Secondhand Sorcery

“It is fading,” Dr. Gus announced as Keisha sat back up. “And now it is gone entirely. I will continue to monitor for the next several minutes, all the same.”

“I take it that didn’t go well,” Ethan said, watching her rub her face.

“How’d you tell?”

“Doc says she pulled out her familiar.”

“That would explain it. I just lost the connection out of nowhere, and it’s even more disorienting than usual.” She moved around so she was sitting on the edge of her cot. Their new (which was to say, recently abandoned) apartment was very nice, and a huge improvement over a collapsing farm, but it was only one bedroom and actual furniture was hard to come by. Sacrifices. “It wasn’t going so hot before that, though.”

“What do we tell Green, then?” Hamp fretted.

“Tell him she’s immobilized for the time being. Gunshot wound to the hip. No details; we need to figure out just how dire her situation is. She seems to think she’s going to die. It made reestablishing rapport a bit of a challenge.”

Ethan held up a hand. “Is she actually—“

“If she is, it’s not something imminent in the next twenty-four hours, I don’t think. She’s alert, aware, and lucid. Just … she can’t get off the couch, and she’s in a lot of pain.”

“Oh, is that all,” Hamp said.

She winced. “Okay, bad phrasing, but you get what I mean.”

“So, is a reunion a good idea after all,” Ethan said, “or do we want to chance it without them?”

“Yeah. That’s the question, isn’t it?” Fatima and Ruslan’s trail had finally terminated in the Bingöl area yesterday; their current location wasn’t nailed down to the millimeter, but they had a pretty good idea. If they started moving again, faking another Ézarine sighting wouldn’t be that hard. “On the one hand, it’d go a long way in winning back Nadia’s trust, and keeps her alive. On the other … “

“It gets her mobile, and you don’t have a clue what the three of them will get up to when they’re all together again,” Ethan summed up.

“No, I’m reasonably confident their next move would be to reconnect with Yuri. And he’s not exactly hard to find, these days.” The southeast corner of Anatolia was a big mess of red dots on the tracker app. The little bastard seemed to have set himself up as some kind of mercenary, or enforcer, or something. Thankfully he wasn’t their problem anymore. She’d given them a good enough description to do a police-style sketch, and now it was up to a mix of VRIL specialists and emissors to track him down and kill him in the middle of a war zone. She didn’t envy them. “Obviously, them joining Yuri’s cause, whatever it is, would not be a desirable outcome.”

“Back up a moment,” Hamp said. “You think they’re just going to kiss and make up? Nadia damn near killed her sister the last time they were together.”

“Yeah, that is, uh, something they’d have to work through first.” And another potential reason to keep them apart. “But Fatima will be in perfect health now, so she doesn’t have much reason to be vindictive, now that she’s had a chance to get over it. I think.” To the extent she could be sure of anything about the motivations of a teenage girl she barely knew.

“I don’t think Green will go for it,” Hamp said. “I know it sounds shitty, but he’s going to want her dependent on us. The more controlled, the better. Getting her healthy and loose under Fatima’s influence is a no-go. And with Yuri … Christ, what an idea.”

“Yeah. At the very least, I’d want to try again to persuade Nadia to our point of view tomorrow, before we bring siblings into the mix. I don’t know what my odds of success will be, though, without something positive to give her. She flat told me she won’t be coming with us for surgery. She thinks it’s a trap.”

“Which it kinda is,” Ethan pointed out. “It’s just the nicest, cushiest trap she can expect to land in, is all.”

“Agreed.” She pulled the map back out. “Okay, the situation is stable enough for right now. We can assume that the people she’s with are going to pursue whatever treatment she needs. That means she’s going to have to stay inside loyal Turkey; the separatist regions can hardly keep the lights on, let alone keep fresh deliveries of medicine running. Not that Turkey’s much better, but they’ve stayed here with her so far, so they probably aren’t moving. Right?”

“Right,” Hamp said. “Turkey itself isn’t stable, though, even at its current level of dysfunction. You saw the latest from Istanbul, right?”

“Yes, I did. Not our problem.” There was a lot of new glasswork along the eastern shore of the Bosphorus now. As far as she was concerned, that was good news; as long as Snowdrop was on the other end of the country, she couldn’t influence any of the Marshalls. “If the country goes even more to hell than it already has, that’s obviously an operational concern, but not one we can affect.”

“I have been thinking on that,” Dr. Gus said, opening his eyes at last. “Given that Israel is already involved in the region, I believe I could persuade an old pupil of mine to render his assistance.”

For a long moment, all three of them stared. “He was one of yours too, huh?” Hamp asked. “Wish you’d have brought that up sooner, that he owes you a favor—“

“He does not traffic in ‘favors,’ and the suggestion would be highly insulting to him. Kindly do not bring it up in the unlikely event that you meet.”

“Still,” Ethan said, “that’s one hell of a game-changer, if you could swing it. And if they’re willing to put their only emissor on the table like that.”

“It is not a matter of whether Jerusalem is willing,” the Doctor huffed. “He goes where he feels he is needed, and he accepts their input when making that decision. I believe that I, in combination with his government, could persuade him that this area is more deserving of his immediate attention than any other candidate. That is all.”

“If he does want to get involved here, though,” Keisha said, measuring her words, “we would need to get General Green’s permission, and plan out how we handle the aftermath. It would certainly help with the Nadia situation, but I don’t know what it would do in terms of the local politics. He’s even harder to control than Yuri.”

“I would say ‘impossible,’ not hard. And he would not appreciate that comparison, either. But this is of no importance. I shall ask Green’s permission now.” He levered himself out of his chair, and made his way over to the kitchen to make the call in private.

Hamp frowned. “What hour is it in DC right now?”

“Does it matter?” Ethan said. “Green can’t be sleeping much these days anyway. Now, as far as the terrible two are concerned … ”

“We still need to get them contained, yes. I don’t think they’re in any real hurry to meet up with Yuri again, thankfully. Who would be?”

“But they ain’t gonna stay in place forever while you decide what to do. And the longer they stay free, the more damage they’re going to cause. They might not be walking disasters like Yuri, but they do rack up a body count.”

“Yes, they do.” The problem was that Keisha had nothing to offer them besides Nadia; they might or might not accept American help, but she wouldn’t trust them—at least, she wouldn’t trust Fatima—to abide by the terms of any agreement they made. “Maybe we’d do better to let them heal Nadia; she might settle them down. Then again, it might not. You know, I really wish I’d had more of a chance to get a feel for how these kids thought.”

“If you’re going to waste time wishing,” Hamp suggested, “wish for something bigger than that.”

Dr. Gus came back from the kitchen. “General Green has agreed to consider the matter. He is reluctant to complicate the situation any further by inviting another belligerent.”

“But he ain’t a ‘belligerent!’” Ethan laughed. “I don’t think ol’ Woody can even throw a punch. What the hell?”

“Nonetheless, the situation is very complex, and ‘Old Woody’ is among the most versatile and effective emissants on the planet.”

“Yeah, shame he’s so damn hard to keep a leash on. Bit like me,” Ethan mused. “Say, if you just had a private word with the boy, how likely is he to squeal on you?”

“He doesn’t need to say anything,” Hamp said. “Not after we just asked Green permission. He can put the dots together. They don’t tend to promote complete idiots up to that level.”

“I don’t know, I’ve known a few. What do you think?” he said, turning to Keisha.

She threw her pillow at him; he slapped it out of the air. “I think I’m the lowest-ranking officer in this room, so why are you asking me? To hell with it. Sure. As far as I’m concerned, you can call him. He’s the easiest way to solve the problem, and I’m on borrowed time anyway.”

Ethan turned back to Hamp; something about it put Keisha in mind of a kid who got permission from his mother, turning to dad for final approval. Hamp sighed, said, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear this conversation. I was half-expecting them to send the old man in anyway, so we have deniability. Why not?”

“I will call him, then.” Dr. Gus retreated into the actual bedroom this time, and shut the door behind him.

“What was that about borrowed time?” Hamp asked once the door closed. “You still worried about Belvedere? If they haven’t worked that out by now, they probably aren’t going to. At least, not within an operationally relevant timeframe. Maybe in a year, they’ll start asking funny questions. You’ll be a hit on the lunatic fringe.”

“Well, you at least got over it awful quick.”

He gave a gesture that tried to be a shrug but couldn’t quite summon up the effort. “It’s the Numenate. If I got pissed off every time they didn’t tell me something I thought I had the right to know, I’d have blood pressure like the bottom of the goddamn ocean. What’s the point?”

“Doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Ethan opened his mouth, the way he usually did when somebody mentioned fairness; she gave him her hardest look, and he shut it, and ambled off to the kitchen for a snack.

“It never is,” Hamp agreed. “But, you know, I don’t really belong here, and I never did. I’ve got the years in to retire, if I really wanted to. I couldn’t tell you why I don’t, except that my kids are grown, and my wife left ten years ago—going on fifteen, now—and if I went from doing all this crap, all this insanity that runs me ragged and has me eating antacids like breath mints, if I left all that behind and settled down, I’d be doing what? Playing golf?” He shook his head. “This is what I do, now. I’m like an old convict. I wouldn’t know what to do with freedom if you gave it to me.”

“Yeah, I feel that. I keep telling myself I’ll scale back and slow down someday, and you know what my big aspiration is? The first thing I’m gonna do, as soon as I have the free time? I’m going to get me a cat.” She laughed. “That’s it. I haven’t looked any farther than that, no bigger ambitions. How pathetic is that?”

“Couldn’t tell you. I’m more of a dog person, myself. So you don’t want to have a family, huh? I’m not going to start lecturing you about how you should, or anything like that,” he quickly added. “I’m in no place to lecture anybody about that. I’m just curious.”

“I didn’t take it that way. But it doesn’t matter. By the time Uncle Sam actually lets me scale back on this, I’ll have … ovaries like dried-up old chickpeas. I’m thirty-two already. And the idea, just the image, of worn-out old Keisha leaving the service and hurrying up to work out how actual relationships happen, and securing a man, and having a kid, decorating the nursery, all that crap? Ugh. It makes me tired, even thinking of it. I’m better off not trying, going straight from ‘elite paraphysical operative’ to ‘crazy cat lady.’ It’s harder to screw up a cat than a kid.”

“You’d have a hard time screwing up a kid worse than the ones we’re dealing with now.”

“I know—and I’m the one who’s stuck dealing with them! That’s messed up. My childcare experience consists of watching my kid sister after school, and now sending her kids fun presents from foreign countries so I can be the cool aunt when I see them every two years. Hmph. It’s just our luck that we’ve got a shortage of qualified child psychiatrists with VRIL skills and a security clearance.”

“As of right now we do, sure. But we both know armies are always training to fight their last war. As we speak, I promise you the Numenate is ordering at least a dozen feasibility studies on a new Combat Therapist MOS. The first ones should be rolling out around the time Nadia’s old enough to graduate college.”

She laughed a lot harder than the joke deserved. “Well, that’s comforting. Meanwhile, what am I supposed to do here? How do I deal with these damn kids, Hamp? I got thrown in the deep end. I can’t be Nadia’s mother, and I can’t pretend to be her friend while I’m throwing down orders and demands.”

“Kids that age don’t react well to orders or demands no matter who gives them. Mine didn’t. But if I had a kid who was about to get herself killed, I wouldn’t worry about being her friend, or having her like me. Safety first. It’s a cliché for a reason.”

“Fair point.” She leaned over to punch him on the arm. “Look at you, knocking ‘em out of the park.” He rolled his eyes in response, and got up to follow Ethan to the kitchen. “What about the other two, though? They’re not going to wait forever.”

“You could start by getting an exact location,” Ethan suggested.

“And establishing contact,” Hamp added over his shoulder as he opened the fridge. “You’ll have better luck negotiating if you’ve built up a working relationship ahead of time. I never showed up on some three-star Soviet flunky’s doorstep expecting to cut a deal right away. Dammit, Major, did you use all the mustard?”

Ethan grabbed the bottle off the counter and waggled it in front of Hamp’s nose. He snatched it, then started ferrying sandwich ingredients to the counter, explaining as he did, “Y’know, I might not be a good parent—I’ll be the first to admit I was pretty much crap at that—but I do know something about negotiating with punks who think they’re god. These kids might be too young to drink, but that doesn’t mean they think of themselves as children. Most teenagers don’t; they’re adults already, it’s just that the actual adults are too dumb to figure that out.”

“So I should treat them as basically warlords I’m negotiating with on an equal footing? Little Titus Marshalls?” It made sense. Fatima at least probably thought of herself as something like her father’s heir.

“Sure. It helps to address people the way they expect to be addressed, and flattery is a nice cheap way to grease the wheels. Anyway, do you want a sandwich?”