gulls cried mournfully, gabbled and shrieked, some skimming near her, hoping she were a fisherman with lost bait or a tourist with spare bread, but all Ellen had was a rueful smile. Nothing to a gull.

She found a space at the end of the pier, pausing to check her outfit before she stepped into view: a pair of ivory clam-diggers, nicely cut but unremarkable; a blue-and-white-striped nautical pullover, equally classic and unmemorable; and finally Top-Siders, standard footwear among the yachting set. As for herself, a willowy blonde on the inner cusp of forty might still turn a head or two, but one virtue of classic features was their anonymity, a face glimpsed in a gallery of old masters and fin de siecle poster art, and forgoing makeup was its own disguise. Sun and salt had bleached her wavy hair a shade lighter than the honey blond most would remember, and scrunching it back into a ponytail was not what most would expect of her, either.

About the only thing anyone looking for Ellen Allworth would expect was the cameo, the one whose profile she usually consciously styled her hair to mirror. But despite being anonymous in its beauty, black and white carved portrait jewels were no longer a popular fashion item, and the only woman known to wear one as a constant was her, Cameo.

She could always take it off, of course, but then again, Ellen could always cut off her left arm. Instead, she reached into her satchel and withdrew a long red Isadora Duncan-style scarf, looping it once around her neck, concealing the heirloom and source of her ace name. The scarf trailed like a pennant as she came on the dock, an anonymous fashion plate from a yacht magazine.

There was a peculiar smell in the air. Incense, Ellen realized as she got her land legs and looked for the source. Nearby, uncomfortably close to the gas pumps and their extremely hopeful OUT OF GAS-CHECK BACK NEXT WEEK sign, was a bowl filled with sand, a dozen sticks planted in it, embers glowing like jacinths in the morning light.

Beyond that, a dark-haired woman knelt on a prayer rug. In her right hand she held a musical instrument that looked like a tuning fork, gilt brass crossed with jangling metal bars-a sistrum, Ellen remembered dimly from the memory of one of her ancestresses; they'd been all the rage back in the twenties, part of the Egyptian Revival when they'd cracked King Tut's tomb. The woman holding the sistrum looked like she'd have fit right in back then, garbed as she was in a long linen gown with an elaborate scapular beaded with faience and gold. Given the current tensions with the Caliphate, wearing that outfit took either guts or religion.

Ellen took a deep breath and reached into her satchel as casually as she could. She and her ace had been in hiding ever since Cardinal Contarini and his mad monks had called a hit on her, and given the cardinal's fondness for ace assassins and their fondness for odd getups…

Her fingers closed around soft felt, and in a practiced motion, she donned Nick's fedora.

"What…?" Nick began, looking around.

Quiet, Ellen said in the back of his head, her head. That woman. I think she's an ace.

Nick looked, noting the sistrum and prayer rug. "Elle," Nick said in a soft undertone, "if that woman's Catholic, then the Pope's a Unitarian." He sighed. "If the Alumbrados ever do send anyone, it'll probably be a guy in an I AM THAT MAN FROM NANTUCKET T-shirt."

Nickie, I'm not being paranoid…

He grimaced, all the response she needed. "Elle, please, just live a little. For both of us. It's not like being up the sleeve ever did me any good. No one but you even knows who Will-o'-Wisp was, or even remembers half of what I did. And in the end, I still got killed…"

Before she was born, Ellen knew, but before she could respond, Nick took the hat off and she was alone inside her skull. Again.

Ellen clutched the worn fedora for a long moment, then slipped it back inside her satchel, shouldering it as bravely as she could, and soldiered on, wind stinging her eyes. Nick was right. Live a little. She smiled and nodded to the woman on the prayer rug and walked on past.