THERE WAS A lot of pain for about twenty to thirty seconds. And I may have blacked out for at least another half a minute. When the dust had literally settled, I was lying on top of several broken ceiling panels, and the unconscious shooter. Nice one, Virtue.
As soon as I got my wind back, I stumbled to stand up, but found one of my arms was not cooperating. The strange angle of my right arm suggested it was broken, and the blood suggested there was a bullet in there somewhere. I wasn’t sure if it was the fall or the gunshot which broke my arm, and right now it didn’t matter. I grabbed the shooter’s gun, but it was jammed, having been smashed against the floor under our combined weight. If I had some tools, I’d probably be able to fix it on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
This was not that.
I rolled over into a sitting position, propping my back up against the wall, and took stock of the situation. Broken arm. Bleeding. No gun. And a shoulder bag with a half dozen bundles of plastic tubing and timing devices. Detcord? I always wanted to try this stuff out. This must have been what they used to blow the parking garage door earlier. From the thickness, it looked like it might be 40 grain, maybe 50. It might not blow a vault door, but if they linked this with other, bigger explosives, it would be easy. And loud.
There were no other explosives in the bag, which meant they weren’t expecting a large vault door … or maybe they kept the bigger explosives in the truck until they needed them.
I’d worry about that later. I needed to get out of here, fix my arm, and find a way out. I grabbed one bundle of Cordtex and a timing device and struggled to my feet. Cradling my arm as best I could, I made for the stairwell.
I stumbled up to the third floor of the bank—Floor 5, for those keeping track. I used my keycard to get inside, and it was one place where they hadn’t been yet. Clearly, they weren’t interested in anything here, so I stumbled to the upstairs break room. This one had no coffee machine, but did have a workstation that was operational. Maybe it was so people could check emails during lunch. Honestly, if your job is so intense that you have to check emails during your lunch, you may as well eat at your desk while looking for another job. I dug around in the silverware drawers and found napkins, both paper and cloth, a cloth table runner, and a sharp steak knife. I used the knife to cut the table runner into strips, which I then used to bandage my arm, using the napkins to staunch the bleeding. There wasn’t anything I could use to make a splint, and I figured I should stop screwing around and get back to work. Instead of the splint, I took the rest of the table runner and made a sling for my arm. The forearm was slightly S-shaped, and I wasn’t about to bend it back. It’d have to stay like this for now.
First aid completed, I planted myself in front of the workstation, logging into the security app with my credentials. When I started working at the bank, the first thing I did was snoop through all the network systems I had access to, which was how I found out I could run the network security app from any workstation in the building. It just hadn’t been necessary to do so until tonight. I brought up the camera feed and tried to figure out where these guys were headed. It was weird that Leblanc mentioned coming back upstairs when the mining company was clearly downstairs—below the bank’s floors. I wondered where the mining company’s vault was.
My phone vibrated again, telling me it still worked, and that Sarah was trying to call me again. I fumbled with it for a few rings, then answered it with my nose.
“Hey Virtue, what’s going down? Still in the ceiling?”
“No, I found a way out.”
“By falling?”
“Yes, by falling.”
“Are you okay?”
“Gonna need a plaster cast for a few weeks.”
“Oh my God, seriously?”
“Yeah, but you should see the other guy.”
“Jesus, Virtue, you’ve got to take better care of yourself.”
“I know, I know. But trouble is my side business.”
“How is business, anyway?”
“Business is good! I’ve disabled three of their guys—”
Sarah jumped in. “Hey, before you say anything else, I’m recording this call.”
“What, really?”
“I’ve … uh, been recording all the calls since they broke in.”
“Why?” I let the word drag on for almost five whole seconds.
“For my big scoop. And—” I could practically hear her raise her index finger, “—and to give you some leverage when this whole thing is over. You’ll be able to refer to this recording as evidence, in case anyone blames you for any of the damage, or whatever.”
“I see. Okay, that kind of makes sense.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “So, if you’ve killed anyone, don’t say it over the phone.”
“Uh, Sarah, you just said something deeply incriminating.”
“I wasn’t recording just then. But I’m turning it back on now.”
“Okay, well, thanks.”
“So, where are you right now?”
“I’m in the upstairs break room. I’m guessing their cell phone jammer is a short range device, and I’ll bet it’s sitting in the elevator one floor below. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be talking.”
“What’s your next step?”
“I’m just looking at the security feed for the building. They’re not on this floor, and they’re not doing anything with any of the bank’s other floors. Well, except chasing me around. Honestly, I can’t figure it out—I heard them mention miners … and drilling through a door. But here’s the thing: if they’re busting into a miner’s vault, it’s nothing to do with this bank or Green River Minerals. It’s something else. And it’s upstairs.”
“Have you got cameras on all the floors?”
“I don’t know. I don’t patrol any of the other floors, so I mostly just look at the stairwells, the outside, and the ones that cover the bank and the lobby.”
“What’s the action in the stairwells?”
“Well,” I said, bringing up the stairwell feed. “I’ve got the one guy, Leblanc. I think that’s him. He’s heading upstairs. He’s got a bag and a couple of small tanks with him. Looks like an oxy-acetylene rig. He’s definitely cutting something.”
“Where’s he headed?”
“Well, let’s see. I’ve got a camera feed on each floor of the stairwell. Let me flick through those.”
“Where would he be going if not the miner’s business?”
“Well, he’s passed the miner’s and bank’s levels. That’s floors one through five. He’s passed the medical floors on six and seven. The software companies on eight and nine. The, uh, insurance guys on ten. No, that’s the architecture firm. He’s slowing down.”
“He’s slowing down?”
“Yeah, he looks tired. I bet those tanks are heavy.”
“Okay, well, now where’s he going?”
I smiled. “He’s still resting.”
“Virtue!”
“Okay, he’s on the move again. Floor eleven is the insurance guys, and he’s passing that floor.”
“So, the next one? Who were those guys?”
“Textbooks or something.”
“Textbooks?”
“Yeah. Oh, hey, he’s walking past them too.”
“Well, what’s left?”
I shrugged, but she couldn’t see. “The roof?”
“What’s on the roof?”
“I dunno. Nothing. Wait, he’s stopping at another floor.”
“There’s a thirteenth floor?”
“I’ve never been up there. There’s no thirteen on the elevator.”
“That’s not too unusual. Sometimes they skip right to fourteen. It’s a superstition thing.”
“There’s nothing higher than twelve.”
“Maybe it’s it a maintenance floor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Virtue! I thought you knew everything about that building.”
“Why would you think that? I’m a nighttime security guard.”
“Well, what’s he doing?”
“He’s going through the door on the thirteenth floor. I’m just going to double check the feeds again.” I scanned through the cameras once more. “Yup, there’s a thirteenth floor in this building. Think that’s where the miners keep their vault?”
“Well, get up there and stop them!”
“Okay, okay. Just—”
“Just what?”
“Just, I might need to black out for a few minutes.”
“What?”
I felt a chill surround me, and the edges of my vision closed in. I dropped the phone and everything went black.