Who Was the Irst Woman Reading Names or The911

Chapter One

THE HEIST

ane.

The imposter borrowed the proper name of Neville Manchin, an bodily professor of American literature at Portland State and soon-to-be doctoral educatee at Stanford. In his letter of the alphabet, on perfectly forged college stationery, "Professor Manchin" claimed to be a budding scholar of F. Scott Fitzgerald and was neat to run across the great writer'due south "manuscripts and papers" during a forthcoming trip to the East Coast. The letter was addressed to Dr. Jeffrey Brown, Director of Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Firestone Library, Princeton University. It arrived with a few others, was duly sorted and passed along, and eventually landed on the desk-bound of Ed Folk, a career junior librarian whose task, among several other monotonous ones, was to verify the credentials of the person who wrote the letter.

Ed received several of these letters each week, all in many ways the same, all from cocky-proclaimed Fitzgerald buffs and experts, and even from the occasional true scholar. In the previous calendar year, Ed had cleared and logged in 190 of these people through the library. They came from all over the world and arrived wide-eyed and humbled, like pilgrims before a shrine. In his thirty-four years at the same desk-bound, Ed had candy all of them. And, they were non going away. F. Scott Fitzgerald connected to fascinate. The traffic was every bit heavy at present as it had been three decades before. These days, though, Ed was wondering what could peradventure be left of the great writer'south life that had non been pored over, studied at neat length, and written about. Not long ago, a truthful scholar told Ed that in that location were now at to the lowest degree a hundred books and over ten k published academic articles on Fitzgerald the man, the writer, his works, and his crazy wife.

And he drank himself to decease at forty-four! What if he'd lived into old age and kept writing? Ed would demand an assistant, maybe 2, perhaps even an entire staff. But then Ed knew that an early expiry was oftentimes the key to subsequently acclamation (not to mention greater royalties).

Afterward a few days, Ed finally got effectually to dealing with Professor Manchin. A quick review of the library'south register revealed that this was a new person, a new request. Some of the veterans had been to Princeton so many times they simply chosen his number and said, "Hey, Ed, I'll be there next Tuesday." Which was fine with Ed. Not so with Manchin. Ed went through the Portland Country website and found his man. Undergraduate caste in American lit from the Academy of Oregon; main'due south from UCLA; offshoot gig now for three years. His photo revealed a rather plain-looking boyfriend of perhaps xxx-five, the makings of a beard that was probably temporary, and narrow frameless eyeglasses.

In his letter, Professor Manchin asked whoever responded to practise so by electronic mail, and gave a private Gmail accost. He said he rarely checked his university accost. Ed thought, "That's considering yous're simply a lowly adjunct professor and probably don't fifty-fifty have a real function." He often had these thoughts, but, of course, was too professional to utter them to anyone else. Out of circumspection, the next day he sent a response through the Portland State server. He thanked Professor Manchin for his letter of the alphabet and invited him to the Princeton campus. He asked for a general idea of when he might arrive and laid out a few of the basic rules regarding the Fitzgerald collection. There were many, and he suggested that Professor Manchin written report them on the library's website.

The reply was automatic and informed Ed that Manchin was out of pocket for a few days. Ane of Manchin's partners had hacked into the Portland State directory only deep enough to tamper with the English section's eastward-post server; easy work for a sophisticated hacker. He and the imposter knew immediately that Ed had responded.

Ho hum, thought Ed. The adjacent day he sent the same message to Professor Manchin's private Gmail address. Within an hour, Manchin replied with an enthusiastic thank-you, said he couldn't wait to get in that location, and so on. He gushed on about how he had studied the library's website, had spent hours with the Fitzgerald digital archives, had owned for years the multivolume serial containing facsimile editions of the great author's handwritten get-go drafts, and had a particular involvement in the critical reviews of the first novel, This Side of Paradise.

Great, said Ed. He'd seen it all before. The guy was trying to impress him before he even got there, which was not at all unusual.

2.

F. Scott Fitzgerald enrolled in Princeton in the autumn of 1913. At the age of sixteen, he was dreaming of writing the swell American novel, and had indeed begun working on an early on version of This Side of Paradise. He dropped out four years after to bring together the Army and go to war, merely information technology concluded before he was deployed. His classic, The Great Gatsby, was published in 1925 just did not become popular until later on his expiry. He struggled financially throughout his career, and by 1940 was working in Hollywood, cranking out bad screenplays, failing physically and creatively. On Dec 21, he died of a heart assail, brought on by years of severe alcoholism.

In 1950, Scottie, his daughter and merely child, gave his original manuscripts, notes, and messages—his "papers"—to the Firestone Library at Princeton. His five novels were handwritten on inexpensive paper that did non historic period well. The library quickly realized that it would be unwise to allow researchers to physically handle them. High-quality copies were made, and the originals were locked away in a secured basement vault where the air, light, and temperature were advisedly controlled. Over the years, they had been removed only a scattering of times.

iii.

The man posing equally Professor Neville Manchin arrived at Princeton on a beautiful fall twenty-four hours in early October. He was directed to Rare Books and Special Collections, where he met Ed Folk, who then passed him along to another assistant librarian who examined and copied his Oregon driver's license. It was, of course, a forgery, but a perfect one. The forger, who was likewise the hacker, had been trained past the CIA and had a long history in the murky world of private espionage. Breaching a fleck of campus security was inappreciably a challenge.

Professor Manchin was then photographed and given a security badge that had to be displayed at all times. He followed the assistant librarian to the 2d floor, to a large room with two long tables and walls lined with retractable steel drawers, each of which was locked. Manchin noticed at least four surveillance cameras high in the corners, cameras that were supposed to be seen. He suspected others were well hidden. He attempted to conversation up the banana librarian only got fiddling in return. He jokingly asked if he could see the original manuscript for This Side of Paradise. The assistant librarian offered a smug grinning and said that would not be possible.

"Accept you ever seen the originals?" Manchin asked.

"Only once."

A pause as Manchin waited for more than, and then he asked, "And what was the occasion?"

"Well, a certain famous scholar wished to see them. We accompanied him down to the vault and gave him a look. He didn't affect the papers, though. Only our head librarian is immune to do then, and just with special gloves."

"Of course. Oh well, permit's go to work."

The assistant opened ii of the big drawers, both labeled "This Side of Paradise," and withdrew thick, oversized notebooks. He said, "These contain the reviews of the volume when it was first published. Nosotros have many other samples of later reviews."

"Perfect," Manchin said with a grin. He opened his briefcase, took out a notepad, and seemed set up to pounce on everything laid on the table. Half an hr subsequently, with Manchin deep in his piece of work, the assistant librarian excused himself and disappeared. For the benefit of the cameras, Manchin never looked upward. Eventually, he needed to find the men's room and wandered away. He took a wrong turn here and another one at that place, got himself lost, and eased through Collections, avoiding contact with anyone. In that location were surveillance cameras everywhere. He doubted that anyone at that moment was watching the footage, but it c

ould certainly exist retrieved if needed. He found an elevator, avoided it, and took the nearby stairs. The offset level below was similar to the footing floor. Below information technology, the stairs stopped at B2 (Basement 2), where a large thick door waited with "Emergencies Merely" painted in bold letters. A keypad was next to the door, and some other sign warned that an alarm would sound the instant the door was opened without "proper authorisation." Two security cameras watched the door and the area around information technology.

Manchin backed away and retraced his steps. When he returned to his workroom, the banana was waiting. "Is everything okay, Professor Manchin?" he asked.

"Oh aye. Just a flake of a stomach problems, I'm agape. Hope it's not contagious." The banana librarian left immediately, and Manchin hung effectually all day, earthworks through materials from the steel drawers and reading sometime reviews he cared nothing about. Several times he wandered off, poking around, looking, measuring, and memorizing.

iv.

Manchin returned three weeks later on and he was no longer pretending to be a professor. He was clean shaven, his hair was colored a sandy blond, he wore fake eyeglasses with red frames, and he carried a bogus student card with a photo. If someone asked, which he certainly didn't expect, his story was that he was a grad student from Iowa. In existent life his name was Marker and his occupation, if i could call it that, was professional person thievery. High-dollar, world-class, elaborately planned smash-and-grab jobs that specialized in art and rare artifacts that could be sold back to the desperate victims for ransom. His was a gang of v, led by Denny, a former Army Ranger who had turned to crime later on existence kicked out of the military. So far, Denny had non been caught and had no record; nor did Marker. However, two of the others did. Trey had 2 convictions and two escapes, his concluding the yr before from a federal prison in Ohio. Information technology was there he'd met Jerry, a petty fine art thief at present on parole. Another art thief, a quondam cellmate serving a long judgement, had first mentioned the Fitzgerald manuscripts to Jerry.

The setup was perfect. There were merely five manuscripts, all handwritten, all in one place. And to Princeton they were priceless.

The fifth member of the team preferred to work at home. Ahmed was the hacker, the forger, the creator of all illusions, but he didn't take the nerve to behave guns and such. He worked from his basement in Buffalo and had never been defenseless or arrested. He left no trails. His five per centum would come off the top. The other four would take the rest in equal shares.

By nine o'clock on a Tuesday night, Denny, Marker, and Jerry were inside the Firestone Library posing as grad students and watching the clock. Their imitation educatee IDs had worked perfectly; not a single eyebrow had been raised. Denny found his hiding place in a third-floor women's restroom. He lifted a panel in the ceiling above the toilet, tossed up his student backpack, and settled in for a few hours of hot and cramped waiting. Marking picked the lock of the principal mechanical room on the beginning level of the basement and waited for alarms. He heard none, nor did Ahmed, who had hands hacked into the university's security systems. Marking proceeded to dismantle the fuel injectors of the library's backup electrical generator. Jerry found a spot in a written report carrel hidden amid rows of stacked tiers holding books that had not been touched in decades.

Trey was drifting around the campus, dressed like a student, lugging his backpack, scoping out places for his bombs.

The library closed at midnight. The 4 squad members, as well as Ahmed in his basement in Buffalo, were in radio contact. Denny, the leader, announced at 12:fifteen that all was proceeding equally planned. At 12:20, Trey, dressed like a educatee and hauling a bulky backpack, entered the McCarren Residential College in the heart of the campus. He saw the aforementioned surveillance cameras he had seen the previous week. He took the unwatched stairs to the second flooring, ducked into a coed restroom, and locked himself in a stall. At 12:forty, he reached into his haversack and removed a tin tin can near the size of a 20-ounce canteen of soda. He fix a delayed starter and hid information technology behind the toilet. He left the restroom, went to the third floor, and set up another flop in an empty shower stall. At 12:45, he institute a semi-nighttime hallway on the second floor of a dormitory and nonchalantly tossed a string of ten jumbo Black Cat firecrackers down the hall. As he scrambled down the stairwell, the explosions boomed through the air. Seconds later, both smoke bombs erupted, sending thick clouds of rancid fog into the hallways. Equally Trey left the edifice he heard the first wave of panicked voices. He stepped backside some shrubs near the dorm, pulled a disposable phone out of his pocket, called Princeton's 911 service, and delivered the horrifying news: "There's a guy with a gun on the second floor of McCarren. He's firing shots."

Fume was drifting from a second-floor window. Jerry, sitting in the nighttime study carrel in the library, made a similar telephone call from his prepaid prison cell telephone. Soon, calls were pouring in as panic gripped the campus.

Every American college has elaborate plans to handle a situation involving an "active gunman," but no i wants to implement them. Information technology took a few dumbstruck seconds for the officer in accuse to push the right buttons, but when she did, sirens began wailing. Every Princeton pupil, professor, administrator, and employee received a text and e-mail alert. All doors were to exist closed and locked. All buildings were to be secured.

Jerry made another call to 911 and reported that two students had been shot. Smoke boiled out of McCarren Hall. Trey dropped 3 more fume bombs into trash cans. A few students ran through the smoke equally they went from building to building, non certain where exactly the safe places were. Campus security and the Urban center of Princeton law raced onto the scene, followed closely by half a dozen fire trucks. And so ambulances. The kickoff of many patrol cars from the New Bailiwick of jersey State Police arrived.

Trey left his backpack at the door of an part building, and so called 911 to report how suspicious it looked. The timer on the last smoke bomb inside the haversack was ready to go off in ten minutes, just as the sabotage experts would be staring at information technology from a distance.

At 1:05, Trey radioed the gang: "A perfect panic out here. Fume everywhere. Tons of cops. Go for it."

Denny replied, "Cutting the lights."

Ahmed, sipping potent tea in Buffalo and sitting on go, quickly routed through the school's security console, entered the electrical filigree, and cut the electricity non only to the Firestone Library just to half a dozen nearby buildings as well. For good measure, Mark, now wearing night vision goggles, pulled the primary cutoff switch in the mechanical room. He waited and held his jiff, then breathed easier when the backup generator did not appoint.

The ability outage triggered alarms at the fundamental monitoring station within the campus security circuitous, but no one was paying attention. There was an active gunman on the loose. There was no time to worry well-nigh other alarms.

Jerry had spent two nights inside the Firestone Library in the past calendar week and was confident there were no guards stationed within the edifice while it was closed. During the night, a uniformed officer walked around the building once or twice, shined his flashlight at the doors, and kept walking. A marked patrol motorcar made its rounds too, merely it was primarily concerned with drunk students. Mostly, the campus was similar whatsoever other—dead between the hours of ane:00 and eight:00 a.m.

On this nighttime, nonetheless, Princeton was in the midst of a frantic emergency as America'southward finest were beingness shot. Trey reported to his gang that the scene was full chaos with cops scrambling nigh, SWAT boys throwing on their gear, sirens screaming, radios squawking, and a million ruby and blue emergency lights flashing. Smoke hung by the trees similar a fog. A helicopter could exist heard hovering somewhere close. Total chaos.

Denny, Jerry, and Mark hustled through the nighttime and took the stairs down to the basement under Special Collections. Each wore nighttime vision goggles and a miner's lamp strapped to his forehead. Each carried a heavy backpack, and Jerry hauled a small Army duffel he'd subconscious in the library two nights earlier. At the third and final level downwardly, they stopped at a thick metal door, blacked out the surveillance cameras, and waited for Ahmed and his magic. Calmly, he worked his way through the 50

ibrary's alarm organization and deactivated the door'due south four sensors. In that location was a loud clicking noise. Denny pressed downward on the handle and pulled the door open. Within they found a narrow foursquare of infinite with two more than metal doors. Using a flashlight, Mark scanned the ceiling and spotted a surveillance camera. "There," he said. "Just one." Jerry, the tallest at half-dozen feet three inches, took a small can of blackness paint and sprayed the lens of the camera.

Denny looked at the two doors and said, "Wanna flip a money?"

"What practice you see?" Ahmed asked from Buffalo.

"Two metal doors, identical," Denny replied.

"I got nix here, fellas," Ahmed replied. "At that place'due south nothing in the system beyond the first door. Start cutting."

From his duffel Jerry removed ii eighteen-inch canisters, one filled with oxygen, the other with acetylene. Denny situated himself earlier the door on the left, lit a cutting torch with a sparker, and began heating a spot six inches higher up the keyhole and latch. Within seconds, sparks were flying.

Meanwhile, Trey had drifted away from the anarchy around McCarren and was hiding in the black 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 run across them. Effectually him, even the streetlights were out. There was not some other soul about 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 Marker. All five members knew that chatter should be limited. Denny slowly and skillfully cutting through the metal with the torch tip that emitted viii hundred degrees of oxygenated heat. Minutes passed as molten metal dripped to the floor and crimson and xanthous sparks flew from the door. At one signal Denny said, "It's an inch thick." He finished the top edge of the square and began cutting straight down. The piece of work was wearisome, 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 cutting line was finished, Denny rattled the latch and it came loose, though something hung. "It's a commodities," he said. "I'll cut it."

Five minutes later, the door swung open up. Ahmed, staring at his laptop, noticed nothing unusual from the library'due south security system. "Nix hither," he said. Denny, Marker, and Jerry entered the room and immediately filled it. A narrow table, two feet broad at about, ran the length, nearly ten anxiety. Four large wooden drawers covered 1 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. At that place'southward no way to selection it. We gotta drill."

"Get for it," Denny said. "First 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 Marking applied as much pressure equally possible. The drill whined and slid off the contumely, which at first seemed impenetrable. But a shaving spun off, then another, and equally the men shoved the bracing bars the drill bit ground deeper into the lock. When it gave fashion the drawer even so 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 blackness metallic edges, seventeen inches by twenty-2 and three inches deep.

"Careful," Jerry said every bit Marker opened the box and gently lifted a thin hardback book. Mark read slowly, "The collected poems of Dolph McKenzie. Just what I always wanted."

"Who the hell?"

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