Public Enemy

Cooper knew there would be a Secret Service detail accompanying Curlwood, but he didn’t much care. He was betting on a reaction from Curlwood, the Snuffer-Outer-in-Chief, that would preclude the need for the bodyguard to come to his rescue. Cooper assumed the deputy chief of staff’s famously brilliant mind would quickly estimate the meaning and ramifications of Cooper’s presence in his study.

Presuming, of course, Curlwood was the snuffer-outer.

“He

He’d considered lighting up the fireplace earlier but reconsidered-might have brought the Secret Service man in the door first.

Curlwood poked his irritable face into the opening that co

There’s no reason he would recognize me except as the man he decided not to snuff out.

The Secret Service man was good. In one swift motion, he shouldered Curlwood behind the wall, drew his gun, took one and one-half steps across the study, and smothered Cooper with a diving tackle, the barrel of his pistol digging into Cooper’s rib cage as Cooper toppled backward in the chair and let the bodyguard spin him to the floor and cuff him, knee-to-head and gun-to-back, with relatively little resistance.

“Nice work,” Cooper said.

“Shut up,” the Secret Service man said with a thrust of the gun, hard, into the space between two of Cooper’s ribs.

He’d begun to radio for backup-by way of the usual communication device secured to his wrist-when Curlwood reemerged in the hall.

“Let him up,” he said to his bodyguard. “I know him.”

“You sure about this?” the Secret Service man said, shifting all his weight to the knee planted on Cooper’s head. Cooper thinking the guy must have wanted to add, He seems like a fucking wiseass-I wouldn’t trust him if I were you, but knowing as well as the bodyguard did that these guys didn’t get paid to offer their opinions to the people they guarded.

“Let him up.”

When he had, and the Browning had been carefully removed from its spot in the small of Cooper’s back, the Secret Service man said, “Cuffs on or off?”

“Off,” Curlwood said. “Leave us alone here for a minute, please.”

“I’ll be in the next room if you need me,” the bodyguard said. He picked up the fallen chair and lamp and set them in their original places. Then the cuffs came off, and the Secret Service man canceled his call for backup and began explaining to his wrist what had happened as he turned down the hall. Cooper noticed the man didn’t holster either firearm-Secret Service-issue Sig Sauer nor CIA-issue Browning.

The deputy chief of staff hadn’t suggested he return to his place in the chair, but Cooper did so anyway. Curlwood remained standing despite the available clone of a chair two steps behind him.

When the guard had passed out of earshot, Curlwood spoke.

“What do you want?”

Gri

“Including,” Cooper said, “the name of the lieutenant who allocated the funding for the lab in the first place.”

“Fine,” Curlwood said.

He didn’t ask for explanation or clarification.

Cooper hunkered down in the chair, staring up at Curlwood for a long, silent while. Curlwood didn’t say anything to fill the void. He didn’t particularly hold Cooper’s gaze either.

“You’ve got some kind of faith, He

Curlwood the crackerjack advisor digested and interpreted in two seconds flat.

“I suppose,” the deputy chief of staff said, “I could say something like, ‘I spared you, and therefore assumed you’d spare me,’ but in actuality I had you checked out. Quite early in the process. Top to bottom.”

“That so,” Cooper said.

“You’re known for your extortion schemes. You show up in my library-logic completes the equation.”

“You ought to exercise a little more caution with your profiling, there, He

“Perhaps he was. And perhaps they were. Are we through?”

Cooper breathed in a long, slow volume of air and let it out the way a slow leak might result in the deflation of an i

Seated before him now, however, Cooper found he had to physically tamp down the temptation to throw his Sáo Paulo thinking to the wind, reach up, and strangle Curlwood with his bare hands.

He

Cooper stood. He stepped up to the shorter Curlwood, leaned his face down until their noses nearly touched, and grabbed hold of Curlwood’s head, feeling the man’s fleshy ears and cheeks against his palms. Then he slapped the deputy chief of staff on his left cheek-twice, extremely hard.

“For now,” he said. “We’re through for now.”

He released Curlwood from his grip.

Curlwood didn’t do anything but stand in place as Cooper limped into the hall and said, “My gun,” speaking in the direction he’d seen the Secret Service man go.

When no reply came, Curlwood yelled, “Give it to him!”

The Secret Service man came into the hall and flipped Cooper his Browning, which Cooper noticed, upon snatching the weapon, felt considerably lighter than before.

He returned the bulletless gun to the waistband at the small of his back and headed for the hills.