Precipice

by J. Robert Kinney

Only a few minutes had passed when, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted movement. Recognizing Yemi’s ridiculous salute as their prearranged signal, she nodded. She waited for him and that goon of a bodyguard to disappear around the building. There, they’d meet with another gun-for-hire, a Scandinavian gorilla named Anders, “transporting” the man who could get them into the vault.

  One of the computer gurus who helped develop, install, and maintain the current security system had been nabbed earlier that morning from his home. The poor man was one of the few individuals in the country whose finger and voice prints were coded to unlock the system.

  Leaning her head back against the pillar, she began preparations. She closed her eyes and took three slow, deep breaths, a tactic she learned from her mother who’d coached softball. It calmed her, relaxed her nerves, and gave her confidence to step up to the plate and get a hit. She led the league in hitting throughout high school. And though she’d moved on to bigger things since her sporting days, the principle remained the same.

  Mentally, she reviewed the situation. Five guards were on duty at the capitol today. It was generous to call them guards…they were Rent-a-Cops with guns. Two were stationed at the front gate. A third monitored the smaller back gate. Number four patrolled the main foyer, and a final one stood at the door to the vault.

  She was ready. In the blink of an eye, her hands dropped to her belt, and two silenced pistols emerged from their holsters. She twirled them in her palms as she rolled out from behind the pillar. Catching the pistols again partway through the spin, she pulled the triggers in one fluid motion. She only needed one shot from each.

  The two gatekeepers who lounged at the entrance fell lifeless to the ground. One more bullet shattered the lock mechanism and it swung open with ease. She shed her coat, used to conceal weaponry, in one motion for better mobility.

  Her brisk strides carried her through the open entrance and to the guard on the right. Roth bent down to borrow his security card, snapping the string it was attached to with a swift jerk. She glanced down at the card. Romeo Montoya, Senior Security.

  Heh, she chuckled. Ironic…Shakespeare’s ended up dead too.

  She slid the card inside the cleavage of her black V-neck tank top and straightened. From here, she spied the front door, but the angle made it impossible to see inside. This worked in her favor. If she couldn’t see inside, the guard in the foyer couldn’t see her outside either. She thrived on invisibility.

  Stepping inside the small, one-room gatehouse, she found the security console, one of three on the property. The capitol had two inside the building, but this third one at the outdoor guard house was a recent addition.

  Six TV monitors broadcasted alternating images from a few dozen video cameras positioned on the surrounding grounds and inside the building. Pretty standard technology for a government building. A control mainframe was in front of the monitors, smothered with a wide variety of drab gray and unlabeled buttons, dials, and switches.

  She smiled. A problem she knew she could handle. The most interesting, or perhaps ill-conceived, aspect of the security system was that any change made to the internal system at one site caused the others to sync, making the change permanent within the entire network.

  With the correct password, of course. A series of letters and numbers she didn’t possess. But what she had was better.

  Bending and coming to rest on one knee, she twisted around to see underneath the panel. Dozens of colored wires dangled above her head, but it only took a few seconds to locate the right cable, which carried the signal from the hallway outside the vault. She slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out a small device. She’d used this tiny piece of equipment a half dozen times in the last year alone, but it amazed her every time.

  No thicker than a cigar and about the length of a standard house key, the technological achievement she held in her hand cost prospective buyers several thousand dollars on the market, but she had cooked up this specimen herself.

  Its concept was simple enough. Tap into an audiovisual cable, record up to twenty seconds of video and play the recording over the actual footage, looping it on repeat ad nauseam. The real footage entering the camera was being replaced with this repetitive video feed. This was one of her favorite scams, a twist on a con popularized in the Ocean’s Eleven remake. Using it made her feel like more than a bone-headed killer. She was a true assassin and con artist.

  She deftly sliced the insulation surrounding the cable with a small pocketknife and affixed the gadget into place. She glanced above the desk at the video feed of the vault to make sure the monitors were clear of activity before activating the device.

  Thirty seconds later, a small beep notified her when the looped recording began playing over any real footage. Ten seconds after that, another beep indicated the feed’s successful synchronization with the entire system. Now any security personnel that might decide to check the monitors would be watching a tape and not live footage. At the second beep, she reached into her pocket again and, finding the other tiny radio device, depressed a small button on its side.

  Her task complete, she exited the guardhouse and strode up the walk toward the front of the building. She plotted her path to stay out of view of the foyer windows as long as possible, to retain the element of surprise when she reached guard number three.

  ***

  Inside, everything started smoothly for Yemi, the burly Nichols, and their companions. Their hostage resisted handing over his ID badge, but it was three large, muscular men against one spindly, pubescent computer geek. They wrenched the card from his feeble grip with no difficulty. Under the invisible power of the hologrammed badge’s magnetic stripe, the door opened without any trouble. The vault would require more effort than this exterior service entrance, but that was exactly why they kept the pipsqueak alive rather than simply pilfer the badge from his corpse.

  The opening of the door coincided perfectly with the appearance of a small indicator light on the pin at Yemi’s lapel. The lovely Jillian had succeeded. Their coast was clear. Yemi waved the group forward.

  The hallway they entered was part of the staff quarters. Mostly burned-out bulbs failed to light the dirt-covered concrete floors and cracked plaster walls. No signs or arrows guided them, but Yemi had spent hours studying the floor plans and blueprints.

  The stairwell behind the first door on the left led three stories down to the correct level. From there, a maze of hallways, unmarked doors, and dead ends stretched out beneath the entirety of the capitol grounds. It would have been long and cumbersome to navigate, but he’d discovered a loophole, the key to the maze.

  It lay hidden, known to only a select few, but he knew it must exist. Studying the floor plans hadn’t revealed much, frustrating him. But then he committed a very valuable mistake.

  The fire in the fireplace had almost died, but he was still awake. His night began at the office desk, his weary eyes poring over a virtual floor plan of the capitol he found online. It was a maze of hallways he’d have to traverse. It didn’t include the secret vault, but his source had tipped him off, so he knew where it was.

  But hours passed and he found himself still struggling to find that hidden loophole to the maze. In a fit of frustration, he’d yanked the mouse out by its cord and hurled it across the room. Cursing his temper, he watched in horror as it smashed against the wall, falling to the floor in pieces. He’d always possessed an uncontrollable temper, and his vexing inability to keep it in check angered him even more.

  Forced then to go rummaging through a crowded closet to find his old, backup mouse, he came across an idea that lit the light bulb over his head. Hidden deep in the recesses of his closet, behind all of the junk he’d hoarded, was an air vent that set him thinking.

  He smiled thinly. His instincts upon seeing that vent had sent him down a rewarding path. He’d returned to his computer and pulled up a different set of plans, a drawing more detailed and inclusive than a basic account of the door and window
locations.

  Using older, original blueprints from early copies of the building plans, he finally discovered the passage he needed. As part of the ventilation system, many air ducts crisscrossed this basement level. He’d seen enough American television to recognize this potential. It didn’t take long to spot an entrance point from one such duct into the same hallway housing the bank vault. As he traced out paths from that location, he came across a much shorter path from that vent to a stairwell bordering the outside wall.

  He led the way into the stairwell where they’d find the duct, but they soon encountered an unanticipated problem. As soon as he saw it, he knew it wasn’t going to work. All that research for naught.

  Not only did the vent appear much smaller in person than the blueprints suggested, which would require them to crawl belly down to squeeze through the pipes anyway, but it was bolted to the wall, not screwed on as expected.

  A trickle of sweat formed on his brow and his countenance darkened. He bent closer to examine the vent, noticing that in addition to the bolts, the frame had been soldered to the wall.

  He straightened, cursing aloud, and spun to face his companions. His pitch-black eyes, framed with narrowed eyebrows, flared enough to start firing lightning bolts. The other three backed away a pace.

  “We’ll need to go the long way. Nichols, you brought the plans, right?” he growled.

  The beefy man reached his thick hand into a jacket pocket and pulled out a small electronic device. Yemi snatched it away and flicked the switch, glad to see the small screen buzz to life. He hadn’t expected to need this, not until their getaway, but it was going to be a lifesaver. He’d loaded the hallway maze from the floor plans onto the mini computer, giving them a portable map to follow as they made their way through the twisted labyrinth.

  Furious at the delay, he shoved past Nichols and the other two men, knocking the computer geek against the wall, and stormed out of the stairwell. This was going to take a while.

  Chapter 37

  Traffic problems forced Shannon to park a few blocks away. Police barricades blocked off streets in all directions surrounding the parade festivities. She and Dominic, newly freed from his bonds, started the trek toward the capitol building.

  “You couldn’t have untied me earlier?” he grimaced, annoyance heavy in his voice. He’d requested new clothes, but she refused so as not to tip off Olayemi, so he was stuck wearing his torn rags. He massaged his wrists. The ropes had rubbed them raw and sore.

  She glanced back at him, a few steps behind, and sighed. “I didn’t want to take the risk you’d try something, especially while I was driving. I needed to explain myself first. I told you that already.”

  He grunted in response, knowing she was right.

  “Here.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a familiar holster and pistol. “I thought you might want this.”

  His firearm. He grinned for the first time since waking up. He tried to slip the holster over his shoulder, but winced. He’d have to secure the pistol in the back of his waistband instead. His wrists weren’t the only part of his body that hurt. He’d been kept in one position too long. Muscles screamed out in aching, throbbing pain. He fought to ignore it, hoping to loosen his muscles with movement.

  “So what’s our plan?” he asked.

  “We meet up with Yemi and the others at the vault.”

  “And do what? Don’t you think they’ll spot that my hands are free? We won’t get within twenty feet before they realize something’s wrong.”

  “Yemi won’t even notice. Once he gets his mind on a task, especially one as important as this, everything else becomes irrelevant. Besides, that’s where we get to use our acting chops. We’re -”

  “You mean pretend?” he interrupted, “Act like I’m still tied up?” He nodded, but remained skeptical. Her plan was risky and put him in a vulnerable position if anything went wrong.

  “Exactly. That’s why I wouldn’t let you change.”

  “What if they do notice?”

  “Just make sure your acting is up to snuff. They shouldn’t be able to tell anything’s wrong. And hopefully, by the time they do, backup will have arrived.” She sounded a lot more confident than he felt.

  “Backup?” he asked.

  “Sloan and Dax should already be on their way,” she responded. “And Dax will have phoned Washington by now as well.”

  Dominic fell silent. His mind spun, trying to get a handle on his new reality. So much had changed for him in the last 24 hours. Shannon first his loyal partner, then a treasonous double-agent, and now a triple agent, was back to being his partner. Plus, there was Amadi.

  Yemi had claimed he tortured his brother, yet kept him alive. Dominic hoped that was true.

  “Hey Shannon,” he broke the silence. “I’m sorry I brought up Brendon like that. I had no right to accuse you…”

  “Stop it,” she cut him off. “You didn’t know. You had every right.”

  “Well, I’m still sorry.” His reaction may have been justified in the moment, but he’d still broken a trust and hit a sore nerve.

  “I know,” she abruptly responded. “It’s okay. I promise.”

  They fell quiet again and this time, their silence carried them to the front gate. The lock was already broken, so they slipped inside the grounds without struggle. Two guards, in charge of patrolling the gate, lay prone and still. Dominic walked up to one and nudged him with his foot, flipping the body onto its back.

  The man’s frame was still warm and hung limp. Livor mortis—the pooling and setting of blood within the body—had not yet set in, so the kill was recent, within the hour. Blank, vacant eyes stared out into space from an expressionless face. A neat, rounded hole in the middle of the forehead, precisely between the eyes, was the origin of the puddle.

  Shannon exchanged a glance with Dominic. “Roth.”

  He nodded. The obvious guess. Both men had been taken down with one shot and no signs of struggle. They hadn’t even had time to flinch. One man was missing his security badge, ripped clean off of its cord. Shannon bent down and detached the other’s ID. They might need it at some point.

  “Let’s move,” she said, beckoning him forward.

  Dominic glanced up. Shannon headed off the path, toward the right, away from the building. He hesitated before calling after her, “Um…shouldn’t we be going that way?” he asked, indicating the front walk.

  “You don’t think Dax put me in this position without a few tricks up my sleeve, do you?” She didn’t break stride as she responded, requiring Dominic to break into a stumbling jog to keep pace. They traveled around the perimeter of the property until they arrived at a small, locked shed in disrepair on the backside of the acreage.

  Dominic gaped in confusion as Shannon raised her weapon above her head, and then swung it downward violently, the butt of the gun crashing into the lock with a loud, metallic clash. It gave way, maybe a millimeter, but stayed intact.

  She muttered something unintelligible before trying the blunt force technique again, harder this time. The second try did the trick and the lock snapped off. The door appeared to have fallen off one of its hinges and swung open on its own. Shannon grasped at the wood and shoved it aside. Dominic stared.

  The interior of the shed appeared about as unimpressive as possible. A few unstable-looking shelves and hooks were nailed into the wall and held a variety of rusty yard tools. Rakes, shovels, and hoes all hung at odd angles. A pile of hole-riddled fertilizer and mulch bags littered the wood slats below, which themselves appeared installed by an indiscriminate group of underdeveloped monkeys. Dirt and shimmery, silken cobwebs caked the rest of the shed.

  “Wh-?” Dominic couldn’t imagine what they were doing there.

  “Just trust me,” she smirked, apparently amused by his confusion. “Now help me with these bags.”

  Beginning to wonder if a few screws upstairs had come loose, he moved to help in a half-hearted attempt to humor her. He laid his holste
r to one side and they hauled out a half dozen thirty pound sacks before Shannon stopped and stared at the ground. Dominic followed her gaze to a rotting wooden floor. Not until she got down on her knees and started knocking did he catch on. A false floor, maybe a hidden trapdoor. That explained why the builder bothered with a wooden floor when dirt would’ve served the same purpose.

  “Secret passage,” Shannon grunted as she continued to work. “Installed during the Civil War for servants to enter the building without being seen at the front gate. Rumor has it, servants helped slaves hide out down here as part of the Railroad as well.”

  He watched in amazement as she placed both palms flat on the floor about a foot apart, one a couple inches ahead of the other, and shoved downward and to one side. At first, nothing happened. Then, very faintly, a soft click. Dominic’s jaw dropped as the floor give an inch, and then another, before a secret panel dropped and slid to the right, disappearing underneath the rest of the floor.

  Shannon coughed as dirt and dust kicked into the air. “It was abandoned in the late nineteenth century and largely forgotten. Hadn’t seen a person in years until our government decided to use it,” she continued. “It was installed off book, so it’s not included on any blueprints.”

  “Unbelievable.” Dominic leaned forward to get a closer look. “Did Dax tell you all this?”

  Shannon chuckled and nodded. “The government has a lot of secrets.”

  The sudden disappearing act of the floor panel exposed a deep cavity descending far into the soil beneath. Shannon reached into her pocket and produced a flashlight, then motioned for Dominic to close the shed door behind them.

  He did as she asked, managing to wedge the off-kilter door against the wood frame, shuttering them in darkness. Flicking the flashlight on, she hoisted her body around and lowered herself into the opening. The beam of light revealed an old, rickety metal ladder that probably hadn’t been used in decades. Spider webs crisscrossed the rungs, and the metal was taken over by the bane of iron, rust. That can’t be safe.