Wild Cards 15 - Black Trump by George R. R. Martin

powerful sense of optimism, after all; it had survived the wild card turning him into a creature fit to frighten children, not to mention Thai colonels playing at diplomat.
    Osprey was not as capable as Mark's former spymaster, security chief, military advisor, and friend J. Robert Belew had been. Then again, Mark suspected hardly anybody was , outside the movies. Belew was long gone. Ordered into exile by Mark himself.
    He gave his head a prissy-tight little shake - and was immediately uncomfortable; That had too much Traveler in it.
    I'm not gonna beat myself up over that one any more, he told himself. Yes, he had allowed himself to be manipulated into unfounded suspicion of his friend and advisor J. Bob; yes, he had flown into a rage in the aftershock of having killed the man he hoped would be the guru he'd been seeking since his belated face-first fall into the hippie subculture. He had tossed his right-hand man out of the whole country - and had only just managed to avoid ordering him shot out of hand, just like any fascist Third World dictator with aviator shades and gild bird crap on the bill of his hat.
    But he hadn't just been in Ferdinand Marcos-emulating mode. The fact was, he couldn't trust J. Bob, not indefinitely. The merc himself had told him not to. J. Bob was a right-winger and a super-patriot, and he had his own agenda - which could not be relied on to run parallel with Mark's clear over the horizon into infinity. The break was coming, was needful; and though not for the best reasons, Mark had done the best thing, by making it clean.
    He sighed. "I just wonder if it's ... worth it, man." Right or wrong he missed J. Bob acutely now; J. Bob knew about his "friends." Not being able to share the truth of his masquerade with anyone - even his closest remaining friend - weighted him down like a backpack anvil. "What we're doing here."
    Osprey shook his head in disbelief. "Not worth it? Listen, man. Think of all we've done. We've given the wild cards a place where they can be free and pretty much safe. We've given the Viets something they wanted for a long, long time, which was mainly to be left alone. There's starting to be an economy here in the South; people are starting to make stuff, and to trade.
    "The traffic is flowing South, not North; shit, everybody says it's just a matter of time before the boys in Hanoi throw in the towel and petition to join us. You've kept us on good terms with the Chinks without sellin' us down the river. And with all this shit about the Card Sharks breaking in the news and all, the way you and J. - and the Major was the first ones to make a stand against them, it's makin' us all look like heroes. Nothing like a little attempted genocide to rehabilitate us wild cards in the eyes of the world."
    Mark found himself nodding. He thought J. Bob was raving when he first told Mark they were up against a branch of a worldwide conspiracy to exterminate the wild cards, way down yonder in Vietnam. But J. Bob had been right. As usual. Now the Sharks were exposed, discredited, and on the run.
    "We ain't an 'outlaw state' any more," Osprey said. "People are startin' to think what we're doing here is pretty right-on. And old President Leo, he don't like wild cards much - but he don't have a personal hard-on for your skinny white butt like George the Shrub did. When the polls tell him to back off the 'Nam, he listens up."
    He laid a hand on Mark's shoulder. Mark felt the tips of his talons, needle-sharp, gently prodding his flesh through the blue chambray of his shirt. Power under control: that was Osprey.
    "Mooncnild's the boss," the joker said in a quiet voice. "But not to take nothing away from her, you're our point-man. Always been. We'd never have made it this far without you. I hope you stick it out."
    "Wherever it takes us?"
    "That's affirmative."
    Mark reached up to grip the claw briefly. "Thanks," he said. "I'll do my best."

    ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

    Billy Ray was pissed, absolutely and totally.