Precipice Read Free Page B

responsible, maybe could recognize faces. That fact will dawn on them, if it hasn’t already. These men are killers and they can’t let you stick around long enough to identify them. You need to get out of town.”
    Braxton stared at Michael blankly. Clearly, he needed more explicit explanation.
    “They want you dead.”

Chapter 4
     
    From their vantage point a couple blocks away, agents Dominic Randal and Shannon Faye enjoyed a clear view of the building. The entrance to Sasori Software, a nearly bankrupt computer company in the Campbell neighborhood, was hardly intimidating. Once a large coastal chain, headquartered here in Greenlake, Sasori had fallen on hard times and was largely abandoned when the owner moved to Silicon Valley.
    Tucked between Greenlake Gaming and MONSTER, a popular restaurant known for its large portions, was an undersized, unassuming, and unremarkable set of wooden double doors. The entire entrance covered a ten foot span on the street. Passers-by never gave the doorway a second glance, if it even managed a first glance. A dulling bronze 42 adorned the windowless, dirty, building.
    Most people assumed the lot had been abandoned long ago. What most didn’t know was that this address had been a center of increasing activity over the past few months and local law enforcement had taken notice.
    Randal and Faye had been sitting in his dark gray Corolla for close to three hours. It was the perfect car for a stakeout…a make and model one would never associate with law enforcement, in a bland color that attracted zero attention.
    Besides vehicle, the key to a successful stakeout is alternating shifts to stave off the growing boredom and fatigue. So the two took turns observing, waiting for signs of activity. In that time, not a single person entered or exited through the door, despite heavy foot traffic along the street.
    About an hour and a half into the stakeout, however, Shannon had pointed out an elderly man at a table outside MONSTER. His wrinkles, age spots, and thinning white hair indicated he was in his late 70s, but he sported a muscular torso and strong arms and legs. Decked out in a colorful, floral Hawaiian shirt and floppy hat, he was reading a book. Binocular magnification proved it to be the classic A Tale of Two Cities . None of this was what piqued their interest though.
    The peculiarity that caught their attention was his inactivity. He’d remained motionless since early that morning. Time stretched past two hours and finally to three, but while all other patrons moved on with their lives, the mystery man remained buried in his novel.
    “Who do you think he is?” Dominic inquired. Staring through the binoculars helped little. He yawned. “Do you think he’s connected to Sasori?”
    “Has to be. No one can read Dickens for that long without needing to stand up and move around.” Shannon muttered. “Maybe he’s security. Or a watchman, a lookout.” As it was Dominic’s shift to watch, she labored on her new hobby, the daily Sudoku from the paper. She was becoming quite adept at the numbers game, but this one was giving her fits.
    “Look!” Dominic exclaimed, grabbing his camera. Shannon, happy to take a break from her headache-inducing puzzle, sat up straight, stretched, and grabbed her binoculars. A man was climbing the steps to Number 42. Wearing a dark pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, topped with a Chicago Cubs ball cap pulled low over his eyes, he could have passed for a graduate student from the local university.
    He stepped quickly and with authority, sauntering to the door with the gait of one who knows what he’s doing and doesn’t care who sees him. He was someone of importance, or rather imagined himself to be. He appeared a shade over six feet and thin as a rail. A pair of large, dark sunglasses—aviators—covered his eyes.
    Probably of West African descent, he reminded Shannon of the Nigerian man who recently shattered a record in one of those big