The Veiled Threat Read Online Free PDF Page A

direction of his own quarters. “Just be glad of one thing.”
    “What’s that?” she called after him.
    “That we’ve got Optimus Prime and the other Autobots on our side. Otherwise we’d end up fighting Starscream with the equivalent of sticks and stones. I understand you’ve got a new weapon to be field-tested, though?”
    “Yes, though I’d have a bit more confidence if I could have tested it first in a controlled environment,” she replied. “But I don’t think that any of the Autobots, even Ratchet, is willing to act the guinea pig for this.”
    “How does—or should I say how do you hope it will work?” asked Epps.
    Kaminari hesitated only a moment before replying, “It is a portable, directional EMP weapon. Using internal focal points and Gamma reflectors, I’ve managed to build a prototype that fires an electromagnetic pulse in a single direction, instead of a burst that radiates out three hundred sixty degrees from the origin point. In theory it should work to temporarily destabilize a Transformer’s Energon imprint, rendering him impaired, if only slightly.
    “The only problem that I have not been able to overcome is the relatively short range of the device. I’d have to be quite close, and that’s not generally ideal when it comes to twenty-foot-high killing machines. I understand Petr has his own specialized toy; I’m curious to hear his proposed solution to the human–Decepticon imbalance.”
    “All due respect, but I’ll keep the sabot rounds,” said Epps, turning in to his quarters. “In other words, better you than me.”
    Feeling that the underground air-conditioning was beginning to give her a chill, she broke into a jog as she headed for her own room.
    There were preparations to be made.

“One pastrami on rye, mayo instead of mustard.”
    Mayo instead of mustard?
Mayo instead of mustard?
The flint-eyed gaze of Seymour Simmons, former chief agent extraordinaire for Sector Seven, narrowed as he focused on the customer standing at the order counter in Tova Simmons’s Manhattan delicatessen. His tone was as rigid as it had been when he had been in charge of dozens of black-suited operatives, and he spoke with great deliberation.
    “You—cannot—have—pastrami—on—rye—with—mayonnaise.”
    In the middle of a typically rushed Manhattan lunch break, the customer blinked at the lanky, white-aproned attendant behind the counter. “Aw, c’mon, man—I haven’t got time for this! That’s how I like my pastrami.” To the amusement of those waiting in line behind him he managed a credible imitation of Simmons’s incongruously apocalyptic tenor. “On—rye—with—mayo.”
    “You can’t.” The change in Simmons’s expression from severe to smiling was so abrupt that the customer was visibly startled. “It isn’t good deli. It isn’t New York. It isn’t—American.”
    The customer sighed. “All right, then. Have it your way. No pastrami with mayo.”
    “Good.” Simmons’s fingers hovered over the automated input that would send the order to the kitchen. “What
can
I get for you?”
    “I’ll have a hot corned beef on rye.” The customer paused for effect, until he could no longer repress the grin that was bubbling up inside him. “With mayo.”
    Simmons froze. His smile returned, harder than ever. As the man was about to high-five the customer behind him, the former agent reached across, grabbed the man by his shirt collar, and yanked him bodily halfway across the counter. Their faces were now inches apart. Simmons’s eyes found those of the startled customer and locked in.
    “This is my mother’s deli. We do pastrami here. We do corned beef. We do brisket and sturgeon and gefilte fish. We don’t do comedy. Comedy clubs you will find in the Village.” His fingers tightened on the man’s collar. By now the customer’s self-satisfied smirk had vanished completely, to be replaced by an expression of an entirely different kind. “Would you like me to