Wild Cards V (46 page)

His last words were lost, buried under the titanic clamor of screaming applause. Misha could no longer see Hartmann, lost in the rippling sea of arms and banners. She had not thought that anything could be so loud. The acclamation deafened her, made her clap hands to ears. The chant of
Hartmann! Hartmann!
began once more, joker fists pumping in time with the beat.

Hartmann! Hartmann!

Hell was noisy and chaotic, and her own hatred was lost in the joyous celebration. Beside her, Peanut chanted with the rest, and she looked at him with revulsion and despair.

He is so strong, Allah, stronger than the Nur. Show me that this is the right path. Tell me that my faith is to be rewarded.

But there was no answering dream. There was only the beast-voice of the jokers and Satan basking in their praise.

At least now it would begin. Tonight. Tonight they would meet and decide how to best destroy the devil.

Monday, 7:32
P.M.

Polyakov was the last one to arrive at the warehouse.

That pissed Gimli off. It was bad enough that he wasn't sure he could trust any of the old New York JJS organization. It was enough that he'd been dealing with Misha for nearly two weeks now, putting up with her contempt for jokers. It was enough that Hartmann's Justice Department aces were prowling all over Jokertown after him; that Barnett's rabble-rousing had made any joker fair game for the nat gangs; that the continuing battles between the underworld organizations had made the streets a gamble for all.

On top of everything else, he could feel a cold coming on.

Gimli sneezed and blew his nose into a large red handkerchief.

It was shit time in Jokertown.

Polyakov's arrival only made Gimli's temper more vile. The Russian stamped into the place without a knock, throwing the door back loudly. “The joker on the roof is standing against streetlight,” he proclaimed loudly. “Any fool can see her. What if I'd been police? You would all be under arrest or dead. Amateurs!”
Dilettante!

Gimli wiped his bulbous, tender nostrils and glanced at the handkerchief. “The joker on the roof's Video. She threw an image of you in the room to let us know you were on the way—she needs the light to project. Peanut and File would have taken you out at the door if I hadn't recognized you.” Gimli stuffed the damp handkerchief back in his pocket and pounded on the wall twice with his fist. “Video,” he shouted to the ceiling. “Give our guest a replay, huh?”

In the center of the warehouse the air shimmered and went dark. For a moment they were all looking at the alleyway outside the warehouse, where a portly man stood in shadow. The darkness coalesced, pulsed, and they were seeing a head-and-shoulders view of the man: Polyakov, grimacing as he looked toward Video. Then the image faded to Gimli's laughter.

“And you never fucking
saw
Shroud behind you, did you?” he said.

A slender figure materialized out of the shadow behind Polyakov. He poked a forefinger in Polyakov's back, “Bang,” Shroud whispered. “You're dead. Just like a Russian joker.” Alongside the door Peanut and File grinned.

Gimli had to admit that Polyakov took it gracefully enough for a nat. The burly man just nodded without looking at Shroud at all. “My apologies. You obviously know your people better than I.”

“Yeah. Don't I.” Gimli sniffed; his sinuses were dripping like an old faucet. He waved to Shroud. “Make sure nobody else gets in—there's no more invitations.” The thin, dark joker nodded. “Dead meat time,” Shroud said—another whisper. A grin came from the vaporous form, and then he dissolved into shadow.

“We have aces with us, then,” Polyakov said.

Gimli laughed without amusement. “Get Video near an electrical device and her nervous system overloads. Put her in front of a damn television and her heart will go into arrhythmia. Too close and she'll die. And Shroud loses substance every day, like he's evaporating. Another year and he'll be dead or permanently immaterial. Aces, shit, Polyakov—they're jokers, just like the rest. You know, the ones you cull out in the Russian labs.”

Polyakov merely grunted at the insult; Gimli felt disappointed. The man brushed his fingers through stubbly gray hair and nodded. “Russia had made her mistakes, as has America. There are many things I wish had never happened, but we're here to change what we can, are we not?” He fixed Gimli with an unblinking stare. “The Syrian ace has arrived?”

“I'm here.” Misha came from the rear of the warehouse. Gimli saw her glance sharply at Peanut and File. Her attitude was sour and condescending. She walked as if she expected to be catered to. Gimli might find her Arabian darkness extremely attractive, but—except in late-night fantasies—he didn't delude himself that anything might come of it. He knew what he looked like: “a warty, noxious little toadstool feeding on the decaying log of ego”—Wilde's phrase.

Gimli was a joker; that was the bottom line for the bitch. Misha had made certain that Gimli knew he was tolerated only to gain revenge on Hartmann. She didn't see him as a person at all; he was just a tool, something to use because nothing else would do. The realization gigged him every time he looked at her. Just seeing the woman was enough to make him want to shout at her.

I'll make you a fucking tool of my own one day.

“I'm ready to begin. The visions”—she smiled, making Gimli scowl in response—“have been optimistic today.”

Gimli scoffed. “Your goddamn dreams ain't gonna worry the senator, are they?”

Misha whirled around, eyes flaring. “You mock Allah's gift. Maybe your scorn is why He made you a squashed mockery of a man.”

That was enough to shatter what little restraint he had. A quick, molten rage filled Gimli.
“You fucking bitch!”
he screeched. The dwarf's stance widened on muscular legs, his barrel chest expanded. A finger stabbed from the fist he cocked at her. “I won't take that shit, not from you, not from anyone!”

“STOP THIS!”
The shout came from Polyakov as Gimli took a step toward Misha. The roar brought Gimli's head around; the movement made his stuffy head throb. “Amateurs!” Polyakov spat out. “This is the stupidity that M
ó
lniya said destroyed you in Berlin, Tom Miller. I believe him now. This petty bickering must end. We have a common purpose; focus your anger on that.”

“Pretty speeches don't mean shit,” Gimli scoffed, but he stopped. The fist lowered, the fingers loosened. “We're a damn unlikely conspiracy, ain't we?—a joker, an ace, and a nat. Maybe this was a mistake, huh? I'm not so certain anymore that we share much of a common purpose.” He glared at Misha.

Polyakov shrugged. “None of us want Hartmann to gain political power. We have our separate reasons, but on this we agree. I would not care to see an ace with unknown powers as president of the nation that opposes my own. I know the Kahina would like to exact revenge for her brother. You have a long-standing grudge of your own against the senator. And as little as you may care for this woman, she has brought hard evidence against Hartmann.”

“So she claims. We ain't seen it yet, have we?”

Polyakov grunted. “Everything else is circumstantial: hearsay and speculations. So let us begin. I, for one, would like to see Misha's ‘gift.'”

“Let's talk reality first. Then we can indulge in religious fantasies,” Gimli argued. He could feel control of the meeting slipping from him; the Russian had presence, charisma. Already the others were watching Polyakov as if he were the head of the group.
Forget how lousy you're feeling. You've got to watch him or he'll take over.

“Nevertheless,” the Russian insisted.

Gimli cocked his head at Polyakov. Polyakov stared back at him blandly. Finally Gimli cleared his throat noisily and sniffed. “All right,” he grumbled. “The stage is yours, Kahina.”

When Gimli glanced at her, she gave a quick, triumphant smile. That decided Gimli. When this was over, the bill would come due for Misha's arrogance. He'd exact the payment himself if he had to.

Misha went to the rear of the warehouse again and came back with a rolled bundle of cloth. “When the aces attacked us in the mosque, Hartmann was wounded,” she said. “His people examined him there, quickly, but they retreated immediately afterward. I”—she stopped, and a look of remembered pain darkened her face—“I had already fled. My brother and Sayyid, both horribly wounded, gathered their followers and went deep in the desert. The next day a vision told me to return to the mosque. There, I was given this: It is the jacket Hartmann was wearing when he was shot.”

She unrolled her package on the cement floor.

The jacket wasn't all that impressive—a gray-checked sports coat, dusty and bedraggled. The cloth held a faint stench of mildew. At the right shoulder a frayed hole was surrounded by an irregular splotch of brown-red, spreading as it crept down the chest. Packed inside were a sheaf of papers in a manila envelope. Misha riffled through them.

“I went to four doctors in Damascus with the jacket,” she continued. “I had them examine the bloodstains independently, and each gave me a report that said the blood had definitely come from someone infected with the wild card virus. The blood type matches Hartmann—‘A' positive. I have verification from the man who gave it to me that this is Hartmann's jacket—he picked it up after the fighting, thinking to keep it as a relic of the Nur.”

“A verification letter from a terrorist, and blood that could have come from fucking anyone.” Gimli snorted. “Look, all of us here might believe it's Hartmann's blood, but alone it's nothing. The bastard's got his blood test on record. You think he can't produce another negative one with the people he knows?”

Polyakov nodded ponderously. “He can. He would.”

“Then attack him physically,” Misha said, wondering at these people. “If you don't want my gift, kill him. I will help.”

The look on her face made Gimli laugh, and the laughter brought on a hacking, phlegm-filled cough. “Christ, all I need is a cold,” he muttered, then: “Awfully fucking bloodthirsty, ain't we?”

Misha folded her arms beneath her breasts, defiant. “I'm not afraid. Are you?”

“No, goddammit. Just realistic. Look, your brother had him surrounded by guards with Uzis and he got away, didn't he?
I
had the fucker tied to a chair, all of us armed, and one by one most of us left, a decision we can't believe we made an hour later. Then Mackie Messer—who was a loaded gun with no safety anyway—goes fucking berserk and slices up everyone that's left, yet somehow doesn't hurt the good senator at all.” Gimli spat. “He can make people
do
things—that's got to be his power. He's got aces all around him. We ain't gonna get to the man, not that way.”

Polyakov nodded. “Unfortunately, I must agree. Misha, you don't know M
ó
lniya, the ace who was with Gimli in Berlin,” he said. “He could have killed Hartmann with a simple touch. I spoke to him at length. He did things there that were sloppy and senseless for a man of his loyalty and experience. His performance was utterly inconsistent with his past record. He was manipulated: part of the evidence I have is his deposition.”

File elbowed Peanut. “'Seventy-six,” he said to Gimli. “I remember. You talked to Hartmann when we were all ready to march. Suddenly, you were telling us to turn around and go back into the park.”

The memory was as sour now as it had been eleven years ago. Gimli had brooded on it many times. In '76 the JJS had been on the verge of becoming a legitimate joker voice, yet somehow he'd lost it all. The JJS and Gimli's power had fallen apart in the aftermath of the rioting. Since Berlin, since his meeting with Misha, that brooding had taken a different turn.

Now he knew who was to blame for his failure.

“Damn right. The son-of-a-bitch. That's why I want him taken down. With Barnett or any of the other nat politicians we know what we're dealing with. They're all known quantities. Hartmann's not. And that's why he's more dangerous than any of the rest. You remember Aardvark, Peanut? Aardvark died in Berlin, along with a lot of others—his death and all the fucking rest are ultimately Hartmann's fault.”

Peanut's entire body moved as he tried to shake his head. “That ain't right, Gimli. Really. Hartmann
does
work for the jokers. He got rid of the Acts, he talks nice to us, he comes to Jokertown…”

“Yeah. And I'd do the same damn thing if I wanted to lull everyone's suspicions. I tell you, we know where Barnett stands. We can deal with him anytime. I'm more afraid of Hartmann.”

“Then do something about him,” Misha interjected. “We have his jacket. We have your story and Polyakov's. Take it to your press and let them remove Hartmann.”

“Because we still ain't got shit. He'll deny it. He'll produce another blood test. He'll point out that the ‘evidence' was produced by a joker who kidnapped him in Berlin, a Russian who has connections with the KGB, and you—who says that her
dreams
tell her Hartmann's an ace and who's suffering under the lunatic delusion that she was
made
to attack her terrorist brother. A fucking classic example of guilt transference.”

Gimli enjoyed the flush that climbed Misha's neck.
Yeah, that one hit home, didn't it, bitch?
“We've circumstantial evidence, sure,” Gimli continued, “but if
we
bring it forward, he'll just laugh it off and so will the press. We have to link with someone else. Let them be the front.”

“I take it you have someone in mind?” Polyakov commented. Gimli thought he heard a faint challenge in the man's voice. “Yeah, I do,” he told Polyakov. “I say we take what we have to Chrysalis. From what I hear, she's awfully damn interested in Hartmann herself, and she doesn't have any grudges. No one knows more about anything in Jokertown than Chrysalis.”