Hard Target

by Tibby Armstrong

  That was the theory and the plan anyway. Not that in Alex’s experience things ever went to plan in these situations, but they had a pretty good shot at coming out unscathed with a trained team and both Jenny and Gun on the inside. Not to mention Simon’s firsthand knowledge of Downing’s business space layout.

  Simon’s watch vibrated. “Time.”

  Alex fingered the interior latch. Keeping one of her hands on the cable along the inside, she made certain the trunk didn’t open too far when the mechanism released. The faint click had them both holding their breaths. Listening. When no shout or alarm was raised, Alex edged forward and peered out. The bay had gone dark when the motion sensors hadn’t detected movement for over fifteen minutes.

  Alex pushed the trunk open fully and the fluorescents buzzed to life overhead, illuminating the loading dock. She climbed out before Simon who then checked for things that might’ve fallen off their belts. He closed the trunk and they crossed to the elevator.

  They waited in silence as the car moved toward them from the sixty-fourth floor where Jenny had sent it from above. The elevator stopped at a sub-basement below the loading dock, one floor below their location. Using a tool shaped like a mini jaws-of-life, Simon inserted the tip between the exterior set of elevator doors and pressed a button on the jack. The tool mechanically pried the panels open while he and Alex put on cavers’ headlamps and adjusted their fit.

  Simon looked to her. Alex nodded and slid sideways through the space. Inside, she dropped to the top of the elevator car below and Simon followed her before retrieving the tool. They both spent a moment staring up the dark shaft where their lights disappeared much too soon. It was a long way to Downing’s floor. Gloves on, they waited in a low crouch. The elevator lurched beneath and she and Simon reached toward one another for balance.

  “In case I don’t get the chance to say it later,” Simon whispered, squeezing her arm for emphasis. “Thank you. For everything.”

  Tears pricked at her corners of Alex’s eyes at the unexpected sentiment from this man who’d guarded his heart from her so carefully. She forced a smile that belied the more intense emotions coursing through her. “You can thank me later. Some more.”

  Six floors up, the elevator stopped and Simon frowned at her. Alex shrugged. Then, the doors opened below and passengers got on. As they rode down to the lobby, Alex gave Simon a horrified look. Jenny and Gun must’ve been interrupted before they could call the elevator. How in the world would they get the car to the correct floor?

  The car climbed to the fortieth floor next, judging by the number of doors she counted. She and Simon waited as the people exited and the panels closed again. This time the elevator remained motionless.

  “Can you fit through the trap door in the ceiling?” Simon whispered.

  Alex nodded and listened for a moment before using her pocketknife to jimmy the opening. She dropped through, landing lightly on her feet.

  Simon’s tousled ginger mop of hair poked upside down through the little door and she grinned up at him before poking the button for a higher floor than they’d originally thought to reach. The elevator lurched upward once more and Alex sprang up to catch the lip of the trap door with her fingertips. She slipped and fell to the ground.

  “Ouch,” she whispered, rubbing at her hip.

  Standing, she held her arm up this time and Simon leaned down to grasp her wrist. He hauled her up as if she weighed no more than air. They were both situated, with the trap door hooked shut only moments before they came to a halt almost twenty floors above.

  They began the climb in silence, unable to risk someone on a lower floor hearing so much as a sneeze. Though his arms were stronger and he could climb more quickly, Simon let Alex go first. If he slipped and fell, it was unlikely she’d be able to save him. The other way around, at least there was a chance of him saving her. Good thing he loved the gym almost as much as he loved a book.

  At the next floor up, they rested, using the ledge in one of the doorways to sit and take a drink of water from Simon’s hip flask. Legs dangling, they both peered down. When their eyes met, Alex grinned. She loved this kind of adventure. She just wished they weren’t working together under such dire circumstances.

  Still smiling, Alex jumped off the ledge to catch the pipe they’d been climbing a few feet down from their current position. Simon still clawed the air helplessly where she’d been, when she looked up.

  “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” he whispered.

  Nudging her chin toward the upper stories, Alex mouthed the word, “Climb.”

  They’d agreed Simon would go through the door at the top first. More muscle and all that, but he also knew the security code. As for whether or not there’d be any guards to greet them, they couldn’t know. Knowing his sister would be heavily guarded, they’d decided to fake Downing out and steal that which he couldn’t afford to have stolen first—records of every illegal transaction and business transgression he’d likely ever committed. With some inside knowledge garnered from an FBI mole as well as Simon’s own observations, they discovered he kept a room-sized safe on the floor housing his offices. They’d kick that hornets’ nest to gain insurance first, and pray everything went according to plan after.

  The walls of the safe room, according to building blueprints, were steel over concrete. The thing was thick and to blast through it would cause more noise than they could afford. So, they had two options. Software to crack the lock. Or fiber optics and drilling. Simon preferred the software they’d installed in his cell phone. Alex, the drill.

  Simon shook his head to dislodge the sweat from his brow. The motion increased the burn in his muscles, which were beginning to cramp. He made a mental calculation and figured they had two floors to go. The air was hotter at the top of the shaft, and growing more so. Sweat slicked his palms and he flexed his fingers inside one of his gloves. The snap at his wrist glistened with moisture.

  By the time they reached the seventieth floor, Simon’s legs and arms shook with the effort to put on the belt that held him steady and aloft while he disarmed the alarm and pried open the door. Alex sat on the ledge of the doorway one floor below him, waiting. At the sound of the doors opening, she began to climb again.

  On his stomach, Simon slid into the hallway, the thick pile of a carpet runner and the scent of orchids on a nearby table the first things he picked up in the hushed darkness. Farther away from the table, furniture polish, pungent and sweet, almost overpowered the scent of the flowers. His nostrils twitched. Give him a good dusty, musty book any day over the scent of rich people’s spaces.

  Simon turned and leaned over the ledge to help Alex the rest of the way. She gripped his forearm and he gripped hers. The pull in his muscles made him wince after their climb. With any luck they wouldn’t have to leave the same way they came in.

  Orienting themselves toward the study, he and Alex padded to their destination in silence. Thankfully Downing didn’t own a dog, and kept his wood floors tight and silent.

  Motion sensors activated the study lights when Simon pushed open the door on well-oiled hinges. He and Alex sucked in shallow breaths. Adrenaline responses kicked in and were subverted as quickly as possible.

  The tapestry along one wall their destination, they crossed the room. Simon reached out to move the rod from the wall. Alex placed a hand on his arm. He looked to her and she shook her head. A pointed finger indicated an almost invisible alarm trip wire.

  “Fuck.” Simon mouthed the word.

  Alex reached for a roll of Velcro tape in a pouch at her waist and made a rolling motion with her hand. Simon nodded and began to gather the tapestry upward. Using strips she cut from the roll with her jackknife, Alex fastened the tapestry so it hung out of the way. Safe revealed, they examined its face and had a three-minute silent argument over which tools to use until Simon made a cutting motion along his throat with his hand. Alex threw her hands in the air and motioned toward the safe in a be my guest motion. He nodded
, short and sharp. It was his sister’s life on the line. He’d be Goddamned if he didn’t get to call the shots.

  What he’d tried to tell her, unsuccessfully, was that the safe was by a manufacturer that installed relockers between the layers of metal. If broken by a drill, a layer of glass would trigger a mechanism to permanently lock the safe and they’d never get it open without explosives or a thermal lance. When she’d originally brought up the remedy to that particular brand of snafu—nitroglycerine jam shots—he’d nixed them. No way were they bringing something that volatile up an elevator shaft.

  So, he hooked his cell phone to the pin pad with what he thought was considerable skill and minimal fuss before activating the software to crack the combination. Sitting back on his heels, he smiled smugly at Alex and waited. She narrowed her gaze. A moment later the sound of steel bolts sliding outward and locking into place made Simon close his eyes.

  “Fuck,” he mouthed again. More emphatic this time.

  They were screwed. Out of options. No way to open this thing. Removing his gun from its holster, he relished the weight of its cold reassurance in his hands. He pushed to a standing position and motioned for Alex to follow him. Instead, she knelt closer to the safe and unzipped another pouch at her waist before drawing out cellophane, two compact batteries, soap… Oh shit. She’d brought the fucking jam shots. He could have kissed her and killed her in the same moment.

  “You need to get Lily out while I draw their fire and escape with the documents,” she whispered, taking off her gloves. “When the door explodes, you use the diversion to climb up one floor via the service elevator shaft. Grab Lily and get out of here any way you can.”

  Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. I haven’t done anything yet.”

  Alex folded a strip of cellophane into the jamb of the safe before fashioning a bit of soap into a funnel around the piece of protruding plastic. With the soap molded into a channel along the seam of the door, she pulled out the cellophane and discarded it. Into the top of the soap funnel, she inserted a blasting cap attached to a long length of wire. She repeated the process at the weakest points of the large safe door—where the internal hinges were likely to be. Each blasting cap secured, she opened the nitro and poured while Simon closed his eyes and prayed not to be blown to Kingdom Come.

  Standing, Alex dusted off her hands and grinned at Simon.

  “You’re sick,” he mouthed.

  She widened her grin and handed him two wires and a battery. They each moved as far away as possible to a position behind the large oak desk and crouched. Alex nodded and they each touched their wires to the battery terminals. The resulting explosion and the fall of the door shook the entire floor and sent undoubtedly priceless vases crashing to pieces. As they peered over the top of the desk through the smoke, the tapestry caught fire and crashed to the floor, bringing the alarm trip wire with it.

  “I think I used too much,” Alex said, not bothering to keep her voice low as they stamped out the fire.

  “Ya think?” Simon asked.

  “Go!” she said.

  With a last glance at her pretty face full of a mixture of triumph and urgency, he left. Muscles pumping with adrenaline, he barely felt the strain as he climbed up the service elevator shaft to the floor above. The older, less-well-kept shaft smelled of the smoke from the explosion and old axle grease. Without a doubt, those scents would forever remind him of this moment.

  As Alex had predicted, Downing’s sprawling penthouse was empty when Simon made his way on his stomach over the elevator door threshold. Closing his eyes, he tried to think like Downing. If he were a sadistic megalomaniac, where would he keep someone like Lily? His eyes opened and he headed toward the master bedroom. God help him if he met the man on the way there because one of them wouldn’t be living out the night.

  Muffled cries knifed through him and he had to force down panic to keep his mind focused on the mechanics of a job and not the sister he adored. The door to the bedroom was solid metal with no visible locking mechanism. Exposed hinges, covered in a layer of protective shielding defied a pry bar.

  Simon threw his pack to the ground and rummaged inside for a thermos he’d packed with liquid nitrogen. A common enough chemical, they’d been able to procure some of the stuff just in case they needed to make a quick and quiet break-in just like this one.

  Using putty, he formed a cup around the hinges, open at the top, closed at the bottom, then unscrewed the thermos. Though time seemed to run with the slowness of frozen molasses, his inner clock told him he’d been only a few minutes so far. He said a quick prayer for Alex’s safe getaway and poured the liquid nitrogen over the hinges. The metal immediately froze to a brittle state and he pulled out a small hammer. A light tap to each shattered the hinges to powder. Using a small crowbar, he pried the door open and strained to bring its weight gently to the floor.

  Lily, the red mane of her hair fanned out around her, reposed like a Sleeping Beauty in the middle of Downing’s bed. The sounds he’d heard earlier proved to be from a television. Without pausing, Simon rushed forward. Lily blinked at him but didn’t move and he realized she’d been given an immobilizing agent.

  Unable to stop to consider what she might’ve experienced while awake and unable to move, Simon scooped up his sister and grabbed his pack on the way by the door. She weighed so little nestled against his shoulder.

  The main elevator dinged and Simon skittered around the corner. If someone were on their way up, the only path left open to him was a descent down the service elevator shaft. But he only had two climbing harnesses. Alex would have to free climb down the shaft. How could they have planned so much and failed with that one critical detail?

  Knowing they had to solve the problem on the fly, he buckled Lily’s limp body into one harness and attached her to his back with a rope woven through his harness.

  As he passed the office level, he heard the slide of the doors. “Simon.”

  Hearing Alex’s voice, he rested below the lip of the floor, hooked securely to the metal girder. She lowered her pack to him. The light weight of the bag in his hand said she’d emptied it of all but the papers from Downing’s safe. He jerked his head, motioning for her to enter the shaft.

  Chewing her lip, Alex peered over her shoulder then to him.

  “We’re not going to make it,” she said. “They’ll figure out where to look for us if I don’t stay.”

  What? That was crazy. He shook his head, emphatic. There was no time to lose. She had to get that door closed before Downing figured out how they’d gotten in. Otherwise there was no point. Downing would call the elevator and simply crush them.

  Finger to her lips, Alex shook her head and retreated from Simon’s view. Before he knew what was happening, what she was doing, the door jack sailed past him, down the shaft. With a thud of finality the service elevator doorway closed, leaving him and Lily in darkness.

  * * * * *

  Footsteps and voices sounded in the hall. Alex crouched in the smoky safe where she’d retreated before the main elevator doors opened. The elevator had risen from a floor below, indicating Downing utilized more than the two areas of the building she and Simon knew of. She wanted to make them search for her, but not too hard. Once they found her, distracted, they’d never notice she’d had an accomplice until it was too late.

  Visual acuity sharpened, she pointed her gun at the doorway. She counted three sets of footsteps. One heavy. One the click of patent leather—probably Downing—eschewing the carpet runner and being deliberately loud. A lighter step and another that hesitated, almost shuffling. Gibbons? She held her breath when a shadow fell across the slice of light in front of the safe door.

  The guard’s eyes widened when he entered the jagged metal frame and his gaze met Alex’s. Just as she’d been trained, she didn’t hesitate. She fired. His body jerked. Red blossomed from his shoulder.

  Shouts of dismay and Downing’s swears filled th
e room. If they came to her she could pick them off like fish in a barrel. Knowing the advantage of surprise was no longer hers, however, she doubted they’d be stupid enough to approach her again. Taking the only option open to her, she edged out of the safe and stepped over the wounded man to find the library empty.

  She cocked her head to listen for signs of movement. If she went left and they’d gone right down the corridor then she’d catch a bullet in the back. Two against one were good odds, but she had no doubt reinforcements would be arriving soon.

  Time to make a decision.

  Sidling up to the study door, Alex took a deep breath and peeked as far as she could to the left without actually sticking her head into the hall. The closed main elevator door, its polished chrome surface acting as a mirror, showed the corridor to the right. No one appeared to occupy the hall at all.

  A quiet hiss sounded behind her. Alex spun to face the room. Whitish gas leaked from one of the ventilation ducts. Hopefully it wasn’t anything more noxious than tear gas. Having pulled a handkerchief from a pouch, she tied it over her nose and mouth. The white gas curled around her face as she waited. Alex blinked, expecting a sting at her eyes. When none came, she frowned. Not good. If it were poison gas and she remained in the room she’d be overcome. If she stepped into the hall, she’d be shot. No doubt Downing and his man had split up, with one of them awaiting her at either end. She could give herself up or hope she had the reflexes of a superhero. Neither seemed like good options.