I HEARD THEM break through the door, though I was in no position to see them. What followed was a lot of swearing and shouting at me, wondering when I was coming out to face the music. There was even some half-hearted shooting into the ceiling. Luckily, I had moved out of the server room through the suspended ceiling and was now close to the stairwell. I still couldn’t get through to the stairwell, of course, since the drop ceiling ended at the exterior wall. I had to descend through it, but I waited until the hallway was clear.
While I was waiting, I got a call from Sarah. She told me she called the police, but they gave her the runaround. Said the entire area was closed off to traffic because of reports of a chemical leak, and they asked her to stop making prank calls.
“You too?”
“Yeah, what’s a girl got to do to get a little attention?”
“Tell me about it,” I said, grunting a little.
“Where are you?”
“In a ceiling.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll keep it short then.”
“Much obliged,” I said, adjusting my feet so that I didn’t fall through the fiberglass tiles.
“So, if they’re not after anything in your bank, there’s always the mining office below, on the first couple of floors in your building.”
“Oh yeah, the mining company. What do they want in there? Mining equipment? Maybe some land deeds? Some proprietary mineral information?”
“You said the bank mostly does business electronically or through partnerships with other banks, right?”
“Yeah. That’s why there’s no actual money here.”
“The mining company has their own vault!”
“They do?”
“Sure. These resource-based organizations need to pay all their remote workers around Canada. They probably employ a lot of contractors and temporary workers, especially those working in remote mining facilities and in small settlements up north.”
“Their own vault … that would be something worth all this effort.”
“Makes sense that they’d handle all of their own payment logistics. They’ll work with a bank, but it’s mainly for accounting services and electronic banking.”
“I don’t know. These guys brought a lot of explosives, but I haven’t seen if they’ve got anything big enough to blow up a vault.”
“Well, it’s a thought. I’ll keep digging on this side, and I’ll try to get the cops down there. Maybe I can get a couple of people from the newspaper to make separate calls into 9-1-1. But I’m worried that the more calls I make, the more likely they are to think it’s a coordinated series of pranks.”
“Okay, but short of taking all these guys on, what am I supposed to do?”
“You could just leave.”
“I could.”
“Honestly, Virtue, everyone’s avoiding that place. Nothing short of an explosion will bring the authorities down there.”
“And that will definitely happen if they try to blow the vault. I’d better get busy and try to stop them.”
“Okay, but here’s the thing …”
“I’ll take care of myself.”
“No, I want that story. Don’t you die on me!”
And just like that, she hung up.
You haven’t lived until you’ve been stuck in a suspended ceiling. Something about distributing your full body weight across multiple dusty fiberglass panels, possibly laced with asbestos. Tiles which really aren’t supposed to support any weight above an obese mouse. Sure, there are sheet metal frames attached to ceiling struts which can hold a little more, but if you really want to challenge yourself, try just using the panels. It’s a hoot.
I was wondering how much longer I could lay this way without breaking something (possibly a leg). I’d already spent the better part of five minutes trying to find a way down which didn’t involve either gunfire or falling. It would likely be at least one of the two. But the night was young; there was no reason I couldn’t indulge myself with both options.
Finally, as I was about to make a move, I could feel my foot rip right through a panel, like Hulk Hogan through a T-shirt. I froze and wondered what to do next. It was as if my life flashed before my eyes, and it was just me falling down stairs for thirty-odd years.
As I was hanging on for dear life, I could hear a commotion below me. The gunmen were regrouping. They seemed frustrated and a little panicked. I recognized the first voice as Leblanc. The second guy was unfamiliar. He was probably the dude who got called over the radio.
“Mitchell says we’re almost through to the miners. But we’ve broken the drill. I’ll need to go back to the truck. Hold on to the bag, and I’ll be right back. Don’t let the guard escape this floor.”
“Why not just use more explosives?”
“Because not enough will fuse the hinges, and too much of it will attract attention. We’ve got maybe an hour before the police get wise to our tactics. If we start blowing things up, every cop between here and Toronto will be on our ass.”
Sarah and this guy were right: a thundering explosion would be the best way to get the cops on these guys. But, one thing was nagging at me. What’s this got to do with my bank? And if it’s the money they’re after, why keep coming up here if you’re going to blow the miner’s vault? Maybe they were up here because of me? The one witness in the building? Who’s still running around freely, able to gum up the works? Honestly, I didn’t feel very free right now—I felt more like a polar bear on thin ice. And my foot was getting itchy from all the fiberglass in my shoe.
I heard the stairwell door slam, and a bunch of things happened at once. First, Sarah called back, and my phone, my pants, and the entire ceiling started vibrating. Second, the vibration from the slamming door unleashed a rather unfortunate chain reaction, causing the ceiling panels to dislodge completely. Third, the guy below me uttered a surprised yelp and started shooting up at the ceiling, further upending the delicate equilibrium which held me aloft. And fourth … I dropped like a hot plate at a cruise ship buffet.