Usually that just took a flashed set of credentials or a few words of warning, but lawyers were harder to intimidate-so even while he was negotiating with Mr. Arnold of Jackson-Arnold-Perez, Smith had his men tapping into the building's central systems.
And a good thing, too, he thought, as one of his assistants signalled to him.
“Just a moment, Mr. Arnold,” he said. He flicked off the microphone-just covering the mouthpiece wasn't certain enough.
“The Grand woman is on the phone right now… no, she just hung up,” the assistant said. “She's meeting Anspack, we think for lunch; we didn't get the location.”
“Follow her,” Smith snapped. “Anspack's probably still with Beech.” Then he turned the microphone back on. “I'm sorry, Mr. Arnold-something came up here. If you insist on a court order, we'll get one. I'll get back to you. Thank you for your time, Mr. Arnold.”
He hung up and pocketed the phone.
A court order-ha! Arnold was stuck in the last century somewhere.
He turned to his assistant again.
“Make sure whoever's going after Beech knows he's dangerous-use whatever it takes to take him down. This is a national security matter. Collateral damage is acceptable.”
“Yes, sir.” The assistant began relaying orders.
“They'll follow her,” Casper said. “We'll have to lose them somehow.”
Mirim blinked at him, startled.
“You really think they're going to be that thorough?”
“They were watching her office-I spotted two cars on stakeout, one man on the sidewalk, and a man on the rooftop across from Cecelia's window,” Casper replied. “If they're watching her, they'll follow her.”
Mirim stared at him, and Casper thought he saw fear in her expression.
He smiled warmly. “Don't worry,” he said, “we'll be fine. Maybe I'm just imagining it-but after what happened at my place, don't you think we'd better be extra-careful?”
The fear faded to uncertainty-and it occurred to Casper that he'd never been able to read Mirim's face so easily before.
Had the imprint taught him that, too?
What sort of an imprint could that be? The fighting, the weapons, spotting traps, outthinking opponents, that all fit together-but reading faces?
And what about that speech at the office?
It didn't all fit with the idea of an assassin very well; he was fairly certain now that whatever he had been programmed with wasn't just assassination. Face-reading might suit a spy, someone who had to be able to tell truth from lies and know who to trust-but how did his speech fit with that?
“How do we lose them?” Mirim asked. “If they're really there, I mean.”
Casper shrugged-and realized that he didn't know; he wasn't just dodging the question to save time. He had no idea at all how one could escape pursuit.
He had known a moment before, and he'd lost it.
What the hell kind of imprint was this? How could he forget something he'd known just seconds earlier? That wasn't how it was supposed to work! Once something was imprinted it was supposed to be there whenever it was needed-Casper had read enough on the nets and spoken to enough people who had been imprinted to know that.
Once they had Cecelia away from those bastards, the next step would be to track down just what it was that he'd had stuffed into his head-what it was for, what it did, everything. Once he knew what it was, maybe he could figure out how to deal with it.
Maybe the knowledge would come back when he needed it-he sure hoped it would.
“Come on,” he said.
Mirim had told Cecelia to meet her at a restaurant and bar on Rittenhouse Square, but Casper had no intention of actually entering the place-he'd be too confined there, too easy to trap. Instead, moving easily through the lunchtime crowds, dragging Mirim behind him, he spotted Cecelia on Walnut Street and waved to her.
She waved back, and a moment later the three of them were moving side-by-side down the sidewalk, Casper uncomfortably aware of the two men following Cecelia.
“Casper!” Cecelia began, “I didn't know…”
“Shh,” he told her. He looked around for a way to escape. So far the two men hadn't opened fire, presumably because of the bystanders, or perhaps because they weren't yet certain of his identity-or maybe they just weren't close enough. He was fairly sure they'd move soon.
He would have, in their position.
“This way,” he said suddenly, turning north on the west side of 19th.
Startled, the two women obeyed.
He then turned again, onto Moravian-and here he didn't have any crowds to help; Moravian wasn't much more than an alley.
“Run!” he said, reaching out with both hands and swatting both women forward.
Mirim ran-she'd been there at his apartment, she was already on edge.
Cecelia, though, stopped dead and turned to face him, hands on her hips. “Casper, what the hell…”
“ Run, damn it!” he shouted. “I'll explain in a moment!” And he ran himself, after Mirim. “Turn left!” he called.
He glanced back. The two men had pushed right past Cecelia, leaving her standing there, looking confused and angry; one man had a pistol in his hand.
Mirim wheeled left onto 20th Street, Casper close behind.
Another short block brought them back onto Walnut, where at Casper's signal Mirim turned left again.
Pedestrians turned and stared as the two of them charged through the crowd, half a block ahead of their pursuers.
Casper was considering options as he ran. Something in his brain was working again; he was running through possible courses of action, rather than simply fleeing.
He could call for help, but these people didn't know him yet, they wouldn't want to get involved, and the natural tendency would be to side with the pursuers rather than the fugitive.
He could make a serious effort to lose the two men-but there might be others he hadn't spotted, lurking in the crowd as back-up. And besides, he couldn't see any way to bring Mirim and Cecelia with him safely if he were to try any serious dodging; they weren't ready, wouldn't read signals in time.
But there was a third alternative.
He turned north again on 19th, Mirim close on his heels, and a moment later they were back on Moravian, having circled the block. Cecelia was still there, halfway down to 20th; Mirim ran toward her, shouting, “Run, Cecelia!”
Casper didn't; Casper stopped dead the moment he'd rounded the corner and threw himself back against the brick wall. He pulled the Browning Hi-Power from his pants.
And as each of the two men rounded the corner, chasing Mirim, Casper snapped off two quick shots.
“Double tap,” he said, as he fired at the first man's chest; the recoil kicked the pistol upward slightly, and Casper fired again without pulling it down. That put a bullet through the side of the man's head. Then he dragged the gun back down into line in time to do the exact same thing to the second pursuer.
Blood and brain sprayed across the pavement and the side of an illegally-parked car. Both men dropped in mid-stride, one after the other. Cecelia screamed.
So did another woman, on 19th Street, who had seen the two men fall.
Casper ignored the screams; he ran, grabbed the two women by the arm in passing, one on either side, and dragged them to 20th Street, where he turned right this time.
Mirim ran with him; Cecelia didn't resist, but didn't help much at first.
“You want to stay with those two?” Casper whispered to her.
After that, she ran.
They dodged through the streets of Center City for several minutes-running at first, then trotting, then walking.
“Catch your breath,” Casper told the women. “After the next corner we want to look natural, to blend in.”