Free Life of Secrets by Bowen Greenwood

her own abilities, even she could not hope to
fight her way out through the front door.
    But she didn't
even know if the Hicks campaign headquarters had a back door. And if it did,
the FBI was probably guarding it anyway.
    So the only way
out was...
    She said a
quick word of thanks for the pretentiousness of politics - it meant Wheeler had
a corner penthouse office.
    Out the front
windows there was nothing but a nearly-hundred-foot drop to the pavement below.
    But out the side
window she could see the roof of the next building over. It appeared to be not
far below where she was currently standing.
    She shoved Tom
out of the way and began firing her pistol at the window.
    Wheeler shouted
when she pushed him. The metallic racking back and forth of the slide on her
silenced semi-auto was the only sound from the gun. But as the repeated impacts
of small-caliber rounds cracked the glass, the room became very noisy. When he
realized she was firing an actual real-life handgun in his office, Wheeler's
eyes went wide, and he gave out a high-pitched scream.
    Alyssa didn't
care. She kicked off her high heels and ran toward the cracked glass.
    She heard
someone throw open the door behind her - heard the doorknob hit the wall too
hard.
    "Mr. Whee ... what the... Freeze!"
    Whoever was
speaking was too late. Alyssa leapt out the window.
    She felt shards
of broken glass as she flew but she barely cared. So much adrenaline coursed
through her body, she didn't even feel the pain.
    The fall was a
bit farther than she had expected—she'd been deceived by perspective—and she
landed harder than she planned.
    The part of
Alyssa that still remembered her days as a gymnast winced at the ugly landing.
    She was
off-balance when she hit but made up for it by pitching forward and letting
herself roll through a somersault. The gravel on the roof hurt her back, but
she came up running for the far side.
    Behind her she
heard someone yell, "Federal agents! Freeze!" She ignored the order
and kept running. On her left she heard a “zing” and saw a small cloud of dust
rise.
    They were
shooting at her.
    Frantically,
she began random, zigzagging turns as she ran, hoping to make it harder for the
shooter to get a clean shot at her. Little fountains of gravel and dust rose in
front of her, behind her, and to both sides, but each time she swerved just
right to avoid getting hit.
    Alyssa caught
sight of the service entrance to the roof and turned that way, only to see the
little puffs of debris that indicated gunfire drawing ever closer. It was too
obvious - they'd been waiting for her to turn that way.
    She turned back
and dashed for the far side of the roof.
    The problem
was, she couldn't see anything past the edge of the roof.
    There was
nothing for it but to run and hope.
    Just as she heard
the thud of someone else jumping down from Wheeler's office to join her on the
roof, she reached the parapet.
    The next
building was one story down.
    She was more
prepared for the distance of the jump this time. She landed on her feet and
took off immediately, glad to be at least temporarily out of the line of fire.
Besides, the distance between her and Wheeler's office was growing too great
for accurate pistol shots. And to make matters even better, she could see that
she had three buildings of roughly equal height in a row here. That gave her
some time to figure out what she was going to do when she reached the end of
the block.
    That was the
positive side of her current personal ledger.
    On the negative
side, a helicopter flew into view off to her left.
    The sound of
gunfire was much more audible this time, even over the roar of the chopper's
rotors. There was a man in the open passenger compartment of the chopper,
firing warning shots in front of her with an assault rifle. The vehicle was
obviously equipped with a microphone and loudspeaker because she heard,
"This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Throw down your weapon and
put your hands in the air!"
    She