The Emerald Key - By Christopher Dinsdale Page 0,53
about the rest of the library.
Desperately, Jamie returned to fetch the crowbar, and with it he cracked open the small cupboard. Loose papers filled the shelves. He moved on to the next locked cabinet. The crowbar threw the doors open wide, and Jamie collapsed in relief. There, sitting on the bottom shelf, was his beautiful, leather-bound Irish text. He plucked it gingerly off the shelf and placed it against his chest, wrapped his arms around it, and wept. He wept for his brother. He wept for Ireland. He wept for the destruction of knowledge happening all around him.
The collapse of a burning shelf of books snapped Jamie back to reality. He wrapped up the text in a special oilskin, then turned to leave the office. But suddenly more voices echoed from the outer hallway. He dove behind a shelf next to the office as several men ran in through the library doors, aghast at the sight of the growing inferno.
“Quick! Grab what you can! We must save some of these volumes!”
Jamie ducked as about a half-dozen men poured into the library, filling their arms with irreplaceable volumes of Canadian history.
“Mr. Curran! I hear a gas leak!”
“Then everyone out! We have to leave before this whole building goes up in a ball of flames!”
The men staggered out of the library, their arms filled with as many books as they could carry. Jamie tucked his book into his shirt, and then ran through the burning periodicals until he was below the hatch. He looked up to the glowing ceiling.
“Beth! Lower the rope!”
Beth opened the hatch and peered over the edge. “Oh, Jamie! Thank heavens you’re safe! We have to hurry! There’s fire everywhere!”
The pulley quickly descended to the floor. Jamie clipped on the bag.
“Quickly, Beth! Take the bag up, then send the pulley down again for me!”
“Why the bag? Why not you?”
“We need the bag!” he shouted. “Hurry!”
The bag shot upwards and disappeared through the hatch. He waited impatiently for the pulley to return. Instead of the seeing the pulley reappear above his head, Jamie heard a terrified scream. Shadows moved on the roof, but the small hatch didn’t allow Jamie the chance to see any other detail.
“Beth! What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Suddenly, instead of the pulley, Beth herself fell through the hatch screaming and tumbled through the air towards the floor far below.
With the bag in hand, Wilkes ran for the edge of the building. He knew it would be only a matter of seconds before the building exploded like a giant bomb. He had to get off this roof or he would not be seeing that huge payday that was so tantalizingly close now that he finally had the book in his hands.
He didn’t much like the thought of killing a child, but if it meant he could leave undetected with one of the most valuable books in the world in his possession, then it was an easy choice for him to make. Besides, a fall from that height would be a quick and painless death for her. He looked at it as doing her a favour, compared to the other options he could have chosen for her.
He placed the bag down at the edge of the roof. He didn’t need all of the climbing equipment in the bag for his escape. He had already rigged up his own escape rope, which lay just ahead. He was an expert climber, and he could descend the wall in a blink of an eye. All he needed now was the book. He ripped open the bag and began to pull out the equipment. He threw aside the crowbar, the hook, two more coils of rope, and some clothes. His hands searched for more. The bag was empty! Where was the book! He turned the entire bag inside out in desperation. From the top of the parliament building, Jonathon Wilkes cried out in unbridled anger.
“No!”
Chapter 14
Jamie watched in horror as Beth fell through the hatch high in the ceiling towards the hard marble floor below. He threw himself directly underneath her falling body, extending his arms to catch her, bending his knees and readying himself for the impact.
Two things saved both Jamie and Beth from major injury. Beth was as light as a feather from her mistreatment on the farm, but still, the violent impact of her body knocked Jamie violently backwards. The other miracle occurred when their bodies crashed not onto the marble floor but into a large pile of leather-bound books