Free Fall Read Online Free PDF Page B

the positions of responsibility they did."
    "There are no cameras in here, Jacob," the Southern congressman sneered into his microphone.
    "I think you can take the day off from campaigning It seemed that the Reconstruction Party wasn't interested in seeing this witch-hunt carried through, though Beamon doubted it was because of their deep respect for his life's work as much as the fact that none of their ranks had been implicated in the Vericomm scandal. But in this business you had to take your friends where you found them.
    He watched the shouting match that ensued with morbid fascination, too absorbed to notice the young woman who had quietly padded up behind him until her mouth was only inches from his ear.
    "Mr. Beamon. David Hallorin would like a few moments of your time after the hearing."
    Beamon jerked his head around and looked at her with an expression that in retrospect must have been somewhere between that of a startled deer and a condemned man. She was polite enough to ignore it.
    "If you'll just see me when you're finished here, sir, I'll have a car brought around for you."
    The argument on the podium started to die down as the young woman walked silently to the back of the auditorium and faded into a wall.
    Congresswoman Gregory was somewhat red faced, but managed to regain her composure and center the thick folder in front of her again.
    "Mr. Beamon I'd like to go through your report with you. If you could turn to page two-seventeen of your copy, I have some serious concerns about your timeline."

Free Fall (2000)[1]

    *****
    Tristan Newberry held the front door to his apartment building open with his foot and grabbed the plastic grocery bag that contained his work clothes off the sidewalk. They smelled like nervous perspiration, as did the sweatshirt and cotton pants he was now wearing. It seemed like the tickle of sweat running down his sides hadn't stopped since he'd left work the day before.
    He stepped into the empty foyer and looked up the stairs in front of him. Another bulb had burned out while he was gone, throwing deep shadows across the relatively clean but not so well-maintained stairwell.
    He'd hoped that getting home would calm him down, but it seemed like his arrival was having the opposite effect. He suddenly wanted to be back on that plane, with thousands of tons of steel and thousands of feet of air protecting him.
    Tristan glanced at his watch. Eight p.m. Mrs. Dunn would have just gone to bed and he just didn't think he could handle one of her screaming fits about noise right now. He pulled his shoes off and stuffed them in the bag with his clothes, then started up the stairs in his stocking feet.
    With a little luck, he'd avoid a confrontation and soon be suffering from his newfound insomnia in his very own bed.
    He was almost to the top of the flight of stairs when he heard a quiet rustling in the hall to the right. He stopped short and, remembering that his approach had been nearly silent, remained motionless and listened with an almost athletic intensity. A few moments later he heard something sliding on the floor. He didn't know if it was the effect of his nerves and an overstimulated imagination or if it was real, but whatever it was, he would swear it sounded like it was coming from right in front of the door to his apartment.
    His mouth went suddenly dry and he could hear his heartbeat in his ears.
    They'd found out. Somehow they'd found out. He looked down the semidark stairs behind him, wanting to run, but knowing it would be pointless.
    They'd know he was there. They would have been watching.
    It had only been twenty-eight hours since he'd discovered the file, but he'd replayed tearing that seal in his head at least a hundred times.
    He wanted to take it back to have shoved it, unopened, back into that box and walked away under the watchful eye of those silent cameras. But it was too late for that now.
    What was he going to do? He looked back down the stairwell for a moment, then