Free Home Invasion by William W. Johnstone

elevator alcove, staying close to the wall and holding his gun ready. He went around the corner in a hurry and tracked the weapon from side to side.
    Nobody. The guy was gone, all right. Ford went to the stairwell door, jerked it open, and listened. He could hear hurrying footsteps echoing up from below.
    For a second he thought about grabbing one of the elevators and trying to beat the guy to the ground, but he discarded the idea. There was no guarantee the man would go all the way to the first floor. He could leave the stairwell at any of the other floors and blend into the confused crowd that was growing larger all the time as word of the shooting on six spread through the hotel.
    “Fargo, you all right?” Parker asked as he trotted down the hall.
    “Yeah, you?”
    Parker jerked his head in a nod. “The target?”
    “In the wind.” The words tasted bitter in Ford’s mouth.
    Parker grimaced and said, “I saw a laptop in there.”
    “Grab it and let’s go.”
    Parker nodded again, disappeared into 627, and came out with a laptop computer tucked under his arm. “How are we going to get out of here with all this uproar going on?”
    “Did that other guy dive into the pool?”
    “He did. He climbed out and got away, too.” Parker stared at Ford and shook his head. “Fargo, you’re not thinking about—”
    “Do I look insane to you? There’s a walkway from the eighth floor to the top level of the parking garage. Come on.”

C HAPTER 12
    With the skill of experienced agents, the two men made it out of the hotel, retrieving their SUV from the parking garage, and driving away just before the police arrived in response to the dozens of 911 calls about a shooting and a man falling from a sixth-floor balcony.
    Parker was at the wheel. He drove over the towering Nueces Bay bridge and then over Indian Point Bridge into neighboring Portland. He pulled into a nondescript chain motel where he and Ford had rented a room the day before.
    Once they were in the room, Ford set the small laptop on the table and opened it. It was already on and in sleep mode. Ford woke it and pointed at the pornographic desktop that appeared.
    “What a sleaze.”
    “Never mind that,” Parker said as he leaned over the chair where Ford sat. “How much power is left?”
    “Lemme see … fifty-four percent.”
    “Hang on, I think I’ve got an AC power cord that’ll fit it.”
    Parker fetched the cord from one of his bags and plugged the computer into a wall outlet.
    “Now we won’t run out of juice,” Ford said as he started to work. His big, blunt fingers weren’t particularly well-suited for the small keyboard, so he was careful not to push anything he didn’t mean to.
    He started exploring the files, taking a quick glance through the directory, then opening the e-mail client. The in-box was almost empty.
    “Nothing here but spam,” Ford muttered. “He must save all his important e-mail on a flash drive and then delete it from the computer.”
    “It might still be recoverable,” Parker said.
    “Yeah, but not by me. We ought to send it back to Langley.”
    “Poke around in there some more first.”
    “That goes without saying.”
    Ford went back to exploring the various files. After a few minutes, he muttered, “Looks like this guy didn’t use the computer for anything except downloading music and porn and games.”
    “What’s in that folder?” Parker asked. “The one named CDD?”
    “Let’s see.” Ford clicked on it, only to have a dialogue box pop up. “Password protected. You got any idea what his password might be?”
    “I don’t even know who
he
is,” Parker said. He shook his head in disgust. “I’m sure the tech guys can crack it, but I was hoping we could get some clue to what’s going on.”
    “Yeah, me—” Ford began, then stopped short as the lights in the motel room and the screen on the computer suddenly lit up brighter than usual, then abruptly went dark. The overhead lights came back on after