so eager to destroy it-and if they're right, and it is dangerous to them, then you people want it on your side.”
“And suppose,” the bearded man said, “that this is all a trick, that what they actually imprinted you with is instructions to betray us, that the attempts to kill you were faked, and that you honestly don't know this, but it's true, and at the right time you'll turn on us.”
Casper smiled. “Could be,” he said, “but I didn't just escape from those feds-I killed four of them. And the word's on the net that I'm to be shot on sight. Isn't that a bit drastic, just to get at you folks?”
They didn't like that one; Casper could see it in their expressions; the bearded man in particular looked annoyed. Casper had thrown their own ineffectuality and insignificance in their faces. They'd like to believe that yes, they were important enough that it would be worth the lives of four G-men to infiltrate their organization.
They had to recognize the truth, though.
“We'll want to check you out, verify as much of your story as we can,” the redhead said.
Casper shrugged. “Of course,” he said. “I'm in no hurry; as long as I'm safe for the moment, whatever you want is fine.”
The redheaded man considered, then gestured. “Tasha will show you to your room,” he said. “We'll let you know.”
The shorter, plumper woman, who had guarded them in the van, led the way out of the crowded kitchen and up the stairs of the old house, and Casper followed cheerfully.
Tasha, they called her. A revolutionary named Tasha ought to be tall and thin and seductive, with straight black hair and a beret; this woman was about five-one and fat, wearing jeans and a baggy black sweatshirt and with frizzy blonde hair that could use washing.
Casper liked that. This Tasha was real, not just a Hollywood stereotype. People For Change was real. They were real Americans, fighting against the corrupt power structure.
Maybe they didn't look like much, but according to the reports on them they had taken credit for blowing up a precinct station in New York four years ago, saying the police had been torturing suspects there, and they had killed a cop in the process. They apparently weren't as ineffectual as they appeared.
They weren't exactly friendly yet, but they hadn't just shot him, either. They hadn't even questioned Mirim or Cecelia-he wondered how long it would be before they noticed that little oversight.
It was a perfectly satisfactory start.
He wished he had a better idea just what he was starting; the thing in his head hadn't told him that yet.
But he could guess.
Chapter Fifteen
“I can't believe this,” Smith said. “We've been searching the streets for a week, and we haven't found a trace of Beech!”
Schiano shrugged. “New York's a big city,” he said.
“Not that big,” Smith retorted. “You sure about what you told me?”
“Sure I'm sure,” Schiano said. “First choice in his situation is to link up with rebels; second choice is to go to ground among the poor and make connections with the organizations poor people deal with-charities and organized crime.”
“You're sure?”
“I wrote it, didn't I?”
“So they tell me. You don't seem terribly eager to prove it by helping us stop this son of a bitch, though.”
“I'm not in any hurry,” Schiano said with a shrug. “Not so long as you're paying me a thousand bucks an hour.”
“You might want to earn some of that!”
“I've tried.”
Smith glared at Schiano.
Schiano looked back calmly.
He wasn't bothered by Smith's anger; Smith was an asshole. Schiano kept telling him that first choice was to join with some group trying to do what Beech was programmed to do, that is, to overthrow the government, and Smith kept missing it.
He had, at one point, asked whether Beech would sell out to some foreign power, and Schiano had told him no, which was quite true-that option was specifically avoided in the Spartacus File because it would lead to too many potential complications if the optimized agent went looking for outside allies. Covert had wanted their Spartacus to run an entirely home-grown operation, so no one could complain about international meddling.
But Smith still hadn't hit on the idea of terrorists or subversive organizations. It was really quite an amazing blind spot. To Smith, Schiano had long since realized, those weren't rebels-those were nuts. Dangerous criminal nuts. Rebels were something else, something the U.S. didn't have.
Schiano had to struggle sometimes to keep from giggling at Smith's absurdity.
“Okay,” Smith said, “so we haven't been able to find Beech directly; we've just wound up with a bunch of dead derelicts and complaints from human rights groups. You say he'll try to link up with organized crime?”
Schiano considered that.
Technically, a lot of the subversive organizations qualified as organized crime; certainly, any that had ever used terrorism did, and plotting to overthrow the government was conspiracy to commit treason, wasn't it?
“Yeah,” Schiano said. “He's probably already contacted someone.”
“Who?”
“I don't know,” Schiano said. “What do I know about organized crime? I'm just a computer jock.”
That was the closest to an outright lie that Schiano had come yet in his dealings with Smith, because while he didn't actually know, for the last day or two he'd begun to suspect just who Beech had joined up with. There were messages on the net-messages asking readers if they were unhappy with the way the country was run.
That was hardly anything new, but the wording of these particular messages sounded eerily familiar to Schiano.
If Smith phrased his questions properly, Schiano would have to admit that he was pretty sure Casper Beech had linked up with a group of suspected terrorists called People For Change.
But so far, Smith hadn't phrased his questions correctly.
And Schiano was unhappy with the way the country was run-especially the piece of it Smith was running.
Giving up a thousand dollars an hour to join a bunch of crazy revolutionaries was a bit more than he was ready to do-but he was thinking about it.
“I don't understand what you're doing,” the redheaded man-Colby, the other members of PFC usually called him, though he also seemed to answer to “Rob” or “Perkins'-said as he leaned over Casper's shoulder and looked at the computer screen. He was tall enough that he had to stoop slightly to see the display.
“Several things,” Casper said, still tapping keys.
“Name one,” Colby said, straightening up.
“Well, first off,” Casper said, hitting ENTER and leaning back, “I'm trying to raise the general level of discontent. While it's true that you don't need to have the backing of the majority in order to win a revolution, you do have to know that the general population isn't going to come out in support of the old regime. There are going to be hardships and displacements in any change of government, and you want to make sure that the people don't consider them an intolerable price to pay, or you get a counter-revolution.”
Colby considered that.
“I thought you just wanted to stay alive,” he said.
“That's right,” Casper said. “And the best way to do that is to make sure the government that's trying to kill me hasn't got the power to do so.”
“So you seriously plan to overthrow the Party?”
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
