The naked edge

28

Eight minutes before ten.

Fighting his way through the crowd, Carl saw another young man with a knapsack. Raoul shouted a warning. When the man, already on edge, looked behind the team members charging toward him and saw the rage on Carl's face, he too broke into a run. Carl shouldered through more protestors.

"Hey, dickhead, watch who you're slamming into," a man said, only to groan and double over as Carl lunged past.

Ahead, Raoul hurried straight ahead while the team members he'd warned dropped their knapsacks and split to the right and left, racing down side streets.

They'll alert the rest of the team, Carl thought in a fury. I trained them to feel they belong to a tightly knit unit. That's how they'll act now, protecting each other.

Because of Raoul. All the effort I spent on him, he's still a punk.

Ramming through the crowd, getting nearer, Carl angrily calculated that he had sufficient time to teach him the consequence of disloyalty.

Ahead, the son of a bitch hurled his knapsack away and shouted to a team member waiting farther along the block.