George Martin - Busted flush

Dolores nodded. The president and his sister-and Tom, dear Tom!-had brought order to the anarchy of Central Africa. With order came the need for discipline. The heart of discipline was obedience.

Alicia led her up broad stairs, to a room on the second story. Dolores smelled harsh cigar smoke before they even entered the room.

It looked like a study. Shelves of books, their dark covers age-cracked, lined the walls. The floor was hardwood with a Persian rug laid on it. A fan circled lazily beneath the high ceiling.

A man sat smoking in a leather chair. Dolores gasped. Half the hair on his round head and his beard had been burned away; it amazed her he wasn't literally smoldering. What of his plump pallid face wasn't black or glaring red was gouged bloody. He wore loose blue hospital-style trousers. Bandages wrapped his lumpy upper body. His blood had soaked them through and was actually beginning to run.

Blood-crust concealed one eye. The other glared madly at her.

Dolores swayed. He must have been in terrible pain. It amazed her he was able to remain conscious, let alone sit in a chair and puff a cigar.

Alicia clucked and shook her head. "You shouldn't smoke," she said in English. "It is bad for you."

The man barked a laugh, then groaned. "I'll take my bloody chances," he rasped in what Dolores thought was an English accent.

Alicia frowned and shook her head. She looked to Dolores. Dolores pressed her mouth to a line and nodded.

She knew what she had to do. All she had to do was steel herself to do it.

As she approached she could feel heat beating from his body as if still radiating from his burns. He must be burning up with fever, she thought. That, at least, would not affect her. Any tissue damage infection might have done would transfer to her; the pathogens themselves would not.

There was something repellent about him. Yet he suffered. It went beyond orders, now, even from Alicia. God had given her this gift, this curse. She could not withhold it. She was the Angel of Mercy; she was Our Lady of Pain.

She drew in a deep breath and stepped forward.

As always it hit her hard. As always it was bad. She ground her teeth against a scream.

"Ahh, Christ," he said. "That's good. That's good, girl."

His head lolled on his thick neck. He grinned up at her. "At least you won't need to grow your bloody arms back this time, eh?"

Cold shot through the fire that enveloped her. She stepped back. Instantly it was as if a furnace door had been shut. Dolores's cheeks felt sunburned; she felt blood run from gashes in her face and body. The torment dulled to an ache; no longer was his pain being loaded directly into her nervous system.

Recognition came like a slap. "I saw you!" she exclaimed in French.

"Speak English, bitch," he rasped. "Why did you stop?"

"You were there! I saw you."

Wild-eyed she looked at Alicia. "Why do you stop, child?" the woman asked.

"He's the enemy! He was there with those men in the Ijaw village where-where they chopped the boy's arms off!"

The injured man barked a laugh. "Too bloody right I was. People's Paradise wanted Niger Delta oil, didn't they? Needed an excuse to go to war with the whole world at their backs, didn't they? So it's play both sides, now, Butch Dagon, innit? For dirty work, I'm your man. Bloody Nigerians thought I was theirs, but it was your dirt I was doing all along. So get back here, girl, and finish what you started. I earned it, right enough!"

Through a curtain of hot tears Dolores looked to Alicia. Knew she would deny the man's words, damn his lies.

Instead, Alicia smiled encouragingly and made urgent hand motions for Dolores to continue.

Dolores turned and walked out. "Wait!" she heard Dagon bellow. "Get bloody back here!"

She went left down the hall, back in the direction Alicia had led her. Hot tears fogged her eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

"Don't fucking walk away from me!" Dagon shouted. "That bloody lion buggered me right up. You're a healer. Heal me."

She refused to look back. Guilt tore her, and the sense of duty. I cannot bear to heal such a creature, she thought.

"Heal me, damn you to hell! Bitch!"

Behind her she heard a sound unlike anything she had heard before. Half rustle, half gurgle. A breeze blew past her down the hallway.

She spun.

A monster crouched there. A great mound of fur-covered muscle. Half its fur was burned away; great red and char-black wounds had broken open and begun to seep. Its eyes were bloodshot.

A pointed maw opened. Jagged yellow teeth filled it. The monster vented a squealing snarl and charged.

Dolores stood frozen. As the horror gathered itself to leap upon her the hallway lit with dazzling white radiance. Heat hit her left side.

The sunbeam impaled the leaping monster. It blew apart into chunks and splatter. She screamed as hot clots hit her in the face.

A strong arm caught her from behind. She stiffened. Then knowing the touch she turned, melted against her lover's strong chest.

"Oh, Tom," she said. "It's terrible. We have to tell the world. It was all a lie! That monster was working w-with Alicia all the time!"

Even with the arms of the world's most potent ace wrapped around her it took all her courage to say that. She accused the president's own sister of terrible crimes. Knowing Alicia was capable of terrible acts of justice.

Tom grunted softly. "Too bad you heard all that," he said, stroking the short hair at the back of her head.

"This cannot be allowed. The truth must be told. I-I'll find the Chinese reporter. She'll get the story out!"

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Tom said. "Really, really sorry."

"Oh, Tom, why did it have to turn out so? I thought we stood for truth and justice. For revolution! Now I learn it was all oil and power."

His strong hand cupped her head from behind. She raised her face to his and smiled. "You won't change your mind?"

"I wish that I could," she said. "I wish I could unhear what was said. But the world must know."

His fingers tightened on the back of her skull. They twisted her head viciously clockwise. Dolores actually heard the pop of her cervical vertebrae breaking. A red spark shot through her brain.

Then she wasn't anymore.

"Oh, sweet Lord," Alicia Nshombo said from the doorway. "The poor dear! Did it have to be so?"

Gently Tom lowered the dead girl to the floor. "I told you, babe," he told her softly. "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." He straightened, brushing absently at some wet furry clumps of Dagon she'd left on his blue chambray shirt. "She was going to blow it all," he told Alicia. "She wasn't objectively Marxist yet, you see."

Alicia's ample face clouded. "But she was heroine of the hour! Kitengi just gave her a medal in front of God and everyone. She's still wearing it, for sweet Mary's sake. What am I to tell the media?"

He grinned. "The truth," he said. "She died a martyr. Raised the alarm when that notorious tool of the British Empire, Butcher Dagon, infiltrated the palace to assassinate Doc Prez." He shook his head. "Poor kid. She was the Butcher's last victim."

"Uh-oh," said Hong.

They sat in the gloom of one of the suite of rooms they'd been assigned in the palace. Sun Hei-lian sat beside a junior tech named Li, helping edit video of today's medal ceremony. She hit pause, freezing a quartet of Chengdu Jian-7 fighters her government had provided the PPA in mid-flyover, and swiveled her chair.

She frowned. "Why are you showing me stock footage of a mushroom cloud, Hong?"

"It's… not stock footage."

The image on the wide-screen television was grainy, shot from ground level. A round head of smoke and dust rolled up a blue sky, a shape unmistakable and chilling. In the foreground white dunes and wisps of pale grass framed the terrible image.