The Book Heist

Agent Hatch looked for his target. The library wasn’t packed, so it wouldn’t be difficult to spot her. The place had brown walls, brown carpet, and brown shelves. Agent Hatch stood out with his large frame, causing the librarian to eye him for the last half hour. He was glad he picked up a book on his way to the small brown table in the middle of the room. The librarian couldn’t get onto his ass for loitering.

Agent Hatch usually enjoyed libraries, the smell of paper and dust, the quietness, but with the silence and the suspense, and the fact that he had no idea who could be lurking between those shelves, it made what would be a comforting place into a phycological nightmare.

Sweat slid slowly down his back, giving him goose bumps in the cold air conditioner.

How much longer would it take before­—

A woman with a stiff back strode into the library. She was tall, had her nose up in the air, and didn’t look at the librarian as she passed the front desk. She glided across the floor like she’d told gravity to back off.

She didn’t look like someone who would smuggle highly sensitive information for terrorists, but Hatch had been in the business long enough to recognize the signs. It was the gait. The gait wasn’t arrogance, it wasn’t uppity. It only came with years of practice and screwing over so many people that you couldn’t be bothered to care about what they thought of you, for your own sake. Hatch’s walk resembled that.

He pretended to read as the woman strode past him. She didn’t give him a glance as she stopped between a couple of bookshelves. He could hardly blame her. Despite his build, Hatch was an unassuming man, with blond hair grayed at the temples, and coat that looked rumpled and well-worn like he had raided a Goodwill donation box and picked whatever was on top.

The woman opened her purse and pulled out a hardback book. It was hard to see the cover, but it was colorful like it belonged to a child. She slid it onto the shelf and then walked away like nothing happened. Out the door and onto the street.

Hatch stood up and made his way over there, casually. He took the book off the shelf. The sleeve was taken from a Junie B. Jones book of all things, but inside was a different story entirely. That was smart. No one would suspect international secrets to be within the pages of Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentine. Hatch slipped it into his ragged coat pocket, and then left the library.

Outside, the street bustled with people, all rushing to get somewhere on time. The book rested heavy in his jacket. It felt strange harboring international secrets in his pocket in the broad daylight.

The book was dangerous. In code, it held names and addresses of important people who possessed knowledge they shouldn’t, and whose survival was based on whether the bad guys knew where they lived. Hatch’s job was to intercept the book on its travel to those equipped to kill very important people, and then get it to the good guys.

He pulled out his phone and sent a message to his superiors.

Got the book. Where is the drop point?

They responded immediately:

Maple Leaf Library. Change the cover and put it on a shelf. Another operative will take it from there. You have one hour.

Another library? Why? Hatch thought about it as he put the directions of the library on his phone. He guessed that if he changed the cover, finding the right book would be like looking for a piece of hay in a haystack.

Maple Leaf library was about thirty-minutes away. In this congested city, he could get there faster than he could drive. Besides, it had been a while since he’d taken a stroll down the street. The city was pretty, or ugly, depending on whether you liked cities. It was the same with the library. Drab and worn down, but comforting, if you had the right memories attached to it. Hatch figured it was sort of like the smell of gasoline. Some people couldn’t stand it, while others cherished it. The smell reminded him of summers and long car rides. Of going places.

Hatch was being followed. He snapped himself out of whatever nostalgic fog he’d lost himself in and sharpened his senses. Yes, he could hear it. Someone behind him walked with the same cadence as he did. While everyone rushed about, his stalker matched Hatch’s speed.

It must have been the person who was meant to pick up the book from the library, only to find that it was gone. Hatch took a sharp right turn beside a building, crossed the street, and kept going. He checked his phone.

Fifty minutes until his deadline was up.

He didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t get to Maple Leaf on time. He’d probably end up dead or assigned to a desk job somewhere. He didn’t know which was worse.

He kept an even pace. Unfortunately, it didn’t fool his stalker.

Enough of this.

An idling motorcycle sat on the street as its owner paid the parking meter. Without hesitation­—Hatch had been trained not to hesitate­—he swung his leg over the bike and took off. In his rearview, he could see the owner of the bike chasing after him, and the man who had been following him with his hands in his hair, panicked.

Hatch swerved between cars as he took out his cellphone. He changed the directions setting from walking to driving, hit “Go”, and then yanked the handlebars to the left as a car ran a red light in front of him.

The bike fell out from underneath him as Hatch was sent into a roll. Rolling and rolling until he came to a stop.

Ow.

Not his best moment.

He didn’t know where he was. The skyscrapers around him were blurry as people crowded around. Their eyes were wide, and their hands covered their mouths.

Yeah, just stand there would you?

He might’ve said the words aloud, because a couple people started to call an ambulance.

Ambulance. Hospital. Records. Laying vulnerable in a bed with his ass hanging out of the back of a gown. It wasn’t the best situation to be in when you were in this line of work.

He’d landed awkwardly on the ground, his back against the cold concrete, his legs and butt twisted to the side. It hurt to right himself, but he eventually managed it. Nothing was broken, which was more than he deserved if he was being honest with himself, which was a rare thing indeed. His only injury was a deep scratch on his forehead that leaked blood down his face, and two skinned knees. And probably a road burn here and there.

He pulled himself to his feet, slowly, achingly. He looked about him and then grabbed the phone a pedestrian was using to call an ambulance.

He ended the call and then tossed it back to her. “Thank you for the concern.”

He could be a nice guy when it benefitted him.

The book.

Shit.

Where was it?

The book had been in his coat. He checked, but he already knew it wouldn’t be there. He looked around, but there was nothing on the ground except broken glass and a little blood.

The people watched the spectacle before them. Some had gotten their phones out to record the miracle man who had survived a motorcycle crash, or the mad man who turned about in a circle staring at the ground like it was about to collapse beneath him.

Remain calm. Remain calm. Remain-

One of the pedestrians held something close to their chest as they strode away from the scene. He stood out like a sore thumb. It was the man who had been tailing him.

Hatch bent down and grabbed his phone. The screen was completely smashed, but he could make out the time in the top right corner as he pushed through the crowd.

Thirty-five minutes until that book needed to be in the library.

He sprinted after the man, who ran as soon as he knew Hatch spotted him. He was fast, but he wasn’t trained. He couldn’t make himself unseen like Hatch could­, other than his crash and searching the ground frantically like a crackhead looking for his next fix.

This mission was going down the pisser.

The man turned down an alleyway and came upon a dead end. He whipped around and stumbled back. The book shook in his hand.

It was just a kid.

He was maybe sixteen years old, gangly and baby-faced. Hatch could see the whites of his eyes from down the alleyway. His entire stance, feet apart and arms slightly to the side, made him look like he was about to take flight.

Hatch hated kids. He hated them because they were stupid. How did this boy get involved with this? Kids didn’t belong in Hatch’s world, and yet that is why his enemies liked to use them against him. They were his one stupid weakness.

“Just hand it over, Kid.”

The kid shook his head like a sprinkler. “I can’t, they’ll kill me.”

Hatch’s shoulders slumped and he breathed in and out. He would find a very painful way to kill whoever put the kid up to this.

He lifted his gaze. “They won’t. I’ll help you. Just hand it over.”

The kid kept his distance and handed over the book. Hatch took it, and the ground felt a little more stable for a moment.

The kid’s face was sweaty, and Hatch could smell the fear coming off him. He made sure to move slowly as he brought out his wallet and handed the kid a fifty-dollar bill.

“Take this and get on the next bus out of town. It doesn’t matter where you go, just get out of here.”

The kid backed up. “They’ll find me­—”

“They have bigger things to worry about,” Hatch said, raising the book. “They don’t care about you—”

Someone yank the book from his hand and kick him in the back. Unprepared, Hatch stumbled to his hands and knees. The kid yelped and scampered back. By the time Hatch pulled himself to his feet, he saw a man running out of the alleyway, the book in his hand.

Hatch cursed. He turned back to the kid. “Just get out of here, alright?”

He stuffed the money into the kid’s hand and then sprinted after the man.

Out on the street, Hatch saw the man cross the road and enter another alleyway. He followed, but had to skirt out of the way as he was almost hit by a car. The driver blared their horn. Hatch flipped him off and continued his chase.

That would have been the second accident today.

Hatch had been trained in the art of espionage, and has had to kill people on occasion, and yet a mission that involved returning a library book was one of his most hectic and stressful missions for a long while.

Finally, he reached the alleyway. It was dark and it smelled like piss. It had a dead end, blocked off by a high chain-link fence. The man clung to the middle of it, trying desperately to get over the edge.

Hatch sprinted down the alley and pulled the man off the fence. It was a man this time, not a kid, so Hatch had no qualms about landing a fist in the guy’s stomach. The book fell out of his hand and Hatch snapped it up.

The man recovered quickly. Hatch should have seen it coming, but his head must have still been fuzzy from the accident. The punch landed on his cheek and he stumbled. His assailant tackled him to the ground where they rolled in the garbage grease and stagnant water. If a bystander were to catch a glimpse of them, they would have thought it was merely a back-alley brawl.

The truth was much, much stranger; two grown-ass men fighting over a Junie Bee Jones book that wasn’t actually a Junie Bee Jones book, which held the personal information of the most powerful people in the world. If the info got out, it could break countries.

After a lot of grunting and fumbling, Hatch got the man into a choke hold. It only took him a few seconds to pass out. A dead body would only draw attention, so Hatch stopped there. The man was probably just another hired hand anyway.

Hatch stood up and grabbed the book off the ground. It was grimy now, and blood had soaked into Junie’s shirt, but the pages were intact. That was all that mattered.

“Sorry to put you through this, girl,” Hatch mumbled as he put the book back in his coat. Yes, he definitely couldn’t rule out head trauma.

He checked his phone. Ten minutes, and he still had to get across town. He sighed, resisting the urge to throw his phone. He would have if it wasn’t his only connection to his superiors. A failed mission on accident was a lot more forgivable than a mission failed because Hatch had dropped off the grid.

Hatch left the alleyway and walked into the sunlight. Maybe, if he sprinted the whole way,­ he’d make it on time. That was hopeful to the point of desperate idiocy.

He was accepting his fate and getting ready to initiate the dreaded call to his superiors when a car pulled up next to him. Hatch immediately put distance between himself and the vehicle. If one more person tried to get this book away from him­­—

It was the kid from earlier, looking at him through the window like an over-eager puppy.

“Get in,” he said from behind the wheel.

Hatch looked both ways down the sidewalk. He didn’t see anyone sneaking up to stuff him in the car.

The kid waved his hand frantically. “I’m not on their side anymore, come on.”

What the hell. It wasn’t like Hatch couldn’t overpower the kid of he tried to trick him.

“Move over,” Hatch said.

The kid’s face fell. “But—”

Hatch opened the door and shoved his shoulder. The kid fumbled into passenger seat, glaring at him. Hatch now sat behind the wheel. Cars honked behind them, and he started to drive.

“Look up the address to Maple Leaf Library,” Hatch said.

The kid obliged, and they sped down the road. Hatch hoped they could make it on time.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Eddy. Yours?”

“Hatch.”

Eddy frowned. “Like an egg?”

“Like a hatchet.”

“That makes more sense.”

“Whose car is this, Eddy?”

Eddy shrugged. Hatch looked at him.

“Hey, the bad guys picked me for a reason.”

Eddy reminded Hatch of himself. That wasn’t a good thing.

“How do you know I’m not a bad guy?” Hatch asked.

“They threatened me. You didn’t.”

Hatch grunted, and then stepped on the gas.

It didn’t take them long to get to Maple Leaf Library. It made Hatch revaluate his decision to walk to the library earlier, instead of driving. Whatever. What was done was done.

Hatch left the kid waiting in the car as he stumbled into the library. He looked a mess. Sweaty, dirty, and bloody. He was late by two minutes. He swiftly switched the cover of the book­—he felt bad, him and Junie had been through so much together—and slid it onto the shelf.

He made eye-contact with a man reclining in a rocking chair on the other side of the library. They nodded at each other. That was Agent Gunther, he would take the book and transfer it to the higher-ups.

He left the library and met with Eddy. Hatch sent the kid on his way, fifty dollars in hand, after making him promise he’d put the car back where he found it.

And just like that, he was done.

Onto the next job.