Aces Abroad

"Comrade Wolf gave it to us," the blond boy said. "He used to hang out with Baader and Meinhof and them. They used to be close like this." He held up a clenched fist.

Hartma

Hartma

"We just happened to be in the right place at the right time, Senator."

The dwarf smirked at him. Puppetman felt an urge to crush that smug face, to tear out the dwarf's guts and throttle him with them. The frustration was physical torment.

Sweat crawled down Hartma

And sad. Poor Ro

The redhead suddenly slapped the seated man on the shoulder. "You idiot, Wilfried, there it was! You went past it." He mumbled apology and dialed back.

"-captured by the Red Army Fraction, acting in concert with comrades from the jokers for a just Society who have fled persecution in Amerika." It was Comrade Wolf's voice, pouring like liquid amber from the cheap little radio. "The terms of his release are these: release of the Palestinian freedom fighter al-Muezzin. An airliner with sufficient fuel to take al-Muezzin to a country in the liberated Third World. Immunity from prosecution for members of this action team. We demand that the Jetboy memorial be torn down and in its place a facility built to provide shelter and medical attention to joker victims of Amerikan intolerance. And finally, just to poke the capitalist swine where it most hurts them, ten million dollars cash, which will be used to aid victims of Amerikan aggression in Central Amerika."

"If these terms are not met by ten o'clock tonight, Berlin time, Senator Gregg Hartma

"We return you now to regularly scheduled programming."

"We have to do something." Hiram Worchester tangled his fingers in his beard and gazed out the window at the patchy Berlin sky.

Digger Downs turned over a card. Trey of clubs. He grimaced.

Billy Ray paced the carpet of Hiram's suite like a tyra

The Hammer sat on the sofa. It was oak and flowered upholstery, and like many of the hotel's furnishings had survived the war. Fortunately they'd built stout furniture back in the 1890s.

Jones made a dirty-gearbox noise toward the center of him and stared at his big hands, which he was working into tangles between his knees.

The door opened and Peregrine flew into the room. Figuratively, at least, her wings jittering on her back. She wore a loose' velour blouse and jeans that muted the advanced state of her pregnancy.

"I just heard on the radio-isn't it terrible?" Then she stopped and stared at the Hammer. "Mordecai-what on earth are you doing here?"

"Just like you, Ms. Peregrine. Won't let me out."

"But why aren't you in the hospital? The reports said you were terribly injured."

"Just shot a little." He slapped his gut. "Got me a pretty tough hide, kind of like that Kevlar stuff you read about in Popular Science."

Downs turned up a new card. Red eight. "Shit," he muttered.

"But a van fell on you," Peregrine said.

"Yeah, but see, I got these funky heavy metals replacing the calcium in my bones, so they're like stronger and more flexible and all, and my i

"Then why'd you let them get away?" Bill Ray challenged, almost shouting. "Goddamn, the senator was your responsibility. You could've kicked some ass."

"To tell you the entire truth, Mr. Ray, it hurt like a sonofabitch. I wasn't good for much for a while there." The Mister came out differently than Ms. had. Billy Ray cocked his head and looked hard at him. Jones ignored him. "Lay off him, Billy," said Carnifex's partner, Lady Black, who sat to one side with her long legs crossed at the ankles before her.

Peregrine came and touched Mordecai on the shoulder. "It must have been awful. I'm surprised they let you out of the hospital."

"They didn't," Downs said, splitting open the deck in his left hand to catch a peek inside. "He released himself. Smashed right through the wall. The public health people are kind of pissed about it."

Jones looked down at the floor. "Don't like doctors," he muttered.

Peregrine looked around. "Where's Sara? The poor thing. This must be hell for her."

"They let her go over to the crisis control center in City Hall. No other reporter from the tour. Just her." Downs made a face and went back to his solitaire game.

"Sara took over a statement from Mr. Jones about what he saw and heard during the abduction," Lady Black said. "He didn't give one before he left the hospital." After the accident that triggered his wild card virus, Jones had been held by the Oklahoma Department of Public Health as a lab specimen, a virtual prisoner. The experience had given him an almost pathological fear of medical science and all its appurtenances.

"Fu

Hiram turned from the window. The rings that had been sinking in around his eyes since the tour began were even more pronounced. "I understand," he said, bringing his hands up cupped before his chest. They were dainty hands, and fit oddly with his bulk. " I understand what's happening here. This has been a blow to all of us. Senator Hartma

"That's what I say." Billy Ray slammed a fist into his palm. "Let's kick butts and take names!"

"Whose butt?" Lady Black asked tiredly. "Whose name?"

"That sawed-off little bastard Gimli for starters. We should have grabbed him when he was dicking around New York last summer-"

"Where are you going to find him?"

He flung out his arm. "Hell, that's why we ought to be looking for him, instead of sitting here on our duffs wringing our hands and saying how sorry we are the fucking senator's gone."

"There are ten thousand cops out there combing the streets," Lady Black said. "You think we'll find him quicker?"

"But what can we do, Hiram?" Peregrine asked. Her face was pale, and the skin stretched tight over her cheekbones. "I feel so helpless." Her wings opened slightly, then folded again.

Hiram's little pink tongue dabbed his lips. "Peri, I wish I knew. Surely there must be something-"

"They mentioned ransom," Digger Downs said.

Hiram punched his palm twice in unconscious imitation of Carnifex. "That's it. That's it! Maybe we can raise enough money to buy him back."

"Ten million's a lot of bread," Mordecai said.

"That's just a bargaining position," Hiram said, sweeping aside objections with his small hands. "Surely we can work them down."

"What about their demands this terrorist dude be released? We can't do nothing about that."