Chapter Fourteen: Inside the Vault

“I wanted it. I’m a man not easily discouraged when I want something.”

-Kasper Gutman, The Maltese Falcon

            “Well, Joe; just got off the phone with Washington. Apparently the Soviets just released a statement condemning the attack and disavowing all knowledge of it.”

             Chief Webb choked down another mouthful of cold coffee and grimaced.

            “Bill, don’t waste my time with what the Soviets said; it’s not my job and I don’t believe them anyway.”

            Bill Morgan shrugged. “Just thought you should know.”

            “Any I.D. on the one that fell out the window?”

            “He had a driver’s license, but you just said not to waste your time, so all I can say is that he looks like he’s Tanzanian. “

            “So our friend up there got another one,” said Webb. 

            “Word from Miss Lotus is that he’s going to try to take the fight to them.”

            “How’s she doing?”

            “Boys up there say she’s pretty shaken, and her arm’s messed up, she’s but insisting on sticking around to the end.”

            Webb smiled grimly.

            “Civilians are being more useful tonight than we are.”

            Bill sighed and leaned against Joe’s car.

            “Suppose that’s the end goal of all those community outreach programs, isn’t it?” he quipped. “You know; ‘watch out for crime!’ ‘make your neighborhood safe!’ ‘do your part’ all that stuff.”

            Joe couldn’t really manage a laugh tonight, so he merely grunted. Bill caught the hint and dropped the attempt at humor.

            “So, what’s our play?”

            “We gotta go in again,” Joe sighed. “I don’t like it, but we don’t have a lot of choice. According to Mr. Joshua and Mr. Calvan, we’ve gotta stop these guys at all costs.”

            “And what about that, ah, science fiction refugee up there?”

            Joe gave Bill a confidential look.

            “You remember back in Los Angeles when we had that gang hold up in a siege for almost a week?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Did you ever hear that the chief got permission for a little special equipment to try and end it? Never had to use it, thank God, since the crooks finally had the sense to just surrender, but it was there, all set and ready to go just an hour before it ended.”

            “Oh,” said Bill, comprehension dawning. “I remember now. So you’re gonna ask for one of those?”

            “Already did,” said Joe. “It’s on its way. SWAT’s standing by, and as soon as it gets here, we’re going in hard and fast.”

            Bill grimaced.

            “Probably gonna lose a few that way.”      

            “I know,” said Joe. “I don’t like it, but we’re running out of options here.” 

            He sighed and glanced over at where the security guard, Joshua, and Calvan stood a little apart from the police and seemed to be having a heated discussion. Webb frowned. That did not look like a low-level employee talking to the richest man in the world.

            “Wonder what that’s all about?” he muttered, and motioning to Morgan, they walked over to see what the argument was about.

            “As I told you before,” said Calvan. “I considered the Birkin Center too remote and too vulnerable to be a safe location.”

            “Compared to the building that’s now under the control of the KGB,” Joshua retorted.

            “And completely surrounded by the San Ignatio Police Department,” Calvan answered, with an acknowledging nod towards Chief Webb.

            “Yes, though as you well know, the Birkin Center is within a ten minute drive of Fort Waverly, and I for one would rather have the Marines instead of the police. No offense, Chief. Not to mention that I would have preferred not to have to rely on my rookie guard for internal resistance.”

            “What exactly is going on here?” Webb asked.

            “Oh, Mr. Calvan and I were just discussing the fact that if he hadn’t altered our security situation against my recommendations, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

            “Do you care to explain that to me?”

            “The item which we believe to be Strasser’s objective was originally stored in one of my research facilities. I thought the position was highly vulnerable as it was relatively isolated and would have been an easy target for spies, so I moved the item to our corporate vault. Mr. Joshua, who is employed to provide security for that facility saw this as an insult to himself.”

            “My self-esteem may be oh so delicate, Mr. Calvan, but they were not my primary cause for concern, as you well know,” Joshua said. “I pointed out that the Huston Gold has much weaker security than the Birkin Center, that it would be nearly impossible to assault once compromised, and that I would not be able to ensure the item’s security, as is my job.”

            “Okay, okay,” said Webb, holding up his hands. “This really doesn’t help us right now. You two can hold your ‘I told you so’ contest later. Right now, we’re gonna need both of your help. Mr. Joshua, we have a plan to deal with that cyborg that I would like your advice on…”

            George didn’t know what Strasser’s ultimate game was, but he knew that he was trying to recover something from the vault. So it seemed to him that the best strategy would be to take out the men trying to break into the vault. He knew where it was. Ben had once told him about a time he had seen it opened when George had wondered what was kept in a corporate vault like that. Since Strasser and the hostages were, presumably, still on the fortieth floor, George guessed that there wouldn’t be too many guards around the vault. It might be the end goal of their whole strategy, but Strasser wouldn’t want to draw too much attention to it. He was rather counting on that, since he only had the one magazine for the Kalashnikov and two bullets left in the sniper’s rifle, which he had slung over his shoulder.

            Thinking that the hallways were too open and conspicuous, George decided to make his way up through the intricate maintenance system that ran all through the building. It was a bit of a risk, since he had no idea where anything was and could easily get lost, but he was gambling that the bad guy wouldn’t expect him to go that way.

            He was wrong. 

            When George made it to the forty-fifth floor, he found that the stairs did not go any higher, since he had ended up near the tip of the south wing, which only rose forty-five floors. Above him would be the lowest roof level. Since he knew they would be watching the roof for any sign of aerial assault, he decided that he would need to approach his target from within the building.

            Leaving the stairs, George found himself in a crowded, dimly lit boiler room. Pipes ran all along the walls, across the ceiling, and stood in pillar-like clusters throughout the room, while a constant humming and droning told him that the boiler was laboring to counteract the chill October air outside. There was little room to move through it. Signs that read “Danger!” and “Authorized Personnel Only” hung in prominent positions around the equipment.

            George squeezed his way through the maze of pipes as quickly as he could. He didn’t really expect that anyone would be in here, and he had a feeling the night was building to its climax.

            The room opened up in front of him as he passed a great, curved boiler. To his right was a door leading back into the hallway. And in front of the door was a massive, hulking figure.  

            George froze. He recognized the figure. It was Gidan.

            Of course, he thought, remembering the conversation he had overheard. He’s the cyborg.  

            “So here you are,” Gidan said. “I thought you might try to come this way.”

            “Thought right then,” said George, adjusting his grip on the assault rifle. Laura had said that guns wouldn’t work, so he needed to be creative here. 

            Gidan cocked his head to one side, studying him.

            “I must admit I am…impressed,” he said. “As one warrior to another.”

            “Thanks,” said George. It seemed appropriate, and there was no sense in being rude.

            “On the other hand, you fight for America,” Gidan continued. “And so I can feel nothing but contempt for you.”

            “Oh. That’s kind of a shame.”

            The cyborg began to circle, as if he were a big, predatory cat and George was a waiting buffalo.

            “I hear you are a security guard. But why? With your skills shouldn’t you be ravaging my country?”

            “It’s not my fault I’m not over there,” George answered, turning to keep the cyborg in sight. “I tried to enlist; they didn’t want me.”

            Gidan sneered.

            “You imperialist bastards are all alike. You think you own everything, and can just go in and rearrange people’s lives to suit you.”

            “No offense,” said George. “But you’re the one whose country invaded their neighbor, not to mention that your government is the one that thinks it can control everyone’s lives for their own good.”

            “My country is one of the only free nations on earth,” said Gidan fiercely. “You talk about freedom, but you are slaves to men like this Calvan who own everything and lull you to sleep with lies. You naively think you are fighting for freedom, when in truth you only fight to put gold in his pocket.”

            “Well,” said George, who was too focused on looking for some kind of angle to come up with a good answer to that. “You’re clearly the expert. I just work here.”

            “The world is changing,” said Gidan. “It used to be that you could buy your way out of any war you got into. That’s how you conquered Vietnam and Korea. But now…”

            He stopped and flipped his sickle into place with a menacing click.

            “Now things have changed. You can’t control us anymore.”  

            Maybe not, but George had found his angle.

            This felt kind of mean, but since Gidan was a cyborg, George figured any expectation of a fair fight was out from the start. He fired off a quick burst. Gidan covered his face, but the bullets went right past him and into the huge boiler behind him. Before Gidan had even realized what had happened, he was engulfed in a cloud of scalding white steam. He screamed in agony, scrambling forward away from the terrible cloud, waving his arms in a futile attempt to ward it off.

            He didn’t wait to see how well it had worked; George just booked it out of there, through the door Gidan had entered and into another office corridor, heading for the next stairway.

            Behind him, Gidan lay on the cold floor, gasping, his skin a mass of blisters. His defenses had been designed against gun fire; as far as scalding clouds of steam were concerned, he was almost as vulnerable as any other man, and he lay there, his burned skin searing against the cold metal grating as he shivered violently in pain.

            After a while – he couldn’t tell how long – he managed to lift his head to see that the American was gone. Slowly, very slowly, the pain subsided. He had been designed with an internal store of painkilling drugs, which were supposed to activate as soon as he was injured. Apparently, that system was working rather slowly tonight, or perhaps it had been damaged by the steam. In any case, as his pain receded, it was replaced by anger. Nobody should be able to sucker-punch him like that.

            The cyborg staggered to his feet, seething. The American was going to die tonight. 

           

            They had moved the hostages up to Calvan’s office on the top floor. Strasser cursed himself for not doing this sooner, but he had still hoped to keep them ignorant of the real purpose of his mission here. This night had turned out to be such a fiasco that it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Besides, if the worst came to the worst, he could always just kill them all. Now, save for the men guarding the helipads and Gidan, who was searching for the troublesome American, all his remaining men were concentrated in one place. 

            The hostages were grouped on the floor in a corner of Calvan’s office, all except Miss Aurelia, whom he wanted to keep close. He always liked to keep a personal hostage on hand for emergencies, and in this case the habit served a double purpose. She sat glumly in Calvan’s great wingback chair, looking, Strasser thought, rather like a little girl visiting her father’s office.

            Strasser had resumed his pacing, listening to the whine of tools coming from the other room. His men were almost through the vault. Just a little longer and they could finally get the thing and be done. Everything that had happened, all the mistakes and disasters would be worth it if they could only get what they came for.

            And, he added mentally. If Gidan can rid us of that little bastard, I’ll call the whole night a success.

            Granted, the Major might not see it that way. But Strasser found he didn’t particularly care. Distinctions of rank somehow didn’t seem to matter anymore; not since he had taken that formula. He was something more than just a soldier or spy now; he was more than a man. He was…he didn’t quite know what he was.

            He had adopted the name ‘Alpha’ for an alias dealing with the police. It seemed appropriate. The Alpha: the supreme member of the pack. The leader. That was what he was: the supreme. The alpha man. 

            What was a Major compared to that?

            He moved to the window. It was a really spectacular view; he could see why Calvan had selected this place for his office. During the day, he would have a brilliant prospect across the city to the ocean. At night, a sea of lights stretching out beneath his feet as if he stood above the stars.

            Civilization has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.

             Strasser smiled to himself. Though most of American culture disgusted him, he had to admit that Thoreau was one of his favorite poets. Some in the KGB found his turn for poetry odd, but he though it an excellent way to soothe the mind.  And goodness knows he needed soothing after tonight. It seemed as though everything that could have gone wrong did. But, nevertheless, they were nearly there.

            A few minutes later, one of the Tanzanians who had been working on the vault rushed into the room.

            “Sir,” he said, his face flush with excitement. “We’re in!”

            Strasser fairly ran to the vault, pushing the man out of the way. The huge, heavy door stood open. Inside there were numerous locked filing cabinets, no doubt containing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of information, stocks, bonds, and who knew what else. A few oil paintings were stacked to one side, and there was even a pile of gold bars resting on a reinforced shelf to the right of the door. But these held no appeal to Strasser. His attention was riveted to a metal briefcase with a built-in handcuff attached to the handle.

            That was it. After all their efforts and setbacks, they had it! The case was locked, but that was nothing to him. He ripped out the latches with his fingers and threw open the lid to examine his prize.

            It was empty.