Time Was Read Online Free PDF

the guy. ‘The good news,’ says the doctor, ‘is that your bad leg’s getting better.’
    â€œYou’ve got a bad leg, Sam, and you’ve just been shown how easy it is to cut off both the bad one and the good one. I hope this doesn’t bruise your ego too much,” said all of Zac’s faces, “but your state-of-the-art security has just been breachedby Invasion Prevention Systems—which would be me. All communications from this office will be suspended for the next five minutes.”
    â€œWhy?” shouted Preston at the screen.
    â€œJust to be a pain,” replied the many faces of Zac.
    Preston picked up his phone to find the line was busy playing Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood.” He tried his computer keyboard, even resorted to voxax mode, then shook his head. “What did you do, plant a virus in my system when you came in?”
    â€œNot me,” said Zac, checking his watch, then pointing at the office door. “Them.”
    Before Preston could say anything, the door swung open.
    A woman dressed in black and wearing night goggles walked in, accompanied by a muscular man who looked as if he ate car parts for breakfast.
    â€œTwo of my operatives,” said Zac. “With ten seconds to spare.”
    Shit , thought Preston, reaching for his checkbook. “Okay, Zac, you win.” He flipped open the checkbook and began to write in it. He wanted these people on his team—needed them desperately, in fact—and he didn’t care how much it cost. “How much,” he asked Zac, “is it going to take for you and your people—”
    If he’d been on the verge of losing control before, then everything came crashing down around him a few seconds later.
    The bank of monitors began to move, swinging out into the office proper, and from behind it emerged two more of Zac Robillard’s operatives—one male, one female—each holding an armed guard bound with his own handcuffs.
    Preston, shocked into open mouthed silence, looked over at the two security guards already in the office.
    Even behind their dark glasses, their surprise was evident.
    Dammit to hell! He’d gone through a great deal of trouble—not to mention bribe money paid to the architect—to make sure that the hidden stairway and chambers below couldn’t be found or even sensed with the most sophisticated surveillance equipment, but somehow two of Robillard’s operatives had managed to find it, and these four security guards now knew where it was, and that it was a secret, and what was he going to do about them . . .?
    â€œMidnight straight up,” said Zac. Then, to the second set of operatives: “Cutting it a little close, weren’t you?”
    â€œYou know how I like dramatic entrances,” said one of them, a young, well-built, fair-skinned Asian man. “I mean, it’s one thing to watch someone else make them—not that I don’t enjoy a good, vicarious thrill, mind you—but, honestly; how many times are you given the chance to pull an Olivier, a Guinness, a Gielgud, I ask you!” The young man’s eyes were narrow and piercing, his hair black and shiny as melted tar and tied back in a long ponytail that draped halfway down his back.
    â€œTen minutes I’ve been listening to this blathering,” said his partner, a stunning redhead, her deep, throaty voice made musical by its Irish brogue. “Going on and on, he was, even when I threatened to feed him his boots. I thought about trying to talk some sense into him, but then I realized there’s not that much oxygen in the world.”
    â€œI understand,” said Zac.
    â€œHe just had to take the bloody secret staircase.”
    Both Preston and his personal security guards—evidently having forgotten about their weapons—stared at her.
    She was well worth staring at.
    Even in the black slacks and sweatshirt, the curves