"David Drake - Birds Of Prey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

as the door had closed them from Calgurrio's sight - or more probably, from Anguilus'. Using the hubbub
to mask his words from everyone but the aide, Perennius said, "If he were transferred to a garrison unit in
the sticks - one of the little posts in Africa out on the fringe of the desert where the Moors raid every few
months. He wouldn't be able to lie about how he split the money with his department head then."

Anguilus closed and returned the diploma. His eyes were as chill as steel in the winter.

"Mother Isis!" Calgurrio blurted. "Anguilus, did you read this? It says - "

The aide put a hand on his superior's shoulder. "Yes, sir," he said with his eyes still watching Perennius,
"but I think we can deal with the problem without it having to go beyond these walls." He nodded toward
the closed door and the commotion beyond it before he added, "This gentleman is Aulus Perennius, one
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of the Bureau's top field agents, you may remember. We're very fortunate that the situation was
uncovered by someone of his proven discretion." Anguilus flashed a tight rictus, not really a smile, toward
the agent.

Zopyrion moaned again. His eyes opened, though without any intellect behind them. The right pupil was
fully dilated: the left was not. Anguilus glanced down at the eunuch. When he looked back at Perennius,
his sour grin showed that the evidence of concussion only supported what the aide had known all along.

"Sure, I trust you to clean house yourselves," Perennius said. "Maybe the next time I'm here at
Headquarters, I'll check just how it did come out." He nodded toward Zopyrion. "Until then, be well."
The agent turned and reached for the door's lever handle.


"It won't happen to you again, fellow-soldier," said Calgurrio's aide. The Bureau's field staff was
recruited from the Army, but Perennius would not have guessed that Anguilus had the right to use that
particular honorific. "Don't worry."

Perennius turned again to look at the aide with his silk and his smooth hands and his eyes like a wolf's.
They came from different backgrounds but the two of them recognized each other. "I don't worry," the
agent said. "I leave that to other people."

As Perennius left the office, thrusting his broad shoulders through the press of clerks, he heard Calgurrio
saying plaintively, "But why did he put something like this in writing?"




CHAPTER THREE

One of the troopers muttered in disbelief. The decision, Ursinus, hushed the man, but Ursinus' face
showed some doubt also.

"You don't mean here, Mother?" asked Sacrovir. He glanced toward the building they were passing on