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"That'll be me, then," Nether snorted, grinning widely with insane enthusiasm. He suddenly looked confident, bright-eyed and alert, in complete control of the situation; a far cry from the dissolute drunk that had appeared so unexpectedly in my office. Whether this was the result of some obscure and sophisticated magic, or merely exemplary acting skills, I could not tell. But he was all of a sudden the clever older brother I used to look up to all those years ago. Right now, I was probably looking at him slack-jawed, to tell the truth. "Oh, Rigg realises that there has been some human muscle hired to provide a degree of security," he went on, "Or at least something of its appearance." Nether glanced at Gumshoe, still crouched a little way across the room, trying to make it clear he was deploying irony liberally. He needn't have bothered. The human was peering out of the window holding a handkerchief over his mouth with one hand while the other clutched a large black automatic pistol in a fashion that suggested he knew how to use it. I just hoped he had a licence for it, too. "But there's every chance he's not noticed your involvement," he continued, returning his attention to me, "You're pretty good at keeping out of sight when you put your mind to it. And you've sensibly stayed away from this place for the most part." It was faint praise, perhaps, but I suppose it really was a complement coming from my older - and, presumably, wiser - brother. He tapped the side of his nose with a finger to emphasise his next remark. "That's why I wanted you to investigate Rosie's disappearance. You were always much less likely to end up being spotted." "So what are we going to do?" Rosie spoke up, echoing my own thoughts. I was still too tongue-tied to get the words out. "We are going to find out exactly what's going on," Nether said, "Otherwise people are going to get hurt." "People have already got hurt," I interrupted, finally finding my voice "People have died!" He nodded sadly. "I didn't know that," he replied, "We'll have to catch up very soon. But first we have to deal with the minor irritation of these guys outside." "And how exactly are we going to do that?" I asked, pointedly emphasising the same word as he had. His grin reappeared, wider than before, and his eyes narrowed in feral amusement. "We're going to keep them busy out there, trying to smoke us out of here. While we sneak out the back way and circle round. See if we can, err, dissuade them from trying anything like this again."
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Part 62