by Tim Tigner
Sabrina leaned in Katya’s direction. “It was a gift. Our dinner. We flew to San Francisco for a business consultation. Then the man we were supposed to meet had to cancel his trip. He gave us his prepaid dinner as an apology.”
“It was my birthday,” Katya said. “Kyle brought me there to propose. We never eat at places like Cinquante Bouches.”
Sabrina said, “Congratulations!”
Katya spread her arms and smiled. “Yes, this is quite the bridal shower.”
They giggled, hugged and shook their heads.
Once the moment of levity passed, Katya returned her attention to the drama down below. She watched as her fellow captives interviewed and argued, always in hushed tones. They’d cringe through the terms and calculations while the bankers browbeat them with ballpoint pens and crocodile smiles.
Each confrontation ended in one of two ways. Either with the client relocating to the have side of the room and the banker returning to the table, signed paper in hand, or with a stalemate that was temporarily set aside.
When the eighth banker finished his assigned round, he returned to the kitchen but didn’t take a seat. The other seven stood instead. They then split up, four by four, and began mounting the stairs. The pack was coming for them from both flanks.
27
Alternatives
Western Nevada
I’M NOT USUALLY one to suffer from mixed emotions, but this was no usual circumstance. Not by a long shot.
Since the days when we lived in caves, our species has reacted to danger in one of two basic ways. When the saber-tooth tiger approaches, some select flight, while others choose to fight. Like every other trait, this diversity has helped the collective survive—despite the individual sacrifices made along the way.
For most, the reaction to any particular situation will depend on the specific circumstance. My genetic coding, however, comes down heavy on the fight side of the spectrum. It’s more like a big iron bolt stiffening my spine than a logical calculation. It just happens. The threat presents, the bolt slides into place, then my feet test their grounding, my fists flex and my chest leans in.
All automatic.
All guaranteed.
In this case, someone wanted to take my house. The home my father had left me. The bedroom where I loved my future wife and the kitchen where we ate. You want to take that from me? You and what army?
The problem was the alternative.
I wasn’t just a stand-my-ground kind of guy. I was a self-sufficiency fanatic. That was the real reason I hadn’t chased my inheritance a couple of years back. I didn’t want to be given a lifestyle, I wanted to earn it. Where’s the pride in a fast car that drops into your lap from a benevolent sky? Where’s the satisfaction in a fancy meal you didn’t earn?
If I said “Hell no!” to selling the house, someone else was going to have to step in. To pay my freight. They would be the one saving my woman. And as petty and bullheaded as that might sound—even to me—I couldn’t live with that.
So I was stuck—between a rock and a cliff face.
Fortunately, I’m adept at dealing with both. Accustomed to creating third options.
But before going that route, I decided to listen to what Trey and company had to say. Perhaps they would surprise me.
The original four from Trey’s table approached me, while the four add-ons surrounded Oz. Sise was the first to speak. “You ready to work this out?”
“Sure. I’m a reasonable guy,” I said.
“Let’s start with your liquid assets. Checking, savings, stocks, bonds, 401k, IRA. What are we looking at?”
“Not enough.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Not nearly enough.”
“Well, surely you’ve got significant household income given where you were dining?”
“Special occasion.”
Sise shook his head in concert with his three colleagues. Their judgmental attitudes made me want to knock the smug expressions off their faces, but I kept myself in check. This was an exasperating situation all around, and it wasn’t their fault.
“How about non-liquid assets? Do you own property?”
“I have a house.”
This perked Sise up. “Where?”
“Palo Alto.”
“Is it worth four million?”
“Probably.”
“Well, all right then. We would be willing to cash it out for you.”
“Would you now?”
“Obviously, any excess over the ransom requirement would be immediately refunded.”
“So if it sold for five million, I’d get a million back?”
“Well, yes. Less interest and fees, of course.”
“Interest and fees?”
“You know, closing costs. Realtor commissions.”
“And interest?”
“Prime plus two percent, paid on the four million for the duration of the loan. It’s quite reasonable. Everyone’s been agreeable so far.”
“Have they, now?”
“Yes.” All four nodded.
“I’m going to see if I can do better.”
“What?”
I grabbed the pen from Sise’s hand. “I’ll seek competitive bids.”
Sise looked at his empty hand, then back at me, his puzzlement showing. “What competitive bids? Where?”
“Off you go,” I said, taking a half step forward while making a sweeping motion with the back of my free hand.
Sise backed up and looked at his friends. Trey rolled his eyes and the others shrugged. Then they turned and headed for the stairs.
Katya put a hand on my shoulder.
I put my arm around her and walked back to the railing to check the scoreboard. There were still eight people on the have-not side. With Katya and me, that made ten which equated to a twenty percent ransom shortfall. Twenty-four percent if Oz and Sabrina hadn’t come to an agreement either.
“What now?” Katya asked.
I turned to my love and said, “Time to take matters into my own hands.”
28
Drop Out
Western Nevada
I ENTERED the bedroom behind me and opened the wardrobe. It was packed with the clothes people had worn to dinner. Clothes far less suited for prison life than the medical scrubs they now wore. Mixed in with the wooden hangers were a few from a dry cleaner. The thin white metal kind. I freed one up and tucked it into the back of my waistband.
My next stop was the bathroom. I locked myself in a stall and went to work.
There are two nondestructive ways to open an elevator door. The first and far most common involves using a button either on the call panel or within the elevator itself. The second is the one used by emergency response and maintenance personnel, typically when the elevator is powered off. They have a tool called a drop key, which is inserted into the often-overlooked hole present high up on all elevator doors. It manually disengages the latch holding the door shut, allowing it to be opened by hand.
The drop key gets its name from its mechanism of action. Since you don’t want unauthorized people exposing elevator shafts, engineers came up with a clever design that’s been adopted as the industry standard.
Drop keys consist of a simple metal rod that has a handle at one end and a two-inch hinged tongue at the other. When the key is inserted far enough into an elevator keyhole, the tongue will drop down perpendicular to the floor, effectively creating a ninety-degree angle. If rotated counterclockwise, the tongue will press against the latching mechanism, causing it to disengage and allowing the elevator doors to be manually slid open.
To create my own drop key, I began by unwrapping the hanger and straightening it out. I then folded it in half to create a double wire. After measuring off a two-inch tongue, I wrapped each trailing strand tightly around the pen for one and three-quarter revolutions, leaving the tongue at a springy ninety-degree angle from the body.
To create its handle, I measured back six inches and then wra
pped the loose ends around the pen. Satisfied with the overall result, I flexed the excess wires until they broke, dropped the discarded ends into the toilet tank, secreted my new tool in the small of my back and left the restroom in search of Oz.
I found Katya and Sabrina huddled in tight discussion right where I’d left them, but Oz was neither on the walkway nor in sight below. As I walked toward the girls, Katya warned me off with a quick glance.
Wondering what that was about but certain I’d learn soon enough, I ducked into an empty bedroom and pocketed two pairs of white cotton socks. For many years now I’d only worn two kinds of shoes: climbing shoes while climbing, and approach shoes everywhere else. Approach shoes are a hybrid between climbing shoes and hiking shoes. They’re soled with sticky rubber and work fine on basic rock climbs or any parkour-type activity.
Heading downstairs, I found that people were no longer adhering to the this-side/that-side groupings Trey had orchestrated. There was no need. I was certain everyone had memorized exactly who was standing between them and their freedom.
I found Oz in the gym, running at what I’d call a frustration pace. I’d used it myself for a million miles, mostly after the accident that took me out of Olympic contention, but on plenty of other occasions as well. I took this as a sign that he hadn’t reached an acceptable banking arrangement.
Oz was alone in the room. He smiled when I came in. “Bankers are bastards,” he said, slowing his pace to lower the noise.
“In my experience, most professions have good and bad players, although the wily ones do tend to end up on top.”
Oz threw up both hands. “I just don’t have that kind of money. I run a startup, not a mature corporation. But rather than paying my portion with their pocket change, these guys are pushing me to mortgage the rest of my life.”
“They can’t force you. You can hold out. Four million means more to you than to them, so you’ll win.”
“You might win. They were prepared to lynch me even before affixing the freeloader label to my forehead. I don’t suppose you’re planning to hold out?”
British accent or not, I recognized the inflection of desperation in Oz’s voice. I stepped closer and he stopped running. “I’m planning to take things into my own hands, but I need your help with that.”
Oz raised his brows, expressing both curiosity and hope. “Do tell.”
“I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.”
29
Shafted
Western Nevada
ANYONE WHO HAS WORKED in extreme situations knows there are two kinds of people: those who fold under pressure and those who focus. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell for certain which a person is in advance. You can’t tell about yourself, and you can’t tell about others.
If the military could divine the answer, they’d save the billions that are regularly wasted on training people who ultimately can’t handle combat. Likewise, if individuals could, they’d save the years that are often wasted pursuing unsuitable professions.
I didn’t know if Oz had what it took to do what I needed, but I was about to find out.
I’d considered asking Katya to help me instead, since I knew for certain that she was tougher than a three-armed ape. Putting her in the spotlight, however, would highlight the fact that I wasn’t at her side.
So Oz it was.
At the moment, the bankers were busy acting like timeshare salesmen, putting pressure on the holdouts with this tactic and that, garnering guilt and playing on pride. None had gathered the gumption to hit me up again, but it was only a question of time. Meanwhile, Sise was busy taking a second pass at Oz.
From my seat on the floor in front of the elevator doors, I kept an eye on the argumentative pair as I flipped through my deck of cards. Oz made it through the first couple of minutes with snorts and shakes of his head. Then Sise leaned in so they were practically nose-to-nose. Oz reacted by throwing up his arms. He pushed past Sise and marched straight to the red box.
Turning his gaze toward the camera while raising both hands, Oz shouted, “Be reasonable. I don’t have four million dollars. Like most people, I can’t get four million dollars. There are plenty of whales in your net, why don’t you leave us minnows alone?”
Nothing happened.
That was the problem with my plan. It would only work if our captors were watching, and as we learned the last time the lights went out, they weren’t always watching.
Oz undoubtedly expected his initial outburst to be sufficient. A few critical words should have earned a reprimand. But his challenge garnered no reaction, so he had to improvise.
Once again, focus or fold became the question.
Once again, Oz came through.
“Instead of having these bankers do your dirty work, why don’t you simply up the demand on them? Five million from each banker will get you where you need to be in no time.”
By this point, everyone was staring wide-eyed at Oz, and all the bankers were on their feet. They were turning toward Trey for guidance, but he appeared clueless as a newborn foal.
“Well?” Oz said, shaking his fists at the sky. “Talk to me.”
The lights went out.
But Oz didn’t stop talking. “What are you, a toddler? Don’t get your way so you make a big fuss?”
I turned my attention to the elevator door the instant it was dark, knowing that for one reason or another, Oz wouldn’t be able to provide acoustical cover for long. Having mapped out my moves in advance, I had my makeshift drop key poised at the access port within a second.
Unlike a normal elevator keyhole, this one had a swinging cover similar to what you saw over some door peepholes. Installed as part of the hermetic seal, I was sure. Fortunately, it slid silently aside. The fit of my makeshift key was tight, almost too tight, but I forced it in. I felt the tongue spring free when it was about five inches in and began twisting it counterclockwise. The resistance kicked in and a second later the latch clicked.
Quickly but carefully, I pulled the elevator door open and leaned in enough to recompress the key and pull it back out. In the pitch dark, I couldn’t tell if the elevator was there or I was stepping into an open shaft. I probed with my foot and didn’t find a floor, so I balanced on the inside lip of the doorsill and then pulled the doors closed while listening for the latch to click.
Oz was still talking, bless his heart, but I tuned him out. The task at hand deserved my full focus and, in any case, he was on his own.
As was I.
I decided to climb down before up, figuring the floor couldn’t be far and reasoning that it would be easier to analyze the ascent options from firm footing. The pit turned out to be just five feet deep. I found a buffer spring on either side of the center, the cable pulleys and the guide rails. What I didn’t find was a ladder.
That was surprising. I was no expert, but I’d been through enough covert ops to see a few elevator shafts and they always had a ladder bolted to the wall. Ladders were integral to maintenance and troubleshooting.
I raised an arm overhead and felt along the entire perimeter just to be sure but found nothing. Perhaps they only installed ladders when the elevator accessed multiple floors.
Fortunately, I knew how to cope with situations like these.
30
Senseless
Western Nevada
THE FACT that the elevator shaft was completely dark, rather than just 99.9% dark, was somehow liberating. With no chance of getting any information from my eyes, I was able to ignore them.
My sense of touch took over, which was tactically advantageous. Touch was literally where the rubber met the road. Or the wall, in my case.
On the downside, the utter lack of directional reference was dangerous. It impacted both my balance and my split-second decision making, skills which were mission critical.
I knew the shaft was a double, servicing both electric and hand-cranked elevators, but little more. I hadn’t seen inside. So I set about exploring the sh
aft’s perimeter, using touch and my knowledge of what would typically be there.
Neither elevator was currently at basement level, but the weight stack for the manual elevator was, meaning the car was up top. Both the electric elevator and its counterbalance were somewhere in the middle of the shaft.
I inspected the manual counterbalance and found it to be about the same size as the stack on a gym machine. That fit with the two hundred fifty-pound weight limit Kai had mentioned.
Moving on to the rest of the shaft, I found the engineering at basement level to be bare bones, once I got past the gearing and greasy chain that drove the manual lift. No ladder, no framework, no electronic equipment. Just clean concrete walls with big fat springs at the bottom and supporting rails on two sides.
Elevator rails are the rough equivalent of railroad tracks, only instead of guiding a train from below, they keep an elevator on course from the sides. Since the shaft serviced two cars, it required a rail running down the center like a fire pole.
I could climb poles almost as easily as ladders, especially ones like this that required side supports every ten feet or so. But as I approached the center of the shaft, my nose and feet warned me away. This pole had been greased heavily enough to create a slick pool in the center of the floor.
That was an eerily insightful act of sabotage, undoubtedly perpetrated by my captors specifically to prevent climbing.
Friction is the climber’s friend, grease his archenemy. I’d need to avoid the pole like poison ivy.
With the ladder missing and the rails off limits, I had to explore other options. After carefully cleaning the soles of my shoes with spit and the legs of my pants, I paced out the size of the shaft. It was six feet deep and ten feet wide, with the central rail at the six-and-a-half foot point. Those dimensions indicated that the electric elevator was six-by-six, and the hand-cranked one was phone booth size. Probably felt like a coffin, given the lack of windows.