'Did you hear what I said?' Sputtering and suddenly red in the face, the man with the machine-pistol - their Platoon Commander? - again turned his weapon towards Goodly.
'I heard,' Goodly answered, in his piping but in no way intimidated voice. 'I always lie to people who break into private property, and to thugs who threaten me! So do all of the people here. You and one of your men assaulted me in the corridor. And you'll pay for it. You're CMI, right? Well, you'll be dragged over some pretty hot coals for this.'
The other cocked his weapon, and his men followed suit and pressed forward. But Paul Garvey, a full-blown telepath, had stepped up alongside Goodly. Now Garvey grinned and said, 'He's wrong-footed, doesn't like being accused, can't do anything about it. They came to do a job and came too late. They have no more business here. Anything else would be right outside their jurisdiction. And this one is already worried about your threats. He cocked his gun to show you how big and brave he is, but now he's worried that maybe we'll report him for that, too. Because in fact he's chicken-shit!'
Goodly knew that Garvey was reading the CMI leader's mind. But that one was staring - no, grimacing - at the expression on Garvey's face. For the telepath was still grinning, and deliberately. Which was a sight to see; or a sight not to see, if you weren't in the know.
'You,' said the Platoon Commander, prodding Garvey with his weapon, but carefully. 'Shut - your - /ace!' He continued to stare at Garvey's . .. what, expression?
'Or what?' said Garvey. 'You'll murder me? And all the rest of us? This is E-Branch HQ. Don't you know everything you say and do here is being recorded, including the fact that you wrecked the elevator's security system to get in? Not only you, but the people who sent you - you're all in the shit!'
Paul Garvey was tall, well-built and still athletically trim, despite the fact that he was fifty-one years old. Sixteen years ago he had been good-looking, too ... before going up against one of Harry Keogh's most dangerous adversaries, a necromancer called Johnny Found, and losing most of the left side of his face. At the time and on a number of occasions since, some of the best plastic surgeons in England had worked on him until he looked half-decent again, but a real face is made of more than just flesh scavenged from other parts. Garvey's face had been rebuilt from living tissue, true, but the muscles on the left didn't pull the same as on the right, and even after all this time the nerves still didn't connect up too well. He could smile with the right side but not the left. For which reason, and even though the other espers were used to it, Garvey would normally avoid smiling altogether - and avoid all other facial expressions, too.
But when Garvey stopped smiling and actually scowled, like now .. .
The Platoon Commander gulped and made a visible attempt to pull himself together. Then he applied the safety catch on his weapon and backed off a step. He blinked, looked away from the telepath, took out a plastic-laminated card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Goodly. And, quoting parrot-fashion, he began: This was a CMI operation. You are required by law not to reveal -'
'- Out!' Goodly cut him short. 'You and your gorillas, get your backsides out of here - now!'
The Platoon Commander grew yet more red in the face, puffed himself up ... and let it all out in a grunt of frustration. He turned to his men, scowled, and indicated with a jerk of his head that it was time to leave. But Goodly wasn't finished with them.
Think about this,' he said. 'You are required, by a law that makes the Official Secrets Act look like a joke from a Christmas cracker, to forget you were even here! Why, you might even be persuaded to forget you were born! Because for all you know, your boss - or maybe his boss - is fitting you all up for prefrontal lobotomies right now!'
The CMI agents filed out of the room, along the corridor, into the lift. It was Goodly's first chance to count them: a half-section, eight men. The espers had had them outnumbered. But Paul Garvey said, 'We had them out-everythinged! Not much brain-power there. And yet, if Nathan had been here, they had orders to take him. Or if they couldn't do that, to kill him.'
'You got that out of their minds?'
'Yes.' Garvey nodded. 'But just Nathan, which meant I could afford to mouth off a bit. No big deal, for like I said -their leader was chicken-shit.'