Free Asterisk by Campbell Armstrong

get laid? He opened his eyes, watched Sharpe, waited for something to happen. Sharpe, staring at the blank pages as one might at the recalcitrant clue of a difficult crossword puzzle, was thinking of Dilbeck. Back to that fucking plant kingdom, he thought.
    Tarkington could feel waves of sleep press in on him. He struggled against them. I done this by the book, he thought. They can’t hang me for that.
    Sharpe gathered the papers together, stuffed them back in the folder, shoved the folder into the attaché case, locked it, and stuck it in the bottom drawer of his gray metal desk.
    â€œThorne’s a special case, Tarkie,” he said. “You understand that? I don’t want Lykiard near him, you follow me? I don’t want Lykiard so much as to breathe on the guy. But day and night, day and fucking night, Tarkie, I want to know where he goes, who he screws, when he takes a shit. You got that?”
    Tarkington thought, I’m going to need some speed about now. I’m going to need a chemical assist. Wearily, he got out of his chair. His shoulders sagged and he felt as if his legs might buckle. He looked at Sharpe; Sharpe thought of a large, overweight dog searching for cold water on a hot day.
    â€œWhat do we do this for?” Tarkington said.
    â€œIt passes the time, Tarkie. Always remember that.”
    Myers watched the sun as it rose and, lying flat on his belly, beat at a fly that had come buzzing in against his face. He lifted the binoculars and trained them on the site. There wasn’t any movement. You couldn’t count the guard, because he was like part of the landscape. The sun dazzled on the white wall of the structure and glistened on the wire perimeter fence. Somewhere inside that fence they had the means of blowing away some major cities of the Soviet Union. Blam blam blam .
    He rubbed his eyes.
    From a distance, faintly at first, he heard the sound of a chopper. He scrambled down into the arroyo toward his tent. He went inside. The sound of the helicopter grew louder. He heard it reverberate. And when he saw how the walls of the pup tent shimmered, blown by a wind, he realized it was directly overhead.
    Jesus Christ . Any minute now his tent would disappear. He stepped out, shielding his eyes, and looked up at the chopper; it was a vast sun-struck mantis. I’m bird-watching, he thought. A cactus-wren freak. A voyeur of buzzards. My feathered friends.
    The helicopter was descending, coming down on the crest of the slope above him. He watched its blades spin to a halt. A man in a white helmet jumped out of the cockpit and stood looking down the arroyo at him.
    â€œWhat the fuck you think you’re doing, friend?”
    Myers, his eyesight fettered by the sun, watched the white blur of the helmet.
    The man came down the dry wash toward him.
    He was black, he had the armband of an MP, and an automatic pistol, a .45, in his holster.
    â€œWhat you doing?”
    Myers looked nervously at his tent. “Bird-watching.”
    â€œYeah? I guess this area’s just brimming with them,” the MP said.
    â€œIf you look, it is,” Myers said. “You got to know where to look.”
    The MP stared up the arroyo at the helicopter. There was a second figure in the cockpit. Myers could not see him clearly.
    â€œYou know this place is off limits?” the MP said.
    â€œOff limits,” and Myers shrugged.
    The MP stared at the tent, pulled the flap back, looked inside.
    â€œI didn’t see any signs,” Myers said.
    â€œBird-watching, huh?” The MP took the pistol from his holster. He leveled it at Myers. He smiled; against the dark of his skin his teeth were an impossible white. “How long you been camping here?”
    â€œCouple days,” Myers said. “What’s with the gun, mac?”
    â€œI got myself a bird,” the MP said.
    Thorne waited in an obscure seafood restaurant called the Shrimp’s Hideaway for his lunch date. It was