Read Off to Be the Wizard for Free Online Page B

mess without risking injuring or killing someone. He also didn’t want to teleport with anyone watching. He knew that Murphy and Miller had likely recorded his first disappearing act, but one video of an inexplicable event, witnessed by the two men who made the video, and who would be embarrassed to have let a kid in his mid-twenties escape, would probably look suspect. If he also disappeared in a public place with multiple federal agents watching, that would be hard to explain away. Martin hoped he would get a moment of privacy to grab the things he needed and think about where he wanted to escape to.
    Martin continued driving the speed limit. He figured that as long as he didn’t seem to be a danger to anyone, his pursuers wouldn’t risk the public safety to stop him. Whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it quickly. The two unmarked cars were now accompanied by at least three squad cars, all with their lights flashing and sirens blaring. He was only a few blocks from his destination, and if he didn’t do something to put some distance between him and his pursuers, he’d never get away.
    Martin’s shiny red hatchback led its loud, ugly parade through the quiet suburb where he grew up. Martin blew through a stop sign. A ticket for a moving violation was the least of his worries. He pictured his sentencing. Twenty years for bank fraud, followed by traffic school. All the more reason not to get caught, he thought.
    He got an idea that he hated immediately, but it was the only idea he had. There was only one turn remaining before he reached his destination, a ninety-degree left onto the street where he grew up. He had always avoided using his phone while driving, but in this case he made an exception. He pulled up the app and hit the tab with the compass on it. The phone displayed a satellite map of his surroundings. He selected a spot fairly close to where he wanted to be. The final turn loomed. His thumb hovered over the screen as he floored the gas pedal of the brand new car and aimed it for a huge tree he used to walk past on the way to school each morning. He glanced at the phone in his right hand, making sure his thumb was going to hit the right spot. If I time this right , he thought, I get away. If I don’t, maybe they’ll chalk it up to texting while driving. The car jumped the curb, and in the last second before hitting the tree, his thumb hit the screen.
    It was a workday in the suburbs, so nobody was on the street to see Martin appear in the middle of the street in a seated position, suspended a foot off the ground. Martin fell straight down to the road beneath him. Again, his weight landed on his still-healing tailbone. As he fell, he heard the surprisingly hollow crunching noise of his car hitting a tree two blocks away.
    He scrambled to his feet and peered into the distance. He saw what was left of his car wrapped around the base of the tree. He smiled as he saw the police vehicles pull up to the wreck, all sense of urgency drained out of them. The federal agents who had torn his apartment to shreds stepped out of the black, unmarked cars and ran to the crumpled wreck to see if Martin needed a doctor or a coroner. Martin’s happiness didn’t last long. It was shattered by a blasting car horn from behind him. He spun and saw a green minivan approaching. He had forgotten that he was standing in the middle of the road.
    He lunged to the side of the road, looked back to the wreck, and his worst fears were realized. The agents heard the horn, and had clearly recognized Martin even at this distance. They were pointing in his direction and scrambling back into their cars. The minivan’s driver, a mousy woman with a pinched face, gave Martin the stink-eye as she drove past, but Martin never knew it. He was already sprinting across a yard and into a specific house, his chosen destination.
    Walter Banks sat on a large sofa in the living room of his home, a split level ranch in the suburbs of Seattle. He