The shelves grabbed his shoe.
He looked down.
The lace on top of his left foot had unraveled itself from his poor knot. He hated penny-loafers, but was now wishing he had a pair.
Glancing up, he saw a shadow on the ground appear from around the side of the bookshelf.
He backed up quickly, eyes moon-shaped, but not watching where he was going. His free hand did the seeing.
The shadow became a man of the same color.
But Porter had stepped out of sight.
He held his breath again and could hear the assassin’s air leave his lungs, catch, and slide inside to silence again.
Porter put a bookcase between them, striding fast.
Were the other men just around the next bend in the shelves?
The guy behind him would turn the corner before he would reach the next break in the great bookcases.
Porter spun around and saw the man’s subtle shadow hit the shelf as he neared the far end of the bookshelves. The man in black would do the same as Porter had: come to the turn, make a left, swing around and-bang! Porter would hit the ground more loudly than the bullet would when leaving the gun.
There was nowhere to go.
The young scholar looked to heaven, but only saw the ceiling. And the top of the old wooden bookcase.
Only a second now.
Porter climbed the shelves like a ladder, kicking the books in with his feet. No time to think about the damage, the signs he’d leave behind. He only hoped he could make it to the top before the man appeared again. He had to have faith in the impossible chance that the rest of the men wouldn’t see him pressing his hands on the ceiling, which floated five feet above shelves. No.
Porter rolled quickly onto the dusty summit, his eyes looking at the ceiling that hung five feet up with cold lights waiting for morning to illuminate them. He clamped his briefcase to his chest and stapled his lips together with the muscles around his mouth. He shut his eyes.
His ears didn’t pick up the feet of the aggressor in the alley beneath him. He couldn’t sense the breathing he’d heard when the books stood like a wall between them, though they’d been only three feet apart. But he felt the man’s rippling presence in the dark light.
Turning his head, Porter could see the florescent light of his desk hitting the ceiling thirty feet away. The beams from the lamps along the stairway walls shined a bright square on the roof twenty-five feet away.
He rolled his head to the side where he felt the assassin…stop. Was the man looking at the books smashed into the shelves…as if someone had used this part of the bookcase as a ladder? Was he feeling the spots were Porter had put his feet and may have left some aura of warmth? Did he point his gun and his eyes at the top of the bookcase and see the faint outline of a human shape?
Porter…waited.
Porter had to find out if the man knew he was there.
He bent his head…to the edge…and he peeked.
The hair was dark and slicked out of the way with gel. The assassin hadn’t gone far, which meant he had stopped. But with his weapon at waist level, he started walking away.
Porter knew he had to get down. Trapped on the fourth floor, he had to exit the Library.
Lifting himself, Porter swung his leg off the safe side of the bookcase.
His hard rubber heel caught the edge of the wooden shelf with a sharp crack!
Porter swung his head back to the assassin.
The man whipped around with his gun raised, his fiery eyes blown wide, his cold mouth in a tight frown.
As Porter launched his weight to the top of the next bookcase, away from the man in black, the gun went off with the chirp of a bird. The bullet struck one of the hanging lights, shooting sparks for a millisecond as metal passed through metal.
Smashing his briefcase into the top of the second bookcase, Porter gripped the wood with his hands, one leg falling off secure ground completely. He pulled himself up, his ears picking up the sound of silent running.
Porter looked at the stairs, so close from here, but so far through the weaving shelves. Such an old fashioned library.
The men were almost around him, however many there were.
Hugging his package tightly, Porter twisted his bottom and top lip together and climbed to a squatting position. Immediately he crouched upward and jumped to the top of the next bookshelf.
Peripheral vision spotted two other men closing in on him.
Landing on the top of the bookcase, his legs kept going, springing him to the next case. Faith screamed Go, go, go! And he sprinted, dragging the fingers of one hand on the ceiling for balance, shoving the cheap hanging lights aside with his briefcase as the bullets came.
Three guns went off as he ran, but he soon hit the floor. The stairs were in sight. He dove for them, panting breath he’d forgotten to let out.
Bouncing off the wall, his feet cleared three to four steps at a time before he touched the third floor landing. He kicked his heels high behind him as he leaned forward, running, almost falling into the staircase that made for the second floor.
There’s a car out front. It’s waiting for you.
Porter toppled down those stairs as a bullet ticked the wall above him.
Then a quick right into the shelves of the second floor.
Fiction. The sign fell over when he hit it.
Great trail you’re leaving them! he scolded himself.
But he knew he couldn’t go to the first floor. Who knew how many men in black waited at the front door.
He threw himself into the far wall when he reached it and made a left, scraping the plaster with his elbow.
The men behind him moved like flying shadows. They uttered no sound. But he knew they were there. How close behind?
It didn’t matter.
There was a window on the second floor that overlooked nothing but a rooftop. Porter had always thought it an architectural stupidity. But what did he know about twentieth-century buildings? Porter had told his friends once that if a thief ever wanted to break into the Stratford Michael H. Weiss Library, they’d need only climb the east side of the building to the window, cut it, and walk in. There were no alarms to his knowledge. The library was open all night, so why would there be? It was an unnecessary window, which didn’t even give much light, as the J.T. Fowler Building rose right in front of it.
Porter shattered the glass with his briefcase and slid through. He dropped onto the first story roof and grimaced as the speckles of sharp glass cut into the palms of his hands. Jogging like an old man who’d drunk too much throughout his life, he came to the edge of the roof.
He jumped without a pause.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
April 25
8:51 a.m. PST
“None of you will like this,” said Peter as he reached for the play button. “You are listening to a telephone conversation. Ms. Alred, specifically. I’m sure you’ll understand the rest.”
The room was cold, the way the old executives liked it. They each wore dark cotton suits and leaned against leather backrests, eyeing the young man with his marble skin and perfectly pressed attire. They squinted and glowed with suspicion, distrust, and hungry curiosity. Resting their hands together beside their five-hundred dollar pens and their black computer notebooks, they reached into the tape recording with their minds, analyzing the words for double meanings, worrying they’d hear their doomsday announced in forms the rest of the world weren’t even aware of.
The room smelled of age, though the building had stood for less than thirty years. The carpet was gray, the pictures on the walls featuring mostly dead people. They dealt with death daily, when necessary. Very little frightened them. No one knew who they were and no one would ever find them.
Like the fluctuating wind, they always existed. Never seen, but forever felt, even when the populous didn’t realize it.