picks. The scrape of metal made him wince. It seemed terribly
amplified, certain to draw someone's attention. Nonetheless, he kept
working, freeing one pin, then another, continuing to apply pressure to
the cylinder, suddenly feeling it turn. As the lock's bolt slipped
free, Pittman turned the knob, worrying that someone might be waiting
for him on the other side. He drew his pistol, lunged through the
opening, aimed toward the darkness with his right hand, and quickly used
his bandaged hand to shut the door. He listened. The echoes of his
rapid entrance diminished. Enveloped by silence, he held his breath,
straining to see in the darkness, on guard for the slightest sound. A
minute passed, and in contrast with the chill he had felt outside, his
body now streamed sweat.
He locked the door behind him, felt his way upstairs to the main floor,
listened, crept up to the second floor, listened again, and approached
the-door to the archives. The opaque window revealed a hint of
moonlight glowing into the room. It, too, was locked, but this time he
wasn't surprised.
Quickly he freed the bolt on this door, as well. He entered cautiously,
shut the door behind him, crouched, and waited. If gunmen were in here,
they had ample opportunity to move against him. After thirty seconds,
he decided to take the risk. First he twisted the dead bolt's knob,
locking the door behind him. Then he crossed to the windows and pulled
down blinds. Finally he crept toward the middle shelves, turned on his
flashlight, made sure that its modest beam was aimed toward the floor,
where it wouldn't cast a glow on the windows, and reached for the
yearbooks that he and Jill had examined that afternoon.
The gap on the shelf dismayed him. The yearbooks from 1929 to 1936 were
gone. Hoping that they might still be on the desk where he and Jill had
left them, he spun, but the flashlight revealed that the table was bare.
Bennett must have taken them away. Jesus, what am I going to do?
Pittman thought.
Sweat continued to stream from him. He shut off his flashlight and
slumped on the floor, propping his back against a shelf. Check the
other yearbooks, he told himself. Look at 1937. Why? What's the
point? The grand counselors had graduated by then. Well, what other
choice do you have?
Maybe there are other records.
Earlier, when Pittman and Jill had searched the room, they had
concentrated on finding the most obvious research toolThe yearbooks.
Pittman hadn't paid much attention to binders and boxes. Many of them
were labeled sEm REP, followed by sequential, overlapping numbers-51-52,
52-53, 53-54, ct cetera-and the pressure of a time limit had prevented
him from investigating the contents. Now, with no alternative, he
roused himself, stood, turned on his flashlight, and approached other
shelves in the room.
The box he opened, chosen at random, contained smaller boxes, each of
which held a roll of microfilm. It Occurred to Pittman that SEM REP
possibly Meant semester report and that the numbers referred to the fall
and spring sessions of each school year-like fall of 1949, for example,
and the spring of 1950. The next school Year would begin in the fall of
1950 and continue to the spring of,1951, thus The Overlapping
numbers-49-50, 50-51. Over the Years, the accumulation Of documents had
become difficult to store, not to mention a fire hazard, so the Pages
had been transferred to microfilm, convenient for the school but a major
frustration for Pittman. --'
What am I supposed to do, steal the rolls for the years the grand
counselors attended Grollier? I still wouldn't be able to read them.
Unless you take them to a library that has a microfilm reader.
But the rolls I steal might not have the information I need. 1 can't
leave here until ...
Wait a minute. There wouldn't be microfilm if there wasn't a ...
Pittman recalled from his previous visit that a bulky object covered by
shape was distinctive. He shifted toward it, pulled off the cloth, and
found, as he had hoped, a microfilm reader. When he turned it on, he
didn't know which made him more nervous-the hum of the machine's fan or
the glow on its screen. He went back to the boxes, checked labels, and
sorted among rolls of microfilm, soon finding one for 31-32. He
attached it to the spools on the machine, wound the microfilm past the
machine's light and its magnifying lens, and studied what appeared on
the screen. What he squinted at was a class list and final grades for
students in Ancient History 1. None of the grand counselors' names was
on the list. He spooled forward through individual reports about
various students, reached Classical Literature 1, and again was
frustrated to discover that none of the grand counselors had been in
that course.
At this rate, it'll take me hours to read the entire roll.
There's got to be a more efficient way to ... The numeric Ancient
History I? Classical Literature I? designation implied that there were
later sections of those courses, Pittman thought-II, III, maybe IV. Heat
rushed into his stomach as he understood. Grollier was a four-year prep
school. The grand counselors had been juniors in 1931-1932. They would
be in the class reports for juniors, three-quarters through the roll.
Pittman swiftly turned the roll forward, ignoring classes marked 11,
reaching III, and inunediately slowing. He found a course in British
History in which all the grand counselors were registered and had
received top grades. He found a courses-British Literature, European
Hisnumber of other tory, Greek Philosophy, and Latin-in which the grand
counselors had also been registered and received top grades. But in
none of those classes did he find anyone named Duncan. He spooled
onward to a course in Political Science, and immediately his attention
was engaged: While the other courses had contained numerous students,
this course contained only six-the five grand counselors, plus a student
named Derrick Meecham. Pittman hesitated. When he and Jill had
separated the yearbooks, hers had been for 1929-1932, his for 1933-1936.
As he had learned, the grand counselors had graduated in 1933. But it
now seemed to him that when he had concentrated on the M category,
looking for Millgate's name, he hadn't come across any reference for a
student named Meecham in the 1933 yearbook. He knew he could be wrong.
All the same ... He spooled forward to the spring semester for that
course, and now he frowned with puzzlement. The roster had dropped from
six names to five. Derrick Meecham was no longer enrolled. Why? Had
Meecham gotten sick? His grade from the previous semester had been an
A, so he couldn't have found the course so difficult that he'd dropped
it. Besides, Pittman had the suspicion that at Grollier, students
didn't have the option of dropping courses. Rather, Grollier dropped
students. Then why? Pittman thought again. He became more convinced
&nb
sp; that his memory hadn't failed him, that Derrick Meecham had, in fact,
not been in the yearbook for the following year. Pittman rubbed the
back of his neck. His gaze wandered to the bottom of the screen, where
the course's instructor had signed the grade report, and suddenly he
felt as if he had touched an exposed electrical wire, for the
instructor's ornate signature seemed to come into focus. Pittman tried
to control his breathing as he stared at the name.
Duncan Kline. Jesus, Pittman thought. Duncan hadn't been a student.
He'd been a teacher. That was the connection with Grollier. Duncan
Kline had been Millgate's teacher. All of them. He had taught all the
grand counselors.
A noise made Pittman stiffen. Despite the whir of the fan on the
microfilm machine, he heard footsteps on the stairs beyond the door.
Angry voices rapidly approached. Startled, he shut off the machine.
"... can't believe you didn't leave someone on guard?"
"But the two of them left. I made sure."
The voices became louder. "Were they followed?"
"To the edge of campus."
"Stupid ..."
"It's a good thing we flew up here."
"The outside door was still locked. That proves the records are safe.
"It proves nothing."
Lights came on in the hallwayoutside the door. Their illumination
glowed through the opaque window. The shadows of men loomed beyond it.
"I took the yearbooks they were looking at."
"But what else might they have come back to look at?" Someone tried to
turn the knob on the door. "It's locked.
"Yes, I secured that door, as well. I told you no one's here."
"Just get out your key and unlock the damned door."
Pittman's chest cramped. He couldn't get enough air. In desperation,
he swung toward the murky room, trying to figure out where he could
hide, how he could stop the men from finding him.
But he remembered how the room had looked during daylight. There'd been
no other door. There was nothing to hide behind. If he tried to
conceal himself beneath a table, he'd be found at once.
The only option was ... The windows. As he heard a key scraping in the
lock, a voice saying, "Come on, hurry," Pittman rushed to a window,
raised its blind, freed its lock, and shoved the window upward.
"Stop," one of the voices in the hallway said. "I heard something. "
"Somebody's in there."
Bennett's unmistakable nasally voice said, "What are you doing with
those guns?"
"Get out of the way."
Pittman shoved his head out the window, staring down. He had hoped that
there might be something beneath the window to break his fall, but at
the bottom of the two-story drop, there was nothing except a flower
garden. "When I throw the door open, you go first. Duck to the left.
Pete'll go straight ahead. I'll take the right."
Pittman studied the leafless ivy that clung to the side of the building.
The vines felt dry and brittle. Nonetheless, he had to take the chance.
He squirmed out the window, clung to the ivy, and began to climb down,
hoping that there weren't other men outside in the darkness.
"On three."
Pittman climbed down faster. The ivy to which he clung made a crunching
noise and began to separate from the bricks and mortar.
Above him, he heard a crash, the door being thrust open. Simultaneously
the ivy fully separated from the wall. As Pittman dropped, his stomach
soaring, his hands scrabbled against the wall, clawing for a grip on
other strands of ivy., The fingers on his bandaged left hand were
awkward, but those on his right hand snagged onto vines. At once those
strands snapped free from the wall, and he dropped farther, grabbing
still other ivy, jolting onto the ground, falling backward, desperately
bending his knees, rolling.
"There!" a man yelled from the window above him.
Pittman scrambled to his feet and raced toward the cover of the rear of
the next building. Something kicked up grass next to him. He heard the
muffled, fist-into-a-pillow report from a sound-suppressed gunshot.
Adrenaline made his stomach seem on fire. Needing to discourage them
from shooting again, he spun, raised his .45, and fired. In the silence
of the night, the roar of the shot was deafening. His bullet struck the
upper part of the window, shattering glass.
"Jesus!"
"Get down!"
"Outside! He can't go far on foot! Stop him!"
Pittman fired again, not expecting to hit anybody but wanting anxiously
to make a commotion. The more confusion, the better. Already lights
were going on in dormitory windows.
He raced past bushes, rounded the back corner of the next building, and
tried to orient himself in the darkness. How the hell do I get out of
here? He left the cover of the building, running toward the murky open
meadow. A bullet whizzed ist him from behind. He ran harder. Suddenly
a shadow darted to his left, someone running parallel to him. He fired.
In response, another bullet whizzed past, from his left. A car engine
roared. Headlights gleamed, speeding toward the meadow ahead of him.
With no other direction available, Pittman veered sharply to his right.
He zigzagged and veered again as a third bullet parted air near his
head. In the darkness, he'd become disoriented. Dismayed, he found
that he was running back toward the school. The rear of the buildings
was still in shadow, but the commotion was causing more lights to come
on all the time. Feeling boxed in, he took the only course available,
charged up to the back door of the nearest building, prayed that its
lock hadn't been engaged, yanked at the door, and felt a surge of hope
as it opened. He darted in, shut and locked the door, felt the impact
of a bullet against it, and turned to sprint along a hallway.
But he'd bought only a few moments of protection. When he showed
himself outside the front of the building ...
What am I going to do? This building was evidently a dormitory. He
heard students on the upper floors, their voices distressed.
Witnesses. Need more witnesses. Need more commotion.
He swung. toward a fire-alarm switch behind a glass plate and hammered
the butt of his .45 against the glass. The plate shattered with
surprising ease. Trembling, he reached in past shards and pulled the
switch.
The alarm was shrill, reverberating off walls, causing picture frames to
tremble. Despite its intensity, Pittman sensed the greater commotion on
the floors above him, urgent footsteps, frightened voices, a lot of
them. A welter of shadows in the stairway became students in pajamas
scurrying to get outside.
Pittman hid his weapon and waved his right arm in fierce encouragement,
as if he was their benefactor, his only interest their safety.
"Hurry up! The place is on fire!"
The students surged past, and Pittman went with them, storming into the
arc lights that blazed in the night. He saw gunmen to his right but
knew that they didn't dare shoot with so many students in the way, and
as the students dispersed in turmoil, Pittman da
rted toward the next
building on the left, lunging inside.
There, he again broke the glass that shielded the fire-alarm switch.
Activating the alarm, wincing from the ferocity of the noise, he rushed
back in the direction he had come, toward the front door.
They'll expect me to go out the back. They'll try to cut me off, some
of them coming through here while the others wait in the darkness behind
the building.
He pressed himself against the wall next to the front door, building. In
the same instant, students came scurrying down the stairwell. Amid the
confusion as the gunmen and the students collided and tried to pass one
another, Pittman scrambled out the front door, students swirling around
him. But instead of continuing the pattern he'd established to race'
toward the next building on this side of the square, he took what he
felt was his best chance and sprinted directly across the square,
veering among students who milled sleepily, their bare feet obviously
cold, frost coming out of their mouths in the glare from the arc lights.
He heard the fire alarms and students swarming out of adjacent buildings
and gunmen shouting, chasing him.
Can't hide in here. They'll search until... they ... and at once it
was banged open, gunmen charging into the
Even allowing for his being out of condition, he didn't think he'd ever
run so fast. His jogging shoes hit the ground perfectly, his legs
stretched, his sweat suit clung to his movements as it had so many
mornings when he had gone jogging before heading to work-before Jeremy