Meanwhile, Trey had drifted away from the chaos around McCarren and was hiding in the blackness across the street from the library. Sirens were screaming as more emergency vehicles responded. Helicopters were thumping the air loudly above the campus, though Trey could not see them. Around him, even the streetlights were out. There was not another soul near the library. All hands were needed elsewhere.

“All’s quiet outside the library,” he reported. “Any progress?”

“We’re cutting now,” came the terse reply from Mark. All five members knew that chatter should be limited. Denny slowly and skillfully cut through the metal with the torch tip that emitted eight hundred degrees of oxygenated heat. Minutes passed as molten metal dripped to the floor and red and yellow sparks flew from the door. At one point Denny said, “It’s an inch thick.” He finished the top edge of the square and began cutting straight down. The work was slow, the minutes dragged on, and the tension mounted but they kept their cool. Jerry and Mark crouched behind Denny, watching his every move. When the bottom cut line was finished, Denny rattled the latch and it came loose, though something hung. “It’s a bolt,” he said. “I’ll cut it.”

Five minutes later, the door swung open. Ahmed, staring at his laptop, noticed nothing unusual from the library’s security system. “Nothing here,” he said. Denny, Mark, and Jerry entered the room and immediately filled it. A narrow table, two feet wide at most, ran the length, about ten feet. Four large wooden drawers covered one side; four on the other. Mark, the lock picker, flipped up his goggles, adjusted his headlight, and inspected one of the locks. He shook his head and said, “No surprise. Combination locks, probably with computerized codes that change every day. There’s no way to pick it. We gotta drill.”

“Go for it,” Denny said. “Start drilling and I’ll cut the other door.”

Jerry produced a three-quarter drive battery-powered drill with bracing bars on both sides. He zeroed in on the lock and he and Mark applied as much pressure as possible. The drill whined and slid off the brass, which at first seemed impenetrable. But a shaving spun off, then another, and as the men shoved the bracing bars the drill bit ground deeper into the lock. When it gave way the drawer still would not open. Mark managed to slide a thin pry bar into the gap above the lock and yanked down violently. The wood frame split and the drawer opened. Inside was an archival storage box with black metal edges, seventeen inches by twenty-two and three inches deep.

“Careful,” Jerry said as Mark opened the box and gently lifted a thin hardback volume. Mark read slowly, “The collected poems of Dolph McKenzie. Just what I always wanted.”

“Who the hell?”

“Don’t know but we ain’t here for poetry.”

Denny entered behind them and said, “Okay, get on with it. Seven more drawers in here. I’m almost inside the other room.”