Alternities Read Online Free PDF Page A

he had lost his leverage too soon. He came down awkwardly, twisting his right ankle and falling hard to his knees and then his side. A moment later, its driver still frozen behind the wheel, the jeep drove itself self-destructively into the wall, metal screeching, masonry cracking, glass tinkling.
    Rolling over, Wallace struggled to his feet and ran. He felt painfully slow, naked to the bullet he was sure was coming, awkward and helpless with his hands bound behind him. But he ran without looking back, his mouth set in a tight line, his thoughts an evolving refrain: one more step, one more step—one more block—one more chance—
    Though Wallace’s heart was racing, his steps felt leaden, as though his feet were churning through mud. The distance between his hunched shoulders was a hundred yards, a target any junior marksman could hit. The city blocks grew longer even as he ran them.
    Following the dictates of his paranoia, he zig-zagged across the city, up this street, down that alley. Every corner he turned gave him a few moments of safety, a brick and steel shield for his back. Yet every corner he turned held the threat of encountering another police patrol.
    Five blocks from the wreck, hurrying down a narrow canyonlike alley, Wallace slipped on the trail of slime leaking from an overloaded trash dumpster. With no hands to break his fall, he sprawled headlong, his right shoulder taking the brunt of collision with the oil-stained gravel-strewn pavement. He skidded to a stop on a cushion of tom clothing and bloody, abraded skin.
    Twisting around, he looked back the way he had come. There was no one else in the alley. He had lost his pursuers.
    Or his pursuers hadn’t found him yet. Chambers was back at the wreck, tending to his partner. Why chase a fugitive alone on foot when the radio could bring a dozen jeeps screaming into the area?
    With a painful effort, Wallace sat up. Or maybe Chambers was hurt, too. No pursuit. No radio alert. And no reason except his own recklessness and panic that could keep him from reaching the gate house safely.
    A razor-sharp rusted edge on the dumpster obligingly sliced through both the plastic handcuffs and the heel of one hand. Still no pursuit.
    New strategy , he thought, trying to staunch the free-flowing blood as he started down the alley at a trot. In this one, I use my head, and get there alive.
    Wallace edged up to the southeast corner of Broad and Sansom with triumph already in his heart. Hugging the wall, he peeked around the corner at the old Bellevue Stratford a block away. The wide boulevard was still deserted. There was no sign that the gate house had drawn any special attention in his absence or that a reception was waiting for him there.
    Then a bullet licked off the concrete facing just above Wallace’s ear. He jumped as though he had grabbed an electric wire. Ducking his head, he plunged around the corner and headed on a line for the hotel. Ten flying steps and he was off the curb and into the street. Fifty carried him halfway down the block and halfway across the street, to the trolley tracks which bisected it. He ran mouthing heartfelt half-formed prayers for deliverance.
    There had been no more shots, but he did not make the mistake of thinking his prayers had been granted. He knew that when the badge rounded the corner where Wallace had been standing moments before, he would again be a target. The question was whether he would reach the hotel before that happened.
    Each step was a discrete victory, an increment of hope. Wallace searched frantically for the quickest way back in, knowing that he could never retrace his marquee escape in time. He thought about breaking a window, and wondered what he would break it with.
    Then a thought hit him which nearly stopped him in midstride, midstreet. Idiot—why don’t you lead them back to the one place they can’t be made curious about. You can’t go back inside at all, he scolded himself. You lost. Almost doesn’t