I TRIED MOVING to different parts of the floor I was on, to see if it was just a momentary signal disruption, but there was no place on this floor with signal. If they were using some kind of jammer, I needed to find that before I could make any calls.
If they were using a jammer, it would probably either be on this floor somewhere, or they had a really powerful jammer on one of the other floors. It didn’t seem likely that they had one that big, because it would take out a lot of nearby buildings. But those buildings would be closed this time of night. So unless another security guard in another building was trying to call someone, they might not even notice. I held onto the notion that some other building was going through the same problem as me and laughed a little. Unlikely situation.
Still, though, if there were a jammer, as long as I could get out of the building, I might be able to make a call. Or maybe just go to one of the lower or upper floors to get out of the jamming zone.
I ran to search the security desk again, to make sure there was nothing that looked like it might jam a cell phone. I found a protein bar. So I ate it on the way to the elevator.
The elevator buttons were, indeed, locked out, so I couldn’t use them. I opened the stairwell door as quietly as one can open a stairwell door and looked up and down. I figured the best direction to head was down, since it was the fastest way to the ground floor, without falling. My chief concern, of course, was that the truck that belonged to this gang was there. If they still needed to get equipment from it, they would bring it back up here. I was on the middle floor of the bank, so I had one more floor below me which my keycard had access to. That seemed like the next place to check.
As I made my way down to the floor below, a question nagged at me. Why rob a virtual bank? And, in particular, why rob this virtual bank? It’s not like there was any money here. There wasn’t even a vault. This seemed like a pretty sophisticated operation just to break into an ATM. Hell, I’m sure the dentist’s office had more gold than this bank did. Maybe they were after something from the software companies? A new release of a game, perhaps? A state-of-the-art video card? No, they only made accounting apps, as far as I could remember. Some kind of state-of-the-art video card accounting app?
No, probably not.
As I approached the third floor, I heard movement from below. I quickly made for the door and pulled out my keycard, hoping these things were still working. The red light above the card scanner reassured me that it was. I swiped the card and was greeted with a friendly beep. An awfully loud beep, though, and I heard the stairwell come alive with the sound of footfalls and gear. I pushed the door open and went inside the darkened floor, closing the door shut behind me.
Well, as long as they didn’t have some kind of forged keycard, I’d be safe. I worked my way into the lower floor of the bank. This was the main floor of the bank; the lobby and meeting rooms. The place where you brought the clients to show them how nice your bank was. Unfortunately, the coffee machine here didn’t work either, otherwise I would have been down here doing rounds more often.
As I went deeper into the first floor, working my way past the elevator lobby, I heard a faint, friendly beep coming from the stairwell door. It seemed these guys were much more sophisticated than I gave them credit for. I ran to the far end of the floor and ducked into a boardroom, crouching under the table, when my phone started buzzing again.
It was Sarah! I must have come clear of the jamming radius.
“Hey cowboy,” she said. “Straight to voicemail? How very unlike you. Don’t tell me you were busy drawing a gun.”
“Funny story,” I said. “I was busy disassembling a gun.”
“Really? What’s going on?”
“Some losers have taken over the building. I think there’s one on my tail right now.”
“Come on, Virtue. Don’t want to talk to me, just say so.”
“No, this is real. Why does nobody take me seriously? Is it something in my voice?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I called 9-1-1. But the lady thought I was making a prank call. I think these guys must have reached out ahead of time. Then they disabled the phone system and installed a cellular jamming device.”
“That explains all the voicemail calls.”
“Yeah, so, can you do me a favor? I may need someone else to contact Emergency Services. But you can’t make it seem like it’s a break-in. It’s got to be something else.”
“Like a fire?”
“Yeah, or a terrorist attack. Something in a nearby building that will drive the police into this area. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to find some other way to mess up their plans.”
“Hey, what are their plans?”
“I haven’t sorted it out yet. There’s nothing really valuable at this bank. There’s not even a vault.”
“Okay, Virtue. I’ll be your Al Powell. I’ll call the police, get them over there, and maybe if I’ve got time, I’ll try to figure out what these mooks are after.”
“Mooks?”
“Oh, my God, I hope that’s not racist.”
“Against whom?”
“I don’t know. I’ll stop calling them that.”
“I think it’s an okay term. Just a little hard-boiled, is all.”
“Cool. I’ll get the cops over there and try to figure out what these guys want. But you gotta do one thing for me, okay?”
“Sure, but later, after you buy me dinner and get me drunk.”
“That’s not what I was asking for, Virtue, but I like your style.”
“Figured.”
“I want the exclusive.”
“The exclusive what?”
“The exclusive. I want the story. Don’t talk to anyone else. No other media. Got it? This will be my big scoop!”
“Okay, whatever. You have the exclusive.”
“Yes!”
“Gotta go, Sarah, bad guy incoming—” I hung up on her. There was, indeed, a bad guy coming. He was heading straight for the boardroom, so I had to find a way out, since he was alert, and there were only so many exits on this level.
The first level of the bank was mostly meeting rooms, a small kitchen, a lobby, waiting area, and most of the computers needed to run a bank this size; about half of the floor was taken up by the server rooms. These computer systems fed into the second floor, where the administrative and security areas were, and the third floor, where the accountants and executives lived. If I could get up there, it was likely the place where these mooks were working. Again, unless they were breaking into the dentist's office, or maybe the textbook company. I’m not sure why they would be, but everything was possible at this point.
I grabbed a dry erase marker from the nearby whiteboard and tossed it out the door to the far end of the floor, hoping I could repeat the success from earlier, but it was no good. The moment the marker hit the far window, the figure quickly scanned the area, then turned directly into the boardroom.
It was Leblanc. He had the same gun as the other two, but also had a satchel over his shoulder: a black tactical bag, heavy, with loaded pockets. He moved with much more care than the other two and was clearly the ex-military guy. I knew he’d be a problem, and I knew the next place he’d look was under the boardroom table.
I kicked out a chair opposite me. He immediately began firing. It was full automatic fire, and he took out the chair and the window behind it. A blast of cool outside air washed over me, and I felt newly invigorated. The bullets also invigorated me, but in a different way. I lurched forward and struck him in the ankle with the baton. He crashed to the floor and filled the ceiling with more bullets. I ran up and kicked him in the ribs as I shot around the corner.
But Leblanc wasn’t down for long. He was back up before I reached the elevators, and I heard more automatic fire around the same time as fancy wood paneling near my head exploded in a cloud of splinters. I ducked down a side corridor and could either head back to the stairwell where he knew I’d be going, or to another meeting room. With the meeting room, I stood a better chance of evading him immediately, but at the cost of actual escape. There were no other ways out of that wing, so I’d have to wait it out, hoping he thought I headed for the stairs.
I took the latter option, but as I turned the corner, I could make out an audible blip, the kind at the end of a digital communication over a tactical walkie. Sounded like an effect from the game Pac-Man. He obviously wasn’t playing Pac-Man, which meant there were more people headed this way. I should have run for the stairwell.
Damn. If only this place was full of air ducts.
Double damn. I’d gotten this far and forgotten that I had one of their machine pistols. I’d also left it in the boardroom during the firefight. There was no way I could double back on him; I’d just entered a multimedia presentation room. It was a little smaller than the boardroom, but bigger than most of the offices. I ducked under the table and bumped my elbow on the cable box that went into the floor.
I could see the feet of Leblanc in the windowed wall of the room. I knew it was him, because he was hunched over and limping. Felt pretty good about that.
And then, as I was rubbing my sore elbow, an idea hit me. A really dumb one.