Page 24 of The Presidents Shadow

SQUEEZING THROUGH. MOVING roughly. Sideways, shoulder first, it takes me exactly six minutes to arrive at the recently unveiled Harvard Hall of Science.

I turn back to look at the crowd, but they are lost in a fog bank, like smoke from a nearby town.

I know it’s the steam rising from the bubbling, boiling water.

The doors of the Hall of Science fly open as students, professors, and men and women in white lab coats all hurry out of the building. Most of them head for the river, carrying beakers and racks of test tubes. Inside, I stop three ordinary campus security guards who are rushing out.

“Have you seen Dr. Atticus Henry?” I shout.

“I don’t know who the hell I’ve seen,” one of them says. Then they disappear into the crowd.

I glance at the framed office directory on the lobby wall and learn that Dr. Henry has an office and lab on the tenth floor. The highest floor. The elevators have been locked down. Great.

I run up the service stairway to the tenth floor, a long hallway that’s completely deserted. When I locate Dr. Henry’s office, I don’t stop to knock. I barge in and find a distinguished-looking white-haired man, perhaps seventy years old. This must be Dr. Henry.

Dr. Henry is calmly pressing some buttons on a handheld computer. He looks up at me and smiles.

“Ah, you must be my three-o’clock appointment. Mr. Cranston, I presume.”