Enter: Night, Chapter 2

From: Strong-arm Security Corporation

To: #M1487

Subject: Probationary Assignment #2: Bank Security

     Recently, we have been contacted by Darcy Group, the organization that runs Croesus Bank. One of their sources has warned them of a possible impending heist to be carried out by the Elder Mafia. However, we do not know the details of the heist plans, as their contact with the source was unexpectedly lost.

     You will be a part of the security team defending Croesus Bank. Make your way there to be briefed by the on-site SSC coordinator ASAP.

     That is all. And remember, we have high hopes for your success.

-SSCX

     As Pierce approached the bank on foot in the oncoming twilight, he was struck by its dark grandeur. The ancient looking building was obviously designed to impress, an ornate church presumably dedicated to its patron saint, Mammon. With each step he took up the classical style staircase flanked by angled rows of imposing columns, he felt a little more dread creep up on him.

     He tried to shove from his mind the idea that he was once again giving himself up to be a grunt in a war he didn’t care about. He had no choice then, and he had no choice now.

     But even as he brought himself back into the moment, an unusual sense of impending doom sent a chill up his spine as the hair stood up on the back of his neck. Was it the building itself that made him so uncomfortable? He had seen buildings similar in history books, but never got this feeling from them.

     Walking through the door, he made a brief survey of the place and saw a group of mostly uniformed SSC personnel standing around a tall broad-shouldered man with a mustache. As he walked over to join them, the mustached man, evidently the SSC coordinator, asked him, “You a rookie?”

     “Yes, sir, M1487,” Pierce replied as he took a place in the semicircle around the coordinator. The coordinator made a mark on the sheet on his clipboard and began the briefing.

     “Alright, everyone, listen up. As you read in your message, there is a high probability that this bank is going to be attacked by a group of the Elder Mafia. They are well-funded and therefore well-armed. We have been told that the attack is likely to take place somewhere in the time-frame of now to two weeks from now. We have lookouts in plainclothes scattered throughout the neighborhood, and we have guards posted in various choke-points and corridors throughout the building. You each have a sidearm, but you will also be assigned an SMG, as well as a map of the building, a vest, helmet, and a radio. Go get set in that room over there, and follow the map you are given to your position. Radio in to me when you arrive. Now, you will be on guard in shifts, so you can get your rest and stay sharp. Any questions?”

     There were none. “Then get moving, men.”

     The whole group minus the coordinator walked into the armory and began to get themselves equipped.  On the far end were some SSC agents getting some shut-eye in three columns of cots. The first wave must have already had a shift, Pierce thought. A couple of guys were sitting, talking quietly yet heatedly.

     “It makes no sense. The Elder Mafia come from generations of wealth. Why would they want to rob a bank?”

     “Hey, if they don’t, then we get paid to do nothing. Do you have a problem with that?”

     “No, of course not! I’m just saying…”

     A chill shot up Pierces spine again. He tried to tune out of the conversation and focus on getting his gear on. But the seeming dissonance between the odd grandeur of the room, with its marble walls and vaulted ceilings, and its use as a sort of armory brought his mind right back to his discomfort. He could not wait to be out of this building.

     He slung the loaded UMP over his chest and looked at the map.

     “Hey, Keeper of the Cat, how are you?” One of the men who had been sleeping facing the back wall was now sitting up, yawning, and looking at him. Pierce recognized him as one of the guards of the Mendelson Lane apartment complex.

     “Fine.”

     “Good, good,” he said as he stood up. He was taller than Pierce by four or five inches, had slight stubble, and was probably in his forties. In some ways, he reminded Pierce of his dad. “Hey, you and I are gonna be working together on this job! Isn’t that something?”

     “Um, sure.” Pierce sounded unsure.

     “You bet,” he said, hanging his UMP over his chest and ensuring it was still loaded. “The name’s Jefferson, by the way.” He offered a hand, and Pierce gave it a solid shake.

     “Pierce.”

     “Good name. Follow me.” They walked out of the room and through the lobby, through a small hallway, down four flights of stairs in the normally closed off stairwell, through another hallway, and into a room at the left side of the far end labeled "Records." Odd, Pierce thought, the door had a lock on this side. The dimly lit room was filled with many rows of floor to ceiling filing cabinets, probably containing the meticulously recorded documents of every withdrawal and deposit for over a century. They walked to the far corner of the room where a single old iron door stood. On the map, Pierce saw that there was a long passage that connected this building with another one nearby.

     Two guys were smoking while standing next to the door.

     “Finally, some reinforcements,” one said.

     “This is wearing me down,” said the other as they gave a joking salute and a wave, respectively, to the newcomers. They left the room and closed the door behind them.

     Jefferson hit the button on his radio, “This is Jefferson and Pierce, in position.”

     “Affirmative. We were told by the bank manager that the odds of them knowing about that tunnel are almost zero, and our network should be able to pick up on anyone coming your way in advance. That said, we don’t want to leave anything to chance, so stay sharp you two.”

     “Roger that,” Pierce said.

     Jefferson gestured to their setup, “This is it, our very own guard station.” There were two metal folding chairs, one on either side of a crate that had recently been used as a card table. After they sat down, Jefferson took a cigarette box out of his pocket and offered a smoke to Pierce. “Want one?”

     “No thanks.”

     “It’ll calm you down,”

     Pierce realized his hand was shaking. After a pause, he grabbed a cigarette from Jeff’s pack with his stable one. “Thanks,” he muttered. Jefferson reached over to light Pierces, then lit his own.

     “I don’t like this.” Pierce said.

     Jefferson sighed. “Me neither,” he admitted, I feel it too. Everyone does. Something is off with this job.”

     “And this building rubs me the wrong way somehow,” Pierce offered.

     “That too.”

     Pierce sat there for a minute deep in thought as Jefferson shuffled the deck of cards. Then a questioning look appeared on Pierce’s face as he asked, “Why would the bank keep files in paper form instead of using computers? And for that matter, why are there no security cameras in the whole building?”

     “You were well-named, weren’t you? You are sharp. Best I can figure it, some sort of extreme op-sec. For what, I couldn't tell you...”

     Pierce's hand had stopped shaking, the cigarette had done its job. It had been a long time since he’d last smoked. He definitely couldn’t afford it as a habit anymore. But he was glad he had this cigarette. Jeff finished shuffling the cards and began to deal them out.

     “Now, lets see how good you are at blackjack.”

     For hours, the two sat there, playing cards, looking at the map and talking about tactics, and challenging each other to exercise competitions, among other things. As uncomfortable as Pierce had felt coming into this, he had to admit, he couldn’t imagine a better partner for this sort of scenario than Jefferson. He was a solid man who, from the stories he told, could definitely handle himself in any situation.

     After their long shift was up, they swapped places with their relief and  headed to the armory for some food and rest.

     Pierce was in the barely-lit center of a shrouded room looking down into the face of his sister. He could feel the fear of loss and overwhelming guilt creeping up on him, feelings he had to constantly fight to keep down. Everything will be alright, he tried to tell himself. Her face was so motionless, so void, but the doctors had told him she was alive, thinking, dreaming, listening. A deep resonance burst in on his awareness. His pulse quickened. Something was wrong. Very wrong. The earth began to shake. He looked around the room, trying to figure out what was causing this. But he wasn’t in the hospital room anymore. He was deep underground in some sort of dark pit. He felt trapped with no air and no escape. Was this his grave? He started to hyperventilate. His vision became bleary, but suddenly from out of nowhere there stood before him a towering man, putrid and decrepit. Though he could not see him clearly, there was a wicked light in the man's eyes that pierced into his soul.

     He hit the marble floor with a resounding thud. He opened his eyes and saw that he was back in the armory, with several concerned pairs of eyes on him. Jeff hurried over and helped him up. “Are you okay, buddy?” He said.

     Pierce rubbed his back, then responded with a weak, “Yeah, I think so.”

     “Hey, you’d better eat something, it’s about time we get back to the grind.”

     Pierces throat felt dry. He took a big swig of water from his old military issued canteen and sat back down on his cot.

     “This place is really messing with everyone's heads,” a man with the thousand-yard stare who sat on a nearby cot said to nobody in particular. “Nobody can sleep and when they do they wish they hadn’t.”

     “The longer we stay here, the less chance we’ll make it out of here sane!” someone else offered.

     Jefferson spoke sternly, “Enough of that kind of talk. We’re all here to do a job, and we’re going to do it. Don’t let fear get the better of you. That will only get you and your friends killed.”

     The chatter stopped, though a couple men glared daggers at Jefferson.

     After they finished their meals, Pierce and Jefferson refilled their water, went back to their position, and checked in with the coordinator.

     After they smoked in silence for a while, Jefferson noticed that Pierce could not stop fidgeting. This is getting to him too much, Jefferson thought. “Hey, do you know why you’re teamed up with me?”

     Pierce shook his head.

     “Because I wanted you to be.” Pierce looked confused. “I saw your face when when you came back from dealing with your last job. Then I read your report, and I read your file.”

     Their files were supposed to be confidential. But, Pierce thought, if anyone was going to look through his file, at least it was this guy.  

     “You’re a solid guy,” Jefferson continued. “I know a lot of those guys up there are good men, but you have more experience, energy, and motivation than most of them.”  

     Pierce wondered exactly how much the company knew about him. A distant rumble caught him off guard. The voice of the coordinator buzzed on the radio, interrupted repeatedly by gunfire “All units, get…positions! They’ve breached…All positions prepare and engage, repeat…prepare yourselves!”

     Pierce and Jefferson were standing and checking their weapons. Both men looked at each other for a brief moment. Pierce knew he could trust Jeff and he knew Jeff trusted him. They were going to make it through this and get paid. A sense of relief washed over him, cleansing him of his dread. They were going to make it.

     A voice from their relief team spoke through the radio, “Jefferson, Pierce, we’re on our…,” cut off by gunfire.

     “Roger that, make it snappy,” Jefferson replied, adjusting his ear piece.

     In confident silence, they both flanked the door by positioning themselves in the relative cover of the walls of filing cabinets on either side of the door.

     Moments seemed to drag on slowly, the adrenaline forcing Pierce’s mind to race at a thousand miles an hour. The lights flickered off, and he focused on his breathing.  He kept his SMG pointed at the steel door. A sudden bright orange flash was accompanied by a loud explosion that was filtered down through his helmet’s electronic ear protection, followed by the thud of metal on concrete as the large door fell inward.

     Pierce’s flashlight aimed at where the large steel door used to be, and the light reflected off of something. The sound of a small object bouncing on the ground triggered his instinct, and he pulled down his anti-flash face shield as he brought his full body behind cover. The flash-bang went off without affecting him. He flipped up his visor quickly, and peaked out of cover, shooting several rounds into the swarm of Elder Mafia members before backing out of the way of return fire. I brought one of them down, he thought. These guys were every bit as professional as they were made out to be. Seeing how many men he was up against down here, he wished he had been given grenades, but the bank wanted collateral damage kept to a minimum.

     He fired as he backed toward the far end of the aisle, and turned the corner to lean against the end of the row of cabinets as he let a magazine drop to the ground. While replacing it with one from his vest, he looked to his right and saw Jefferson in the same position on his aisle. Jefferson pointed at himself and then at the door, and indicated for Pierce to follow and cover him. Sweat dripped down Pierce’s face as he nodded his assent. Jefferson counted down on his hands: three, two, one. Pierce made his way to Jefferson, firing a burst down each aisle as he passed them, and they moved together towards the center where the door was in the same way . Jefferson reached the closed door, Pierce laying down fire at the mafia men who were themselves peeking around the corners on the other end of the aisle Pierce could see down.

     Jefferson opened the door carefully, poked his head out of the room, and put a hand on Pierces shoulder. Footsteps came closer as the Elder Mafia advanced down the aisles the pair couldn't cover. They both slipped out of the room and Pierce closed and locked the door behind them. The stairwell door was hanging open off-canter on its frame, and a door previously closed right across the hall was now open. Pierce remembered that the map had that room labeled as another record room, and the plaque on the door said the same. But through it, Pierce saw an old arched brick tunnel, lined on either side by torchlight. “What is this?” he muttered.

     Jefferson ignored the question. “I have a feeling our guys aren’t coming down to back us up after all.”

     “Yeah,” Pierce agreed.

     “Come on,” Jefferson said as he motioned Pierce to follow into the tunnel.

     Pierce felt sick to his stomach as they stepped softly yet quickly along the echoing tunnel. His head began to throb. He could feel his will to go on bending, but the image of his sister reappeared in his minds eye, and he knew he had to stop the Elder Mafia so he could get paid.

     They followed the tunnel as it turned right. Suddenly they heard an explosion from behind them. They picked up speed and kept following the tunnel right, to the point where Pierce thought they must be going in circles. It felt to him that they had been walking in the tunnel for hours. Pierces mind began to fade. Time became meaningless, and he couldn’t really make sense of the voices that he began to hear.

     Suddenly, there opened up before him a large extravagantly decorated dome room with two men in the center, trying to pick up a shining box. He made one last effort to comprehend the meaning of the scene before him before his vision faded to black.

     When he woke up, he remembered nothing. He looked at the tall marble ceiling overhead, sat up and looked around, and realized that he was back in his cot in the armory. Around him were several men being treated by SSC medical personnel for wounds they had received in the fight.

     Slowly, he remembered everything that happened up until the long walk through the brick tunnel. He got up and began to ask around for Jefferson, but nobody knew where he was. Pierce's mind tried to piece together what could have possibly happened to Jefferson, how they had been separated, anything. But he came up blank.

     The coordinator, noticing that Pierce was up and about, made a mark on a sheet on his clipboard and asked him where Jefferson was.

     "I have no idea, I've been asking around, but no one else knows."

     "Alright, well, have a medic clear you and make sure to file a report before you go home. And make sure to get some good rest"

     “Yes sir." Pierce started to walk towards the medics, but a thought occurred to him. "Sir," he turned and asked the coordinator, "did we stop the Elder Mafia?”

     The coordinator's eyes gleamed, “They didn’t manage to get one cent."

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