Lawrence Watt-Evans by The Spartacus File

Author:The Spartacus File [File, The Spartacus]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-06-03T20:16:49+00:00

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Chapter Twelve

Leonid glanced at the women—and Casper, he noticed, didn’t; Beech’s gaze never wavered.

Mirim and Cecelia were staring, shocked.

“Casper, what the hell…” Cecelia began, but Mirim shushed her.

Leonid took his cue from that.

“So this is a scam?” he said. “You planning to clean me out?”

“Just defending myself,” Casper replied, and his voice was calm, confident, commanding. “You came out with a gun, you work in security, this place is the only place we might have gone that’s not under surveillance—I think that it’s a set-up. I think they should have been watching here, and they weren’t because they wanted me here. I think that you got a call telling you that I’m some kind of dangerous fugitive.”

“Hey, you said you were a fugitive!” Leonid protested. “I shouldn’t try to protect myself?”

“Maybe I’m being a little over-cautious,” Casper conceded. “So explain why you came out with a gun.”

“Well, I thought maybe you were holding the girls hostage,” Leonid bluffed. “I was going to get the drop on you, and ask them what was really going on, why the feds are after you.”

Casper smiled, a smile that Leonid really didn’t like at all. “Who said it was the feds?” he countered.

Leonid’s mouth opened, then closed.

Cecelia’s expression changed from angry confusion to outrage, and her gaze shifted from Casper to Leonid. Mirim took a step back, looking wary.

“You said it was,” Leonid said. “You told me the government was after you.”

“No, I didn’t,” Casper replied. “I was very careful about that. I did my best to make it sound like either organized crime or corporate espionage. You said yourself you were going to check on criminals.”

“Yeah, but…” Leonid stopped in mid-sentence. What more could he say? He was caught.

“So the feds did call?” Casper asked. “Did they tell you why they want me dead?”

“Not really,” Leonid admitted. “Something about you being a terrorist.”

“You believe that?”

“No.”

“But you were going to kill me anyway?”

Leonid shrugged. “The feds asked me to. I’m going to argue with them?”

“Who was it called? FBI?”

Leonid shook his head.

Beech waited, but Leonid didn’t answer further.

“You probably know I don’t want to kill you,” Casper said. “Not only do I not want to kill anybody, you can still be useful to me, and you know it. I wouldn’t mind shooting you in the leg, though, and do you really want me to do that? I’d try to break the bone if I did, and that could be messy.”

“Covert Operations Group,” Leonid said.

Casper gestured at the women with the hand that wasn’t holding the Browning.

“I never heard of them,” Mirim said.

“I have,” Cecelia said. “When they eliminated all those conflicting agencies at the beginning of the century, after they set up Homeland Security, they put all the above-ground ones in the FBI, and all the secret ones in Covert.” She frowned. “But I thought they were like the old CIA, not supposed to operate in the U.S. in peacetime.”

“They make exceptions,” Leonid said.

“So that’s who’s after me?” Beech asked.

Leonid nodded.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.

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