Free The Librarians and the Lost Lamp by Greg Cox Page A

a block away and eating up that distance quickly. Any hope of escape was fading fast.
    â€œHow many of these goons are there?” she asked out loud.
    â€œBest guess?” Flynn replied. “Forty, tops.”
    His glib reply caused her to stop short and stare at him in bafflement. “Huh?”
    â€œGranted,” he said, elaborating, “I suppose that not all of the Forty are muscle. That number is bound to include bosses, spies, smugglers, safecrackers, assassins, and other criminal types. Maybe even an inside man—or woman—at your museum. Which probably cuts down on the number of personnel actually employed in a simple kidnapping operation like this.…”
    She couldn’t believe he was babbling like this—in full paragraphs, no less—while they were running for their lives. She looked about desperately for another escape route.
    By now, the commotion was beginning to register on the crowd around them. Worried shoppers, not entirely sure what was happening, clutched their burdens close to them and tried to distance themselves from Flynn and Shirin, at least as much as possible amidst the press of the crowd. Wary shopkeepers looked on with concern. Braver souls raised their voices in objection to the scowling kidnappers rudely forcing their way past the shoppers. A foolhardy young man, inspecting a display of pots and pans, refused to get out of the way and was roughly shoved aside, smashing into the stall. Copper and cast iron clattered onto the pavement, adding to the clamor.
    At least they’re not opening fire, Shirin thought. Maybe to avoid attracting the US patrols and helicopters?
    But the men were still closing in on them. Shirin extracted the Mace from her pocket, but she doubted it would do much good against an entire gang of kidnappers. She and Flynn were outnumbered and underequipped.
    â€œThey’re all around us,” she whispered. “They’re not going to let us get away.”
    â€œMaybe, maybe not.” Flynn tightened his grip on her hand. “Stay close.”
    â€œWait. What are you going to do?”
    Instead of explaining, he cupped his other hand around his mouth like a megaphone and shouted a single word in decent Arabic:
    â€œBOMB!”
    Pandemonium erupted in the marketplace. Frantic vendors and pedestrians stampeded away from Flynn, bowling over the goons who had been converging on him and Shirin. For a moment, she feared that she had merely traded being kidnapped for being trampled, but, letting go of her hand, Flynn grabbed her by the waist and swung her up onto the table in front of a coppersmith’s stall, away from the panicked mob. Dislodged pots and pans clattered noisily onto the pavement as he sprang up after her.
    â€œKeep your head down,” he advised, as they dived into the stall, which had already been abandoned by some terrified vendor. They crouched down behind the upset display, taking refuge in the stand. “But be ready to run when I say so.”
    She gaped at him again, trying to make sense of what was happening.
    â€œWhat kind of librarian are you?”
    â€œThe kind who ends up in this sort of fix more often than you’d think.” He poked his head up long enough to peek at the street. Agitated voices and pounding footsteps implied that the panicky exodus had yet to abate. “The market’s clearing out fast. We’re not going to be able to hide here for long, since I don’t think we can count on your ‘friend’ and her colleagues to give up anytime soon.”
    Shirin saw his point. She didn’t want to get stuck in an empty market with nobody but the kidnappers, who were surely still after them. “My apartment is only a few blocks away.”
    â€œForget it,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s the first place they’ll look for you, if they haven’t got it staked out already. Same with the museum.”
    â€œWhat about that hotel