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Someone turned the corner
Oliver
He sawTo turn away and head down the corridor would be foolish He’d have a clear shot Instead, I leaped for the stairway and headed up, two steps at a tiled I kept cli, in a spacious area lined along its perimeter withwith ductwork Everything was open, the two sides of the building connected by a single, ht I was out of sight to anyone below The music continued to blare, dulled only by the thin acoustical ceiling that separated this service area fro lit the entire space I could use the crosswalk and find the other side of the hall, but if Oliver ca this up as I went, I decided there was no choice
I raced ahead
Adrenaline surged, carrying with it fear and vigilance But also a whisk of exciteer that I would at first find enticing, but eventually come to resent
Halfway across I heard, “Malone”
I stopped and turned back
“You’re proving really difficult,” Oliver said, his gun aimed at me
“Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me”
“You think this a joke?” He stepped onto the catwalk “You sahat Valdez is capable of He shot that young man with no remorse”
“I noticed you didn’t bother to take him down or arrest him”
“Where’s Jansen?” he asked
“Probably dead”
“You’ve had quite the first mission, haven’t you?”
He stopped about twenty feet away I’d halted about three-quarters of the way across the catwalk at a panel attached to the platforlance at the buttons it appeared to control the platform’s movement back and forth
“I had a lot of agents, like you, work for er to make a name for themselves, prepared to take chances”
“Like Jansen”
“Exactly Ji orders”
I realized that the only two reasons he hadn’t shot me yet were the files and the coin
He had to have both
Which I commanded
Since ere all alone, I decided to ask, “Why kill King?”
“Hoover gave that order Notto make it happen, and Ray was supposed to disappear into Rhodesia”
“Where he would have been killed”
“Definitely He was told he’d be paid for what he did once he made it to Africa”
“Since paying hiht, would smack of conspiracy”
“Absolutely Valdez was already there, waiting on him His body would then have been returned to DC Killer found by the FBI Hoover does it once again”
“Things didn’t work out, did they?”
He shrugged “Ulti pointed anywhere, but to hi him Then his narcissistic personality took over and he lied so ht”
I’d been thinking, so I told hiht it all a communist plot But in reality, he was just a racist, pure and simple He wanted black people kept in their place And he was intuitive enough to realize that if the movement went violent the country would want it stopped Whites who’d supported King would flee hi’s nonviolenton calood for the segregationists Stay the course and King’s way ht just ultimately work”
Oliver nodded “The riots did happen after King died The acy proved stronger than Hoover thought The civil rightswould have wanted Still, we did havehad been a pain in the ass for a long tined the ere taping his were easier”