Chapter 4

Finn could hear the agents in the stair well high above him. He kept his steps light as he hugged the wall and avoided exposing himself should they look over the flimsy railing of this escape route. His shoes were sturdy and laced tight, with rubberized soles that absorbed the light sound of his footfalls. He pulled the hood of his canvas work coat up over his head, hiding his dark, wavy mop of hair. He needed to trim it back to the close-cropped cut he usually kept. For now, he let it grow out, just in case he needed a hasty haircut to alter his appearance.

He thought about his options as he descended as quickly as he could without alerting his pursuit. Two doors were at the bottom of this stairwell. One would go back into the maintenance and service area of the building. The other into the alley separating this building from its neighbor. He would be exposed in the alley, at least until he could make it to the street, but the maintenance area only had one other exit, aside from the service elevator which was most likely being monitored by now.

He reached the ground floor and stopped, listening. How much time did he have? The slap-slap-slap of leather on stairs gave little sense of distance, but he guessed they were at least six or seven floors above him. The exit was in the middle of the alley. If he was lucky, he could make the street before they reached the floor.

He eased the doorway open. He had carefully oiled the hinges of doors along all his escape routes days ago and bypassed alarms. Finn glanced at his phone. No active surveillance in the area. The agents should have deployed drones or spy-cams around the building before trying to catch him. Maybe they did not want a record of their actions. It was a sobering thought.

He slipped through the door and closed it carefully. No loud bangs or thuds telling his pursuers which way he had gone. He tapped an icon on his phone and felt the electronic contact in the doorframe release. If they opened the door, the alarm would sound. It might convince them to resume their search inside.

“Now just make it to the street,” he said softly.

He stepped around the garbage dumpster and started to jog toward the end of the alley. The street he was heading for was on the opposite block of the entrance they must have used to reach him. Getting to the street, he could turn south and be down on the subway in half-a-block. Once down there, they could never follow him. He just needed a crowd to mingle in and activate his phone, then surveillance would be fuzzed for twenty yards around him. They would have no hope of following all the people suddenly hidden. Hop on a train, stop the jammer in a tunnel, and he would be one of the anonymous masses once more.