Read NorthWest (John Hazard - Book II) for Free Online Page B

happening in the room.
    There were about five men, two older men sitting at a table, and two other younger and very large men standing behind a man who was on his knees and half mumbling, half screaming something through the bloody foam pouring from his mouth. 
    “Excuse…” was all that left her lips before there was a loud report. A gun was fired into the back of the man’s head blowing skull fragments and brain bits all over the tile floor. The impact threw him face forward into the bloody debris. “…Me!” All heads turned in her direction as she squeaked out the word before her hand came up to stifle her scream.
    Then, as she turned to run from the room, she saw the man with the gun raising it toward her. She was determined not to stay long enough to see what happened next. She ran toward the front door, which seemed a much longer distance than when she had first entered the building. The room seemed to stretch out before her as she ran, taking forever to reach the exit. She launched herself through the doorway just as a slug from the big guy’s gun slammed into the doorframe beside her sending splinters flying.
    Emily’s feet hit the street and she knew full well she was running for her life. As two large men burst from the building, she ducked down an alley. They stood there for a moment looking both ways, their eyes adjusting to the sunlight. They scanned as far as they could see but there was no sign of her. They could see no place for her to hide, no dumpsters or fences in the immediate area around the building, so they ran full out in the direction of the alley.
    When Emily had come to the end of the alley, she headed off in the direction of the train station using every ounce of strength she could manage. As she ran down the street, she could hear the footsteps of the two thugs running behind her, clomping the pavement in their three hundred dollar Italian dress shoes. She did the only thing she could think of, run faster.
    The thugs were catching up to her and Emily was terrified that they might succeed, and then the worst thing that could happen, happened. The folder she was carrying, which contained her résumés, slipped out from under her arm. She was running so fast by the time she was aware of it, all of the papers were scattered far behind her. Reflexively, she stopped to go back and get them. Shit! She knew she didn’t have a chance.
    The men were gaining on her and the papers dotted the street ahead of them. By the time she could get to them, the men would get to her. Even if she could somehow get to the mess before they did, there was no chance of picking up every last sheet of paper. So she turned and ran again toward the train station.
    As she rounded the corner of the last block to the station, she glanced back over her shoulder. The men had stopped and were holding up one of the résumés. Her heart sank as she realized that her home address and phone number was at the top of the page in bold letters. She could see one of them pointing at it, and then at her, while one was bent over laughing and trying to catch his breath.
     

 
    Ten
     
    Mark Woo sat in his apartment with a bag of ice resting in the crook of his arm while holding another on the side of his head in an attempt to take the swelling down. He tried to recall the details from the previous night. Though he ached from head to toe, he felt confident that he would be feeling better in a couple of days.
    He had a scheduled flight to make tomorrow but did not expect it to be a problem to fly the group from the university up to Seattle. He had chartered the fifteen passenger plane over a month ago and had to go to the local airstrip later in the day to check the plane out, review its maintenance records and create his flight plan.
    The weather for tomorrow was supposed to be clear all the way up the coast so he was grateful that this flight, his twenty-first this year, was likely to be uneventful. He had information about the