Burned maybe. Cremated in another convenient fire. That'd be poetic justice, wouldn't it?
One thing all this has taught me is paranoia. For a long time, I couldn't think of anyone I felt certain had the power and the inclination to do something about this. Father Squid and I talked about it, endlessly. Quasiman ... well, Father Squid was right. Even when we told him everything that had happened, he'd forget it all again an hour later. The Sharks had been willing to kill me in Vietnam, where Quasiman and I would have been "innocent bystanders" slain by an act of political terrorism. Here, they tried to be more subtle until it was obvious that we were going to keep digging. Now they'll use the sledgehammer approach, and none of us are big enough to dodge that. We can't go to the police or the FBI or the CIA - in one way or another all of them are compromised. We need to give this to someone with the same kind of clout the Sharks have. This is bigger stuff than any of us realized when we started. It needs someone bigger than me to handle it. I can't go any further than I have, not alone. Rudo's still out there, with Faneuil and Durand and Battle and Van Renssaeler and God knows who else....
Then I realized ...
I'm not exactly a wild card historian, but you're one person who has always come down squarely in the joker's camp, even when it wasn't to your advantage to do so. You're one person who has always tried to bring some sanity to all this, to make peace. You've spoken out against the violence; you've been visibly shaken by it. I mean, my God, you lost a hand to the wild card and you're still fighting for the rights of those infected by the virus.
In the end, we had to trust someone. That's why I've spent so much time talking with you about this and giving you the whole story. I feel good about you. I don't think you have any evil in you at all.
So I'm handing all this to you. Please, look it over carefully ... I know you'll see the same things I've seen. And then do something about it. Do what none of us have the connections and power to do.
Don't disappoint us, Senator Hartmann.
From the back cover:
Someone is trying to kill all the jokers - nothing less than genocide will do. For decades thaey have been the secret shadow players on the global scene, the puppet masters hidden behind the curtains, patient, cunning, moving inch by inch toward their terrible dream - a world "cleansed" of the wild card disease and its victims. And now their time is almost come...
CARD SHARKS
A Wild Cards Mosaic NovelВ