Flee Read Free Page A

up.
    "I'm
listening," I said, controlling my breathing. The steps were cold under my
feet, and I took them two at a time. I could smell stale beer and vomit, probably
courtesy of the college kids from the floor below, and the lemon-scented bleach
John the custodian used to clean it up. The footsteps got louder, more
numerous. Eight cops…no, nine …coming up fast. I increased my pace.
    "The
sidewalk at eight seventy…"
    The
phone hissed static at me.
    I'd
gone out of range.
    I
stopped, went back down a few steps.
    "Please
repeat that. I couldn't hear you." My voice went up an octave, a little
acting but also some real emotion getting out. "Please don't hurt him
again, Cory This goddamn phone—"
    "Eight-seventy-five
North Michigan Avenue," he said, irritation in his tone.
    I
didn't want Cory to be irritated. I knew what he was capable of.
    The
cops were less than three floors down from me. They'd check my apartment first.
But it wouldn't take long to search, and when they didn't find me they'd send a
team upstairs. Could I kill innocent police officers to save Kaufmann?
    "Got
it," I whispered. "Eight-seventy-five North Michigan. What time?"
    "You'll
have the money in a yellow shoulder bag. Wait there for—"
    Static
again. I wanted to smash the phone against the wall, but instead crept down
five more stairs until his voice returned.
    "—exactly
three hours from now. If you go to the police, I'll kill him."
    Less
than fifteen vertical feet separated me from the police. I could smell the
aftershave on one of them—Lagerfeld—and their body heat and movement had raised
the stairwell temperature two or three degrees.
    "Don't
hurt him again," I said, low and firm.
    Yelling,
from my floor below. They'd discovered the bodies.
    "Miller!
Casey! Check the stairwell!"
    Their
footsteps tap-tap-tapped up the stairs, about to round the corner and see me.
    "That's
up to you, babe." Cory disconnected.
    I
wiped the phone off with my shirt, dropped it, and bolted, moving fast as I
could, bouncing on the balls of my feet, ascending four flights in seven seconds,
coming to the roof access door. I tried the knob. Locked, as expected, and no
time to pick it. On the wall was a fire alarm. I pulled it, the siren filling
the stairwell, then fired my Glock three times at the lock mechanism.
    The
door swung outward. I lunged through. My foot snagged a cable—something that
hadn't been there previously—and my body kept going. I  pitched forward and
threw out my hands, my gun skittering across the flat concrete rooftop just as
a supersonic bullet parted my hair and dug a burning trail across my scalp; a
shot that would have killed me a millisecond sooner.
    I'd
made a huge mistake. With everything going on, I'd forgotten about the sniper.
     
    "Use all of your senses, all the time," The Instructor
said. "The brain is a parallel processor, but it dismisses most sensory
input as redundant, irrelevant. You must teach your brain to stop ignoring what
seems normal, obvious, or mundane. Hyper-awareness can often be the difference
between a live operative and a dead operative."
     
    I
tucked my arms into my chest and rolled sideways, coming to rest behind a metal
chimney roughly the size and shape of a street corner mailbox. My Glock was ten
feet away. Might as well have been a mile. The cable that saved my life snaked
across the roof to a new satellite dish.
    A
bullet punched through the aluminum like a finger through soggy bread, making a
hole only a few inches from my nose. I flattened myself against the tar paper,
my cheek resting on dried pigeon droppings. Another shot, two seconds later,
perforated the chimney five inches lower than the first, burying itself into
the rooftop ten meters behind me. The wind whipped through my hair, but the
short length kept it out of my face. These were Chicago winds, snaking around
buildings, blowing eddies left, then up, then back.
    "There's
a sniper up here!" I yelled, hoping it would make the police stay