George Martin - Busted flush

She grabbed my breast with her free hand and squeezed it hard. Then she yanked up my T-shirt. Her mouth came over my nipple. At first she just licked and sucked, but then she began to bite. It hurt and thrilled me.

And so I let myself be drawn into her rage and pain. She bit, slapped, and scratched me… but, of course, it didn't damage me. I tried not to come, but she kept biting and licking me. She punched and slapped me until I started shaking and couldn't stop myself.

And then when she came, she dug her hands into my flesh as if she would never let me go.

The wind and rain howled outside. The back door of the hurricane was passing over us now.

Pale light streamed in through the windows. I blinked, then rolled over and saw Hoodoo Mama watching me.

"Do you think the Committee would be interested in me?"

"Uhm, yeah," I said. I looked away, then rolled onto my side and sat up. I started looking for my clothes. My stomach hurt.

"Then I'd like to join. If you think they'd have me."

"Oh, well, that's great." I tried to keep my voice neutral. A stab of guilt surged through me, but I shoved it aside. Fortune and Jayewardene were always looking for powerful aces for the Committee. And Joey certainly would fit the bill. They'd be thrilled to have her. And that it was her idea would appeal to them even more.

I grabbed my phone and turned it on, hoping I would get some kind of signal. And there was one, but it was faint. I tried calling Bugsy, but he didn't answer.

I downloaded my e-mail. I still had no word from Drake or Niobe, but there was another e-mail from Ink.

My stomach hurt worse. I opened the message. To: prettybiggirl@ggd.com From: tatsforless@ggd.com Sweetie, Last thing I heard, Billy Ray is taking a team to NOLA to arrest you. If there is anything I can do, you let me know. I'll try to come to New Orleans as soon as they start letting people back in the city. Be safe. All my love, Ink

I wasn't afraid of Billy Ray or his team. I'd cleaned Billy Ray's clock the last time we'd met. But here I was screwing someone else while Ink had risked her job to tell me they were coming. God, I sucked.

"So, soon as we're out of here," Hoodoo Mama said, "we're going to hook up with the other Committee members, right?"

I nodded. I didn't think I could speak. But I thought I might throw up. Fuck Up Girl strikes again.

Jerusalem, the open city. Jerusalem, owned by no one and everyone.

Jerusalem was loud and crowded, with a large population of those touched with the wild card, and even Michael could find anonymity, however momentary, in its warrens.

"Michael…" Kate's voice was burdened with sympathy and shared pain; her eyes searched his face. Her hand touched the bandage on the side of his face and fell away again. Kate's left arm was still bandaged, the edges of the wrapping visible under her T-shirt.

"How's the arm doing?" he asked.

She grimaced. "I wish you'd quit mentioning it. I wish everyone would quit mentioning it. Look, Michael. I don't know what to say. This has turned into such a mess. For everyone."

He gave her a six-shouldered shrug. "Not for everyone." A middle hand tapped a newspaper sitting on the table. "Says here that our mission was 'a tremendous success marred by a few unfortunate fatalities.' No mess at all. Like the kids I killed were some lousy, unnoticeable scratch on a piece of furniture."

The grimace on her face matched his, and he knew she was remembering her own experiences in the desert. "Have you talked to John or Jayewardene?"

"Yeah. I talked to Beet-" He stopped. "John," he said, and one corner of her mouth lifted at that. "For about thirty seconds, which was all the time he seemed to have for me. It was enough. I told John, or that fucking bug in his head, what I thought about what we did out there. Past that, I don't have nothin' else to say to either of 'em, and they don't seem inclined to talk to me, either. They're all wrapped in their success."

They were sitting at an outside table of a cafe on Emile Botta Street, near the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The street was crowded with both tourists and locals, speaking in a dozen languages. Anonymity was indeed fleeting-Michael's recognizable form (or perhaps it was Kate's) was attracting stares from those passing the cafe. Occasionally someone would stop to snap a quick picture before they moved on. He could hear the comments, and some of them seemed to be tinged with disgust. Michael glanced up at the bright wink of a flash, unnecessary in the bright, mocking sunshine.

"They'll try to cover this up, Kate. Those kids I killed literally don't exist anymore. Never existed. We can't allow them to exist-they're just part of the price we've paid for our oil. Invisible. We can't permit the sight of their bloodied, dead faces to tarnish the image of the Committee or the UN. No, we're all too goddamn important for that. Getting that oil flowing is too important."

Her face had flushed under the blond hair. "The man… the man I killed was going to blow up the pipeline, and he didn't care if any of us died in the explosion. And your kids weren't entirely innocent, Michael. You know that. How many of the soldiers did they kill, after all? They would have killed you, too."

"I know," he told her. "That's what I told myself afterward. All I was doing was protecting myself. But they were fucking kids!" He nearly shouted the word, slamming his two lower hands down on the table. The wrought iron rang and bent, the glass top shattered, the coffee cups fell to the stones of the patio and shattered loudly. A waiter started angrily toward them, then stopped, evidently deciding that discretion was a better tactic than confrontation. "They were children who had decided that if the Caliphate wasn't going to protect their home, well, they'd do it themselves. A stupid goddamn decision, but you know what, Kate? I could see myself making the same choice when I was their age. Hell, when you're twelve you think you're immortal, and you believe the Good Guys are always gonna win, and that the Good Guys are always on your side. And it doesn't matter what Fortune or Jayewardene or Baden or any of them say: I killed them. Me." He stabbed at himself with a sextet of forefingers. "I gotta live with that. And for what? For what, Kate? Please tell me the fucking answer, because this really hurts and I haven't got anything for it."

He wanted to weep. He could feel the tears starting again, and he growled and looked away because he couldn't trust himself to talk and not break down.

She said nothing. Her lips were pressed tightly together and she had a marble in her right hand, running her fingers over the glass ball as if she were about to toss it. "You're bleeding," she said finally. He looked at his bottom hands; the glass had cut the right one, and blood spattered his jeans and bare stomach. He picked up a napkin from the wreckage at his feet and tied it around the injured hand with his middle set. The pain somehow felt good. "What are you going to do, Michael?" she asked him.

"I don't know," he told her. "I really don't know."

Rusty had left Michael a message on his room phone.

"I don't know if John got the message to ya, fella. There's a press conference or something at the King David Hotel: Jayewardene, John, Prince Siraj." Rusty's voice overdrove the phone speaker, crackling and static-laden. "Somethin' about withdrawing the UN troops in exchange for oil. They said I should be there; the fella that called said it's about the settlement with the Caliphate…"

The King David Hotel, in the New City just outside the Old City walls, was a palatial and imposing structure that had once served as a fortress, set high enough to overlook the Old City, and catering to the rich who came to visit the ruins of the open city of Jerusalem. By the time Michael reached the lobby floor, he could see the crowd outside the main meeting room: videographers jockeying for position, still cameras flashing like heat lightning, reporters thrusting microphones into the faces of anyone they could find. He pushed through the crush, ignoring the cameras and microphones that were suddenly aimed at him. "Hey, Drummer Boy…" "What do you think…" "If you have a moment…" "I have one question…"