Alex went first, followed by Annabelle and then Caleb. When they’d finished, Reuben said, “Caleb, I apologize. It looks like you stood your ground pretty well.”

“Apology accepted,” snapped the federal librarian.

Alex said, “Okay, Knox knows Oliver is John Carr. He knows what he did at CIA. He knows that he killed Simpson and Gray. And he wants him badly.”

“And he thinks we can lead him right to Oliver,” Caleb replied. “But we can’t. Thank God.”

“Don’t be thanking God yet, Caleb. He knows where we are and our connection to Oliver. They’ll use that.”

“How?”

Annabelle answered. “Leverage. To reel Oliver in.”

Caleb exclaimed, “What do you mean? Use us as bait? That’s preposterous. We are United States citizens. Knox is a public servant.”

“That line didn’t even work in the fifties,” said Alex. “He’s a public servant with a job to do. Nail Oliver. And while he’s on the run, we’re left as targets.”

“So should we all go into hiding?” Annabelle asked.

Alex said, “That’s pretty much impossible for me to do. But Annabelle, you definitely should dig a deep hole and get in it. Reuben too. Caleb, how about you?”

“Why would Oliver have left us in this impossible situation?” Caleb groused.

“He didn’t have much choice,” Reuben answered. “If we’re right, he popped two giant VIPs on the same day. You don’t go have coffee after that and wait for the SWAT team to tap on your door with a battering ram.”

Caleb shook his head. “Even if Oliver did kill them—and despite the letter he left behind, I bet he didn’t leave any evidence for them to find.”

“Damn it, what point aren’t you getting, Caleb?” Reuben exclaimed. “These guys don’t care about prosecuting his ass. They just want him. They’ll squeeze whatever useful information he has out of him and then put a round in his brain. He was a former government hit man who had to go on the run because Gray and Simpson screwed him over and tried to kill him.” Reuben said this last part while staring at Alex. “Oliver’s been on the run for thirty years. And then they killed Milton. And don’t forget, Harry Finn told us that Simpson admitted that he was the one who ordered the hit on Oliver and his family way back when. If ever a man had a reason to kill somebody it’s Oliver, to hell with what the law says.”

“So they might be afraid of what Oliver might know about past government missions,” Caleb said. “And they’d want to silence him?”

“Now you’re thinking like a librarian,” noted Reuben wryly.

Annabelle said, “But there might be another way, I mean instead of us going underground.”

Alex leaned against the wall. “What do you have in mind?”

“We find Oliver and help him really get away.”