18

“Lies!” Dragovic screamed, pounding the table with both fists. “You think I am stupid?”

How do I convince him? Luc thought as he cowered between Brad and Kent. Dragovic stood on the far side of the table, his back to the door, glaring at them like a maniac. He’d forced Luc to call an emergency meeting with his partners, telling them to clear both floors of all personnel.

And now he had the three of them trapped in this stifling room.

We are three, Luc thought. Why should we fear this one man? He may be armed, but after his arrest on multiple weapons charges last night he may be wary of carrying a pistol. The odds are on our side. If I give the word, the three of us could attack him…

He glanced left and right at his two partners: sweat rolled off Kent in buckets, soaking his collar, spreading dark stains from his underarms; and Brad was almost in tears.

Then again, maybe not…

“You’ve got to believe us!” Brad cried.

Dragovic’s lips curled with scorn. “A strange creature gives us Loki, and now you say it’s dying? I am to believe that?”

“Christ, please, yes!” Kent said. “If we were going to make up a story, we wouldn’t make up something as crazy as that!”

Luc had hoped the unhappy truth about the creature would turn Dragovic from his paranoid fantasy, but it had only incensed him.

“I can show you the creature,” Luc said. “You can see with your own eyes.”

“Another trick!”

“No tricks. You’ll see it; then you’ll believe. And then you’ll understand that it was not us who plotted against you. Think: why would we be trying to steal the Loki trade from you when there will be no more Loki?”

Dragovic stared at him for a few heartbeats, a flicker of doubt in his raging eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but was stopped by a knocking sound.

Everyone froze, listening. It came again.

Someone was pounding on the door.

Luc stepped away from the desk to the security console and turned on the hallway monitor. The screen lit but the image was blurred. Someone was standing outside the door but Luc could not identify him.

Dragovic motioned Brad toward the door. “See who it is!” he said, stepping away. “And no tricks!”

Luc noted with relief that he did not pull a weapon, a good indication that he didn’t have one.

Brad pressed the intercom button next to the door. “Wh-who is it?” His voice would play through a speaker in the hallway ceiling above the door.

The reply was garbled… something about “security service” and “malfunction.”

On the monitor, the blurred image of the man was waving at the camera. What security service? Luc wondered. And how did he get up here?

Dragovic pushed Brad away from the intercom and pressed the button. “Go away. We are busy. Come back tomorrow.”

Another garbled reply, but one phrase came through loud and clear: “… the room may be bugged.”