Spellbound by Larry Correia Page A

wanted and wore it like a suit. It was all about whatever it took to get the job done.
    The brazen assault on Stuyvesant would raise questions as to why an investigator had been so angry with the rich kid and supposed hero of the hour—even though Stuyvesant’s presence had been an unexpected development and certainly not one to be wasted—but with the press there, rumors would begin to spread about Stuyvesant’s possible involvement. And all that would occur without the OCI having to say anything official at all.
    “I rattled him. I want Stuyvesant’s every move watched. I want to know who he talks to, who he calls, who he meets, where he goes. I want to know how his breakfast tastes and I want to know the temperature of his bathwater. The second he meets someone else on the list, do the same to them.” He thought about it. “And I want two layers on that kid. Make one obvious but put our best men on the second. When Stuyvesant thinks he’s lost the first, that’s when he’ll make contact with his conspirators. Don’t underestimate him. He’s sharper than he looks. Most importantly, watch out for that Traveler girl. The second she shows up to check on her boyfriend, I want her brought in.”
    “Yes, Mr. Crow,” the OCI agents answered in unison.
    “ Alive. ” The girl was the most valuable one in the bunch. If they lost her, the boss would be very upset. “What else have we got?”
    The driver spoke. “The situation in New York has improved. That mercenary girl found the Heavy. Our men will snatch him shortly.”
    “No. I want a soft touch on that one. Play it easy. Check the reports. He’s worked with the Bureau a bunch. Find somebody he doesn’t hate, if there is such a thing, and use them to make contact. Borrow whoever we need to, but do not let the BI know what this is about.”
    There was a serious professional rivalry developing between the new OCI and the entrenched Bureau of Investigation. J. Edgar Hoover thought that Active criminals should be treated like any other type of criminals. He saw OCI’s lumping of all undesirable Actives together as foolish. Hoover grumbled about violating civil liberties, but Crow figured he just didn’t want to lose clout.
    “Let the Heavy take the call and see what that’s all about. Then we’ll take him down.” Crow didn’t use the word arrest, because from what he’d heard about the Heavy, it would be a bloodbath. “Nothing flashy. There’s no way we could take that one alive.”
    They only knew who a handful of these people were. Stuyvesant was one, but he was just a kid. The Mover was like a tree. You could shake a tree to see what fell out. Sullivan? That son of a bitch had strolled through Second Somme. The Heavy was a rock. You shake a rock and it was liable to just roll over and squish you.
    “How do you want us to handle it?”
    “Wait until he’s done talking, then put a bullet in him . . . Make that lots of bullets. Don’t let our boys take any lip from the military intel types that are there, either. Let the Heavy take the call, then pop him. I’ll fill out the paperwork.”
    “Yes, Mr. Crow.”
    Crow wasn’t his real name. He’d gone by dozens of names over the years, doing things outside the law for people too squeamish to do them through official channels. He’d worked for everyone from United Fruit to Woodrow Wilson, though this was the first time he had an entire government agency at his disposal. Plus the laws were actually on his side for once, or would be soon at least. Those were being written now.
    No, Crow wasn’t his real name, but it was real enough to accomplish his current assignment.
    Eliminate the Active group known as the Grimnoir Society.
     
     

Chapter 3
     
     
    The more we progress the more we tend to progress. We advance not in arithmetical but in geometrical progression. We draw compound interest on the whole capital of knowledge and virtue which has been accumulated since the dawning of time. Some eighty