Free The Keepers of the Library by Glenn Cooper Page A

couldn’t be ruled out.
    “How does a minor just buy a ticket and get on an international flight?” Will had asked incredulously.
    Johnson (or was it Finnerty?) had the answer. Phillip had downloaded a parental authorization form from the United Net site and forged Nancy’s signature.
    Nancy and Will withdrew to their bedroom and closed the door.
    “I just talked to him. Parish won’t let me go,” Nancy said, shaking with anger. “He said that he couldn’t spare me.”
    “Screw him,” Will spat.
    “He also told me that the field assessment was that this wasn’t a kidnapping or a terror snatch, just a runaway kid with social issues.”
    “Those two clown twins downstairs. I’m going to bust their heads together,” Will said, heading for the door.
    She stopped him. “Will, calm down. Parish did offer to ask for help from MI5 as a favor to us. They’re going to put an agent on it to see if they can figure out where he is. Check CCTV feeds, track his NetPen, things like that.”
    “Damn it, Nancy,” he seethed, “I’m not going to sit in the living room and wait for my phone to ring! This is Phillip we’re talking about!”
    “I know, I know,” she said mournfully.
    “I’m getting on the next flight to London.”
    “You can’t, Will! You almost died two and a half months ago!”
    “I’ll be fine. I can do this Nancy,” he said, opening the closet and pulling out a suitcase. “I’m going to find our son and I’m going to bring him home.”

T he economy cabin of the Boeing 807 was darkened for sleeping and most of the passengers were at least trying to get some shut-eye. Will was an exception, uncomfortably shifting his large frame in his middle seat, staring at the plane’s flight path on the chair-back screen.
    The last time he’d been to England was when Phillip was an infant. He’d taken Nancy and the baby to the Isle of Wight to have a look at the ruins of Vectis Abbey. They’d strolled on the grassy field among grazing sheep and looked out over the rolling waves and chop of the Solent. Beneath their feet was the ruined vault of the Library, destroyed by army demo men after the books had been cleared out in 1947 and turned over to the Americans. At the time he’d felt he had to go there, to see it for himself, but when it was done, he moved on and didn’t dwell on it. He had a life to live. He’d resisted the pleas to lecture and do TV appearances, and decided to tell his story once, and once only in a book. And when the book finally faded from the best-seller lists, he faded too, onto his boat, into the blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
    On the flight fifteen years earlier, Phillip had irritated Will by crying his way from Newfoundland to Ireland. Now the boy was irritating him again. He stewed fitfully: Why had he run off? What was he trying to accomplish? Was it rebellion? Was Phillip so angry at him for being a lousy father that this was the way he chose to express himself? Had he met a girl on the Net who snake-charmed him across the Atlantic? Or was something more ominous afoot?
    When he had mulled over every conceivable scenario, he started to fret over his heart. Sure he’d told Nancy he was fit enough for the journey, but truth be told, he wasn’t convinced. He had lied. He never called his cardiologist for clearance. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, he had told himself. Mind over matter.
    At Heathrow’s Terminal Six he cleared customs, picked up some currency and rolled his bag to the meeting point. A man in an overcoat held a paper sign with his name. He followed the driver outside and waited while he retrieved the car and brought it around. It was chilly and damp; the sky was dull and monochromatic, just like his mood.
    A traffic-filled hour later he was in central London at Thames House on Millbank. On one hand it was the London he remembered, a bustling mix of old and new, but the sounds and smells were different. It was as if he were wearing