Page 69 of Booked for Theft

Schindler’s Ark was not listed. I narrowed my eyes and reviewed the rules, determining that the book title and author needed to be an exact match to be pursued in a court of law.

I could create a copy of Schindler’s Ark and distribute it—assuming they were the same book. Unfortunately, the rules, such as they were, made it difficult to check. I tapped on the entry on the banned book list to pull up the publisher information before checking the copyright page.

The book had the same publication year but had been printed in the United Kingdom rather than the United States.

Representative Forsythe had presented me with a treasure, one that I could weaponize if brave and clever enough. I checked the description of the book to discover it was about a man who’d worked behind the scenes to save the lives of Polish Jews during World War II, risking life and liberty to do so. Unlike the protagonist of Number the Stars, Oscar Schindler had belonged to the party murdering innocents in a genocide the United States wished it could erase so it could repeat history.

Like the other books, I found a sheet of paper inside. While Bradley checked Number the Stars, I flipped through Schindler’s Ark, discovering a series of ten pages hidden within. The first note proved to be the one that would change everything for us.

I stared in disbelief at the nugget of knowledge smuggled within the pages of a book President Castillo had deemed to only be worth fifty dollars at most.

“Bradley,” I whispered, afraid of raising my voice in case someone might hear us despite our precautions.

“Is there a problem?”

“According to this, the government hasn’t destroyed Senator Maybelle’s campaign information. It’s being stored in a warehouse—and if this note is accurate, it’s not a secure warehouse. It’s one of those small rental places off in the bush.” I plugged the town name into my phone to pull up a map, and rather than leave a trail that might point investigators at the warehouse, I panned around until I found the street before zooming in for a look at the street. “It’s one of those small storage places meant for one or two clients at a time. You know the kind. They’re the eyesores that look like they’re abandoned but people pay to store stuff in them, usually a small business with overflow of inventory.”

Once upon a time, Bradley’s father had done security operations for such places, and he still held some contracts, although he’d moved on to do better—and more profitable—security gigs. I reread the note several times, marveling over the risks Representative Forsythe took in an effort to bring down the government hellbent on reducing the population of Americans and eliminating those who might stand in their way. I passed the paper over to Bradley before checking the rest of his notes.

The remaining pages formed a list, and I recognized one of the names, an assassinated politician. Then, with a growing sense of horror, the list continued with the men and women within the military capable of committing the crime along with their dates of deaths and burial locations.

Had our government used the military to assassinate politicians, removing those who might, in some fashion or another, make a stand against tyranny? Sickened at the mere thought of the whole thing being a government operation, including a coverup, I gave Bradley the sheets. “This is worse than horrific.”

Bradley’s eyes narrowed, and after a few minutes of reviewing the intel, he sighed. “This explains so much. The little inconsistencies between the killings. The sloppiness of Senator Maybelle’s assassination—the weird botches. The fact we couldn’t figure out certain elements no matter how hard we looked. There would be no chance in hell we could solve this without this information. We were looking for a group of vigilantes.”

“Not the government ordering the military to clean house.”

Muttering curses, Bradley set the pages down. “And that means if we want to put an end to this, we have to clean out the government and bring the military under the control of someone else. They’ll just continue the assassinations otherwise. Exposing it will just mean we’ll be assassinated next.”

“And if we find out the truth, the cell would be in the line of fire.” I wrinkled my nose. “They want us, as a cell, to pin the blame on anyone other than the military.”

“And it explains why the FBI started assigning us to other task groups—anything other than the killed politicians. Someone in the FBI either knows or suspects it’s a government job.”

“And they’re protecting us?” I eyed Bradley. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to let us take the fall?”

“Only if their goal is to have us fall. But what if the military doesn’t want to be involved with these assassinations any more than we do? How better to keep potential troublemakers safe than distract? If we don’t find the truth, we stay safe.”

“But the politicians know.” I gestured at the list. “And he’s hiding the list of murderers and murder victims in a book about a vigilante rescuing those being targeted by genocide.”

“That part is as eloquent as it is brilliant. If we read between the lines, Forsythe wants to be like Oscar Schindler.”

I frowned, wondering how he’d known the protagonist’s name. “Explain yourself right this instant, Bradley Hampton!”

“I’ve read that book,” he informed me in a solemn tone.

My eyes widened. “You’ve read this book? But how? And you were eyeing me over a little literary felony?”

“My mother owns a paper copy of Schindler’s List.”

I gasped. “She does not!”

“She does.”

“And I never got to see it?”

“Janette, if you saw my mother’s felony book collection, you’d never leave her private study. She would be unable to get rid of you. She got them from the Library of Congress when she worked there. Librarians were permitted to take one box of banned books a day for a three week period under the condition they were not sold or distributed to the public.” Bradley sighed. “She told me about that part after we got back from Washington. I knew she owned banned books, but I hadn’t really cared where she’d gotten them from. While the librarians and all cleared out one box of banned books each, my mother ended up with most of them. The others were afraid of the potential consequences. My mother’s private study has well over a thousand banned books in it. Schindler’s List is just one of them.”

“The Library of Congress purged their AD fiction titles from the banned book list?” I asked, barely able to believe the government would go so far.