David Morrell - Desperate Measures

Nonetheless, Pittman waited, thinking, sensing. The weather report on the car radio had predicted a low of thirty-five degrees, and Pittman believed it, seeing frost come out of his mouth. He shivered, but only partially from the temperature, mostly from fear. He couldn’t help contrasting how he had felt the night he entered the estate in Scarsdale with how he felt now. Back then, he’d been nervous but fatalistic. What did a man about to commit suicide have to lose? But now…

Yes? Pittman asked himself. What about now?

You’re scared. Which means you do have something to lose. Are you suddenly afraid of dying?

Why?

Jill?

The thought came unexpectedly. What are you hoping for?

Hope. Pittman realized that the word hadn’t been part of his vocabulary in quite a while. And with hope came fear.

He started down the grassy slope. The night was silent, making him conscious of a subtle breeze. His jogging shoes became wet, chilling his feet with moisture from the grass. He ignored the sensation, concentrating on the shadows of the equestrian ring that he passed and then the football field. The buildings of the school were outlined against the mountains.

He’d done enough newspaper stories about the military to be aware that someone with a sniper’s rifle and a nightscope would have no trouble seeing him in the dark and killing him. With each step that brought him closer and with each second of awareness that he hadn’t been shot, he gained confidence. Maybe the school is safe, he thought. Maybe it won’t be as difficult as I feared.

A horse whinnied from somewhere behind him, and he froze, self-conscious, worried that the noise would attract someone’s attention. The second time the horse whinnied, Pittman became mobile again, hurrying forward, reaching the shadows at the back of one of the buildings.

The night became quiet once more. Moving as rapidly as caution would allow, he skirted the perimeter of other buildings, taking care to avoid spotlights. When he came to the side of the square that was opposite the ridge from where he had entered, he pressed himself against a classroom building, intensified his senses, and concentrated on every detail in the darkness around him. The fact that he’d gotten this close continued to encourage him. But fear persisted in making him tremble, and he knew he couldn’t take anything for granted.

Mustering his determination, he crept from the side of the classroom building and reached the library building. He didn’t dare go to the front and expose himself to the spotlights. Instead, he approached the back door, turned the knob, and discovered that the door was locked. Remembering how the librarian had bragged that the school’s successful honor system made it unnecessary for doors to be locked, Pittman realized the degree to which he and Jill had made the academy’s headmaster nervous. Almost certainly, Bennett had been warned to watch out for strangers. But why? Pittman thought. What are Millgate’s people trying to hide?

Earlier, when he’d been in the library building, Pittman hadn’t seen any indication of a security system. At least that was one thing he didn’t have to worry about as he took out his tool knife and used its lock picks. The scrape of metal made him wince. It seemed terribly amplified, certain to draw someone’s attention. Nonetheless, he kept working, freeing one pin, then another, continuing to apply pressure to the cylinder, suddenly feeling it turn. As the lock’s bolt slipped free, Pittman turned the knob, worrying that someone might be waiting for him on the other side. He drew his pistol, lunged through the opening, aimed toward the darkness with his right hand, and quickly used his bandaged hand to shut the door.

He listened. The echoes of his rapid entrance diminished. Enveloped by silence, he held his breath, straining to see in the darkness, on guard for the slightest sound. A minute passed, and in contrast with the chill he had felt outside, his body now streamed sweat.

He locked the door behind him, felt his way upstairs to the main floor, listened, crept up to the second floor, listened again, and approached the door to the archives. Its opaque window revealed a hint of moonlight glowing into the room. It, too, was locked, but this time he wasn’t surprised.

Quickly he freed the bolt on this door, as well. He entered cautiously, shut the door behind him, crouched, and waited. If gunmen were in here, they had ample opportunity to move against him. After thirty seconds, he decided to take the risk. First he twisted the dead bolt’s knob, locking the door behind him. Then he crossed to the windows and pulled down blinds. Finally he crept toward the middle shelves, turned on his flashlight, made sure that its modest beam was aimed toward the floor, where it wouldn’t cast a glow on the windows, and reached for the yearbooks that he and Jill had examined that afternoon.

The gap on the shelf dismayed him. The yearbooks from 1929 to 1936 were gone. Hoping that they might still be on the desk where he and Jill had left them, he spun, but the flashlight revealed that the table was bare. Bennett must have taken them away.

Jesus, what am I going to do? Pittman thought.

Sweat continued to stream from him. He shut off his flashlight and slumped on the floor, propping his back against a shelf.

Check the other yearbooks, he told himself. Look at 1937.

Why? What’s the point? The grand counselors had graduated by then.

Well, what other choice do you have?

Maybe there are other records.

Earlier, when Pittman and Jill had searched the room, they had concentrated on finding the most obvious research tool-the yearbooks. Pittman hadn’t paid much attention to binders and boxes. Many of them were labeled SEM REP, followed by sequential, overlapping numbers-51-52, 52–53, 53–54, et cetera-and the pressure of a time limit had prevented him from investigating the contents. Now, with no alternative, he roused himself, stood, turned on his flashlight, and approached other shelves in the room.

The box he opened, chosen at random, contained neatly arranged smaller boxes, each of which held a roll of microfilm. It occurred to Pittman that SEM REP possibly meant semester report and that the numbers referred to the fall and spring sessions of each school year-the fall of 1949, for example, and the spring of 1950. The next school year would begin in the fall of 1950 and continue to the spring of 1951, thus the overlapping numbers-49-50, 50–51. Over the years, the accumulation of documents had become difficult to store, not to mention a fire hazard, so the pages had been transferred to microfilm, convenient for the school but a major frustration for Pittman.

What am I supposed to do, steal the rolls for the years the grand counselors attended Grollier? I still wouldn’t be able to read them.

Unless you take them to a library that has a microfilm reader.

But the rolls I steal might not have the information I need. I can’t leave here until…

Wait a minute. There wouldn’t be microfilm if there wasn’t a…

Pittman recalled from his previous visit that a bulky object covered by a cloth had stood on a table in a corner to the right of the door. Its shape was distinctive. He shifted toward it, pulled off the cloth, and found, as he had hoped, a microfilm reader. When he turned it on, he didn’t know which made him more nervous-the hum of the machine’s fan or the glow on its screen. He went back to the boxes, checked labels, and sorted among rolls of microfilm, soon finding one for 31–32. He attached it to the spools on the machine, wound the microfilm past the machine’s light and its magnifying lens, and studied what appeared on the screen.

What he squinted at was a class list and final grades for students in Ancient History I. None of the grand counselors’ names was on the list. He spooled forward through individual reports about various students, reached Classical Literature I, and again was frustrated to discover that none of the grand counselors had been in that course.