Blake lay on his back and took a moment to calm his breathing, expelling the pain in his shoulder with every exhale. He became more aware of his surroundings as the haze cleared. Dim light slanted through the windows; moonlight, mostly, with a slight orange tinge from a nearby streetlight. It revealed the cheap IKEA desks and chairs, computers that had to be at least five years old, and the sagging ceiling of the office space.
The hushed silence of a working office out of hours had long since settled over the room. No footsteps sounded in the distance. As far as he could tell, he hadn’t been discovered. Yet.
He chanced an extra minute on the floor.
“Blake?” Paul asked eventually.
“I’m here,” he grunted.
“Okay?”
“I’ll live.”
Christine butted in. “That was pretty impressive.”
Blake grinned. “It comes naturally.”
A huff of breath came over the airway, and Blake could tell Paul wasn’t amused.
“So, what now?” Blake asked him
“Now, we get you down to the basement. I’ve already started looping the security cameras, so they won’t see you on the feeds.”
Blake heaved himself into a standing position, careful not to jostle his shoulder more than necessary. He hefted the window—it must have been eighty pounds at least—and tried to stick it back into place. It would pass initial inspection, he figured, but maybe not in the daylight.
“Let’s do it.”
Paul directed Blake out of the office and towards the emergency staircase. He was relieved to find that the doors weren’t alarmed.
As he made his way downstairs, his footsteps echoing in the staircase, he realised that this situation was familiar to him.
“This brings back memories,” he muttered teasingly into his earpiece.
Christine sighed. “Oh, don’t. If we hadn’t gotten you involved in that, you never would have been shot.”
Blake shrugged expressively, knowing they would see it on the security cameras, and then regretted it immediately as his shoulder burned in protest.
“I’ve had worse bullet wounds,” he said instead.
Christine made a sound of disapproval.
“Blake…” Paul warned.
“What? I’m just saying it’s a hazard of the job.”
They were saved from having to voice their disapproving sentiments by the fact that Blake reached the basement.
“Left or right?”
“Left,” Paul told him.
Blake turned without hesitation, moving down the corridor. By virtue of the fact that it was all concrete—walls and floor and ceiling—the temperature had dropped about five degrees. A slight chill slithered over his exposed skin.
He hoped it wasn’t an omen.
With Paul’s help, he found the room housing the generator easy enough. It was dark, and the space was dominated by the huge generator, large enough to power the whole building for at least a few days if necessary. Blake took out a small torch, running the beam over the mechanics to assess how it worked.
“What are you going to do?” Christine asked. “Tamper with it? Cut the cord?”
Blake replied with supressed amusement. “I’m going to turn it off.”
Paul took pity on her and explained. “If he’s trying to be unobtrusive, it’s too risky to sabotage it. All he’ll need is a few minutes, so if he just switches it off, it should give him enough time. Anyone might have turned it off, but tampering with it will leave marks.”
“I’m too experienced to leave marks,” Blake defended himself. “But the rest is accurate. It’s more plausible that someone temporarily switched it off and forgot to turn it back on, than it to break the same night as the power went out and the window fell in.”
With that, he stepped over to the machine and flipped the switches that powered it down. Almost immediately, the machine spluttered to a stop. Without needing Paul’s prompting, Blake made his way back to the staircase, pleased that no security guards roamed the lower levels. He’d have to come back here to see if there might be an easier exit for him on this level.
He jogged lightly up the hard concrete stairs, setting an easy pace. His breath was heavy after four flights, disappointing him. He was frustrated that his fitness had been so effected after only a few weeks laid up.
The ninth floor appeared above him, and he supressed a sigh of relief.
He pressed the bar on the door, swinging it open into a hushed, empty corridor. The walls of the corridors on one side were made of thick, tempered glass. It was frosted, too, giving tantalising glimpses of the offices beyond it, but revealing nothing more.
He moved further into the corridor, noting the logo for Beaton Security emblazoned discretely on a door a few paces down. From what he could tell, the whole floor belonged to them. It was certainly a decent-sized company. Bigger than Soldiering On if their space was anything to go by.
Next to the door, which was of course locked, an innocuous black box sat on the wall. Blake wasn’t fooled by its harmless-looking exterior. He knew very well that that model—the C300—was the top of the line for security, so far proving impossible to hack even by the experts. The red light glared challengingly at him.
“All right, I’m here. Cut the power.”
“Get ready. I don’t know how long until it comes back online.”
Paul counted down. On his, “And cut” the safety lights in the corridor powered down with a dying hum. Blake watched the light on the black box in front of him. It blinked, flickered, and finally switched off.
He waited for a click—something that would indicate that the door in front of him had opened. Nothing.
He reached out and pushed it. Still locked. Shit.
“Slight delay,” Blake muttered as he tugged out his lock picks. Not the usual low rent ones, but the kind that would be useful under any circumstances.
He looked closer at the lock. As he’d suspected, it was magnetised. Given the fact that the door was glass, Blake knew the magnet wouldn’t be at the top of the door. It had to be in the lock itself. No doubt the C300 had been programmed to keep the door locked, rather than release it—an illegal modification, due to the danger if there was a fire. Anyone trapped inside if the power went out would be unable to flee.
Disliking this company more by the minute, Blake pulled out the tools he’d need. He made quick work of it, a thing that wouldn’t have been possible if the power had been on. As he disengaged the magnets with a thrill of triumph, he wondered if he could call himself the first person to break the C300. As much as he’d like to claim it, he decided it was cheating since the power had been off.
He pushed the door open to reveal a comfortable suite of offices. The carpet was a deep plush that swallowed the soles of his boots as he stepped inside. The chairs were beige calf leather, visibly expensive even in the near darkness. Imported from Italy, he noted, seeing one of the tags still swinging on the back. Lush plants dotted the space, well-tended and verdant.
The whole place gave him the creeps. It was the kind of corporate atmosphere that had always given him nightmares. He never wanted to be trapped in a place like this, sitting at a desk day in and day out. It was too clean and dull.
“Okay, where do I go from here?” Conscious of the delay that picking the lock had caused, a new sense of urgency filled him.
“I… don’t actually know,” came Paul’s reply.
“What?” Jesus, what now.
“They must have their internal cameras on an external feed, if they have any at all. I can’t find them. I’m looking, though.”
“Shit. I thought you said you’d looped the cameras?”
“I did, but I set up a program that looped all the ones on that feed automatically.”
“Jesus, I’m a sitting duck.” Blake took a deep breath as he quickly sifted through all the options and possible outcomes. By the time he’d exhaled, he’d made a decision. “All right, I’ll keep going as norm
al. Hopefully they store the security footage on the same server that houses the footage from Sierra’s apartment. I’ll wipe it if I see it.”
“The guards haven’t made a move yet; they still seem to be waiting for something.”
“Just get out,” came Christine’s frustrated hiss.
“Nah, it’ll be okay. It always is.” With that, Blake took a decisive turn left and began his search.
It took him less than two minutes to find the server. It was in a decent-sized office space—cleared of desks and chairs to make room for tall towers housing black boxes. The chill of the air conditioning hit his exposed skin—a necessary evil to keep the server towers cool. A central computer to receive and file the information sat on a tiny desk in the corner. This is where he made his beeline.
“All right, Christine. This is where you come in. What should I be looking for?”
“If I were them, I would label it with location, camera number, and date. Not sure which order, though.”
“That makes sense.”
He opened the computer, surprised to find that it didn’t have a password; it was just open to the desktop. He clicked on the file explorer icon, and immediately saw a list of folders labelled with numbers. He opened one, and saw video files, labelled with even more numbers. Double clicking the first one, he waited as it loaded. Eventually, the grainy footage of a generic office space popped up. Not Sierra’s apartment. He exited quickly.
He explained the situation to Christine.
“They obviously have a numbering system of their own. They must have a reference there.”
Blake was already clicking through the some other folders that didn’t appear to follow the number pattern. “All right, got it.” He scanned through the list of property names with numbers in a separate column beside them.
“Control F,” Christine reminded him.
“I was just doing that,” Blake muttered as he hit the keys. Computers were not his strong suit, as he’d never had the patience to sit and learn. He knew the basics, but none of them were second nature to him. Every time he sat in front of a screen, he got bored within seconds, wanting to get outside and explore and do.
The screen highlighted Sierra’s building name, and Blake immediately found the correct corresponding number. He memorised that, then for good measure, typed in the name of the building he was standing in.
Paul spoke up. “Okay, one of the guards just got off the phone. They are moving down to the basement. I think they’re about to restart the generator.”
A spark of urgency zipped through him, quick and bright. His heart rate sped up. Not from fear, but from excitement. The chase was on.
He stuck the USB into the computer and immediately set the files from Christine’s building to copy. He started with the day of the rose delivery, but also threw in some others from the previous months. He didn’t know what might become useful. He couldn’t take the time to check their contents, so he picked a few at random dates and times.
While those files were copying—slower than he’d like—he found the folder from today. It was still updating. He dug through the unlabelled files in reverse order, trying to find… yes there he was.
“They’re in the basement. You have less than a minute.”
“I’ve deleted the video with me in it,” he told them, voice barely above a whisper. He emptied the recycle bin just to be sure.
Christine’s voice sounded in his ear, tight with worry. “Copy the previous video and rename it in their style. They won’t suspect you deleted anything then, and it’ll just show an empty office as it should be.”
“Smart,” Blake approved.
He did exactly what she’d said, copying the previous hour’s footage and renaming it to look like the current hour’s video.
“Approximately thirty seconds,” Paul noted. Blake could hear the tension in the man’s voice. Paul wouldn’t distract him by asking what his extraction plan was, but he must have been taut with the tension of not knowing.
That was his cue. Blake ripped out the USB and made a run for it. The thrill of adventure—of freedom—sung through his veins. Near misses got his blood thumping like nothing else. The adrenaline cleared his mind of everything else, giving him focus and energy. It was a thrill and a relief all at once.
He ran towards the door he’d come in. He’d shut it, but hadn’t locked it, and he had to open it before the generator kicked in and automatically slid the lock home. He was quick, as light on his feet as a deer in the woods. His hand reached out, grazing the cool metallic door handle. He lunged. The emergency lights flickered and flared to life with a crackling hum. Blake immediately retracted his hand, as if he’d been burnt. If he went out that way now, the C300 would sound the alarm, alerting the whole building to his presence.
“Um, the security guards are coming your way.” Paul’s voice held an edge of panic now.
“What?” Blake hissed. “How do they know I’m here?”
“I don’t know, but there are four of them.”
Blake began backing away from the door. “How in a hurry are they?”
Paul considered. “They aren’t in a ‘let’s go catch the intruder’ hurry. I’d say it’s more like a ‘let’s go check out something suspicious’ hurry. Steady.”
So that didn’t mean that they knew for a fact that he was there. He might have just tripped some kind of internal alarm.
“Where are they?”
“One floor below.”
Blake looked around, trying to figure out his Plan B. He could try to break the unbreakable security box with no time and no tools, but that seemed unwise, even for him. He liked cutting it fine, but not that fine.
“They are coming out onto the ninth floor now.”
There really was only one other option. He sprinted towards the windows, dodging desks and plants. When he reached the ledge, he took half a second to look down. It would be quite a drop if he fell. If he hadn’t been slightly injured and a lot exhausted, it wouldn’t have been an issue. But, now, he had to risk it. With fumbling fingers, he unlatched the window.
“They’re at the door.”
He stood on the ledge.
“Entering the combination.”
He slid out, catching himself on the ledge with a wrench of his arm. In his hurry, he’d gone too quickly.
“Opening the door.”
With one last heave, he threw himself upwards, using the momentum to slide the window back home. He dropped back down out of sight, pulling the tendons in his shoulder as the combined force of his weight and gravity tried to tug him back down to Earth.
Once again, he breathed the pain out on an exhale. “Anything?” he whispered.
“No, I… ah, there was a motion sensor that got tripped when the power went back on. I’m in the files now. They don’t know what caused it, so you’ll probably get away with it.”
“Fantastic,” he said, and meant it. He swung dangerously above the ground, his fingers digging into the rough concrete of the window ledge. Probably time he made his way back down.
It went against most people’s instinct, but it was harder going down than coming up when he only had the one hand. While it was easy enough to spring up and grab onto a ledge, Blake basically had to go down by controlled fall. Since he was doing it one handed, if he kept his feet on a purchase and attempted to grab a lower handhold, he’d run the risk of overbalancing and toppling over backwards because he couldn’t keep his centre of gravity. Instead, he had to sight his new handhold, then take his feet off their outcropping, and fall onto the next hand hold.
It was a technique he’d learned in the SEALs and put to good use when rock climbing. Hurt like a motherfucker when doing it with an injured shoulder, though. Still, he made it down with no more major incidents. As his feet hit solid ground, Blake decided he was going to consider the night a win.
“Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Blake. That one was too close for my comfort.” Paul sounded a little shaken, and Blake instantly f
elt guilty.
“Sorry, man. I didn’t know this one would be so hairy.”
Paul hesitated. “You’re getting a little bit too close to the edge these days.”
“I’m sorry.” And he was. Just because he was driven to constantly conquer new adventures and get himself out of tight scapes, didn’t mean that he wanted to endanger his friends, too.
“Just… keep yourself safe,” Paul told him.
And wasn’t that humbling. Paul had not been concerned for himself, but for Blake. He wished he could tell Paul about the constant restlessness within him, and assure him that he would one day conquer it. But it was difficult to complete a mission when the objective was unclear.
He wanted to know what it was that drove him—what the end objective to the constant searching was. But he didn’t know. He suspected he would only know it when he found it. Or, at least, he hoped.
Instead, Blake just said, “I always do.” It was a partial truth. He hadn’t yet died, and Blake considered that fact evidence that he’d managed to keep himself safe enough.
With both his shoulders on fire and his head still whirring with adrenaline, Blake hobbled stiffly to the Range Rover.
He patted his pocket, making sure the USB was still safely stored there.
That little device would tell him whether tonight’s adventure had been worth it.
Chapter 13
Blake arrived precisely on time the next morning, looking like he’d spent the night on a bender.
“Did you have one too many after leaving me last night?” Sierra asked, not feeling completely rested herself. She had tossed and turned all night, alternating between thinking about her stalker, and distracted by that moment she and Blake had almost shared last night.
Blake shook his head. “Didn’t sleep much.” He lifted his hand unconsciously toward his shoulder, wincing just slightly.
“Is your old injury still hurting you?”
He blinked, surprised, then nodded.
“I can recommend you a good masseuse if you like. She’s amazing with persistent injuries like that.” They stepped into the elevator.
Blake hesitated. “Sure, wouldn’t hurt to have the number just in case.”
Guarding Sierra: (Soldiering On #2) Page 6