“Nothing. Well that sucks. It was a good idea.”
Then Bones started tossing papers further along the wall. This time Dane didn’t have to ask — probably there was one more filing cabinet buried even deeper. He put his back into it and papers started flying as if self-propelled. They uncovered another cabinet in less than ninety seconds.
Unfortunately, this one was also empty. Bones let out a rare sigh. “Was worth a shot.”
“Hey, I bet it’s the first time anyone could call you a paper pusher.”
“All right, Maddock is riding the humor train! I guess we may as well take off and call this a bust.”
Something tickled the edge of Dane’s mind, and he let his eyes go out of focus as he tried to get hold of it. Then he snapped his fingers.
“Let’s move the cabinets.”
“Move them? You mean because… ” Bones didn’t finish, just leaped to the edge of a cabinet and started dragging one. Dane did the same with the other one, and both cabinets were a foot away from the wall in short order. Bones slapped Dane on the back. “Jackpot, dude!”
Right in the farthest corner, behind where the inner cabinet had been, a single undamaged piece of paper was settling on the floor. Dane picked it up with care, amazed at how important one piece of paper could seem after finding nothing else of use in the room.
He handed it to Bones. “You read it. Diving through this stuff was your idea.”
“If you insist. Header says ‘Franklin’s Legacy.’ Then only one paragraph, and there’s a page number ninety-seven down at the bottom. Looks like a typewriter, not something printed like a normal book or anything. This was the end of a chapter or some other group of pages. The paragraph says:
“Franklin didn’t agree about destroying them. But he wasn’t going to undermine everything at such a crucial time. And that’s where our knowledge ends. We know Randolph’s copy survived for a long time, and may not be lost as once feared. But with Franklin, all we have is the one clue: Seek the creator of the five hundred”
Bones looked up. “You know what this means, Maddock?”
“Yep. Not only are the Sons of the Republic after us again, but once again they’re also after something related to the history of the founding of America. What are the odds their motives are pure?”
“About the same as the odds of finding intelligent life in Washington D.C.”
Dane cleared his throat, glad that the lack of strong light was hiding his face. “Yeah, yeah. So who do we know who’s crazy enough to try to stop them again?”
“Admit it, Maddock, you live for this. You wouldn’t pass this up even if they hadn’t tried to kill us. And I’m in because I figure I’ll get a chance to hammer a few more of the bad guys before we’re done.”
Bones folded the paper and tucked it in a pocket. “We’ve been here much longer than we should have. Time to scram.”
“Yeah, but if we stay, you might get to hammer the bad guys sooner.”
“Oh, I have a feeling we’ll get that chance before you know it. Plus, it’s just as likely to be cops or some dumb security guard who comes here. That takes all the fun out of it. I vote for the front door.”
Dane opened his mouth to argue but then realized that the approach made sense. They’d be exposed for a lot longer trying to get out of the high window than just walking out the front. He nodded and turned his light on low, pointing towards the floor. He followed Bones to the front door where Bones released the deadbolt and the two other locks. They stepped outside.
The glare from the streetlight across the road made Dane unconsciously shift his head down and to the side. As he did, he felt something strike the back of his head and heard a loud crack right behind him. Almost at the same time, he heard the sound of a gun firing in the distance.
Bones must have heard it, too, because he was moving even before Dane. Neither man wasted any time, sprinting twenty yards to the relative shelter of a large van parked on the street. As far as Dane could tell, no more shots had come.
Bones nodded several times with a wicked grin directed at Dane.
“I think we came to the right place.”
CHAPTER SIX
“Came to the right place? Bones, we just got shot at. Again.”
“Hey bro, if they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right. I don’t think the guy is that far away, because the shot came from the direction of the river and it’s only about fifty yards.”
“He could be in a boat.”
“We’re SEALS. That should work in our favor. One of us needs to try to find a boat to borrow, and the other needs to locate the guy.”
“I’m game for locating the guy, but short of exposing myself to more fire, I’m a little shaky on how we’re gonna do that.”
“As much humor as you exposing yourself would provide, I see your point.”
“Wait, I have an idea on how to do it. You go back that way towards the shadows, wrap around down to the river and see if you can find a boat. Make your way upstream. If you can’t find one, just do it on foot.”
“Sounds like a plan. Stay away from bullets.”
With that, Bones disappeared and Dane set his mind to the task at hand. He had noticed two things that would make his plan possible. First, the van was unlocked. He eased the door open and leaned across the seat, hoping his actions weren’t visible to the shooter. Then he slipped the gearshift into neutral.
The second assist for the plan came from the slight downward angle of the road. All he had to do was anchor his legs and push on the door frame and the van started moving. Silently apologizing to the owner of the van for what he was about to do, he jumped in the driver’s seat. He kept his hands on the wheel but leaned over enough that a clean shot at him from the river side would be close to impossible.
The van began to pick up speed. The arc where the original shot could have come from spanned around a hundred yards of the river front, so he’d be out of the potential kill zone in just a few seconds. Unless of course, the shooter had moved.
Dane had taken some rudimentary sniper training and knew the basic doctrine. Normally after firing a shot, a soldier would immediately move. There were exceptions, though, and one of them involved an urban warfare situation where you didn’t have a good choice of vantage points and moving would compromise any further shots. If this guy was a soldier, Dane figured he’d have stayed put. And if he was a civilian, the unexpected move with the van should be enough to throw him off.
In any case, seventy five yards away, the road started to rise. By a hundred-fifty feet, his speed had slowed to a crawl and Dane jumped out. He made the trees by the river in three seconds, and for the first time since leaving the warehouse he felt like the hunter as opposed to the hunted.
He gave his eyes sixty seconds to adjust to the darkness. Then he scanned what he could see of the river. No boats were obvious except a couple of lights far in the distance where the angle wasn’t right for the shot. He slowly made his way back along the riverbank, moving with what he hoped was maximum stealth.
Bones was the real master of silent tracking, something he liked to claim all his people had but which Dane knew was Bones’ own natural talent. While Dane would endeavor to make as little noise as possible, Bones took it one step further and made noise that blended in with the ambient sounds. More than one veteran instructor had undoubtedly needed a fresh pair of underwear after Bones had stalked and disabled him without a sound. In any case, Dane could move quietly enough to get by.