Against the Clock Read Online Free PDF

finished a coffee while it was still hot. His colleagues had joked constantly that when he died, they would pour hot coffee on his grave. His reply was always the same: they'd be dead before he was. He wasn't joking.
    It was nearing 10:30; he expected his secretive associate to contact him with an update on the Shirin Reyes/Bill Civic fiasco.
    How it had come to pass that he relied so much on a man he had never met and didn't really know was still robbing him of sleep each night. But as he grew older, he began to see the merit of letting someone untraceable and unknown to him do much of his dirty work.
    He had tried to find Smith once. He'd woken in bed with a knife to his throat and a warning. He'd not tried again.
    Instead, he had given Smith the tasks he himself could openly not complete. Over the years, their relationship garnered many successes. Zelig rose in the ranks within his Agency, and they had both grown very rich in the process.
    Zelig's private cell buzzed. Without pleasantries, Smith relayed the latest findings at the apartment.
    "Mr. Civic remains resolute in his beliefs regarding this woman. My men believe him. The forensic team you sent found numerous fingerprints throughout the apartment, but at this stage they have not been able to match any to the prints on file for Reyes. My man did find a miniature camera outside the office window. Mr. Civic is adamant that he was not aware of it. Whoever installed it must have rappelled down from the roof and fixed it to the masonry wall without triggering the sensors on the glass."
    Zelig gripped the cell harder in his palm. He wanted to smash it to pieces. He knew of several missions where Reyes had used this same technique to monitor targets in the past. He calmly asked, "What could the camera see?"
    "It transmitted wirelessly to a recorder. I'm told the range could be 100 meters, possibly more. We hacked into the wireless feed. The camera had an unobstructed view of the entire office. Given its positioning, anything on Mr. Civic's desk could be clearly identified. The resolution and automatic zoom would have allowed the observer to see in fine detail anything that happened in that room."
    "Tell the forensic team to stop whatever they're doing. I want that room stripped clean! Nothing left! Peel off the paint if you have to and look behind it. And I want Bill Civic either dead or talking!"Zelig thumbed the "end call" button hard, looked at his watch, and stormed out of his office. He had someone to blackmail, and he was running late.
     
    10:47:08
    It took just over twenty minutes in the cab to get out of the city. The young driver had been talkative at first, his friendly nature infectious, but he soon understood Shirin's focused look and intense quiet.
    She told him to take the next street on the left.
    "The street you gave me is the next one after that," he said, trying to be helpful.
    "I know."
    He looked at her and didn't argue.
    "Drive slowly," she said calmly, "but don't stop."
    They traveled down the long street in silence. From the front passenger seat, she glared past the driver, out past the houses on their right. Her safe house was on the other side of the block, behind these homes. She glimpsed its roof in the pockets between the houses; then, she saw the window of her en suite, then the bedroom. It was only a glimpse, but she saw movement in them, then landscaping and neighboring homes obscured her line of vision to the townhouse as the cab continued along the road.
    They were inside.
    "Okay, turn right at the end, and then right again onto the street I gave you."
    The cab rounded the corner. Shirin saw it straightaway. A dark blue van parked a hundred meters before her townhouse, on the opposite side of the road. Its windows were tinted, the antenna coming from its roof unmistakable.
    "See that blue van up ahead?"
    "Yeah?"
    "I want you to keep driving slowly, and when I tell you to, hit the accelerator and speed past that van. Got it?"
    "You're really