Chapter 6
722 Words
6
Opening an unlocked door is simple. One push and it should swing right open, letting me escape the grungy wiring shaft into Butterfly.
Unless the perps put a Claymore on the other side. No, not a real Claymore. Probably a chunk of plastique, or even a grenade on a string. Some kind of fangy-bangy alarm with teeth. They won’t use too much explosive here, though, even if they’re on a blowout gig. The wiring shaft is part of the spine of the building, and they won’t want to damage it until they’re ready to retreat.
They might have a small shaped charge to kill whoever opens the door. Maybe a grenade. Any blast won’t go much past the concrete wall.
My utility belt has all kinds of gadgetry, from a cluster of smoke pellets to my .38 semi-auto. I don’t like guns, can’t stand to use them if there’s any other way, but a gun intimidates damn fool civilians faster than anything else. And I practice for a few hours a month, because a weapon you can’t use belongs to the other guy. My backpack has another whole set of tools in the bottom compartment, though, and one delightfully special tool in the top.
I climb to the next floor up and pull out my locking extensible pole and a pair of earplugs. It’s a little thicker than an old-fashioned TV antenna and a lot stiffer. I extend it one section at a time through the mesh floor until it touches the door.
My heart is pounding.
The door will probably pop open.
Probably.
I let out my breath and push the rod.
The rod bends just a little, scraping against the wire mesh floor.
Tension ripples from the door, through the rod, up into my hand.
Then the far end gives, and the door creaks open an inch.
I ease it a couple more inches, just to be sure, then push it the rest of the way. Some pros mine the backside of the door, so that the blast doesn’t go off until you open it wide enough for a person to get through.
I’ve done that booby-trap myself. It’s the right thing to do on some gigs.
But I feel the door bounce against a wall.
I let out my breath. This isn’t a kill job. Well, not a blatant one.
I might discover a pressure switch or tripwire beyond the door.
Or these perps are just stupid and sloppy.
Can’t tell yet.
So I retract the rod and slip down to find out.
Looking from the filthy grungy wiring shaft through the doorway looks like a glimpse of heaven. Pale industrial-grade carpeting, crapped out by the mile in some Third World hellhole. Bright white walls. The smells of some sharp soap and a hint of pine. Every other lighting panel in the suspended ceiling is half-lit, after-hours illumination almost brilliant after the dismal lighting I have out here.
The gray, tightly woven carpet beyond the door is intact. No pressure plate. I don’t see any trigger lasers stuck on the walls, either, or dangling wires that might indicate a poorly planted mine.
So I step into Butterfly and ease the door to behind me, blocking out the shaft’s rank greasy dustiness. The bastards who pay for these places don’t give a damn if the behind-the-scene dirt causes face cancer—the people they send to work in the access shaft don’t matter to the Powers That Be. I empty my lungs of filthy working-class air and pull in Butterfly’s clean, bright, upper-class freshness.
I want the door exactly like I found it, maybe half an inch shut. I’m easing it back into place when something near the floor catches my attention. It’s a tiny paper strip, maybe two inches long, fluttering on the edge of the door.
As I push the door closed, it matches up to another strip, attached to the wall.
Opening the door, I tore the strip.
There’s a little bulging white dot glued to the wall. I wouldn’t have noticed it if it wasn’t for the torn paper.
Paper with silver lines.
That isn’t paper.
It’s part of a circuit.
A circuit I broke opening the door.
The perps didn’t wire the door to blow. They wired it with an alarm, to tell them if someone followed them.
From somewhere further in the building I hear the drumming of running feet, accompanied with a rhythm section of heavy gear clunking in time with each step.
I’m blown—not to the Embassy Building’s security, but to the perps.
And they’re pros.
- Writer
