Free The Stone of Archimedes by Trevor Scott Page B

ten years.”
    â€œWhat if he would rather have a man?”
    Being French, that could have been true. But Jake had to go with the odds. “All right. We’ll both go talk with the man. But you knock on the door. Hate to scare him with my mug at night.”
    They got out and walked toward the building ahead. Jake checked the feel of his new gun tucked into the sleeve on his left hip. It was in a cross draw position, which Jake preferred. He would have liked his normal leather holster under his left arm, but it was impossible to use those in the hot regions of the world in the summer. The sleeve he could tuck into even a waist band without a belt if he needed, and then just throw a T-shirt over the butt of the gun.
    Neither said a word as they climbed the stairs of the apartment building and then stood before the professor’s apartment door. Jake stood to one side as Elisa knocked on the door. Nothing. They looked at each other and both shrugged.
    Jake checked the door handle and the door swung in a couple of inches. Without thinking, he pulled the gun and aimed it toward the door opening. Elisa followed him closely. But Jake heard something just as they were about to enter. With one swift motion, he pushed Elisa away from the opening.
    Bullets smashed through the door, splintering the wood. Jake aimed his gun and shoved the door inward as he dove toward the floor. He saw flashes from across the room and he aimed at those and fired twice before rolling to the left.
    Silence. Only the ringing in Jake’s ears.
    Then more shots, but this time from the corridor outside, followed by some shots from Elisa before she dove into the apartment right next to Jake. He thought he had heard the familiar sound of body striking floor after his two shots. But there could be another shooter somewhere within the apartment. Yet, they were pinned down.
    Jake jumped to his feet and hurried through the small apartment until he found a man laying on the tile floor of the kitchen area. Checked for pulse. Nope. He could see that at least one of his bullets had entered the man’s face, taking out the guy’s right eye, the one that had aimed the gun.
    More shots from the corridor, followed again by Elisa shooting. She seemed to have that under control, so Jake rushed through the apartment. He found the professor strapped to a chair in the bedroom, gagged with a leather belt, and with cigarette burn marks on his arms, his neck and his face. But what had killed the man was obviously the widest string taken from the man’s acoustic guitar and twisted around his throat.
    Damn it. They needed to get out of there.
    Running back out into the main room, Jake went straight to the door. “Follow me,” he said to Elisa. Without further explanation, Jake rushed out into the corridor. When the bullets started coming from the end of the hallway by the stairs, Jake ran forward firing his gun. He didn’t look back.
    By the time Jake reached the staircase he could hear two things. First, he heard multiple footfalls down the stairs. Second, he could hear the sound of police cars approaching with sirens blaring. Since he could feel Elisa right behind him, he continued down the stairs, guessing the men who had been shooting at them would not stick around now that the police were on their way.
    Jake hesitated at the outside door, just in case the shooters were waiting for him. But instead he heard tires burning rubber as a car raced off down the street.
    â€œLet’s get the hell out of here,” Jake whispered loudly.
    When they got to the car, Jake asked for the keys, got in and lowered the windows to hear from which way the cops were coming. He turned the car around and at a reasonable pace got them out of there, vectoring to the south toward the waterfront. He watched a few blocks over as two police cars flew past them heading toward the shooting scene.
    How in the hell had this gone from a simple case of finding a college