The Final Twist

Shaw slipped toward the back wall, hidden by the rows upon rows of books. As he moved to the rear of the facility he noted that many of the titles were duplicated. Two, three, a dozen times. This added to the supposition that while one might do some legitimate research in this portion of the library it was also a trap.

BlackBridge security people would have come up with the tactic. Anyone with an interest in the company — investigators, competitors, those with a grudge or out for revenge — might find clues that led to the library. There would be minimal security to get inside. Then the interloper would ask some questions of the librarian or, like Shaw, type in a computer search, and he’d get tagged as a threat.

They would then use sophisticated facial recognition and other techniques to identify the person and decide what kind of risk they were, or — depending on what they browsed — that they were no threat at all. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find that BlackBridge had some DNA scanner on doorknobs and computer keypads. Certainly devices would be capturing fingerprints and retinal patterns.

The offenders would then leave, having conveniently deposited their names in the database that BlackBridge was sure to maintain.

Or, perhaps, the inquisitive customers would not leave at all.

Maybe Ashton had suspected this was a BlackBridge facility and was going to check it out but was killed before he had a chance. That might have been how his father came by the business card Shaw had found in the secret room on Alvarez Street.

The bigger guard was glancing back at Irena Braxton and pointing his finger directly at the chair in front of the computer where Shaw had been sitting a few minutes ago.

Shaw evaluated the enemy. Ian Helms appeared fit enough, but Shaw assessed that there was less than a twenty percent chance he’d want to get his hands dirty, especially with armed minders present. Braxton was a stocky, middle-aged woman. She might be ruthless but she wasn’t much of a physical threat unless she had a weapon in her many-hued shoulder bag.

In addition to the security guards, the other two threats were Ebbitt Droon and the bright-haired, sullen-faced minder, Blond. Droon, though of small stature, was wiry and strong and was likely carrying the same .40 pistol he’d threatened Shaw with previously. It was probably silenced so that the cries resulting from the bone-shattering impact would be louder than the report of the weapon itself.

Blond looked to be pure muscle and would likely also be armed.

On the other hand, Shaw had the benefit of witnesses: the four patrons, the three men and the woman. He doubted they were involved. This meant BlackBridge probably couldn’t take Shaw down the easy way — with a gunshot.

If he could dodge the hostiles and work his way to the front, as they sought him in the stacks, maybe he could make the sprint after all.

But then Shaw’s safety net vanished. The librarian approached the four potential witnesses and apparently asked them to leave, and to leave quickly. Which they did, concern on their faces. They had probably been told that there was some security issue. In this day and age, a brief warning was all the information people needed to evacuate. Thinking: terrorists, a crazy man with a gun, a bomb.

Eyes still on the front door, Shaw noted Ian Helms walk quickly outside; he wouldn’t want to be connected to whatever was going to happen.

Braxton stationed herself at the front door, while rodent-faced Droon spoke urgently to the two security men, who towered over him. They hurried to the central station where the librarian pointed to a large monitor, which was probably now in security camera mode. They’d be scanning the vids recorded in the past half hour and would soon know that he was still on the main floor.

Shaw noted that the elevator light went out. It had been shut down.

And what about a run to the stairs and then out the upper floor windows?

Shaw dismissed it as having only a twenty percent chance of success, at best. A leap from a second story isn’t impossible, given a landing zone of grass or trash, but Shaw had observed that the surfaces on all four sides of the building were sidewalk, asphalt or cobblestones. That would have meant a likely sprained ankle. The resulting pain wasn’t the problem — he’d suffered worse — but that injury would have limited his ability to flee and left him a sitting target for Droon and the others. And you had to land perfectly to avoid a broken bone, and that pain was debilitating. Besides, the windows were probably sealed, as they were on this floor.

A jump from the roof was not an option at all.

Keeping in the shadows against the back wall, he considered the front door once more. Five to ten percent. To reach it he’d have to go past Droon, Blond and the two armed guards. Maybe the librarian was armed too. And he supposed that that exit was now locked down.

The windows? He gave that escape route ten percent tops. The glass was thick, intruder-proof. A chair would take multiple blows and Droon and the others would be on him well before the pane shattered.