Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spartacus File

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.”

Mirim nodded; Cecelia didn't, but Casper didn't worry about it.

The next corner put them on Market Street, and Casper began looking for somewhere to sit down, somewhere they could eat the lunch they had promised Cecelia.

He was, he realized, really hungry. He'd worked up an appetite.

“We have a problem,” Smith's assistant said.

“Why?” Smith asked.

“It's Dominguez and Groves.”

“What about them?”

“They're dead,” the assistant said. “Beech blew their brains out.”

“Did they get Beech?”

The assistant shook his head. “No. And their back-up lost him.”

“ Damn! ” Smith smacked his fist against the wall. “What the hell happened?”

The assistant relayed the back-up's report-how Dominguez and Groves had seen Beech and Anspack meet Grand, how they'd followed the three of them for a block and then Anspack and Beech had started running, how they'd all gone around the block and Beech had ambushed them.

The back-up had seen most of it, and had tried to pick up the pursuit herself, but she'd guessed wrong somewhere about which way her quarry turned and lost them. She hadn't had a chance to get off a shot.

“ Damn it!” Smith said. “Why didn't Dominguez or Groves just shoot Beech when they had the chance?”

“Crowds,” the assistant said. “At least, that's what the back-up thinks.”

“I said collateral damage was acceptable!” Smith glared. “For Christ's sake… next time, if there is one, tell whoever we send to go ahead and shoot on sight. And give ‘em something heavier-shotguns or full auto, something with real firepower. Something that'll take Beech down no matter how good he is.”

He wondered just how good that was. Beech seemed to be absorbing the Spartacus File pretty goddamn fast.

“Yes, sir,” the assistant said. “Uh… the city police are on the scene of the shooting; should we contact them?”

“No, of…” Smith stopped and reconsidered. “Yes,” he said. “Give them Beech's description and basic history. Tell them we think he's a terrorist. Tell them Dominguez and Groves were FBI, tell ‘em we're FBI-let ‘em think we're going to be really pissed if anyone else gets Beech, you know, the whole ‘Untouchables’ bit. That should motivate them. These city contractors like pissing off the FBI.”

“Yes, sir.” The assistant reached for the phone.

“The government's after me,” Casper told Cecelia. “Those two were feds.”

The three of them were seated at the counter of a small coffee shop on the north side of Market Street; bright sunlight gleamed from chrome and Formica on all sides, and half a dozen screens were showing various news, weather, and sports reports.

It was hard to imagine that ten minutes earlier they'd been fleeing for their lives; Casper's words sounded bizarre and paranoid to Cecelia.

She put down her sandwich and stared at him. She hadn't yet taken the first bite. “Why?” she demanded.

“I'm not sure,” he said. “Something to do with the imprinting I got, I think-someone screwed it up somehow.” He saw her expression, and continued, “I don't know why, but they're definitely after me, and they're trying to kill me, not arrest me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they shot first, without asking me to surrender or saying who they were.”

Cecelia glanced at Mirim, who nodded confirmation. “They just opened fire, back at his apartment-never said a word.”

“Those same two men?”

“No, of course not,” Mirim said. “Casper killed them.”

“But you were at his apartment before he… what were you doing at Casper's apartment?” Cecelia eyed her roommate suspiciously.

“We walked off the job together this morning,” Mirim said, a bit nervously.

“But… oh, never mind. So these two men he just shot came to his apartment?”

“No, two others. Casper killed them, too.”

Cecelia blinked. “He's killed four men?”

Mirim swallowed, and nodded.

Cecelia looked at Casper, who tried very hard to look blank; he didn't know what else to do.

He supposed it must be a shock for her, to hear that her harmless, timid lover had committed not one, but four murders in a single morning-or four killings, anyway, as they were all self-defense.

It couldn't be as much of a shock for her to hear that as it was for him to have lived through it, though; she at least had the option of not believing it.

“None of them identified himself?” Cecelia asked, turning back to Casper.

“Nope,” he said. “Shoot first, ask questions later.”

“Then how do you know they're feds?”

“Who the hell else could it be?” Casper said, suddenly angry. “Those bastards are always trying to run everyone's lives…” He was almost growling.

“Casper,” Cecelia said, and he stopped. She stared at him and picked up her sandwich again. She took a bite, chewed, then said, “You never seemed to have a problem with the government telling you what to do before.”

Casper blinked at her, and tried to think.

Was that true?

It seemed as if it must be, really-after all, he'd put up with everything all these years, put up with the taxes and orders and rules and security checks, whereas now the mere thought of anyone telling him that he had to do something, or mustn't do something, was enough to make him tremble with rage.