“My name is Gregory Simmons,” the man continued. “I’ll be showing you around today, answering any questions you have. Let’s step right over here to the elevator.”
Landon cut him off. “I assume there’s some sort of secondary elevator or staircase I could take? I am not going to be riding the common elevator with everyone if I move my enterprise into this building.”
I swallowed a laugh. Landon was laying it on like he was a sheik in Dubai, not a suit in the middle of Wyoming. But it seemed to work with Simmons.
“Yes, sir,” the younger man said, suitably impressed. “There are two staircases, one on either end of the building, and there is, in fact, a private elevator down a secondary hall.”
Landon nodded. “Then that is what I will use.”
That’s what we needed. That elevator was what led down to the subbasement. I wasn’t sure if Simmons knew about the activity underneath this building or not, but it didn’t matter.
My team was currently running every single person who’d set foot in here for the past six months. We would see if that led to any useful intel.
The only part of security our nerd team hadn’t been able to crack remotely was the private elevator itself. If anyone entered without a card, it would set off alarms. But once you were inside, you could override the system.
And Landon had gotten us access without asking.
I grit my teeth as we stepped inside and Simmons activated the elevator with his swipe card. As soon as it began to move, I pretended to get an email on my tablet. “Mr. Ashton-Phelps,” I said. “I’ve received a message, sir, about that emergency situation in Dubai.” Since Landon was playing this over the top, I might as well join in. It helped me get my mind off the metal walls threatening to close in on me.
“Damn it, Struthers, I told you to handle that.”
“Yes, sir. I will, sir. I probably shouldn’t do it here in front of . . . others.” I turned away the slightest bit from Simmons.
“Fine,” Landon said. “Go back down to the lobby and don’t come back up until it’s handled. I don’t want to deal with this anymore.”
The elevator’s doors opened and Landon and Simmons stepped out. I nodded.
“You won’t be able to get back up in this elevator, so you’ll have to use the regular ones near the lobby,” Simmons offered.
“Yes, sir,” I said. Simmons liked that. He liked not being the lowest man on the totem pole. That was fine with me as long as he left me alone in here.
I ignored the panic that wanted to swallow me and pulled out my tablet’s specialized drive cord, plugging it into the elevator’s computerized control system. This was the first hurdle, and the entire mission was for naught if the nerds couldn’t get the elevator to go where we needed it to without activating the alarm.
But it worked. I bypassed the ground floor altogether and headed deeper to a level that was definitely not on the elevator’s keypad. I stayed to the side as the doors opened, squelching my need to get out as soon as possible, tranquilizer guns in both hands, knowing there would be guards.
If I couldn’t take out any guards before they sounded the alarm, I’d be a dead man.
I stepped out of the elevator just as the doors started to close, when anyone watching would’ve assumed no one was inside. There were two guards. I took out the one closest to me with a fast roundhouse kick. As I came out of the spin, I let the tranquilizer dart in my left hand fly at guard number two. Two seconds later, he dropped to the floor. I returned to the first guard and tranquilized him even though my kick had already knocked him unconscious.
They’d be out for a couple hours. If I was here longer than that, we’d have bigger problems than security guards.
I left them where they lay, not wanting to waste precious minutes dragging them somewhere. Not that there were many choices. The hallway was long and narrow with multiple doors.
“Landon, I’m in.” He wouldn’t respond but could hear my reports. “Took down two guards.”
I pointed my tablet at each of the doors, sending the visual back to the tech team. They couldn’t speak to me through comms, but they could message me over the tablet.
A message showed up a few seconds later. Third door has the most potential for intel. Instructions on how to bypass the electronic lock flooded in less than a minute later. I paid my tech team double the normal rate for a reason.
I followed their instructions, and seconds later I was inside. I looked around. The nerds had been right. This was it. This was what we needed. This was what we had been hoping for. I picked up the tablet and turned so the camera was catching the different computers and screens. I’m sure my tech team was struggling not to orgasm just looking at the cutting-edge equipment around us.
They sent me to the computer console in the southeast corner of the room. That’s not the one I would have chosen; it seemed more unassuming than the rest. But I wasn’t the expert.
I could hear Landon babbling on to Simmons upstairs, so everything was okay, but we didn’t have a lot of time. The nerds told me what to type, and I did so. Data started flying up on the screens all over the room.
Can’t download. Record manually.
I set my tablet up so the camera was taking in as much of the information as possible, pulled out my phone, and began recording with it too. Once I got the footage back, the team would analyze it.
Hopefully, it would provide what we needed to take Mosaic down.
I’d only been recording about fifteen seconds when Landon’s voice came in through the comm unit.
“Ian, do you read? Get out now.”
“I need more ti—”
“Right fucking now.”
4
Ian
“Landon, talk to me. What’s going on?”
“We tripped some sort of alarm. Simmons freaked out. I had to tranq him. You’re busted.”
I was still recording with the tablet and my phone. “I need a few more minutes.”
Every second I stayed now would give us more data.
“You don’t have a few more minutes, man,” Landon said. “You need to get out now. I’m going to have to head up to the roof like Kendrick and Neo did, but there’s no way you’re going to make it up there.”
The tablet pinged. I took it down to read it but kept my phone up recording.
Second door in the hallway is an exit that leads underground away from the building. Go now. Incoming guards.
“Do what they’re telling you, Ian,” Landon said. Evidently the same message had gone to him. “We won’t get any intel at all if you get caught. Leave now.”
“Fuck. Roger that,” I told him. “I’m on my way.”
I kept my phone up a few more seconds, but when an alarm blasted through the building, I really was out of time. I turned off my camera and ran out the door, pointing the tablet toward the door the team had said led to an exit. By the time I reached it, they were already providing a code.
Not a moment too soon. The elevator opened and the guards inside began firing at me as soon as they saw me.
I dove through the door and slammed it shut behind me, hoping my team of brainiacs was smart enough to know they needed to change that electronic combination if they could. If not, this wasn’t going to end well.