“You’re not watching?” his mother-in-law said.
“Forgive me, but they’re fools. They’re watching large men grunting and falling down in the mud. I, however, am no fool. I would rather spend my time with the ladies.”
Their laughter fell like ice around him. Niobe wasn’t laughing. He knew her husky little chuckle. She was looking at him, wide-eyed and questioning. He gave her a reassuring smile.
He studied his mother-in-law’s profile, and briefly regretted he’d abandoned his previous profession. If ever a person deserved killing it was Rachel Winslow. When Niobe’s wild card had turned, she had tried to pass her off as a cousin’s child, and when Niobe had been driven to attempt suicide her parents had sent her away to a facility where she was treated like a cross between a lab rat and a sex toy.
His wife handed him a cup of tea. The china was so thin and fragile that it felt like a cricket’s wing in his hand. He looked down and realized she’d already doctored it with a dollop of cream. It squeezed his heart to know that there was someone in the world who knew how he took his tea, and liked his eggs, the temperature of his bathwater. And he returned the favor. They were bonded physically, emotionally, and mentally, and she had helped to close the hole in his heart left after the death of his father a little over a year ago.
He settled onto the sofa next to Niobe and sipped his tea. Noel found himself reaching for one of the cheese crackers. God knew he wasn’t hungry, but nerves made him want to do something with his hands, and he wasn’t allowed to smoke in his in-laws’ house. He was saved from more calories when he felt the cell phone in his left pocket begin to vibrate.
He set aside his cup, pulled out the phone, murmured an apology, and retreated to stand by the window. The caller ID offered only unknown caller, but he recognized the foreign exchange number- Baghdad!
He knew a lot of people in Baghdad, but they only knew his identity as the Muslim ace, Bahir. Only one person knew that Noel was Bahir-his onetime Cambridge house mate, now head of the Caliphate and implacable enemy, Prince Siraj of Jordan.
This was a clean phone. The fact that Siraj had the number meant the Caliphate’s intelligence services had been working overtime. Looking for him and finding him. Tension buzzed along every nerve as Noel considered his options.
Better to know what he’s up to. Noel answered the phone.
“I didn’t know if you’d take the call,” came that familiar baritone.
“I almost didn’t.” Silence stretched between them. Noel pulled out his cigarette case.
Finally Siraj spoke. “I need your help. Will you come to Baghdad, now?” Anxiety roughened his fruity BBC vowels.
It was the last thing Noel had expected. He fumbled out a cigarette and thrust it between his lips. “Ah, well… let me see
… the last time we met you had your guards shoot me. The time before that you had me thrown into an Egyptian prison. I think I’ll skip the third time. It might be the charm for you.”
“I give you my word I won’t make a move against you. I really do need your help.”
Siraj suddenly sounded very young, like the friend who’d gotten into trouble with a professor’s daughter and come to Noel for help, or the friend who’d loaned him the money to pay off his gambling debts when Noel had become fascinated with the ponies in his sophomore year.
But there was no place for sentimentality. “Why?”
“Half of my armor’s been destroyed in the Sudd. This is my last army, Noel, and it’s all that stands between the Caliphate and the People’s Paradise of Africa. And you in the West do not want Nshombo and Tom Weathers controlling the oil. Trust me.”
“Well, that really is the crux of the problem. I don’t trust you. Sorry about your army, but I’m out of the game. For good. Just an average citizen now. Lovely talking to you.” Noel hung up the phone, and rejoined Niobe.
She looked up at him, and he was struck again by her beautiful green eyes. “Was that Kevin?” she said, referring to his agent.
“Yes,” Noel lied.
“You have a cigarette in your mouth!” his tanned and brittle mother-in-law said, forcing the words past clenched teeth.
“Yes, but it’s not lit. I’ll go outside and rectify that.”
Stellar
Manhattan, New York
Wally tugged on the collar of his tuxedo. The tailor had insisted the tux fit him perfectly. As perfectly as anything could fit a man with iron skin and rivets, anyway. But it sure didn’t feel right.
He stopped fiddling with the bow tie. He didn’t know how to tie it; it would be embarrassing if he had to ask a waiter to help him fix it.
The elevator glided to a stop. It jounced slightly as Wally stepped out.
“Hey, Rusty! Get over here, you.”
Ana Cortez stood outside Stellar with a phone to her ear. It looked like she had stepped outside to take a call. She smiled and waved to Wally as he clanked out of the elevator lobby.
His footwear, like his tuxedo, had been specially tailored for him. The fancy Italian shoes looked nice, but they were pretty flimsy; they did little to lessen the pounding of iron feet on a marble floor. Wally would have preferred a less formal Thanksgiving.
Back home, denim overalls and work boots were perfectly acceptable holiday attire. He’d considered going home to Minnesota for the holiday, but in spite of the growing loneliness and homesickness that hovered over him like a cloud these days, he’d decided against it. Every visit home felt more awkward than the last one.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Mom, Dad, and Pete. He missed them pretty bad. More than anything he wanted to go back home to the days before American Hero. He wanted to spend one more Saturday afternoon watching TV with his brother, while their dad snored in his easy chair.
Thing was, Pete had never traveled farther from home than Duluth. His folks had been born and raised on the Iron Range. It was their whole world. Sometimes Wally wished he could go back to being that way, too.
His family imagined Wally’s life was glamorous. Exciting. Full of adventure. And it made them so happy, thinking that. The last time he went home, he thought his folks were going to burst with pride. Wally Gunderson, the hero. Wally Gunderson, international traveler. Wally Gunderson, troubleshooter for the United Nations. Pete always questioned him about the places he visited for the Committee, all the people he worked with, all the good deeds he’d done.
Every visit, it got harder and harder to tell them what they wanted to hear. To avoid telling them about the boredom, the loneliness, the dread and fear he felt every time the Committee sent him someplace new, the sense of confusion about what he was doing and why he was doing it, the sense that he’d stopped being heroic a long time ago.
Wally hadn’t spent much time at home after his trip to the Caliphate.
“Rusty’s here,” Ana said into her phone. She cupped her hand over it. “Kate says hi.”
“Howdy, Ana. Howdy, Kate.”
Into the phone, Ana said, “He says howdy back… uh-huh… uh-huh.” She laughed. “I doubt it… I should go. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too. Call me later and we’ll compare notes.” Ana shut her phone with a snap. “I’m glad to see you. You look good.”
“You too, Ana.” Her dress looked expensive. It even matched the blue in her earrings.
She reached up to give him a quick hug. Wally dwarfed her. “Gosh,” he said. He returned the hug, gently.
He looked into the restaurant, where white-coated waiters carried trays, pitchers, and bottles between the tables. They looked like photo-negatives of Wally, except not as large. Inside, the clink of cutlery chirped through the murmur of conversation. Unfamiliar faces, unfamiliar voices. A sad feeling crept over Wally.
He went inside with Ana. The maitre d’ greeted them. He didn’t bother to ask if they were on the guest list; everybody knew Rustbelt and Earth Witch, two of the Committee’s founding members. He paused in the act of ushering them toward the hors d’oeuvres when he noted the gouges Wally’s heels left in the floor. The pencil-thin mustache quivered on his lip. He sniffed. But he didn’t raise a fuss. His establishment was full of aces.