Oceans Of Fire

James turned over his cards. “Four ducks.”

The man in the turban started stupidly at the four deuces on the table. James had cleaned him out, and reached for the pot. “Nice playing with y—”

“Cheat.”

The immediate environment around the table went dead silent. The man looked up from the cards with murder in his eyes. “You cheat.”

“Listen.” James held up both hands in peace. “I—”

“Blackie…cheat.” The man was literally vibrating with rage. “Every time you deal, you win.”

James took a calming breath. “Friend, you—”

“Cheating negro,” the man declared.

A mountainous pair of bouncers began moving toward the table.

James’s fist closed around his drink. “You know, not my country, not my house, not my cards. I don’t speak the language. Hell, I’m not even that good a player. I’m just lucky.”

“Luck!” The man spit the word.

“Yeah.” James leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Lucky to be sitting across from a loser like you.”

The man froze.

James took a dainty sip of his gin and waggled his eyebrows over his glass insultingly.

“Bismillah!” The man erupted from his seat. He screamed incoherently and grabbed the edge of the table. The crowd screamed as he heaved the poker table upward, flipping it over and sending chips and cards flying. “I kill!” the man shrieked. “Kill you!”

The bouncers descended, trying to smother the irate gambler with shear weight. The man in the turban seemed awkward, but his fist flew into one bouncer’s jaw and dropped him like he’d been shot. The other bouncer reached to grab the frothing man and was scooped up into a fireman’s carry, airplane spun and sent flying across the craps table. Furniture shattered and patrons ran screaming in all directions.

The demented gambler advanced on James, his fingers curled into claws. “Kill you! K—!”

James rose from his chair and flicked his wrist, sending two ounces of gin into his attacker’s eyes. Before the man could even react to the stinging liquor, the Phoenix Force commando’s fist pistonned three times in chopping right-hand leads. The first blow snapped the man’s head back. On the second, he turned his wrist over and jammed his thumb into the notch between the maniac’s collarbones. The man had no time to gasp as his throat compressed because the third punch took him in the solar plexus.

The turbaned man made a sucking noise and went pale. James grabbed him by his shoulder and spun him, seizing him by his collar and the back of his pants. He marched the blinking and wheezing man past cringing patrons to the front of the building.

He whispered in the maniac’s ear, “Sorry about this, Rafe.”

Encizo’s eyes rolled and drool came from one corner of his bloody mouth, but his voice was very quiet and lucid amid the chaos in casino. “No problem, amigo—”

James took two lunging steps for momentum and flung Encizo through the smoked-glass double doors. People outside the casino screamed as the Cuban flew to the pavement in a cascade of glass. He rolled to a stop and lay bleeding on the sidewalk.

“Punk,” James announced as he made a show of wiping his hands.

The cocktail waitresses were still screaming and casino patrons shouted in consternation. A pair of Indian businessmen stood clapping their hands delightedly at the show.

James smiled and took a bow.

Shotguns racked behind him. He put up his hands and very slowly turned. Clayborne Forbes was pointing a stainless-steel Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver at his face. The weapon was a custom job, a product of the Smith & Wesson Performance Center. Its frame was made of titanium while the barrel and cylinder were stainless steel. James could clearly see the extra pair of holes that turned the revolver into an eight-shooter and the ugly lead cavities of the hollowpoints it had been stuffed with. For the average human, firing a Magnum with a two-inch barrel would be problematic at best.

Forbes didn’t look as though he’d have any problems.

He was even bigger in person, six-foot-four and built like an NFL tight end. His huge hand engulfed the grips of his pistol. Two more bloated, bearded bouncers flanked him, armed with enormous, 23 mm Russian KS-23, folding-stock shotguns.

“Well, goddamn.” Forbes blinked at James in surprise. Black men weren’t exactly common in Tajikistan. He lowered his revolver slightly. “You African or American?”

“African American.” James smiled. “Chicago, south-side born and raised.”

“No shit?” Forbes jerked his head toward a steel security door at the far end of the casino. “Follow me, Chicago.” He nodded at the bouncers. “Mukhtar, Askar, a round of drinks on the house and get this shit cleaned up, and find the brother’s chips.”

The two men lowered their shotguns and began shouting at the cocktail waitresses and the busboys. James followed Forbes into a standard casino security suite with banks of monitors watching the action at every table. Three security men stared up from their screens at James in open curiosity.

Forbes sighed. “Gonna have to relieve you of that piece.”

James nodded and reached under his jacket. He drew his Heckler & Koch P-9 from the concealed small-of-the-back holster he wore and handed it over. Forbes took in the big .45’s rakish lines appreciatively. “Nice.”

Forbes’s gleaming revolver rose to James’s face and the cylinder full of gaping, 125-grain hollowpoints turned as Forbes cocked back the hammer. “Now, you want to tell me what you’re doing in my crib? Or do I call in Mukhtar and Askar and have them squash it out of you?”

James leaned back slightly from the .357’s muzzle and held up his hands. “Heard a rumor a brother was getting ahead up north and came to see for myself.”

“Now that’s the kind of rumor that can get your ass killed. You—” Forbes suddenly stared at the ring on James’s finger. It was gold and carved with an eagle holding a trident and an anchor. It was the symbol of the United States Navy SEAL. Forbes’s face went flat. “If that ain’t for real, I’m going to cut it off you at the wrist.”

James grinned delightedly at a similar ring on Forbes’s gun hand. “Oh, man, you’re shitting me!”

The security men stared uncomprehendingly as the two men began a sudden, rapid exchange of Navy SEAL–speak involving teams, operations, mutually known naval officers and the halcyon days of BUDS, or basic underwater demolitions/SEAL student training.

After about five minutes of family reunion, Forbes holstered his pistol. “Well, fuck me running. Calvin James, you know I think I might even have heard of you at a SEAL meet or two.”

It was entirely possible. James and Forbes were two different generations of SEAL, but the United States Navy SEALs were a small, tightly knit community and African-Americans an even tinier minority within them. SEAL meets were get-togethers where SEALs past and present met to swap stories and gossip, engage in miniature SEAL-style Olympic events and down enormous quantities of alcohol.

“Man, they say you just up and disappeared one day, went all spooky. Got recruited by a special operations group or some other kind of top-secret black ops shit. Dropped off the Earth.”

The best lies were told by omission and cradled in truth. “That is a fact.”

Forbes handed James back his pistol. “And you came all the way here just to see my sweet ass? I mean, I know I’m pretty…” Forbes left his doubt hanging between them.

“I was retired for a while, and I really didn’t care for it. Then the Man asked if I would like to reenlist for the War on Terror. I took a year contract, the coin was decent, but I heard the private work was better. Hired on with Knight Securities to help train their newbies.”

“Heard of them,” Forbes acknowledged.

“But I got all nostalgic and shit, and decided I wanted to see some action.”

“Always a mistake.”

“Don’t I know it.” James shrugged. “So I hit the dirt in Iraq. Hadn’t been there in years. It was still 115 degrees in the shade, still infested with sand fleas and a brother still couldn’t get a piece of ass to save his life, but the car bombings, private security boys being dragged and hung from bridges and the hostage beheading? That shit was new. I didn’t dig it, so I went to Afghanistan. Lot of guys were making money in the private sector over there, double or more than what Uncle Sam was paying. Then one day in Kabul, I heard that rumor about a brother living large in Tajikistan. Sounded so crazy it had to be true.” James opened his hands, taking in the cut of Forbes’s suit and the diamonds and gold dripping from his hands. “And here you are.”

Forbes frowned. “You sayin’ you came here for a job?”