Description:

Quiet architect Paul Farrell dreams of painting prehistoric cave walls and walking the Silk Road in times past. He’s also wanted for four murders in Paris, and Interpol Inspector Ballard and his partner are on the case. Farrell walks off a plane at JFK and into a hail of police gunfire and is pronounced dead on arrival. His death seems to tie up all the loose ends for NYPD detective Charlie Rains, but then the body is stolen by paleoanthropologist Alan Kedward.

Ballard and Rains are back on the case, more and more convinced that Farrell is somehow still alive. They follow the trail left by Kedward and quickly realize that he’s more than a simple history professor. A sinister figure called the Inquisitor has also taken an interest in finding the fugitives – and the secrets they carry in their souls…

"Buckle in and enjoy the ride!"
— Wanda Keesey, Polka Dot Reviews

Excerpt:

James 'Jazz' Harper loved the night shift and being in charge of Airport Security; it did, however, occasionally get too dull even for him. So when the call came, it made his night — at first. Paul Michel Farrell, a French citizen wanted for a multiple murders in Paris. Requests for assistance from law enforcement weren't unusual. As soon as the fax with the mug shot came through, Harper called for backup from Port Authority. A SWAT team with a couple of marksmen just seemed like a good precaution. Harper gave the orders for the well-rehearsed sequence of operations, with the repeated message that this was not a drill. By the time Grant reported back to Harper, all entrances and exits to Terminal 1 were closed off, although the average bystander would have noticed nothing unusual.

"AF 008 landed at twenty-one hundred hours exactly, five minutes ahead of schedule," said Harper half to himself as he read over the fax again. "He's already been on the ground forty minutes plus. The booking clerk in Paris told the cops the guy only had carry-on baggage, which means he didn't have to wait at the carousel. He's had enough time to get through Customs. We're probably already too late."

He swore to himself. Even though the delay had been due to some idiot in the Dispatch Center getting the time difference between Paris and New York wrong, his people would be the ones taking the heat if this guy got away.

"Where did the plane come in?" Grant said.

Harper set down the fax and squinted at the monitors. "Gate 9. You got Terminal 1 all closed off now?" Grant nodded. "Good. Replay me the tape from that camera."

Some sleepy businessmen disembarked first, carrying leather briefcases and laptops, followed by a small group of yawning students and two families with small children. Not one of the emerging faces looked toward the surveillance camera until the twentieth passenger––a man in his mid-forties with a lean build and curly hair, wearing a turtleneck sweater and jeans––glanced directly up and at the camera as he passed beneath it.

“That's him!" Harper said. "Run it back. Where's that picture?"

He snatched up the fax with its mug shot as Grant stopped the tape at the frame in which the passenger was looking straight at them. There was no question. It was him.

"That was twenty-one-twenty," said Harper. "It's twenty-one-forty-five now. There is no way we got it shut down before he got out." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. This was going downhill fast.

"There!" Harper pointed at the monitor. He watched intently as the man approached the doors then turned left into the corridor leading back to the main Terminal 1 concourse. "Where the hell's he going? What's the time there?"

"Twenty-one-forty. We got the call at twenty-one-fifty-six and everyone was in place in under three minutes. Christ! He may just still be here!"

Harper straightened up, ready to head out the door. "Put out the alert. Tell everybody he may be in the main concourse. If they see him, tell them to keep him in sight but not approach him unless he tries to leave. Got that?"

Grant nodded, tugging at his headset. "On it." He paused, his jaw dropping open. "Boss! I think I got him!"

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