The Seal of Solomon Read Online Free PDF

window.”
    â€œLook, Kenny,” I said. “There’s nobody outside the window.”
    But he wouldn’t settle down until I checked the window. I pulled up the blinds and squinted through the glass, resting my hands on the sill. I turned my head toward the top bunk.
    â€œSee, Kenny? There’s nothing—”
    Suddenly, the window exploded inward, just like it would in a horror movie, when the teenager turns and says, “See, there’s nothing there.” Two large, black-gloved hands shot through and grabbed my wrists. I was dragged through the broken window before I could even make a sound.

8
    I saw a flash of night sky, a swaying tree branch, and the lawn as it rushed up to meet me. I landed face-first in the grass and something hard pressed into my lower back. I heard someone screaming; I guessed it was Kenny. I had fallen with my mouth open, and now I could taste grass and dirt as a voice whispered hoarsely in my ear.
    â€œDon’t fight me.”
    I twisted to my right, bringing my left elbow up and back, a glancing blow to the guy’s head as he leaned over me. He fell away and I pushed myself up, and then he was back on me, throwing his forearm across my neck, pulling back hard, cutting off my oxygen. Black flowers bloomed before my eyes.
    He dragged me toward the back corner of the house and whipped me around.
    â€œSettle down!” he hissed. “Settle down!”
    He held my arms behind my back and pushed me toward a dark convertible sports car parked by the curb.
    He threw me into the passenger seat and brought his face close to mine. I got a heavy dose of spearmint.
    â€œHey, Al,” Mike Arnold said.
    I couldn’t believe it: Mike Arnold, the OIPEP agent who had betrayed the knights and nearly gotten me killed. Abby Smith had told me they fired Mike for turning double agent. So this wasn’t an OIPEP operation. And if this wasn’t an OIPEP operation, what was it?
    He raced around the front and leaped into the driver’s seat of the Porsche Boxster. The car gave a throaty roar and Mike punched the gas. My head snapped back against the headrest. He whipped the car into a U-turn, the back tires locking up and squealing, sending plumes of smoke boiling into the air.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” I yelled. He swerved into the right-hand lane, making for the on-ramp to the interstate.
    â€œThis is what’s known in the trade as an ‘extraction’!”
    Mike had cut his hair since I last saw him in Merlin’s Cave, wearing it now in a buzz cut, like a marine. He still dressed like a frat boy, though: Lacoste shirt, Dockers, the New Balance running shoes. I could see his 9mm Glock tucked into his belt.
    There was hardly any traffic in the westbound lanes of I-40, and Mike pushed the car up to ninety, his eyes darting between the road and the rearview mirror. I glanced behind us. Somebody wearing a black jumpsuit was pacing us on a motorcycle.
    â€œWho’s following us?” I shouted over the wind.
    â€œWell, it ain’t the Publishers Clearinghouse Prize Patrol!” His lips pulled back and he showed me his big white teeth.
    He ran up on the bumper of a lumbering Chevy Suburban, whipped us into the emergency lane with less than an inch to spare, and floored the accelerator.
    â€œExcuse me, Al,” he said. He pulled the Glock from his waistband, swinging his right arm in my direction. I ducked, his arm pivoted over my lowered head, and I heard the sharp pop-pop-pop of the gun as he fired at the rider behind us.
    We jounced over the rough pavement as the speedometer needle hovered around a hundred. I looked behind us again, but the black motorcycle was nowhere in sight.
    â€œYou lost them!” I yelled.
    He barked out a laugh and cut back into the right lane, right in front of a Best Buy semitruck. Up ahead was the exit for the highway that connected Knoxville and Alcoa.
    â€œWhere are we going?” I