The Colorado Irregulars was one of his more brilliant inspirations, Leslie decided as he relaxed in the leather seat of his private jet, even in a host of brilliant ideas. Who’d look in a right-wing paramilitary camp for the leaders of the GREEN? Most of the men who patronized the camp were weekend warriors looking to play soldier with guns and paint. A few were extreme right-wingers with a grudge against a government they felt no longer listened to them. They were inducted into the secret sections of the camp and encouraged to play soldier for real. Grady O’Brien, the camp commander and Leslie’s second-in-command inside GREEN, had recruited a couple of right wingers to run the public section of the camp. Because Grady encouraged them, they thought the camp was a cover for plotting the overthrow of the government.

Leslie had met Grady in college. If they both hadn’t been straight, they’d have been lovers, so instantly had they been drawn to each other. The friendship they’d forged was stronger than any sexual bond could have been, despite their vast differences.

Grady was the brilliant son of poor parents, attending Yale on a scholarship. Every course of study to which he turned his attention came as easily to him as a hooker with a pimp to pay. He’d wandered between colleges, trying this discipline and that course. So quickly did his ability to learn outstrip the teachers ability to teach, that he’d be bored before the semester was half over and move on. When he finally flunked out, Leslie left with him. It was a great way to piss off his father, his main goal at the time, and besides, he’d learned more from Grady than any program could teach him. Their passion to change the world flowed into the cause of the environment, but neither could settle for throwing money at politicians and whining to the media. They both wanted to change the world.

During the cross-country drive from the East Coast to Colorado, they’d planned and brainstormed a long-term plan for taking back the world from the techno-tyrants. Ironically, they’d applied for and received a government grant for their initial start up.

When Leslie appeared at the camp, usually before an op, the men treated him with rough contempt, which suited him. As long as they saw him as a wealthy dilettante playing soldier, they wouldn’t put their tiny brains together and figure out his real purpose—and theirs.

When he discovered his father's research project, it was to Grady that Leslie turned for help. He’d talked to John Knight at the company party to annoy his father. Old bird looked like he wished he were anywhere else. Leslie had first flashed his charm on the old man’s prim and proper daughter, but she was dead from the neck down. She’d blinked a couple of times and then excused herself to find the lady’s room. The lady’s room. Who talked like that now? After the party, whenever he was in town, Leslie made a point of stopping in to see Knight in his office, because he knew it would bug his old man. One day Knight had let him sit in on a test of the prototype of his biotech body armor. Why shouldn’t he? Leslie was the boss’s son.

The experiments his father and Knight were conducting were unnatural. How dare they attempt to merge living organisms and technology into a design to protect man from his own violence? It was an affront to nature, as unnatural as any experiment of Dr. Frankenstein’s. He’d known then, even as he smiled at the dried-up old man, that he was going to kill him. First, Green had tried to steal Shield to prevent his father from continuing after Knight’s death. That’s when he’d discovered how important Knight's daughter was to their plan and to Donovan Kincaid.

Donovan Kincaid.

It had been a stroke of luck, a gift from Providence, though Leslie hadn’t realized it when he had first met Kincaid, the newly hired security consultant, at that same party. Another environmental group had been sending his father threatening letters and emails when Biotech acquired animals for research. It was this kind of rampant stupidity that kept him from merging Green with any of the environmental groups. Why would you warn someone before striking?

Leslie hadn’t found Kincaid interesting at their first meeting, except as someone to joke about later with Grady. Kincaid reminded him of a paranoid Indiana Jones. He dressed like a soldier, though his uniform belonged to no army on this planet, and he had that “corncob up the ass” bearing, too. The ladies seemed to like him, even though he was pushing sixty.

When Kincaid showed up at the Colorado Irregulars camp, Leslie had wondered if his father had found out about it and sent Kincaid to infiltrate them, but Kincaid had asked no questions about him or anyone else. It seemed he liked to play war. He and Grady let Kincaid shoot paint at the other players, while they considered whether he might be useful to them. When anyone appeared at the camp, they were rigorously, but quietly, investigated. The Feds had attempted infiltration several times without success.

Grady had an instinct for finding out interesting facts about people and a gift for getting them to tell him their secrets. He was almost a male version of that empathic woman on Star Trek, the one who could adapt herself to the personality of the man she was with. It was Grady who’d turned up Kincaid’s odd interest in Knight’s daughter. Grady had noticed Kincaid's reaction when Leslie had mentioned Prudence Knight and had had Kincaid’s apartment discreetly tossed. The search turned up hundreds of photographs of her. What they couldn’t figure out was why. It didn’t appear Kincaid had done more than wish her good morning, but the photos proved he was obsessed. It would have been interesting to know why, but it didn’t matter to their plan. She was his pressure point and that was all that mattered. When Leslie saw Kincaid’s full dossier, the plan had exploded in his head, with most of the pieces already in place. Green ought to have its own expert marksman/sniper—especially one who could be traced right back to his dad and Merryweather Biotech.

As he looked at his watch, the plane hit an air pocket and dropped with a jolt, then popped up again. He buzzed his pilot. “Gave me a bit of a jolt there, Harry.”

He’d spent a lot of time building a reputation as an idiot. Not even an air pocket would make him to break character.

“I was just going to call you, sir,” Harry said. “There’s a storm in Colorado. We’ll have to divert.”

“Well, find someplace interesting. You know how I hate being bored.”

Leslie closed the intercom with a frown. He’d have to postpone his meeting with Kincaid’s girl, it seemed. He grabbed the onboard phone and dialed Grady’s private number. It was late, but he’d be up. Grady never slept.

“Yo.”

Leslie grinned. Grady had his own deceptive persona cultivated through years of practice. “So, how did it go?”

A silence was his first intimation of trouble.

“I don’t know yet. The boys got grounded by the storm.”

And they’d agreed on radio silence for security purposes. Too many people had scanners these days.

“Right.” He tapped the table top. “Storm’s shut me out, too.”

“Gonna be a couple of days before it clears,” Grady said. “Where you gonna be?”

“Someplace fun.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Grady chuckled. “How’d it go in California?”

“Barrels of fun. Dad’s pissed at me as usual. And I made some new friends.”

“Well, when we’re all swinging from the trees again, we’ll need 'em. Night, Les.”

“Night.” Leslie leaned back in his seat, stretching out his long legs. He pressed the intercom again. “Where we going?”

“Vegas.”

“Very good.” Vegas. He could use a woman tonight. Maybe gamble a bit. Reinforce his image as a useless waste of space. What he really wanted to do tonight, he realized with a shocked thrill, was to kill someone himself, not just order it done. He wouldn’t, but he wondered how long he’d felt like this and not realized it.